Not Another Love Song

by Olivia Wildenstein

  The place is busy as always. Butterflies swarm my stomach as I take in the lively crowd, the framed celebrity pictures on the walls, the tangle of string lights over the bar. There’s something about this place. Maybe it’s the floorboards that have been trod upon by some of the biggest music celebrities, or maybe it’s the mics that have been filled with some of the greatest voices, or maybe it’s because the Bluebird is where Mona Stone got her start. Whatever it is, this place is magic to me.

  Steffi and Lynn wait at a table set for five. I wonder who else they’ve invited. Another couple probably. I walk over and slip into the seat closest to Lynn.

  “Thank you for getting me in!”

  They each have a glass of wine in front of them. Lynn’s is almost empty.

  “Don’t tell me you’re nervous?” I ask her.

  She tips her glass of wine to her maroon-tinted lips and chugs the dregs.

  “Every time.” Steffi rubs her wife’s wrist, then links their hands together.

  “Who else is coming?” I ask just as the front door bursts open.

  Rae and Laney wave to us and then they’re sitting down. My gaze whips around the table, not quite understanding what I’m seeing. I keep expecting Lynn to tell them the chairs are saved.

  I sit up straighter, my shoulder blades pinching. “How come you—How do you—”

  “Steffi invited us,” Laney says.

  I frown.

  “Dance classes,” Laney explains. “Believe it or not, I’ve never been here, and we got to talking about it yesterday during my lesson, and Steffi told me to come check it out, that you’d be here, but I’d already made plans with Rae—”

  “—so I invited myself along,” Rae says.

  It sounds like such a tall tale that I look at Steffi for validation. She sips on her wine, exchanges a look with Lynn, then sets her glass down. I think that look’s about me, but then she’s reaching for Lynn’s hand and saying, “Honey, you’re amazing. You’ll blow them away. Like you always do.” Which has me realizing how selfish I am for assuming the look was about me.

  “Were you planning on telling me you were coming?” I ask Rae.

  A grin overtakes every inch of her face. “We wanted to surprise you.”

  “Are you surprised?” Laney asks.

  My rigid stance finally loosens. “Very.”

  Laney reaches for one of the menus in the middle of the table. “I’m starving.”

  “So you’re opening, Lynn?” Rae asks, and it’s weird because both hold such an important place in my life, but to my knowledge this is the first time they’re meeting.

  I toy with the edge of the menu, listening in rapt silence as they talk. I don’t hang on their every word; I simply observe them. For some odd reason, I’m a little nervous, but as the ice breaks, I begin to relax.

  Steffi orders for the table—spinach dip, mozzarella breadsticks, nachos, sweet potato fries, and chicken quesadillas. My stomach rumbles happily at the sound of all that food. And then my heart rumbles too, because I’m in one of my favorite places, with a lot of my favorite people, and it’s so unconceivable, yet completely real.

  The only person missing is Nev. She would’ve loved to be here. But then my gaze snags on a framed, autographed Mona Stone picture, and I reconsider. This place is her mother’s temple.

  “Good evening, folks!” The manager asks for quiet and then: “I’d like to welcome a Bluebird favorite to open up for the Moon Junkies tonight. Please give a warm welcome to Lynn Landry!”

  The band’s name sounds familiar, and yet I’m not sure where I’ve heard it before.

  “Isn’t that the band that played at homecoming?” Rae asks.

  That’s it!

  Lynn settles behind the keyboard set up in the middle of the room, then pushes her orange hair back. “How y’all doin’ tonight?” Her jazzy voice fills the room.

  Great mingles with the scrape of chair legs as diners angle themselves around Lynn.

  She smiles at the crowd, and then her fingers glide over the keyboard. “Ever heard of a singer named Roberta Flack?”

  Yeses arise as she plays the opening chords of “Killing Me Softly.”

  “I thought so.”

  The crowd settles as she begins singing the old hit. Her voice is as thick as syrup, and hazy around the edges like fog. Lynn never became a star. I’m not sure if this was by choice or because she was never in the right place at the right time.

