by Holly Rayner
It was probably the best performance they had put on since the night we had started rehearsing in our dad’s garage. No, it was the best, easily.
Momentarily deafened, when I recovered my hearing, I was pleased to note that I could no longer hear Katie. She continued to scream futilely into the megaphone while the band played. Her own band, the marching band, beat their tambourines and banged their drums, but they were overpowered by another sound, a sound I hadn’t heard since the last concert I had played in Milwaukee. A sound that made me shiver and raised the hairs on the back of my arm.
The audience was beginning to sing. All of them, together, from those at the crest of the hill down toward the front of the stage, seemingly every single person in Woodfell was singing my song.
I stood quietly, not wanting to join in just yet, letting the words and the moment flow over me. No one believed Katie—or if they did, it didn’t matter. I had the whole town behind me. She had spent months defaming me in the press, trying to diminish my accomplishments and taint my reputation, but when it came down to a choice between me and her, they had chosen me. I had never felt so supported and affirmed by a group of people, and the glow of vindication must have radiated off of me.
Scanning the back rows, I locked eyes with Ginger, who was clutching Ari’s arm and quietly beaming. Two girls at the front were holding up a glittering blue “WE LOVE YOU, SHANNON” sign, as if they had been saving it on purpose for this moment.
I turned back to Brian, who was smiling now, his head bobbing in time with the music. “Feels good, don’t it?” he mouthed, and I nodded through my tears. Maybe it wasn’t celebrity I had been seeking all this time. Maybe it was something like this.
Chapter 23
Shannon
“Pretty dramatic show tonight, huh?” I asked Umar. It was just after eleven and we were walking through the park in the glow of the lamplight. Back at the pavilion, the band was dismantling the sound equipment while Kalilah talked with the background dancers.
“Does she always interrupt your shows like that?” he asked.
“Only when she thinks she can get away with it.”
By now, the crowd had largely dispersed, gathering up their checkered flannel blankets and wicker baskets and returning home. But I had managed to find Umar before he could sprint off, and asked if he wanted to go for a walk before turning in.
“You know, I don’t think I believed you when you told me there’s a woman whose sole purpose in life is to humiliate you,” said Umar. “Like, at all.”
“Is it starting to make sense, where that article came from?”
“It is.” From somewhere nearby, I could smell the sweet scent of azaleas. “If I’d known you had a sworn enemy, I might have been more cautious about believing what she said in the paper.”
“Well, she wasn’t wrong about everything…” I said sadly. “That’s the real shame of it: that she’s right more often than not. And she knows how to get into my head and make me think she’s right even when she’s not. Like, even before she started blasting that megaphone, there was a part of me that didn’t feel I had a right to be up there. So, when she said those things, it got me thinking: ‘What if I am a fraud?’ ‘What if I’m ripping off all these people?’”
“If you had wanted to rip them off, there are better ways of doing it than putting on a free concert in the park,” Umar pointed out. “And using your own money to do it. How much of a hole did this burn in your wallet?”
“Renting out a pavilion is surprisingly expensive,” I said, nimbly dodging the question. “Especially when you’re doing it yourself.”
“Do you still have any of the money that I gave you?”
I shook my head, not quite looking him in the eyes. “Not much of it.”
Umar paused and took me gently by the upper arm. There was a stern look in his eyes as he asked me, “Why did you spend all that money?”
“Because I figured no expense was too great if it would bring you back.” In the distance, I could hear crickets chirping.
“You really wanted me back that much.”
Reluctantly I nodded. On the one hand, I didn’t like the feel of his eyes on me; on the other, I didn’t want him to ever stop looking at me. “And I guess it worked? Because you came back for one night.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving right away,” said Umar. “Not like the first time I came. This is Kalilah’s first trip to America and I wasn’t going to tear her away after just twelve hours.”
“How long are you staying?” I asked shyly.
“Four days.”
He could sense that I had a follow-up question, although I was suddenly feeling shyer than I had when standing onstage in front of thousands of people. “Do you think you might like to see me again before you leave?”
“Would you want me to?” asked Umar.
“Yes, of course.” This time, there was no hesitation. “I mean, I spent all that money to get you back down here.” Sensing how that might have sounded, I was quick to add, “It’s not about the money, really. It’s got nothing to do with that. I just want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you, too.”
It was the last thing I had expected him to say and my breath caught in my throat. Even after all the lies I had told, he still wanted me.
“Are you sure? I know I screwed up pretty badly…”
“And I feel confident that you are never going to do that again,” Umar said. “Not like that. If I thought you were a habitual liar, I would have stayed home. But I talked to Ginger a little before the show and she assured me it was just a momentary lapse, rooted in your need for approval. She said she had never known you lie like that before.”
“I hadn’t. I’m actually sort of impressed that I managed to pull it off for so long, when I’m such a bad liar.” Behind him, a few stars shone faintly in the purple expanse. “Not that I’m in any way proud of what I did—”
“But you learned.”
