Five
FIVE
A SPARROW BY ANY OTHER NAME
Very proud to say I’m four weeks clean of hot musicians. Cass has been marking off every day on Granny G’s Ryan Gosling calendar hanging in the kitchen. Granny says it’s to encourage me but I know Cass is counting down to my inevitable slip-up. Not to brag, but I haven’t even flirted with anyone in a black crew neck just to be safe.
Instead of kissing lead singers, I’ve been writing my ass off and performing every chance I get. My best paying gig was a fiftieth birthday party for a wealthy Franklin woman. None of the partygoers paid much attention to my songs but since they paid me fifteen hundred bucks, I couldn’t be bothered to care. I’ve mostly played open mic night at Steamers, the coffee shop where I work, which doesn’t pay me at all unless I’m also making drinks.
I’ve written fifteen new songs, a bulk of them about the musicians I’ve dated. Songs don’t count against my rule. I can write about musicians, just not sleep with them.
Okay, full disclosure, when I say I’ve written songs about musicians, most of them are about that guy from Jackson’s party. It’s borderline ridiculous since I don’t even know his name, but I’ve never had such an intense, immediate connection with someone. If Granny G hadn’t fallen that night, who knows what would have happened. I’m so relieved Granny’s okay but I do wonder, if she hadn’t had her accident, if I would have learned his name. If we would have taken things further. If I would have broken my rule the same day I made it.
“Order for Don,” I call, setting a black coffee on the bar.
I’m working a double today, drowning in mobile orders.
A tall-ish, middled-aged man with shaggy brown hair and enough stubble to almost count as a beard walks up to get his drink.
He picks it up and pauses. “Hey, didn’t I see you play at an open mic night here a few days ago?”
My heart swells. “You probably did.”
“Yeah, I remember the hair.”
A week ago I chopped my hair into a shoulder-length bob and dyed it the most luscious shade of lavender, like spun cotton candy. Cass, hair genius, did it for me. She wondered if it made me look too much like a pop star, like my sister, but I don’t care. I feel amazing.
“You were really great.” He takes a cautious sip of his coffee, his eyes on me. “Do you play out a lot?”
“Every chance I get.”
“Write your own stuff?”
I smile. “Every chance I get.”
He nods, answering a silent question. “Would you be interested in an opening slot on an upcoming tour? Fifty cities. Expenses plus a salary.”
I gawk at him. “Quick question. Are you about to turn a pumpkin into a coach driven by some mice?”
He laughs short and quick. “My band is having a local competition to determine the opening act for our tour this summer. It’s word of mouth around town, so pretty limited. I think you’d be perfect for it.”
My brain buzzes louder than the espresso machine. His band? Fifty cities? A salary? This is it. This is the thing I’ve been working for, the thing one out of a million hopefuls ever gets the chance to do. And I’d be doing it on my own. No Lovejoy assumption, no sister expectation. No set-up from my mother. This guy, who has a band , saw me play and wants me on his tour.
“Name the time and place and I’ll be there.”
“You got a pen?”
I search around behind the counter and find two pens. I hand him both, just in case. He writes a name and email address on a napkin and hands it to me.
“Reach out to Jasmine. She’ll get you all the details. Tell her Don invited you.”
“I will literally be sending her an email the second you step out of this coffee shop.”
He smiles as I clutch the napkin to my chest. “Tell me your name?”
Oh, right. My name. I reach across the counter to shake his hand. “I’m Mari. Mari Gold.”
“Glad I ran into you, Mari Gold.”
He turns to leave and I call out to him. “Wait. I hope this isn’t rude to ask but, what’s the name of your band?”
He waits a beat and I think I’ve screwed up, like if I was any sort of serious musician I would have recognized him.
He grins and slides out the door as he says, “Sparrow.”
My stomach falls out of my ass.
Maybe I heard him wrong. Maybe he said another band that sounded like Sparrow, like Marrow. Farrow maybe. Arrow?
“Did the dude from Sparrow just ask you to audition for his tour?” my manager Sage asks.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit . Are you sure he said Sparrow?”
She eyeballs me like I’ve finally lost the last of my marbles. “Uh, yeah. You’re gonna do it, right? Sparrow is like, huge.”
Yes, huge. Their first big hit, “In A Dark Wood,” was written by none other than John Lovejoy, my father. I grew up hearing stories about Sparrow, being told they had a falling out with my father, being told the Lovejoy family would never and could never associate with the likes of Don and Deacon Sparrow as long as any of us shall live.
A specific memory springs to mind. My mother swinging her half-drunk glass of pinot grigio in the air and proclaiming it would be a cold day in hell before a Lovejoy ever performed with the Sparrow brothers. She’s had it out for Sparrow since they were just Don and Deacon Sparrow and my father, the three of them writing songs and playing gigs around Nashville, dreaming about making it big. My father ended up leaving the band right at the beginning of their fame and I’ve never known why. Whenever I bring it up, my mother abruptly changes the subject.
When I came to Nashville, I hoped an opportunity like this tour would come my way, but I never imagined it would be with the one artist I’m technically banned from associating with on any level. I’ve avoided them so much, I didn’t even recognize Actual Don Sparrow when he came into my coffee shop. Technically speaking, this is the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Opening for Sparrow could be my shot. Most people never get a shot and I’ve just been handed a massive one by the lead guitar player of a major band. How can I let it pass me by because of an old family dispute I’m not even involved in? Besides, if I end up on the tour, maybe I can find out what happened between them and my father. I’ll be disinherited by my mother, but it’s not like she’s a pillar of support right now.
I call Cass and she picks up on the second ring.
“Serious question. Should I plunge into my family’s dark past by auditioning to tour with the one band in all of music that’s forbidden to me?”
“Hello to you,” she says, “and absolutely you should.”
I love that she’s able to make this decision without any context.
“You think?”
“I need more details, clearly, but if what you’re saying is you got an opportunity to audition for a tour with Sparrow, like, the Sparrow, the answer is yes no matter what.”
Hearing her say the words solidifies what I knew before I even called her.
First, if I do this, my mother will actually kill me. Like, hire a hitman and erase me from the planet kill me.
Second, I am all the way in.