Run rose run, p.13
Run, Rose, Run, page 13
Two people—a stern-looking woman and a man with a baby’s face and a pro wrestler’s build—came into the room. Once Mikey sat down, they silently took their places at the table on either side of him. Mikey introduced Meredith and Hitch, calling them his “A team,” and then he crooked his finger, and a pretty assistant appeared to ask if anyone wanted a cappuccino.
AnnieLee asked for a double. She also wanted one of the fancy doughnuts on the platter in the center of the table, but she didn’t want to get powdered sugar all down the front of her shirt.
“Don’t be shy,” Mikey said, pushing the platter toward her.
“I didn’t come here for breakfast, Mr. Shumer,” she said.
“Well, you’ve got a giant basket of food back at your motel anyway, don’t you?” He grinned. “So let’s talk business. Your single’s on the radio. People are calling in, saying they love it—they’re trying to figure out who this AnnieLee Keyes chanteuse is. Have you checked your streaming numbers?”
AnnieLee looked at him blankly. Ruthanna had told her that she needed to focus on the music, and so that’s what she’d done.
“Well, Meredith here did. She can go over all the figures if you want her to. They’re pretty solid for a non-album single with absolutely zero promotion, paid or otherwise, but you’ve got a long way to go.” He leaned back as the assistant placed their coffees in front of them. “You’re not even on social media, are you, AnnieLee?”
“I’ve been writing songs, not tweets, Mr. Shumer. I’ve finished seven real good ones, just in the last couple weeks.”
“Seven, huh? Good for you,” he said. “That’ll keep you onstage for about thirty minutes. What’ll you do for the rest of the time? Magic tricks? You gonna pull a bunny out of a Stetson?”
AnnieLee laughed, but she knew that Mikey was challenging her. Maybe he was even doubting her abilities. “I’ll write more songs,” she said. “No problem. I’ve been rhyming since I could talk, and I’ve been singing longer than that. I can write a verse faster than you can eat one of those doughnuts.”
Mikey Shumer reached slowly and deliberately for a doughnut. “On your mark,” he said. “Get set. Go.”
AnnieLee grabbed her guitar out of its case and strummed a quick C, then F, G, back to C. Basic. Familiar. Then she began to sing, looking Mikey Shumer right in the eyes as she did.
You walk into the room like a big man, do ya
Never seen you before, but I can see right through ya
You tell me you can help me go high and go far
While you’re sittin’ in a chair that’s worth more than my car
Then she took her hands from the strings and grinned. “I’m just kidding,” she said. “I don’t even own a car.”
Mikey Shumer stared at her. He’d taken two bites of the doughnut.
AnnieLee felt her palms begin to tingle. Had she gone too far? Had she offended him? She couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. “These chairs are really comfortable, though,” she added, just to break the silence.
Mikey Shumer began to laugh. After a moment, the others began to laugh, too.
“You’ve got fire, girl,” Mikey said. “I like it.”
“Damn straight I do,” AnnieLee said. “Because I ain’t got nothing else.”
“I’ve got fire, too,” Mikey said. His voice grew softer, confidential. “That’s why we’ll make such a good team. Your friend, Ruthanna, she’s been out of the game for too long. She doesn’t need the hustle. She’s gone soft. Me, though, I live the hustle.”
“She doesn’t seem to like you much,” AnnieLee said.
“That’s true. I can’t understand why, though. I’m an extremely charming person, once you get to know me.” Mikey Shumer set the half-eaten doughnut on the table, and the assistant appeared out of nowhere to take it away. “Tell me, AnnieLee, how much longer does Ruthanna think you ought to keep grinding it out in honky-tonks?”
AnnieLee plucked lightly at her guitar strings. “She wants me to get experience. You know: easy come, easy go, put your time in—that kind of thing?” Even as she said it, she wondered if Ruthanna was right. Why do something slow if you have the chance to do it fast?
“Maybe she doesn’t have your best interests at heart,” Mikey said lightly.
