“Watch the boom!”
Automatically, Molly and Adele swerved in their path to avoid the mic pole that swung in an arc just over their heads. They followed Nina, the assistant floor manager, and dodged a dolly that wheeled past so fast Molly worried for the operator’s safety.
Nina turned in the darkness with a quick smile. “Sorry, it’s always this crazy. Green room is this way. Watch this bit, don’t trip on the cords.”
The last time Molly had been backstage on a national television program had been their appearance on Oprah, almost twelve years before. The Darling Songbirds had been at their peak popularity. The audience had stood up and refused to sit, roaring with applause and screams. Oprah herself coming out on stage hadn’t gotten the same reaction.
That had been a week before their father died, a week before the Songbirds broke up, band-wise and sister-wise. Molly and Lana had blamed Adele for pushing them back onstage too early, but the truth was that by then the sisters had been missing their mother too much for too long. They hadn’t been connecting. They’d had hairline fractures already, and the split had been almost instant.
Being on the TV set brought it all back – the debacle on The View when Molly had run away from Barbara Walters. Molly’s head set up a low, dull throb at the sound and the lights and the flurry of everything around her.
They’d been on the Jack and Ginger set only once, a year before the band split. Now the show had a bigger stage and more cameras, and it seemed twice as frenetic. Lights shone in every direction, and men were moving furniture around in a perpetual game of arranging fake living rooms. The ceilings were dark and high above. The cold air smelled of perfume and of metal and of the fresh flowers that sat on every stage surface.
The green room was as big as a hotel conference room, and it was packed. Molly felt her sister squeeze her hand in silent encouragement. Guests on that day’s show appeared to include a travelling mime troupe from Istanbul, and the whole skinny group of them appeared to be diving face-first into the fruit arrangements on the heavily laden tables. A mother-daughter duo famous in the world of scrapbooking Pinterest was showing off a new way to display shadow-boxed photographs. A politician recently embroiled in a DC scandal was having his sweating forehead powdered again.
And then there were Molly and her sister.
Wardrobe put them in quintessential country-girl singer outfits: tight blue jeans, sparkly tank tops studded with Swarovski, and spike heels so high Molly’s big toes immediately went numb.
Hair and make-up then performed a miracle of sorts – after blowing out and curling their hair and decorating their faces with twenty or so products, Molly and Adele both looked like they used to when the Darling Songbirds had been a national treasure.
“Oh, my God.” Molly leaned in towards the mirror. “What did they do to me?” She touched the tops of her cheekbones. “I look ten years younger.” She couldn’t decide if she was pleased or horrified.
Adele laughed. “You do. You look like the baby I remember you as.” She turned sideways and put her hands on her flat belly.
“Come on, I’m not Lana. And I’ve never been the little one.”
“You’re both my baby sisters.”
Molly held her breath and turned sideways, too, comparing her belly against Adele’s. “Don’t worry, I’m still the fat one.”
“Number one, shut up. Number two, not for long.” Adele’s cheeks were pink, and it wasn’t just the stage make-up.
“What?”
“Yeah…No. Oh, crap.” Adele’s hands still rested on her belly. “Let’s just say I won’t be able to fit into these kinds of jeans for much longer.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Adele squeaked and then said, “Damn it! I wasn’t going to tell you by myself. We found out yesterday, right before we got on the plane. I promised Nate I’d wait so we could tell you together – but that was an impossible promise to keep. I don’t even know why I agreed.”
Molly flew at her sister, wrapping her in a hug so tight it hurt. She pulled back and looked into her sister’s face. In the move their father used to make, she took Adele’s cheeks (so soft, still dewy with make-up) and pulled down her forehead to kiss it. “I’d ruffle your hair but they’ll kill me if I do. You’re going to be the best mother ever.”
Adele swallowed. “I’m terrified.”
“I think that’s normal.” Molly held out her hand. “Can I?”
“All you’re going to feel is my muffin top over these jeans.”
“Please.” Molly touched her sister’s stomach. “A little baby songbird.”
Adele whispered, “I know.”
“Oh! You’re going to ruin my make-up.”
A make-up girl hurried over, brush at the ready, but Molly shook her head. “I won’t cry. I promise. Oh, God, I have to pee. I’ll be back. I’ll meet you in the green room?”
In the bathroom, she leaned her forearms against the cool porcelain sink. She stared at herself, but the face that looked back only unnerved her – it was someone else’s. It belonged to a girl she hadn’t seen in a long, long time, a girl who at one point had known what she was doing.
Molly wished she had one single clue how to do this. Crystalline fear rested at the very tops of her lungs, ready to stop her breath, to close her throat.
Adele was the fixer.
Molly was the voice.
Lana was the artist.
It wasn’t true, not anymore. Molly didn’t have a voice, she only had fear. And, if she looked deep inside, there was something even worse than the fear – the tiniest sprig of jealousy.
She didn’t want to be pregnant, like Adele. She didn’t want to be her sister – Adele was the best Adele in the world, and Molly, while always emulating her sister’s strength whenever she could, had no interest in being like her.
But that love, the love that Adele and Nate shared – the way they looked at each other when they were both tired, the way they leaned on each other behind the bar when they thought no one was looking, the way their hands reached out to touch fingers without words…
She saw their connection, and she pictured Colin.
Colin’s eyes, so dark his pupils were almost invisible against the iris.
Colin’s fingers brushing hers.
His sudden, surprised bark of laughter. His blow-torch-hot touch. His incredible, talented lips on hers.
The way she felt like she’d finally found home in his arms.
“You love him,” she whispered to the Molly in the mirror. That Molly had sparkling, smoky eyes and hair that was shiny and luxe. That Molly looked successful.
“I know,” that Molly answered. “I’m working on it.”