“I did. And I’m learning that there are more important things than being loved by everyone you meet. I’m not even sure if I want to be a celebrity anymore.”
Umar’s eyes gleamed with surprise. “That’s a pretty significant change, given that when I first met you it was all you would talk about.”
“Fame is overrated, I’m finding. You can only love so many people, I mean really love them, and as long as I can write my music and have a couple close friends and a family that loves me, I can’t complain too much. I think that makes me one of the lucky ones.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” he said softly.
“Go ahead.” Inwardly, I braced myself, hoping the honest answer wasn’t something embarrassing or incriminating.
“Would you like to try this again? Start from scratch?”
I glanced up at his face in surprise.
“Do you really want to be with me?” I asked. “Even knowing what a mess I am?”
“I actually love that about you,” said Umar. He was standing close enough now that I could smell the scent of his cologne wafting off of him. “If you were really as glamorous and perfect as you were pretending to be, I don’t know that I could have ever dated you. But just enough of the real, shy, small-town Shannon peeked through the façade that I fell for you.”
“And you’re okay with living seven and a half thousand miles away? Because that’s a lot of long hours in a plane just to come see me every month or two, and vice versa.”
“Details,” said Umar, his eyes blazing with a quiet hunger. “For now, I just know I want to be with you.”
A wave of relief came over me at the thought that he still wanted me, in spite of everything. We had a chance to start over; suddenly, anything was possible.
“Yes, I’ll go out with you,” I said. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That you come home and meet my parents—for real this time.”
“Haven’t I already met them?” he asked warily. “Or were
those just actors?”
“They weren’t actors, but you didn’t exactly get the chance to meet them for real. Remember how they hardly spoke the entire lunch? That was because I had instructed them not to reveal too much about my life. My dad is normally way more talkative than that. And I’d like you to see their house, if you don’t mind.”
“As long as you can promise me you’re not going to pretend you live in a mansion this time,” said Umar, taking me around the waist and beginning to kiss me.
“Promise,” I said with a laugh, and kissed him back, greedily and tenderly, while the crickets chirped around us in the unquiet dark.
Epilogue
Shannon
The night after the Woodfell concert, Umar came over to my parents’ house for the first time. I felt just a touch of embarrassment leading him down the driveway through the front door and giving him the grand tour, which lasted all of two minutes. The old couch provided a sad contrast to the velvet divans and winged chairs of the mansion he had thought I lived in. But this felt better, somehow. A certain sense of pride crept into my voice as I led him out onto the newly refurbished patio, built with the money he had paid me for Kalilah’s concert.
“Sorry if it’s not what you were expecting,” I said shyly. “I was actually thinking of getting rid of my apartment and moving back in here until I can afford something nicer.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said softly. He crept close and put his arms around me, while I glared at Mrs. Simmons, who was pretending to be watering her plants while watching us over the garden wall.
“You’re sure you won’t mind dating a girl who still lives with her parents?” I said, flushing faintly. “Even if it’s just a temporary thing?”
“I guess I’ll just have to invite you to perform another concert at the palace,” he said lightly. Stepping close, he pressed his lips to my forehead. “I might even give you a raise this time.”
“Gosh.” I breathed in the scent of him; he had switched out the juniper cologne for a mountain laurel fragrance. “You’re going to spoil me if you’re not careful.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
He dove in for my lips, but at that moment the sliding glass doors opened and Dad came out onto the patio carrying a plastic container full of hamburger patties and knackwurst.
“Mrs. Simmons seems to think this is a movie she’s watching,” Dad muttered, setting the container down on the bench. “We ought to start charging her admission.”
I brushed my hair out of my face self-consciously, wondering how much Dad had seen and how he felt about it.
“She probably doesn’t get much entertainment, what with Mr. Simmons always playing that awful blues music of yore,” he went on awkwardly, turning to head back inside. “Anyway. I’m guessing the two of you have things you want to talk about, so I’ll just come back…”
“No, stay,” Umar said. “I need to talk to you, Mr. O’Neill.”
Dad stopped mid-stride and raised expectant brows. “I’m guessing this isn’t another business offer.”
“No,” Umar said with characteristic matter-of-factness. “Actually, I wanted your permission to date your daughter.”
My dad’s gaze shuffled between us for a moment as if he had misheard. Then, to my surprise, he laughed. “Why would you need my permission?”
“I think Umar wanted to make sure he was doing things in the proper way,” I explained, feeling encouraged and a little bemused by his response. “He’s very procedural.”
“You have to be, in my line of work,” Umar added. “And I didn’t want you to be mad when you found out we were dating.”
“Of course I’m not mad.” Reaching into his shirt pocket, Dad pulled out his sunglasses and put them on. He was long past the age where they made him look cooler. “I know we didn’t get to talk much during your last visit but I was really impressed. Not because of your money—money has never impressed me—but because you’re a diligent, hard-working man and you obviously care a great deal for your own daughter—tell me her name again?”
“Kalilah,” said Umar, a smile in his voice.
“Yes, Kalilah. Where is she, by the way?”
