Page 41 of When I Picture You
Corkscrew Fest was a blur.
The skeleton crew of Renee and Alejandro rode with Lola from the hotel to the festival site. The moment their SUV pulled into view of the back gates, the horde of Lo-Lites gathered there burst into screams. As they slowly rolled past the fans, who had clearly been waiting for hours in the unseasonable Labor Day heat, and through the security gate, Lola asked Cassidy to find someone to hand out water. Then she asked the driver to stop and, to Renee’s surprise, hopped out of the car. For the next thirty minutes, Lola stuck her hand through the chain-link fence to sign autographs and squeeze hands, and once, to touch the head of a baby. Renee was transfixed: she kept expecting Lola’s fake smile to appear, but it never did. Lola gave every fan her undivided attention. She listened to their stories and teared up or laughed along with them.
From there, they tailed Lola: to a meet and greet where she met more fans with the same care, to interviews with local radio and recording promos for Corkscrew’s sponsors, to a Zoom conference meeting about the swimwear line. Lola was in constant motion, the sole exception being the ten minutes in which Cassidy forced her to sit down and eat something, but as night fell, everything narrowed to the moment when she’d take the stage. Her obligations gave way to mugs of tea and hair and makeup and stretching and vocal warm-ups. Lola stopped acknowledging the camera. And then, seemingly all at once, the band, backup dancers, and Lola were joining hands backstage to visualize a successful show, over the growing roar of the crowd.
Renee took her position at the side of the stage, alone with her camera. They’d license the performance footage from the festival, but Renee wanted to capture these hidden, backstage moments. Alejandro was out enjoying the show. Even with the nicest mic the production had, he wouldn’t be able to pick up anything over the roar of the speakers.
A shiver of anticipation ran down Renee’s spine as she filmed Lola in her final moment in the wings: her small body, clad in a sparkly minidress, was taut with concentration, her expression hard as she listened to a legion of fans call her name. Then she got her cue, and she wason, strutting onto the stage. A wave of screams, of cheering, of sheerenergyrolled off the crowd like a solar flare—and into it, Lola began to sing.
Renee had watched Lola rehearse. She had heard at Claudia’s wedding how Lola’s voice took on another quality in front of an audience. Renee had imagined she knew Lola in her element. She hadn’t fully understood that Lola was astar.
Lola navigated the stage like she owned it. She was in perfect synchronicity with the band, backup singers, and dancers, like the fluid parts of a single creature. At the chorus of her opener, Lola tossed her hair and held out the mic and the audience burst into sound, singing her lyrics back so loudly they must have been heard for miles around. All these fans knew every word to every song. And Lola had written them all, deliberately chosen each syllable that formed their connection.
That connection was the power of Lola’s music. Renee couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it before. Yes, it was romantic and a littledramatic and earnest. But it meant something important to her fans. Hell, it meant something important to Renee.
Renee didn’t know if she could render this feeling on film. But she wanted to try. It had been a long time since she had felt a spark like that, and it raced through her like a sugar rush.
The main set ended, and Lola ran offstage opposite where Renee stood. Renee zoomed in on Lola catching her breath, with her hands on her hips and her head tipped back. She looked so small—so human—when just a few moments before she’d been a supernova.
Just then, Lola looked across the stage and met Renee’s gaze. In the middle of everything, Lola smiled—her real smile. Renee grinned back so widely she bit her lip to avoid looking silly.
Then the band came back on, and someone handed Lola the lavender guitar. Lola strode to the center of the stage, slipped it over her shoulder, and strummed one single note …
The crowd went crazy, cheering louder than they had all night. Renee’s heart went to her throat. As Lola stepped up to the mic, her gaze slid stage left—and she locked eyes with Renee.
“I want to be closer to you,” Lola sang. A smile teased her lips. “But what else is new?”
***
Lola’s trailer was dim, lit only by the ambient glow of the floodlights outside. She was alone. She needed it after the rush of a big stage. It was exhausting to tap into the emotions behind every song and let them read on her face, in her voice, through the strings and keys. It was what made her live performances so special. Her fans loved that Lola felt the same things they did, that she traveled with them through trouble and joy and hope. But tonight, there was one person in particular that Lola hoped had felt that connection.
Lola allowed herself a small, relieved sigh. No matter what her label and Gloriana and even Lola herself feared, her fans hadn’t forgotten what they loved about Lola Gray.
Her phone lit up, aggressively bright in the trailer’s dimness. As if she’d heard Lola thinking, Gloriana was calling.
“Hi, honey! How’d it go?”
“You know me, nothing’s perfect. But I think it went well,” Lola said.
“Listen, I wanted to chat as soon as possible.” Lola froze, bracing herself for something she wouldn’t want to hear. “You’ve canceled your last two sessions with your producer. You were prepping for this show, and I love that, but it’s time to get to work. We need progress on demos.”
“Iammaking progress, okay? I don’t want to rush the material.”
“I don’t want you to either, but I’m the messenger here. Thelabelneeds reassuring. They were understanding about the delay, but now it’s time to prove we were worth it.”
Lola’s bottom lip was so tightly pinched between her teeth, the skin was breaking. Even if the gap since her last album had cut into their profits, she’d still made her label hundreds of millions of dollars. Now she felt like she’d been scolded for putting off her homework.
“Maybe it’s time to explore bringing someone in. Artists do it all the time, completely discreetly. There’s no shame in asking for help.”
“I don’t need help!” Lola cried, panic flaring through her. “I need time and space to focus. I have so much going on, and then this movie too—how can I write when cameras are following me everywhere?”
Gloriana sighed. “A show of good faith would help, so stop canceling on Ackerlund. We still pay for those sessions. You have timebooked with him next week, so show up, put some work in, and everyone will be happy.”
“Of course,” Lola agreed, her voice small. “No problem.”
BY THE TIMELola emerged from her trailer, any satisfaction from the show had been swept away by a simmering anxiety. Henry sat outside, but Cassidy had already left to meet up with friends. Renee, Alejandro, and a few members of Lola’s band were chatting at a picnic table nearby.
Renee sprung up the moment she saw Lola.
