But that was fine. We’d decided to find out who we were, one song at a time. We weren’t going to let the meat grinder chew us up, make us into something we weren’t. We were going to write the songs we wanted to write: torch, rockabilly, boot stompers. Who knew what we’d do? We were going to be alloverthe place.
It had to be a bit of a playground, or what was the point?
I gazed over the room: all our friends, some gawkers. Full pint glasses on a long, crowded table, everyone here to get jolly and a little drunk. To sing along, to travel a little bit outside their concerns and worries, their loneliness, the old cycles playing themselves out at family gatherings. From here they would step out into the wind, and return to the things that were their own. But right now, just for this moment, they were ours.
Alex joined Oona behind the bar. Her shoulder fit just under his arm.
“I want to introduce the band.” The girls smiled uncertainly as I named them all. I’d never started off this way before, and for a moment, they weren’t quite sure what was happening. “And I’m Dahlia McPhee,” I said.
Behind the bar, Oona’s mouth popped open in surprise. She lifted her chin to Alex, nothing but delight on her face.
Alex processed, processed. I strummed Lourey’s extra guitar, giving him the time. And then he laughed, big, loud. It was sweet, sweet music.
Encore
What are you still hanging around here for?
Do I have to wrap every gift with a dangbowfor you?
Do I have to be explicit that deep into our set of holiday tunes and favorite covers, I looked out across the audience—I’m sweaty, wailing, and bringing a tunehome, y’all, a thousand feet tall—to find none-other-than Federal Agent Primary Jim standing at the door?
Quin, I guess? He wore another jacket, solid black this time, the white collared shirt underneath open at the throat. Somewhere under that dark sleeve, he would have a conga line of stitches holding him together. But the thing I could see from the stage was that he was wearing a pair of black Western boots.
Holy Sha-ni-a Twain. You feel me?
Yeah, those boots were straight from a suburban Nordstrom, shiny new, and I would tease him about that. But what did it matter? I’d learned about unspoken codes from the best, one Alex McPhee, where sweeping the floor was as good as a declaration. I recognized agesturewhen I saw one.
An overture.
I sent Quin an exaggerated wink from the stage, Doll Devine-style, and the crowd went wild. A slow, coy smile spread across his face.
“This is a new song,” I said, before the energy died back down. “It’s about putting your whole self on the line for who and what you love.”
That got a couple of yips from our friends. The strangers in the room perked up.
“Music is a frontier, an unmapped country.” I had been practicing my patter, working on saying it straight, with my accent, not Doll’s. “It can be Southern, with a drawl. It can be Western and open, a rolling prairie. It can be Midwestern, right?”
Encouragement from the hometown crowd.
“It can live in any human heart,” I continued. “A song is just a lonely howl out to the world. ‘Am I Alone?’”
The room closed in around us, and I hoped I hadn’t talked out the electricity in the room. This was all a work in progress. Then Bee-Ann let out a loud howl, and the crowd piled on, laughing and yowling along.
“A song is also the answer,” I said. “This is a song I wrote for… my dad. If he’ll sign the papers.”
Over behind the bar, Oona reached for Alex’s arm.
“Alex McPhee,” I said. “I promise to sweep the floors.”
We tore into the first verse, and I could feel it. Sometimes you just do. The audience was with us.
However our music would be categorized, whatever our story would be, they were on our side. Feet were tapping, folks in the back twirled a partner. Behind the bar, Oona pushed and pulled Alex into an awkward seesaw of a dance.
The rest of the audience leaned in, listening. Really listening, like I had something to say. I gave them everything I had to give, which was—
Everything. Sort of the point.
When we love something or someone, when we put it out there, we risk ourselves, our true selves. That heart inside the wire cage being told it’s wrong. That girl onstage, convinced she’s too much of something, or not enough. Not the right kind of anything. Not worthy of the spotlight of someone’s love.
