Coming Undone by Susan Andersen

meshed with her way of playing.
    Joining Hank, she slipped her arm through his. “My hero,” she said, batting her lashes at him.
    He snorted.
    “Have you seen Eddie or Nell yet?”
    “Last I saw Eddie, he was romancing the front-office girl. Haven’t spotted Nell.”
    “I’m here,” a soft voice said and they both turned. A plump, medium-height woman materialized from the shadows of the right wing, where her medium-brown braid and medium-dark clothing had rendered her invisible.
    “Nell!” P.J. dashed across the stage to give her only real female friend a fierce hug. “I’m so glad to see you.” Stepping back, she held Nell at arm’s length. “Now, are you sure you want to do this again this year? I mean, why be tour manager when you can make more money and work less hours as a songwriter?”
    “What, and give up all this glamorous travel?” Nell looked around the stage, bare of everything except Hank’s instruments and pieces of the bandstand that the roadies were setting up for the extra musicians Wild Wind had hired for the tour, then out at the empty theater.
    Following her gaze, P.J. saw with a jolt that Jared hadn’t left at all. He sat in the front row, one ankle propped on his opposite knee. The only other person out there was the sound man in his booth at the back of the main floor. Having introduced herself to him earlier, she dragged her attention from the last guy she’d expected to see front and center and returned it to her friend. “Is the bus here yet?”
    “Yes. I just spoke to the driver and he’s pumped. Apparently he’s a huge country-music fan and is looking forward to driving you. Thinks you’re darn near as good as Patsy Cline.”
    “Get out. Nobody’s as good as Patsy.” Then she laughed. “But whataya say we go check out our new ride as soon as we finish the sound check? We’re going to have to make a decision about buying our own bus after this tour, I suppose. I’ll have to run it by Ma—” Renewed pain was a razor in her throat and she cleared the clogged tissues gingerly. “Um, Ben, I mean.”
    Nell squeezed her hand. “I’m real sorry, Peej.” She hesitated, then straightened her shoulders. “But I have to say something that I’ve been biting back for years.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Your mama’s a bitch.”
    P.J. choked, stared at her friend for a frozen moment…then laughed like a coyote. Hank howled, too, and she saw that he was closer than she’d realized. They exchanged delighted glances.
    It wasn’t the sentiment so much as the sentiment coming from Nell’s mouth. Because she was soft-spoken, eschewed makeup and wore clothes that made her blend into the woodwork, people often assumed she was a mouse. She wasn’t; she had a wicked sense of humor and usually didn’t hesitate to state her opinions.
    At the same time she was genuinely nice and a good friend, and P.J. didn’t doubt for a moment that Nell loved her. “So, how long have you been keeping that to yourself?”
    “Pretty much forever,” Nell admitted. “I know how much you wanted to have a made-for-TV family relationship with her.”
    “Yeah, pretty desperate, huh? On one level I’ve always known the person she is. Damn, she kicked me out of the house when I was thirteen years old. And I have a feeling it took some pretty strong threats on the part of a woman named Gert to get her to take me back again.”
    “Is that why you made her your manager? Thinking that if you gave her carte blanche over your career she’d love you the way you deserve? Because, I gotta tell you, I never understood that.”
    “No—that would have been halfway understandable at least.” A roadie wheeled past part of the risers that would elevate the backup band at the rear of the stage, and P.J. got out of his path then moved to the front of center stage where she wouldn’t have to keep dodging the crew.
    Nell and Hank came right along with her, and she gave them a look. “You’re not going to let