I'm Acting Like Someone I Don’t Wanna Be
RIFF
FANTASIE’sreleasepartyhasbeen as glitzy and glamorous as I would have expected (probably more so) and I’ve met more famous people tonight than I can count. So weird to think I’m one of them. Despite my growing fame, though, I still had a relatively small circle of connections before. Lately, I feel like a breakout movie star. A side character, sure, but in some blockbuster franchise.
After about forty-five minutes of schmoozing music executives and people more famous than me, I started to need some air. That ballroom was dim and loud and crowded. So I took to The Habit and found a nice spot to hang out.
I’d been so lost in thought that I flinched when I suddenly heard heels clacking on the walkway. Instinctively, I drew myself back into the shadows for a moment, wanting to know who the intruder was before they saw me. Some half-drunk influencer, maybe, or a manager who stepped out to take a phone call. But there was no voice to go with it, just a feminine silhouette and a heavy sigh before the corresponding woman found the bench and sat down.
Shit—that’s Harmony Sonora, I thought.
TheHarmony Sonora.
Wasn’t it?
I strained to see better in the semidarkness. Her mask gave me half a second’s pause, but ignoring that, it looked just like her.
I thought back to when I’d first seen her onLucky Stars. In college, my roommates and I used to go chill with a group of girls that liked to watch it. The girls hosted a watch party week after week that we always went to because a few of us were hoping to get laid (of course), and thus we followed the journey of thirty hopeful singing contestants over twelve weeks during our second semester.
Harmony always brought her A-game. I wasn’t consistently paying attention to the show—because I was too busy paying attention to Crystal sitting next to me on the couch—but I do remember a few specific performances. Once she did a rendition of Coldplay’s “Clocks,” but with a Latin beat that earned her extra points for the creative spin. Another time, she sang Shakira’s “She Wolf” and halfway through busted out the rest of the lyrics in perfect Spanish, a skill which the judges referred to more than once as her “ace in the hole.” Another time I’m not sure what she was singing but she wore a gold-sequined bomber jacket with black skinny jeans and Crystal called the outfit “so cute.”
Even though Harmony only took fourth place, she finished gracefully with an original song, “Brightly Burning,” which earned her a record deal later on. A lot of people, including me, thought she should have won, but I guess it didn’t matter; she went on to become more successful than the performers who took third, second,andfirst place.
By my sophomore year at UCLA, she had put out a couple of singles that I only noticed because they seemed to be constantlyon the radio (“You Don’t Even Know” and “Made For This”), which went on her first album that my sister got for Christmas.
Over the next couple of years, she faded in and out of my notice. College girls seemed to love her; college guys would comment on her body but only listen to her ironically while otherwise referring to her songs as “girl music.”
Post-college, I’d hear my co-workers mention her sometimes. Her albumOvercastwas getting a lot of attention at the time because it had come on the heels of her very public romance (and breakup) with Luke Onstenk (recurring ensemble-cast actor in the supernaturalMonster Boysfilms), and supposedly the majority of the songs on it were about him. Curious once, I listened to the album and Googled the lyrics to see if there appeared to be any merit to those rumors. Results were inconclusive—some of the songs were raw and vulnerable, like “Last Woman Standing,” while others were cheeky or sarcastic, like “Out Of My System”—but I did learn that I admire Harmony’s lyrical style. A few songs and significant lines stuck with me.
For a few years after that, I was mostly working on my own stuff and kept my head buried in songwriting, improving my guitar and vocal skills, and booking small shows here and there. Anything else I heard about Harmony Sonora was in passing—muttered gossip in a crowd, magazine and tabloid covers mentioning her in bold letters at checkout stands (“Why She Can’t Find Love,” “Exes and Woes,” “Harmony Gets Real,” “Sonora’s Secret: A Surprise Pregnancy and She’s Keeping It?”) along with other celebrities who likewise meant nothing to me, considering I didn’t know them at all.
Then I entered the country music scene and it pretty much became my whole world, like it or not.
Nowadays, sometimes I’ll pause in the store to listen when Harmony’s latest release plays over the speakers. Everythingshe’s put out more recently, I’ve noticed, seems a little darker, more serious. But that’s been the extent of her on my radar.
It never occurred to me I might run into her, now that we were with the same label. But I did, and damn, she looks amazing. She’s a vision in dark velvet and leather pants that show every curve, with a cape that teases more beneath.
Meanwhile, I was just standing here like a creep.
I realized I had about five seconds to say something and reveal myself before it got awkward. I doubted I could sneak away without rustling the ferns or making noise with my dress boots.
So, without much thought, remembering only how she’d come out through the doors like she’d been running away from something, I blurted, “Were the ‘demons closing in on you’?”
(A well-known line from “Closing In,”Overcast.)
She jerked her gaze toward me. I moved forward so she could see who I was.
She squinted like she might recognize me. Although, if she didn’t, I wouldn’t have blamed her. She’s with the main label; I’m only with one of Glambam’s imprints, Bluesy Boots. She’s got seven albums out, I’ve only got two, with minimal progress on a third. We work in totally different genres. She’s been famous since she was nineteen, while I just barely broke into some semblance of real fame about a year ago.
“Sorry,” I added with a nervous chuckle. “I just wanted to let you know I was here before it seemed like I was lurking in the dark on purpose.”
It’s possible she’s heard one or two of my songs (even though I doubt she listens to country if it’s not just in the background somewhere), not sure whether she would have seen me in any media or not, but if she has, her memory of me probably extends to “The one guy who sings that ‘Grind My Gears’ song.”
“Oh,” she said, relaxing. “Thanks.”
I slid my hands into my jeans pockets so she wouldn’t see them shaking, and wondered what had her so exasperated. “Overbearing manager?” I tried.
She scoffed. “For starters.”
