Isaac and Jesse spent the rest of the concert giving me “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with the Lia Morris we know?” stares. They knew I sang, everybody in New Tazewell did, but they didn’t know I could sing, sing. Honestly, neither did I, until Travis Zane pulled me up on that stage.

It was like somebody knowing they were fast, that they could run, but then being chased by a vicious dog and finding a new, different gear that they’d never used before, and leaving Fido in the dust. The moment had been a catalyst for me. Everything in my life would be forevermore put into two categories: “before Charlotte” and “after Charlotte.”

I’d been planning to attend college after high school, maybe Lincoln Memorial University up the road in Harrogate or the University of the Cumberlands up in Williamsburg, Kentucky. They were both popular destinations for college-bound New Tazewell High graduates.

But earning a living doing anything other than singing seemed ridiculous to me now. Those brief minutes up on stage opened a whole new world to me. Whatever it took, I intended to claw my way back onto such a platform, and soon.

The show ended with a bang, Travis calling MYB back out on stage with him for a medley of pop song covers, each one better than the next. Travis was a golden god on stage, gaining strength rather than tiring, despite several draining dance sequences. The chemistry between him and MYB, especially Mikayla, who he was rumored to be involved with, was electric.

When the concert finally ended, the four of us waited around to be called backstage along with others with the coveted “limited access” badges hanging from our lanyards.

As we were led through the maze of tunnels and dizzying activity taking place behind the Music Pavilion stage, we passed an open door, from which we were flagged down.

“Hey, girl! Hold on!”

The smiling face of the Whatley’s Garage lead singer appeared in the doorway. He said quick hellos to my friends and shook hands with them, but it was clear he wanted a moment of my time. He stepped in front of me and looked me straight in the face, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Was it Lia?”

“It was, err, is, yeah, I’m Lia,” I replied. The way he was looking at me made me squirm. He was the most handsome boy who’d ever said my name aloud. Travis was closer to pretty than handsome. Unquestionably attractive, but a big part of that was his talent and charisma, with a healthy dose of professional polish. The Whatley’s Garage guy was just fucking hot.

He smiled warmly and extended a hand. “I’m Caleb. Caleb Whatley. My band opened up-”

I interrupted him as he kept enthusiastically shaking my hand. “I know who you are, you guys were great!”

“Oh, okay,” His smile became a full-blown grin. “Thanks. Is one of these guys your boyfriend, or …?” He motioned to Jesse and Isaac.

“Nah, she’s like our sister. Go ahead and run your game, brother,” Isaac joked.

Caleb’s laugh sounded like relief. “No, no, it’s not like that. Around Charlotte, I have something of a, well, a reputation, I guess you could say, and I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take your girl or anything.” I focused on Caleb’s mouth as he spoke. He had to be a fantastic kisser.

He turned his attention back to me. “Sorry about that, I wanted to talk to you about music, but people see me talking to a pretty girl and they always get the wrong idea.”

I didn’t know what to say, or who the “pretty girl” was that he was talking to. Unless he meant Shelby? I couldn’t let myself think he was talking about me, for fear of leaving my virginity on a tour bus, or in a dressing room in Charlotte, to the lead singer of a band. I hadn’t traveled to North Carolina to become a groupie cliché.

But good Lord was he handsome.

He was also very touchy feely, just confident and at ease with himself. He made me feel like I was the only person in an arena still filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of fans still milling about, and a constant stream of foot traffic around us.

“I was blown away when you sang with Travis,” Caleb explained. “So, I googled you. And all I could find were your YouTube videos, which, hey, they’re phenomenal. But I couldn’t find your web site or anything else about you. You must have a manager or something, right? A record deal?”

I could feel myself blush. No, there was no manager, unless you counted my dad fielding calls wanting to book me to sing at the occasional wedding. And certainly, no record deal. Just a relatively small, albeit devoted, YouTube following.

“I just sing on my videos,” I apologized. “That’s how I met Travis and he invited me to the show. I had no idea he was going to pull me up on stage,” I confessed.

Bailey from MYB walked past us with a girl who looked like she might be her little sister. She stopped and reached over Caleb’s shoulder to give me a high five before continuing down the hallway.

Shelby took advantage of the momentary break in my conversation with Caleb to lean in close and whisper in my ear, “Who are you?”

