Page 7 of August Lane
“Impressive.” David returned the drink to Luke and scanned the room. “Not the best workplace for you, though.”
Luke drummed his fingers on the table. Five years may sound like a long time to most people, but Luke measured his sobriety in hours. He could identify every cocktail in close proximity by color and smell. “Not the best place” was putting it mildly. But there weren’t a lot of dry music venues clamoring to put him on the schedule.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Luke asked, because there was no way in hell he was going to discuss the weekly mind fuck of being a sober drunk in a bar with a stranger.
“David Henry,” he repeated, as if the words were a business card. “You’ve never heard of me?”
“No.”
David looked annoyed. He jabbed a finger at the empty stage. “How many times have you performed that song?”
Luke had been eighteen when “Another Love Song” was released as a single. Between opening for bigger acts, performing at award shows, and recording gimmicky remixes, he’d probably sung it a million times. “Not sure,” he answered, then grabbed a napkin from a holder. He made a triple fold, the way his mother had taught him back when she had it together enough to care about that sort of thing. “Every time I sing, it feels like the first.”
“Bullshit. You were struggling up there.”
Luke tossed the napkin on the table. “Sorry you were disappointed.”
“Me?” A deep, bully chuckle burst from David’s chest. “Oh, I’m not a fan. My buddies and I used to make fun of that song when it was popular. Sweet’N Low country is what we used to call it. For people who don’t really like the music.”
Luke glanced over his shoulder at the clock. The conversation was getting meaner, and the smell of David’s martini was bothering him. “To each his own,” he mumbled, instead of telling the guy to fuck off, that the song hadn’t been like that when it was written, andlet’s see you get your heart ripped out onstage every night. “It’s getting late—”
“Like I said, I’m not a fan.” David drained his drink and shoved the glass to one side, far away from Luke. “I’m a manager. For Jojo Lane.”
Luke didn’t believe him at first. Jojo Lane’s manager randomly showing up at a Memphis bar sounded like the sort of delusional scenario he used to conjure up when he still had the hope of being rescued from career purgatory. But nothing on David’s face revealed anything but impatience. He was waiting for Luke to acknowledge his status as music royalty. The way Jojo’s career was skyrocketing these days, he’d probably earned it.
Luke had been five years old when Jojo Lane released her first record, a six-song EP of acoustic country covers. He got the album for his seventh birthday and had it on repeat for weeks. His life was a cage back then. Jojo escaping Arcadia to follow her dream felt like a message she’d bottled up and sent directly to him. It said keep playing that old guitar. Keep dreaming, even on the days it feels like this might kill you.
Everyone in his hometown knew Jojo’s story. She was a former beauty queen, the first Black Miss Arkansas Delta Teen in the region’s history. In 1994, a sixteen-year-old Jojo made national headlines for being a sign of racial progress in the Deep South. People started calling her “little Lencola,” after the first Black Miss Arkansas. But then word got out that Jojo had a one-year-old daughter. While not technically against the rules, the scandal was enough to force her to relinquish her crown.
But she didn’t disappear for long. At nineteen, she moved to Nashville to pursue a music career. The novelty of her race, paired with the local beauty queen scandal, gave her album more traction than it would have gotten otherwise. One journalist called her an “obstinate rebel, determined to make room in industries that are clearly hostile to her presence.”
Jojo recorded more albums, earning her a small, devoted fan base but no radio play. Her music was mainstream enough to be dismissed as pop and, sometimes, mislabeled as R&B. But last year, Charlotte Turner covered Jojo’s song “Invisible” on her album. A scathing op-ed about the optics of a white millennial superstar singing a song about being a Black woman who had been overlooked by Nashville sparked enough controversy to make Jojo’s original version go viral.
Suddenly she was everywhere. At the CMAs. The Grammys. Jojo was officially dubbed a Black country pioneer. Her new single, “Rewritethe Story,” had spent the last two months in the top five on the Hot Country Songs chart.
“You really work for Jojo?”
David nodded. “For over twenty years now.” He gave Luke an assessing look. “You’re from the same hometown, right? Went to school with her daughter?”
“Yeah. Au—S-She and I were… friends.” He flattened the end of the sentence, hoping David wouldn’t notice how badly he fumbled it. “Does Jojo have a show nearby?” he asked, eager to change the subject. “Is that why you’re here?”
“No, she’s in the studio. Working on the new album.” David reclined in his unreclinable chair and propped his ankle on one knee. This was a guy who’d never had an awkward conversation in his life. Which meant he was either brilliant or a psychopath. “It’s been a while since you’ve been home, hasn’t it? To Arcadia?”
Luke ran a hand over his hair and tried to focus through the fog that had settled over his thoughts. That’s what happened whenever someone brought up his hometown. His brain would try to protect him from the shit he used to drown in gin. “Yeah,” Luke said. “There’s not much to the place, is there?”
“That’s true. It’s definitely existential crisis country. Jojo hates going back but feels obligated because of family. You’ve got family there, too, right? Friends?”
The last time Luke spoke to his mother, she’d been so high that it took her half an hour to realize that it wasn’t his little brother on the phone. “We’re more of a Facebook only family.”
“You don’t have a Facebook. Or Instagram. Or fans with Facebooks or Instagrams.”
“You stalking me?” Luke scanned the room. The crowd was thinning, and the manager was giving him impatient looks. He still owed another set. “Look, tell Jojo I said congratulations on her success. Glad they’re finally giving her the attention she deserves.”
Luke pushed back his chair and stood. David cocked a brow and said, “Sit,” in the low octave people usually reserved for kids and animals.
“No,” Luke said, matching his tone. “You’ve got five seconds to say something to change my mind.”
There was a familiar shift in David’s demeanor. It happened when someone stopped seeing the kid on those old album covers and realized there was a tattooed, six-foot-two former football player standing in front of them. Not fear. Just a heightened awareness.
