Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody #2) (20 page)

“Caleb, meet Paige, my social media manager.”

Paige opened her huge purse and dropped the iPad inside. When she looked up, she ignored Caleb and addressed Jordyn with something bordering on contempt in her voice.

“Social media manager? Is that what I am now?”

“Well, I had to give you a title.”

“Nice to meet you, Paige. I’m Caleb.”

Paige looked at his extended hand but didn’t move to shake it, saying instead, “Yeah, I know who you are.” Then she looked back to Jordyn. “I’ll be working in the room.”

Caleb watched her walk away, her big bag bouncing as she strode toward the exit. “She’s friendly,” he said.

“Don’t worry, you two will hit it off, I’m sure.”

Caleb doubted that very much, but he didn’t bother saying so. He excused himself to go and get something to eat.

“Will you grab me a scone, honey?” Jordyn called after him. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us and I need my energy.”

The bus took them to the same studio lot as before. The exterior looked unchanged, but inside everything was different. Bigger, better, flashier. There were more lights and more backdrops and more seats for a larger audience. There was even a phony red-carpet staging area, complete with fake paparazzi snapping their photos as they entered.

They were led to a fitting room, where stylists began working on each of them for the shoot. Caleb’s stylist liked his jeans and his boots but picked out a different shirt for him and made him lose the leather cuff.

“We want you more
American Bandstand
and less
Back to the Future
for this shoot,” the stylist said, standing back and looking at Caleb. “Besides, the eighties are so over.”

“I like the eighties,” Caleb replied.

The stylist pretended to bite his fist, saying, “I can tell.”

When they had all had a turn in the makeup chair, they were herded onstage for a photo shoot. The photographer was mounted on a platform at the end of a large boom, suspended out above the stage, and he barked down directions to his lighting crew from behind his enormous camera lens like some kind of crazed, one-eyed photography god riding on a cloud.

When they took a break to adjust the lights, Caleb looked at his competition. Panda, the shy punk rock flower child who
seemed to surprise even herself with her talent each time she sang. Jasmine, an African-American woman with a voice that could bring down the house and a smile that could put it back together again. Carrie Ann, who was as country as they came, her blond hair curled just so, her skirt cut just above her knees, her boots covered in rhinestones and glitter. And Erica, the young, sad-eyed folk artist who looked to Caleb like every Sunday afternoon singer he’d ever seen in Seattle coffeehouses, her hair a little messy, her posture slightly slouched as if her natural position were cradling a guitar.

And then there was Jordyn. Jordyn and him. The indie rock couple, he presumed. The edgy artists filled with angst who sang about heartbreak and love. The mix was almost too perfect, as if they had each been handpicked by a casting director to play a part. And Caleb guessed that in a way, each of them had. He wondered if they already knew who would win, if the whole thing was rigged, or if at least the live show would be real.

A production assistant stepped in front of him and Jordyn and looked them over. Then she reached down and put their hands together, stepped back, and looked at them again.

“That’s much better,” she said.

Caleb dropped Jordyn’s hand.

“She won’t bite you. Just hold hands long enough for a few shots, okay? Since you two are one act.”

Caleb relented and took Jordyn’s hand again. Then he thought about the photo, about where it might be printed or shown on TV, and that made him think of Jane seeing it. She had said she didn’t care. And maybe she didn’t. But he did.

The photographer called for everyone to smile, but just before he took his first shot, Caleb pulled his hand away.

Caleb waited for Jordyn in the hotel rehearsal room but she didn’t come. When he finally went up to her room, he heard arguing inside and decided not to knock. He was walking away when the door opened and Paige rushed out and stormed past him toward the elevators. Jordyn was standing in the open doorway, and Caleb couldn’t decide if she looked more furious or more frightened as she watched Paige leave. Then Jordyn noticed him and her disposition completely changed, softening into her usual easy charm.

“Hello, Caleb. I didn’t see you there. Do you mind if we rehearse in my room? I don’t feel like facing cameras today.”

Caleb paused and looked back toward the elevator. Paige scowled at him as the door slid shut. He turned to Jordyn.

“I left my guitar in the rehearsal room.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “I have plenty. Come on in.”

It looked like a bomb had gone off inside her room. Clothes and costumes hanging everywhere, cosmetics taking up every inch of the dresser top, tangles of power strips and computer cords hanging from the laptops and phones that were set up on the small desk, and two acoustic guitars and one electric on stands against the wall next to a keyboard.

She handed him a guitar.

“There isn’t anywhere to sit,” Caleb said.

“Sure there is,” she replied, taking up her guitar from its stand and sitting on the bed. Then she reached over and picked up the clothes off of the bed next to her and flung them away.

“You’re not going to play standing up, are you?”

