Dirty Little Secret (30 page)

“Yes,” Sam said.

“Because we screwed.”

His lips parted.

“Tell me the truth,” I insisted before he could speak. “Was this another one of those life experiences you try to accumulate because they make you uncomfortable? Are you going to channel this emotion and use it when you sing?”

He unfolded his arms and stood up straight.

“I see,” I said. “It’s that genre of country song, the one where you break it to your lady that you don’t love her, and she drives away in tears. Sorry, but I’m not going to give you that satisfaction.”

I slipped my shoes on, picked up my purse, and calmly walked outside to my car. Sam stood in the doorway watching me, the mist after the rain curling around him in my headlight beams as I backed down his driveway.

Dead tired, I just wanted to get home and go to bed. That helped me remain calm—right up until railroad crossing guardrails descended in front of my car. The warning signal clanged its bells. The train moaned its off-key tritone, louder and louder and louder until it filled my head and I couldn’t hear myself think.

I slapped my hands over my ears and yelled, “I would like out of this country song now. I want out of this country song
right now
!”

I wasn’t sure who I was praying to. The ghost of Johnny Cash, maybe. But nothing changed. The train still moaned. The signal clanged and flashed like a migraine. And when the end of the train finally slipped past me and disappeared into the Nashville night, I knew I wouldn’t get to sleep until I wrote this song down.

13

I
spent the next afternoon
suffering through Hank Williams’s yodeling and wondering about the big party that the record company was throwing for Julie that night. At dinner my granddad told me gently that he’d talked to my mom the night before and tried to convince her to invite me, but she was too afraid the record company wouldn’t like it. I suspected she was afraid I would jump on the buffet and start throwing canapés just to spite everyone.

My granddad seemed especially gleeful that I was going out with Sam again, as if that made him feel less guilty that I wasn’t included in Julie’s celebration. The closer the party time came, the more resentful I felt that Julie and my dad hadn’t stood up to my mom and invited me, and the better I felt that I was about to disobey my parents again.

I just wished I’d been able to do that without seeing Sam. There was the appearance of love, the trappings of it that I put in songs. There was real love, the kind I was afraid I’d felt for Sam last night. And then there was the ache I was feeling, intense and depthless. I had never heard a song like this, either because nobody had ever been this heartbroken, or because a tune that depressing wouldn’t sell.

Sam never called me, but I knew he was in communication with Ace. Ace had said Monday night that he would call to make sure I was coming to the gig at Boot Ilicious if Sam and I weren’t speaking. I knew he wouldn’t have called me
four
times, though, if a nervous Sam hadn’t been goading him into it. I parked in the deck Sam and I had used and abused our first night together, then walked a few doors down to the eighteen-and-up bar. My fiddle got me a pass inside without paying cover, and the bouncers pointed me upstairs.

At the top of two flights, on the roof with a view of nearby skyscrapers on one side and the Cumberland River and Titans stadium on the other, the band stood onstage as if ready to start playing without me.

I could see them only because the stage was two feet above the roof. The place was packed with college-age partiers. Some of the first people I spotted were the girls who’d gotten a manicure on Elvis day at the mall last week. I saw a few other boys I knew from school, who didn’t recognize me in the tiny, tight red cocktail dress I’d snagged at the mall that afternoon and paired with my red cowgirl boots and red cat-eye glasses in a statement of ironic overkill. So far, no Toby, but there were three floors to this bar, and it was already almost nine o’clock. He was probably here somewhere. The first guy to recognize me would text him so that he could come up here and laugh at me. I could feel it.

But I had a job to do, a work ethic for the forbidden. I sashayed through the crowd. I was still three people deep away from the stage when I saw Sam’s face change under his cowboy hat, from worry to relief. He held out a hand and hauled me up onstage with one strong arm.

“Where have you been?” he demanded.

“Ace told me to be here at nine,” I said, glancing at my watch. It was five until.

“You know I’m in danger of a stroke until you get here,” Sam growled.

I shrugged. “I had other things to do.”

“I hope you’re not giving her everything you gave to me on her behalf,” Ace said, stepping between us. “You look like shit, Sam. Just back off everybody.”

Sam
did
look like he hadn’t gotten any more sleep since I’d woken him at six the night before. In fact, he looked like his haggard father imitating Johnny Cash. He gave Ace a sullen glare, then pulled out his cell phone to text us the playlist.

“But
you
look beautiful,” Ace told me.

I was glad
someone
had noticed I’d outdone myself tonight, if you liked this sort of thing. I gave him a saucy curtsy in thanks, but I wished he hadn’t said it in front of Charlotte, who’d come from behind her drum kit to lurk, listen in, and scowl.

“I don’t know what to play for these people,” Sam was muttering at his phone. “I guess . . . all of the Ke$ha. Then what?”

Because he needed her so badly, Charlotte stepped close to him, looked over his shoulder at his phone, and made suggestions from our repertoire for the playlist. Without looking up, he reached behind her and rubbed the back of her neck in an overly friendly gesture of camaraderie. It was amazing that she stayed upright, because her shoulders collapsed like a rag doll under his hand.

Ace’s eyes locked with mine in a mutual understanding of jealousy and disgust. But knowing Ace was dying inside, too, didn’t make me feel any better. I wound my way to the back of the stage, brought out my fiddle and dumped my case, and rushed back to the front before the restless crowd started chanting.

When I first surveyed the audience, I’d been afraid they wouldn’t like our music, at least after we ran out of Ke$ha. But they were enthusiastic to the point of frenzy, and a couple of fights
broke out at the edges of the rooftop. I thought the difference was that this audience was younger than our usual spectators, and some of them were drinking underage and weren’t handling it well. It was also the largest crowd I’d seen at Boot Ilicious. The pushing that resulted made everyone testy. Normally the audience would be spread out over three stories of dance floors, but tonight most of them seemed to be crowding here.

