Luna Basswood's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

Luna walked off the audition stage with clean applause behind her and a folded slip in her pocket. A festival runner caught her at the tape line. The headliner slot was hers if she wanted it. Sunset tomorrow. Forty minutes. A full set. Luna's stomach dropped. She had eight minutes of quiet material and one trick with the plywood floor. She had no forty-minute set. She had never played a forty-minute set in her life. The runner said the judges would confirm by dawn. If Luna wasn't ready, the next act in line would take the slot. Luna nodded like she had a plan. She did not. She cut through the field toward the tavern where the working bands drank between sets. Neon buzzed over the porch. Inside, the room smelled like beer and hot amps. Riley Thorne sat at the bar with her black bass across her knees, tuning by ear. She looked up when Luna came in. "You got it," Thorne said. It wasn't a question. "Not yet." "You will." Thorne turned a peg. "You have no set." Luna didn't answer. Thorne shrugged and went back to her strings. "Forty minutes is a lot of quiet." Luna kept moving. At a corner table the blonde bass player from the practice space sat behind a half-empty glass. Luna dropped into the seat across from her. "I need a set," Luna said. "By dawn." The blonde looked at her over the rim. "You don't have one." "I have eight minutes." "Play them five times." "They'll hear it." The blonde set the glass down. "Then write the other thirty-two tonight." She said it flat, no help in it. She had warned Luna in the practice space that she'd take the slot if Luna wasn't ready. She wasn't kidding then. She wasn't kidding now. Luna went out the back door to the wooden crates behind the tavern. She sat with the fish-shaped bass across her knees and tried to write. Every riff she pulled sounded like the audition riff wearing a hat. An hour passed. She had nine minutes. Then eight again, because she cut a part that didn't work. Boots on the boards. Susie Quattro leaned against the wall, arms folded. "You owe me," Susie said. "I'm collecting." "I don't have anything." "You have the slot." Susie crouched. "I want the second song. Whatever it is. I write it, you play it, my name goes on the paper." Luna stared at her. "Why." "Because I need a credit at this festival before it closes. And you need thirty-two more minutes." Luna thought about the runner. Dawn. The next act waiting. "Deal," she said. Susie pulled a pencil from her jacket and sat on the crate beside her. The debt slip in Luna's pocket felt heavier now that she knew the shape of it. She had bought time. She had sold a song she hadn't written yet, and half her headliner set with it.