Donna squinted at the margins of a bar coaster. “I like the look of this one,” she said, and so AnnieLee played it for her while everyone listened carefully, critically.
Elrodd wanted something with a driving drumbeat, almost like a train, he said, and Ethan admitted he wouldn’t mind something with a spot for a hot-shit guitar solo. By midmorning, after much discussion and many friendly arguments, they’d settled on five new songs to record.
After that they met every day, early, and they worked until dinner; sometimes they’d work again afterward. “Woman Up （and Take It Like a Man）” took them three days to get right; “Dark Night, Bright Future” took less than eight hours.
“Does that mean it keeps getting easier?” AnnieLee said to Ethan as they walked through Ruthanna’s garden on one of their breaks.
“No,” Ethan said, “it just means we were lucky that time.”
After a couple of weeks, they had six songs ready to be mastered, which was enough for an EP. And that final night, after ten hours in the studio, Ruthanna, Ethan, and AnnieLee celebrated with take-out pizza by the pool. AnnieLee was barefoot, swinging her legs in the chilly water, while Ethan lounged on the deck with a beer.
Ruthanna, though, paced back and forth along the deep end. She was talking to Jack, her former manager, and AnnieLee could hear the laughter in her voice. She’d never met him, but Ethan said he was salt of the earth. “Played a killer slide, too, before he decided to become a suit.”
AnnieLee lay back so that she was staring up at the evening sky as swifts darted above her. The next thing she knew, her vision was blocked by Ruthanna’s perfectly made-up face.
“I was telling Jack about your love song. You know, the one with the blue bonnets?”
AnnieLee sat up. “But I haven’t done anything more with it.”
“Well, I was thinking it’d work with a few lines I’ve got. And maybe it could have a kind of trilling, lilting melody…”
AnnieLee’s eyes went wide. “Like, you and me could write a song together?”
“Yes, genius,” Ruthanna said, “that’s what I meant. We can’t sing it together, though, obviously, or at least not in public. I’m retired.”
AnnieLee was speechless—astonished at the idea of actually writing a song with her hero. It was thrilling. Or maybe the word she wanted was terrifying.
“For being retired, you sure spend a lot of time working,” Ethan said mildly.
Ruthanna turned on her heel and started pacing again. “What else am I supposed to do with my time?”
“Hunt wabbits,” he said. “I can see six of them over there near your lilies.”
“They’ve gotten into my vegetable garden,” AnnieLee added. Not that she cared one lick about the lettuce or the tomatoes. She was going to write a song with Ruthanna Ryder!
Ruthanna gazed thoughtfully at the little creatures. “When she was little, Sophia used to call this the Bunny Hour,” she said.
AnnieLee got up and went to stand beside her. “It’s nice to hear you talk about her,” she said.
“It’s been a long time,” Ruthanna said. “I’m out of practice.”
“You’ll get better,” AnnieLee said.
Ruthanna flashed a wicked grin. “Like Ethan did on the solo—but Lord, what torture along the way.”
Ethan genially raised his bottle of beer to them. “It’s okay to use me as the brunt of your jokes,” he said.
“Wouldn’t matter if it weren’t,” Ruthanna said.
And AnnieLee laughed, feeling tired in body and soul, and happier than she’d ever thought was possible.
Chapter
40
Billy gave AnnieLee and Ethan a look of genuine surprise when they walked into the Cat’s Paw on Saturday night. They’d been so busy in the recording studio that it’d been a couple of weeks since they’d sidled up to the bar or climbed onto the stage. But since Ethan was scheduled to play that night, AnnieLee assumed Billy was just surprised to see them coming in together.
Billy was topping off a pint of Budweiser for Ethan when he turned around and said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What?” AnnieLee said, plucking a cherry from the garnish station and popping it into her mouth.
Billy snapped his bar towel at her in annoyance. “Normally I’d eighty-six you for that—but listen!” He bent down and turned up the volume on the stereo, and AnnieLee heard the sound of Ethan’s wailing guitar, and then her own sweet, fierce voice doing melodic somersaults over it. “Your single’s playing right now on WATC,” Billy said, looking as proud as if he’d written “Driven” himself.