Chapter 21: The Truth, Played Loud

The Calloway Room holds two hundred and twenty, and on Friday night it held two hundred and twenty.

Every seat belonged to someone who mattered on Music Row: booking agents, two publishers, a radio programmer, and a handful of bloggers with phones.

Tilly's engineer had quit on Wednesday after he saw the livestream clip.

The room's house engineer owed Dot a favor, so I sat at his board instead.

August stood against the back wall with his arms crossed, and the cassette in his jacket pocket.

I had asked him for it on Wednesday, and he had handed it over without asking why.

I had spent two nights with it on a deck in his office, and transferred it to my drive.

It was loaded now on a channel I had labeled, in pencil on the tape strip, Do Not Touch.

Beau sat in the last row with his collar up.

Marilyn sat three seats away from him, and the two of them didn't speak.

At eight the house lights went down.

Tilly came out in the gold dress with her hair curled and a smile.

She hadn't looked at the board once.

"Thank you all for coming," she said. "I'm so grateful. This is a very personal night."

She took her guitar from the stand.

"The first song is one I wrote about love and loss, and about forgiving the people we can't stop loving."

A murmur went around the room, kind and interested.

"It's called Porch Light."

She played the first chord, and I heard the room lean toward her.

It was a good voice. It had always been a good voice.

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