He could hear the man’s surprised laughter as he walked back to his car.
Colin could do this all day. Maybe he should. Get into the news as the Donut Sheriff. Wait, that didn’t sound good. The media would end up mocking the cliché, and he’d probably eventually be accused of poisoning the donuts or something. Yeah, no matter how many donuts he gave away, people would always be scared of the power he wielded.
And no matter how long he spent on the street looking for Molly’s car, it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to pull her over.
She wouldn’t want a donut from him, anyway.
You are a bonafide imbecile, McMurtry.
His inner voice, he realized for the first time, was his father’s, with the same depth and inflection.
Fuck.
He rubbed his chest. He’d never known until now that a broken heart could actually produce pain in the upper torso. Twice in the last two days he’d hooked himself up to the blood-pressure machine in the cardio room. His blood pressure was fine. So was his pulse. He wasn’t clammy, and he didn’t have difficulty breathing. He was not having a heart attack.
Which, really, was too damn bad. If he’d been having one, he’d have an excuse to stay in bed for a couple of weeks and stare at the ceiling. He could close his eyes and train himself not to imagine her features every time he breathed.
Could he fake a heart attack, maybe? Pay off the ER doc to lie for him?
Could he get a new heart, somehow?
He pulled his sigh up from the bottom of his soul, where all his sighs seemed to be coming from lately.
Colin hated this. Hated love. Hated dashed hope.
Hated himself, pretty much.
As he pulled into his parking space at the department, his cell rang. “Yeah.”
“Hey,” said his sister. “I have to tell you something.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Watch the boom!”
Automatically, Molly and Adele swerved in their path to avoid the mic pole that swung in an arc just over their heads. They followed Nina, the assistant floor manager, and dodged a dolly that wheeled past so fast Molly worried for the operator’s safety.
Nina turned in the darkness with a quick smile. “Sorry, it’s always this crazy. Green room is this way. Watch this bit, don’t trip on the cords.”
The last time Molly had been backstage on a national television program had been their appearance on Oprah, almost twelve years before. The Darling Songbirds had been at their peak popularity. The audience had stood up and refused to sit, roaring with applause and screams. Oprah herself coming out on stage hadn’t gotten the same reaction.
That had been a week before their father died, a week before the Songbirds broke up, band-wise and sister-wise. Molly and Lana had blamed Adele for pushing them back onstage too early, but the truth was that by then the sisters had been missing their mother too much for too long. They hadn’t been connecting. They’d had hairline fractures already, and the split had been almost instant.
Being on the TV set brought it all back – the debacle on The View when Molly had run away from Barbara Walters. Molly’s head set up a low, dull throb at the sound and the lights and the flurry of everything around her.
They’d been on the Jack and Ginger set only once, a year before the band split. Now the show had a bigger stage and more cameras, and it seemed twice as frenetic. Lights shone in every direction, and men were moving furniture around in a perpetual game of arranging fake living rooms. The ceilings were dark and high above. The cold air smelled of perfume and of metal and of the fresh flowers that sat on every stage surface.
The green room was as big as a hotel conference room, and it was packed. Molly felt her sister squeeze her hand in silent encouragement. Guests on that day’s show appeared to include a travelling mime troupe from Istanbul, and the whole skinny group of them appeared to be diving face-first into the fruit arrangements on the heavily laden tables. A mother-daughter duo famous in the world of scrapbooking Pinterest was showing off a new way to display shadow-boxed photographs. A politician recently embroiled in a DC scandal was having his sweating forehead powdered again.
And then there were Molly and her sister.
Wardrobe put them in quintessential country-girl singer outfits: tight blue jeans, sparkly tank tops studded with Swarovski, and spike heels so high Molly’s big toes immediately went numb.
Hair and make-up then performed a miracle of sorts – after blowing out and curling their hair and decorating their faces with twenty or so products, Molly and Adele both looked like they used to when the Darling Songbirds had been a national treasure.
“Oh, my God.” Molly leaned in towards the mirror. “What did they do to me?” She touched the tops of her cheekbones. “I look ten years younger.” She couldn’t decide if she was pleased or horrified.
Adele laughed. “You do. You look like the baby I remember you as.” She turned sideways and put her hands on her flat belly.
“Come on, I’m not Lana. And I’ve never been the little one.”
“You’re both my baby sisters.”
Molly held her breath and turned sideways, too, comparing her belly against Adele’s. “Don’t worry, I’m still the fat one.”
“Number one, shut up. Number two, not for long.” Adele’s cheeks were pink, and it wasn’t just the stage make-up.
“What?”
“Yeah…No. Oh, crap.” Adele’s hands still rested on her belly. “Let’s just say I won’t be able to fit into these kinds of jeans for much longer.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Adele squeaked and then said, “Damn it! I wasn’t going to tell you by myself. We found out yesterday, right before we got on the plane. I promised Nate I’d wait so we could tell you together – but that was an impossible promise to keep. I don’t even know why I agreed.”
