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Which has always been my problem.
In the late August sun on the shore of sparkling Lake Michigan, I explain my Jen-dilemma to Maren over margaritas, who hisses some uncharacteristically sharp words into the balmy freshwater breezes. Tequila brings out the fierceness in my best friend, and it’s easy to imagine her beating off the less-than-kind side effects that come out of being born stunning. I settle back in my chair, letting her get angry on my behalf. It feels immeasurably validating to know it’s not just me. Or even just me and Huck and Arlo. This is why I need to make sure I come back to Michigan more often. The perspective is so good for my pores.
“So what are you going to do? You’re going to fire her ass, right?”
I make a face and brush salt off my fingertips with a napkin. “It’s not that simple. I’m still a cussword behind closed doors. I doubt anyone else would touch me or my career with a ten-foot pole.”
“Even after the success of ‘What They Have’?”
“That was a song. Or okay, afewsongs. It wasn’t a career.” She opens her mouth to protest and I raise my hand. “I’m not downplaying those songs. I promise. I’m saying those weren’t enough to get me back in the good graces of country music. Might never be. Jen’s plan is just that. One plan. It’s not a bad one, exactly. She’s not new to country music. She knows what it takes. I’m just not sure I’m willing to grovel. Maybe that’s not whatIwant.”
“Fair. So what do you want?”
I shrug a shoulder and sip my margarita before saying, “To write and perform music that changes the world.”
Maren grins. “Is that all?”
“That’s all,” I say in a long-drawn-out Carolinian drawl, smirking to finalize the point.
“What does Craig think?”
I sigh. “I mean, I haven’t talked to him about today’s round of emails, so I can’t say specifically…”
“But—”
“But he thinks I should sayfuck offto country music. That they lost their shot at me, and I should go the way of Taylor Swift.”
“Pop music?”
“Or something. Mainstream. L.A. That kind of thing.”
Maren taps her lips, thinking. “And you don’t agree?”
“I don’t disagree,” I say carefully. “I’m just not sure I have what it takes to make it in pop, and also I love my southern roots.”
“Okay, what about Americana or indie folk? Indie anything, really. You don’t have to walk away from your roots, but you don’t have to be held back by them, either.”
“Right. I could do that, too.” Really love that idea, actually. “Huck seems to think I’m bigger than his record company and has been hesitant to produce me on a large scale up to this point.”
She raises a brow and I sigh again. “I know. It’s dumb. He’s a genius.”
“So are you. It seems like it’s a match made in heaven.”
“One would think.”
Maren rolls her eyes, snorting into her drink. “Okay, can I just say something? You’re fucking Lorelai Jones. The ballsiest woman I’ve ever known. This isn’t a ‘one or the other’ kind of thing. You can have his genius brain and his heart and his cock. Just get after it.”
See? Beauty queen on tequila.
I straighten to mirror her. “Who said I want anything to do with his heart. Or his cock?” I add, ducking my head and taking a long sip of my drink.
When I finally look up, Maren is watching me shrewdly. “Okay,” she says after a beat. “If that’s the way we’re playing this, fine. Just his brain, then.”
I ignore her dry tone. “This probably still won’t work, though.”
“Well, what do you want from me?” she asks, grinning. “I’m a park ranger, not a publicist.”
Later that night, after I’m tucked into bed, my suitcase already packed and ready to fly back to Nashville, I pull up my phone and reread his poetry for too long.
