she let go of my hand and gave me a gentle push in the middle of my back. The stage was ahead about ten feet, but it might as well have been a mile.
“If you’re going to do this, do it now,” she said. “Because if you don’t take the next step, you’ll regret it.”
“I thought you wanted me to find some other way to get through to him,” I whispered.
“I do, but I know you. You need to do this. Go, Ellie.”
I took a deep breath, and she gave me another gentle push. I was wearing the red heels I’d worn for my first appointment with Miles, and I unstuck my feet, the first step shaky on the stilettos, but I forced one foot in front of the other until I crossed the threshold to the stage, and I turned to look at Chloe. She shooed me further in, and I stepped into the darkness of the stage left wings.
The ensemble ended in a crescendo, with the trumpet trilling high and pure, cymbals crashing, the raucous applause of the audience rising above it all.
This was the worst possible act for me to follow, but there wasn’t going to be a good place to slot me in for what I was about to do. Jordan was doing me an enormous favor, and soon I heard his voice blaring out of the speakers as the first members of the brass ensemble ran off the stage, all grinning, the high of their performance written on their faces.
“Let’s give it up one more time for the Horn Dawgs,” he called into the mic, and the audience was more than happy to comply. “All right, we have a change of pace for you,” he said as it began to die down. “We pride ourselves here at the Turnaround on searching out undiscovered talent, and our next performer is the very definition of undiscovered.”
I could imagine the confusion on Miles’s face. The next act was supposed to be a well-known blues duo from Biloxi.
“This young lady hasn’t performed in public in over a decade, and if the rumors are to be believed, her voice is one of the best-kept secrets in contemporary music. Please put your hands together for Miss Elle!”
I forced myself to step onstage as the audience applauded, feeling good after an hour of cocktails and the Horn Dawgs. I waved as I walked past the music stands they’d left behind, crossing to the piano. I tried to smile too, but the curve of my lips felt hard and plastic, and I kept having to force myself to blink.
I sat at the piano and put my hands on the keys, but they shook, and my stomach churned hard. Jordan came over to adjust the mic for me, switching it off as he positioned it, quietly asking, “You good?” next to my ear.
No. I wasn’t good. I was terrified. I hadn’t sung for an audience since high school, and I was a nobody. But when I’d called Jordan and explained what I wanted to do, he’d agreed. “Miles is miserable. If this’ll help, let’s do it. He says you can sing, and he would know.” When I’d sent over the recording I’d made on my iPhone so he could figure out where to slot me, he’d texted back, Dang. He wasn’t lying.
I clung to those words now, settling my hands in my lap so I could squeeze them tight to steady them. “I’m good.”
He nodded, switched the mic back on, and withdrew.
I took a deep breath, my hands still tightly clasped, trying to will them apart. Restless sounds rose from the front tables, and even though I wasn’t ready, I’d run out of time. It was now or never.
I put my hands back on the keys. They shook again, but I played the first chord, determined to get through this, to show Miles how much I wanted us to work.
But I couldn’t calm the nerves, and I stumbled twice in the intro measures. This was a disaster, and the rustling of the audience grew louder, but there was no way I could make the words come out. I lifted my hands from the keys, squeezed them tight in my lap again, forced myself to take two deep breaths, and started over.
I stumbled in the same spot.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and I didn’t know what to do, so I kept playing, passing the point where the lyrics began, hoping I could settle