  At the bar, I behold a familiar face—a dark-haired boy with made-up blue eyes. The lead singer of the Moon Junkies. Like the rest of the audience, he watches Lynn with rapt attention.

  After she finishes, the room erupts in applause. She nods and smiles. “For my next song, I wanted to play you something a student of mine wrote. She’s actually here with me tonight.”

  Heads swivel. There’s no spotlight shining on me, and Lynn didn’t point me out, yet I feel like everyone’s staring at me. I sink low in my seat.

  Real low.

  “Angie, you might hate me for this, but I’d really like it if you joined me out here and performed it with me,” Lynn says.

  Heat engulfs me. I start shaking my head, but people clap.

  Rae pinches my arm. “Surprise!”

  I whip my face toward her; she’s smiling.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I hiss.

  “Fine, but wait till after you sing. And try to avoid puking.” Rae literally shoves me off my chair, so I have no other choice than to stand.

  Laney starts clapping, and then more people join in.

  Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

  Once I’m standing there’s no sitting back down.

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  I paste on a bright smile even though all I want to do is crawl underneath the table.

  The crowd bellows my name.

  I’m going to murder Rae. Lynn and Laney, too. And Steffi. None of them will get out alive.

  I thread through tables, resisting the urge to fan my cheeks.

  Lynn makes me sit beside her and squeezes my knee lightly. I swallow and swallow, and yet can’t seem to stanch my production of saliva—my glands are in overdrive. What if I open my mouth and drool?

  “The song’s called ‘Made,’” Lynn says. “Ready?”

  Even though my heart palpitates from my collarbone down to my toes, I nod.

  “You got this, Angie!” Rae’s voice cuts across the room.

  Trembling, I lock eyes with her. I hate her for doing this to me even though I know her heart is in the right place. This time when I swallow, it doesn’t feel like I’m about to drown in my own spit or regurgitate an organ.

  “One. Two. Three.” The melody rises from underneath Lynn’s fingers.

  The instrumental opening offers me a couple more seconds of respite. But then, it’s time to sing. I open my mouth, and like in my absolute worst nightmares, I squeak.

  A shrill.

  Loud.

  Mousy.

  Squeak.

  Without missing a beat, Lynn repeats the opening.

  Tears pool behind my lashes.

  At our table, Laney’s mouth moves. I think she’s trying to offer me silent encouragement. I look into one of the burning spotlights, then open my mouth and my voice springs out.

  I don’t sound like myself, but I don’t halt. Lynn joins her voice to mine. I think of the man with the ten octaves, and then I picture my mother clapping and my nerves begin to quiet, and by the time we reach the chorus, I’ve managed to harness my nervousness. My voice has grown sturdier, but it’s still not as steady as I’d like it to be. My diaphragm pulsates as my voice bursts around me, pools and curls through the air like steam. At some point, I realize Lynn has stopped singing.

  I’m on my own.

  I almost flounder again, but Rae is swiping at her cheeks, and for some reason, her tears thread confidence through my backbone, lend energy to my lungs. I sit up straighter, loosen my jaw, and make it through the rest of the song without a sing
le mistake. When the last notes fade, Rae, Laney, and Steffi jump to their feet and cheer louder than everyone else in the room.

  And there is cheering.

  People are clapping.

  For me.

  Lynn clasps my hand and lifts it as though I’ve just won a boxing match.

  “Can’t believe you just did that to me…” I whisper.

  She winks. “Angela Conrad, folks. Remember that name. You’re going to be hearing it. A lot!”

  As I return to my seat, two people stop me to say how impressed they were with my performance. Energy crackles through my veins, detonates inside my head, blurs the noise surrounding me. I can barely hear the new tune Lynn is singing.

  Rae hugs me hard. “That. Was. Amazing. I am so proud of you, girl.” She’s choking me with her hug, but I admit, it feels good.

  I feel good.

  After she releases me and I fall into my chair, Laney leans over and whispers, “Wow.”

  “Really?” I squeak.

  She smiles. “I’m deadly serious. Right, Rae? Deadly?”

