We sat in cream chairs angled toward each other. Behind us, a screen displayed the cover of the expanded edition.
Nina began safely.
The final tour dates.
The acoustic tracks.
How the songs had changed after almost a year of performing them.
I relaxed enough to talk about music without inspecting every word before it left.
“You’ve been touring for eleven months,” Nina said. “What still surprises you?”
“How quickly every hotel room becomes the same hotel room.”
“Even the expensive ones?”
“Especially those. They all have one gray chair no one sits in.”
“There is always a chair no one sits in.”
“It knows what it did.”
We talked about the band.
A fan who had brought a hand-painted sign to twelve concerts.
The night the stage lift had stalled halfway, leaving me to emerge from the floor at the speed of a cautious groundhog.
Then Nina smiled differently.
The change was small.
I felt it anyway.
“You did manage to get away briefly,” she said.
There it was.
“For a few days.”
“In Florida.”
“Yes.”
The screen behind us changed to an aerial shot of the Keys.
Not the market photograph.
Sophie had negotiated something.
Nina crossed one leg.
“I understand why someone might need sunshine after eleven months on the road.”
“I recommend it.”
“But the trip became less private than you expected.”
