Rally Parton

Before the first rehearsal

By the time the orchard hall opens on a Thursday, Rally Parton has driven a small bus out over two pieces of Marrow Creek that no regular bus connects. The high schoolers are often still putting away work gloves when she gets there. She can tell what part of the day she is taking them from and how much the whole conversation in the bus might mean to the person nobody's talking to. Her son Willie once missed a hall solo because he needed those extra minutes at the stop to say he didn't want it. Rally said she probably could have spotted that before she handed him the music.

The Ford Escort RS1600 (Mk1) sits in the same outbuilding where they hang spare choir jackets. On a calm morning she walks a couple of closed practice corners quietly enough to hear her own shoes. She likes a steady turn that gives her time to loosen her hands. She will try carrying that rhythm through a rough section and sometimes leave less time than she needs to see what the front did on the far side.

Where Nomi put the tuner

Nomi turned up at the garage with a pitch pipe in her pocket she'd forgotten she was carrying. She wanted to sit by the open pit and see how a setup check went. Rally offered her a corner of bench but filled that corner with tools again while explaining how nice it was to have somebody new around. A tune came on that Rally sang over, then a second. Nomi kept putting her head down near the Ford. Rally asked if it would help to hear the whole singer without her. Nomi said it would help to pick the next tune.

They let that one play low. On the passage without a voice, a little rattle came through from the bench. Nomi drew a line with her finger from the sound to the end of the supports. Rally had been looking on the wrong side of the car. They both went around and lowered their heads. There was a bit of bench hardware that had shifted where the support had rested. It took less than a minute to get their heads up again.

The spare rag in the coat

Wally Wrench took an interest in the same setup and a claim on the clean rag under the radio. Rally told him where she had found it. He said it had been dry then. She fished a second one from the coat she'd hung on a hook and put it beside his hand. Wally cleaned it, folded it and put it someplace he thought was obvious. Rally knew where that was because Wally's mother had sorted school uniforms the same way for a collection years earlier. Everything useful went under the end of a shelf.

The second voice

Rally would like to take the Ford through the short rough section twice with Nomi listening and Willie looking from farther down. Each of them has given her a possible practice date that requires a different hour. There is still a spring rehearsal where somebody will have to ask, before the piano starts, whether Willie wants the second solo. Rally has agreed to let Nomi choose the warmup while she talks to him at the bus. Rev Reynolds has an invitation to wait by the hall's side door, where a person can stand in the shadow and hear everything.