  Rae grins. “Right.”

  We don’t talk again until the end of Lynn’s set. As soon as it’s over, though, Laney asks me if that was the song I wrote for Mona Stone’s contest. I nod. And Rae says that it isn’t fair to everyone else competing, because there’s no way they can win now, and I roll my eyes.

  “How did it feel?” Steffi asks.

  I reach for my glass of bubbly water, but my limbs are trembling so much it takes me two attempts to close my fingers around it and lift it to my mouth. “Horrible and amazing.”

  Steffi sips her wine with a smile.

  There’s a break between the sets. A waitress brings our food. Lynn and Steffi get up to socialize, while Rae, Laney, and I stuff our faces. Mostly me. The other two are too busy gushing about how cute the lead singer of the Moon Junkies is.

  “Setting the bar high for us, Angela Conrad.”

  I almost choke on my food when I spot the boy in question standing over our table, kohl-lined blue eyes mirroring the smile on his lips.

  He extends his hand to me. “I’m Ty.”

  I shake his hand, and then he extends it to Rae and Laney. Laney tells him how good they sounded at homecoming, while Rae, who’s never tongue-tied, doesn’t utter a single word. She just stares and shakes his hand.

  “How long you been singin’?” he asks.

  “Since I was thirteen,” I tell him.

  “And you wrote that? Music and all?”

  “I did.”

  “Real impressive.”

  My heart crackles. Ty might not be as famous as Mona Stone, but he’s somewhat famous, and he thinks my song was impressive.

  Can a person die of bliss?

  “I don’t think so,” he says, and I assume Rae’s asked him a question, but he’s looking at me.

  I raise my palm to my lips.

  Not.

  Again.

  Ty smiles. “After my first performance, I was surfin’ on one hell of a high too. Anyway, I’ll be lookin’ out for your name.” He winks at us, black lashes swooping over his ocean-bright eyes, and then makes his way toward his bandmates.

  “He’s way hotter up close,” Rae says.

  Laney shakes her head. “Hey, fangirl, we’re here for Angie.”

  “I was just lookin’. No harm in that.” Rae gets up. “I’ll be right back.”

  Laney and I both eye her, both expecting her to go ask Ty for an autograph, but she heads to the bathroom instead.

  Laney picks up a quesadilla. “He’s her son, isn’t he?”

  “Her son? Whose son?”

  “Ten. He’s Mona’s son, isn’t he?” I must turn pale, because Laney nods slowly.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Laney.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Does Rae know?”

  “No. The only reason I put two and two together is because he got antsy yesterday in the caf when he caught wind of Mona’s contest, and back before school started, my father mentioned something about selling a house to the kids and ex-husband of a really famous singer.” Laney cuts her quesadilla into bite-sized triangles. “What does he think about you entering the contest?”

  “We haven’t talked about it.” I wince. “He probably hates me.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t…”

  I grip my water glass, fingers still unsteady but no longer from my performance. “How could he not? He hates her.”

  “You’re not her.”

  But I want to be her.

  For the first time in a while, I hope Ten gets accepted to boarding school. I hope he leaves. I don’t think I can take more looks like the ones he leveled at me earlier. Out of all the boys in Nashville, why did I have to fall for him?

  47

  Cheese Balls and Osso Buco

  However much I tried to enjoy the Moon Junkies’ set last night, their songs propelled me back to homecoming, and homecoming made me think of Ten.

  It was still one heck of a night.

  It’s been almost twenty-four hours since my big moment, and I still can’t get over it.

  I text Rae and Laney that. We have a group chat now that Rae’s been filling with pictures of Ty Munder, and Laney and me with GIFs of people rolling their eyes. Mel’s not part of the chat.

  A new message appears on my phone.

  NEV: Hey!

  ME: Hey back.

  NEV: Can you come over?

  I don’t answer right away, because her house is Ten’s, and I doubt he wants me to come hang out.

  NEV: I really need to see you.

  ME: What happened?!?

  She doesn’t answer for so long that I dial her number. It goes to voice mail.

