His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee) Page 5

I look up from the big rock I’ve been sitting on with my guitar, trying to make a new song that doesn’t want to work come out of me like the one I wrote about Colin’s mother. My grandma’s rushing toward me down the creek’s rocky bank in a way the doctor who did her hip surgery two years ago definitely wouldn’t have prescribed. But tell that to my grandma. She’s eighty-six, five-foot-one, with a sharecropper’s daughter’s attitude—she’s basically the strongest fragile person I’ve ever met. One surgery and some Memphis doctor’s orders won’t keep her from doing exactly as she pleases.

  Still, the sight of her barging down the slippery slope makes my heart hiccup. My grandma’s never had any heart problems like Colin’s mother, but eighty-six is eighty-six and my first client death is still weighing heavily on my mind.

  I put my guitar on my back and run to meet her halfway up the pebbled hill. “Grandma! What are you doing coming all the way out here?” I ask as I take her by the elbow and escort her back to the level ground at the top of the bank. “Trying to break your neck?”

  “Trying to give you this letter you got,” she answers, waving a white envelope at me. “You told me to stop opening your mail, so I brought it out here so you could open it.”

  So I could open it in front of her—that’s what she really means. My grandma takes poking her nose into my business as her rightful due, since as she’s always telling me, “I was the one who had to give you all your common sense learning after that wild mother of yours up and left out for California.”

  Normally I don’t begrudge her, but my heart hiccups again when I see the return address stamped onto the envelope’s upper left corner. No name, just a post office box, city and state. Nashville, TN. But who would be writing me from Nashville, except…

  I open the letter and find what looks like a non-disclosure form inside, along with a check. My eyes widen when I see the number on it.

  “What is it?” my grandma demands.

  “It’s a check. From the son of my Nashville client. I… um… guess he wanted me to have some kind of severance.”

  I feel terrible about lying to my grandma—worse than terrible. I feel like my mother. But I know it’s better to let her think this than to try and introduce the complicated story of the soap opera I’ve let myself get dragged into.

  “Oh! That’s mighty thoughtful of him,” my grandma says.

  “Mmm,” I answer vaguely, flipping the check over so she won’t see the number on the front. Even the most generous client wouldn’t have given me more than a couple weeks pay, and this check is large enough to get my grandma and me through for a couple of months.

  I’m surprised to find a post-it stuck to the back-side of the check. It’s covered in a longish chicken scratch I hope belongs to Colin, because I really need to believe he wouldn’t ask his assistant to write, “Looking forward to making you blush in Alabama” on a post-it.

  “Why you blushing?” my grandma asks me, craning her head to try to read the note.

  I press it to my chest before she can.

  “Just embarrassed I can’t send it back and tell him he doesn’t have to do this. But we could really use the money.”

  This is only a partial lie. We really could use the money. But there are other feelings going on inside of me at that moment that I’m not at all prepared to discuss with my grandma or even my favorite cousin, Bernice.

  Colin and me never discussed him paying me actual money for the job. This check out the blue makes me feel weird. I don’t know whether to be grateful or insulted. Like a cupid or like a prostitute.

  Also, there’s all these birds fluttering around my chest because Colin Fairgood wrote me something on a post-it. Colin Fairgood. And I don’t know if the birds are flapping around there because of the angry teenager who kissed me all those years ago, or because of the smooth talking country singer who promised to make all my dreams come true in exchange for helping him get the girl he really wants.

  In either case, he’s got me out here, accepting his check without any kind of good protest, lying to my grandma, preparing to go back to a state I swore I’d never step foot in again.

  Even though I’m supposedly getting the best end of this bargain, I can’t help but feel like I’m in real deep trouble. The truth is, I don’t think my hands are big enough to wrap around Colin Fairgood’s horns.

  5

  Colin Fairgood grew up dirt poor but is now rich. Colin Fairgood is also, according to the montage currently showing on three different screens at Alabama’s Oakridge Mountain Amphitheatre, all sorts of accomplished with a ton of number one singles on both country and pop charts, one of which includes his duet with the international singing sensation, Roxxy RoxX.

