Chapter 6: Four Hundred Fans

The Nashville arena had four hundred fans on the floor at three o'clock, holding lanyards and balloons and Mercy Parade tote bags.

They had paid six hundred dollars each to hear a soundcheck.

I stood in the Well with the door open, because Bev had said, "Vaughn wants the pipe where she can hear."

Vaughn stood at the lip of the stage in his black overcoat with a tablet in one hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his best radio voice, "you are about to hear something no audience has ever heard."

Fraser walked out to the mic and the VIPs screamed.

He put his hand up for quiet, and the band kicked into "Salt Road."

A voice came out of the speakers.

It was my voice.

It was singing the second verse, it was perfectly in tune, and every breath was in the right place.

I stood in the Well with my hand over my mouth.

There was nothing wrong with it.

The pitch was perfect, the growl was perfect, and the little crack on the word home was exactly where mine falls.

Nobody was in it.

I have never been able to explain that to anyone.

It sounded like me wearing a photograph of my face.

Two verses in, the crowd stopped singing along.

They stood on the carpet in their lanyards with their balloons going slack, and it got very quiet.

"It's flat," a woman said, not loudly.

"It sounds like the record," her friend said. "But it sounds like the record in a lift."

On stage Fraser flinched.

He flinched before the bridge, a full half second before the clone hit the note, and I saw it on my little monitor.

He lifted his hand, and the drums stopped.

He drew one finger across his throat.

"Stop," he whispered, and the mic carried it, and the front rows heard.

Vaughn didn't move.

"It needs hours," he told the floor, smiling. "It's early days. Thank you, everyone."

Afterward he took me by the elbow behind the stage, in the corridor with the road cases, where the band couldn't see.

His fingers were cold through my sleeve.

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