Soon after, they went back to their hotel for the night, where they both slept like babies and prepared for the day ahead. Candice and Lindsey were at the library's front door at eight thirty on the dot, where they asked to see the records office for the town of Nashville. There, they pored through birth announcements, searching for some sign of Stella or Sally McGee. Eventually, it seemed clear that neither of them had been born here.
“But they played so much here,” Lindsey pointed out. “Maybe we could find something about that?”
It was a good idea. But this search led only to beautiful newspaper photographs and write-ups about the McGee sisters. Lindsey and Candice took photographs on their phones of the spreads, the headlines labeling the McGee sisters as the “next big thing” in country music, and the joy that radiated from their pretty smiles.
“They were so much younger than we are now,” Lindsey said softly.
Before they left, they asked the librarian for help tracking down Sally and Stella McGee. The librarian typed on her computer for a while, searching the databases, but she found nothing after 1980. It was really like they’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
“But we know they didn’t,” Lindsey said as they left the library, disappointment heavy in their hearts. “We know Mom went to Martha’s Vineyard with Greta. We know she had us.”
“Where does Dad come into the story?” Candice wondered.
Lindsey raised her shoulders. “I’m starving,” she said. “And I think I want to dance.”
They decided to do exactly what they’d done the night before: salads and wine and dancing. They went to a different country-western bar, one that seemed old-world and vintage. It could have been 1955 or 1979 or 2026. Again, they danced for a little while, till they exhausted themselves. At the bar, they grabbed a glass of wine, sat, listened to music, and watched the others bounce around. Candice was beginning to wonder if they’d hit another dead end.
The bartender was older than they were, maybe in his sixties. Not so much younger than their mother might have been. He hummed along with the music as he poured drinks. “Where are you ladies coming in from?” he asked.
Lindsey and Candice smiled.
“Is it that obvious we’re from out of town?” Lindsey asked.
“Honestly? Yes,” the bartender said, laughing.
“We’re from out East,” Candice said.
“Martha’s Vineyard,” Lindsey offered.
“Heard it’s beautiful out there,” he said. “Wouldn’t have thought people out there are into country music.”
“You’d be surprised,” Candice said, smiling.
“Actually, we’re here because our mother used to be a country star here in Nashville,” Lindsey said.
Candice cast her a look of surprise. She didn’t want to be one of those people who talked about their miseries at the bar.
“Is that so?” The bartender acted like he’d heard that before.
“Her name was Stella McGee. She sang with her sister, Sally,” Lindsey went on.
The bartender’s face transformed. “Stella and Sally McGee?”
Lindsey and Candice nodded. He knew something. Candice couldn’t breathe.
The bartender called behind his shoulder for backup from another bartender, then asked them to follow him. They trailed him down a hallway and into the back, where another band was getting ready to go on stage. They were drinking beer and adjusting their guitar straps over their shoulders.
Adrenalized, Candice fought her urge to reach over and take Lindsey’s hand, because there, hanging on the wall over the couch in the backroom, was a photograph of Stella and Sally, performing on that very stage. Beneath it was the text:Stella and Sally McGee at their very first performance, here at Boo’s Country Western Bar.
“Boo’s Country Western Bar?” Candice asked.
“That’s what it used to be called,” the bartender said. “Boo was my uncle. Great guy. He died some years ago and left the place to my brother and me. But I worked here for years and years before that. I saw everything. In any case, this was where the McGee sisters got their start. It wasn’t a long career. It couldn’t have been after what happened.”
Candice felt as though she’d been smacked. “After what happened?”
His eyes darkened. “You do know what happened, don’t you?”
Lindsey and Candice both admitted they didn’t. Candice felt she’d failed their mother, though maybe their mother had failed them by keeping up her endless lie.
