His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee) Read online

  I frown, noticing an awful lot of the people in the line either look like they’ve stepped out of a stoner comedy or have gray hair.

  And Colin’s voice inside my head turns suspicious. “You’re not a stoner or a senior citizen, so why didn’t you register for classes before the deadline? If you’re sure this is the road you ought to be taking, why’d you put it off so long?”

  “Shut up,” I hiss. “Just let me be.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “And I’m just saying get out of my head!”

  Colin’s voice goes quiet, just in time for me to notice there are a number of people in line now looking at me. The guy standing behind me, in a beanie reeking of weed, takes a visible step back, like I’m the one with a questionable mental state.

  Luckily I’m saved by the sound of my phone going off in my purse.

  “Hello?” I say without even checking the number. I don’t care who it is. I’m happy to talk with anyone who will save me from the embarrassment of getting caught talking to myself.

  “Hello, is this Kyra Goode?” a woman asks on the other side of the line.

  “Yes, this is her,” I answer carefully, wondering who wants to know. The voice is unfamiliar. Not Southern, and not quite as rehearsed as a telemarketer’s.

  “The one who posted the videos of herself singing online a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes,” I answer. A few alarm bells start going off as I ask, “How did you get this number?”

  “Believe me, it took some digging,” she grumbles. “You don’t exactly have a large online footprint, and I had to try a couple of other numbers before this one. Please hold for Wyatt LaGrange.”

  “Wyatt LaGrange?” I repeat. “Like the head of Stone River Records, Wyatt LaGrange?”

  “Yes, that Wyatt LaGrange.” The woman on the other side of the line answers. She sounds less annoyed and more amused now. “Please hold.”

  “Okay,” I agree, despite being real confused. Stone River is Colin’s label. Why would they be calling me? Is it about the videos I posted online? Maybe they’re calling to tell me to take them down on Colin’s behalf.

  “Kyra Goode, you are one hard woman to track down!” a big voice booms on the other side of the line before I can get to worrying too much. “Who posts videos online when she doesn’t even have a Facebook account so people can find her if they want to talk? What kind of aspiring singer songwriter are you?”

  “Ah… I’m not a singer songwriter,” I tell him. “Just a songwriter, and I didn’t think anybody would actually look at those videos. I was just putting them up there to put them someplace.”

  “To put them someplace,” he repeats, like I’m speaking an alien language. “So let me get this straight. Colin Fairgood announces to everybody that he’s dating you. Then a few weeks later, you post videos of you singing, and you don’t expect anybody to take notice? Do you have any idea how many hits you have on that site?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Again, I wasn’t really looking to do anything official when I posted those.”

  “Oh, Kyra, I was looking so forward to this call, but now I got a headache. So what are you telling me? You’re just running around throwing up your work without a plan?”

  Actually that is exactly what I’ve been doing, but when he puts it that way, it makes me feel like an idiot.

  “I didn’t think it was possible for those songs to ever get published.”

  “Why not?” he asks.

  “Because...”

  I look around and then step out of line because I don’t want the other people to hear what I have to say next.

  “I’m Colin Fairgood’s ex-girlfriend now, and it ended… bad,” I say in a low voice when I’m out of earshot. “Like really bad, and it was all my fault. There’s no way he’s going to let you or any other country label do business with me.”

  A moment of silence. Then Wyatt LaGrange bursts out laughing, like I’ve just told the funniest joke in the world. When he’s finally done cracking up, he says, “Darlin, Colin Fairgood came in here two days ago and announced that not only was he not going to re-up his contract with the label that put him on the map, but that he was taking his new album over to Big Hill Records, because he’d just signed a deal for his own imprint with Geoff Latham.”

  “He did that?” I say. Both surprised Colin had managed to produce a new album and impressed he’d gone ahead with his dream to start his own imprint.

  “Yes, he did,” Wyatt answers, mistaking my surprise for same-mindedness. “So believe me when I say I am extremely interested in working with somebody on his shit list right now. Now please tell me you don’t already have a publishing deal.”

