“Were we?”
“Maybe not out loud, but you were definitely thinking about Craig again. Your expression went all sour and we’ve listened to this album twice through now.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I almost got a tattoo with Miranda?”
Maren’s eyes grow huge. “No!”
“We chickened out. We were drunk as two skunks and wanted to get matching Loretta Lynn quotes. Blake found out and intervened.”
“No shit. What was the quote?”
“Turns out it was a Dolly quote, so props to Blake, because that would have been an expensive PR nightmare.”
Maren laughs her musical laugh and rests her head against the back of her chair, turning her face toward me. “You gonna be okay, Jones?”
“Always am.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.” I sigh. “Yeah, I will be. I need to talk to Huck and tell him how I feel. Obviously. Which scares the ever-living shit out of me because I only ever told one man I loved him and he broke my heart. And somehow this feels even more scary, because as much as I thought I loved Drake, I was wrong. I didn’t love him. I barely liked him once the dust settled. But I’m head over ass for Huckleberry and he could crush me.”
“He won’t crush you.”
“But he could,” I insist softly.
“He won’t, though.”
“We’ll see.”
* * *
The next morning, I leave Maren sleeping off a wine hangover and head into the studio early.
“Lorelai!” Arlo raises his head with a start. There is music pumping out the speakers of his work laptop and two empty cardboard coffee cups and a half-eaten muffin beside him on the desk. “I didn’t realize you were coming in.”
“No appointment.”
“Craig’s still out, I’m afraid. I’m only in because our surrogate Jessica is due literally any minute and I’m freaking the fuck out. Josh sent me to work, saying I was giving him heart palpitations with my pacing.”
“I figured. Hoped, actually. I’m here to see you—if you can keep a secret from your boss, that is.”
Arlo’s expression brightens beneath his fedora. “I love secrets. Go on.”
“I hoped you might say that.” I take a deep breath and plop down across the desk from him and pull a piece of paper out of my scratched-to-hell notebook, something I’d worked on late into the early morning. “So here’s what I’m thinking, and I’m in a bit of a crunch…”
31
LORELAI
NOT READY TO MAKE NICE
I wake up in a swanky hotel room that I barely get to enjoy, thanks to the ungodly time I have to wake up for my interview with The Good Morning Show—3:30 A.M. Honestly, they could have put me up in a Motel 6 for the amount of sleep and the accommodations I don’t get. I meet Trina and our driver in the lobby at 4:00 A.M., and she passes me a very tall, very hot coffee. The roads are full, either from people who are still awake or, like us, just getting started. Neon lights flash past my eyes, but I’m left to sip my coffee and absorb the caffeine into my bloodstream in silence. Trina is already typing away on her phone, though I can’t imagine to whom, until she releases a soft sigh and drops her phone into her handbag. “My wife. I’ve spoiled her. She doesn’t like alarm clocks, and since I’m an early riser by nature, I always wake her up with coffee and a kiss. You got the coffee, she gets the long-distance kiss.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t even imagine a world where Trina would be so sweet. A ballbuster who gets shit done, sure. But sweet?
Instead, I take another sip of my coffee and say thank you.
Once we hit the lobby of TGMS, we’re met by a harried assistant whose name tag reads JACKIE P. She escorts us up an elevator and down three bustling hallways before knocking on a dressing room door that has my name scrawled across the plaque. The door swings open and my jacket is removed by one set of friendly hands while I’m pressed into a chair in front of a mirror by another set. The chatter is lively and kind, and within short order, my skin glows, my hair shines, and my eyes stand out. I’m passed a smart pair of black trousers in my size along with a sleeveless white chiffon blouse and red pumps. I dress and everyone gushes. Well, except Trina, who looks up over her phone and nods approvingly. Honestly, I prefer it to the gushing.
I’m told I’m to go on in fifteen minutes; then everyone leaves. I settle on the small formal couch and pick up my guitar, idly tuning it and warming up my vocals for no reason other than plain old nerves. It’s been years since I went in front of a camera, and I’m a lot older now. Wiser. Bruised and shaped by the world. For a hot second, I wonder if any of my students will see me on the show today. The thought sobers me in a good way. Directs me. Solidifies my purpose.
I’m here to play music and I’m here to use the attention to help others who can’t help themselves.
* * *
Amy Anderson is tiny in real life. Petite to the extreme, she maybe meets the tip of my nose, and that’s in sky-high heels. But her stature doesn’t make her any less intimidating, and in the moments before she reaches out to shake my hand and tell me what a fan she is, I about piss my new black boss-bitch pants. She hasn’t lost her drawl in all her years on television, and I have to assume it’s on purpose. Her blond hair sits right above her shoulders and gives off the perfectly mussed vibe. My slippery straight blue-black locks could never. We settle across from each other in stylish sofa chairs and a props person makes sure to let me know my guitar is waiting for me, just as I left it, on a small stage over my shoulder.
Amy makes small talk while people fuss with our hair and buttons and the way our clothes lie after mic’ing us. Her smile is genuine, and while she doesn’t gush, she does tell me she has a niece in Texas who attended a school that unfortunately had a shooting. Thankfully, her niece was at a doctor’s appointment that day, but the niece did lose a friend and the trauma was so awful that many families had to relocate and the school was bulldozed to the ground. Amy Anderson couldn’t give two shits about the Second Amendment, but, she tells me, she sure likes that song I wrote last year about Cameron and Shelby Riggs.
The interview goes off, as they say, without a hitch.
Amy artfully leads me through a discussion of my career, surprising me with “embarrassing” early childhood footage of a county fair where I belted out Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” and some cringey photos of teen me in my cheerleader uniform singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a high school talent show. When she gets to the story about “Ohio,” she doesn’t even play the footage, claiming, “Everyone’s already seen it.”
“What’s more important is what happened afterwards. What can you tell us about the days that followed? You were engaged, if I recall? To fellow musician Drake Colter?”