I held my breath and rode the drift until I felt the back end swing into line. I steered the Bronco into an opening flanked by two old oaks, their gnarled branches forming an archway.
The trail had disappeared beneath the rutting and the hoof stamping of the wild hogs. I pushed in the clutch, eased on the brake, and collapsed onto the steering wheel. My forehead damp from sweat. My shoulders ached from fighting with the steering wheel. But I had to get out of the thicket.
The Jessup County line couldn’t be that much farther ahead. If I was right, the highway would be just a rock’s throw from the woods’ edge. If I was wrong, I’d be tunneling deeper into the piney woods. Dad would have the sheriff and his dogs searching by church time Easter Sunday. I’d be legendary, but for all the wrong reasons.
I shut off the headlights. Just sat there in the black night, clutching the steering wheel, my head resting on my hands. The hogs had scattered. Lacey was out. Not even a coyote howling. It was just me and a trembling fear I couldn’t shake.
I sat upright and looked at my hands. My worst fear wasn’t of wild hogs, psycho movie murderers, or MIPs. It wasn’t even the getting caught. All that seemed to disappear into the woods with the hogs. There was only one thing. The real fear. The worst fear.
I tilted the rearview mirror and stared at my sister’s reflection.
There was nothing I feared in the woods that scared me more than not being able to drum in the band—to make something of myself—and I’d hang on to drumming and the band with my teeth if I had to.
I wasn’t going to stay stuck in the woods. Nothing could keep me from making it.
I turned the lights back on and stepped out of the Bronco.
The trees looked different in the night with their bark bright-lighted to an ash gray. I searched around, three-sixty, until I was certain the way to the highway was between the arching oaks. I hopped back into the Bronco and set out.
About a hundred yards farther into the thicket, the trees began to thin, the canopy opened up to a broad star-filled sky. The storm front had pushed through. The clear night behind it breathed a soft blue moonlight onto the pasture ahead. I sucked in a deep breath. The curving highway, slick from the rain and shining like black glass, waited at the end of the trail like a shiny-shoed escort extending the bend of his arm.
I pulled onto the road and exhaled. I could make it now. Dodged a bullet. The dream was still alive.
10
HANGING ON AND HANGING IN
I steered with one hand, reached over the seat, and patted her leg.
“Lacey, wake up.”
She grumbled and began to stir, wrapping Levi’s shirt around her shoulders.
“Get up and get yourself together. We’re almost home.” I took a right off the highway onto the blacktop county road. “I’m switching cars at the bridge by L. V.’s.”
At the bottom of the hill, just before L. V.’s house, I spotted Lacey’s yellow Volkswagen. Paradise leaned against the side; Cal sat on the edge of the roadside out from under the trees. He had a piece of paper pressed on his leg and looked like he was trying to write by the moonlight.
I drove onto the old wooden bridge and stopped. The boards creaked, but the tall cypress would camouflage the Bronco in case L. V. took a late-night smoke and stroll around his house.
Lacey sat up, rubbing her face. “I’m gonna … gonna bust if I don’t pee.” Lacey flung open the door. She put one pink boot on the bridge and fell to her knees.
I killed the engine and got out. Paradise helped her to her feet. She still wasn’t completely right.
“Lacey, we’re on the bridge. You’re drunk. You’ll have to wait till we get home.”
She shook her arms loose from Paradise. “I ain’t drunk and I’m going to pee.”
Arguing with her would take too long, so I grabbed her shoulders and nudged her toward a stand of big trees. “Go. Just go.” I’d made it through the woods and I wasn’t about to let Lacey cut loose with some L. V.–alerting, drunken rant. I’d come too far to let my plans get messed up over Lacey’s need to piss.
Paradise and I stayed out of view of Lacey on one side of the Bronco.
Cal still sat by the road. His long blond hair whipping around him in the night wind. “Looks like you got Cal out too,” I said.
