Page 40 of Dedicated
“You wanna do it,” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.
“I wouldn’t mind trying out some of the new stuff.” He shrugged.
“But… people. And… us.” I gestured back and forth between us. “You know some way, somehow, some reporter’s going to manage to catch wind of it and get in there.”
“And they’ll see us. Putting on a show.”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest, but I nodded. A show. Right. That’s all we were doing.
* * *
ConsideringMaize had promised the drum circle would be low-key, I was curious what she’d consider a blowout, because there had to be at least fifty people in the gathering on her front lawn when we pulled up. I’d been expecting something along the lines of ten. Maybe fifteen. I didn’t even know there were fifty locals around Gatlinburg, much less ones under the age of fifty-five. We could hear the drums as we pulled into the long, winding drive, but now that we were next to the circle, the sound loomed and beat at the air around us. The thumping bass reverberated through the rubber tires of the SUV, and Evan seemed reluctant to undo his seat belt as I stopped the car and turned it off. I suspected he was thinking the same thing about the size of the crowd.
“Still want to?” I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. I know you’re dying for a change of pace.”
As soon as we got out, Maize detached herself from the big tom she was pounding on and came over, a warm, welcoming smile appling her cheeks. Evan laced his fingers with mine as I came around to his side, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, me or Maize. But she didn’t miss a beat, her eyes jumping from our twined hands to our faces as she leaned in and gave us each an air kiss. “Don’t worry. I told anyone if they act a fool, I’m kicking them out. No one’s gonna ask for autographs or get in your face. I promise.”
And she was right. Aside from some initial staring, and maybe one or two folks who stopped playing momentarily, we were absorbed into the circle with no fanfare. Maize pulled Evan down next to her and passed him a bongo drum. The guy I sat next to jutted his chin over his shoulder, without breaking his rhythm, to indicate a couple of drums sitting just behind him. I snatched up a djembe and listened for a while before finding a place where I could add my own rhythm. I’d started as a drummer, so it was probably sacrilege that I’d never participated in a drum circle before. I’d caught one from my hotel room in Asheville once, but it was a completely different animal to sit in the middle of one and contribute. I felt an immediate sense of connection that wasn’t unlike what I felt onstage, but it was somehow bigger, grander, because the audience and the players were one and the same. It was interactive and exhilarating, and I lost myself to the infinite feeling of it. I caught Evan watching me more than a few times, a studious half smile on his face as we played.
“You love it, don’t you?” he said when the circle finally broke to tap into the kegs set out on the front lawn. He scooted nearer to me and spread out on the grass.
“It’s a different vibe. Don’t you feel it?” I was almost high with it, loving the peaceful backdrop of cicadas and the drone of crickets in the late afternoon.
He nodded. Maize dropped off a couple of Solo cups filled with beer, and I guzzled half of mine in one go because I was thirsty as hell. Evan watched me warily.
“I told you I’d DD, dude. I’m not going back on that.”
He gave me a thin smile, and I set the beer down and sprawled backward in the grass. On impulse, I shifted, resting my head on the top of his thigh. His face registered surprise, and then mine probably did the same when he reached down to brush a few strands of hair from my forehead. He kept his hand on my crown of my head, playing with the ends of my hair.
“It’s more diffuse,” he said. “The energy, I mean. Distributed more evenly. I do like it. I’m kinda surprised we haven’t done it before.”
“That’s what I was thinking earlier. It’d be sorta hard to do it now, though.”
“I mean way back when, though, when we were first getting started. We could have.”
“We were focused on writing and getting the record out.” Probably to an unhealthy degree. Making that first album, I’d swear I didn’t sleep more than a few hours the entire time we’d worked on it.
“Even that was different.” He abandoned the ends of my hair to sweep his thumb along my eyebrow, the steady, soothing rhythm making me drowsy. I let my eyes drift shut, content.
“Because we weren’t answering to anything or anyone but ourselves.”
“I miss it,” he said wistfully.
I didn’t. I’d almost burned out at that pace, but I thought what Evan meant was that he missed that fresh energy of possibility, when it felt like the world was hanging on a string and if we could find just the right hook, we could reach out and seize it.
And then we had.
He combed his fingers through my hair, then tapped them lightly over my scalp, playing invisible strings. I wasn’t sure he realized what he was doing, but it was nice as hell. Almost sweet, for Evan.
“What would you be doing if we weren’t doing this?” I asked.
“Nothing. This is it for me. Music is the only thing I’m good at besides bartending, and I hated that.”
I’d always struggled to imagine Evan as a bartender. It had seemed like an odd fit because he was such an introvert. He must have been thinking along the same lines, because as I opened my eyes, he smiled and said, “With music it works because I can keep a stage between me and someone else. A manager between me and reporters if I have to, and I can just ignore the paparazzi most of the time. But spending seven hours in a crowded bar slinging drinks to a bunch of drunk people—it wore me down.”
“There’s me, though. I’m up there on the stage with you. In the bus. In the cabin.”