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no skin off my nose.
    “Hey,” the man said as he turned back to Tony. “You sell sheet music, right? You got the music for Summer Drive ? Maybe I’ll learn that. Kind of a souvenir from meeting you, you know?”
    Tony laughed. “Sure. Sheet music is alphabetical by title over to the far end.” He pointed toward the old cedar cabinets that held copies of thousands of songs.
    When the guy went to look, Tony sat back on the stool behind the counter and tried to unclench his hands. He knew he looked totally relaxed, but all he wanted to do was fucking strangle the asshole. He’d laughed at his song.
    A few minutes later, he heard the bell when the man left without buying a copy of the music.
     
    * * *
     
    Tony spent the rest of the afternoon behind the counter. Only two other customers came in, and they were both just lookie-loos. After working at the store for more than a decade, Tony knew within seconds if somebody walking in the door actually wanted something or if they were just killing time. He never bothered with them. When he first started working there, he had tried. He’d go over and flash his million-dollar smile and be the stranger’s best friend, showing him or her the latest instruments or cleaning accessories or music or whatever they pretended to be interested in.
    Hey, there was always a chance they’d buy, right?
    Nope. He didn’t waste the energy anymore.
    Sometimes, though, a real customer would come in. They’d be focused and clear and would glance up at the guitars, or they’d look around to see the drums at the far end of the store, or they’d zero in on Tony and ask about clarinets or oboes or trumpets or whatever else was on their mind.
    Those were the customers Tony took care of these days. At 39, his bones were starting to creak, and he felt the first twinges of age seeping through his joints.
    Besides, he had better things to do than waste his time on fake customers.
    After the guy left who didn’t buy the sheet music for Summer Drive , he couldn’t help thinking back to that magical summer.
    Tony had been 24. He’d wanted to be a musician since he was 13, and his life had revolved around learning the guitar and very little else. He grabbed three friends for backup and finally decided the time was right.
    They called themselves Tony McKay and the Bouncing Marlies. Stupid name , he told himself. Wish I’d known that back then.
    Tony fronted all the money. $2,000 to record and press 500 copies of their first album, called Our First .
    Stupid title.
    Tony sent 100 copies to every radio station he could find in the Pacific Northwest, along with a press release he composed announcing the debut album from a fabulous new indie group. He encouraged the stations to play Summer Drive , because it seemed the most radio-friendly. He thought it would remind people of Bachman Turner Overdrive, even if nobody else really ever noticed the resemblance.
    Once each week, he’d phone each station, but nobody wanted to talk to him. There was only one station he knew of that inserted the song into their rotation . . . WHSI in Tacoma. It was a tiny station with a listening audience of only about 10,000 people.
    The DJ was a woman named Cindy Jameson. This was long before she rebranded herself as Cin.
    Tony called her every couple of days to encourage her to keep playing the song, and she did. She laughed with him on the phone, which he thought was special until a year later when he realized she laughed with everybody. It was why her fans loved her.
    As complete coincidence would have it, that summer Paul McCartney was touring and performed at the Seattle Kingdome.
    Three days later, in the middle of his tour, he was interviewed on Larry King Live.
    Halfway through the interview, King asked, “So what new music out there excites you, Paul?”
    McCartney shrugged and said, “You know, I like all kinds of music, but I just heard this great song called Summer Drive when I was in Washington. Don’t know