Molly flew at her sister, wrapping her in a hug so tight it hurt. She pulled back and looked into her sister’s face. In the move their father used to make, she took Adele’s cheeks (so soft, still dewy with make-up) and pulled down her forehead to kiss it. “I’d ruffle your hair but they’ll kill me if I do. You’re going to be the best mother ever.”
Adele swallowed. “I’m terrified.”
“I think that’s normal.” Molly held out her hand. “Can I?”
“All you’re going to feel is my muffin top over these jeans.”
“Please.” Molly touched her sister’s stomach. “A little baby songbird.”
Adele whispered, “I know.”
“Oh! You’re going to ruin my make-up.”
A make-up girl hurried over, brush at the ready, but Molly shook her head. “I won’t cry. I promise. Oh, God, I have to pee. I’ll be back. I’ll meet you in the green room?”
In the bathroom, she leaned her forearms against the cool porcelain sink. She stared at herself, but the face that looked back only unnerved her – it was someone else’s. It belonged to a girl she hadn’t seen in a long, long time, a girl who at one point had known what she was doing.
Molly wished she had one single clue how to do this. Crystalline fear rested at the very tops of her lungs, ready to stop her breath, to close her throat.
Adele was the fixer.
Molly was the voice.
Lana was the artist.
It wasn’t true, not anymore. Molly didn’t have a voice, she only had fear. And, if she looked deep inside, there was something even worse than the fear – the tiniest sprig of jealousy.
She didn’t want to be pregnant, like Adele. She didn’t want to be her sister – Adele was the best Adele in the world, and Molly, while always emulating her sister’s strength whenever she could, had no interest in being like her.
But that love, the love that Adele and Nate shared – the way they looked at each other when they were both tired, the way they leaned on each other behind the bar when they thought no one was looking, the way their hands reached out to touch fingers without words…
She saw
their connection, and she pictured Colin.
Colin’s eyes, so dark his pupils were almost invisible against the iris.
Colin’s fingers brushing hers.
His sudden, surprised bark of laughter. His blow-torch-hot touch. His incredible, talented lips on hers.
The way she felt like she’d finally found home in his arms.
“You love him,” she whispered to the Molly in the mirror. That Molly had sparkling, smoky eyes and hair that was shiny and luxe. That Molly looked successful.
“I know,” that Molly answered. “I’m working on it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Jack O’Malley and his co-host Ginger Dodge had become famous for their quick wit and camaraderie on stage. The most watched morning show in the nation, Jack and Ginger were known for spinning from dire story reportage (the father of nine hit by a train, so tragic) right into the fabulous (beloved actress adopts red-headed triplets!).
Nina pulled them out of the green room. “Political scandal section almost done – you girls are up next.”
Funny, Molly never used to mind being called “you girls.”
“Women,” she whispered to herself.
“What?” Adele pushed a long wave of hair over her sparkly shoulder.
“Nothing.”
“Here we go!”
On stage, they stood in front of their microphones and ran through a second sound check. Their guitars were amped. Spotlights danced.
Tamika stood on the edge of the darkness. “Five, four…” Then she held up three fingers, then two, then one.
Jack O’Malley’s voice carried from the side stage. “And today, we have the unbelievable honor of hosting two-thirds of one of my favorite bands of all time, The Darling Songbirds. Known today as the Darling Duet, take it away, girls!”
Molly’s heart juddered and then, just like it always had on stage, eased. Time slowed. She held Adele’s gaze for what felt like a whole minute but was probably less than a second.
Then they sang.
Hummingbirds migrate at night,
When the sun’s asleep they take flight,
They fly low and hard and fast
And when they’re home at last,
They know that they’re all right.
Molly took the verses, Adele backing her up in harmony on the chorus. The studio was still, and in the darkness beyond the lights, Molly could see the gaffers and dolly operators slow their work. The production managers stopped and watched.
When she needs a place to run
When she knows he has a gun
She runs low and hard and fast,
And when she’s home at last,
She’ll know her life’s begun.
By the time they sang the last line of the last verse, Molly had goosebumps dancing up and down her arms.
It would be a hit. She’d known it about “Remember Me” and she knew it about this one. It would get airtime. It would get them back in rotation, and most importantly, it would raise the money she wanted.
Jack and Ginger seemed giddy as Molly and Adele settled themselves into the couch opposite them.
“That was incredible,” said Ginger. “You just blew us away.”
Jack shoved back his famously white-and-black hair and shone his gleaming smile at them like a flashlight. “Now I remember why I fell in love with you. But I have to ask, do you miss your sister?”
“Every day,” said Adele.
“Is she going to join you eventually?”
“Lana is always with us, even when she can’t be on stage with us.”
“Awww,” cooed Ginger. “So cute. This song will be on a new album, is that right?”
