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

  The thought of the long drive in front of me fills me with sadness and regret. Back to my grandmother’s house, back to square one. The thought is so depressing, the arm I’m holding the envelope out with sags a little.

  But at least he finally comes forward. The muscles in his arms move like ropes underneath his skin as he takes the envelope from me.

  “You’re from Alabama, ain’t you?” he asks me quietly.

  I nod, feeling caught for sure, but I tell him the truth. At least a piece of it. “I left when I was fifteen.”

  “I can tell. You talk like my friend, Jo-Jo. She left the state for a while, too, but she never could lose that accent.”

  “I guess it’s a hard accent to lose.” My voice sounds all sorts of weak, like the most awkward soul making the most awkward small talk.

  And he’s staring at me hard now, like he’s seeing me in a new light.

  I put all my energy into not actually visibly squirming under his blue stare. And into wishing I was wearing regular clothes. When you’re fixing to get recognized by someone who got real mad at you a long time ago because you were secretly dating his mother’s employer’s asshole son and then had the nerve to stop that asshole from beating him up, believe me, you do not want to be wearing scrubs.

  I think about those stories you occasionally see in celebrity magazines about stars running into people who’d done them dirty somehow. These “done a future star dirty” folks never seem to be happy and well adjusted for some reason. They’re always at least fifty pounds heavier, working some crummy paying job, and so downtrodden, the star barely recognizes them… until he does.

  I don’t want to be one of those recognized people. But here I am, standing in front of Colin Fairgood in wrinkled scrubs. And I haven’t exactly gained fifty pounds since high school, but the thirty I’ve put on since then are feeling a whole lot heavier than they did just a few minutes ago. Before I knew I was sitting on Rose Gaither’s fancy steps, waiting for her super star son, Colin Fairgood, to walk back into my life.

  I wait, still as can be, to become that story Colin Fairgood tells some magazine.

  But then Colin says, “Tell me about that song you were playing. What are you planning on doing with it?”

  I blink. For some reason these questions make me want to hide my face—even more than the scar sometimes does.

  “It’s a song I’ve been working on for a while, but it just came together tonight. I’m trying… trying to be a country music songwriter, I guess. That’s why I moved to Nashville.”

  He inclines his head. “Seriously? You want to sing country music?”

  “No, not sing it,” I tell him quickly. I have to physically repress a shudder at the thought of getting up on a stage and singing in front of people. “I just want to write it. Like write songs for other folks to sing and maybe sell one or two.”

  Colin’s brows knit. “You got a demo?”

  “No,” I answer. “I’ve still got to save up for one, but believe me, I’m not country simple. I do know I can’t just walk in to some label and tell them I’ve got a few songs I want to play for them.”

  “No, you can’t,” Colin says, shooting me a thoughtful look. “It’s either a demo or scoring the right gigs so the right people can see you.”

  I think about all the stuff my mama went through in order to get the “right” gigs. Full on prostituting herself a few times, just for the chance to sing on the right stage in front of the right music scouts, and this time I really do shudder.

  “No, it’d have to be a demo,” I answer. “I’m not getting up on anybody’s stage.” Not ever again.

  “But demos cost money,” Colin says, like I needed a rich country singer to tell me that. Another thoughtful look, then he says, “You don’t have much training do you?”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t have any,” I admit. “My mom was a singer, and I taught myself how to play the guitar.” I don’t add that it was the only thing to do backstage when I was little and waiting for my mama to finish up with her singing gigs.

  Colin nods again, as if I’ve confirmed something bad about myself, but then he says. “Luckily you don’t need it.”

  Now it’s my turn to tilt my head. “Excuse me?”

  He gives me an up and down look that feels familiar somehow, even though I haven’t seen it for a whole lot of years.

  “I’m just saying, you’ve got talent for sure, but no connections, I’m guessing. Not even a music program to vouch for you.”

  “No, I don’t have any connections,” I agree, remembering belatedly something I’d read about him being in a music program at some fancy East Coast university when he’d gotten his first label deal.

  Why is he pointing all of this out? I ask myself. And again I have to wonder if he really doesn’t recognize me.

  He gives me a frank look.

  “Listen, Blondie, I’m just going to go’on ahead and lay this out for you straight. If you try to do this by yourself with no stage performances, you’re looking at three, maybe five good years until you’re able to get a meeting with somebody important enough to give you the kind of publishing deal you’re looking for. But if I work with you… help you polish up that song, get you the studio time you need with the right session musicians and the right producer—that right producer being me—if that happens, then you could have everything you want in three to five months. We’re talking you making at least six figures by this time next year after we add up the fees and royalties.”

  My eyes just about saucer. I barely cleared twenty thousand last year. That kind of money would change my life. It would be enough to set my grandma up for life, maybe even in a new house. Enough for me to quit my job. Enough to take away the worry of providing for my grandma, now that my grandfather is dead—

  However, thinking about Paw Paw pops my dream bubble.

  “And you’d do this for me because…?” I ask Colin, my face setting.

