I woke up several times to see my brother sitting up and staring intently at song lyrics I know he’s struggling with. But I was too tired to give any worthwhile input so I dozed off each time. I was still groggy when he roused Gavin and me so we could head out to rehearse our final set list at an empty storage space Levi had managed to procure for the week.
“Let’s play ‘Ring of Fire’ before ‘Whiskey Redemption,’” my brother commands. “We’ll get their attention with covers then mix in our originals and try to keep the momentum upbeat throughout the entire set.”
Gavin writes our set list down on a piece of hotel stationery he snagged from the room and raises his eyes to mine. “Dixie gonna play her opener?”
Dallas turns toward me wearing his worries plainly on his face. “You up for it? This is the real deal, Dix.” Bright blue eyes just a shade darker than mine bore into me. I swallow hard and attempt a quick calculation of the odds of my getting distracted by some half-dressed, completely wasted groupie flashing Gavin. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“I am. Promise.” I give him my most confident grin and he gives me a taut smile in return. I don’t bother commenting on his lack of confidence in me because the tension is already tight enough as it is.
“All right then.” He nods at me before returning to his mark and strapping on his guitar. “Let’s do this.”
I am focused while we play, careful to concentrate on the nuances of each piece of music. Just as this is my ticket out of the orchestra pit, I know this is Dallas’s shot to finally make a name for the band—to make us more than a little-known group that plays local gigs. Barely getting by makes him feel like a failure, like he isn’t taking good care of me or giving me the life I deserve. I’ve overheard him telling Gavin that more than once.
“Take care of each other” was the last thing my father said to us before he and my mom found themselves directly in the path of a drunk who’d fallen asleep at the wheel. My brother took these words to mean so much more than I think my father probably intended.
Nana and Papa barely had two nickels to rub together when we moved in with them. They were simple folks living happily within their means. The funeral and burial ate up our parents’ meager life insurance policies, and even the money from the state wasn’t much. I can remember going to the thrift store for school clothes that the girls at school would only laugh at. Though not as much as they made fun of how I looked in my brother’s hand-me-downs. Through it all, Dallas promised me over and over that it would get better.
He’s still trying to make it better. Trying to keep a promise he never needed to make. I’ve told him a million times that I am okay. That I don’t need expensive things or designer clothes to be happy. I didn’t need them back then and I don’t need them now. But Dallas feels like he failed Mom and Dad somehow and I’ve accepted that that’s his cross to bear.
“Let’s take five,” Dallas calls out after we hit the halfway mark in our set.
We talk about changing my opener during the break. Dallas is nervous for me; I can tell by the worry lines creasing his forehead.
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” he tells me. “I’m just not sure it’s the right thing to open with.”
“How about I play this one instead?” Tucking my chin down, I lift my bow and jump into Alabama’s “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas.” The music carries me to a place where the stress and the pressure can’t touch me.
When I finish, Dallas and Gavin are both grinning at me.
“That work?”
“Yeah, Dixie Leigh,” Dallas says with a smirk of approval. “That’ll do.”
The rest of our set is a combination of songs we’ve written together interwoven throughout a stream of both contemporary and classic country songs. We play a few numbers by Johnny Cash with a rock-and-roll edge added to them, and then a few more recent hits with our own flavor. We’ve even countrified a few rap songs by Jay-Z and Bruno Mars just for fun, but strangely enough, those are the ones the audiences really seem to get into.
After a successful rehearsal, the tense lines on Dallas’s face have smoothed and even Gavin seems more at ease.