AnnieLee frowned. “If she doesn’t, why’s she doing everything she’s doing? You think I know how to get a song on Spotify?”
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’” Mikey smiled at her with teeth that must’ve cost ten grand in bleach and crowns.
“I don’t believe it,” AnnieLee said. “There’s no way.”
Mikey shrugged. “I’m only suggesting…different interpretations? Anyway, we can discuss Nashville’s favorite daughter later. Let’s hear you play a song—one that’s a little less spontaneous, how about?”
“Okay,” AnnieLee said, relieved. This, finally, was ground she felt comfortable on. Her fingers curved around the fretboard again. After thinking for a moment, she strummed the opening to “Dark Night, Bright Future.” She closed her eyes as she sang so she didn’t have to look at Mikey’s shrewd, avid face.
Like the phoenix from the ashes, I shall rise again
The song was yearning and insistent, and her voice flew around the glass-walled conference room, as bright and spectacular as a mythical bird.
Got so much ahead of me
The past is gonna set me free
Learn from it and just believe
That I can touch the sky
When the song was over, Mikey and his A team—and the assistant, too, who’d reappeared to listen—clapped so hard that the noise hurt AnnieLee’s ears. Mikey Shumer was giving her a one-man standing ovation.
Her cheeks felt hot, and she could feel a trickle of sweat running down between her breasts. “Thank you,” she said. “I can play another one if you want.”
“You don’t even need to. AnnieLee Keyes, you’re the real deal,” Mikey Shumer said. “I’ll bet anything on it. If you sign with me, I can get you a four-continent tour. Sixty dates. Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo—all the places you’ve ever dreamed of going. It won’t be tomorrow, but it’ll happen. I can make it happen for you.”
AnnieLee looked down at her guitar. What would it mean if she agreed to work with Mikey Shumer? He was smart and confident, he knew a thousand things she didn’t, and he wasn’t afraid to think big.
He’s dirty, AnnieLee, Ruthanna had said. But it wasn’t as if she’d given her any proof.
For a moment, AnnieLee allowed herself to imagine an easier path to the top. “I guess—” she began.
“We have a deal, don’t we?” Mikey Shumer interrupted. But it wasn’t a question. He was so convinced of his charms and his power.
It was that presumption that gave AnnieLee pause. “I guess,” she said again, “I guess I’d better consider your offer a little bit longer.”
Mikey Shumer was a man used to getting his way, and AnnieLee could see how he tried not to let his disappointment show. But his expression had darkened, and she watched as he reached into his pocket, his eyes never leaving her face. He began to pull something out of it, and for a crazy, stupid instant, AnnieLee thought he was pulling out a weapon.
But it was a brand-new iPhone in a glittering black case.
“This is for you,” Mikey Shumer said.
AnnieLee’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I’ve got a prepaid,” she said. “It’s nothing special, but it does what I need it to do. I mean, it recorded about fifty messages from you, didn’t it?” She laughed nervously.
Mikey waved this information away. “I took the liberty of putting my number in the contacts. You call me, anytime, day or night.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “You made it out of the gate, AnnieLee, but if you’re not careful, you’re going to stumble at the first curve. Don’t screw yourself.” He put the phone down on the table. “And don’t screw me, either.”
Chapter
38
Ruthanna plucked an antique milk glass vase from its kitchen shelf, filling it with water and then with the flowers she’d just cut from her garden: bursting dahlias, heavy-headed roses, feathery pink beeblossoms. On four-inch heels, she carried her bouquet to the narrow farm table that had been in her family for five generations, and which she’d already set with linen napkins, Spode china, and vintage silver she’d bought on one of her tours through France.
She looked around the lovely room with satisfaction. The salad was ready, Alice Waters’s cheese and pasta gratin was browning in the oven, and a bottle of rosé sat chilling in a silver ice bucket. Everything was perfect, and perfectly calm.
But it didn’t matter. Ruthanna Ryder felt like screaming.