  “Basically made her what she is,” he says to an unseen interviewer, casually joking about the single that scored him matching number one spots on both the pop and country charts, as well as several music awards.

  At one point the camera freeze frames on Colin holding up a shooting star shaped statue and shouting, “Thank you kindly for this, B.E.T!” As if to say, Man, this guy has won every award out there!

  Colin Fairgood is seriously charming. He practically oozes easygoing Southern affability through clip after clip in the montage, which includes a guest stint on Saturday Night Live and several guest appearances on other singer’s stages—not just country, but rock, R&B, and rap, too.

  “Who’s your favorite singer?” a reporter asks him over the many photos and clips of him hanging out with other music acts.

  “I can’t ever pick just one. I listen to all sorts of music. My mixtapes got Bach, Beyoncé, Bluegrass, Big Sean, Brooks, Brazilian—if it’s good music, I’m listening to it.”

  Colin Fairgood is a smoking hot swan story, according to the montage, a former orchestra nerd who transformed into one of the hottest men in country music. Something to look at, as my grandma might say, with perfectly tousled blond hair, and eyes so blue, they almost seem to glow with their own ethereal light. Both lady killer qualities, on top of a tall, lean body, chiseled to perfection—if the montage is to be believed—from him doing all sorts of true country boy things like cannon balling into lakes, regularly using beer cans for shotgun shooting practice, and lending a hand to help with repairs after his tour bus breaks down in Arkansas.

  Colin Fairgood is all of these things and more.

  But Josie Witherspoon, I realize within five minutes of spotting her at the other end of the front row, is not in love with Colin Fairgood.

  I watch her not watch the montage, the stage lights bouncing off the top of her eyeglass frames as she texts with someone on her phone. And it’s not texting like a teenager, who’s so busy telling all of her friends on social media that she’s doing something interesting and fun that she doesn’t look up from her phone long enough to enjoy it. No, Colin’s Jo-Jo is texting with intent. Like whoever is on the other side of her phone is way more important than Colin.

  Has she already found someone else? I wonder. Maybe she’s only come here to let Colin down easily? And if so, what does that mean for my demo deal?

  My panicked thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a classical violin playing. I look away from Josie just in time to see a spotlight come down on a blond man in a tuxedo. He’s playing a rather stuffy version of Colin’s unofficial state country rock anthem, “This Is How We Alabam,” in front of the heavy red stage curtain.

  “Nah, that ain’t how you play that song, man,” Colin’s voice booms from overhead.

  The man lowers his violin and frowns, theatrically offended.

  Then another spotlight appears. A much bigger one this time, which stretches over an entire violin string section, playing the intro to “This is How We Alabam.”

  They get a little further along before Colin’s voice booms down again. “Nah, that ain’t how you do it either.”

  Suddenly a blazing fiddle sounds and the whole stage is hit with a spectacular array of lights as the red velvet curtain parts. The crowd starts screamin
g and yelling as Colin comes out. He plays the fiddle with such perfect country precision that I’m immediately entranced, right along with the rest of his screaming fans. And for a few minutes I forget to check in to see how Josie’s responding to his entrance.

  After Colin’s got everybody well and truly enthralled, he hands the fiddle off to a waiting guitar tech, raises his arms up, and yells, “This is how we Alabam!”

  The crowd goes crazy as the backing band starts up, and Colin takes us along on a two-hour tour of his musical life. There are raucous songs about trucks and partying on the road, angry songs about his drunk father, and a bittersweet one about his mother working her fingers to the bone to buy him a violin that some rich kid breaks “just cuz he can.”

  I know without having to be told that the rich kid he’s talking about is Mike Lancer, and my heart breaks all over again for the loss of his violin, even though it’s obvious he could easily afford one hundred more just like it these days. Unlike Josie, who continues to text off and on throughout the concert, my eyes stay glued on Colin. Especially during the song about his mother. After it’s over. Colin takes a moment of quiet introspection before he looks up toward the sky and says, “Thank you, Mama. For everything.”

