He has to wait until Ripper and Kenny are done laughing to continue. When Theo finally arrived in San Francisco after wrangling a flight, I’d expected him to have a full-blown meltdown, or call Roger Braverman. But he just strode into our practice here at the Bellmore, flipped us off, then told us to get back to work.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Yuck it up now. I’m serious, though—no pranks or drunk adventures. Let’s just kill it out there and show him a good time.”
The door bursts open for the second time and Bowie practically trips over himself ushering in a short guy in a tweed blazer, tortoiseshell glasses, and floppy brown hair. I blink. Where’s the music journalist— the leather jacket, tattoos, cigarette dangling from his lip? This minia-ture nerd is not what I expected. He’s a library assistant.
“Saints, meet Matt Sanford fromRolling Stone,” Bowie says, and practically bows. “Matt, this is Ripper, Kenny, Theo, our Manifest rep—” He turns to me, and Matt’s gaze follows. “And, of course, Hannah.”
Matt holds out a hand, nudging his glasses up his nose with the other. “I’ve been following the social media discourse. Excited to see if real life lives up to the hype.” The way he says it is half compliment, half threat. “If you guys are one-third asinteresting as the world thinks you are, I imagine we’re in for a hell of a story.”
I can practically feel Theo blanch. His eyes flit to me like I’m a bomb waiting to go off.
Interesting. The reporterlikesthe social media hype. I picture him watching the TikTok video of me falling off the stage in a never-ending loop, and thinking to himself,I’ve got to meet that woman.
“For better or worse,” Ginny points out, “you’re always a story.”
She’s right. Theo wants us to play it straight and narrow, focus on our music, but maybe he’s got it wrong. It’s not just our music that drewRolling Stone’s finest library assistant–slash-reporter out here to cover us.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put on a show.
Theo’s giving me a panicked look that clearly says,Whatever you’re thinking, it’s wrong.
But I ignore him, as well as Matt’s outstretched hand, and drape my arm over his shoulders instead. “You know what, Matt? I think we’re going to have a great time.” I tap the bridge of his glasses. “But you may want to tape these up first. Just a precaution. You like parties, right?”
“Parties?” Theo echoes. “What parties?”
“I’ve been known to enjoy them,” Matt says.
I nudge open the door with the toe of my boot and look back over my shoulder, where I find a display of surprised faces, none more than Theo’s.
Ginny’s eyes shine from across the room. “Break a leg out there, Han.”
I wink and pull Matt into the hall, toward the stage. Beyond it, I can hear the crowd’s anticipation: fevered, high-pitched, louder than it’s ever been.
*
There’s nothing like when the world fades onstage. People assume you have to be an extrovert to perform, but when the massive swirling lights dial so bright you can’t see past them, and the tidal wave of sound from the speakers surrounds you with a fortress of noise, and the concentration it takes to play for hours edges out the anxious drone of your thoughts, being onstage can be almost meditative.
Matt the reporter watches us next to Theo, drinking a longneck beer Bowie probably served him on a silver platter. I don’t need the audience’s cheers to tell me we’ve hit every chord, note, and transition perfectly all night, but they’ve been effusive, especially when I strummed the opening chords of “Six Feet Under.” They love the new stuff, which makes me love them. Don’t listen to musicians who tell you we don’t have favorite crowds. We do, and this one’s mine.
I grab the mic stand and pull it toward me like a lover at the end of the night. Squinting against the lights, I find a sea of shining faces looking back, nearly as sweaty as my own—the crowd’s been moshing tonight. “Last song,” I say, and they groan. “It’s a new one.” The groan turns into a cheer, and this is why I’ve stayed up writing every night on tour, why I’ve woken up early to walk Kenny and Ripper through my ideas. Despite what the label predicted, people are responding to our new music.
Instinctively, I glance at the side of the stage, where I’m rewarded with Theo’s incredulous face. I watch him give Bowie a death glare and know he wants nothing more than to shake him and demand to know where these songs are coming from. But he can’t lose his cool in front ofRolling StoneMatt. Instead, Theo wraps his arms over his chest and turns his steely gaze back on me, eyebrows lifted in a silent question. Dr. X’s voice echoes in my mind:And are you coming to terms with the fact that what you want is impossible?
A shiver runs the length of my spine.
“For this last song,” I say, keeping my eyes on Theo, “I’m going to invite a special guest onstage.” Theo guesses what I’m doing and the corners of his mouth turn up. I’ve learned this look means he doesn’t want to reward me with a smile, but can’t help himself.
I turn my attention back to the crowd. “You want to meet a real liveRolling Stonereporter?” They cheer and I beckon Matt, who looks shell-shocked. Bowie’s behind him, trying to nudge him forward. Theo’s laughing.
“Come out, come out, Matt,” I call.
“The water’s fine,” Ripper drawls into his mic.
The crowd starts chanting “Matt, Matt,” and finally Matt’s feet unglue and he stumbles forward into an awkward jog, waving at the audience.
I point the mic at him. “Say hi to San Francisco.”
He glances at me for a second, dazzled by the lights and red-faced at the attention, then he puts his lips directly on the mic and says, “Hello, beautiful people,” in a way that tells me he’s fantasized about this exact moment. The crowd loves it.