  “I—I don’t,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I was just in line to register for community college.”

  “Well, you can step out of that line, sweetheart, because I’m going to want to meet with you in Nashville as soon as possible.”

  A PUBLISHING DEAL. I can’t believe it! I drive home faster than Burt Reynolds in Cannonball Run, still unable to wrap my head around the opportunity that just fell out of the sky. Stone River Records wants to sign me to a publishing deal! Wyatt LaGrange even says he’ll have the papers ready for me when I meet with him on Monday and a list of the artists he wants me to work with to write more songs.

  At the thought of signing my first official publishing contract, I remember what Colin said to me back when I was supposed to have a meeting with Geoff Latham. About not signing anything until I let him look the contract over first, on account of there being no such thing as a label that wouldn’t try to screw a new kid for rights.

  Then I have to swallow down a lump of regret, because I’m sad this opportunity is coming out of Wyatt LaGrange wanting to get back at Colin. And, of course, Colin was probably right about me needing somebody to look over the paperwork before I sign anything.

  Finding a lawyer is definitely something I’m going to have to talk over with Bernice, but meanwhile, I have a publishing deal in the making. An actual publishing deal! I still can’t believe it.

  I get home in record time, tires kicking up the dirt outside our cabin. I jump out of the car without even bothering to cut the engine and run up to Grandma, who’s sleeping on the porch swing.

  I’ve told her before about falling asleep in this cold, but I’m too happy to chide her about it today. I just shake her, saying, “Grandma, wake up! My songs are going to be on the radio! All your praying over it worked.”

  Grandma’s eyes stay closed, and I shake her again. “C’mon, Grandma, that celebration lunch at Red Lobster ain’t going to eat itself.”

  My grandma loves Red Lobster, and I expect this to wake her up good as a bucket of ice water.

  But her eyes stay closed.

  And then it feels like someone’s thrown a bucket of ice water over me as I realize…

  I reach out as I have so often with sleeping patients. Check her wrist, then her neck for a pulse… but unlike with those other patients, her pulse is non-existent.

  “No…” I shake my head, wanting to deny in full what’s right before my eyes. But I can feel it. Right down to my bones. She’s no longer here.

  I say “No!” again, crying because she’s my grandma. My Best Grandma. And truthfully, the best mother I’ve ever had.

  “No!” I crumple to my knees, my head falling into her lap, as I sob, “No, Grandma. Please, no…”

  But even my wild sobs can’t keep what’s already happened from having happened. My grandma’s gone home. She’s with Paw Paw now.

  36

  I don’t remember much of what happens after they take Grandma’s body away. A brain made of cotton as I make a whole lot of calls. First to all the Sunday Dinner relatives, and then to the ones further away, and lastly to the one in L.A. The one I haven’t called in a very, very long time.

  I get her voicemail. “You found me, now leave a message,” my mother’s down home voice tells me.

  So I do. “Mom—I mean, Va
lerie. I mean Goody,” I correct myself, remembering that’s her stage name now. “This is Kyra. Grandma… she’s gone home. And I know you weren’t able to make it for Paw Paw’s funeral, but I thought you might want to try to make it for this one. Here’s the information.”

  I quickly give her the details for the funeral, then I say bye, and then I hang up. I’m not surprised she doesn’t call back.

  I don’t need her anyway. There’s a steady stream of relatives in and out of the house, checking on me from about fifteen minutes after I make the first call to Bernice. Making me grateful for the family who does love me… and sad, because I can barely bring myself to eat any of the delicious food they keep dropping off and warming up for me.

  I call Wyatt LaGrange’s assistant on the Monday I’m supposed to meet with him, and tell her we’ll have to reschedule because my grandma passed. She expresses her condolences like any decent person would, and then she tells me to call her just as soon as I’m ready. “Wyatt really is very excited to meet with you,” she assures me.

