A Song for the Season

Get It Together

Tenney wakes with a headache, as if worrying had kept her forehead scrunched up all night. It isn’t even ten o’clock yet. She suggests walking around Kingsport to kill time before the show, but Logan protests it’s too cold, and she insists it could still be fun.

But it can’t. After pancakes and bacon at the hotel restaurant, Tenney and Logan step outside and get shoved right back in by a bitter wind. Zane reminds everyone that today is their last easy day before the show, and Dad suggests Tenney and Logan spend the afternoon writing a new song together. Privately, Tenney decides it might also be her chance to finally tell Logan what she overheard Zane confess to Dad the night before.

Tenney loses her nerve when she finds Logan in a lobby chair, earbuds in, while Dad sits nearby flipping through a stack of magazines. Logan snaps that he’s busy, and when she tries again, he asks if she’s going to say something or not. She backs down and mutters “Never mind.” She wanders the hotel alone for an hour, filming a video to send home, before finding Dad grinning at the view count on their “Reach the Sky” video, nearing 40,000.

By showtime, Tenney has pulled her hair into a thick French side braid and clipped on the guitar-pick necklace Aubrey made her. Dad asks if they’re okay, and she insists she’s fine; Logan claims the same, though neither sounds convincing. Outside the auditorium, a cluster of preteens waits in the cold beneath a marquee announcing “TODAY @ 1:00 PM: TENNEY & LOGAN HOLIDAY CONCERT.”

Backstage, a pair of technicians unload gear while a stage manager shows them the dressing rooms and Logan’s drum kit. The venue has sold nearly 300 tickets, their biggest audience yet, and the thought sends a thrill through Tenney. She finds Logan sitting behind his kit, staring off. She murmurs hello to him, but swallows the confession again, telling him instead that this could be their best show yet if they trust each other.

When the curtain opens, the crowd’s cheer nearly drowns out Tenney’s pounding heart. “Deck the Halls” starts sharp, but Logan’s tempo creeps too fast, then he overcorrects into dragging behind. “Carolina Highway” goes worse. Tenney has to raise her eyebrows to get Logan started, and he still falls off-tempo, misses his cue, and fumbles the lyrics.

The moment the song ends, Tenney hisses at Logan to ask what’s going on. He sneers that she’s overreacting; she snaps back that he’s the one falling apart. Fighting the urge to yell in front of hundreds of kids, she tells him to get it together and turns back to the audience with a smile.

The rest of the set blurs by as Tenney concentrates on breathing. Logan’s playing steadies, the applause keeps growing, and for “Cold Creek Christmas” he joins her at the microphone, their voices blending into one shimmering sound. They close strong with “Reach the Sky,” which finally sounds like the two of them again. But when Tenney turns to ask Logan about an encore, he doesn’t answer. He’s already halfway offstage.