In the months to come, he’ll wonder if it might have been better if she’d lived. Without a scandal over who really wrote the song, he won’t get the boost Joni Jewell got. His mother will know the truth, but she’ll never tell. And if she does… well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
He’ll keep the notebook, but its contents will be useless to him: songs about motherhood and daughterhood; songs about him; unfinished snippets of songs he can’t pretend he wrote. He’ll reread the pages sometimes, hoping inspiration might strike, but it never does. The record execs who embraced him for “Imposter Syndrome” will be quick to drop him when his sophomore efforts fall flat.
One-hit wonder,they’ll say,happens all the time.He’ll have to adapt all over again.
But right now, tonight, none of that has come to pass. He knows only that he’s about to hit the stage with a surefire hit. And who can blame him for taking what he needs? He’s not like the no-talent brats who spend their summers on the island, born with connections and silver spoons. They can barely drive the hundred-thousand-dollar cars they were given on their sixteenth birthdays, and they have the sort of parents who would finance a move to LA or Nashville if they asked, pay to put them in rooms with vocal coaches and stylists. They’d pick up their Grammys with tears in their eyes, thanking their mommies and daddies for so much support.
When he wins, he’s not gonna thank anyone.
He has the syringe in his pocket. Gotta be prepared. Whatever it takes.
Georgia who?they’ll say.Play that Andrew Rush song again.
69Georgia Blue
It’s hard to stay awake, but even with my eyes closed, I can sense the light coming over the horizon when dawn arrives. I feel sand beneath me, rough and dirty. I smell the ocean. I hear the waves.
I should be angry. Angry that Andrew stole my song, shot me up with drugs, carried me out into the cold, left me here alone. He took my notebook, all the fragments I haven’t finished. “Imposter Syndrome” and the song I wrote for him. The song I wrote for my little girl, the one that spilled out of me before Andrew shot me up with whatever is coursing through my system now.
But for once in my desperately angry life, I’m serene. Instead of thinking about Andrew and how much I want to punish him for what he did to me, I’m thinking about Amelia Blue.
Would she listen, if I sang to her? Maybe not. She’s sick and tired of the sound of my voice. She thinks I talk too much, but there’s so much I never told her.
Tonight, I tried to put everything I never said into that song. But now my brain is fuzzy and my notebook is gone. I struggle to remember the lyrics.
I want the sun to set over the ocean,
I need to get back to my side of the sea,
I can’t spend another second
so far from the heart of me.
I’ll write it all over again if I have to. I found the words once, I can find them a second time. I’ll find them as many times as I need to, until Amelia Blue gets my message. Maybe every song I’ll ever write for the rest of my life will bethatsong, over and over again. In my head, the chorus rises.
But I’m a Bad Mother,
They don’t make ’em like me
No more
You deserve better than a
Bad Mother,
Baby Girl.
The second verse will tell her how deeply she was wanted, how much we’d hoped to protect her.
I want to walk the sand with your feet next to mine,
Want to tell you ’bout all the times,
Your daddy and I dreamed of you,
We wanted to give you such a sheltered life,
we were gonna do it right, us two.
