The High Notes: A Novel(46)
She had an hour to relax before the concert started and went to her dressing room. Boy wandered in a few minutes later.
“You sounded good,” he said, letting himself down into a chair. “I stayed to hear the first few songs. You killed it in rehearsal, you’ll be even better with the audience,” he reassured her, and she hoped he was right.
“I’m so damn nervous.” She looked at him sheepishly. More than she’d ever been before. But this was the big time, not some small town where no one would notice if she screwed up.
“Me too,” he admitted.
“I don’t want to let Clay down,” she said softly. “He’s done so much for us.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too. I wish we were onstage together tonight,” he said, and she nodded. But they both had to stand on their own, and prove to the people who believed in them that they were right.
“I’ll watch your whole performance from the wings,” he said, to give her courage.
“I’ll watch you too before I go on,” she promised. He gave her a hug, and ambled out the door in his cowboy boots that were a part of him.
She did her hair then, brushed it and let it fall straight down her back like a golden curtain. She looked more than ever like Alice in Wonderland. She put on the little makeup she wore, and finally put one of her new black dresses on right before it was time for Boy to perform. The dress had a little sexy kick to it without looking vulgar, which made her look more grown up. There had always been a contradiction between her youthful look and the womanliness of her voice, which spoke of a thousand lifetimes lived, and not easy ones. Her songs said that she knew a lot about life and had learned hard lessons on the way to where she was now. They were songs people could relate to, and addressed the griefs they’d had. What she sang told them that she understood and was still in there fighting, growing, loving, and singing her heart out. She had a special quality as she stood onstage that made people want to embrace her and remember every word she said. She was a wise woman with a miraculous voice, telling their story and her own. There was no question, she had a gift.
She didn’t see Clay before she went backstage, and she peeked at the audience through a crack in the curtains. The house was filled, and the crowd sounded boisterous and excited. They were ripe for the plucking, and Boy was just the one to do that. Iris stood quietly hidden when the curtain came up, the stage was dark and then the spotlight shone directly on him, and he reached out and grabbed their hearts with his first song. He talked to them, and warmed them, and seduced them, and opened up to them, and fell in love with them, and they did the same for him. He was perfect, and Iris smiled as she watched him, and listened to his voice. It was strong tonight, and she wiped a tear from her cheek twice when he sang the ballads she had written. The audience shouted when he wanted them to, and clapped and stomped and sang along. He had them in his hand from the moment he started and they first saw him onstage until the very end. He was the best warm-up act they’d ever seen, because he really wasn’t one. He was of feature quality himself and it was a gift that he had agreed to be her opening act, and made the concert that much better.
There was a moment’s lull as the audience drifted slowly back to earth after his performance, and the stage manager let them cool off while the band took a break. And then the theater went even darker, the curtain came up again, and Iris came out onstage, looking beautiful and just sexy enough. She tried to see Clay in the audience, she knew he was in the front row, but the footlights were too bright to see him. She smiled at the audience, and chatted with them for a few minutes, and told them a little about her life growing up.
“I grew up in Texas, in a lot of little dusty towns. I loved to sing even as a little kid. I had a big voice that didn’t fit my body, and the one place I could let it all go was in church. So let’s start at the beginning, and I’m going to start with a gospel song. And if you know it, y’all sing along.” She had chosen one that everybody knew, started low, and let her voice climb as it did naturally, until she reached the high notes that no one else could reach. The audience was fully engaged by then, singing with her, imagining her childhood, and remembering their own. She had them in the palm of her hand by the time the song ended, differently from the way Boy had. His performance had been wilder and more exuberant. Hers was more carefully thought out, a chronology of her life and everything she’d lived through set to music in a way they understood viscerally. They were in love with her by the time she was halfway through the show. The rest was icing on the cake. She owned them, she loved them, and they loved her. She sang one of her most beautiful ballads at the end, which sang about hopes and dreams, living through the hard parts and coming home at last. When she finished the last song, her voice drifted away and the stage went dark, the audience went insane, standing up and cheering and screaming for more. The spotlight came back on, and she smiled at them, and moved closer to the front of the stage, as though she wanted to be near them, and they belonged to one another now.
“Y’all want more?” She smiled at them. “Okay, let’s have some fun.” She sang a wild, happy, unbridled song of joy and lust that made them as happy to listen as she was singing it. And they went crazy again when it was over. She looked at them with love in her eyes, took one simple bow, and spoke from the stage in her distinctive voice.
“See you soon,” she said in a tone that was like a caress, a delicate embrace. “Ya’ll take care now,” she said softly, the stage went dark and she was off. They were thunderous, hoping she’d come back for another encore, but she didn’t.