It isn’t on the list of the three songs he asked me not to give away.
But maybe it’s on my list.
Our relationship is something I want to protect at all costs—which means Idon’twant the music more than anything else, like Penelope Parker does. I’d keep those songs between us forever if that’s what Liam asked.
My nerves sharpen the closer we get to showtime. I hardly touch my dinner, sick to my stomach. Liam is scarce, dealing with a VIP crisis, and it’s business as usual for everyone else. I’m alone with my thoughts, letting them build like carbonation until the pressure in my skull is painfully tight. I haven’t felt this way since my early years of college when it was my turn to share with the class.
It doesn’t help that I catch Penelope whispering with Gretta and Henrietta, all three of them glancing my way once in sync.
When it’s time for the Etta Girls to go on, I’m completely leaden, a husk of myself. I walk to the backstage viewing area, clutching my elbows, heart racing.
They perform their usual songs first. I’m chilled to the bone when the last song of their old set list begins, frigid by the time it ends.
Liam migrates behind me at some point, hands around my waist and chin on my head.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
Onstage, Gretta says, “Do you guys mind if we share some new stuff with you?”
The crowd bellows.
Henrietta adjusts the capo on her guitar while her sister makes her way to the keys. “These next songs were written on this very tour, in partnership with our dear friend Paige Lancaster. We’ve never written on the road before, and the experience was incredibly special. They’re going to add a whole new dimension to our upcoming album we could’ve never anticipated, and we really hope you like them.”
Liam’s hand moves over my heart, feeling it beat. “Breathe,” he whispers into my ear.
I’m trying.
“This one’s called ‘nice try, darling,’” Gretta says, and then the twins start to play.
What happens to me after that is, to date, the most disorienting experience of my life. Because I’m remembering where I was when I came up with that melody (the Target checkout line in Nashville) and I’m also thinking of what my professor said when he first heard it:Great start, but can you add a pithier bridge?
Then it’s a recall of my meeting with Paul; this was maybe the fourth or fifth track he heard. And when I rerecorded the song without lyrics, I’d been on Candice and Hailey’s rooftop while Liam was showering downstairs. The twins started working on the song on the bus headed to Dallas. They finished it in a dressing room in Houston.
And now, in Washington, DC, tens of thousands of people are listening.
Art moves in a circle, I realize. It has the vaguest beginning and no end in sight, and it’s impacted by every person who ever impacted the person who fashions it. This song will morph into another, just like it was pieced together by influences that came before. Songs come from poetry and novels come from paintings and video games come from design and storytelling and code. And I am just one point on a circle with infinite points.
They play two more songs; the crowd loves both.
Penelope glances over at us from her spot near the curtains. She’s looking at Liam with significance.
He turns me around in his arms. “Paige,” he says, the lights of the stage reflected in his eyes, “the girls organized it so you can go out there and play something if you want to.”
My stomach seems to blister, even though—
Even though—
Even though part of me knew this was coming.
The whispers. The earlier questions. Most importantly: a face for the music publishers to latch onto when they hear about the Etta Girls’ cowriter.
I start trembling, and Liam pulls me into a hug. “You don’t have to,” he says soothingly. “Youdon’t.”
“Do you want me to?”
He hesitates, then nods. “I want you to try it. Because I’m me, and of course I want you to try something that unsettles you. But I’m not pushing it. You know your own limits more than I or the others ever could.”
