Tenney in the Key of Friendship

Next Steps

The following weekend, Tenney and Jaya invite Holliday to their sleepover, and Mom goes all out on a breakfast-for-dinner spread of biscuits, eggs, and Tenney’s favorite blueberry muffins. Spreading blackberry jam on her last bite of biscuit, Holliday thanks Mom, who insists the three of them earned a reward after working so hard on the benefit concert. When Mom asks how much they raised, Jaya proudly declares that the final tally topped $5,000. Better still, Mom has already wired the money to Bangladesh, and workers have started repairing Mina’s school.

Jaya has a second surprise. She borrows Tenney’s laptop to pull up an email from Mina, thanking them for raising enough to repair the school and still hold its long-planned concert on time. Mina thanks her music teacher, Miss Alimah, and her classmates, too, and urges them to watch the attached video. In the clip, Mina’s friends wait in a half circle as Miss Alimah signals them to begin. Mina lifts her esraj and draws her bow across the strings as her friends join in, playing the very song Tenney wrote for Jaya, “Music in Me.”

Hearing her own lyrics sung back in someone else’s voice feels strange, then overwhelming, and tears well up before Tenney can stop them. Jaya checks that she’s okay, and Tenney can only nod. Watching Holliday and Jaya glow with pride, Tenney realizes their friendship mattered to this project as much as the music did.

A few days later, Zane calls and asks Tenney to come to his office. She guesses to Mom that he wants to talk about the song, but Mom’s answer is oddly vague. After they sit down in the office, Tenney jumps to show Zane the video of Mina and her friends playing the song. He gives a low whistle, tipping his porkpie hat back, a sign he’s impressed, and calls it “not too shabby.” He explains that when somebody loves your music, it’s the best feeling in the world. And that’s something Tenney’ll have to get used to.

Zane tells Tenney how proud he’s been watching her take on every challenge this year, including Logan’s curveballs. Interest in booking her has poured in since country star Belle Starr tweeted about the benefit concert, and Zane wants to start scheduling small shows, guessing Tenney could record an album within a couple of years. Then he goes further. He’d like to sign her to a recording contract with Mockingbird Records.

Tenney looks in shock at her parents, and Mom admits that she and Dad met with Zane right after the benefit show and asked for a week to review a contract with a lawyer before Zane delivers the news himself. Zane slides a folder and pen across the desk and declares that Tenney is the whole package. He can see them being ready to record in less than two years.

Tenney’s excitement lasts only a moment before she asks what Zane means. He clarifies that she and Logan are great together. So the contract covers both her and Logan, as a permanent duo.

The news scrambles Tenney’s thoughts. She and Logan had sworn off working together for good, and she quietly hopes he’ll refuse to sign so Zane offers her a solo deal instead. Mom reassures her that she and Dad checked the fine print to protect Tenney’s music, and Zane slides the contract across the desk. Flipping through the dense, several-page contract to the signature line, Tenney is stunned to find Logan’s signature already there in sharp, blocky letters. Zane asks what she thinks, and she has no answer. Then she pictures the proud look on Logan’s face as their benefit set ended, and decides a duo with him might not be so bad, since no one loves music quite the way he does. When Mom gently checks that she’s really okay with it, Tenney agrees and signs her name.