We got along just fine for the most part, but whenever Valerie drank too much—which was often—she let me know just how far I’d set her back. I and I alone was responsible for where she was now: thirty-five and pinning every last hope she had on one gig at the The Rusty Roof.

In reality, this would end up being the gig that finally convinced Valerie she would never, ever make it in country music. The gig that would finally convince her to toss out her “right-hand guitar” and go to L.A. by herself to try to make it there.

But she didn’t know that the weekend before what happened happened, so she bought me a phone. And the first thing I did after I got my new cell phone was text the only other person I knew my age who also had a cell phone. Mike Lancer, the rich boy I’d met at the state fair. On purpose. I’d cornered him at the cotton candy booth after I’d seen him walking around with Beau Prescott, the quarterback of the Forest Brook Vikings. Beau was the boy I’d been secretly watching from afar for years now. The boy I’d never been able to bring myself to talk to.

So I’d gone after his friend, a beefy blond who was more than happy to hook up with me as long as I was okay with going straight to the servants entrance when I came over, because, “No offense, my parents would freak if they knew I was hanging out with a black girl.”

Which was why I was surprised to receive a text message right back from him, just a few seconds after I sent mine.

“Who’s that?” my mom asked, hearing the ding of my phone. “Somebody about a gig?”

She was on the couch, one shapely leg bent beneath her as she painted her toenails. Valerie might have been thirty-five, but she looked at least ten years younger thanks to an insane eating regimen, a wardrobe made up of Southern party girl staples, and her insistence on wearing toenail polish the color of candy. Today she was painting them neon pink.

Pretending to be her manager, so she looked like she’d already had one, was one of the duties my mother had given me, along with playing guitar for her sets and singing back-up when needed. Thanks to an extra serving of T&A that had come in over the past school year, I looked a lot older than fifteen years, especially when I wore stage make-up. Like Valerie, in reverse.

“No, it’s that boy I met at the fair back in June,” I answered her. “He wants me to come over, and we’re not performing tonight…”