As they walked out of the big top, Lara held the cloth spine of the book in her palm. A sense of dread tugged at her. She wasn’t so convinced this had been a nice gesture at all.
There was a slow drizzle falling and the air was cool. Lara was sure there would be fog in the rest of the valley. The June morning breeze had a lingering smoky scent from plants and trees that had been cooking for days in the heat before finally getting relief from a cool, hard rain. These were the kind of mornings when people stayed in, so the streets were spare, allowing the rain to gently wash the cobblestones. By noon, the sun would beat down and the place would feel like a swamp.
In the past few days, her father had been out touring with the Dangerous Tendencies reunion band. The first show had been last week in Charlottesville, followed by Durham then Clemson, but last night they did a practice concert in Winchester.
Lara placed the journal on her desk and sat back in her chair. “How’d it go?” She was settled in for an hour of the play-by-play on the set changes, troubles with the new drummer, and crowd size and energy. She’d toured with him for a year, playing rhythm guitar, but she’d nearly been electrocuted by a faulty wire on a guitar and Jason never invited her back on the road. For years now, his taste had been shifting toward blues and he was seeking out musicians who shared his vision. To the dismay of old fans, his concerts only played a few old Dangerous Tendencies tracks, allowing them to focus on new material. All his Son House, Bukka White, and Hound Dog Taylor records were out in prime positions near his phone.
Jason sat on the edge of his desk. He was all movement, his face flushed, fingers tapping. “I loved it.” He’d even gotten a haircut for the gig, his auburn curls clipped tightly to his scalp.
“Really?” She cocked her head. “You never love it.”
“It was perfect,” he said, looking away with a smile, like he was savoring a memory.
Jason was a creature of the road. Lara hated caging him up in a desk job, even if it was one that had him playing records like a teenager.
“I’ve got something new,” he said. “We were jamming a little in the bus. Lots of good vibes among the guys.”
“You didn’t just say vibes?” She put her hands on her face.
He put his finger up and picked up his Gibson. “We’ve been working on some stuff. I think this band is actually gelling.”
“The word gelling is only moderately better.” She grimaced pitifully.
Jason had wanted to form a new band and make another studio album. Although he denied it, she knew part of the reason he’d agreed to do the syndicated radio show was to find a new audience and catch the attention of a record studio. After his third album, there had been no request for a fourth. Ten years later, she knew it was still a sore subject.
Her father started with a few bars. It was a nice song. All of his songs were nice, but they had simple, straightforward melodies. They didn’t take on a layered edge until they were in the hands of a good producer. Lara had heard the tracks “before” and “after” a producer, and they were almost unrecognizable. While not the greatest balladwriter, Jason was a brilliant cover musician, so his live performances were usually four-to-five-song segues where each one blended seamlessly into the next. They weren’t the faithful reproductions of a less talented cover band. Jason took them to another level, weaving an overlay of a similar blues style through everything from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle” and “Effigy” to the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” Like a good mix, you could hear bits of the melody on cue, bleeding through the one he was singing.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” She twirled a pen between her fingers, her legs perched on her desk.
“Sure.” He continued strumming, working something out with the new arrangement.
Lara sprang up and grabbed the acoustic Fender—her favorite. “You didn’t backmask anything on the Tending album, did you?”
“No, why?”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, grabbing for the guitar and perching it on her knee, checking to see how out of tune it was and tightening the strings quickly. “There was just this weird thing that happened the other night with your album.”
He stopped strumming, the note fading until he quieted it with his finger and shot her a puzzled look.
“I decided to play ‘The One I Left Behind.’ As I was cuing it up, I heard a song.”
“You need to stop doing the late shift.” He laughed, stroking his beard. “You can hear lots of shit when you’re cuing a record in a studio. You know that.”
“This was different,” she said. “It was a song, not a noise.” Grabbing the scrap paper with the notes she’d put on her desk, she played a few chords, then started singing.
“Stop!” His jaw was clenched, and he gripped her guitar so tightly that it seemed like he would snap it in two.
Lara’s eyes shot up to see he was shaking and pale.
“Where in the hell did you hear that?”
“I just told you,” she said, her eyes wide. She wasn’t expecting this type of reaction. “I was cuing your album—”
“Not that song, Lara.” He cut her off, his voice raised and edgy, like it had been when she was a child swimming out too far in the pool. “That song doesn’t exist, not anymore.”
Lara stopped strumming. “I… I… told you. I cued up ‘The One I Left Behind’ and when I did, I heard this several times.” She pointed