I shrugged, smiled, and refocused on Caleb.

“I have a few new songs, duets, that need a female vocalist, and we’ve been looking for somebody to go into the studio with us and see how they sound. I think you’d be perfect for them. I was hoping you might be interested in laying down a few demos sometime. What do you think?”

Shelby had asked a very good question. Going into the studio to record demos? Getting recognized and high fived by somebody from MYB? A guy who looked like Caleb Whatley referring to me as “pretty”? Whose life was this? The Lia Morris who looked back at me from the mirror was due back at New Tazewell High School on Monday morning, a scant thirty-two hours away, to continue her senior year.

Before I could reply to Caleb, the voice of Travis Zane rang out.

“No way, Whatley! Go find your own Adele. This one’s mine!”

Caleb rolled his eyes and laughed as Travis stepped between me and the Whatley’s Garage lead singer who’d been recruiting me.

The two alpha males bumped fists and a dejected Caleb turned to return to his dressing room. Travis led us down the corridor to a large room where a buffet line stretched along one wall, with tables and chairs filling the rest of the space, along with sofas and televisions, several with video game systems attached to them.

The room was buzzing with activity, dancers and band members mingling and eating, along with random suits and security personnel.

“What did you think of your girl?” Travis asked Shelby. Jesse and Isaac separated from us and approached a table that included Yelena and two dancers I recognized from Travis’s part of the show. I hoped the girls would let my small-town boys down easily. They weren’t used to rejection or heartbreak.

Shelby, to her credit, played it cool. “Just a regular Saturday night for her. I get to hear that all the time!”

Travis looked taken aback. My poker face crumbled and I burst out laughing. “That was the absolute coolest three minutes of my life. Thank you so much.”

We embraced, and when we broke our hug, he leaned over. “I had a hunch about you,” he explained. “Tons of people cover my stuff online, but none of them sound like you. I wasn’t sure you could do it on a stage like the one here, but you stole the show. No doubt it. All your social media is probably broken.”

I hadn’t even considered that my moment in the spotlight might reach beyond the confines of the Music Pavilion.

Shelby and I made eye contact and she shrugged. I pulled out my phone, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I kept it low. Out of my peripheral vision, I could see Caleb and his bandmates had walked into the room. A stolen glance confirmed that he was looking right at me. Awkward.

“Get something to eat if you’re hungry, I have to socialize a little bit. I want to introduce you to some people, Lia, but for now just relax, I’ll be back in a few minutes. We have an hour or so before they’re going to start rounding us up to get on the busses,” Travis explained.

I punched in my password and started going through my stuff; Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. I’d come off stage ninety minutes ago, and already my friends, followers, views, and requests had exploded. Several people had posted videos that they’d shot of my duet with Travis, and the positive feedback was overwhelming. People were asking if anybody knew how to find my stuff on iTunes. If I was going to be a permanent part of the tour. Stuff like that.

Of course, there was also a smattering of negative stuff, but the good outnumbered the bad twenty-five to one, if not more, so I ignored it for the time being. I knew once the dust settled, and I was alone in my room with my laptop, that the criticisms of my voice, my looks, my fashion sense, my weight, whatever, would keep me up at night. But this wasn’t the time nor the place for tears. Everybody was in a celebratory mood, so I joined in.

I got to meet the rest of MYB, as well as Travis’s band and some of the guys from Caleb Whatley’s band. Isaac and Jesse were throwing all their Claiborne County pickup lines and moves out there, but it didn’t appear that anybody was all that interested in catching them.

Shelby caught the eye of one of MYB’s male dancers, as the two of them wandered off into a corner together with lots of laughing and flirting.

Travis, waved me over to where he was talking to two guys, one a skinny, nerdy guy with a shaved head and glasses, with musical notes tattooed all over one arm. The other guy wore an expensive-looking suit and was impeccably polished and slick, his dark hair perfectly styled and his facial hair trimmed to a length that looked like it would be scruffy by morning, but for now it was just sexy. I had a feeling it was all very calculated and probably always stayed that length.

