She did it because singing was the one thing she was good at, and the only thing in this world she wanted to do. She did it hoping that one day she’d swap out the cold concrete sidewalks for the brightly lit stages of packed-out venues, singing her own songs, making a living with her voice.
Had she been naïve? A little.
Had she made compromises? Absolutely.
But Emeline’s naïveté, her compromises, her sheer stubborn will, had landed herhere. In just over a week, she would open for her idols, a folk band called The Perennials, on a fourteen-city tour that spanned three countries. If she impressed the representatives from Daybreak Records—who would be watching her on opening night—she would soon be in possession of a record deal with one of the biggest labels in the country.
If anyone can do it, you can, duckie.
It was what Pa told her in the minutes before she drove away from him and the neighbors gathered on their lawn, all waving good-bye. Back when he was still Pa, not some hollowed-out shell of a man. Back when he still remembered the girl he’d raised.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Trying to stave off the ache.
I have to find him.
Someone rapped on the driver’s side window, scattering her thoughts. Startled, she looked up through the glass.
A middle-aged man in a faded jean jacket stood outside, waving at her. He was several years younger than Pa. Old enough to be Emeline’s father. His dark brown hair was shorter and grayer than she remembered, but the rest of him was familiar.
“Tom!” Emeline opened the door and flung herself out of the car and into his arms.
“I thought you were your mother,” he said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” She breathed in his pipe tobacco smell as her arms tightened around his neck.
“You could never disappoint me, kiddo.”
Thiswas Poor Mad Tom, otherwise known as Tomás Pérez. Once a photographer forNational Geographic, now Pa’s retired soft-spoken neighbor. “Poor” because he’d been madly in love with Emeline’s mother, Rose Lark, who broke his heart when she went and got pregnant by another man. “Mad” because of the stories he used to tell Emeline when she wandered up to his door as a small, bored child, looking to be entertained.
Stories about his wild adventures in the Wood King’s court.
Emeline still wasn’t sure if he’d made them up to amuse her, or if he believed they were true.
“How’s the music thing going?”
She let go to find Tom studying her.
“Good.” She thought of her upcoming tour. Thought of Daybreak Records’ potential offer to sign her. “Really good.”
“No surprise there.” He beamed like a proud father. “Maiz always says our Emmie has a magic voice. What about that boyfriend of yours?”
“Joel?”
He shrugged. “Whichever one you’re on now.”
Ouch.
Not that it wasn’t true. Emeline went through boyfriends as fast as she went through guitar strings. Joel used to like to tease her about her cold, ruthless heart.
That was before they started hooking up.
“Joel’s … not my boyfriend.” Nottechnically. “He’s just my manager’s son.”
Truthfully, Joel was both less and more than a boyfriend. He was the lifeboat she climbed inside when her fears tugged like an undertow: fears of losing the career she’d worked so hard tobuild, fears of something dark and looming prying her oldest dream out of her tightly clasped hands.
Her delusions of the woods receded when she was with Joel. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was him that she liked, or the normalcy he represented.
Tom watched her for a moment with those quiet brown eyes, then glanced to his rusty old pickup truck, which was idling behind her car. “I can’t stay long. I have to drive Eshe to her doctor’s appointment.”
