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Everything was. Why he didn’t do it for Cassie, I’ll never know, but a glance around the room at all
the glassy-eyed women swaying in their seats confirmed he wouldn’t lack for attention for long.
For a few seconds he said nothing; he just stood there with his eyes closed. Then flash—lights
exploded as he broke into the band’s best single, “Days from Here,” adding a honky-tonk edge,
bringing the house to its feet. For the next forty-five minutes of their set, I forgot the fantasy, stopped
searching for the man I’d soon be with, and simply marveled at Mark’s talent to pull emotions from
his body and pour them over the crowd. That’s what the best live music does: it makes a whole room
of people feel the same thing. There I was, up front, on my feet, clapping and grinning with two other
women from S.E.C.R.E.T., my body filling to capacity with joy. Whoever my fantasy man was, he’d
be getting the best of me tonight.
“We’re going to change up the temp a little bit. Get you cozy,” Mark said, pulling up a stool,
perching his acoustic guitar on his knee. “This last song’s for my girl. She’s right over there,” he said,
nodding to indicate a table near ours.
See? Of course he has a “girl.”
Instead of feeling bitter about his “girl,” I suddenly felt … magnanimous, like there was enough
love, enough affection, enough of this joy to go around. Mark made his hand into a visor, peering into
the dark crowd over my shoulder. I turned around to get a look at this lucky girl. I couldn’t tell which
one he meant, so I turned back.
“There she is,” he said, looking right at our table, “the gorgeous redhead in the front. That’s my
baby. You good?”
The hot white spotlight then centered over me and pulled in on my terror-stricken face. Me? I felt
Pauline’s firm hand grab my forearm as though she were preventing me from fleeing, or floating to the
ceiling.
“Her name’s Dauphine,” Mark announced to the crowd. “And I’m hoping y’all will help me get her
to do something for me,” he said, plinking his guitar strings and smiling right at me. “I’m hoping
she’ll … accept the Step.”
He started strumming the intro to a song, and I saw stars! Is this really happening? To me? His
band members looked slightly confused, but when they recognized the riff, they joined the intro.
“I know y’all don’t know what the hell that means,” he said to the crowd, smiling, “but she knows.
Don’t you, baby.”
That smile. The crowd began to urge me on. I heard, Accept the Step! Accept the Step! Even Kit
and Pauline were chanting now, both of them laughing and clapping.
“So what do you say? After this song, maybe we can go somewhere,” he said, and now I laughed,
my hands covering my mouth. Then I drew my hands away and yelled out, “Yes!” and when I did, the
crowd erupted, and Mark launched into the most aching rendition of Margaret Lewis’s “Reconsider
Me.” For the next three minutes, I forced my heart back down my throat and into its proper place
behind my ribs. I felt flushed, and thrilled that he’d boldly shared our connection with the whole room
—yet no one knew a thing about us except Kit and Pauline.
After the song, during a standing ovation, he placed his guitar on its stand and made his way
directly towards me, the whole room in paroxysms as time stopped and he pulled me to my feet and
into a lush kiss.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered into my ear.
“Okay,” I said, unsure my jelly legs would hold me upright. I waved a goodbye to Kit and Pauline
as Mark tugged me through the still-clapping crowd and backstage into the bustling green room. We
swept past his sweaty, chatty band members, one changing his shirt, another standing with a wife or