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“I doubt very much if this guy Stewart could get upstairs,” Kate says. “His picture iseverywhere.”
“Just the same. And remember he might look like a she.”
Kate puts one stocking-clad foot behind her and does a deep curtsey that would look perfectly acceptable in the Court of St. James’s. “Yes, boss.”
No, Holly thinks.That’s you.
4
Barbara said to use the service entrance, which Holly knows from the old days, when Bill Hodges was still alive. This is how they came inon the night when Brady Hartsfield tried to blow the fracking place sky-high.
Holly parks in the small employees’ lot beside a white Transit van with MINGO AUDITORIUM on the side. Beneath it is a motto:JUST THE GOOD STUFF!™ The service door to the little kitchen is open. Two men are standing beside it, a bald guy in jeans and a Sista Bessie tee, the other in a sportcoat and tie. From inside comes the booming, echoing sound of a rock-and-soul band in full flight.
The man in jeans comes to her, hand held out. “I’m Tones Kelly, Sista’s tour manager. And you must be Barbara’s friend Holly.”
“I am,” Holly says. “Very nice to meet you.”
“We love Barbara,” Tones says. “Sista especially. She read Barbara’s book of poems, and they just clicked.”
“And now she’s in the band!” Holly says. Marvels, actually.
Tones laughs. “She sings, she dances, she plays the tambo on the beat, she writes poems… what can’t she do? A star is born!”
The other man comes forward. “Hello, Ms. Gibney. I’m Donald Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director.”
“You’re going to be a busy bee this weekend,” Holly says, shaking his hand. Two years ago she would have offered her elbow to both men, but times have changed enough for her to resume the old practice. She still keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse, though. Some would call her a hypochondriac, but so far she’s avoided even a mild case of Covid, and she wants to keep it that way.
Donald Gibson leads the way down a short corridor. As they go, Holly recognizes the song the band is playing as an old Al Green tune, “Let’s Stay Together.” Sista Bessie (Holly can’t think of her as plain old Betty, at least not yet) is singing in a low, sweet voice that channels Mavis Staples so clearly that Holly gets a run of gooseflesh on the back of her neck. The music stops in mid-verse, and as they step into the elevator, the band starts up some other song, one Holly doesn’t recognize.
“They are doing a bump rehearsal, because your Ms. McKay has the hall tomorrow night,” Tones says. “Betty thought Ms. McKay might want it tomorrow day to do a sound check.”
“That will ease her assistant’s mind,” Holly says. “What’s a bump rehearsal?”
“They do a little bit of every song on Sista’s set list,” Tones says. “To make sure the band and Ross—he’s our sound guy—are on the same wavelength. The settings change between rave-ups and ballads. So do the lights and the cyc, but I let Kitty Sandoval worry about that. I just need to make sure the sound is right.”
“You also have to make sure the band stays in the same key from song to song, right?” Gibson asks. He pushes his glasses up on his nose.
“Right,” Kelly says.
There’s something familiar about Gibson, but before Holly can begin to think of what it might be or where she might have seen him before, the elevator doors open backstage and the band wallops them: the intro to “Land of 1000 Dances.”
Gibson takes Holly’s hand—she doesn’t like it, but allows it because it’s dark back here—and leads her to stage left, the exact post she expects to be occupying tomorrow night when Kate speaks. She’s hardly aware of Gibson letting go and stepping back, because she’s totally absorbed by what’s going on at center stage. Entranced, really.
Barbara is wearing black pants and a shimmery white shirt. She’s banging a tambourine with the heel of her hand, swinging her hips, stepping in time with the other three Dixie Crystals, and looking young—so young and sexy and beautiful. It’s a dance-craze song from yesteryear, and she segues from the Pony, to the Frug, to the Watusi, to the Mashed Potato. Even the Twist. And sheshines.
The band cuts out. Barbara sees Holly and runs across the stage, leaping over the power cords. She hurls herself into Holly’s arms, almost knocking her over. Her cheeks are high with color; tiny drops of sweat nestle in the hollows of her temples.
“You came! I’m so glad!”
Sista Bessie joins them. “You are Barbara’s friend, Holly.”
“I am. And I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I’m a big fan of your songs. I remember your gospel days.”
“Long ago,” Betty says, and laughs. “Long time gone. Barbara is some kind of special, as I’m sure you know.”
“I do,” Holly says.
“We are just finishing up. We have three more bumps, then the show closer, which you may recognize. It’s called ‘Lowtown Jazz.’?”