Tenney

Backflips & Butterflies

Tenney wakes to the smell of fresh blueberry muffins and a rush of excitement. Tonight she sings at the Bluebird Cafe. Then Holliday’s taunt echoes back—she’s nothing special. Doubt creeps in. What if she bombs, or worse, plays perfectly and nobody likes her song?

Tenney bounds down to the kitchen, where Mom rinses a spatula and promises muffins soon. Tenney kisses her good morning but admits she’s too nervous to eat, so Mom just asks her to practice quietly and not wake Aubrey and Mason.

Tenney warms up with scales until her nerves settle, then spends an hour on “Reach the Sky,” working the trickiest chord changes until Mom arrives with a muffin and orders a break. Dad pokes his head in from the kitchen, teasing that he’s relieved she stopped, because he has something better for her to practice on, a guitar case with a smooth leather surface and shiny brass snap locks. Inside, nestled in pink velvet, waits a mini Taylor guitar in aquamarine, the one Tenney has admired at Dad’s store for the past couple months. She protests it’s too nice for her, but Mom insists a professional gig calls for a professional guitar. The first chord rings cleaner and richer than her old beater ever managed, and Tenney feels like she could fly. She hugs her parents, and Dad reminds her what an opportunity this is for an artist like her.

The gift brings new nerves, though. A professional guitar means no excuse for sounding bad onstage, and the tighter strings force her to adjust her left hand around the wider neck. She briefly considers her old guitar instead, but dismisses the idea. This is the one she has to play. For the next few hours, she rehearses on the porch, easing into the feel of the new instrument.

Still, the day crawls by. Tenney tries to read a book, help Mom in the kitchen, and play tic-tac-toe against Aubrey, but the showcase stays lodged in her thoughts. Aubrey wins and declares it’s time to get Tenney ready.

Upstairs, Aubrey has already laid out three options, a puffy pink dress with a tiara, an old sequined dress from dress-up days with Jaya, and a paisley lace top with a sparkly tulle skirt. The pink dress, itchy and frilly, is the one Tenney hated wearing to her cousin’s baptism last year and has since outgrown, while the sequined one is frayed and gaudy, so the lace-and-tulle wins by default. It’s the outfit Mom bought for a Tri-Stars performance that always felt too fancy for East Park or the library parking lot. Twirling in the mirror, Tenney agrees it’s perfect, though Aubrey insists it still needs something.

That something is a gift, a small pink-wrapped box holding a hair comb Aubrey made herself, its guitar picks glued together like tiny feathers, which Aubrey collected just like Tenney does. Tenney loves it and hugs her sister. Mom, grinning from the hallway with hot rollers in hand, sets her hair in the rollers, then brushes the waves out and tucks the comb in to hold one side back, finishing with hairspray and lip gloss so Tenney won’t disappear under the stage lights.

Left alone for one last look in the mirror, Tenney barely recognizes the girl staring back, hair loose and shining, comb glinting, shimmery makeup making her look like a movie star, an hour from the Bluebird stage. Her stomach clenches, but she breathes and tells her reflection not to worry, she’s just not used to this yet.