Tenney Shares the Stage

Where Are You?

The song Tenney wrote with Logan won’t stop looping through her brain. It surfaces during her morning shower, in the middle of math homework, and again as she rides her bike to Jaya’s house for their Saturday-night sleepover. Once there, she tells Jaya and Holliday about the chance to open for Belle Starr, and both girls squeal so loudly that Jaya’s mom comes upstairs to check that everything is all right. After Tenney and Jaya assure her it is, Jaya whispers that she’s so proud of Tenney. Long after the lights go out, Tenney can still hear the song playing in her head, her voice and Logan’s twined together in harmony.

The next morning, Mom picks Tenney up from Jaya’s house before the girls finish their pancakes and drops her off early at Portia’s lavender cottage to warm up before rehearsal. Portia answers the door sweeping loose strands of silver hair off her face, and Tenney settles in to tune her guitar, since neither Zane nor Logan has arrived yet. She keeps glancing out at the overgrown yard, expecting Logan’s orange-and-silver bike and his sandy hair matted under its helmet. He never comes.

Zane arrives right on schedule at ten o’clock, but Logan doesn’t. He isn’t there while Tenney runs through scales, plays the new song alone for practice, or watches Zane and Portia chitchat. After fifteen minutes, Portia presses her lips into a disapproving line and wonders aloud where that boy could be. Zane tries Logan’s cell, then the house line, and neither gets an answer. When Portia gently suggests that Tenney play the new song alone so rehearsal can move forward, Tenney shakes her head. She explains that it’s a duet, and after everything she and Logan poured into writing it together, playing it without him wouldn’t feel right.

Another twenty minutes pass with no answer from Logan’s cell or his house line, and no reply to the frantic text Tenney fires off. Portia murmurs to Zane that Logan was late to their last writing session, too, and Tenney chimes in, protective, that he’s never been late to rehearsals at Dad’s store. When Portia asks if Tenney has any idea where he might be, Tenney hesitates, thinking of a promise she made Logan about his little brother, and decides telling would only cost his trust.

Eventually Zane tells Tenney to go home. As she packs up her guitar, she catches the grim looks on Portia’s and Zane’s faces and insists she doesn’t believe Logan would skip rehearsal on purpose. Zane only shrugs. Walking away, Tenney is surprised by how much she wants to defend Logan. A few weeks earlier, she wouldn’t have minded never seeing him again. Now, after everything the two of them built together, all she can think about is what could have gone wrong.

Stomach twisted with worry, Tenney walks the rest of the way to Dad’s music store. It isn’t even noon, and rehearsal wasn’t due to end until one o’clock. Dad is behind the register, and Mason is restocking guitar strings, when she pushes through the door earlier than expected. She lays out the whole story restlessly, from Logan’s no-show to the unanswered calls.

Mason points out that Logan and Tenney haven’t always seen eye to eye, but Tenney insists this time is different. He wasn’t mad at her, and he knew how important today was. Dad agrees they should check on him, though he has deliveries coming and can’t leave the shop. Mason offers to drive Tenney over in the truck, and Dad relents on the condition that they make it quick.

The ride to Logan’s house takes only a few minutes. From the truck window, Tenney studies the place: curtains drawn, garage shut tight, a rusty, lopsided screen door at the end of a footpath choked with weeds, and a smiley-faced welcome mat worn thin from years of use. Mason doubts anyone’s home, but Tenney checks anyway. She hops out and picks her way up the weedy path, ringing the doorbell twice. Nobody answers. Back in the truck, Mason gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and tells her not to stress about it, but Tenney can’t stop picturing the silent house, wondering where Logan could possibly be.