Caleb sat next to her and the soft hotel mattress sank beneath his weight, and she exaggerated its effect and leaned in to him and laughed. He ignored her and lifted his guitar into place but quickly realized that the way they were sitting wouldn’t work. His guitar was hitting hers, so he flipped it the other way.

“You grew up poor, didn’t you?”

“That’s an awfully odd thing to ask,” he said. “Rude too.”

“Maybe. But who plays a guitar that way?”

“Yeah, so what? I’m left-handed. I play both.”

“But who taught you to play upside down?”

“I learned myself.”

“By ear and wrong side up on a right-handed guitar?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Wow,” she said, appearing impressed. “I have southpaw friends, but their parents bought them left-handed guitars.”

“Maybe they’re all left-handed guitars,” he said. “Did you ever consider that you’re the one playing upside down?”

She placed her hand on his arm. “You know what, Caleb? You make me smile.”

Jordyn held his stare for several quiet seconds, and he thought he saw something hidden there in her eyes, something she wanted to confess. But then she softly shook her head and took her hand away and began to play. He joined in and they sang their lines back and forth to each other, first him, then her. She played on for several bars after Caleb had quit. She seemed to be lost in the song. When he didn’t come in with her for the chorus, she stopped playing and opened her eyes.

“Why’d you stop?” she asked.

“I’m just not feeling it.”

“Not feeling it?”

“Sorry. A love ballad just isn’t the right song for us. I want to play the song I showed you. The one I wrote.”

“Caleb, we offered them both to the producers and this is the song they want. And it’s also what America wants to hear.”

“I’m not interested in playing what America wants to hear. I want to play what I want to say. This song doesn’t feel real.”

“Why can’t you just fake it until you make it?” she asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just pretend you feel it and maybe you will.”

“Maybe I don’t want to feel it,” he said, setting the guitar down on the bed and standing to leave.

He had crossed the room and was reaching for the door handle when he felt Jordyn’s hand on his shoulder.

“Please, don’t go.”

He paused but didn’t turn to face her. A kind of quiet guilt was sitting in his gut like a bellyful of cold water, and although he wasn’t entirely sure why it was there, he didn’t like any of the possibilities that came to mind.

“Come on, Caleb. This is a big week for us.”

He turned, but she kept her hand on his shoulder and let it cross over in front of her so that her forearm was now resting against his chest. She looked up at him and blinked her long black lashes, and her eyes pleaded for him to stay.

“Please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

They stood looking at each other.

Sunlight filtered in through the sheer curtains, illuminating the edges of Jordyn’s hair, and an aureole of white light surrounded her face, giving her the appearance of some young angel beamed in through the window to beg him to return with her to heaven. He was searching for the courage to break the spell, willing himself to turn now and leave, when her computer rang and a face popped up on its screen. She looked back.

“Oh, this is perfect timing. My producer’s calling on Skype and I wanted you to meet him.”

She turned to answer the call, but the door was already closing behind Caleb as she said hello.

He paused for the briefest moment in the hall, with his hand still on the handle before he let it latch and walked away, headed for the rehearsal room to practice on his own guitar, the one Jane had bought for him as a gift.

Chapter 17

W
hen the day had finally arrived, Caleb could never have guessed how much pressure and panic went on backstage in preparation to pull off a live TV show. There were handlers running everywhere, reminding people when they were due onstage, and what their cues were, and when they should exit and how. The makeup artists were constantly on the move, touching up lip gloss and powder, and then circling back to start again. And the producer walked through it all, hollering at everyone to hurry up, as if they were all sitting around doing nothing and needed his motivation.

In the midst of all this chaos, Jordyn was the only one who seemed perfectly at home. She was standing in front of a mirror while a stylist pinned her dress, holding her guitar and striking different poses, as if to determine which angle might be her best.

“You sure seem to be enjoying this,” Caleb said, stepping up beside her at the mirror.

“This is nothing,” she said. “I used to do pageants when I was a kid, and they were way crazier backstage than this.”

“Was that before or after junior Juilliard?”

“Hey, I told you that in confidence,” she said, nodding toward the woman at her hem.

The stylist didn’t even look up from the dress. “Don’t worry,” she said, taking a pin from her mouth, “we don’t hear a thing. Just ignore us like everyone else does.”

Jordyn looked Caleb up and down in the mirror. “You look silly in that suit.”

“Yeah, well, you look equally ridiculous in that stupid dress,”
he retorted. Then he glanced at the stylist and quickly added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to dig on your costume.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” she said. “I just make sure they fit, I don’t design them. And I agree, it does look ridiculous.”

Jordyn huffed and shook her head. “Oh, you two are great to have in my ear before I go out onstage in front of millions of people. I could have used you at those pageants to help lower my self-esteem when I was a girl. And the dress goes with the song, Caleb.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m kind of having second thoughts about the song.”

