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He tips his head back, squinting in the morning sun. “I don’t. To be honest, I had nothing to do with the decision. For some nefarious reason, yet to be determined, my tour manager insists we need to sign you for this summer. And apparently, Grammys and gold records don’t carry the weight they used to. So here I am, in the middle of nowhere, as you said, hours before I care to be awake, asking you to sign the fucking papers so I can be on my way.”

  I swallow back the sting of his retort. I asked for it, after all. Still, he doesn’t have to be an a-hole.

  “Well, by all means, don’t let little old me keep you from your hangover,” I snipe.

  He groans. “Don’t be so sensitive.”

  The weed crushes in my fist, painting my palm gold. “I’m sorry, are you supposed to be convincing me to sign?”

  He’s silent for a beat, and I wonder if I’ve blown it. He reaches for my arm, and I ignore the electric jolt in my nerve endings at his touch. “Look,” he says, exasperated, though his grip is gentle. “It shouldn’t matter what I want. This is about you and your future. Do you want this? Forget your name, forget your history, forget me and the label. Do you want this to happen? Because once you sign your name, it’s going to, and you can’t go back.”

  I press my lips together, considering carefully. It shouldn’t matter what he wants, but it sort of does. It irks me that he’s playing it off like he doesn’t care whether I sign, when he so clearly needs me to. I’ve been fielding phone calls from SunCoast for the last six months. Still, I almost want to turn him down out of spite.

  Except I want it too much. At the end of the day, there is little I love more in life than to perform a song of my heart—to pour myself into a melody—to share that piece of myself with a stranger. Everything in me speaks music with a fluent tongue. Surely it’s genetic, but my parents certainly haven’t done me any favors. If anything, their deaths nearly killed the music in my soul.

  But the music won’t be stifled. I won’t be held back any longer. I knew when I let Jason post those videos. I knew I was going to cave and accept an offer because I couldn’t not. I’m a little surprised SunCoast went this particular route, sending one of their top-grossing artists to my doorstep, contract in hand, but hell, it’s Clay Coolidge. I mean, it worked.

  “Do you ever feel like you’re hurtling across the continent on one of those high-speed trains and you find out the brakes are broken?”

  “Every day,” Clay admits.

  I nod slowly. “I’ll do it.”

  “That’s what I thought.” And I can tell he means it. Understanding passes between us as the breeze shifts. I break first, turning back the way we came.

  I don’t know what I expect to find when we get back. It’s not like I figured my gran would throw a party in our honor, but I guess I hoped for something more than the sad smile I got when Clay unfurled the contract and laid it on the kitchen table. Scribbling out my signature, on the line above where Kacey and Jason have already signed theirs, feels like the inevitable conclusion to a childhood of pretending I had a choice in the matter.

  * * *

  “We need a band name,” I say, plucking at my dad’s old shaded Martin. A fishing pond rounds out the far corner of my grandparents’ property, and Jason, Kacey, and I are sitting in our favorite spot on the shore. Some bands practice in garages; we practice on tree stumps under the covering of weeping willows, their branches sweeping low along the surface of the water.

  “Jason and His Argonauts,” my best friend offers as he idly taps the heels of his calloused hands on a set of small bongos.

  Kacey snickers. “That sounds like a porno.”

  “But, like, the worst porno ever,” I say.

  “Orphan Annie?” Jason tries again. Kacey and I both groan. He thumps out a beat. “Let’s see what you come up with.”

  “How about no real names?” I say.

  Jason rolls his eyes. “No offense, but I don’t think you can keep it a secret.”

  “That’s fine, but I don’t need to shove it in everyone’s face either.”

  “You mean like Clay Coolidge?” Kacey offers, waving her bow in the air and tracing the letters in the sky.

  “Exactly like that,” I say, and I swipe my hand as though his name is a gnat I can flick off my conscience.

  Jason leans back in the grass, placing his hands behind his head, his shirt rising slightly to reveal abs he didn’t have last summer. He’s grown up nicely. I’m weirdly proud that he’s so good-looking and talented. Like, it’s nothing to do with me. Unless you count the times I’ve kidnapped him to the salon for a haircut when he’s hopelessly shaggy.

