Luna Basswood's Arc

Chapter 8 of 14

Susie left the crates at midnight with a folded sheet of pencil marks in her jacket. Her song. The second song of Luna's set. Luna sat alone with the fish-shaped bass and the eight minutes she already had. She still didn't know what her opener should sound like. If it clashed with Susie's song, the crowd would boo her off before the sun finished setting. Luna needed to hear Susie's song. She couldn't write around a shape she hadn't seen. She found Susie back at the tavern, boots up on a chair, drinking water. Neon buzzed over the porch behind her. Luna slid into the seat across. "Play me your song," Luna said. "I have to write the opener against it." Susie didn't look up. "No." "Susie." "You get it at soundcheck." Susie set the glass down. "That's the deal." "The deal was a credit. Not a blindfold." "The deal was I write it. I write it my way." Susie's voice stayed flat. "You'll hear it when everyone hears it." Luna's ears went back. She had traded half her set to a woman who wouldn't even let her read the map. She walked out. The field was quiet. Practice pods sat in a row along the fence, curved shells shaped like basses, each one big enough to crawl into. Luna climbed into an empty one and pulled the hatch shut. Inside it smelled like foam and old sweat. She couldn't hear Susie's song. Fine. She could hear her own. Luna played the audition riff. Quiet. Locked. The plywood trick was already spoken for. She needed something that could sit next to any song Susie wrote and not fight it. Not louder. Not faster. Just something that couldn't be knocked over. She pulled the flannel out of the bass. The hollow body rang again, muddy and wide. She let it ring. She played one note. Held it. Played the next. Held it. Eight minutes of held notes, one per bar, tuned to the ground hum she'd fought for three summers. When the field hummed, her bass hummed with it. It didn't rattle. It agreed. She played the whole eight minutes through. It worked against a fast song. It worked against a slow song. It worked against silence. Susie could write anything and Luna's opener would hold the floor under it. She crawled out of the pod at dawn. Susie was on the porch, pencil behind her ear. "I've got my eight," Luna said. "Good." Susie didn't ask to hear it. "Soundcheck at four. You'll get mine then." Luna nodded. She had an opener. She still hadn't heard the song it had to live beside. In eight hours she'd find out if they fit, in front of the whole field, with no time left to change either one.