Page 11 of If Not for My Baby
“Oh, thankGod,” she exhales to Lionel, cutting me off. “She’s kind of hot.”
“I know,” Lionel agrees, appraising me. “I had the same thought.”
Et tu, Lionel?I frown at him and receive a rueful answering shrug.
“Okay,” Jen says, faux smiley. “Off to makeup. You’re going to smash it!”
“No wardrobe?”
Jen brushes her hand through the air as if she could swat my question away. “Halloran asks everyone to wear what they’re comfortable in. But still edgy. Comfortable but cool, you know?”
I don’t, but I say, “No problem, thank y—”
I’m whisked down another long hallway before I can finish the words. I guess my lucky jeans and white tank will have to do. We pass a swath of dark curtains where I can hearscaffolding and instruments being moved around on the other side. The stage must be out there. My stomach drops—
No, flutters. Stay away.
As we hurry down a dark hallway lined with posters of great blues musicians, Lionel talks while texting. “Molly will be in there waiting for you. She can help with makeup. Here’s my cell—” My phone pings in my back pocket. “Text me if you need anything. And turn that off before the show, obviously.”
And then he’s gone, down another hallway, yelling at someone who is only holding six coffees, not seven, and I’ve been deposited before a door markedWomen’s Dressing Room.
Try as I might to fight them, the flutters have definitely arrived. As has heart racing and dry mouth. I don’t get stage fright, and I’m not even nervous about meeting new people—what I am is inwayover my head. There is no statistical way I don’t mess up horrifically. I haven’t rehearsed. I don’t know the lead singer. I’ve only ever performed to a crowd of hundreds.
But there’s nothing I can do now. Time is of the essence, and I cannot fail my mom and Mike and Everly and Jen and Lionel and all these people who are counting on me…or who just think I’m “kind of hot.” I suck down some fortifying breaths, turn my phone off as instructed, and push my way inside.
The dressing room is far mellower than I expect. Probably because Lionel is a frantic tornado of chaos, and in here it’s actually quiet. Peaceful, in fact.
There’s only three other women inside. One who’s scarygorgeous, with luxurious black curls and flawless bronze skin, wearing a dark slip dress over mesh long sleeves. She’s applying eyeliner perfectly in the mirror under the soft fluorescent bulbs and gives me asuphead nod when I close the door behind me.
Lying on the couch reading an oldNewsweekis a woman I’d guess is in her late forties, wearing beat-up, untied Doc Martens, baggy cords, and chewing a toothpick.
“Hey.” Her voice is raspy and deep. “Are you the backup singer?”
“Yeah.” My heart rate lowers with her energy. “I’m Clementine.”
“Wren,” she says around the toothpick. “Make yourself comfortable.”
The last girl has a braid hanging down her back and her freckled nose buried in a laptop. She’s sitting cross-legged on a stool pulled up to a fold-out table in the otherwise bare, windowless room. “Give me two secs,” she says, eyes still on the screen.
“Take your time.” In fact, I appreciate the breather.
Some Bluetooth speaker is playing the Spice Girls, which I have a gut feeling was Freckles’s choice, and a single drugstore candle is burning next to mesh-top gal. I take a seat in the other red plush chair before the mirror.
“You can use my makeup,” Mesh Top offers.
“Thanks.” The word comes out a bit high-pitched.
“Molly,” she says, sticking out one hand while applying bronzer with the other.
I shake it as I say, “Clementine.”
“And I’m Indy,” Freckles adds, closing her computer. “Sorry, had to upload some last-minute shots.”
My expression must betray my confusion, because Indy clarifies. “I’m not in the band. I take all the photos and videos and run Halloran’s socials while we’re on tour. Wren plays drums and Molly is lead backing vocals.”
A knock at the door has both Indy and me turning, though Molly and Wren don’t bother.
“Come in,” Indy calls out.
