One came into her head: is it easy? No, it ain’t. Can I fix it? No, I can’t she’d been writing songs since she could talk and make melodies. Even before that, Annie lee keys couldn’t hear the call of a wood thrush, the plink plink plink of a leaky faucet, or the rumbling rhythm of a freight train without turning it into a tune, crazy girl finds music in everything.

That’S what her mother had said right up until the day she died, and the song coming to Annie lee now gave her something to think about. Besides the cars whizzing by their warm dry occupants, did not even slowing down to give her a second glance, not that she could blame them. She wouldn’t stop for herself either not in this weather and her, probably looking no better than a drowned possum. When she saw the white station wagon approaching going at least 20 miles under the speed limit, she crossed her fingers that it would be some nice old grandpa pulling over to offer her a lift. She’D turn down.

Two rides back when she thought she’d have her choice of them: the first from a chain-smoking, lady, with two snarling rottweilers in the backseat, the second from a kid who’d looked higher than mount Everest. Now she could kick herself for being so picky either driver would have at least gotten her a few miles up. The road smelled like one kind of smoke or another. The white wagon was 50 yards away, then 25 and as it came at her, she gave a friendly graceful wave as if she was some kind of celebrity on the shoulder of the Crosby freeway and not some half desperate. Nobody with all her worldly belongings in a backpack, the old Buick crawled toward her in the slow lane and Annie lee’s waving, grew nearly frantic, but she could have stood on her head and shot rainbows out of her ropers and it wouldn’t have mattered.

The car passed by and grew gradually smaller in the distance she stomped her foot like a kid splattering herself with mud. Is it easy she sang again? No, it ain’t. Can I fix it? No, I can’t, but I sure ain’t gonna take it lying down.

It was catchy all right and Annie lee wished for the 20th time that she had her beloved guitar, but it wouldn’t have fit in her pack for one thing, and for another, it was already hanging on the wall at Jeb’s pawn if she had one wish. Besides, to get the hell out of texas, it was that whoever bought Maybelle would take good care of her. The distant lights of downtown Houston seemed to blur as Annie lee blinked raindrops from her eyes. If she thought about her life back there for more than an instant she’d, probably stop wishing for a ride and just start running by now. The rain was falling harder than she’d seen it in years as if God had drawn up all the water in buffalo by the bayou.

Just so, he could pour it back down on her head. She was shivering her stomach ached with hunger and suddenly she felt so lost and furious. She could cry, she had nothing and nobody. She was broke and alone and night was coming on, but there was that melody again. It was almost as if she could hear it inside the rain all right.

She thought i don’t have nothing. I have music, and so she didn’t cry she sang instead. Will i make it maybe so closing her eyes? She could imagine herself on a stage somewhere singing for a wrapped audience. Will i give up?

Oh no, she could feel the invisible crowd holding its breath i’ll, be fighting till i’m six feet underground. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was tilted to the sky. As the song swelled inside her, then a horn, blared and annie lee keys nearly jumped out of her boots. She was hoisting both her middle fingers high at the tractor trailer when she saw its brake lights flare. Chapter 2 was there ever a more beautiful color in the whole wide world annie lee could write a damn ode to the dazzling red of those brake lights as she ran toward the truck the cab’s passenger doors swung open.

She wiped the rain from her eyes and looked at her rescuer. He was a gray-haired soft-bellied man in his 50s, smiling down at her from six feet up. He tipped his baseball cap at her like a country gentleman come on in before you drown. A gust of wind blew the rain sideways and without another seconds has

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