The sentiments crushed Shauna’s heart. She covered her mouth, afraid of the tears she felt coming.
Craig pushed the woman away. “I told you not to mention that in front of her.” He signaled for the makeup artist to touch up Shauna’s face again.
Shauna didn’t need to be dolled up. Before her cue, she walked out on stage while her dancers performed their routine. She noticed their surprised looks as she came out before her choreographed moment.
A wave of screams and applause hit her as she stumbled to the center. The strength of the clamorous crowd kept her upright for a moment, but she knew it wouldn’t last. She couldn’t see faces as she looked out into the sea of people.
The music around her sounded foreign, not like she had sung over it before, but she knew she had, a million times for millions of people. Nothing seemed real.
She kept looking out into the crowd until she could focus on some faces in the front row. Shauna walked toward the front of the stage. It occurred to her that she must have missed her mark in the song when the music stopped.
Shauna found her dancers and her band standing still and staring at her. She needed an ally. Someone who would understand her.
She crouched down to make eye contact with a young man who screamed and cried.
“I love you, Shauna Stellar!” He reached for her but the barrier wall and the group of buff security guards held him back.
“I don’t know what love is.” She spoke in the microphone out of habit. “Why do you love me?”
The screams in the arena quieted down a little. Then the flashes started. Everyone with a camera-phone snapped her picture, but no one asked her how she felt.
Shauna reached her hand out to touch someone, anyone. “My body feels like jelly. I can’t feel anything. Today wasn’t a good day. And I didn’t pray before I came out here, and I always do that. Good girls pray. They’re thankful for everything they have because it could be taken away.” Tears streamed down her face. “Do you know what I did?” She scanned the immediate crowd. “Of course you do. You all know every move I make.”
The fans looked around them as she spoke directly to them. They looked as confused as she felt.
“Gone. I’ll never see her again. And you all want to hear me sing.” Her breathing increased. “When people take from you, they don’t know what it does to you.” She shook her head. She ran her fingers through her hair and came across a clip hidden under her tresses and close to her scalp. Without thinking, she undid it and removed some of her fake hair and tossed it to the ground. “I’m nothing. I don’t like myself. I hate what I’ve done.” Tears streamed down her face.
From the depths of her soul, like she had been holding on to the pain for her full twenty-five years, Shauna screamed so loud and so long that her throat became scratchy and ached.
She heard footsteps. When she turned, she spotted Craig running toward her. “Sorry I let you down.” She dropped the microphone, closed her eyes, and let gravity do its work, rolling off the stage and heading to the concrete floor below.
The darkness soothed her.
* * * *
Truman Woodley stared at his phone at a picture of himself with his son, Gage, as he waited to hit the stage with his band. Even as he sat in a trailer that he and his four friends had to share with a magician and an amateur yodeler, he knew he could be a success for his boy. He couldn’t give up.
He checked the time. Nine at night went way beyond his five-year-old son’s bedtime. Plus he didn’t need to get into an argument with his ex-girlfriend if he called. She would ask him about money he didn’t have. At least after two years, she stopped asking if they could be a couple again. That ship had long sailed away.
“Some of us can’t keep doing this.” Charlie leaned against the inside wall of the trailer, and it felt like the whole thing shifted under the big man’s weight. The wall creaked and cracked as soon as he touched it. He must have felt the movement. He straightened up before he continued. “I promised my wife that I would play bass for the Sliders for a year. We’re six months in and I don’t see that pot at the end of the rainbow. I have five kids.”
“We know.” Sully propped his feet up on a counter as he cradled his guitar.
“I know you know.” Charlie scanned the group. “You all know what we have going on outside of this group.” He glared at Truman. “If something doesn’t happen soon, I don’t know if I can keep going with this. At some point, I need to get a real job with real benefits to take care of my family, who I love with all my heart. Being out here in Virginia is killing me.” He snickered. “What country band thinks their career is going to be made in Virginia? We need to go back home to Tennessee.”
Truman returned his phone to his pocket, and then glanced at Ervin who only shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m down for whatever.” Ervin drummed his sticks over his thighs. “But it would be nice to catch a break. We’ve been at this since we were in high school. It’s been ten years going from gig to gig as Truman Woodley and the Sliders. Something’s got to give.”
“I hear you all.” Truman stood in the middle of his bandmates, his friends. “I’ve sent our demo to several record companies. Our videos are getting lots of views on YouTube. We have ten thousand followers on Facebook. We’re so close.”
“Close is not going to be good enough pretty soon.” Charlie sat in the chair Truman had occupied.
When Truman’s phone rang, he hoped it would be some good news. Instead he saw the name Ashley across the screen. He didn’t bother to go somewhere private to take the call. His friends knew the issues he had with his ex-girlfriend. Since she watched his son, he worried that something had happened with Gage.
“Did you get paid?” Ashley hit him as soon as he answered.
Truman sighed in relief. He pressed his free hand on a counter. Had she said something about his son, he would have been out of Virginia, done with touring, and out of his mind.
“I’m fine, Ash. How are you?” He hoped she caught his sarcastic tone.
“Yeah. Like you’d care.” She snorted. “I just want to know if your son gets to eat the rest of the month or not.”
He prickled at the implication that the mother of his child would allow their son to starve because her lazy behind couldn’t, or wouldn’t, go out and get a job.
“I deposited money into your account this morning. Didn’t you get my text?” Truman marched back and forth. “It’s not a lot, but it’s something until—”
Ashley cut him off. “Until what, Tru? Gage needs clothes. He’s growing like a weed. And I need—”
“The money is not for you.” He tightened his jaw.
“If I don’t have money, then I can’t pay rent. If I can’t pay rent, then me and your son will be on the streets.”
He heard Ashley popping gum. His skin crawled.
Why did he make a child with her? Wait. He had made the decision at the time with his head not located above his shoulders. Never again would he be led around by his dick.
“You live with your mother in an apartment. You’re trying to tell me that between the two of you and my money you can’t pay rent?” He kicked his boot against the wall.
The motion and noise startled the magician, an older man with a lot of sweat covering his vast forehead.
Ashley huffed. “Mama’s on disability. You know that. And Gage’s not in school yet and I can’t afford a babysitter.”