A buy-on? How had it not occurred to her that that’s what this was?
Of course Kip Hart hadn’t called her label and invited her to play with him because he was a big fan of hers. ACD had called him—and they’d offered to pay good money for her to warm up his crowd. And somehow no one had seen fit to tell her this, and she’d been too dumb to guess.
Damn it, she thought. You thought it was about your talent. But it was really about someone else’s cash.
Chapter
58
AnnieLee gave a final check to her outfit as she stepped out of her dressing room: Levi’s, a new pair of Frye boots, and a black T-shirt with sequined sleeves that Ruthanna had given her the week before.
“I bought it for Sophia,” Ruthanna had said, pressing it into AnnieLee’s hands. “I thought she might wear it onstage someday. But now it’ll be you to take it up there instead.”
The shirt looked good on her, but she would’ve worn a paper bag if Ruthanna had asked her to.
“AnnieLee Keyes on in three,” said a stagehand, brushing past her.
AnnieLee felt a jolt of nerves so sharp it was like she’d just touched something electrified. Closing her eyes, she took a few slow, deep breaths. Her heart was pounding so hard that it ached. But after a minute the pain lessened, and she slung the guitar strap over her neck.
She walked down the hallway, flanked by men with headsets and ID badges who were saying things to her that she didn’t catch. All her attention was focused on the murmur of the crowd, which grew louder with every step.
Right before she stepped onto the stage, she paused and sent a whispered prayer to the sky. Don’t let me screw this up.
The spotlights were still off as she came out of the wings. It seemed to take ten whole minutes to walk to center stage. She stopped behind the mic and stood trembling in the darkness. She couldn’t see the audience, or how many of the seats were filled. She could only see hundreds of blue, glowing screens.
All right, she thought, you’re in a huge room full of people, but they’re so busy playing Candy Crush they don’t even know you’re on yet.
She touched the mic stand to steady herself.
Breathe in, breathe out. Stop holding the guitar neck like you’re trying to strangle it.
Then the spotlights slammed on, and AnnieLee was blinded by their glare. She froze like a deer in the road, not even breathing anymore, utterly overwhelmed. She’d never even had tickets to a concert like this before—and here she was up onstage. How the hell did this happen?
AnnieLee could hear scattered, distracted clapping. She glanced behind her, as if looking for invisible reinforcements. It felt as though someone’s hands were closing around her throat.
Then she reminded herself of the countless hours she’d spent preparing for this night—not over the past month, but for two whole decades of her life. The first rehearsals began back when she was six years old and got her first beat-up plastic-stringed guitar from a church rummage sale. And she’d been anticipating a night like this ever since she wrote her first song, a sweet little rhyming ditty about a bee who fell in love with a flower.
You belong here, she told herself. It doesn’t matter how you got here, and it doesn’t matter that you’re not the one they came to see. You belong.
She loosened her death grip on the guitar neck and gazed out at a crowd she couldn’t see on the other side of the spotlights’ glare. And then she started to play.
Is it easy?
No it ain’t
Can I fix it?
No I cain’t
But I sure ain’t gonna take it lyin’ down
As the song went on, she could sense the crowd’s attention turning toward her. People’s phones pivoted up to take pictures and record. AnnieLee could feel everyone’s new appreciation, and she didn’t want that energy to end. Hoping not to break the spell, she went straight into the next song without a pause, pulling the audience along with her. She played “Driven,” and then “Dark Night, Bright Future,” and as she moved into the first verse, she could see three teenage girls in the front row, loudly singing along. So she sang right to them, holding out the mic once in a while so their voices rang through the coliseum, too.
Everyone knows happiness
Everybody grieves
We all cry, we all smile
Everybody bleeds
Everybody has a past, things they want to hide
There’s give, take, love, hate in each and every life
Six thousand people were in the room that night, and her music called out to each person. She sang joyfully, and then fiercely, and she could feel the way her voice soared and keened. She was electrified in a whole new way, and she never wanted the show to end.