Page 47 of Escape Girl

Well, OK then. I didn’t exactly see why we’d leave when we’d only been here thirty minutes, and everyone was having a good time. Didn’t Tess just say she was happy to be at karaoke night? But I would follow the momentum of the group.

The DJ ended the Jay-Z song with an exasperated harumph into the microphone. “Let’s move on. Welcome to the stage…Emily!”

Andie and Heather burst into applause, and before I could blink, Sloan was at my elbow pulling me across the bar. I glanced over my shoulder to see something kinda funny: Tess and Jo, the most confident women I’d ever met, with stricken gazes and mouths in perfect O’s.

Jo closed her eyes and shook her head. “Shit,” she mouthed.

Jeez, what was her problem? How long did it take to sing a song—four minutes? It would take that long to get everyone ready to go anyway.

My mouth went dry as I climbed the three stairs to the tiny stage. God, maybe this was a terrible idea. I’d only ever sung karaoke in a private room. Suddenly, I was stifling in my suit. I whipped off my jacket before I sweat through it, and threw it down to Sloan.

With trembling hands, I reached for the mic and nodded to the DJ. He covered his own mic and said, “Are you sure you want to sing this? It’s harder than you think.”

Well duh. No one could actually sing Janis like Janis. You just had to “use her as your inspiration and sing it your own way,” my mom used to say.

“I’m sure,” I said.

He flicked his eyes to the ceiling, clearly over his job. “Fine.” He sighed.

He punched something on his keyboard, and I waited for the familiar aggressive guitar chords that started “Piece of My Heart.”

But instead, a softer guitar strumming came through the speakers. Oh no. I looked down at Sloan, who gave me a thumbs-up from the dance floor. I should have been more specific when I told her I wanted to sing Janis. She’d told the DJ to play “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Of course she did. Of course she’d think I’d want to sing a wistful love song about a Bobby.

Panic closed my throat, especially when I looked across the bar and saw so many expectant faces. At our table, Heather and Andie were standing, already clapping for me. Jo and Tess were also standing, but they were staring at the door to the street for some reason. I didn’t care; the fewer eyes on me the better.

The hell with it. I could do this. I knew this song too. I licked my lips and started to sing about a flat tire in Baton Rouge.

Across the bar, people straightened and turned their heads to the stage. On the dance floor, Sloan’s smile became impressed and she gave me a fist pump. The DJ forgot himself and spoke into his live mic. “Oh dang. This one can actually sing.”

As the song deepened, so did my commitment to the performance. I took the mic off the stand, fisted it, closed my eyes, and sang my freakin’ heart into the song’s most iconic line about freedom.

My voice went from sweet and melodic to hoarse and passionate and back again. I sang about a man named Bobby who made me feel good, and feelin’ good being enough, for a time. I sang about a man named Bobby who was looking for something I couldn’t give. I sang about letting a man named Bobby go. And how that left me with nothing. About how I’d swap a whole lonely future for just one day in the past, a day when I’d hold him to me.

As the song came to a close and I sang the final notes, the small crowd became wilder. There were probably only forty people in the place, spread out among tables and barstools, but most of them were smiling at me and applauding, and it wasloud.

I was sweating, embarrassed, and a little drunk. My newly red hair was wild on my head, and I was visibly trembling from all the adrenaline.

I felt…amazing.

With shaking hands, I tried to fumble the mic back into the stand, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Naw, girl,” the DJ called. “How ’bout an encore?”

Ooh, super tempting. But I couldn’t hold up the whole group if Jo and Tess wanted to get out of here so bad. Were they still itching to go?

I squinted past the bright lights of the stage, narrowing in on our table. Heather and Andie were sitting now, and to my surprise, they weren’t clapping or cheering. Andie had a hand over her mouth, and Heather’s face was in profile. She was looking back to the bar. At the other end of the table, Tess stood next to Max, her mouth buried in her hands cupped over his ear. Why did everyone seem so stressed?

Confused, I followed Heather’s gaze to the bar, where I recognized the back of Jo’s head. She stood facing a tall man, both hands up in a “wait one moment” pleading gesture.

The man didn’t appear to see or hear her at all. His blazing eyes stared right over her head. Right into mine.

Bobby.

Was here.

Here.

For the first time in six months, I was face-to-face with my husband.

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