fussing with the tuning on the Studio G, her movements quick and angry, muttering under her breath. When she forced the tuning peg, the string snapped.
Jonah rested his hand on the fingerboard. “It’s fine,” he said. “Really, it is. You’ll see.”
“Of
“I wish I could,” he said softly.
“I’m the one that needs to be able to get in
“No!” he said, drawing back. “Trust me. You don’t want to go there.”
“Probably not,” Emma said, threading the new string through the machine head.
“It’s not you, it’s—”
“If you tell me, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ I’m going to punch you, so don’t,” Emma warned.
“I just don’t want to hurt you more than I already have,”
Jonah said. “This—this happens . . . every time I—”
“Don’t make more of it than it really was,” Emma growled, turning his own weapon against him. “And don’t say you just want to be friends, because friends don’t tie friends into knots.” Jonah was all out of ideas. Everything he tried to say just made things worse.
After an awkward silence, Emma said, “Why don’t you go on out? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Jonah stood. “Just—just try and focus on the music,” he said. “That’s what I do. And we know that works . . . right?”
He picked up the Stratocaster, fastened the strap to the end pin, and walked through the door.
Natalie woke up the house with a rattle, bang, and crash. “I’m Natalie Diaz,” she said. “We are so glad to be here tonight. We’re Fault Tolerant, all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, and we call this one ‘A Tientas.’”
Jonah laid down the first few chords, and then Natalie came back in on drums, a pulse-pounding cadence that stirred the blood. These were Natalie’s lyrics, an in-your-face kind of love song. Natalie sang lead, while Jonah harmonized. Emma hung back a bit at first, her face a mask of concentration, till she found her footing. Gradually, she layered notes under and over Jonah’s guitar line, insinuated herself into the spaces Jonah left open for her. Sometimes he was lead dog, sometimes she was. Their guitar work laced together flawlessly. Well, pretty much.
It was straight-up rhythm and blues: two guitars, drums, a bass line, keyboards. No artificial ingredients, as Nat liked to say. Jonah’s Stratocaster came alive, delivering in a way it never had before. And the Studio G? That guitar was absolute magic in Emma’s hands.
When the set first began, Jonah kept his eyes cast downward, avoiding looking at the audience. During the guitar transitions, he stepped away from the mike and prowled around, unable to stay in one place. Energy seemed to bubble up inside him until he released it through his voice. Sweat dripped off his chin, plastered his hair to his forehead, ran down between his shoulder blades.
Finally, he dared look out, beyond the lights. He could see a mass of moving bodies, a collage of exotic colors. People dancing, people clapping or just swaying to the music.
Guitar transition. Jonah swung away from the voice mike, facing Emma. They were both in open G, the tuning allowing them to speak their minds through their instruments. She chewed on her lower lip, keeping her eyes on her fingers, a tiny frown between her brows.
Jonah lost his place, faltered, then had to scramble to get back in line. He could feel Natalie’s glare, like a red-hot poker between his shoulder blades.
More vocals coming. Jonah swiveled and walked back upstage to the microphone, turned, and faced the audience. Natalie’s voice curled around Jonah’s, sliding over and under, deep-throated and breathy, a rogue current in Jonah’s trickle of sound. Alison’s bass provided the heartbeat, spinning a web of connection between the band and the audience. Drawing them in.
When the song was over, the thousand invisible threads connecting the band members to one another, and to the audience, snapped. Jonah swayed, nearly fell. Sound backwashed over them, a mingling of applause, cheering, foot stomping.
Jonah was sweating, his clothing soaked through, droplets spotting the stone floor. He blotted his face with his sleeve, grabbed a bottle of water, and drained it.
“Thank you,” Natalie was saying to the audience. “Thank you
Jonah looked back at Emma. “Emma,” he said, “sorry I stepped on you in that last—”
“Haven’t you heard? There’s no
“This next piece is called ‘Logjam Blues,’” Natalie announced.
This time Jonah sang lead. As promised.
They were a little rougher on “Logjam,” less practiced. Jonah totally blew one of the new transitions, but the audience didn’t seem to notice as Rudy’s moody keyboards took over.
As the song unraveled to a rather shaky end, Natalie said, “There’s lots more rock coming, but right now I’d like to take it down a notch. We call this one ‘I’ll Sit In,’ featuring Mr. Jonah Kinlock on lead vocals.”
This was Jonah’s signature piece—a Kinlock & Kinlock composition. Blues with a bit of country thrown in. Jonah set his guitar in its stand, lifted the stand mike out of its cradle, and walked to the front of the makeshift stage. Natalie began a soft cadence with brushes and Emma and Alison chimed in on guitar.
This time, Jonah sang directly to the audience.
Rudy and Natalie piled in, harmonizing on the refrain.
And Jonah was on his own again.
He haunted the edge of the stage, stalking back and forth, casting his net of sound out into the audience. To his surprise, the energy ran both ways—from the audience as well as to it. They fed him, and he fed them.
He turned, faced Emma, and sang directly to her.
He paused for three heartbeats, gazing at Emma.