  “Because it’s a good song,” he answers, flashing me the same charming smile he once dazzled me with back in Alabama.

  “Thanks,” I say, my voice flat as soda left out in the sun. “But my Paw Paw always told me if a man comes around offering a deal too good to be true, then I’d better check under his hat for the horns on his head. Make sure they ain’t too big for me to get my hands around before I agree to anything.”

  Colin’s answer to that is to take off his white Stetson, revealing his full head of sun-colored locks. “Your Paw Paw was a very wise man.”

  “Yes, he was, so I’m going to need the full story on why you’re so hot to help me out with my career.”

  To Colin’s credit, he doesn’t keep trying to bullshit me.

  “You’re right. I’m willing to do a lot for you, but in exchange I’m going to need you to do a little something for me.”

  I hold my breath and wait for him to drop the other shoe.

  Then Colin says, “There’s this girl I want to marry. Her name’s Josie, but I call her Jo-Jo. We’ve been best friends since we were twelve…”

  3

  So, as it turns out, Colin’s got it real bad for this black girl he grew up with in Forest Brook.

  According to Colin, who’s sitting beside me on the marble staircase now, he and this Jo-Jo girl have always been a case of two meant-to-be-together ships passing in the night. First because they were living in Forest Brook, a town that wouldn’t have been very tolerant of a teenage interracial relationship back then—probably still only barely tolerated it now. Then they were separated by distance, when he went to college at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and she stayed behind to attend state college in Alabama. They fell out of touch, but according to Colin, he never stopped thinking about her. Unfortunately, she dropped out of college, went through an abusive marriage, and then got into another bad relationship with some football player they’d both gone to school with—one who’d sucker punched Colin the last time he’d been in Alabama.

  “He’s still got it in
for me because I stole his girlfriend back in high school,” Colin lets me know with a shrug, like getting punched just came with the lady killer territory.

  The only thing that keeps me from feeling downright skeptical about the violin nerd I’d met stealing a football player’s girlfriend is the memory of how Colin’s kiss had affected me.

  No, he’s probably telling the story straight, I think to myself, feeling my body heat up despite the fact that he’s telling me about how he came to be so in love with another girl, who is definitely not the one he doesn’t even remember kissing that long ago Alabama night. I shift on the stairs, just happy he’s too caught up in his story to see how it’s affecting me.

  He continues on with another shrug. “But I’m all right with taking that punch because that’s what got her to break up with him. Now she’s free, but the last time I saw her, she told me she needed some time to go back to school and get her life figured out, before she could get involved in another relationship...”

  So Colin gave her time. And now, she was just about to finish up her degree. Even more importantly, she’d be coming round to his concert in Alabama in two weeks, and he’d already gotten her a front row ticket.

  This Josie is one lucky girl, I think with a dark flutter inside my stomach, to have one of the biggest country singers in the world nose wide open over her.

  But out loud I say, “Congratulations. That sounds like a dream come true. But… um… what about your singing career? Do you think your fans are going to be okay with you getting with a black girl?”

  I think of Mike who wouldn’t even let me come in through the front door of his house, and then I think of another country singer I once heard about… whose fans went ape-shit when he married his long time African-American girlfriend and started a family with her.

  But Colin says, “This is perfect timing, actually. The well’s run dry as far as coming up with my own material goes. Haven’t written a thing in months. Probably will have to convince my label to take a greatest hits album if they want to keep on doing business with me.”

  My brow wrinkles. “You haven’t written anything in months? Do you mean like since your mom had her first stroke?”

  Colin just shakes his head, his face going a little hollow at my mention of his mom.

  “The details don’t matter. Point is I’m okay with not performing any more if that’s what it comes down to. I’ve been doing this a while, you know. Signed my first recording contract before I was even legally allowed to drink. So if I’ve got to step out the spotlight to make marriage and a family happen with Josie, it’s no big deal. Truth is, I make most of my recording money off of songwriting anyway, and I’ve been thinking about starting an imprint of my own for a while now. Probably do me good to switch to the other side of the studio window. Got a list about ten miles long of acts who’d pay me an awful lot to produce songs for them.”

  He gives me an easy grin like none of what he just told me matters much. “Maybe my first client could be you.”

  “I’m not an act,” I remind him. “I just want to write. The singing’s just part of the songwriting job for me.”

  “Even better. You help me out with Josie, I produce your demo and get it to the right people. I think we’ll both get what we want out of this deal.”

  He leans in as he says that last part, letting me get a good whiff of his cologne, and God, he smells good. Like the woods and the forest got married and decided to fill their house up with expensive leather furniture. I find myself unconsciously leaning in, too, wanting to smell more of him, wanting to get closer…

  But then I remember why he’s leaning in.

  “Yeah, but what exactly is this deal?” I ask, voice crisp as I force myself to sit up straight and stop sniffing at him like a silly little dog in heat. “I still don’t understand why you need me to get Josie. It sounds like you have it all set up.”

