As I approached, Mr. Cash never looked up. There was no reason for him to. The lounge area was always busy at this time of the afternoon with musicians milling back and forth between the couches and Ms. Lottie’s area. A 1950s fiddle player coming closer shouldn’t have been an unusual sight.
But his son looked up. I was watching them, listening to the cacophony as they played two different songs in two different keys. I saw the exact moment when Cash Jr. realized someone was making a beeline for him. His dark eyes widened at me, his stare so unabashed and his expression so intent, as if reading my face, that I felt myself blushing in response.
And then he grinned at me. His eyes sparkled. The corners of his mouth lifted through a day’s worth of dark stubble, which didn’t quite jibe with the pompadour. He definitely was only a few years older than me, and so handsome that I wished for the millionth time I’d never cut my blond hair off and dyed it black. Then I remembered I was wearing my red ponytail wig, which was even worse.
Now I knew what Ms. Lottie had meant when she said he was a heartbreaker. And he hadn’t spoken one word to me yet.
I hadn’t bothered to impress anyone in a full year, but I found myself doing it now. I stopped in front of the sofa and called above Mr. Cash’s continuing guitar notes, “Hello, I’m June Carter Cash,” in imitation of the way the real deal used to say, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” at the beginning of his television variety show in the early 1970s. My parents had the complete set of DVDs.
“She didn’t play fiddle,” the son said, never taking his eyes off me as he stood. “You’re definitely not her.” His words were innocent enough, but his knowing tone of voice told me he got the joke that I was married to his father, and he himself was my son. And he didn’t like it.
By now his dad was standing, too. His dad said, “I’m Darren Hardiman and this is my son, Sam,” at the same time Sam said, “I’m Sam Hardiman and this is my father, Darren.” They both heard each other as they started talking, glared sideways at each other, and finished their sentences a little louder. I hadn’t been around boys and their fathers that much, but these two were easy to read, their expressions open like cartoon parodies of themselves, as if they were thoroughly tired of each other and didn’t care anymore if they stepped on each other’s toes.
Their interaction was even more fascinating to watch because they looked so much alike. They were dressed differently, and Sam’s face was softer and more youthful despite his five o’clock shadow. But their pointed looks at each other were the same. Their dark, piercing eyes were the same. They were both tall and fit, and they stood exactly the same way, with one hand balancing the body of their guitars, the other hand never leaving the neck.
They both held out a hand for me to shake. Whichever hand I chose first, I was bound to piss off one of them. I should have taken Mr. Hardiman’s hand, since he was in charge, but I took Sam’s and was rewarded with an even broader grin, his eyes crinkling with the pleasure of one-upping his dad.
“What’s your real name?” he asked, squeezing my hand briefly in his warm palm.
I turned to his dad, shook his hand, and gave my fake name. “Bailey Wright.” Bailey was my real name. Wright was my granddad’s last name, my mom’s maiden name, and my middle name. It was close enough to the truth. My granddad had gotten me this job on the condition that I introduce myself using his last name rather than mine, which ought to keep the curious from drawing links between the loser sister and Julie once her career started to heat up. I was still mortified and angry that my family wanted to keep me hidden, but after a year, I was getting used to it.
Besides, I’d thought my parents had turned on me a year ago, but their first betrayal was naming me Bailey Mayfield at birth. Who gave their child a ridiculous, singsong name? They’d never honestly wanted me to bloom into a country sensation with a name like that. I was glad to get rid of it.
“Pleasure,” Mr. Hardiman said, not quite getting the whole word out of his mouth before he dropped my hand and bent his head to his guitar again.
But Sam still watched me. “Bailey Wright.” He puzzled through it. “Are you related to Mr. Wright who makes guitars?”
“Yyyeah,” I admitted, simultaneously thinking I shouldn’t have. If he knew who my granddad was, maybe he would figure out who my sister was, too. But I doubted my granddad went around offering Julie’s story to anyone who wandered into his shop. And it sounded like Sam knew of my granddad only in passing. “He’s my grandfather,” I said.
“No shit!” Sam exclaimed. “He made both of ours.” He nodded to his father’s guitar, then showed me his own, with “Wright” inlaid in a light wood on the head. It wasn’t my granddad’s top-of-the-line model, but it was definitely more expensive than a mass-produced instrument, lovingly constructed for someone who took music seriously. Sam added, “My mother doesn’t understand.”
“Mothers and wives usually don’t.” My granddad told stories about customers canceling their orders for pricey handmade instruments when their women found out and protested—sometimes violently.
“Bailey Wright.” Sam ran his eyes down my outfit. “Well, that explains some things.”
What it explained, I wasn’t sure. The fact that I was a teenage fiddle player? Yeah, only someone who’d grown up in a bluegrass family would suffer this cruel fate. The fact that I was dressed like a cult member?
He prompted his dad, “Bailey is related to Mr. Wright, the guitar guy.”
“Well, how about that,” Mr. Hardiman said noncommittally. And he was right. In Denver or Honolulu, he might have been astonished if he’d met the musician granddaughter of the man who made his guitar, but not in Nashville.
So much for my attempt at impressing them. In a last-ditch effort, I said brightly, “I’m already tuned. Do you want to tune to me?”
Mr. Hardiman’s brows went way up. He didn’t try to disguise the fact that I was out of line. It was his band. I should have tuned to him, or waited for him to say otherwise. He took a breath to tell me so.
Sam broke in, “She has perfect pitch, Dad.” He turned to me and asked, “Don’t you?”
I was so surprised Sam had guessed something private about me that I just stood there with my mouth wide open. I pictured myself wearing this expression. At least Ms. Lottie had painted my lips impeccably in classic red like a model on a 1957 cover of Vogue.