  I tell her I’ll call back as soon as I can. I don’t have the heart to tell her the meeting will now have to be about something very different, a selling of the songs I’ve already posted online, because I don’t think I’m going to have any other music to write for a very long time.

  After I get off the phone with Wyatt LaGrange’s assistant, I go and lie down on my bed. I’m all slept out, but unable to face the gang of relatives outside my door. So I just lie there, listening to them talking and moving around. My whole mind has gone even quieter than when Paw Paw died. Not a song to be heard. Just dull gray cotton as far as my mind’s eye can see.

  A knock sounds on the other side of the door.

  “Kiki!” one of my cousin’s calls out.

  Rhonda. I ignore her. Maybe if I don’t answer, she’ll go away and leave me to my silent room with my empty mind.

  But another knock comes, and this time it’s accompanied by my cousin Bernice’s soft voice, “Kiki, I think you’d better come out,” she says, almost apologetically.

  “There’s another fine-ass white boy here asking for you!” Rhonda adds, so loud, her voice has probably carried to the front door.

  Some serious shushing sounds from Bernice, and a “What? I’m just telling her who’s at the door!” from Rhonda.

  “If you really trying to tell her, say it’s that one football player that got knocked blind.” My cousin Tyrone’s voice charges into the fray, making me wonder exactly how many cousins are outside my door right now.

  I sit up in bed. “Do you mean, Beau?” I ask. “Beau Prescott?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Tyrone answers. Then he asks, “Kiki, how you know him?”

  IT’S HIM. IT’S REALLY HIM. I find Beau Prescott, my brother, standing on the front porch in the same pair of gold, mirrored aviators he was wearing when he came to Colin’s hotel room to win Josie back.

  “Hi,” I say when I see him. Feeling awkward… and confused.

  “Hey,” he says. “I… um… I mean, Josie—Josie told me about your grandmother’s passing and I…”

  He trails off again.

  “And you came to see me?” I ask, my voice filled with wonder, because I still can’t quite believe Beau is actually here at my home, even though he’s standing right in front of me.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Josie mentioned you told her your grandma basically raised you. And I know when my dad died, I was a little—I don’t know, bummed because I didn’t have any other real family around except Kitty. And you’ve met Kitty.”

  I smile, getting his meaning exactly. I couldn’t imagine the walking reenactment of Gone with the Wind that was Kitty Prescott suddenly turning into a pillar of strength after her husband died.

  “I spent most of the week I took off to come home, trying to keep Kitty from drinking on top of all the valium she was taking to get through the funeral. But…”

  He nods over my shoulder at my family who are all gathered behind me and openly staring at the second famous white man to pay us a visit in less than three months. “I can hear you’ve got plenty of family to see you through, so I guess I ought to…”

  He turns his electronic walking stick on, cueing a green laser that always puts me in mind of the light sabers from Star Wars.

  “Beau,” I say before he can turn to leave. “I really am sorry about what I did.”

  “What did she do?” I hear one of my cousins wonder out loud behind me. “Bernice, you know anything about this?”

  Another shushing sound from Bernice, who knows everything but would never tell our loud mouth family.

  “That’s not something you need to be thinking about right now, Kyra,” he answers. “You just focus on your family and what you need to do.”

  He turns to leave again, and again I stop him, this time touching his arm. “Beau did Josie drive you here?” I ask. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” I roll my eyes at my family behind me, who I can hear whispering play-by-plays and conjectures like “maybe she was sleeping with him, too. Maybe that’s why the other white boy broke up with her.”

  Beau turns back around to face me. “Actually there is somewhere we can talk,” he says.

  LESS THAN TWO MINUTES LATER, Beau’s led me to a two-seater vehicle, sitting on the side of the road. The car—if you can call it that—looks like Hello Kitty and a smart car had a baby: Hello Smartie. But on the inside, there’s only two leather seats and a huge touchscreen dashboard where the steering wheel, gear shifts, brake pedals, and AC/heating units would usually be in a regular car.