“It’s a little late now. It’s already cued up and approved.”

“But I like the one I wrote better.”

“No way. It’s too moody. We need votes, honey.”

“Don’t call me honey.”

“Whatever. We need votes. You ever watch those other singing shows? I’ll bet you do. You don’t? Well, if you did, you’d know that the country girl always wins. Why? Because America loves country. And that means until we get Carrie Ann off the show, we need to pull some of that vote.”

“Fine,” he said. “But next week we sing mine.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue but she didn’t even get the chance, because the producer appeared at the door, waving his clipboard and yelling at them from across the room.

“Jordyn. Caleb. We need you stage-side five minutes ago.”

They stood just offstage and watched from behind a partition as Jasmine finished a ballad that brought the audience to its feet. She bowed and smiled and faced the judges as if to see whether she was going through, even though the vote was now in the viewers’ hands. The judges all threw her bouquets of praise, and then the host hugged her and looked into the cameras and told America to be sure to vote for her after the show.
Then the applause faded, the lights brightened, and sound technicians flooded the stage and reset the microphones for Jordyn’s and Caleb’s guitars. The digital backdrop switched to a country sunrise. The producer called for quiet on the set.

“Live in five, four, three, two, one.”

The host bounded onstage and grinned into the cameras. “Welcome back, America. If you didn’t already know this show was special, you will after hearing these next two artists perform live. They met on our set and formed a bond that couldn’t be broken, a bond so strong they decided to go on together as a duo. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the newly formed duo Jordyn and Caleb Entwined.”

“That’s your cue,” the producer whispered. “Go, go, go!”

Jordyn switched her guitar into her other hand and took Caleb’s hand in hers and led him out onstage. It happened so fast he had no time to think, let alone protest. They faced the cameras and the crowd, and bowed. Then they took their places on their stools and plugged in their guitars, just as they’d rehearsed.

The crowd had disappeared behind the bright lights but Caleb knew they were there. Just as he knew the cameras were there too. The background music started, the big camera panned across them slowly on its robotic boom, and Jordyn plucked the opening notes on her guitar. Caleb fell in behind the beat and joined her, and then even though they hadn’t rehearsed it, she smiled into the camera and said, “This is for all you lonely lovers out there.”

Then they began to sing.

Caleb sat on the edge of his bed with his elbows resting on his knees, one hand holding his bowed head while the other held the phone to his ear.

“Did Marj watch it with you? What did she think?”

“She loved it,” Jane said. “She gave you a standing ovation right here in our living room. Buttercup loved it too. You got three yips and a bark.”

“Did you vote?”

“Did we vote? We sat here texting for two hours. Or at least, I did. Marj has a landline and she ran over there and dialed the eight hundred number a hundred times. Don’t worry, baby. I know without a doubt that you’re going through. You sounded great. You looked great. Except, what was with that hat and that silly bell-bottomed suit?”

“Oh gosh, I know. It was terrible, right? Jordyn seems to think we need to court the country vote. Can you imagine? I’ve got mad respect for country music, but dressing like Jim Reeves is not really my thing.”

“Well,” Jane said, sighing into the phone, “when you’re entwined with someone else, you have to make sacrifices.”

“Come on, Jane. I told you I didn’t pick the name. Jordyn didn’t either. It was the stupid producers.”

“I know, I know. I’m just razzing you. It’s a good name.”

“Well, knock it off,” he said. “I’m sick over this whole thing. I feel like a fraud or something. Like a sellout.”

“You’re not a sellout, baby. It’s only for TV.”

“It’s just that I miss you, Jane.”

“I miss you too. You know what I did today? I sure wasn’t getting my face powdered under any lights. I was walking my route and stepped in the biggest puddle of puke you’ve ever seen. Looked like hamburger meat and cottage cheese. And there was a trail of it leading to the culprit sleeping in a church doorway. Middle of the afternoon too. The smell followed me until I finally threw the shoes away and bought new ones.”

“I’m sorry, babe. That sucks. But what were you doing writing tickets at a church?”

“It’s on my route,” she said. “I walk where they tell me to walk. But I do have a confession for you.”

“Let me guess. You miss me so much that you voted for someone else, hoping I’d come home?”

“No, silly head. Although I do miss you. But it’s just the opposite. As I was passing the church, I prayed for you to win if you’re supposed to. Is that selfish and wrong?”

“Considering you had just stepped in a parishioner’s puke, I think you were entitled to one selfish prayer. Are you going to watch the results show tomorrow?”

“I can’t, baby. It’s Thursday. I work night shift downtown. But Marj said she’d watch and call me with updates.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll text you too if I can. Now I had better get some rest. I love you.”

“I love you too. And good luck.”

“Luck? I don’t need luck. I’ve got your prayers.”