Can't Look Away(29)
What became obvious, as time passed, was that of the three of them, Jake was the one who captured the audience. He was Danner Lane’s clear front man, and not just because he was lead vocalist. Sam’s and Hale’s lanky frames and pale, freckled skin only magnified Jake’s movie star looks.
The first week in November, a month before The Narrows released, Molly emailed her finished manuscript to Bella, the literary agent Jake knew. As promised, he’d introduced them over email, and Bella seemed excited to read Molly’s book. Molly’s body prickled with nerves as she sent the file into cyberspace—her heart and soul and two and a half years of work boiled down to a single Word document. Molly had never felt so vulnerable in her life.
The novel’s heroine was a bookish, fatherless girl named Grace navigating her twenties in Brooklyn while falling for a tortured artist named Sebastian. Grace’s experiences were not unlike Molly’s—Sebastian not not reminiscent of Jake—but wasn’t it Mark Twain who said, “Write what you know”? Needs was her working title, and she was pitching it as literary fiction, though that felt a bit presumptuous.
But now, it was out of her hands. And all she could do was hope that Bella—or some other agent, if not Bella—would fall in love with her writing, and the rest would stem from there.
When The Narrows dropped on December 12, it made a big splash, largely thanks to the attention “Salt River” had garnered in the prior two months. Variety and Billboard both profiled the band that first week, and iTunes sales soared. “Salt River” was still the clear favorite, followed closely by “Give It Love, Give It Time” and, to Molly’s delight, “January Girl.”
Over Christmas, Molly went home to Denville, and Jake went back to North Carolina. This meant ten days away from each other, the longest they’d been apart since meeting. Molly knew space was healthy, but it still felt like an eternity. She assured herself the time would fly. After the holiday, Jake would meet her down in Florida—Molly’s family always spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s visiting her grandmother in Naples.
The evening before her morning flight, Molly was tossing sundresses and sandals into her suitcase and daydreaming about seeing Jake’s face the following day, when her phone began to ring. The “What’s My Age Again” ringtone told her Jake was the caller.
“Hey, love. I’m packing.”
“Hey, Moll.” Something in his voice was hesitant, off.
“You okay?”
He sighed deeply. “Yeah, actually, I’m pretty excited. But I also have some not-so-great news.”
Molly’s stomach pitched.
“Jerry just called. He heard from Ron, and they’re adding eight more stops to our tour. Eight more cities! Can you believe it?”
“Wow, Jake. What’s the bad news, then?” Molly asked, though she already knew.
Jake’s voice grew less animated. “They want us in Boston on Friday to play a New Year’s Eve show, to be one of the openers for Vampire Weekend. It’s last minute, I know.”
“Wow,” she repeated, her voice small. Molly loved Vampire Weekend, and she knew this was a huge coup for them, but she wasn’t in the mood to gush.
“And from there we head up to Portland, then fly to Chicago…” He paused. “I’ll send you the updated tour schedule. But yeah, basically they have us starting the tour now, instead of mid-January. So I can’t make Naples. I’m so sorry.”
Molly felt tears behind her eyes—the burning, welling sensation, the tightness in her throat. She knew she was being ridiculous—this was a huge deal for Danner Lane. But she was devastated; she couldn’t help it. All week, she’d dreamed of being in Naples with him—swimming in the ocean together and drinking Goombay Smashes in front of the sunset and watching him get to know her mom and Andrew and her grandmother. Molly squeezed her eyes shut, let the images swirl down the drain.
“Moll?”
She nodded into the phone. “Yeah. Okay. That’ll be really big for you guys. It’s just late notice, is all.”
“I know.” Jake sighed, and even though half of Molly was pissed at him, she wished she could jump through the phone and into his arms. “I’m sorry. It’s out of my control. But maybe you can come out and meet us on the road after Florida? We’re opening for the Black Keys in West Palm Beach at the end of January…” He paused, and she heard the drumming of his fingers. “I guess the timing doesn’t line up well, but maybe there’s another show that would work? I’ll be gone till the first week of February. Then they want us back in New York to do some local shows.”
“This is all … it’s so exciting.” Molly hoped she sounded more enthused than she felt. She sat down on the edge of the duvet and looked around her childhood bedroom. Everything was still the same—pale pink paint on the walls; pink-and-white herringbone carpet. Even her old dollhouse was still perched in the corner, taking up a mountain of space. It was ridiculous. “But I don’t know if I can meet you on tour, Jake.”
“Why not?”
“I have a job, for one. I have to teach.”
“Can’t you get a sub?”
“Not really. I need the money. It’s my only source of income at the moment. And it’s not like I have extra cash for plane tickets.”