Ashes

Chapter 39

Ashanté's big break came when a friend of Maverick threw a party at his home and requested a cheap band to play for a few hours. Mav and his wife attended; so did everyone else from Broken Pony, and every Democrat in the state.

"Dirk! C'mere and meet someone," Maverick yodeled in a drunken stammer. He'd started drinking the moment he'd arrived, and by the time Bryce got there Mav was well hammered. "Dirk, this is Bryce Walker, head of A&R. Bryce, this is Dirk Calhoun, Democratic candidate for governor of the state. We're old school chums; in fact, we lived in the same frat house."

They burst into their old school song, and Bryce wondered how to escape without arousing suspicion.

Fortunately the band began tuning up, and Mav dragged Dirk over to watch them. "Here's our new band, Dirk. Very PC. 'Cause Broken Pony's got to move with the times, they tell me. What was wrong with the good old days, I'd like to know."

The band played Stars and Bars, followed by the rest of their currently limited repertoire, and the partygoers danced, or ignored them, or drank, or chatted in small groups.

Dirk listened with one ear while confabbing with Mav and Bryce. "They're perfect for my campaign! There's nothing as American as country music, and yet they'll appeal to young voters, even minorities. You suppose they could do a catchy campaign song for me?"

Bryce said he'd task Cody and Zack with writing one first thing in the morning.

In the coming months, Dirk paid the band to play at all of his political functions and used them in a television commercial. Stars and Bars and Steel Guitars  played in the background of his recorded phone solicitations, and the song soared to number seven on the Billboard charts. When Dirk won the election, the band played at his inauguration.

They worked their way up to larger and larger venues, opening for bigger acts until they  were the bigger act. Eventually they were invited to play at the Grand Ole Opry, where Ashanté discovered to her alarm that liquor just didn't cut it anymore.

"I can't go on stage, Vern," she told him in the green room. "I'm just too nervous. This is the biggest thing I've ever done in my life. There are four thousand people in the house, and millions more will watch us on TV. I can't do it. I'm so sorry, but I just can't go out there."

"But it took weeks to set this up. You bow out now and you'll never be allowed back again. What will your parents say? They're sitting in the first row."

"I don't know, but I just can't do it. I really want to, but I can't. I'm so sorry."

Vern reached into his pocket for a bottle of pills. "Here, take one of these and tell me you can't go on."

"Why? What are they?"

"Just something to help you relax." He shook one out of the bottle and dropped it in her hand. "Don't drink alcohol with it. You aren't due onstage for another half hour, but by then you should feel less tense. A lot less."

Ashanté eyed the pill suspiciously, but it looked like any other white oblong pill. For all she knew it could be a multi-vitamin. Probably a placebo. But it's this or nothing.  There was no way she'd get up on stage at the moment. "Okay, get me some water."

Vern brought her a bottled water and Ashanté downed the pill.

A half hour later a stagehand ushered them onto the stage behind the curtain to await their introduction.

"Now give it up for the newest sensation in country music, Ashley Stetson!"

The curtain parted in a swish of velvet, and the band played better than they ever had before. In a cloud of swirling rainbows Ashanté moved into the Ryman circle center stage and sang her heart out.

Bryce stood with Vern in the wings trying to parse it. "I don't get it. She doesn't look nervous at all. You didn't let her drink anything, did you?"

"Why? You want her to be nervous?"

"No, of course not. But it's normal for her. She usually works through the fear during a performance, and by the end of the song she's forgotten what she was so afraid of. Only a trained eye or someone who knows her well can tell she's afraid whenever she performs."

"Don't worry, boss. She won't be afraid at all from now on; I've taken care of it."

Bryce glared at him. "I don't want her drugged. She's a good kid."

"Kid? She's almost as old as you are."

"She's still relatively untainted by this business. I'd like it to stay that way."

"Don't worry. I took her to get a prescription for an anxiolytic. You know, anti-anxiety medication."

"Oh. Good idea. Seems to really help."

Bryce returned to watching the show, while Vern patted the bottle in his pocket. No, these weren't anxiolytics, but those tended to act like tranquilizers and you couldn't get any work out of your musicians. These were a lot better, and as long as his dealer didn't get busted Vern was guaranteed a steady supply.