Week 12: Friday
Who: Ada, Rhett, NPC band members Where: Nashville, TN; The Ryman Auditorium What: A concert When: Friday evening
The band had played a show in Oklahoma City the night before, and as usual, Ada hadn't been able to sleep until well into the morning. They were rolling on the tour bus toward Nashville for the "big one." The show at the Ryman. It had taken a LOT of coercing from Rhett and the guys to get some sleep so she wouldn't be completely wired for the performance. She also had a sneaking suspicion they were tired of her spazzing and asking them about the set list for the five-hundredth time.
Finally, she curled up on her bunk with her headphones in, an album by The Great Divide playing on her iPod, and her basset hound puppy Emmylou curled up next to her.
She slept all the way from Little Rock to just outside Nashville. The sun was getting lower when she sat up and looked out the window. Her watch said it was 6:00.
"Shit, y'all!" she said, gathering up Emmylou and hopping down off her bunk. "We're almost there." She set the puppy down on the floor of the bus, and the clumsy basset nearly tripped over its own ears on the way over to where Rhett was sitting. She plopped down next to him and pulled her guitar from the stand it was sitting on across from them. "I don't think I've been this nervous ever." She did have a bit of stage fright sometimes, but these butterflies were ENORMOUS. She tuned up the acoustic guitar and played a few chords. "I still don't know what song we should start with."