Giselle had asked Robert once what a rock concert was like in person.
"I hear that the best musicians bring something extra to the stage. Not that I've ever seen one on television. Morgan looked up MTV for me, but I couldn't find any music there at all."
"Oh, I saw some unknown bands perform in college, and most of them stayed that way...Oh my God!", Robert exclaimed. "I completely forgot. I took Morgan's mother to see Bon Jovi at Giants Stadium. We were dating, and I wanted to impress her. That was something else. The crowd jumped up and down in time to the music. Our ears rang for an hour after the concert, from all the songs blasting out of the loudspeakers. Of course," he shrugged, "someone spilled a cup of beer over my head, too. Well, we had a good laugh over that later."
Giselle now wanted to take all that in herself (except for the spilled drinks part), as the halftime show began. Robert had dug up his Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Greatest Hits CD before the trip, and asked if she wanted to give a listen. "No," she declined, "I want to hear them for the first time." As Petty plucked his guitar strings, 'doong! doong! doong!', the crowd seemed louder for the band than it had at any time during the first half. She half wondered if she could make out what the song was about over the noise, but the lyrics came through loud and clear:
"Well she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn't help but thinkin' that there
Was a little more to life
Somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to"
Giselle's arms dropped, as she heard what seemed to be her life story sung for all the world to hear.
"Yeah, and if she had to die
Tryin' she had one little promise
She was gonna keep
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl"
She and Edward had made promises to one another, and look where they were now. Out of one eye, she spotted Robert glancing at her.
"Well, it was kind of cold that night
She stood alone on her balcony
She could hear the cars roll by
Out on 441
Like waves crashing on the beach"
There was a balcony on a cold night in my story too, Giselle thought, but I was never as alone as this poor girl.
"And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God it's so painful
Something that's so close
And still so far out of reach"
She supposed Edward and her would have been happy together, if Narissa had been content to run things behind the scenes. There would have been nothing new to learn about each other before long, though. But she still missed her woodland friends in Andalasia, who were 'so far out of reach'.
"Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl"
Robert had been paying attention to the lyrics as well. It hadn't escaped him how much the girl's life mirrored Giselle's. He also marveled at how a joyful guitar riff could make fans clap and cheer for such a sad song. As it wound down, he turned to her, half expecting to see tears in her eyes. She did look sad, but upon seeing his expression she smiled and slowly shook her head.
"I hope the rest of his songs are a bit more cheerful."
"It's the Super Bowl - only one sad song allowed."
So they held hands, and swayed to 'I Won't Back Down', with Giselle chipping in at the end:
"Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won't back down
No I won't back down"