  It feels a little like climbing inside a tiny spaceship, except even more surreal, since as soon as I sit down, the car’s onboard system blares to life. And then an efficient, not quite human voice asks me to electronically sign a non-disclosure agreement before I can so much as say, “Wow! Is this a driverless car?”

  Which is how I find myself screen-signing my third NDA less than six months after signing my first.

  “Sorry about that,” Beau says after I’m done.

  “No problem,” I answer, looking around the car, now that I’m legally allowed to—as long as I don’t tell a soul I did it.

  “Technically, this is an unofficial experiment drive for an unnamed corporation that hopes to use me as a spokesperson once they start selling these to the public. They’ve got a lot of government contracts and a federal mandate to make sure this car can go anywhere in America, but the laws about driverless technology are still a little shaky, so we’ve got to keep this trip under the radar.”

  I want to say something clever like, “You can trust me”—but we both already know what happened the last time he did that.

  “Your family is… something else,” Beau says into the awkward silence that follows his explanation about why I had to sign an NDA just to sit in his car.

  “Yeah, they’re something all right,” I answer. “Can you see now why I was so interested in getting to know somebody who hadn’t been raised to tell it like it is twenty-four-seven?”

  Beau chuckles. “Yeah, I guess. But your family’s not so bad. Trust me, it could be worse.”

  I think of my mother’s neglect, and the black eye Colin was sporting the first time we met—the one that made him decide to end his summer visit with his father early.

  “Was it worse?” I ask Beau. “I mean Colin mentioned something about your family being unhappy once. And it came as a surprise.”

  Beau shrugs. “He was your father, too. You know…”

  “Actually I don’t. He didn’t come around much, and when he did, it was usually really late at night. And he only talked to my mother, in her bedroom. The only reason I knew he was my father was because that’s what my mother called him when she got drunk and bitter. I don’t think he said more than ten words to me my entire life.”

  Beau shakes his head with a bitter laugh of his own. “Yeah, that sounds exactly like how he’d handle knocking up his mistress. But if it makes you feel any better, h
e was a withholding bastard to me, too, and everybody knew I was his son. Nothing I did was ever good enough, because I wanted to be a football player, not go into business like he did. Don’t think you missed out. The man was a bastard to everyone he ever met, especially the ones who loved him.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured,” I admit. “That’s why I fixated on you, I think,” I tell Beau. “The odds of me getting what I wanted were better. Not by much, but you know… better.”

  “But you thought I’d reject you like he did. That’s why you didn’t tell me, wasn’t it? Even after Josie hired you.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” I say. I peep over at him. “So you believe me now, about being your sister?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” he says. He goes quiet for a second, then says, “I remember where I heard your voice before. That night you came over with Miss Val. I was younger, so were you, but I remember it. Remember you. Remember thinking you looked like this photo of my grandma that used to hang in the front room, before Kitty redecorated after my dad died. It was a picture taken of her right before her coming out ball, and I remember thinking you looked just like her, but brown, with a wider nose.”

  Beau let’s out a shaky sigh. “I guess I knew back then. Just like I know now.”

  Neither of us say anything for a while after that, just letting the truth sink in, that Beau’s my brother and I’m his sister, and as far as immediate family goes, we’re pretty much all the other has left in the world.

  Then I say, “So tell me the truth, Brother. Exactly how much of this did Josie put you up to?”

  Beau barks out a laugh. “Pretty much all of it. I’ve been—I don’t know—difficult since the wedding. That Mike Lancer situation threw Josie and me for a loop. I mean Fairgood and me solved it, but still it scared me. Kept me up at night wondering whether I’d ever be able to be the father this kid we’ve got coming deserves. Got grumpier and grumpier, and finally Josie just lost it. Told me this was the kind of thing you’re supposed to talk over with your friends and family. And since I don’t really keep in touch with the guys I used to know on my football team…”