  “So that’s a no for Annie and the Mathers, then?”

  I try to throw a clump of grass at his face, but it lands embarrassingly short. “What does that even mean?”

  “It’s existential,” he insists, his fingers tapping a hollow rhythm on his chest.

  “You’re existential,” I mutter.

  “Children, enough.” Kacey drags her bow across the freshly tuned strings of her fiddle, Loretta. The shadows speckle her bare shoulders and play across her toned biceps as her nimble fingers dance out a melody. Kacey is a year older than Jason and me. She fully embraced an artful bohemian style in high school I’ve always envied. When I initially came from Nashville to live with my grandparents, Kacey was my first friend. She’s technically my cousin, but that only made it so the whole celebrity thing never got between us. She couldn’t care less who my parents were. She only cared that they were dead and I was alone. The first time I saw her play was at my mom’s memorial service, and I’ve never forgotten the way she was able to put every gloriously mournful feeling I’d had into a song without words.

  “The first time I kissed a boy was under these willows,” she says after a minute.

  I raise a brow. “Just kissed?”

  She winks. “A gentlewoman never tells.”

  “Ah, but you do. More than anyone needs to know,” I say.

  “Our first kiss was under here, wasn’t it, Annie?”

  I strum once, sharp. “Nope. That would have maybe been romantic.” Jason scrunches one eye, trying to remember. “Jaysus,” I say with a snicker. “We only had two kisses. In your basement while watching Superbad and then in your car when you dropped me off two hours later. You’re lucky I even bother talking to you anymore, let alone invite you on a national tour.”

  Jason doesn’t bother to apologize, just grins lazily. “I remember now. That was a good movie!” Kacey jabs him in the chest with her bow, and he rubs at it absently. “Ow, you wretch.”

  “It was a terrible movie and a terrible first kiss. Thankfully, Craig Logan was happy enough to help me practice the rest of that summer.”

  Jason snickers. “I’ll just bet he was.”

  “What about Under the Willows?” Kacey says.

  “Sorry?”

  “For a band name. It’s where we practice—where we spent our summers.”

  I repeat the name, testing it on my tongue. “It’s not terrible. I’ve always liked the symbolism of willows—they have super-strong root systems allowing them to hang so close to the water.”

  Jason tilts his head. “I don’t know. Now that I know Kacey lost her virginity here, it sort of loses its charm.”

  Kacey swats him again, and he laughs.

  “I would think that would be the selling point for you,” I say.

  “Good point. Let’s call it. All in favor of Under the Willows, say, ‘Aye.’”

  We all “aye” in unison, and I pull out my phone, tapping a quick email to the label. “That’s that, friends. We’re officially a band.”

  It’s not like we haven’t been playing together for years already, under any number of names that never stuck. And it’s not like we didn’t already sign our summer away to the record label two weeks ago. But, suddenly, the world feels thicker around us. The air we’re breathing laden with expectation.

  Jason breaks the silence. “I feel like we need to go g
et matching tats or something.”

  “Tramp stamps,” I agree dryly. “You first, Jason.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, I’m packing up my things when my gran finds me. She places a small stack of folded clothes on my bed. “These are off the line,” she says.

  I start to sort through them, pulling out a hoodie and a pair of cutoffs to throw in my already overly full luggage. “Thanks, Gran.” She sits down, looking around my room. She grabs a frame from my nightstand. It’s a candid photo of my parents on their wedding day. Neither of them are looking at the camera, instead staring into each other’s eyes as they dance.

  “You know when that boy turned up at our door, I couldn’t help but think of Robbie knocking on the same door twenty years ago to pick up my baby.”

  I huff out a breath. “Hardly, Gran. Clay Coolidge wasn’t here for a date. He was here because his label paid him to be.”

  Gran traces a weathered fingertip across my mother’s beautiful features. “Had the same kind of feeling, though, in my gut. Cocky cowboy strutting in and taking my little girl away.”

