Pre-release: the first three chapters

One

The car was a ten-year-old Buick with 193,000 miles, bought with every bit of Angela’s savings plus most of what she’d earned from the summer tour. Everything she owned was stuffed in the trunk and piled inside, leaving a tight space for herself behind the steering wheel. Atop a box on the passenger seat, the theater company’s glossy souvenir program stuck out of her shoulder bag. Her bio and glamour photo were printed inside: Angela Henderson, Aldonza in The Man of La Mancha. The tour had gone on without her, but she did not yet feel separated. Performing was real life, not this. In real life, she did not need a car.

She’d left Chicago that morning, a spider swinging out on her own thin thread. Her voice might be gone—temporarily—but this was no time to lose her nerve. Everything new was scary in the beginning. Like driving for…