  Colin’s lips thin. “I do have it all set up. But I also have what my guys in marketing would call a perception problem—at least when it comes to Josie. So far, she’s had a little trouble seeing me as the kind of man a woman like her would date. The fact is, the first time she turned me down, it was because she said she didn’t want to date a white guy. And it doesn’t help that the only white guy she dated after her divorce turned out to be that asshole football player I told you about earlier. But if you come down to Alabama for the concert, let her see us together, then that’ll be just the image correction I need to make Josie see me the way I want her to see me.”

  With all that marketing gibberish thrown in, it takes me a while to get what he’s asking. And when I finally do, I raise my hand in the air between us.

  “Hold up. So what you’re really saying is this girl Josie’s got you all the way in the friend zone. And now you want me, another black woman, to come down to Alabama, act like we’re a couple, because…” I search for the right words to describe this crazy ass plan of his, “I guess you want to jealous her out of the friend zone? Let her know she’s got some competition?”

  The easy-going smile falls off his face, and he asks, “Do you want the job or not?”

  Or not would definitely be my preferred answer. Pretending to be with somebody so he can make somebody else jealous—that straight up sounds like something off of one my grandma’s soap operas. I almost tell him that.

  But then I remember he’s one of the biggest country music stars in the world. And he might be planning to lie to this Josie about the nature of our relationship, but I already know he isn’t lying about what he could do for me. He was right. It would literally take me years to build the connections he already had. And Colin could just pass them on to me easy-peasy, with a snap of his long fingers.

  All I’d have to do is go along with the most soap opera-y plan I’ve ever heard in order to him get the black girl of his dreams.

  “How about if it doesn’t work?” I ask him, feeling weak to my bones.

  “It’ll work,” he says, voice so confident, I wonder if he knows there’s a difference between a woman and the Country Top 40 chart.

  “Okay, but what if it doesn’t?” I ask again. “Just for like, hypothetical. Say Josie is still not wanting to pick up what you’re putting down, even after she sees you got another black girl in the wings. Then what happens to this deal your proposing?”

  Colin exhales through his nose, like the prospect of him failing at a thing is right up there with time travel in terms of impossibility.

  “This is a long-range plan, Blondie,” he informs me. “It’s not like I’m going to propose to Josie while I’ve supposedly got another girl in the wings. My plan’s tight. I’m going to give it a few months until I finish up my tour at the end of the year. Then I’ll circle back around, tell her you and me broke up, and set to wooing her when I’ve got enough time off the road to get the job done right this time. So no, my long-range plans won’t affect your short-term goals.”

  Yeah, but what if Josie does what I suspect a lot of black girls would do if someone who’d supposedly split up with his black ex-girlfriend came sniffing around? Decide Colin must have some kind of weird fetish for black women? What if his plan to make her jealous actually backfires and completely turns her off? Then would he still be willing to put my demo into the right hands?

  I open my mouth to ask some more questions, but he cuts me off with another huff of air.

  “Look, Blondie, what I’m offering you is a better deal than 99.9% of what unknown songwriters are going to get, especially just starting out the gate. You do a day’s acting work for me, and I’m guaranteeing you a demo produced by me at the very least. Let me ask you, how long do you think it would take for you to save up enough money, doing home health aide work, to cut your own demo? Less than a few months? Because that’s what I’m offering. So are you going to take this deal or not?”

  I’m going to take the deal. Of course I am.

  I have to, I realize. No matter what kind of weird, slightly jealousy-tinged distast
e it leaves in my mouth, the fact is I’ve been saving for three years to cut a demo, and I’m not even a tenth of the way there.

  But still, some insecure part of me has to ask, “Why me? Couldn’t you hire some back-up singer or somebody else to do this for you?”

  His mouth quirks up. “Yeah, I could, but most of the women I know have a little too much gloss. I don’t want Josie to think I’m the kind of guy who wants one of those models, straight out of a music video. Like I said, it’s all about perception.”

  His eyes come to my face, and I feel my scar heat under his blue gaze. But then he says, “I want somebody pretty and down home. An Alabama girl.”

  He thinks I’m pretty. Even in my scrubs, with my hair pulled back, and a scarred face, only half-covered in make-up. It’s a stupid thought to have during a conversation about agreeing to be used as bait for another woman, but it’s the first thought I have nonetheless.

  I feel my cheeks warm and I curse my light skin because I’m one of those unfortunate black girls you can actually see blush.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I mumble. “Just give me the details.”

  Colin grins at me. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m suddenly agreeing to his stupid plan. He’s probably used to getting his way now that he’s famous. I can tell just by the cocky way he pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

  “Okay, put all your details in here. I’ll pass them on to my assistant, Ginny, and she’ll take it from there.”

  He starts to hand his phone to me, but then pulls it back at the last moment. “Just one question before you do, though. You think you can blush like that on

  cue when we’re with Josie? It’s awfully cute.”

  I feel my whole face go warm and Colin’s grin gets wider.

  “Oh, I see,” he says. “It’s about me complimenting you. I’ll have to remember that. Put it in my arsenal for when you come down to Alabama.”

  4

  “KiKi! KiKi!”