“What!?” I run over to her, meeting her blue eyes in the reflection. “Tell me I don’t have to take you to a goddamn hospital right now!”

She looks like she’s about to faint. Grabbing both of my arms she breathes, “They work!”

“Really?”

On an excited nod, she grins, “Uh huh!!!”

Exhaling the stress out of my poor lungs I groan, “Don’t scare me like that again! Now get out there and be amazing!”

Simone hugs me and turns to the mirror. She smoothes her black halter and gives her black leather pants a tug as she bangs both her stilettos against the concrete floor. “Here we go!” She heads for the door, humming scales in excited preparation.

The door almost closes on my face by the time I get there. But I don’t mind. She should be thinking only about herself right now. This crowd isn’t here to see me. Hell, they’re not even here to see her, but she’s set on changing that.

She’s the middle act, but I think Jason’s right. With that viral video and this new album, after tonight she won’t be opening a show for someone else again.

I follow her and hold back while she and I stand away from the audience’s view, stage left, waiting for her introduction. She’s shifting her weight a little, face pointed at the floor while mentally going over her set list. I’ve been backstage enough times with her to know the drill. But it never gets old for me.

I’m so excited that I grab onto one of the alternate curtain backdrops hanging to my left for emotional support. The announcer booms her name as I cling to it. Simone lifts her head and steps onto the stage to tepid applause.

The people in those seats came for the headliner.

Now is the moment of reckoning.

Will she make them remember her?

Oh my God, I can’t stand this!

Since we met I’ve gotten this excited every time she goes on stage. When she first moved to Detroit it was the plays she acted in during high school. When we turned seventeen she got into a garage band that lasted six years. I was at all her crappy little house-party shows, college dances, and even that time she sang at a bat mitzvah, and neither of us are Jewish. Frankly they were one of her most enthusiastic crowds because they loved to dance.

And over the last years when she dropped those band members who were dead weight, she went solo. I followed her when she began playing smaller clubs than this all across the country and finally attracting and landing one of the best labels out there. She’s worked hard. We both have.

Every time it’s like I’m going on with her.

Without my knowing it, Jason has come up behind me to watch her. Involuntary goosebumps travel up my neck as his deep voice whispers in my ear, “What song is she doing first?”

Letting go of the curtain so I don’t look like a weirdo, I meet his eyes, blinking rapidly. “Ummm… she’ll only be doing her hits tonight. Plus the Just For Me a cappella as a finale.”

He nods and we hold our look a moment. Simone purrs into the microphone, “There’s a new song I want to introduce you to.” I flip around, shocked. With a flirtatious sparkle in her smile, she adds, “Although you may have had a sneak peek already, if you watch the ‘Tube.”

She steps back to talk to the band. Jason and I are close enough to hear her hushed voice confidently tell them, “I’m going to do the finale first. Hang back a minute?” They nod. The drummer lays his sticks on his lap. The audience is silent except for random murmurs of people asking if anyone knows what she’s talking about.

Simone glances my way and winks at me. Or maybe she winked at Jason, but right now I don’t care. I’m on the edge of my heels with anxiety on how this gamble will go.

Raising the mic to her pretty lips, Simone begins to sing. A dramatic hush falls over the crowd. It falls over me, too.

When you watch the truly gifted, something happens in your soul. It raises you up to meet what you’re hearing and seeing. Your soul knows you’re witnessing a special sort of miracle and it resonates with that truth.

Art clarifies who we really are.

What life is all about.

Magic.

As Simone’s voice makes the entire Civic Theater fall in love with her, I reach for Jason’s hand.

I didn’t mean to.

It’s like when you’re watching a horror film and you grab the arm of the person who is sitting next to you, but you don’t realize it until after someone on screen dies and you awkwardly take your hand back and apologize.

If I hadn’t let go of the curtain this wouldn’t have happened. Normally I’m alone backstage.

And curtains are all I have.

Our fingers weave together without my knowledge as she sings, “I need to leave the you that formed the we.”

It isn’t until her song ends that I realize what I’ve done.

Pulling my hand out from his I mumble, “Sorry.”

Jason is staring at me with a look I can’t decipher. “It’s okay. I felt it, too,” he mutters, rendering me speechless.

You felt it, too?

But then he explains, “She was unbelievable.”

Blinking at him, my lips part but nothing comes out.

On a quick frown he mutters, “I’m gonna go look for Justin. Excuse me.” He disappears into a jungle of levers, chords and curtains.

Behind me the band has come to life. I turn as Simone almost misses her intro to a song she could sing in her sleep, because while the audience was losing their minds cheering for her talent, she was watching me and Jason.

We lock eyes.

She turns and sings the opening lyrics just in time.