“She’s with Ginger,” I said. “They’ll be here any minute now.”
“I guess we’re expecting the whole gang for dinner?”
“Sure, if that’s not a problem?”
“I don’t see why not.” Returning to his position at the grill, he tossed the spatula into the air, where it somersaulted in a series of lazy arcs. “In fact, we need to celebrate the beginning of this new relationship. I’ll send Brian to the store for supplies and see if your mother will bake a cake. I want no expense to be spared for this!”
I could feel Umar beaming at me even without looking at him. “I guess it’s official, then?” I asked him.
He leaned over and kissed me on the temple. “Guess so.”
That night’s dinner was the largest we had had in the O’Neill household since my return from LA. Dad grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, knackwurst, and barbecue chicken, all served with gallon buckets of potato and macaroni salad. Ginny and I set up a cocktail bar for the adults to come and mix their own drinks, and shortly before dinner, Brian returned from the store carrying a trunkful of beers, wines, and liquors. “I don’t care what Mom says,” he told me, his face sweaty, “I’m having one of these tonight.”
“You’re what, four months away now?” I asked. “I think you’re ready.”
“Damn right.” He snapped the lid off a craft beer and the noise echoed through the whole house.
We sat outside on the patio—Mom, Dad, me, Brian, Umar, Kalilah and Ginny—while dusk fell around us and lightning bugs twinkled in the gloaming like fairy lights. I was reminded of the last dinner we had all eaten together at that fancy crab shack and how I had forbidden Mom and Dad from talking much about the particulars of my life. There was something unexpectedly liberating in knowing I didn’t have to pretend in front of anyone. It was hard to put on a front when you were watching your brother stuff his face full of hot dogs.
“I think I prefer this over braised tongue, honestly,” I told Umar, slathering my brisket with barbecue sauce.
He reached for my hand under the table. “The next time you come to the palace, I’ll make sure brisket is on the menu.”
“Please do. Really, I love trying new things, but sometimes I just want a beer and some hot wings with dipping sauce.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Brian, sipping ale out of a pint glass.
“How is this going to work, exactly?” asked Dad, raising the question that had been on my mind all day. “Are you going to fly here, or is she going to fly there…”
“We’ll figure it out,” Umar said confidently.
“So I guess we should look forward to seeing you more on the weekends.”
“Make sure your freezer is well stocked with beef patties,” Umar grinned.
“And Ginny,” asked Mom with a shrewd look, “are you seeing anyone?”
Ginny’s face flushed as red as her hair. “We’re negotiating.”
It was one of those odd responses that could have only come from Ginny.
“What does that even mean?” asked Dad, laughing. (He was, admittedly, getting a little tipsy).
“I mean, I like him,” Ginny said with a shrug, “but we’ve only been on a single date. The only thing I really know about him is that he likes books and loves going to Shannon’s concerts.”
“I mean, what more do you need?” I replied.
“But he is very handsome in sort of a dorky way,” she said, “and he knows how to rock an old-timey vest. He doesn’t make nearly as much money as some boyfriends I could name, but that doesn’t bother me. He seems committed to the bookstore life.”
I ribbed Umar, who laughed lightly. It felt so good to sit next to him, surrounded by my family like that. I felt like the world had returned to normal after all the mistakes and disasters of the last few we
eks, only my reality was so much richer and filled with love than it had ever been before.
“There’s not a lot of money in working for an independent bookstore,” Umar remarked.
“No, but I think books are the real treasure,” said Ginny.
“I can’t remember if I showed you my personal library,” Umar told me in a low voice.
“I don’t think you have, actually.”
“Well, the next time you come to Sabah, that’ll be the first place I take you.”
“I’ll get booking my flight now,” I grinned. And then I leaned over and kissed him, not even caring who saw.
And that was our lives for the next six months. I began splitting my time between Sabah and Ohio: one weekend a month, when Kalilah was at her mom’s, Umar came to visit, and another weekend, I flew to see him and Kalilah. Umar came around often enough that Brian didn’t raise an eyebrow if he came wandering out of his bedroom on a Saturday morning and found my boyfriend sitting on the living-room sofa. Umar became known to the neighbors and a regular fixture at my live shows. He was beginning to feel like a member of the family.
I continued to practice my music—rehearsing with the band in Dad’s garage, charting the chord progressions of my favorite songs and poring over the charts at night as I sat at the piano writing, scribbling lyrics in journals and editing and honing the lines that were worth singing. Being set free from fame had been liberating in a way because it allowed me to go back to songwriting; and ever since I had quit my job at the diner, buoyed by the money from gigs in both countries, I was able to write and play full-time. Life now was just a perpetual act of creation and, for the first time in a long time, I was drunk on the pure joy of playing music.
Toward the end of the year, I felt like the band was finally ready to enter the recording studio. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Shannon O’Neill and the Sea Foxes released their first album as a band, including two full-band versions of songs from my second album and ten original compositions. That same day, I put the word out on social media that we would be throwing a concert in the park the following week to celebrate the release of the album.