  ME: Nev?

  NEV: I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Please come.

  As I type I’ll be right over, I jolt off my bed like a pole-vaulter, and then I’m careening down the stairs, yelling to Mom, who’s working on the layout of a restaurant she’s been hired to decorate, that I’m going over to Nev’s.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “Just boy stuff,” I say, hoping I’m right, hoping the mean girls aren’t after Nev again.

  Even though my legs want to carry me in every other direction than toward the Dylans’ house, I bike over. When I ease to a stop in front of their gate, there isn’t a car in sight. I feel momentarily relieved that Ten isn’t home, but then I worry harder for Nev. She’s such a sensitive girl …

  I push the gate’s call button and unfasten my helmet. After a couple of rings, the gate swings open. I stride up the path with my bike, thrust out the kickstand, then hurry into the house through the front door that’s been left ajar.

  “Nev!” I holler into the dimly lit foyer.

  She doesn’t answer. I’m about to run up the stairs when my white sneaker connects with a piece of balled paper. I pick it up and toss it onto the foyer table, but then I notice more balled-up papers littering the hallway. I seize one and unfold it.

  “Nev?” I spot the words Arcadia Prep on the top of the page. I scan the rest of the sheet quickly. It’s Tennessee’s acceptance letter from that New England boarding school.

  This must be the source of her glumness. I sigh because at least no one—not the stupid girls in her school or Charlie—has hurt her.

  “Nev?” This time when she doesn’t answer, I add, “Where are you?”

  I follow the trail of balled-up papers all the way to the kitchen. I’m expecting to find Nev at the end of it, eyes puffy with tears because her beloved brother chose to leave. What I’m not expecting to find is her beloved brother.

  He stands by the stovetop, stirring something in a big pot. Perfumed steam drifts up, fogging his chiseled profile.

  I freeze in the arched entryway.

  Why is he here?

  “I live here too, remember?”

  I slap my palm over my mouth. I should be rendered mute in stressful situations.

  There’
s music on in the kitchen. Not just music. Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Ten is playing one of my favorite love songs—not that he’s aware of this—and cooking a meal.

  “Are you cooking for someone?” I ask.

  I don’t say the word date, but I obviously don’t mean Bolt or Archie. Ten wouldn’t be playing sappy love songs for his track buddies. I’m surprised he’s even playing sappy love songs in the first place. Besides, there are only two place settings on the granite island.

  When he nods, my heart triples in volume. If I don’t get out of here fast, it’ll balloon right out of me, then pop.

  “I’m looking for Nev,” I say.

  He doesn’t tell me where to find her.

  I place a hand on the archway, about to turn away to search the rest of the house for her, but because I’m masochistic, I say, “You got into boarding school.”

  Ten sets down the wooden spatula and walks over to me. He plucks the paper out of my limp fingers. “I did.”

  There’s a lump in my throat the size of Tennessee, and I mean the state. “And Nev’s upset.”

  “Very.”

  “Is that why she…?” I gesture to the trail of balled papers.

  “Wasn’t Nev.”

  “Your dad did this?”

  He snorts gently. “No. All me.”

  “You—Why?”

  He stares down at me. “Because I’m not going.”

  “Oh.” I bite my lip, look behind me at the paper trail, then back at Ten.

  “And you decided to celebrate your decision with a paper-ball fight?”

  His lips curve slightly. “Wasn’t a fight. Fights need at the very least two participants, and no one else was involved.”

  Two … My gaze darts back to the place settings before lowering to the floor. “I should go. Is Nev in her bedroom?”

  Fingers grip my chin, lift my face. “Nev’s not here, Angie.”

  My swollen heart thumps against my ribs. “But she told me—”

  “What I asked her to tell you.” His amber irises become blurry smears of color as my eyes mist over.

  Mini fists squeeze each one of my organs. “Is this your idea of getting back at me for entering your mother’s contest, Ten?”

  He frowns.

  I gesture to the place settings. “Making me witness a date?” Slow tears spill out. I back away from him and wipe my face.