Lou and I climb into the back.
Manny’s on the phone with the venue in Charleston, firing off questions while the car hums along to our next stop.
“Will their crew be cleared out at noon? Ours needs to start load-in right away, or we’ll be late for sound check.” He pauses, nodding. “What about the rest of the rider? Can I assume you read it?”
“Ah, riders,” I say. Lou shifts, and something about her body language makes me keep talking. “I saw a stage once thatgot loaded past its weight limit, and it collapsed during sound check.”
Her eyes pop. “Seriously?”
“Scariest thing I ever saw. After that, the band added a canary in the coal mine to that rider. What’s Manny’s ‘gotcha’ request? You have one, right?”
“Of course I have one,” Lou says, though her voice dips just slightly, hesitantly. And she shifts in her seat again.
She has no clue what I’m talking about.
Most people think the list of requirements artists send to a venue is just a diva’s wish list—colored candy, scented candles, that kind of thing. But really, it’s the artist’s way of making sure every detail, from tech setup to safety to backstage needs, is handled in advance. A good rider keeps people safe and shows whether the venue actually read the fine print.
Lou’s expression hits like a quiet bruise. She straightens, shoulders back, but her fingers curl in her lap, like she’s bracing for something.
I can’t be sure, but I think she feels … stupid.
I shift on the leather seat to see her without craning my neck. I keep my voice calm—matter-of-fact. No teasing, no judgment. Just enough to give her a foothold.
“People love hearing about how Van Halen or Mariah Carey have the most demanding, specific requests in their tour riders. They think it shows how entitled those musicians are, but they don’t get that it’s the band’s way of trusting that the venue is safe and up to standard. Van Halen didn’t care about brown M&Ms. They cared about the stage not collapsing and killing people because the specific line items weren’t followed correctly.”
Lou nods, like she gets it now. “Yellow daffodils.”
“Hmm?”
“The random thing in my rider Manny added. The canary in a coal mine. It’s yellow daffodils.”
“Not roses, huh?”
“I’m not a roses kind of girl. They’re pretty but … generic.”
I nod. “Smart. That’s specific enough that they wouldn’t have those on hand without having checked.”
Why do I like that she picked something other than roses? I don’t know a thing about flowers.
And why do I feel the need to validate her at all?
“What page of the rider’s it on?”
“Page twelve,” Manny says from the front seat. He’s covering the speaker so he can talk to us. “Tucked between microphone and amp requests.”
Manny chuckles, and I find myself doing the same as he goes back to his call.
“Very smart,” I repeat.
Lou smiles.
We reach the audiologist’s office, and Manny points out Lou’s shiny, nondescript metallic tour bus as it pulls into the parking lot of the medical complex. Bus drivers are held to a strict ten-hour driving day, so a good driver never starts the bus until he absolutely has to. The thing is spotless, reflecting the morning light like a polished stone, the tinted windows giving away nothing.
Manny heads toward it, talking rapidly to the person on the other end of yet another call.
I follow Lou inside, where the doctor has agreed to open two hours early for privacy.
“Thanks again for gettin’ us in so quick,” Lou says as a short, fit doctor unlocks the door and leads us into her exam room.