  I doubt there’s a dry eye in the house at this point, but Colin doesn’t linger here too long. He nods and he and his band start right up with the next song, like his grief is just a blip on the radar.

  The next song, “Loose,” is one about feeling untethered from the woman you love while out on the road. And though I know not all Colin’s songs are autobiographical, I can’t help but wonder if he wrote this one about Josie—which then reminds me that this song is supposed to be my cue to start making my way backstage, so I’ll be in place when Josie comes to say hi. I’m so caught up in Colin’s performance, I almost forgot.

  But before I leave, I slide one more look at Josie. She’s standing like most of the concert goers, but she’s holding her phone by her side, with the screen turned up so she can see it. And she keeps glancing down at it, like she’s waiting for somebody to text her back. Somebody more important than the country singer on stage, crooning a song most likely written about her.

  I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach for real as I go backstage. One that only gets worse when I’m directed over to Colin’s assistant, Ginny, a brunette with a short hair cut and pleasant brown eyes.

  She looks me over. “Love the hair,” she tells me, nodding toward my bouncy, shoulder-length curls that I’d dyed a bright cherry red the week before. “The outfit though… maybe we should see if wardrobe has something we can borrow.”

  “No, I’ll be staying in this outfit. Thank you, though,” I answer, firm but polite. I’d worn a simple purple eyelet sundress down here—mainly because it was the only dress in my closet that matched my new hair color, but also because I took what Colin told me about Josie seriously. Plus, I doubt dialing my outfit up to ten will impress Josie, who showed up to the concert in jeans and a t-shirt.

  “Okay, we’ll see what Colin says,” Ginny says. “But first, let’s get you settled.”

  A few minutes are spent going down cinder block wall hallways, and then Ginny waves me into a small, softly lit room. It’s got a catering table filled with fruit, vegetables, protein shakes, a whole bunch of other real healthy looking foods… and one covered foil pan. I sniff the air above the pan, thinking it smells a lot like…

  I lift the lid off a foil catering pan and yes, it is. There’s a whole boat-load of fried chicken inside.

  “Colin’s one indulgence,” Ginny says behind me. “His rider says he has to have at least twenty pieces of fried chicken at every stop, either prepared by someone’s mother, or from someone’s mother’s recipe. It’s a little quirky, but you know Colin.”

  I half-smile, half-grimace in reply, because the truth is I don’t know Colin well at all, and I’m a little surprised at his dedication to fried chicken.

  “Sorry,” Ginny says behind me. “Colin’s usually generous as can be with whatever he has, but he doesn’t let anybody touch his chicken, except him and his guitar tech.” I can practically hear Ginny rolling her eyes behind me. “You know how country singers are about their guitar techs. But you can have anything else on the table—Oh, Colin, you’re here! I was just about to come get you.”

  “That’s all right,” I hear Colin say. “I performed here enough times, I know the place by heart. Plus, Keith was there, too. No way I’m getting lost considering how many times he’s worked this place.”

  I look over my shoulder and see Colin, still dressed in the Johnny Cash t-shirt and jeans he wore for the entire concert. Guess he isn’t one of those musicians who believes in costume changes. Not that he needs to. The extra sheen of performance sweat makes the thin t-shirt cling to his long, lean body in way I’m sure his female fans found more than a little appealing by the time he was done with his concert.

  He’s got an older guy with him, I notice, with sandy brown hair even longer than Colin’s. Except his hair is a lot frizzier and comes with a bald spot on top. I assume this is Keith, because I recognize him as the guitar tech who switched out Colin’s guitars and violins during the concert.

  As if to prove I got his job title right, Keith comes over to the catering table and says. “Let’s see if this chicken’s really as good as you say it is, Fairgood. I still don’t think there’s anything that’ll beat that plate we had in Texas.”

  I can tell by the size of Keith’s potbelly that he takes his chicken very seriously and, most likely, his beer, too.

