the boys played the first bars of “Cover Me Over,” Emma wondered why they’d agreed to debut the album in front of so many people. It always took a while for the songs to gel, and it didn’t help that they were standing so far apart from one another on the huge stage. They’d barely even played together since recording the album.
But as she sang the first words of the song, she knew it was going to be okay. The crowd was hot, ecstatic. Whatever reservations the promoters might have had about booking a sixty-nine-year-old woman as an opener, Emma could tell Gertie had managed to satisfy the inexhaustible cultural thirst for real experience. She was unadulterated, as organic as they come. And nothing could elicit #FOMO and other hashtag-worthy emotions quite like a rare performance by a reclusive artist. Emma registered an ambient happiness from the crowd, a contact high that was nearly as good as feeling it herself.
Then she felt the rhythm of the songs enter her body. When it came to music, she knew how to go with the flow, to be a part of the whole. Her voice sounded good, as full and clear in the upper register as it ever did. It could still take her by surprise sometimes, which was probably why people called it a gift. They moved from “Texas Rose” to “Century” and back into their catalogue, to the songs most of the people were there to hear. “Tattletale,” “Bicycle,” “Empty Grave.” On “Lightning Heart,” Stu strummed the opening chords in her direction, and Emma felt that surge of love that never failed to kick in when he looked at her like that onstage. Even over the monitor, she thought she could hear an awwwww rising from the audience. There wasn’t a single review of any of their albums that failed to mention how cute they were as a couple. Indie or pop. Earnest or ironic. It was the one thing everyone could agree on—Stu and Emma. Even if Stu and Emma couldn’t agree on much at the moment. Then it was back to the new stuff and she was leading off on “Opened Towers.”
Her Korg on its stand felt like home under her fingers, even as her shoulder stung while she sustained the G chord through the chorus. But the pain from the tattoo receded as she sang the lyrics she’d written the night they found out she was pregnant. She saw now that it was the idea of a baby that had made the music seem smaller, less permanent—but the truth was they would always be bound by the music, no less than by a child or by the drawing buried and throbbing in her back. The music, she hoped, would outlast them all.
“Is it fear or love? / We’re none of us above / the doubt of why we’re getting in / or out of this. / This bliss.”
Emma swallowed at the end of the verse. She remembered the version she’d written, and how Stu had added a bridge with a key modulation that managed to capture both her hope and her uncertainty. Ben had added some syncopation to the pre-chorus, and Jesse had hit upon a riff with the digital delay that lifted the whole thing into a shimmering, elliptical thing of wonder. Together they’d made it better than anything she could have done alone.
When the song was over, Stu came up and placed his hand on her belly. “In case you didn’t already know,” he said to the crowd. “I’m ecstatic.”
Emma stepped forward and grabbed her mic stand. “It turns out that everything with us is changing,” she said to the audience. She tapped her stomach, a little telegraphed hello to her constant companion, who kicked back in response. She turned to Stu, who was watching her, frozen. “But I think that means we’re getting better.” In the roar of cheers and applause, he grinned and returned to his own microphone, then launched into the opening chords of their almost-dance number, as Jesse kicked off the heavy bass with his pedal. Almost instantly, Emma saw what looked like a wave rippling through the audience as they began to jump up and down en masse. But in the distance, she spotted a movement that was out of sync, as though a group of people were pushing in the opposite direction. Then she saw one of the turquoise porta-potties tumble down. And then another. She looked to her bandmates