Tenney Shares the Stage

Out of Tune

Upstairs in the bedroom she shares with Aubrey, Tenney steps around the glittery mound of shoes, clothes, and accordion gear on her sister’s side and flops onto her own bed. Logan still confuses her. She has always respected his guitar playing, but his rude arrogance grated on her when they first met, and his moods are hard to track. This afternoon he was grouchy through most of rehearsal, then turned into someone else entirely at dinner, polite to Mom, Dad, and Mason in a way that didn’t match the Logan she thought she knew.

Before she can stop herself, Tenney pulls her guitar into her lap and picks out the melody Logan started, the one he wrote and never played for anyone until today. It is light and catchy, but underneath the bounce it carries a yearning feeling, like an unfinished wish. Logan was right that it wasn’t done: a real song needs a chorus, a bridge, an ending, and a sense of “going somewhere,” as Portia always says. Tenney smooths the end of the verse phrase and finds a natural chorus melody to match the main theme. By the time Aubrey wanders in for pajamas, she has worked out the bridge and the outro, too, though she isn’t sure Logan will feel the same about a song he didn’t write with her.

On Thursday, Tenney stops by Dad’s shop for her guitar and bikes to Portia’s cottage. Portia greets her at the door, cheeks pink as blooming roses, steel-gray braid tidy, silver drop earrings jingling as she tilts her head. She’s holding a metal loop with thick black handles, a handgrip she squeezes thirty times a day for physical therapy left from a stroke that paralyzed her chord hand a year and a half ago. Over sweet tea, while they wait for Logan, Portia plays “April Springs,” the hit she wrote long ago under the stage name Patty Burns, and coaches Tenney’s finger placement on the frets.

Logan arrives more than fifteen minutes late with no apology, just a gruff request to borrow a guitar. “How nice of you to join us, Mr. Everett,” Portia says dryly. When Tenney explains the transition and chorus she worked out alone, suspicion flashes across Logan’s face. He accuses her of rewriting his song without him, insists on playing his own melody for Portia first, and attacks the strings so hard the fun tune turns loud and grating. Tenney’s version fares no better; Logan calls it too cute, slams a hand over her strings, and shouts that she isn’t collaborating. She shouts back that neither is he.

Portia lets the fight burn a moment, then leaves to make tea, giving them half an hour to sort it out, but first tells them plainly that songwriting partners have to trust each other, be honest, and believe their partner wants what’s best for the song. Neither can answer when she asks if they trust each other.

Once Portia’s gone, the silence settles like a sea after a storm, and quiet apologies lead them back to their guitars. Logan admits he likes part of Tenney’s chorus, and together they smooth the transition, tighten the bridge into a short instrumental break, and add wrap-up lines that build the second chorus to a bigger climax. They lose track of time completely; what feels like five minutes turns out to be an hour. When Portia returns, they play the whole song for her, bumps and all, and by the last chorus she is smiling.

Portia calls it a real song at last, praises their structure, and promises to invite Zane over Sunday to hear it. But when Tenney worries aloud that it’s too early for Zane and suggests another session first, Logan is already crossing the room to return Portia’s guitar. He says he has to go and there’s no time for another session anyway. Writing the lyrics should just be Tenney’s job, since she’s better with words than he is.

Portia walks Tenney out, proud of their progress, and jokes that Logan looked itchier to leave than a rabbit in a foxhole. Outside, Tenney catches him for one more push about the extra session, but he brushes her off again with the same shrug and the same line about the lyrics, then pedals away. Riding home alone, she replays the afternoon: the shouting, the quiet, the song finally clicking into place. She and Logan have built something that sounds like a real partnership, but deep down, she isn’t sure it’s strong enough to last.