“The idea is one of contrast,” Eileen explained. “The dusty honky-tonk with the sparkling new talent. Glamour versus grit.”
“Two-dollar beer versus two-thousand-dollar dress,” AnnieLee said softly. She was thinking about the first time she walked into the dive that was the Cat’s Paw, hungry and desperate and smelling like a Popeyes. What would that AnnieLee think of this one?
She heard a surprised “Whoa” from behind, and she whipped around to see Ethan walking in, holding takeout from the taqueria on the ground floor. He looked her up and down in wonder.
“What do you think?” she asked, smoothing the dress self-consciously.
“You look incredible,” he said. “And…really different.”
Even as he said it, she knew that it wasn’t a good thing. And she realized that she’d known it even before she walked out of hair and makeup. This glittering, made-up princess wasn’t AnnieLee Keyes at all. She still wasn’t exactly sure what story she wanted to tell—she only knew it wasn’t this one.
She looked at Eileen and Tyson. “You’ll have to excuse me for a minute,” she said.
Then she turned and tottered into the dressing room, where she took off the dress and put on her jeans and T-shirt. In the bathroom, she scrubbed off most of her makeup and ran a brush through her shining hair.
When she reappeared in the studio, Eileen gasped in what might have been horror. AnnieLee walked onto the set, picked up the prop guitar, strummed a loud, wildly out-of-tune chord, and grinned. She felt a million times better already.
“You said I ought to love what I’m wearing,” she said. “And now I do. So let’s get this party started.”
Chapter
49
I truly can’t believe you did that,” Sarah Ortega said. The Rolling Stone writer was young, with a black pixie cut, a nose ring, and tattoos of cascading stars across her knuckles. “Maybe that’s my lede: How up-and-comer AnnieLee Keyes blew up a famous photographer’s perfect shoot. Talk about a woman to watch out for!”
“Please, no,” AnnieLee begged. They were sitting at the back of a cozy tea shop on West 3rd Street, and she was still wondering if she’d screwed everything up. Tyson Mitchell had ended up shooting her for two hours, but Eileen was convinced that AnnieLee’s defiance would come back to haunt her.
“I didn’t mean to. I just…” She stopped and took a sip of hibiscus tea. It was as bright red as Kool-Aid, but it sure didn’t taste like it. “I just wanted to feel like myself.”
Sarah placed a recorder on the table between them. “Look, I get it,” she said. “And in a way, it’s not even that surprising. Your songs are kind of defiant, don’t you think? Like when you sing ‘A rough road, we’ll walk it. Never give up, we’ll talk it.’”
“Yeah, there might be some truth to that,” AnnieLee allowed.
“And ‘Driven’ is almost painfully catchy,” Sarah went on. “I belt it out whenever I’m driving to work, which sucks because I can’t sing.”
AnnieLee laughed and then glanced over at Ethan, who was sitting at a nearby table, seemingly reading a newspaper but more likely eavesdropping on their conversation. Eileen was supposed to be here, too, but there’d been an emergency with one of her other clients and she’d been called back to the office to do damage control.
“You’ve had your fun today, AnnieLee,” she’d said as she ducked into an Uber. “So it’s time to be nice and cooperative. Stay on message. Remember, the truth is what you want it to be.”
AnnieLee intended to try. Now the question was only whether or not she could convincingly deliver the autobiography she’d constructed for herself while smiling for Tyson Mitchell’s camera. Lies were dangerous—she knew that. But the truth could be even more so.
Sarah checked her device to make sure it was recording. Then she scooted forward, as friendly and confidential as a girl at a slumber party. “Okay, the big questions. Where’d you come from, and where are you going?”
AnnieLee took a deep breath. She’d rehearsed the story the way she rehearsed her songs. There was a verse of truth, and then a chorus of deceit. Or was it vice versa?
“I’m from Tennessee,” she said. “From a place so small it didn’t even have a real name. Some people called it Little Moon Valley, and some called it Old Mud Creek. My mother used to say that what you called it depended on your outlook.” AnnieLee gave a slightly abashed laugh that she hoped sounded genuine. “To me, it was Little Moon Valley. It’s a nice name, isn’t it? Anyway, we lived off the grid pretty deep in the woods. My dad was a mechanic, but his real talent was music. He could play the banjo as good as Earl Scruggs himself.” She paused then, letting a faraway look creep into her eyes. “My mom sang and played the guitar.”