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troubles
before
today give you a right to enjoy this tremendously. Your song would be a hit no matter who sang it. Because I did, it'll get the attention it deserves. I love your music, Maggie, and so will everyone else. Write more for me. Please?”
    Then she kissed me on the cheek, and gave me a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Your song is so true, and the truth inside you is staggering.”
    For a moment I was tongue-tied, then began to regain my composure. “Shoot, I'm trying not to say anything too stupid,” I whispered to her. “You can't imagine what this means to me, to Jennie and me.”
    “Oh yes,” she said. “I can definitely imagine. The first song is the best of them all.” Then she looked at Jennie. “Your mom is amazing.”
    Jennie smiled and nodded. “I know,” she said, “but sometimes,
she
doesn't.”

CHAPTER 13
    I USED TO daydream all the time about stuff like this happening. Everybody does. So this had to be a crazy daydream, didn't it?
    I sold a lot of songs in a very short period of time. I was hotter than a ten-dollar pistol. I had the same thought every morning as I woke up in the tiny New York walk-up that I was still too insecure to give up:
None of this can be happening
.
    One night, Barry took me to a very ritzy New York restaurant to celebrate “Maggie's greatest hits,” as he called them. I continued to be a hot item. Stories about me had appeared in
Rolling Stone, Spin, People
. It was bizarre, unreal, not my style, but I didn't want it to stop. I felt like somebody, probably for the first time in my life.
    It was twilight when we arrived at Lutèce on Fiftieth Street in Manhattan. We were seated with a certain amount of pomp and circumstance in the garden room. Barry knew the chef, the owner, the busboys.
    “Is this a date?” I asked him. I was kidding—I
think
I was.
    “This is my way to make up, once and for all, for our very first interview,” he said and smiled. He was in a great mood. We both were. We ordered champagne cocktails, then I had foie gras, salmon with sorrel sauce, a plum soufflé.
None of this can be happening
.
    “I could have cooked all that,” I said as we finished and ordered brandy and coffee.
    “I believe that you could. You know,” Barry went on, “nothing has made me any happier than watching you—”
    “Come back to life?”
    “Blossom,” he said. “You know that it's hard for me to talk like this, but it's true. It's how I feel.”
    Suddenly, I was a little nervous and uncomfortable. I wondered if this really was a date. I didn't think I was ready for it yet. I was also afraid of spoiling the friendship that Barry and I had.
    Barry winked at me then. He must have sensed my discomfort. “More and more, people are going to want to hear
you
, Maggie. Your words, your music, your special voice. That sultry contralto of yours. There isn't going to be any stopping you, Maggie. There are no limits to where you can go.”
    I started to cry. In the garden room of Lutèce. I didn't really care who saw me. I was so goddamn happy, so absolutely thrilled.
    Barry used his napkin to dab at my cheeks. We both started to laugh.
    “So tell me about yourself. Who the hell are you, Maggie? You're not ‘blondie in the coat’ anymore. That's for sure.”
    I had kept everything bottled up inside, but that night I let some of it out. Barry was my friend and I trusted him, which was a big step too.
    “There's a small town about twenty miles above West Point. Newburgh,” I began.
    “Been there. No desire to go back,” he said and made a face. “The main street looks like Beirut.
That
Newburgh?”
    “It used to be a beautiful city, Barry. Sits right over the Hudson River. Small town America, that's me.”
    “I hear some of that in your songs, Maggie. Honest, sincere, not too much cynicism. Corny, but what the hell.” He grinned mischievously.
    I was feeling very self-conscious. “You sure you want to hear this?”
    “Stop putting yourself