Page 5 of If Not for My Baby
Everly Pace:Sounds pretty entertaining.
Everly Pace:Going to pass out, we have rehearsal super early in the morning.
Clementine:LOVE YOU
Everly Pace:xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
The drive to Austin from Cherry Grove is about an hour but I make it in forty-six minutes flat. My car skids to a halt beneath the brightly litLive Musicsign and I dash inside. I still smell like chimichangas because I was too tired to shower and I might have pimple spot treatment on my chin but I don’t care—as soon as the swell of piano keys fills my ears I have more energy than I’ve had all week.
“Am I too late?” I ask Everly’s replacement, a frizzy-haired woman with dangling earrings. She’s filing away some sheet music at the host stand.
“Almost. You can close us out.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Great.”
“Take a seat,” she tells me. “We’ll call you up shortly.”
The man on the stage is an older gentleman in a fifties bomber jacket. He plays a swooping jazz melody that’s either Chet Baker or Duke Ellington but I’m too brain-dead to discern which. Either way, the swinging notes slink deep into my bones and soothe me from the inside out. I get a bubbly water from the bar and take a seat in the back to listen before I’m up.
I love the blend of people who come to this theater on open mic night. Everything from young singers hoping to make it in the Austin country scene to aged rock ’n’ rollers who’ve retired in the countryside to die-hard musical nerds like myself. I’m sure there are bars and clubs just for show tunes somewhere—maybe New York or London—but Ladybird Playhouse is even better because of the hodgepodge crowd. It’s like a playlist put together by ten people who’ve never met. A sketchbook shared among strangers. I’m really glad Everly encouraged me to come.
The jazz number ends to heartfelt applause and the woman with the long earrings calls me up. I maneuver through the familiar crowd, propping my phone to record at the lip of the stage.
Ladybird Playhouse is a pretty small venue. It can only seat one hundred and fifty, but they always allow standing room on jazz, comedy, or open mic nights like this one. Still,when I step onto the scuffed, tape-marked stage, adjust my mic, and stare out at the darkness, I feel as though I’m singing to millions. A mass of people awaiting my voice—my chest expands with the anticipation.
Inspired by my conversation with Ev, I’ve cued up the notes to “Something’s Coming.” It’s a song usually sung byWest Side Story’s male lead, Tony. I do stray from show tunes every now and then—Fleetwood Mac, Lana Del Rey, Janis Joplin—but I always come back to Broadway. Especially on double-shift, crummy-date, bad-clinical-trial-news nights like tonight.
Tony’s hopeful notes and that brush of the snare drum pick up and the lifting feeling in my chest doubles. I open my mouth and am immediately lost in the wonder of it. A song about all that is to come. That feeling of knowing your life is about to change dramatically for the better—knowing it as sure as you know the sun will rise in the morning.
It’s not a feeling I can relate to, but that’s what’s so magical about musical theater. About music in general: it’s all the escapism of storytelling but with the added arsenal of slow-building chords and plunging vocals. You feel it in every part of you—the tap of your feet, the tears in your eyes, the tingle at the back of your neck. It’s as close to being swept away as one can get.
The chorus belts from my lungs.“Somethin’s comin’, I don’t know what it is, but it is gonna be great…”
Even though the dim lights make it hard to see the audience’s faces, I can sense the entire room is alive. They’d not expected a show tune. Probably cringed at the first few dated,plucked notes—and I don’t blame them one bit—but now…Now they canfeelit. The swell, the kick—
That dose of sheer optimism injected into every single line.
Or maybe it’s just me—maybe I’m the only one who feels alive and lit up like a firecracker. Soaring into the sky, bursting at the seams, sending out shots of hot light. Maybe I’m the only one in this entire room that grows brighter and taller and warmer with every verse.
But that’s okay, too. These nights are just for me. They’re for all I’ve given up. All I’ve made peace with never going after. They’re so the music can live inside of me again just for a little while, and so I can remember exactly who I am when that indescribable alchemy occurs.
When I sigh out the final lyrics, the intimate crowd is already on their feet to applaud.
Three
I’m elbow-deep in a brokenfryer, singing “Greased Lightnin’ ” to myself, when my phone buzzes against my butt for the third time. Twice is concerning—three times is worry-about-my-mom status. I wipe my hands free of the cold oil and fish the phone out in time to see Everly’s name across the display. I release a sigh of relief.
“What’s up? I’m at work.”
All I hear on the other line is indiscernible screaming.
It’s so loud that even Mike hears it from his perch on the counter and sets down the napkin he’s folding. He mouths,Who is it?And I mouth,Everly.
“Ev, can you use your big girl words?”
“I GOT THE JOB!”
Suddenly I’m screaming, too, and Mike is trying, unsuccessfully, to shush me. Ted and Jose, our line cooks, watch me in amused disbelief.