It didn’t bother me, as long as they didn’t touch me or nudge my bow. It bothered Sam, though. Between songs, he kept casting a worried eye across the sea of screaming faces, and he didn’t respond with much enthusiasm to the calls of “Sam!” from the groupie girls from his high school who had finally caught up with him. When we’d almost reached our ten o’clock break and I pointed behind Ace, wordlessly asking him to pass me the tip jar, Sam shook his head at both of us and pointed at Ace. Ace got down from the stage and held the jar instead of me. I didn’t mouth a thank-you to Sam, but judging from some of the grinding that had been passing for dancing in the crowd, I was grateful.

At the break, Sam set his guitar in its stand and headed inside. I knew I wouldn’t be following him. Better to get through this night as far away from him as possible. Instead, I headed to the back of the stage and set one elbow on the guardrail at the edge of the roof. Preparations were still under way for the CMA Festival that started tomorrow. Julie’s first performance of the festival would be tomorrow night, almost directly below me at the Riverwalk stage. On the other side of the Cumberland River, the Titans stadium glowed. Tomorrow it would host some headliners for the CMA Festival, probably six country superstars back-to-back in one long concert. The next night, Friday, Julie would be one of them.

Not one member of my family had contacted me about going. Both concerts were probably sold out by now. I hadn’t checked. I wasn’t
going to spend my life following Julie around and lurking in her shadow. I’d had enough of that last night.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone sidling up next to me at the wall. I turned to glare at whoever it was. Nobody but the band should have been back here. Ace wouldn’t go out of his way to talk to me, and Sam had
better
not. Not tonight. And the
last
person I wanted to talk to right now was—

Charlotte. “I see you’ve decided to let the crowd focus on Sam rather than you tonight,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to distract anyone with what you’re wearing.”

“You know what?” I turned on her so suddenly that she stepped back. “This may be the last time I’ll ever play in public, and I wanted to go out with a bang. Sam gave me the line last night. ‘I’m messed up right now, and I can’t give you what you deserve.’ Remember? You got what you wanted, so turn that frown upside down.”

I turned to gaze at the stages along the river again and waited for her to scamper inside the bar in search of Sam.

“That’s not right,” she said. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that, and I didn’t care anymore.

“I know I’ve given you a lot of grief,” she said, “but I just didn’t want Sam bringing random people into the band without checking with me, when I’ve worked so hard with these guys. And then it seemed like Ace . . .”

As her voice trailed off, I looked over at her. Her eyes were searching the restless crowd for Ace, not Sam.

She turned back to me. “You don’t understand. Ever since Sam’s girlfriend—”

“Which one?” I asked sharply.

“Emily.” Her tone made it sound like I should know all about Emily. “Ever since she died, it’s like that was so intense for him that he can’t really feel anymore. He’s had a lot of girlfriends, but I don’t think he ever got this serious with anybody. He didn’t with me. If he did with you, and then broke up with you, it sounds like he’s getting worse.”

“His girlfriend died?” I echoed.

“He didn’t tell you that?”

I swallowed. “He told me he had a friend who died in a drunk- driving accident.”

Charlotte watched me carefully now as she realized I knew way less about this than she’d thought. “The police said it was an accident.”

I pulled my hand away from my face right before I rubbed under my eye. “Is that why he went to counseling?”

“Grief counseling, yeah,” Charlotte said. “I wish they hadn’t kicked him out. All he did was ask a girl in the group on a date, and her dad had a fit and complained about Sam, which was exactly what he didn’t need right then. If he’d stayed in the group, I think he’d be a lot better now. Ever since then, I don’t think he’s meaning to be a playboy or to be cruel. It’s just that girls are attracted to him and feel sorry for him and want to save him. He likes them, too. He likes everybody. He wants to feel that emotion. But then, when he starts to feel too much for a girl, he’s scared she feels the same way about him. And he doesn’t want anybody to feel that strongly about him again, because of Emily. He tells me he doesn’t believe she killed herself over him, and he doesn’t feel guilty, but I think that’s just what he’s telling himself so he can survive.”

She met my gaze. “I’m really sorry, Bailey. I am honestly shocked that you got the line from him, too. I thought you were different.”

“I knew I wasn’t.” I pushed off from the wall, snagged my purse from the top of my fiddle case, and shoved my way toward the door inside. I probably should have thanked Charlotte for all the information, but I wasn’t in a grateful mood.

Inside, I wound around knots of bawdy frat boys and giggling fashionistas to find Sam and Ace in a dark corner. When Sam glanced up at me and stopped talking, I knew they’d been conferring about me. As if that wasn’t obvious enough, Ace turned to look at me, too, and his eyes widened.

I stood in front of them. “Can I have a minute with Sam?” I asked Ace.

Ace cut his eyes to Sam, who looked like he wished Ace wouldn’t abandon him there with me. Ace didn’t dare stay after he saw the look on my face, but he did tap his watch. “We don’t have much time,” he said as he dove back into the crowd.

I turned to Sam. “Now,” I said, “tell me about your girlfriend.”

Some small part of me held out hope that Charlotte had been wrong, or lying, and Sam would have no idea what I was talking about. But he knew exactly who I meant. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach as he eyed me and said, heartbreakingly serious, “I told you about Emily.”

“No, you didn’t,” I assured him.

His brow furrowed. “I didn’t want to mess things up between us.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have screwed me and then broken up with me.”

“I did not
screw
—” His eyes flew to the girls in clubbing dresses who turned to look us up and down. Then he whispered to me, “You can’t do this to me right now.”