“For a skinny guy”—Paradise rubbed his beefy forearm—“that boy’s a beast on guitar.”
The pink corner of a piece of paper stuck out the pocket of Paradise’s jeans.
“Is that your MIP?”
“Yeah. I’ll do some community service for a few weeks. It’s not that bad.”
“Are your parents going to freak?”
He shook his head and laughed, thumbed a few dirt clods off his Bronco. “My parents aren’t around much, but when they are, I tell them the truth, Paisley. Their reaction is their problem. And I’d never lie to my grandfather. But they’d all freak if I snuck around like you Tillery girls.”
“Yeah, well, everybody’s different.”
Lacey rounded the back of the Bronco. “Damn. I feel better.” Her blond hair fell across half her face. The curls hung in heavy mats, and her shirt was still buttoned wrong.
I could not stand seeing her like that anymore. “Lacey, do something about your shirt.”
“Oh…” Then, right there in front of Paradise—who she didn’t even know—Lacey unbuttoned her shirt. In a flashing of cleavage and lace, she realigned the ruffles and buttoned it back.
Paradise shifted his green eyes from Lacey back to me. “Everybody is different.”
Lacey spun on her heels, stretched out her arms for balance. “I’m gettin’ in the Bug, Paisley. You drive.”
I buried my face in my hands.
I stood there waiting on Paradise to say something, anything, but he stayed silent. “Look, um”—I watched Lacey weave her way to the car—“I appreciate everything. And I’m sorry about the mud on your Bronco but your accordion’s OK, and if there’s a fine for the MIP and not just community service, I’ll help pay for it and I’ll help pay to get your car detailed.”
“I got all that covered.” He gave me Lacey’s keys but held on to my hand. “Just so you know, I’m staying in the band.”
“That’s Waylon’s decision. It’s his band.”
His fingers clasped around mine, squeezing the keys and the silver heart chain between us. I stared at my hand in his. The smooth heart pressed into the soft center of my palm. His fingers warm. His fingertips rough on the back of my hand.
“I’ll be at the hangar on Monday,” Paradise insisted. “You guys don’t have time to find another lead singer between now and Texapalooza.”
“True.” I heard the water in the creek rushing under the bridge. “Look, I know you tried to help by getting me out and that counts for something. You even got Cal out.” I let my fingers close around his. “But the band depended on you. You gave us a reason not to trust you.”
“I’ll still be there on Monday,” he said.
“What, what makes you think you can do that, just show up?”
“Because, Paisley”—he pulled me into his chest and whispered in my ear—“you’re not letting go.”
CAL’S LYRIC JOURNAL
GRAB MY GUITAR AND RUN
Left the barn party in a flash
Saw the law, hauled ass
Hid down by the fence
No money for bail
Couldn’t land in jail
Couldn’t pay no stupid fine
A sheriff with a shotgun left me no choice but to grab my guitar and run.
I went back thinkin’ you’d need me
Yeah, right, you showed me
You and Gabe had it under control
No reason to stay
I’m used to walking away
My bad, I should’ve seen the sign
I risked it all for you, but I still had time to grab my guitar and run.
I play 24/7
Rockin’ hard and shreddin’
&
nbsp; Making this Gibson scream
No chance in hell
I’ll let my star plans fail
I’m firing for the sun
That dream could’ve come undone
So I had no choice but to grab my guitar and run.
11
AFTER MIDNIGHT
Lacey stumbled and bumped her way through the dark living room as if she’d been blindfolded and spun round. I made sure she was at least halfway down the hall and angling for her bedroom before I turned back to face my father. I knew he’d wait up on us. Dim amber light from a small lamp drifted from the kitchen and thickened the air with a maple syrup glow.
I sucked in a deep breath.
In the middle of the kitchen table, a cake fancied up with shredded coconut and bearing a wicked resemblance to the decapitated head of the Easter Bunny rested on a silver tray.