  I take the frame from her hands and put it facedown on the bed. Kneeling in front of her, I place my hands in her lap and look up into her crinkled eyes. Some of those lines are recent, but most were there long before I came to live in my mother’s old room. “I’m not her. I’m not running after any cocky cowboys. I’m going into this with my head on straight. I know what fame can do to a girl, and I know what love can take away. This isn’t the same situation at all. Besides, I’ll have Kacey and Jason with me.”

  My gran chuckles once, humorlessly. “Hardly a comfort. My Kacey is a free spirit if ever there was one, and Jason is halfway to cocky cowboy himself. That reminds me.” My gran reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, passing it to me. I stand up to read.

  “It’s a list of churches,” she says.

  “I see that.”

  “I had your grandfather find a congregation at each stop of your tour. He used the internet,” she explains unnecessarily. I’m taken with the image of my crotchety grandfather googling “where to find Jesus in Pittsburgh.” “Never let yourself get too far from the Lord, Annie.”

  I refold the paper, tucking it into my pocket. “I won’t.” I don’t bother explaining I’ll be playing late and traveling through the night most weekends.

  I try again. “Gran, I mean it. I’m not like her.” I hate the pleading in my voice, but it’s so important to me that of all people, my gran sees there is a difference this time around—that this isn’t history repeating itself. After all, if I can’t convince her, how can I expect to convince the rest of the world?

  She smiles sadly, patting my hand. “I know it. You aren’t like Cora. You’re better than she was. It’s why I worry so. You’ve got even more to lose.”

  Swallowing hard, I turn away, making a point of returning to my packing. After a minute, she leaves, closing my door softly behind her. At the click, I crumple to my bed, curling in on myself, hot tears streaming down my face. I’m not even sure why. Is it because I’m leaving the only real home I’ve ever known? I know I can come back, but it won’t be the same.

  Is it because no matter how much I argue, my gran will only ever see Cora when she looks in my face?

  I’ve spent the last five years trying not to be me. Five years spent planning for a life that didn’t include music, all the while performing in small venues like some kind of adulterer. I planned for college. I planned for normal. I really, truly tried. But the pull was too strong.

  I know the consequences of signing that contract.

  You’ve got even more to lose.

  My mom lost her life to country music. How could I lose more than that?

  3

  Clay

  may

  outside indianapolis, indiana

  I don’t like being home. In the last two years, I could probably count on two hands the number of nights I’ve spent in this old house. It’s too empty. Years of folks running in and out and now it sits, dusty and dried up. I make a mental note to drop a key off at Taps for Maggie. Maybe she or Lindy can air the place every now and again so I don’t come home to a mausoleum. Except I know I won’t. It’s not that Maggie wouldn’t be willing. She’s known my family for years and would love nothing more than to help. But asking for help feels dangerously close to initiating contact, and initiating contact is a rocky slope to family in a small town like mine.

  The thought of my brother’s fiancée, Lindy, and her mother always makes my skin prickle with unease. I haven’t seen Lindy or my niece in probably six months. I stopped back for Thanksgiving but barely made it through the afternoon and left straight after dinner. At Christmas, I saved us all the trouble and just sent them a text from a resort in Cabo San Lucas.

  Danny would punch me in the gut if he knew how shitty I was being to his girls. Lindy didn’t know she was pregnant with Layla until after Danny was already in Iraq. He hoped to be home for the birth but instead died before he had the chance. Lindy sends me a card with pictures every few months. One arrived this morning, and I spent hours staring at images of a chubby toddler with Danny’s blue eyes until my own eyes threatened to dry up and shrivel into raisins.

  I wish she’d quit. I don’t know what she’s playing at. I’m not uncle material, and I’m nothing like my stalwart big brother. We’d all be better off if they would let me be an occasional check in the mail.

  I toss an empty bottle, and it shatters on the cement floor of my grandfather’s old woodshop. My legs dangle over the edge of the loft, and the late-afternoon sun slants through the patchy roof. I watch, transfixed, as the dust particles catch the rays and spin. It’s been at least three years since the last time my grandfather filled this space, larger than life. He would stand at his lathe, somehow shaping a spindle for a rocking chair out of a piece of rough-hewn wood.

