“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all so much for joining us on this special night. This is the first night in a pair of shows that I’m certain will become music history legend. Hellcat Canyon and the Misty Cat Cavern are proud and pleased to welcome our own... Glory Greenleaf.”
The applause and cheers were thunderous.
She smiled through it.
“Sorry we’re running just a little behind, but my pit crew had to re-do my lipstick because I was kissing my man.”
The audience laughed andwooooo’d at this.
“Have youseenhim? Can you blame me?” She swept a hand toward him, and the stones on her wedding ring glinted and sparked in the little spotlight. One of the sound guys attempted to swing the light in Eli’s direction. Eli nodded and gamely raised a hand in greeting, accepting the tribute and that little chorus ofwooooswith dignified aplomb. Yep, she’s mine, I’m hers. We kiss a lot. You try anything, boys, and, well, I’m six foot five. It won’t go well for you.
He was glad the spotlight only managed to swipe him across the neck, and missed his face because he didn’t quite trust his eyes. They might still be a little on the shiny side.
The last thing she’d whispered to him before she’d found her eyelash on his neck was “We’ll name him after your dad.”
“Boys and girls,” she said, as she slung her guitar over her neck. “Never waste a chance to mess your lipstick up on someone you love. You can always just touch it up again, and I’ve learned you don’t always get do-overs. Life is short. Love and music make it worth living.”
As Franco Francone would have said,a little backwoods wisdom.
She almost snorted at herself, though.
Like she knew anything at all.
Despite the major contract, the buzz, and the slew of people devoted to making her career take off, she still kind of felt like she was making it all up on the fly. Though now that she had Eli and her music—everything she’d ever wanted—forming the backbeat of her life, riffing on everything else was a lot easier.
Still, it was like every bit of wisdom she’d ever acquired needed to be re-assessed. Funny how the prospect of becoming a mother could make her feel as blank, as open, as a newborn.
She took her place in front of the mic stand, her guitar protectively warm against her belly, and looked out into the audience. Sprinkled throughout were so many people she loved, either because she actually loved them or because she’d learned to love them because they’d been a part of her life for nearly as long as she could remember and so, by virtue of that, were part of who she was. Her mom was now Mrs.Gary Shaw—they’d gotten married at the Black Oak Country Club, possibly the fanciest thing a Greenleaf had yet done. And they were living in the old Greenleaf house for the time being; her brother John-Mark, thanks to Eli, now had a part-time clerk’s job at the sheriff’s department and was doing well and impressing everyone, though it no doubt helped that he had the eyes of all the deputies on him all day long. Her harried sister, Michelle, was even there. They’d found a sitter for her kids: Rosemary, who ran the Angel’s Nest Bed and Breakfast and loved kids and so longed to adopt kids of her own.
And when she slung her guitar over her neck, it kind of felt like her dad was there, too.
It occurred to her in a flash that her guitar wasn’t going to lie flat like that against her for too much longer, and her heart gave a stabbing, joyous leap.
And Jonah... was always present by virtue of how profound his absence was.
Only yesterday she’d been ambivalent about going to see him. Still nursing vestiges of sizzling anger and hurt.
Today, all of that had been completely erased by joy. Grudges were such a waste of time when you could just love someone instead.
She straightened her harmonica strap and gave her hair a flip over her shoulder that little Annelise, out there in the audience, unconsciously immediately mimicked.
She was there with her mom, Eden, and Sherrie and Glenn. There was Casey Carson and Kayla Benoit, best friends from way back, even if Truck Donegal got between them now and again, and there was Truck, helping Glenn to keep an eye on things. Even Britt Langley and John Tennessee McCord, such lovely people and now counted as good friends of hers and Eli’s, were back from Los Angeles and tucked into a corner so no stranger in the crowd could have a conniption about the presence of a celebrity like J.T. Hellcat Canyon was their permanent home.
Giorgio was up at the mixing board. Turns out he was just as much a savant at mixing sound as he was at conducting the grill. Giorgio understood balance, timing, rhythm, and order. Glory understood that surly guy felt the world kind of like she did: in terms of rhythm and sound. There was more to him than met the eye.
He gave her the thumbs-up.
Justin Chen was there, but not Wyatt Congdon, who was in New York being Wyatt Congdon. He hoped to fly in tomorrow. Casey Carson, Glory had noticed, was eyeing Justin and was getting eyed in return.
The actual The Baby Owls were there, too. She’d met the three of them in Los Angeles: Clement(!)—she couldn’t wait to suggestClementas a middle name for the baby, just to see Eli’s expression—Stephen, and Billy were sitting out there, blending in pretty well with some of the other bearded types who’d shown up. They were happy to be a part of the story of Glory Greenleaf’s meteoric rise, especially since they got a song out of it (“One Night in Bumfuck,” a song from their next record, sanitized for commercial airplay as “One Night in Nowhere,” was a big hit), and they were mentioned in practically every article about her to date.
She didn’t mention Franco Francone, though. And neither did Wyatt Congdon or any of Stellium’s publicists—who would have taken that connection and run with it—since she’d made that a condition of their contract.
Franco didn’t actually mind. He apparently figured that someday when Glory Greenleaf was sixty and dictating her autobiography to a ghostwriter she could mention that she’d passed up an opportunity to have sex with Franco Francone, and he’d been so stunned he’d sent Wyatt Congdon to her instead. He had a feeling he’d cross paths with Glory again, regardless. He wasn’t eager to cross paths with her husband.
Mainly, right now, Glory was struck by all the new faces in front of her. This would be the shape of her life from now on: more new faces than old. People who’d seen her at The Baby Owls’ show, and spread word of her with evangelical zeal. A couple of people who won tickets to see her in fought-over online contests and were now aiming their eyes at her with shining awe and adulation and anticipation. Glory was suffused with a humble shock: she was doing what she loved, and it made people happy. Did it get any better than that?
These were the first people to see Glory Greenleaf live, apart from the Hellcat Canyon regulars.