  “It’s better,” Colin assures him. “Came straight from the daughter of the best cook I ever met.”

  Somehow I know who he’s referring to without having to ask.

  “Josie made this for you?” I ask him.

  Colin looks at me, like he’s just now realizing I’m in the room. Then he says, “Yep, she delivered it to the backstage door herself.”

  I can tell by the triumphant smile on his face that he thinks this means he’s all but got her in the bag.

  And that makes me bold. I suddenly have got to taste this woman’s chicken, so I take a drumstick from the pile and bite into it before anyone can tell me otherwise.

  From the immediate silence that greets this move, I know I’m the first person who’s ever violated this particular rule of Colin’s.

  “I told her the rules,” Ginny whispers to Colin, sending me an exasperated look.

  Colin’s eyes narrow for one hot, angry second, but then the lazy smile comes right on back. “You know what, Ginny? I’m going to make an exception this time.” To me he says. “Let us know what you think of Josie’s chicken.”

  “It’s pretty good, actually,” I say with an approving nod. “And I’m very particular about my fried chicken, so that’s some kind of compliment coming from me.”

  Colin raises his eyebrows.

  “Pretty good?” he repeats. “Josie made this herself from her mom’s recipe. And lemme tell you, I been all over the world, but nobody makes fried chicken like Josie’s mom did.”

  I take another bite and shrug. “You may have been all over the world, but if you think this is the best fried chicken you ever had, that’s just because you haven’t had a plate of my grandma’s chicken. She makes it with a big dinner pretty much every Sunday from April to the middle of October, when it stops being warm enough to eat outside. We have family members from all over West Tennessee come in just to have a piece.”

  Colin inclines his head. “Did she teach you how to make it?”

  I finish off the chicken leg and deposit the bone in a nearby trashcan. “Actually, I don’t give folks that information,” I answer, wiping my mouth and hands on a napkin, which I also toss in the trash. “Otherwise they might start harassing me to make them plates, like they stay harassing my grandma—that’s how good her fried chicken is.”

  Colin steps closer to me, and suddenly his “I ain’t poor no mo’” cologne is all I can sme
ll.

  “Maybe I’ll add that into our agreement,” he says. “If you want me to produce your demo, you’ll have to make me one plate of fried chicken.”

  Having him standing this close, smelling this good, makes a series of somersaults go off inside my belly. But instead of giving into the fear and stepping back, I lift my chin.

  “Like I said, maybe I know the recipe. Maybe I don’t.”

  He squints down at me, eyes glittering just like they did that long ago night in Alabama. “I’ll find out what you know one way or another,” he tells me, his voice quiet and deep. “Trust me on that.”

  I think of the secret I’m keeping from him, the omission about the real first time we met, and a shiver runs down my back.

  Luckily Ginny chooses that moment to say, “Colin, there’s a question about Kyra’s outfit. I’m thinking maybe she should change into something a little more striking.”

  Colin looks over my outfit. “Nah, I like the dress. It’s nice. Simple.” His eyes trail up to my now bright red hair. “Like the new hair, too. I thinks she’s dressed just right for this,” he tells Ginny without taking his eyes off me.

  “Thanks,” I answer, confusion wrestling with all the alarm bells going off in my head. Ginny’s in on the scam, so why is he eyeing me all hungry like Keith when he first saw that pan of fried chicken? Is he some kind of method actor? Rehearsing for when the girl he really wants get here?

  A smart phone beeps somewhere in the distance, and I see Ginny tap her Bluetooth to talk to the person on the other end.

  “Josie’s arrived backstage,” she tells us after a short exchange.

  “Tell them to hold her there,” Colin says to Ginny. “I’ll come meet her.”

  To me he just says, “Showtime,” before leaving with Ginny.

  My heart sinks as I watch them go. I am really not at all looking forward to playing this part when he comes back. Especially since it’s for the benefit of a woman, who I’m hard suspecting won’t even care that Colin has a girl.

  “More chicken?” Keith asks me, his mouth full.