I keep going, progressing through the beloved song like second nature. At ‘There was a dream … and one day I could see it …” people even sing along. Not in the loud, screaming way they do at my concerts, just softly, like you’d imagine they would to join someone else who was playing guitar at a campfire.
I finish strong, and at the end, the applause is louder. Warmth floods my chest like it always did when I could feel these little crowds responding well to me.
You’d think being more famous now, with bigger crowds chanting at me and belting out my lyrics all the time, I’d be plenty confident, but it’s easy to blame the excitement on anything besides me. It’s like a football game; a lot of spectators don’t care that much about the sport, they’re just in it for the community and the thrill and the noise. Sometimes I think maybe people don’t care about me or my music that much, they just want to drink beer and dance with their friends and sing something they know at the top of their lungs.
This feels different. More intimate. More … sincere.
Next, I do a cover of “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez, and then “Down in the Valley” by The Head And The Heart, leaving me only about seven minutes of my twenty-minute time slot, and then I get an idea.
I play a quick (less than two minutes) “Song for the Asking” by Simon and Garfunkel, and when I’m done I say, “For this last one, I’d like to invite my … uh … girlfriend … Marie … to join me.”
Harmony perks up, but warily, because of course we haven’t practiced anything together (although she did offer to sing with me) and it’s a gamble that I’ll pick something we’d both know well enough to perform as a duet.
Except it’s not a gamble—at least not a gamble that we’d both know it.
It is a gamble that it won’t give us away.
She arrives at the mic and waves at everyone.
“I know this might be a little too mainstream,” I say, “and not the genre you’re used to, but … I’ve written a special arrangement that I think you’ll like. We’re going to sing a cover … of ‘Lip Sync’ by Riff Hurley and Harmony Sonora.”
Harmony gives me a wide-eyed look and clutches the mic stand like she might fall over if she doesn’t hold on.
The audience murmurs for a moment but ultimately cheers for us to begin.
This is a version I created when I had to practice for the demo, not knowing I was going to debut it at Coastal Hearts with Harmony, before my producer gave it the country layers. This version is slower, more pensive, and fully acoustic. And for once I’m going to perform it as me, in my preferred style—no twang or drawl, no pandering to Riff Hurley fans. The fact that everyone here thinks I’m someone else is beside the point.
It’s a hearty strum at first that builds, until it mellows again for the vocals. All the beats are still there, all the right chords, so Harmony is sure to know her cue regardless of the changes I’ve made. I smile to reassure her.
“‘I know the music and the words,’” she sings, “‘it’s nothing that I haven’t heard’ …”
For all her nerves (I’m guessing) she doesn’t falter. She gets through her lyrics with her usual skill, her smooth alto. I strum harder for emphasis on certain words.
And then we go into the chorus. Our voices blend like never before, because neither of us is holding back. I even slap my hand over the guitar strings to silence them for a few seconds on “I just act, I don’t think” so that our harmony rings out in isolation.
Everyone cheers while we hold the notes on “thiiiiiiiiiiiiiink,” which I punctuate with a forceful strum to pick up the pattern again for “Your lips on mine like the missing link.”
People take out their phones and turn on the flashlights, forming a small sea of glowing dots that undulate.
I sing my lines, we kill it again on the second chorus, and by the bridge, we’re both singing right in each other’s faces without shame or discomfort. Her voice fills my ears and my voice fills my throat and for an instant I wish this is how it could always be—me, a nobody, and Harmony without the pressure that crushes her daily, just us and the music and no one to answer to.
We sing the closing cadence and applause overlaps the sound of the chord.
Harmony and I don’t break eye contact.
I’m going to kiss her. Seriously. I’m going to do it. I’ll do it and she’ll know I mean it. She won’t have any reason to think it’s for anyone else’s benefit because no one here knows we’re us.
She doesn’t seem to have any intention of drawing back, so I tilt my face down to meet hers. Her lips are a breath away.
Just go for it.
“You’re a minute over!” the stage manager calls from the wings.
We both flinch, the spell broken.
The next act (a girl with an autoharp) is already stepping out.
Dejected, I follow Harmony off the stage.
