A Plain Love Song (36 page)

“I thought we would be a duet.” Jackson’s smile had faded into the woodwork. “I’d play and we’d both sing.”

Mac cocked his head, his gaze still on Adah. She wanted him to look somewhere else. Badly. “We’ll see. She’ll need to let her hair down, but the little hat thing stays. And she’ll need makeup. Not a lot, but some. Otherwise the stage lights will wash out that pretty face something fierce. Right now I want to get you into the studio to record a demo song. I lined up some musicians to back you up.”

“We don’t have money for that—”

“This one’s on me. If I decide to manage you, I need something more professional to work with. Let’s go. Follow me.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Jackson couldn’t move fast enough. Adah, on the other hand, found she couldn’t move. After a few seconds, he looked around. “Adah?”

“We have to sing now?” she whispered, not wanting to hurt his chances.

“Now. Come on, girl, this is our chance.”

She shambled after him on legs that seemed to have turned to wet hay.

The studio was small and surprisingly cool. Air rushed from overhead vents, making goose bumps prickle on her arms. A man with an electric guitar stood to one side, a drummer in the middle, and a bass guitarist on the other. What would Jackson play? His hangdog expression suggested he was thinking the same thing.

“Okay, missy, take a seat on the stool there in the middle and adjust that microphone so it’s close, but not too close, if you know what I mean.”

“What about Jackson?” The words came out in a stutter. “Where’s he going to stand?”

“Right there next to you. Come on, Jackson, the lady’s waiting.”

Finally, Jackson’s nerves had shown up. His face looked pale in the studio lights. He nodded to the other musicians. They nodded and everyone shook hands all around. No one seemed to notice Adah’s agitation. The oatmeal she ate for breakfast threatened to reappear.

“Okay, let’s get a sound level. Adah, your name’s Adah, right?” A man wearing earphones behind the glass waved at her. “Adah?”

“Yes…yes, it’s Adah.”

“Sing a few notes for us so we can adjust the sound levels.”

“Sing? Me?” Warm blood rushed Adah’s face. Her lungs stopped working. A noose tightened around her throat. She cleared her throat, the sound like a frog. “Now?”

“That’s why you’re in the studio, honey. To sing. Jackson, you gonna strum that guitar, or what? We ain’t got all day.”

“Sure. Absolutely.” Jackson fumbled with the clasps on the guitar case. “Right, Adah, we can do that new song we’ve been working on.”

“I gave the boys here your original song. They know it.” Mac sank onto a chair behind the glass. “Let’s start with that. Come on, girl, you’ll sound even better with a real band and good sound equipment.”

Her mouth so dry her tongue stuck to the roof, Adah tried to swallow. Her throat constricted.

Jackson strummed his guitar. The other musicians joined in. The familiar music rolled over Adah. She searched her brain. Not one word of the song materialized
. Come on, come on.
Nothing.

“She does speak, doesn’t she?” His irritation apparent despite his attempts to smooth it away, Mac moved restlessly. He pointed to a gold watch on his wrist. “I have another band lined up for studio time.”

“Sure, she does. Come on, Adah.” Jackson strummed again. “You can do it, girl.”

“She looks like she’s gonna hurl.” Mac opened the door and slipped inside the tiny studio. Now they truly had a crowd. “She has performed in public before, right?”

“Well, not exactly, but you heard the recording.”

“I need to know she can get up on a stage and sing in front of thousands.”

Thousands. Lightheaded, Adah closed her eyes. That made the swaying of the room worse. She opened them before she fell off the stool.

“Adah, come on, Adah.” Jackson’s hand gripped her elbow. “Pretend we’re in the back of my truck down by the pond. We’re singing, just the two of us.”

“Okay.” A squeak in her voice made more heat rush to her face. Her ears were on fire. “You start.”

He plucked a few notes and began to sing. The band ran with it. She listened to his voice, so familiar now, and tried to find hers. The first verse came and went. “Now, Adah, come on.”