“Yep,” said Molly. It was still hard to believe how fast all the agreements had come through. They’d only had time to write the first song on the album so far, but then Adele had called a friend with an indie label. They’d sung it to him over the phone. He was pulling together a backing band, and next month they were flying to Nashville to lay the first tracks in a big, vacant church. They would sing the songs live and add very little remastering. Post-production would take less than five weeks, and it would be live digitally within a couple of months. The world of music, which used to be as slow as molasses in January, had jumped to light speed. “It’s called Migration. And y’all just heard the title track right there.”
Jack’s eyes burned with intensity, but Molly knew from watching the show that he got almost as excited at meeting zoo sloths. “And you have a very,” his voice dropped, “important message to share, is that right?”
This. This was what was important to get right. The song going well – that was great. But this moment was when Molly had to use her real voice.
“We do.” Molly licked her lips and took a breath. “You know we sing pretty, right?”
Jack and Ginger laughed as hard as if she’d told a side-splitting joke. “You do, sure, that you do.”
People scurried on the set in the darkness just beyond the lights. They wouldn’t hear her – they were too busy doing their job. The audience, sitting in their kitchens and living rooms – they would be busy, too. Feeding kids, getting dressed, shaving, thinking about their day, their worries. Molly had to grab them.
“Well, thanks for that. But you know what’s not pretty? A woman with a black eye so bruised she can barely blink. The welts on her arms and legs. The ones she can’t hide on her neck.”
Jack and Ginger were both appropriately chastened, nodding with grim expressions of deep interest.
“That’s who this album is for. There have been country songs about the abused woman before, yes. It’s a popular trope, right up there with beer, bullets and bourbon. But it’s glossed over. One song every few years? With the proceeds doing what, exactly?”
Ginger murmured softly, “And Migration will be different?”
Molly nodded. “The world doesn’t need us dolled up like we are right now, starring in music videos of fake abuse fixed by fake strength. We want to give that strength back to the actual women who’ve lost their own. Every day, in every town in this great nation, women stay where they aren’t safe because they can’t afford to leave. And when they finally find the courage to leave, to pack up the kids and run for their very lives, they have no place to go. Migration isn’t just the name of the album, it’s also the name of the non-profit organization we’re starting to help abused women get to safety.”
Jack nodded. He was a pro at making guests feel important, but his eyes were truly locked on hers. As if this meant something to him. As if it was more than just a sound bite. “And…” He prompted her to continue.
Molly took a breath and thought about the plastic badge she’d tucked in her bra because it wouldn’t fit in the skin-tight jeans they’d shoved her into. She thought about Colin’s eyes. And she leaped. “Jack, who are you thinking about right now?”
He pulled his head back, looking as startled as if she’d whacked his nose with one of her newly gel-tipped fingernails. “Sorry?”
“You have a look in your eyes. I could be wrong, but I think you have a connection to this topic?”
Jack blinked, and the muscles in his face slumped for a split second. His mask slipped. “My mother.”
Ginger looked stunned.
Molly nodded. “Did she get out?”
He shook his head. “She couldn’t afford to. By the time I was…” He coughed and cleared his throat. “By the time I could afford to get her out, she’d died of cancer. Truth was, she’d died a long time before that.”
“Your father?”
“My stepfather. Stone-cold bastard. I don’t know where he’s buried, but I can tell you this, it’s not next to my mother. I have her safe in a plot I paid for. With our people. Not his.” Jack straightened and glanced at the camera. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
Ginger put her hand on the sleeve of his jacket, and Molly saw something pass between them. No wonder this show was number one in the ratings.
&nb
sp; Molly went on. “People don’t talk about it. That’s the thing. We’re scared to. In this day and age where we post pictures of our lunch on Instagram and share feelings on Facebook, it’s still somehow taboo to talk about this kind of abuse in the open. Statistics show that bystanders, even if they think something might be going on, don’t step in to ask questions or to help until they’ve seen at least eight instances of possible abuse, sometimes more. This album will raise funds to start a national foundation where women – and men, of course, but there are fewer male victims – can register and get confidential help.”
“What kind of help?”
“They’ll be able to find out about safe houses in their area. They’ll learn helpful phrases, the right words to say to their local law enforcement. They can connect – whether online or on the phone – with abuse survivors, people who’ve been through what they have who can help inspire them to make the first steps.”
Ginger glanced at a blue card she held between perfectly manicured fingers. “And in your own hometown of Darling Bay?”
Molly wondered whether to correct her. They weren’t from Darling Bay, after all. Their family was, they shared its name, but the girls had been born and raised in Tennessee for the most part, only visiting Darling Bay on school holidays.
But no.
When it came right down to it, Darling Bay was home. She felt pride swell inside her. “A friend of mine, a Darling Bay native, recently got out of an abusive relationship. I didn’t know how to help, and I have to admit, I did it the wrong way. In helping her, I ended up putting her into a potentially more dangerous situation, because I didn’t understand how important every single piece of the puzzle is. Our goal with this album is to help people find out how they can actually help. People can have every good intention and still get it wrong. We really want to help them get it right, whether they’re the victim or the bystander or the friend.”
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