Didn’t mean she didn’t have a career.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t still blessed.
Speaking of which… She set her gargle bottle down on a ledge and wiggled her fingers. Jackie took one hand, West Jackson took the other, and her bass player, Andrew Yoast stood across from her, completing the circle between Jackie and West.
Liana let Andrew lead the prayer. He was most devout. It was enough that she pulled them together.
With a whisperedamenat the end, they broke apart, and as the lights fell, Andrew and West took their spots on stage.
Liana swished her mouth rinse, vocalizing a bit in the back of her mouth as she did the secret, super gross routine that nobody wanted to see. Jackie snickered at her as she spit it out, and that little secret laugh pushed away the darkness Liana had been feeling.
Fucking Track.
Butthis? She loved performing. Loved connecting with a crowd, watching them sway back and forth as she brought tears to their eyes, or have them jumping for joy as she sang to the rafters about living in the moment, no matter what the cost.
She’d belt that particular song out no problem today.
But first she had to tear some hearts out.
Jackie plugged in her electric guitar, and while they still stood in the dark of the side stage, she played the first three, slow notes of ‘River Bed Lullaby’.
The crowd went wild, and warm, welcome relief poured into Liana’s heart.
It would be a good show.
Jackie walked onto the stage, the spotlight following her all the way across to the far side, then split into two, the second light tracking back to pick up Liana as she walked into view.
The song, her first hit, when she was only eighteen, was about a young woman knowing that she was losing her mother to the bottle. A fearful prophesy that her mother might one day kill herself. A plea not to hurt them both. Begging her to let her daughter help.
It was Liana’s favourite song, still, and Jackie played the part of the wounded mother well, pouring soulful agony into her guitar as Liana sang to her from the other end of the stage.
It was an ugly song, and Savannah brought up a lot of ugly feelings for Liana.
It was where Track had proposed.
Where she caught him cheating on her a year later.
America’s golden boy. Ha.
No, every time she played here, she took the crowd to the dark, ugly parts of her soul first. It gave decent cover to the raw edge of her voice when she finally hit centre stage and held out her hands, offering the crowd a figurative circle of connection just like the one she’d shared with her band before they came on stage.
“Hello, Savannah!” she called out. “You are looking beautiful tonight, I gotta say. Yes, you. Stunning.”
She grinned, then pressed her hand to her chest. “Anyone feeling a little sad right now? I know. Me too. But there’s joy to be found in music, right?”
That was West’s cue, and behind her, he started into the next song.
And on they rolled, through some of her favourites, and all of her hits—and the two columns didn’t always match up, but there was enough to make her and the crowd and the band all happy, so by the time they hit the last song, “Craving”, she was flying.
Until she glanced over at Jackie, whose head was bowed over the guitar, riffing hard, and behind her stood Track.
The mocking look on his face was a punch to Liana’s guts, like he was laughing at her. She stumbled over the bridge, missing the beat where she should have started singing. Her band just looped a few lines again, and this time her voice took flight where it should.
I’ve got cravings that
Would shock you
Desires I can’t