When she thought about getting through the next hour, she wanted to pour herself three fingers’ worth of Scotch, neat. She wanted to crawl into bed. She wanted to call Jack.
Too late, she wished she’d asked him to join her tonight. He knew the story she had to tell, and, if need be, he could take over its telling. She reached for her phone, saying, “Siri, call—” But then she stopped. Jack was a busy man. Though he’d drop everything and come running, she didn’t want to ask it of him.
AnnieLee walked in at three minutes after six. She wore her hair in a messy bun, and there was a touch of pink gloss on her full lips. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, her voice harried as she kicked off her boots at the door.
Ethan, no doubt, had shared with her Ruthanna’s feelings about punctuality. “Two more minutes and I might’ve locked the door,” Ruthanna said.
“I was writing, and I lost track of time. I feel terrible.” Then AnnieLee straightened up and noticed the beautiful table, and her expression turned to delight. “Wow, it’s gorgeous—a romantic dinner for just us two?”
“I like a civilized meal,” Ruthanna said a little stiffly; it was the truth but hardly the whole of it. She’d made everything perfect because the alternative was to lie on the floor, sobbing. She poured a glass of wine and held it out to AnnieLee. Then she poured herself twice as much and took a delicate sip. It was ice-cold, its color a hazy sunset pink, and it tasted of strawberries.
“Cheers,” said AnnieLee.
“It’s a Willamette Valley rosé.”
“I’m not going to pretend I know what that means,” AnnieLee admitted.
“You will, I hope, learn about the finer things in life someday,” Ruthanna said dryly.
AnnieLee giggled. “Just don’t ruin me for vending machine Cokes and cold beans from a can, okay?”
“That’s the most depressing dinner I’ve ever heard of.”
“No, the most depressing dinner is the one without any food at all,” AnnieLee said, “and believe me, I’ve had my share of those.”
“Well, you won’t starve tonight,” Ruthanna said. She quickly dressed the salad with a simple homemade shallot vinaigrette, and then she turned around with the wooden spoon in her hand, which she pointed at AnnieLee. “Do you want to tell me where you were yesterday?”
AnnieLee looked startled. “I don’t mind, but why?”
“Because I want to know if I’ve been wasting my time with you.”
AnnieLee flinched. “I met with Mikey Shumer.”
“I know,” said Ruthanna.
“Then why’d you ask?” AnnieLee cried.
“I wanted to see what you’d say.”
“Well, I wouldn’t lie about that,” AnnieLee said.
Ruthanna bent down and pulled the gratin from the oven. It smelled cheesy and buttery and rich as she set the pan on the table in front of AnnieLee. “I thought I told you to stay a million miles away from him.” She handed her a serving spoon. “Go on. Help yourself.”
AnnieLee meekly piled her plate high with food while Ruthanna sipped her wine.
“Well?” Ruthanna eventually asked.
“I guess I didn’t see what harm a single conversation could do,” AnnieLee said.
“It could do plenty with the likes of him,” Ruthanna said. “Mikey stuck a gun into a man’s mouth last year—he told him that if he didn’t play his artist’s song, he’d be back to pull the trigger.”
AnnieLee’s eyes went wide.
“There are plenty of stories like that about Mikey Shumer,” Ruthanna said. “But I have my own story, and that’s the one I think you need to hear.”
She took a deep breath. The sun was shining into the kitchen, slanting and golden, in what Ruthanna always thought of as the angel light of evening. This was when memories of her daughter came to her most frequently. Often she tried to push them away, but other times she let them flow over her like water. She never could tell which hurt more.
“Do you remember when I told you that you made me think of someone?” Ruthanna asked.
AnnieLee nodded, her mouth full of food.
“Well, that person was my daughter.”
AnnieLee went pale. “Was?” she whispered.
“She would’ve been twenty-seven this year. Her name was Sophia.” Ruthanna drew in another breath. It was hard to know where to start the story. Hard, too, to acknowledge that not all the blame belonged where she wanted to put it, which was at the feet of Mikey Shumer.