She opened her mouth and sang the chorus with him. Breathy, soft, barely noticeable against his rich baritone. She stumbled twice over the words, which seemed to play a game of hide and seek in her brain.

Jackson stopped playing. The other instruments petered out. Everyone looked at her. “Come on, Adah.” Jackson sounded desperate now. He glanced at the big window. “You can do this. You can do it! Come on!”

Adah opened her mouth. A squeaky little note came out. Like someone squeezed a stuffed animal too hard.

“Well.” Mac wrinkled his nose, making his glasses bump up and down. He glanced at his watch again. “That’s gonna have to be it for today. I’m backing up folks to squeeze you in.”

“She can do better. She’s just nervous. She’ll get her stage legs, give her a chance.”

Why was Jackson trying so hard to persuade the man? She obviously did not have what it took. If she couldn’t sing in front of a few strangers, how could she do it in front of hundreds or thousands? Mac’s expression said he was thinking something along the same lines. Still, he held out his hand to her. “Nice to meet you, Miss Adah.”

She forced herself to take it. Her hand was enveloped in one three times its size. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, little lady. Performing ain’t for everyone. You might be more suited as a songwriter. Nothing wrong with that.”

“But the plan is for us to perform together.” Jackson insisted as he slipped the guitar strap over his head and laid his guitar in its case. “A voice like hers shouldn’t go to waste.”

Mac shook with him as well. “I got plenty of little girls with big voices wanting my attention. Stage fright is a big bump in the road from where I sit. If she can’t sing for me, how’s she going to sing in public?”

“She’ll get over it.”

“Best do it quick.”

Mac thanked the other musicians, who were already leaving the studio, their instruments packed away. How often did they get called out to do this? Did it matter to them if she sang or not? Most likely they received their payment, regardless.

As the big man strolled away, Adah let out her breath. “Why were you so stubborn, like an old mule?” She hadn’t realized how angry she
was with Jackson until that moment. It rushed out of her in giant, hot, crashing waves. “Why did you put me on the spot like that?”

“Put
you
on the spot?” he sputtered. “Put
you
on the spot? This is why we came here. Do you realize that you just blew the biggest chance we had to make it here? You didn’t just blow it for you. You blew for me.”

He snapped the clasps shut on the guitar case, jerked it from the stool, and shoved through the door, leaving Adah standing alone in the studio. The sound technician, a chunky man in a too small T-shirt featuring a picture of Johnny Cash, smiled and gave her a thumbs-up on the other side of the glass. “Why don’t you practice without an audience?”

Because her lungs refused to accept oxygen. Because little pinpoints of black danced in front of her eyes. Because her mouth was so dry, her tongue might crumble. “I don’t know.”

“Honey, I’ve done this a lot of times. You get used to it. Give it time, you’ll fly.” His enormous handlebar mustache wiggled when he talked in a voice that seemed too high for such a big man. He grinned and pointed to his earphones. “I promise not to listen. I’ll do some paperwork. Promise.”

How sweet of him. Why not? What would it prove? Nothing. No one would hear except the nice man behind the window. And what did he care? He got paid, either way. Adah hesitated, then grabbed the microphone so it swung a little closer. She opened her mouth and sang. Just her voice with no instruments.

The entire song. No hitches.

And no audience.

Chapter 33

B
y the time Adah made it to where Jackson had parked the truck, he was gone. He’d left a note under a windshield wiper.
I went to get something to eat at the restaurant on the corner. J.
Adah put a hand to her forehead to shade her eyes from the noonday sun. The neon sign said B
AR AND
G
RILL
. So had Jackson gone there to eat or to drink? She’d never been in a bar. Could it possibly be more grill than bar? It was noon. Surely people were eating lunch rather than drinking. It didn’t matter, anyway. She’d let Jackson down, and she had to march in there and apologize. She owed him that. Ignoring the sweat that trickled down her neck and dampened her dress, she trudged to the corner. She opened the door and a gust of AC-cooled air brushed her face. Inside, the smell of old grease and French fries greeted her. A big screen TV featuring men in what looked like swimming suits punching at each other blared, competing with rock music with too much bass emanating from some unseen source.

