She didn’t know how it had happened—maybe Eden had unbent all on her own, which given how many times Glory had said the “F” word in the throes of concert adrenaline last night seemed unlikely. Maybe Annelise badgered her into it—because how could anyone say no to that face?—but Annelise had shown up with her mini guitar today after Glory’s shift.
And together she and Annelise had turned “Gregory” into an actual whole song, with actual chords. She’d eventually like to teach them to Annelise one by one. Today, however, was all about G.
Glory knew Annelise was going to go home and drive her mom nuts by strumming G all night.
As she sat on the edge of the Misty Cat stage and rested her chin on the soothing curve of her guitar, Glory thought about what Eli had said about Eden being a single mom, with hurts and secrets of her own.
Eli, who noticed so much by virtue of being quiet and observant and just, dammit all, by being good.
Given Annelise’s age and given the fact that music was pouring out of her and given the bands that not infrequently cycled in and out of Hellcat Canyon, Glory had a hunch who her dad might be and how that might have happened.
But that was Eden’s journey, and she had her own reasons for keeping that entirely to herself.
On a whim, Glory tuned her low E a whole step down to D and strummed it.Ahhhhhh.She could feel that chord right between her ribs. That little primal thrum of a bottom D was like therapy.
She picked out a snatch of Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again.”
She wondered if that’s how Eli thought of her.
She’d awakened to close to two hundred new likes on her Facebook page and wiggly camera phone video posted to it by one of the concertgoers, who had tagged The Baby Owls, thus opening her up to the possibility of hundreds of thousands of views.
She still looked and sounded amazing in that video, and she could critique a dozen things about it, but it was simplicity itself, that performance, with the stripped-down rawness of something like The White Stripes.
And she’d drawn in a shuddery little breath. Finally, things were moving forward. It was just one gig and one wobbly video, but it was infinitely more and infinitely better and more than she’d had yesterday.
She’d made theHellcat Canyon Chronicle:
Local Musician Brings Down House
After The Baby Owls Fly the Coop
And the tagline was “Crowd Sings Hallelujah for Glory Greenleaf.”
Glenn had framed it and hung it on the wall where The Baby Owls flyer used to be.
Below that article online was another article:
The Baby Owls Guitarist Busted
for Possession of One Tiny
Marijuana Cigarette
It was pretty clear they let college interns write the headlines, because the headline just dripped with reproachfulness.
The article went on to describe how the band had been surrounded by the California Highway Patrol and sheriff’s deputies with guns drawn on I-5 outside of Prentiss, and their bus had been searched pretty thoroughly. Marijuana smoke tended to cling to bushy beards and apparently the fact that they all reeked of it was probable cause.
Rough night for The Baby Owls, all in all.
Glory was mildly sympathetic. That’s rock and roll, as they said. Most musicians didn’t get through entire careers without at least a few headlines like those. They’d get off with a fine, no doubt.
She had a sneaking suspicion Eli had a little something to do with it. Whatever phone call he’d made in that back room, it hadn’t resulted in tenderly sympathetic law enforcement personnel bent on rescuing the owlets.
He’d been bent on rescuing her.
Now that Annelise’s sparkling self had gone out the door, she understood that, despite last night’s triumph, there was a sense of tense disquiet about the day. A waiting feeling. She wasn’t certain she’d taken a full, deep breath today.
Portentously, a shadow fell over her hand.