Dad stared at me from across the table. He took a sip of coffee, seemed to hold it in his mouth, then swallowed. “Rough movie?”
“Something like that,” I said.
I dropped my head. Assessed my boots. Red mud from the depths of Tucker soil clung to the edges and heels in thick clumps.
He didn’t have to say a word. We both knew I wasn’t at a movie. But he’d never call me on it, which made the lying weigh even heavier on me. Maybe that was his strategy.
I wanted to look him in the eyes, straight up tell him the truth. But right now, as much as I loved him, I just couldn’t trust him. Texapalooza was too close. I’d have to wait till it was over. Wait until he’d have all summer to work on my mother.
Dad’s shirt was off. The jagged, red scar across his left shoulder—his throwing shoulder—reminded me that sometimes there’s a price to pay for chasing a dream.
12
RESURRECTION SUNDAY
Easter Sunday morning at Cowboy Church, we strutted in late and took our seats toward the side near the cattle chutes—leftover reminders that the church had once been a livestock auction barn.
A few of the women from the center section shifted in their chairs and cut their eyes at us.
I whispered to Mother, “We’re showing too much cleavage.”
Mother rolled her eyes and sat up straight. Chest out.
I fidgeted with the fancy stitching on the hem of my dress. In what must have been a fairy-godmother-inspired fit, Mother had designed and sewn our Easter frocks—silk halter dresses in pastel colors cinched tight at the waist.
Mother’s dress matched the purple iris she had picked for the flowering of the cross. Mine was sky blue. Lacey’s soft green created a silhouette for her sallow, hungover skin. She leaned against me, her clammy cheek resting on my bare shoulder. Lacey hadn’t said much when we were getting dressed other than, God, Paisley, get me a Gatorade or I’m gonna hurl.
Thank God for Cowboy Church. They evangelized the cowboy way with a rodeo every Friday night and a horse trough for baptizing. If we were going to look like Wild West saloon girls, we’d at least shown up at the right ministry.
Where some churches had carved railings to mark off the altar, the Prosper County Cowboy Church had a rough-hewn fence made from cedar posts. And it was from behind the fence railing that the Slider Brothers Bluegrass and Gospel Show were about to raise Jesus from the dead.
Waylon played with his family’s band. I hoped to catch him after church, let him know that Lacey and I made it … let him know that I’d open the hangar up for practice Monday afternoon. Maybe put in a good word for Paradise.
Like the sharp, shrill call from a hawk, a fiddle cut through the congregation. Lacey jerked herself upright. One of Waylon’s uncles, decked out in an angel white, rhinestone Nudie suit and pure white Stetson, tore through a fiddle solo.
“Welcome. Welcome.” Our preacher, a tall skinny man in starched Wranglers, took the stage beside the Sliders as Waylon’s uncle raked the bow across the strings to a finish. “Ain’t no organ in Cowboy Church. Can I get an amen on that one?” Then he took off his hat and began to pray, “Lord, on this Easter morning, we pray that you will awaken us like you awaken the wildflowers and the animals of the forest each spring. Let our hearts be resurrected, brought into a newness of life so that we may feel and see all that you have created for us to enjoy.”
Lacey never bowed her head in church. Prayer time was her opportunity to scour the congregation for man candy. And thanks to the Sliders, she was good and awake—feeling and seeing all the Lord created.
Lacey elbowed me. “Hot dude. Eight o’clock. Checking you out.”
Lacey used clock hands to pinpoint directions. Noon was always directly in front of us. Eight o’clock would be to my left about three rows back.
I turned around.
Paradise sat with his arms stretched across the seat backs and his hat tilted low over his forehead. He wasn’t praying either.
I whipped back around just as the preacher said amen and the Sliders launched into a banjoed-up tune about being washed in the blood of the Lamb. The congregation jumped to their feet, clapping along to the Sliders’ toe-tapping gospel celebration of the slaughtered Lamb.
