Chapter 34
One year ago
Excerpt, MusicToursRevue
…We hear one of the most anticipated tickets this upcoming year will be Elvie’s Dark Waters tour.
Her music can be divisive, but it’s haunting and lyrical, and she has a deeply devoted fan base.
Then there are those who will be watching closely to see her implode, as she’s certainly caused a lot of buzz and her personal tragedy has largely overshadowed her music career.
At least she continues to play with Selene Huynh and Lorraine Delarosa, but who knows how long that will last after the stress of touring during a pandemic…
Five-star review,
…First of all, I am SO glad to be cruising again after the lockdowns. Who says it’s not safe? I wear a mask and sanitize. It’s just wonderful to be out on the water again. And the best part? The ship staff. Everyone, from our server to the housekeeping staff, looked so thrilled to be back too.
And the music this time around was wonderful.
There was this band who played every night in the lounge, and the bassist was incredible.
I’ve always had a bit of a thing for bassists, but luck had me marrying a neurologist. Anyway, he looked so familiar, so I asked him, and it was Dante Baker!
Hubby and I first saw him on our Norway cruise several years back.
Isn’t that wonderful? We asked what he had been up to since then, and he just said “this and that.” Then our tablemates, this lovely couple from Arizona, told us that he used to sing with Elvie and her band!
We just loved her on that America Sings!
It’s a shame Fire Mountain won, though I do love that song.
What a wonderful world.
* * *
Two Months Ago, Georgia
Ellery didn’t move. Her phone buzzed but she couldn’t reach it. She didn’t want to reach it. Tyler, long ago Tyler, wannabe famous Tyler, wouldn’t stop calling.
She should have listened to Dante in the first place and never hooked up with him. She was twenty-two; she should be forgiven for such youthful indiscretions. Just her shitty luck that Logan had signed him as a client too.
She closed her eyes and leaned against the window of the tour bus. Everything here was hot and sticky, and the air buzzed with insects to the point it sounded alive.
Maybe the air was alive. Maybe everything was alive, except for her.
In the background, Abe and Selene and Lorraine moved around the bus, the buzzing drowning out their noise.
A few more weeks. A few more stops. Then she could rest. She could go back to the little bungalow she had bought with the money from the damn album release, pull the covers over her head, and wallow.
If only she could write. Logan kept pestering her to “put her feelings on the page.” But how? Inspiration wasn’t a light switch she could flick.
The bus sped along the highway, farmlands, dim in the faint light from the moon, barely visible.
But they were out there, stretching to the horizon.
When she had been a child, her parents had driven her and Samara down to visit Rock City and Ruby Falls and Chattanooga.
Her sister had always been scared of the dark and had clung so tightly to her hand on a cavern tour, Ellery thought she’d broken her fingers.
But they weren’t broken.
She opened her eyes and traced a design in the halo left by her breath on the bus window. Her fingers weren’t broken, but her family was. She was.
She had lost her inspiration and didn’t know how to find it anymore. She was washed up before she was even thirty. She had made compromise after compromise and what had it gotten her? Criticism.
Her phone buzzed again, then once more. It would only be Logan.
She swiped to Accept and held the phone to her ear.
“How did Atlanta go?” he asked, brusque. He could pile on the compassion when he needed to, but apparently this didn’t warrant it.
“Fine.” She leaned her head against the rest of her seat. Jasper sat beside her, staring at her accusatorially. Why don’t you write? Why don’t you sing? he whispered.
She covered him up with her jacket.
“I’m getting in more tour reviews. People are loving it. How are you coming on the new songs?”
“Great.” If great meant she couldn’t write a single word.
Maybe she should take up drinking. It had worked for countless artists before her. On second thought, perhaps not as they had intended.
“Good, good. We need them if we want to capitalize on this momentum.” He paused and she heard a muffled command, like he was giving orders to an underling. When he returned, his voice lowered. “What happened with Chris?”
“What do you mean?” She picked at a piece of lint on her sweatpants. She let Maria truss her up like a prize pig onstage, but the minute she had access to her own things, she headed straight back into cozy sweats and hoodies.
“He says you won’t return his calls.”
“There’s no need for me to return his calls. We’re not a couple.”
Logan sighed dramatically. “Look, it’s a business gig. If you’re in a relationship, you appear more desirable.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, it is, but that’s the business. He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s not. But he’s also not my guy.” Chris’s idea of a good date was to get smoothies and sit on the back porch, running his lines until she knew them better than he did.
He was perfectly nice, but there was no spark.
He certainly wasn’t— “I don’t think he even listens to music. Not stuff he can’t work out to.”
“You’re gatekeeping. But fine. Fine. Plenty of fish in the sea. Tell me the kind of person you want, and I’ll set it up. A celebrity romance keeps your name out there.”
That seemed entirely the wrong reason to date someone.
Ellery closed her eyes again, wishing she had the strength to just turn off the damn phone. She wanted to sleep for a thousand years.
Though when she closed her eyes, all she saw was Dante. His face, his hands, the strum of his fingers along the frets, against her skin.
Tears welled behind her eyes but she swallowed them.
There was no use. He was out of the country, sailing the North Sea and playing the Eagles for fleece-jacketed boomers.
He hadn’t talked to her in months, not since the articles about her and Chris had been published.
She had sent him text after text, trying to explain that it hadn’t been real, but he hadn’t responded.
Yearning sliced through her so sharply it stole her breath.
“Ellery? Did you hear me?” Logan repeated.
“Southampton.” The word was a whisper, a half-baked idea, but as it emerged, it solidified and took form.
“What?”
“London. After this tour, I’m going to London.”
Logan sighed again, and she pictured him pinching the furrow between his brows. “Fine. Just let me find you an appropriate escort. I’m sure I can dig up someone to pretend to date you in the UK.”
Ellery hung up without saying anything else. London to Southampton. Dante would be in Southampton at some point. She could surprise him. Yes. That was a good idea. She would have to surprise him, since he wouldn’t answer her texts.
Only a little longer. Georgia to Louisville to Milwaukee to Denver to LA. Then she would be done.