“Lia Morris, I’d like you to meet Alexander Vidas, my manager, and Ian Ion, he produced my last two albums.” Ian Ion was a name everybody into pop music knew. He was the guy with the tattoo sleeve. Aside from his ink, you’d never pick him out of a crowd as having anything to do with music or pop culture. But he was one of the hottest producers in the world. It made sense that Alexander Vidas, the suit, was a manager. He had to be an agent, a manager, or a salesman at a Ferrari dealership.

I shook hands with Alexander and Ian put his palms together and bowed. He was a quirky guy, but he had a certain charm.

“You killed it out there tonight. Travis had me watch some of your YouTube stuff; you’re good. Do you have representation?”

Everything was happening too fast. Representation?

I must have looked confused.

“What he’s asking is if you have a manager, anybody negotiating with record companies or tour operators on your behalf,” Travis explained.

“Oh, no, I just sing locally sometimes, my dad handles the arrangements usually,” I offered.

Alexander laughed. Ian’s eyes were closed as we chatted, and he swayed side to side, as if listening to a song only he could hear.

“You’re going to have lots of opportunities, if you want them. You’re a star, Lia. Not a small-town Tennessee star, either.”

I started to thank him, when Ian interrupted, in a voice just above a whisper. “Can you recite the alphabet for me, please?”

“The alphabet?” I queried. Travis put a hand on my shoulder and nodded his head.

“Okay,” I responded, and did my ABC’s, sounding, I thought, very much like a preschooler.

When I finished, Ian nodded his head vigorously.

“Excellent. Now name some cities from your home state please,” he asked, in his soft voice.

“Um, New Tazewell, Knoxville, Nashville, Johnson City, Memphis, Chattanooga…”

Ian raised his hand to stop me. He opened his eyes and smiled with his mouth closed. He made a sound that sounded like a squeal and gave me another bow before ghosting away into the crowd.

Travis hugged me. “Sorry, he can be a little eccentric. But he’s a total musical genius.”

“What was the alphabet thing about? And the cities?” I asked.

“He wanted to hear your voice, how you pronounced certain words and letters. He does that to people all the time. But he hardly ever smiles. He must have heard something he liked,” Travis reassured me.

Alexander handed me a business card, blue with raised gold lettering and an embossed platinum album in the corner. It was a piece of art.

“Vidas Artist Management” was emblazoned across the front, with contact information and an address in California on it.

“Call my office next week when you get a chance. I’d love to work with you. Ian is based on the west coast but he also uses several studios on the east coast. It would be great to see how you sound professionally produced and mixed. Great to meet you, Lia.” Alexander shook my right hand warmly with both of his, and I clutched his card in my left, deathly afraid to lose it.

By the time tour buses began to roll out, I’d exchanged phone numbers with Travis and Caleb, as well as Bailey from MYB. Caleb had asked me if I was interested in singing at the North Carolina state fair with Whatley’s Garage. Shelby likewise traded numbers with the dancer she’d been hanging out with, as well as enough saliva to have smudged half of her lipstick off. She was as happy as I’d ever seen her.

Jesse and Isaac were in the unfamiliar position of having struck completely out, possibly for the first time ever in their lives. Jesse had hoped that his dirty dancing with Yelena would translate into something off-stage, but all he managed was a kiss on the cheek and a selfie, to Isaac’s relief.

As we walked out of the arena, Shelby pinched the back of my right arm. I yelped in surprised, and she laughed.

“Sorry, Lia, I just wanted to make sure this night was for real and I didn’t dream the whole thing. You are the best and coolest friend ever!”

Jesse and Isaac walked behind us, debating the merits of Bailey’s ass vs. Yelena’s legs vs. the abs of one of Travis’s dancers who had pink hair.

When we reached Jesse’s car, he turned and faced me, with as serious a look as he could muster. “Hey, thanks for tonight. You rock, girl.”

“I’m glad you guys had fun. Thanks again for the ride,” I dug a crumpled twenty out of my purse. “Here, for when we stop to get gas.”

He waved me off. “Nah, you keep that. We had a blast. Just promise me a ticket to your first concert.”

“Deal,” I replied, and we shook hands like we were closing a contract.

By the time we set off for home, it was the early hours of Sunday morning. Shelby and I shared the backseat, giggling and comparing notes on the evening’s events as Jesse and Isaac blasted Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, and Sam Hunt to wash all the pop music out of their ears.