“Sure,” Ruthanna said, pushing her mug over. “There’s pancakes in the oven if you want some.”
“Do I ever,” Maya said. “I don’t know how a person’s supposed to just have juice for breakfast.”
Ruthanna took an exploratory sip of her smoothie. “It’s not bad, though.” She folded herself into the window seat. “I really like that AnnieLee. I wanted to help her, but I don’t think I told her what she wanted to hear.”
Maya peered at her over her glasses. “What’d you say?”
“I told her to get out of Nashville as fast as her tiny little feet could carry her.”
Maya snorted. “In other words, you crushed her dreams.”
“If you want to be negative about it, go ahead,” Ruthanna said. “But I was trying to save her, actually.”
Maya sat down at the table with a plate of pancakes dripping with syrup and melted butter. “You think she took your advice?”
“Not hardly,” Ruthanna said. “I think she’s as stubborn as—”
“As you are?” Maya interrupted.
Ruthanna grinned. “Basically.” She took the cordless phone down from the wall and held it out to Maya. “Can you call Jody at BMH?” she asked. “If the girl’s going to stick around, I guess the least we can do is let some people know she’s here.”
“Can I eat while I’m doing it?”
“Obviously.”
Maya took the phone and dialed as she chewed. She had the number memorized, but Ruthanna knew Maya still had her old Rolodex if she needed it. A shared penchant for doing things the old-fashioned way was just one of the reasons they worked so well together.
Maya put the phone on speaker as soon as Jody picked up.
“Please, dear God, tell me Ruthanna’s got a new song,” Jody said in lieu of “Hello.”
“She’s got about a hundred,” Maya said. “But you know her feelings on the matter.”
“Unfortunately, I do,” Jody said. “Let me say that all of us at BMH Music look forward to the day she changes her brilliant and infuriating mind.”
“She does have something for you, though,” Maya said. “A new singer.”
Ruthanna could practically hear Jody’s eyes roll. “I don’t go out anymore. I can send one of my underlings—as a favor to Ruthanna, of course. She around?”
Ruthanna waved her hands. Noooooo, I am not here.
“Not at the moment,” Maya said smoothly. “All right, so you’re going to sit home and binge-watch British baking shows while you let some kid discover her? Sign her to a publishing deal and take all the credit?”
Jody gave another theatrical sigh. “What’s her name?”
Maya looked over at Ruthanna, and Ruthanna quickly wrote the name on a piece of paper and held it up.
“AnnieLee Keyes,” Maya read.
“Yeah, I don’t love that,” said Jody.
“Why?”
“AnnieLee? Keyes? It sounds like she should be stick-thin and toothless, playing spoons on some Appalachian porch with a bunch of flea-bitten hounds steaming around her bare feet.”
“Hell, tell us what you really think,” Maya said.
“Okay, it’s not that bad,” Jody said. “But it’s not good, either.”
“Well, change it, then. That’s what they did with Ruthanna Ryder.”
“I wasn’t responsible for that, as you know, but whoever was had a fine idea. Pollyanna Poole? That’s a name for a baby doll—you know, the kind that opens its eyes and pees in its diaper.”
Ruthanna couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer. “You’re pretty opinionated today, Jody Decker,” she said. “But if I was singing those songs, you know people would’ve listened, even if my name was Toot-a-lee McDoo-Doo.”
Maya giggled while Jody somewhat awkwardly cleared her throat. “I didn’t know you were on the line, Ruthanna,” she said. “Is this girl we’re talking about a friend of yours?”
“I barely know her, to tell you the truth. But I’ve seen her, and she’s something else.”
There was a pause. “Is she pretty?”
Ruthanna wasn’t at all surprised by the question—everybody liked a good-looking package to promote—but it still bothered her. She sat back and crossed her arms.
“You’ll have to go see her to find out,” she said.
Chapter
21
AnnieLee strode into a bar called the Lucky Horseshoe a few minutes before four o’clock happy hour. She was clean, well rested, and only moderately starving, a state of being far better than usual these days. The guitar bumping against her thigh gave her an extra boost of confidence. She’d written another song on the eight-mile walk back to the city proper, and she was excited to see how it played. She had an instrument now; she only needed a stage.