“You were making a face on your way over,” he explained. Turning back to his dad, he said, “We must be a little off. We’re torturing her.”
“Not as bad as Hank Williams on Thursday,” I assured them. “Yodeling.”
They both nodded sympathetically. “Oh,” Sam said. His dad echoed, “The yodeling.”
“Well, why don’t you start us off?” Mr. Hardiman asked me, nodding to my fiddle. He was back in charge.
Obediently I played a long, low E and let them tune their guitars to it. I felt relieved and strangely giddy that I was getting what I wanted for once. It wouldn’t last, though. Guitars slowly unwound and went flat. In two hours I’d be gathering up the gumption to face off with Mr. Hardiman again.
But for now, I was good. Mr. Hardiman headed through the glass door that had been fitted into the storefront of the ex-Borders. Following him, Sam held the door wide open for me while backing against it so I could squeeze by him and his guitar. This was no big deal. Men held doors open for women in Nashville. They were rude if they didn’t. His dad would have done it if Sam hadn’t.
What set my heart racing was the way his chocolate eyes followed me as I passed him in the doorway, my bare forearm brushing against his. He gave me the smallest smile, soft-looking lips contrasting with the older look he was trying to pull off. The term handsome devil came up in country songs a lot. Now I understood why.
He fell into step beside me as we trailed his dad up the wide corridor. He said quietly, as if he didn’t want his dad to hear, “I would kill for perfect pitch.” In his voice I heard admiration of me, and a mournful longing.
“No, you wouldn’t,” I assured him. “If you had it, you’d wish you didn’t. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.” Life in a tribute band would be so much easier if I didn’t mind Hank Williams’s yodeling—or if, like Mr. Crabtree, I couldn’t hear when the song went south.
“That’s exactly what all of you say,” Sam told me as we parted ways and parked ourselves on either side of Mr. Hardiman, who’d stopped in front of Banana Republic.
“ ‘Five Feet High and Rising,’ ” Mr. Hardiman said, which made me smile despite myself. That song had special meaning to Nashville musicians. A few years ago we got seventeen inches of rain in two days and the Cumberland River swelled to flood the Grand Ole Opry. I expected Mr. Hardiman to add that the song was in B-flat, the key in which Johnny Cash had recorded it. He didn’t. He just started with a strum of major one on his guitar. Sam matched him on the first beat, and I jumped in with the melody. Mr. Hardiman must have taken me at my word—or, rather, taken Sam at his—that I had perfect pitch. Only a very experienced or very jaded musician would accept that fact without teasing or questioning. He’d been around the block a few more times than his son or even Dolly or Hank or Willie or Elvis.
The song was made up of ones, fours, and fives like so many others. But the key kept changing higher, B-flat to D-flat to E-flat to F, reflecting the water rising to flood the farm where Johnny Cash grew up. It also had the characteristic Cash boom-chucka rhythm like a train chugging down the tracks, lots of fun to play after so many sad country ballads this week. Best of all, Mr. Hardiman and Sam were good at this. Mr. Hardiman sang in a deep, strong voice that matched Cash’s nicely, and he and his son both had their guitar licks down pat.
The song featured a slow beat, as if Mr. Hardiman was testing me with an easy pace first. I must have passed, because next he announced “Hey, Porter,” and both guitars jumped right in with the speeding freight-train beat. I handled the fiddle harmony fine. The challenge came during the solo section in the middle. A fast song like this could easily wreck a fiddle solo.
I might have become a lot of things in the past year. A failure. A bitch. A bad sister. I was not, however, rusty. As I pulled off the solo, first Sam and then Mr. Hardiman looked up at me in surprise.
With the smallest nod, Mr. Hardiman indicated that Sam should take a solo next. In general, playing fiddle was harder than guitar. I didn’t have frets as anchors to tell me where my fingers should go. But fiddle solos were easier than guitar solos. At least I had a bow. All Sam had was one pick to enunciate every note of a lightning-fast improvisation. As I played my staccato accompaniment quietly to stay out of his way, I watched his hands in awe. I’m sure my face mirrored the expressions of so many non-musicians I’d played in front of over the years. Their wide-eyed question: How’d you get so good? The answer: You start when you’re five. In Sam I’d met my match.
He knew it, too. About halfway through, he looked up at me again and grinned.
Another small nod from Mr. Hardiman told us he didn’t want his turn at a solo. We moved on to the next verse of the song. But I still focused on Sam. He reminded me of a boy I’d met a long time ago at a bluegrass festival. Those days were full of cocky children trying to one-up me. This particular boy had been kind and friendly. We’d gotten assigned to the same impromptu band. And when I’d garnered louder applause for my solo than he got for his, he didn’t stick out his tongue at me. He smiled at me like he’d run into an old friend. I’d looked for him at every festival since, but I’d never seen him again.
My sigh at the end of the song was partly for that lost boy, partly from relief. Drops of sweat were forming on my scalp and running down to the edges of my wig.
“Why didn’t you take a solo?” Sam asked his father quietly.
“You two were busy impressing each other,” Mr. Hardiman grumbled.
Sam leaned around his father’s back to see if I’d overheard. When he saw I had, his eyes widened in horror. Then, with a little shake of his head, he was back to normal, brushing it off. He crossed behind his father to talk softly to me. “Been at this long?” he asked with a knowing smile.
“A week,” I said, pretending I thought he meant the job rather than the fiddle in general. “But we haven’t been playing this fast.”
“You like it fast?” He was flirting with me, but he blinked at me innocently. He never would have admitted to the double entendre if I’d called him on it. He was testing me, like his dad had, but deliciously.
“Yeah,” I said, “I like it fast.”
“Remember you asked for it,” he whispered. He crossed behind his father again to resume his place. “Dad,” he said. “ ‘Cocaine Blues.’ ”