I pretended to straighten the skirt of my dress, stealing a glance behind me. Paradise stood in dark jeans and a starched white button-down with a fistful of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes in his right hand as if he’d just reached down and plucked them from their roots. In that moment—in the clapping and praise singing and bluegrass-breakdown Easter service—I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off him. And the rising beat in my chest—poom-Pa, poom-PA, POOM-PA—drowned out the common-sense voices in my head reminding me that he was an egotistical jerk who messed up the band and my chance at drumming at Texapalooza. Still, I wondered what it would feel like to press more against him than just one hand in his.
Paradise stood next to a short, silver-haired man whose skin shined as rich and dark as molasses. The Colombian vallenato king. It had to be him.
Mother leaned toward me, kept her arms folded at her waist—making it clear that she was not participating in the gospel hoedown. “Pay attention, girls,” she chimed. “They’re one ‘Praise Gloryland’ from singing in tongues.”
Lacey and I stared at her. Mother was the color commentator of Cowboy Church.
Wearing a sparkly suit that matched his fiddle-playing brother’s, Waylon’s father lit up his banjo and blistered the faithful in the first row.
I gripped the back of the chair in front of me, closed my eyes. I tried not to think about Paradise or the band. I wanted to get lost in the music. At first I just tapped along, barely touching the chair back with my fingertips. There was a whole range of colorful beats the Sliders’ drummer could’ve added. A grace note. A fill. Somehow my finger tapping stretched into open slap strokes on the back of the chair.
“PAISLEY,” Mother barked into her fist as if she were coughing; then she reached down and squeezed my wrist.
I stopped.
Just. Like. That.
It was like she’d shook me awake from a wonderful dream.
The Sliders stayed in high gear, rolling from one hallelujah song right into the next. I halfway expected a square dance on the altar. Waylon stood behind his father and uncle in a black suit and black tie like the other supporting band members. Nothing special. Just background. But Waylon must’ve gotten lost in the music too. He charged up his electric guitar on one particular song, and when the song hit its crescendo, Waylon let loose, shredding a Holy Ghost–inspired riff that lifted my heels right off the floor. I swear I could’ve walked on water.
I wanted to shout out and clap for the power of that music, for him. Waylon was better than his uncles. And the way he held his shoulders back when he played, popped his chest out like a proud rooster, I felt deep down he knew it too. But before Waylon could hook another chord, his father turned around and fired off a banjo smackdown that cut Waylon off at the knees. He quieted his guitar and sank back. It wasn’t his show. Never would be.
Mother’s not wanting me to play the drums h
ad nothing to do with whether or not I had the talent. Waylon’s struggle was different. His father showered him with high-dollar guitars and a whole mess of criticism. Waylon had the impossible task of proving himself good enough, and in the Slider family, star was already spoken for. For Waylon, Texapalooza was his shot at respect. Or shame. Waylon had a lot to lose, and I wasn’t sure given his family pressure to be perfect I’d be able to get him to take a second chance on letting Paradise back in the band. Waylon needed a sure thing. No way would he risk a loose cannon.
I looked back at Paradise. He held the wildflowers in a white-knuckled grip and looked like he wanted to punch something. I think he might’ve realized for the first time what the band meant to Waylon. Maybe Paradise was mad at himself for doing to Waylon what Waylon’s family had done to him for years—throwing a shadow over him. Or maybe Paradise was just mad because he wasn’t up there throwing down some ego-propping performance.
Little clouds of gold, iridescent pollen danced around the windows in the Sunday morning light. I hadn’t heard a word the preacher said, but I understood spring and resurrection and new beginnings. I knew the best chance for all our dreams was a fresh start. And I knew that I had to persuade Waylon to give Paradise another shot with the band.
Paradise was right. I wasn’t letting go.
“If y’all would come forward a row at a time,” the preacher announced, “we’ll have the flowerin’ of the cross.”
Paradise Page 7