The noise made her wince and rub the aching spot on her temple. A headache pulsed between her eyes. At least hers wasn’t brought on by drink. Her stomach rumbled. She’d been too nervous to eat much of that oatmeal. A server brushed past her, muscles rigid in her thick arms as she balanced heavy china plates of huge hamburgers and thick-cut French fries in both hands. “Help yourself to a seat, honey. The hostess called in sick and her replacement won’t be here until two.”

“I’m looking for…”

She saw him then. Jackson hadn’t taken a table. He sat alone at the long, slick bar, shot glasses, two empty, three full, arranged in a row in front of him. His reflection in the long mirror that covered the wall behind the bar was dark, pensive. He lifted a glass to his lips, opened his mouth, and tossed back the amber liquid in one quick flick of his wrist.

His gaze caught hers. He smirked, a painful twist of his lips, and swiveled to face her, disappointment etched in the way he held his body stiff and upright. “Hey, Amish girl. Join me.” He patted the seat next to him. “A little hair of the dog, so to speak. I’m practicing my technique.”

“Isn’t it a little early in the day for drinking?” She didn’t have much experience with it, but mostly the Englisch boys drank at parties at night, after dark, when they could hide it from their parents. “Maybe we should get something to eat.”

“Where are my manners?” He stood. “A man always stands when a lady comes into the room. That’s what my momma says. Sit, sit!”

“I can’t sit here.”

“Sure you can.” He doffed his hat and slapped it on the bar. “I’ll order you a glass of milk, how about that?”

“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“I would never do that.” He laughed, a half snort. “I would never make fun of the girl I love—”

“Stop saying that.”

“Why? It’s true. And why would I make fun of the Amish girl who wants to be a singer but can’t sing a decent note in front of anyone but me?”

“I never said I wanted to be a singer.” Adah shut her mouth and looked around. The other patrons were busy with their food, chewing and talking, living their own lives. They didn’t care about her drama. Or Jackson’s. “I wanted to write songs. All this stuff…this is your dream.”

“So why’d you come with me?”

The memory of that one kiss still hung suspended between them. It couldn’t go any further than that one kiss. She knew it and so did he. Yet here she stood. “I don’t know.”

“Nice.” He grabbed another shot glass and tilted it to his mouth, draining it just as efficiently as he had the previous shot. “Ahhh, nice. Smooth.” He smacked the glass on the bar and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Nice. You know what, Amish girl, that’s fine. I can make my own way. I don’t need you to make my dreams come true.”

He staggered past her, brushing so close she smelled his sweat and his longing, and stomped toward the door.

“Jackson!”

The door opened, letting sunlight flood into the dark recesses of the bar. It blinded her for a second. She put her hand to her forehead to shade her eyes. By the time they adjusted, he was gone.

Jackson was right. Why had she come if not to sing? To sing with him and to find out where this road would take them. Both of them.
Gott, forgive me. I’m lost. I don’t know what I’m doing.

What now?
Gott, what now?

Any attempt to hear His response would be futile in the midst of the blaring music and strident sound of an announcer shouting the play-by-play involving two men beating each other to a bloody pulp.

Here she stood in the middle of a bar. How did she get home?

To the house at the lake? Or to New Hope? Her real home.

She couldn’t go home. Daed wouldn’t understand. Matthew had already moved on. The life she’d had in New Hope no longer existed. She slapped her hand to her mouth to hold back the sobs. The only thing worse than a rebellious, stubborn soul was a whiny one.

“Do you want to order something?” The same waitress passed by, this time with plates of steaming chicken fried steak and gravy in both hands. The aroma made Adah’s mouth water and her stomach rumble. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a menu.”