“Okay,” she heard herself say.
Okay??? Her stomach dropped, her mouth betraying her and saying the opposite of what she’d intended to say.
“Great!” Kaleb said. “All right, what’s your name? I’ll do an intro when Mo’s done.”
“Uh…” What am I doing? What the hell am I doing? “James.” She cringed inwardly at the fake name. James Spader really needed to get out of her head. “With a z.”
With a z? What the hell? Like that made it less weird?
But the guy didn’t flinch. “Unisex. I like it. Cool.” He waved a hand. “Come with me. I’m Kaleb, by the way, owner and operator.”
She needed to turn around. There was no way she was actually doing this. But her feet moved forward as if an invisible hand was pulling her puppet strings. Her hands were sweating, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She felt disconnected from her body in a way that was disconcerting. Still, she kept moving.
The stage got closer.
The other song ended. Kaleb smiled at her.
Holy shit. She was doing this.
Chapter
Two
I can’t do this. Don’t do this. Run! The commands ran through Taryn’s brain like scared mice, but her feet stayed rooted to the floor beside the stage. A smattering of applause followed Mo’s performance, and then Kaleb hurried up the few steps to the small, battered stage.
“Tonight, we’ve got one more for you,” he said into the microphone. “A newcomer who’s probably a little scared of y’all, so give her some love and order another drink in her honor. Please welcome Jamez with a z!”
Taryn was going to throw up. Literally, all the shrimp she’d eaten at dinner to stave off the boredom were going to make a reappearance right there onstage. But Kaleb was already handing her the well-worn but freshly strung acoustic guitar. He pulled a pick from his pocket. “Stage is all yours.”
Her feet felt like they’d been dipped in cement, but she took the instrument and walked to the stool. A few people clapped. Ice cubes clinked against glasses. Taryn couldn’t look at anyone. She sat on the stool, crossed her ankles, and stared down at the guitar, half wondering how it’d appeared in her hands. Maybe she’d fallen on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, hit her head, and this was some sort of concussion dream.
She had no idea what song to play. No idea if she could still play at all. And the single spotlight felt like it was burning her skin and exposing every damn insecurity she had.
She cleared her throat, and the microphone amplified the sound, making her jump. She licked her lips. “I’m sorry. I haven’t done this in a really long time.”
Someone from the back whistled their encouragement.
Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. She was totally freaking out. Taryn fitted her hand to the neck of the guitar and tried to focus. Nineties songs. She needed a song she knew by heart and that wasn’t too complicated on the guitar. She scrolled through her mental playlist and landed on one that used to fill her angsty teenage heart with all the feels. She took a breath and dared a glance upward, not knowing who she was in this moment, but in too deep to bail now. She didn’t make commitments she didn’t keep. She lined her fingers up for a G chord and tested it. The sound was pure and well-tuned and vibrated through her with familiarity. That gave her a small bit of comfort. Guitars never changed, even if she had.
No more delaying.
She forced herself to look out at the audience and put her mouth closer to the mic. “My sister used to like this one. I hope y’all do, too.”
Taryn took another deep breath and forced her hands to move as she played the opening chords to “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes. She was trembling all over as if an electric current were moving through her. Looking at the few faces at the table closest to the stage was too much, and she missed the cue to start singing. She closed her eyes and went through the opening chords again, willing herself to just get the words out. A few verses and this temporary bout of insanity would be over.
Finally, her voice pushed past the dam of nerves in her throat and filled the small space of the bar. She sang the first lines about time passing and still not making it up the big hill of hope. Her voice felt rusty and trembled a little, and her fingertips were tender against the strings, but she kept going, eyes squeezed shut, the lyrics racing up from the vault in her mind to the surface.
Songs from her childhood were like that—old friends who never quite left her, even when she’d forgotten they existed. The words came back as though they’d just been waiting in line to be sung. She sang louder and steadier as she went, and before she knew it, she’d reached the climax of the song and was belting the tough high notes, her voice coming out gritty against her throat.
Taryn was lost for a moment, transported back to her bedroom that shared a wall with her younger sister’s. When Taryn played and sang, Nia would slap her hands against their shared wall at the end of each song, her own version of a crowd demanding more. Her sister who always listened to Taryn sing. Her sister who, no matter how mad she got over whatever siblings got mad about, never revealed to their parents Taryn’s secret plan to be a songwriter. Her sister who believed in her.
The memory hit Taryn like a gut punch, and the song left her just as quickly. Her eyes popped open, her chest tight and her skin burning hot. She didn’t know where she’d ended the song but the words were gone. In the silence, she felt frozen. But before the next blink, the small crowd erupted in applause with a few whoops for good measure. The sounds were foreign to her ears and too much to handle. The room spun in her vision.
She quickly got to her feet, almost knocking the stool over in her haste, and set the guitar in the stand. She hurried toward the side of the stage in her uncomfortable heels and down the steps, brushing past Kaleb, who was trying to get her attention. She needed to get out of there. Right. The hell. Now.
“I think it’s pretty obvious who our winner is tonight,” Kaleb called out from somewhere behind her. “Jamez with a z, come on back up here!”
Taryn bumped hard into the edge of a table in the dark and yelped. She reached out and grabbed the back of a chair to keep herself upright but stumbled anyway, her ankle turning and her shoe slipping off.