Drummers, she knew from experience, always carried around sticks. They were forever percussing everything. They really couldn’t help themselves.
“I’LL DRUM YOU, BABY!” some fool hollered. Sherrie and Glenn were making a mint.
Oh brother. “What does that even mean?” she laughed. “Someone bring that guy a beer! He’s obviously not drunk enough yet.”
More laughter andWOOOOOs!
The crowd shifted and undulated like a ball pit and Monroe Porter squirted through and sprinted up to the stage. He was, as she’d predicted, carrying sticks. She leaned into him to tell him what she wanted him to do.
His face lit up. “Dude!” He approved. “I can totally do that. I know most of your set.”
He climbed up next to her.
“Glory, you ready?” The voice was right in her ear. She jumped. She hadn’t even noticed Glenn sidling up.
She nodded.
Glenn seized the mic stand and pulled it toward him.
“QUIET!” he bellowed.
The audience was so amazed to be yelled at that silence fell immediately.
“Ladies and gentlemen... The Baby Owls’ bus broke down on the highway, and we’re doing our best to get them here. Got our best people on it.”
“BOOOOOOO! SSSSSSS! HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO!”
“QUIET.You’re about to be grateful for that little mechanical malfunction because, ladies and gentlemen, you now get to listen to... GLORY GREENLEAF!”
He set the mic stand back in front of her and strolled off with a murmured “knock ’em dead, kiddo.”
Chapter14
But his announcement was met by a scattering of polite applause.Pat pat pat pat.Not even any heckling. Which was almost worse than no applause at all. Someone belched. A woman giggled. She heard someone who sounded a lot like Casey Carson yell a delighted “Go, Glory!”
She peered into the restless dark, which was interrupted only by cell phone screens and glints of eyeglasses aimed at her. She felt a bit like a lone camper who sees the yellow eyes of wolves in the dark.
She’d decided on her first song, and there was no way that at least half this crowd full of music geeks wouldn’t recognize it once she started: it was a legendary song from a legendary band from a legendary record. If she nailed it, she’d have them eating out of her hand.
If she botched a single note, it would sound like a bad parody and she’d be lucky if they didn’t start hurling beer bottles at her.
They ought to just mic her heart. It was about ready to kick its way out of her chest.
She gave her head a shampoo commercial shake, threw her shoulders back, and smiled as if she was about to spring the best secret on the crowd, then put her lips on her harmonica and blew those first notes of Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time Is Gonna Come.”
That lonesome, pure, winding lick seemed to fly right up into the rafters and then pour out of the Misty Cat’s walls.
There was an audible rustle of leather and flannel and denim as the crowd shifted, leaned forward.
Some guy shouted a muffledyes!
Someone else exhaled an impressed “Damn!”
And, oh yeah: shenailedthat intro.
She brought her head down hard to signal Monroe, who brought his sticks down on that plump stool just as she laid into the first chord, then arpeggiated it, funking it up just a little more than the original, getting heads out there nodding.
Her voice soared and ached, singing the story of a lying cheating lover, howling the pain of it, soulfully threatening retribution.