You New Yorkers don’t know what friendly is, Bryan had always insisted. Now, where I come from, people actually make eye contact with strangers and say good mornin’ like they really mean it.
After only a few minutes in Nashville, Meg was already beginning to experience that friendliness for herself. She did remind herself that she couldn’t trust everyone—she’d be a fool to let down her guard completely with strangers—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be pleasant to the people who were pleasant to her. And what better way to blend in? If she remained remote in this town, people would notice and wonder about her—and they’d remember her, when her father’s PI came asking about her. She doubted very much that anyone tonight would recognize her from either a description or a photograph someone working for her father might have.
In a surprisingly short time, they pulled up beside the forbidding structure of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. It was beautiful, Meg thought as she alighted from the taxi after paying her fare with wrinkled small bills. The Roman columns marched proudly along the street, enclosing a beautiful outdoor space rather like a miniature Roman forum. It was small scale—everything she had seen of Nashville thus far seemed small after spending most of her life in some of the greatest cities throughout the world—but it had an unmistakable charm about it, and from Bryan’s iPad, she knew it housed multiple performance spaces for a variety of music styles. She sighed, wondering how one went about auditioning for a chair in Nashville’s Symphony Orchestra.
Curious, she turned right down the broad pedestrian way that ran along the front of the main hall. Trying not to think about her appearance, she hurried up the steps before she could change her mind and entered the lobby, where ushers were posted at the doors to the hall. One stepped forward to meet her.
“I’m sorry, miss, but the concert’s already started, and you can’t go in until intermission.”
She smiled. “That’s all right. I’m not here for the concert. I only wondered if I might buy a program?”
“Oh. Sure.”
He directed her to a small sales counter across the lobby, and smiling her thanks, she hurried over.
“One program, please,” she said to the young woman working the counter.
“Are you comin’ on another night, then?” the girl asked, as she made Meg’s change.
“I hope so. Thank you.”
Meg tucked the program into a pocket of her bag then made her way back outside. Can’t know the players without a program, she remembered her grandmother used to say. With a concert program, she would have both names and contact information. All she needed now was a library with computers, where she could set up an e-mail account and contact the symphony. She quickly retraced her steps down the grand stairway then turned back to 4th Avenue and turned right toward the lighted intersection ahead. Another block and she was on Broadway in the heart of Nashville’s nighttime music scene.
Like New York’s Broadway, the sidewalks were crowded with people enjoying the nightlife, but that was where any comparison ended. Besides being much shorter in length, the buildings that lined the street were no more than three or four stories high, their walls mostly red brick, though some had been painted outlandish colors. While the occasional modern tower could be seen from a distance, this old part of town, the entertainment district, was old and worn. Like an old lady, it used bright lights, decorations, and color, in an attempt to mask its wrinkles. Cowboy boots and hats seemed to be the style of choice for both men and women, and the facades of the various eateries and music venues boasted huge guitars, fiddles, boots, and hats, all outlined in flashing neon lights. Businesses ranged from boot and tourist shops to saloons and bars offering live entertainment from “real” country music to karaoke to hillbilly to honky-tonk. One or two even displayed banners bragging “smokers welcome.” She shook her head in disbelief and began to look for a place she thought she might safely enter on her own. Whatever the entertainment, she was hungry after her long trip.
Then she saw it. The sign on the narrow red-brick building across the street said “The Fiddlers’ Cave,” and she quickly moved to the corner, waiting for the light with the rest of the crowd before crossing to approach the place. The windows and door frames were painted a solid, stop-sign red, and the windows displayed vintage photos of what she assumed were famous fiddlers. She could hear the music pouring through the front door, which had been left open on what she assumed was an unusually balmy mid-March evening.