  He taught me how to see the potential in the scrap pieces—how to find the beauty in the ordinary. My grandfather would play his old Carter albums in this shop. He’d close his rheumy eyes and say, “They don’t make music like this anymore, my boy. You’ve been given a gift, Jefferson. Don’t waste it.”

  He was the only one to call me Jefferson. He and Danny. It’s my real name. One I left behind once no one was left to call me by it.

  I reach behind me and pull out my guitar. I strum the opening chords of “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” and shut my eyes, conjuring up the smell of sawdust and varnish in my mind. I don’t hate what I do. I sing songs about cold beer and cutoffs. Pretty girls and Dixie cups of homemade wine. It’s my thing. I sing songs people hook up to, and I get paid well for it. I travel the country making people feel good.

  Sometimes, though, I like to imagine I could sing something different—something real. Something true, straight from the hills. Or the harvested patchwork of green in Indiana. Or this woodshop, even. A melody, sweet and simple, stirs in my throat. Lyrics swirl in and out of my brain, fuzzy as yet but becoming clearer each day. A song is coming. I only need to open myself up to it.

  I still the strings under my hand, shutting down the muse. I’m already on thin ice with the label.

  I leave for Nashville in the morning and from there, the tour. For a second, I consider going to the cemetery. No doubt that’s where Fitz is. He and Danny were best friends growing up. Closer than, even. If I know him, he’ll visit Danny first, then Maggie’s place next. He’s probably got a gift for Layla.

  I can see them all sitting together, shooting the bull. Fitz will give my excuses—say I’m busy songwriting or practicing or doing radio interviews. Or hungover, which is more likely these days. They’ll tsk about how I’m never home—completely undependable.

  I just can’t be home. I can’t face it all. So I don’t. I pull myself up, proud that I’m not yet too unsteady, and make my way over to the ladder and climb down before I regret it. I almost froze to death up here over Thanksgiving. Accidentally knocked over the
ladder trying to get down. Waited too long.

  Fitz found me. As usual.

  Fitz has a home, with his momma, but he moved in when Danny left for the Marine Corps, since I was barely sixteen at the time. He has a room and just hasn’t ever really moved out.

  I get back on solid ground, and my phone dings. I curse. It’s Trina.

  She starts talking as soon as I answer. “Where are you?”

  I look around, like she’s in front of me. “The shed.”

  She curses. “I had to move up your flight. A car should be there already.”

  “Hold on.” I stumble out into the light, and sure enough, a sleek black town car is sitting in my drive.

  “I see him. Did you call Fitz?”

  “He’s here with me, Clay. At the airport. Didn’t you read your email or get my texts or anything?” Her voice is getting shriller, and I wince, holding my phone a few inches from my ear.

  “Isss fine, Trina.”

  She curses again. “Are you kidding me? Are you drinking? It’s the afternoon, Clay!”

  I don’t bother answering. I’m perpetually packed. Just have to grab my duffel and go. She’s still screeching on the phone.

  “Put on Fitz.”

  “Hey, man,” Fitz says easily.

  “I’m on my way. Hold the plane,” I say.

  He chuckles. “Sure thing.”

  * * *

  I sleep the entire ride to the airport and then the flight from Indy to Nashville. Trina puts me in a cab to the hotel and tells me she’ll arrange my wake-up call in the morning so I’d better stay out of trouble until then. After all, we’re meeting up with Annie tomorrow.

  She shouldn’t worry; Babysitter Fitz won’t leave my side.

  We’re in the hotel bar, eating bacon cheeseburgers with french fries and drinking Diet Cokes. A few girls sit at the bar and have tried more than once to catch my eye, but my chaperone ain’t having it.

  “Not tonight, Clay. We have some place to be.”

  I snort into my drink, the ice clinking as I forgo the straw and tip it back. “Where?” I mutter. “Room 502 with a couple of dirty movies?”