“Sophia was a banjo player,” Ruthanna finally said. “She was very good, and she could’ve been great. But hard work didn’t come to her naturally, not the way it came to me. Maybe because she was born having everything.”
Ruthanna took another sip of wine; she hadn’t touched the dinner she’d worked so hard to make. Whatever. It was glorified mac ’n’ cheese, and she wasn’t supposed to eat it anyway.
“She had everything, that is,” she went on, “except for a normal childhood. Imagine having flashbulbs snapping in your little face when you went out with your daddy for ice cream. Or unscrupulous reporters asking you for dirt on your famous mom. The world cared so much about me—Sophia couldn’t escape that. And she also couldn’t escape realizing that the world didn’t care as much about her. What a cruel lesson that was, and I didn’t even know that she was learning it.”
“I’m sorry,” AnnieLee said, sounding so young and small herself.
Ruthanna told AnnieLee about how Sophia had rebelled in high school, partying too hard and sneaking out at night while Ruthanna was on tour. After a stint in rehab, she graduated a year late, but with a good GPA. She was supposed to go to college. She wanted to be a music teacher.
“But then she met Trace Jones,” Ruthanna said, and the name tasted bitter in her mouth.
“I know him!” AnnieLee exclaimed. “I mean, I know who he is.”
“Of course you do. He’s been on the charts for a decade. He’s nothing but a hat act, if you ask me, but people buy his records. Anyway, Sophia and Trace were in love. She wanted to go on tour with him—a tour Mikey Shumer had booked and was managing. I didn’t want her to go, because she still seemed too fragile to me. She argued that it was time she went out on her own. I pointed out that she wasn’t going out on her own, that she was following someone else. She wasn’t even going to be playing, because Trace already had a banjo player in his band. We fought. And Sophia left.”
Ruthanna unfolded her napkin and then folded it back up again. AnnieLee had stopped eating her dinner.
“Somewhere on the tour, she started drinking again. And a little while after that, Mikey decided that it wasn’t good for Trace Jones’s image to have a girlfriend. Mikey told him that if he was serious about his career, he needed to break up with Sophia.”
Ruthanna poured more wine into her glass.
“So he did. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for him. All I know is that he did it. And that night, in her hotel room, before she was supposed to fly home to me, Sophia drank all the bottles in the minibar and took some pills she’d gotten from a roadie. I don’t know if she was trying to die. Maybe she was just trying to drown her sorrows. Trying to get to the place where she didn’t feel the pain. But she went to sleep, and she never woke up.”
Ruthanna had been looking out the window as she spoke, and she could feel the tears trickling down her face. When she looked at AnnieLee, she saw that the girl was crying, too.
“I’m so sorry,” AnnieLee said. “I can’t even imagine.”
Ruthanna put her hand on top of AnnieLee’s. “I know your life hasn’t been easy, and I bet you’ve felt loss, too.” She pulled her hand away and her voice grew firm. “That’s why I don’t want you talking to Mikey. There’s a darkness in him, and a coldness. A man who would do anything to win is not the kind of man you want on your side.”
She got up and walked over to the sink to get herself some water. “‘I have been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots,’” she said softly.
“Is that a line from a song?” AnnieLee asked.
“It’s from a book—Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston.”
“Sorrow’s kitchen,” AnnieLee repeated. “I might’ve visited there once or twice.”
Then they were silent, and the sun passed down into the garden, illuminating every flower in one last bit of angelic light.
Ruthanna gripped the edge of the sink to steady herself. “Good night, Sophia,” she whispered.
Chapter
39
AnnieLee half woke to the sound of an urgent whisper. A figure, dressed all in white, stood by the side of her bed. Sophia, she thought, still in sleep’s clutches. The ghost reached toward her, even as she rolled away from it, and then it yanked the blankets back.
“Ahem,” the ghost said, and AnnieLee woke up enough to realize that it was Ruthanna standing there, her red-gold hair shining like a halo around her head. She was telling AnnieLee that it was time to get up.
