Sherri said, “‘Good Lord, I feel like I’m dyin’!’” loudly enough for the room captain to look in her direction with alarm. “Roberta made me learn that song so I could play it for her on the organ.”

“You play?”

“Not like Gregg Allman, but yeah, I guess. I play mostly hymns.”

“We’ll have a Hammond onstage tomorrow night. Cost us a pretty penny to get one.”

“Tomorrow? They’re playing Alpine?”

Frank overheard their conversation. “You didn’t hear? Where’ve you been?”

Where had she been?

The manager pulled a little notebook out of his breast pocket. “Give me your name. I’ll put you on the list for backstage passes.”

“Can I bring Roberta?”

“Only if she’s as cute as you are.”

“She’s cuter.” Sherri meant it. She’d always thought Roberta was the prettiest girl in the world.

“I doubt that. What’s your name, honey?”

“Bunny Sherri,” she said. “I mean, I’m Sherri. Sherri Taylor.”

“I’ll put you down for a plus-one. Just go to the backstage door after the concert, tell them you’re on the list.”

She couldn’t believe it. Her name was on a list! And she’d discovered a novel way back into Roberta’s good graces after the tension between them at the party earlier that summer. They hadn’t spoken since, and while Sherri was too busy to actively think about Roberta, her friend’s displeasure hovered over her thoughts.

Roberta’s first love, before Ian, and before the Sex Pistols, was Gregg Allman. She had a poster of the Allman Brothers Band in her bedroom that her mother, a devout Catholic, absolutely hated because the band members sat naked in a creek. The other poster over her bed was of Allman alone in his golden glory, his straight, silver-blond hair long enough to brush his fingers while he was bent over his guitar. The glossy surface of the poster was smeared from lipstick stains and spots where Roberta touched it, closing her eyes and making a wish—for good luck on a test, or for a thunderstorm to save her from running laps outside in gym class. “Greggy loves me,” Roberta said to Sherri. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Allman was like the family dog for Roberta, a constant source of watchfulness and comfort. She’d study the poster and say to Sherri with a dreamy look in her eyes, “He looks like a little boy trapped inside a man’s body, doesn’t he? Just look at him. He’s lost so much. He’s hurting. When I meet Greggy—and someday I will—I’m going to make him a pot roast. I can make him happy, Sher. I just know I can. I understand him, and I know he understands me, too, even though we’ve never met.”