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“No way in hell,” Brynn said, squeezing her tight. “There’ll only ever be one Savannah Grace.”
“Thank you, Nashville!” Cassidy’s smile was blinding as the crowd screamed for her, already two thirds of the way through their set. “Thank you for being here tonight! Thank you for supporting us, we love you so much.”
The crowd roared and Cassidy looked down for a beat, then back up at the crowd, catching her breath from their last song. “My mom taught me how to sing,” she told the crowd. “We've had a rocky road together, but she’s here with us tonight.”
Savannah blinked, her heart seizing. Cassidy was looking out at the crowd. “Hey Mom.” Cassidy waved and the crowd cheered. “My sister, though,” she tucked her hair back, a mischievous quirk to her lips, “my sister taught me everything else. She’s a singer too, you know.”
Savannah froze in Brynn’s arms, squeezing her wife’s fingers so hard they turned white.
“She’s also here tonight. She’s pretty shy so she’s going to be real mad at me for doing this but I’m going to call her out on stage for a duet.” Cassidy raised her hands for the crowd to roar. “What do you reckon, Nashville?”
The crowd screamed encouragingly and Savannah turned in Brynn’s arms in shock. Her wife was smiling.
“Is she for real? Did you know about this?” Savannah asked.
A stagehand passed over a mic before Brynn could reply. Savannah stepped closer to the stage edge staring at her sister. Are you sure? she mouthed from the wings.
“Oh, she looks nervous.” Cassidy gave her a sideways grin and spoke into the mic. “Everyone, please be very kind and welcome to the stage, my big sister, Savannah Grace.”
The crowd lost their minds. Savannah walked out on stage for the first time in over a year to ear splitting applause and straight into the arms of her sister.
“I love you,” she murmured in her ear. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Cassidy squeezed her tight.
“Told you I’d find a way to ride your coattails.” Cassidy pulled back grinning and Savannah burst into laughter. The band kicked in to Dumb and Rich off Savannah’s first solo album and for the first time, ever, they sang together. It sounded awesome, their voices in natural harmony like they were legitimately born of the same damn mama. Savannah just barely managed not to cry, Cassidy glowing like she was living her very best of daydreams.
When the song finished, she hugged her sister again, then raised her mic.
“I love you Cassidy Carver, you’re a goddamned firecracker… but if you beat me at the CMAs next year we’re going to have words,” she said and the crowd roared, while Cassidy laughed. “Also, hi Mom?”
She waved out at the crowd tentatively, listening to them laugh but also wondering what it meant that the woman who’d raised them and rejected them was here tonight. She hoped it was a good thing, that maybe it was the beginning of something better for all of them. She blew a kiss at the crowd and left her sister to her adoring fans.
“I’ve got one more thing to say,” Cassidy said into the mic and Savannah turned back in the wings to watch, “and that’s fuck the drag ban.” The crowd roared. “No,” she said, over the noise, “I fucking mean it. Fuck the drag ban, fuck hurting trans kids, fuck all the laws hurting trans and queer people.”
A chill slipped down Savannah’s spine. Cassidy looked fierce and fearless where she stood under the bright lights of the stage, thousands of faces staring up at her.
“My boyfriend is trans non-binary,” Cassidy said, “I’m queer. Kinsey’s queer,” she threw a look over her shoulder at her drummer who blew her a kiss as whistles rang out from the crowd. “She’s taken though, so please stop throwing panties at the stage all the time, it’s a fucking trip hazard.”
The crowd laughed and Cassidy waited for them to finish, waited until her words rang out clear and undeniable.
“We’re a queer band,” she said. “And if you’re not for queer people, if you’re not for trans rights then we’re not for you. You can leave.”
Savannah held her breath. Part of her thought Cassidy was committing country music career suicide. Part of her felt ashamed that it had taken her so long to say the same things, half as bravely and half as loud. And part of her had never been more excited in all her life. The world was changing. Young people were changing. Fucking country music was changing. Brynn grabbed her hand. Then, someone grabbed her other hand. She turned her head to see Coral, her eyes shining with tears, Rosalie on her other side straight up crying, all four of them holding hands in a row and watching the stage.
“And after you leave,” Cassidy said, her voice serious, the crowd suddenly quiet, “you can think about what lies you’ve been sold that make you think we’re a threat. What lies you’ve believed that makes it okay to think your fellow humans are less than you. And when you’ve unpacked all that? Once you remember how to treat everyone with love? Then you can come back. We’ve got room for all of you.”
She smiled her lovely star powered smile and the crowd screamed. Savannah couldn’t breathe. She heard all kinds of voices shouting that they loved Cassidy, that love was love. Those voices were far louder than the boos.
She watched her sister look every one of her band members in the face, all four of them nodding and grinning at each other. Then Cassidy turned back to the mic.
“Fuck the drag ban!” she screamed and all eight of the drag queens who’d been waiting in the wings flooded out onto the stage to dance as the band threw themselves into their first single Green Light Go.
Savannah wept.
The after party was epic. Cassidy got swept up into a pile of well-wishers, fans and industry people, Savannah and Brynn politely rebuffing any that were tempted to make them the focus. Cassidy appeared to be thriving off the attention. The rest of the band milled around, smiling and enjoying their crumbs of it. Savannah looked around for Kinsey. It seemed so unjust, knowing that the two of them co-wrote together, that she only received about a third of the attention Cassidy did as lead.
“Oh no,” said Kinsey when Savannah caught up to her and asked her about it. “I literally don’t care about any of that. That,” she gestured at Cassidy who had a Rolling Stone reporter holding a small mic in her face as she spoke, surrounded in a half circle of attentive listeners, “is my idea of a nightmare. Honestly, I think she’s making a sacrifice rather than taking the glory.”