Gary opened a cooler, tossed Mitch and Sherri cans of Michelob, and led them to the back side of the stage. And there he was, Gregg Allman in the flesh. He was sitting at a Hammond B-3 organ, mimicking the rhythm guitar with the percussion tab set to the third harmonic. He looked older than the image that was burned into Sherri’s mind. His hair was less lustrous, his beard scraggly, but he was still handsome and cool in his T-shirt and a black leather vest. He glanced to the side and Sherri swore he saw her, really saw her. His eyes were the same sad, soulful eyes from Roberta’s poster. She was close enough that she could study his hands while he played and watch his sweat fly into the lights like dust in front of a window on a sunny day.

The wooden floor hummed with the bass. She understood now how musicians felt like gods when she saw the red, yellow, and blue lights pan over the screaming sea of audience members. Beach balls bounced in the air. Sherri’s whole body, and even the aluminum of her beer can, pulsed with the vibrations of the drums and the sizzle of electricity running up and around the heavy stage curtains and the pipes, tubes, and wires that held everything in place.

She reached for Mitch’s arm and began pressing her fingertips into his flesh the way her mother had once pressed invisible piano keys while Sherri played. She wished she could sit down and play a duet with Allman. She could almost imagine all the hours he’d sat on a piano bench with his teacher, all the recitals and practice books, and now he had effortless mastery of his craft. She loved the way he bounced the single nondominant seventh and repeated the hooks. She wanted Mitch to be impressed that she understood this language, that she knew how to play, that she felt the music, that she was special, but he wasn’t paying attention to the band at all, didn’t care that she’d tried to turn his arm into a keyboard. He’d started talking to the guy standing next to him, who said he airbrushed nature scenes onto the sides of vans. How could Mitch talk through that song? If only Roberta were there with her. They would have been having the best time.