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

  “No, thank you,” I answer, suddenly not hungry at all, even though I haven’t had anything but that one drumstick to eat since right before I drove all the way down here from West Tennessee.

  I go sit on the couch and try to ignore all the bad feelings this situation is riling up inside of me. I don’t have long to fight with myself over it, though, because less than ten minutes later, Colin comes walking back through door. Without Josie.

  “Josie had to go,” he tells me, before I can ask. “She works at a domestic violence shelter, and I guess there was some kind of emergency. The director got called away, so she has to step up tonight.”

  So that was why her attention had been so divided during the concert. A new respect for Josie rises up inside of me and makes me feel guilty for my earlier thoughts. It wasn’t that she’d moved on to another dude while she kept Colin dangling, it was that she was a true do-gooder, through and through.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say to Colin.

  Then I wait with baited breath, hoping he’ll say something like, “Yeah, that’s too bad. But maybe it’s for the best since my plan is kind of stupid and insulting to Josie’s intelligence. Let’s just call this whole thing off, and of course, I’ll still produce your demo since you kept up your end of the bargain.”

  But instead of saying that, his face sets into a grim, determined line.

  “I made brunch plans with her for tomorrow, to talk about me possibly making a donation to her shelter,” he tells me. His eyes meet mine. “So I guess you’ll be staying at my place tonight.”

  6

  Colin’s “place” turns out to be one of the penthouse suites at the Alabama Grand, the tallest and swankiest hotel in all of Birmingham. Following Ginny, I walk into a bunch of rooms filled with the kind of delicate, eye-catching furniture they use to sell magazines like Home Décor You Could Never Afford. Maybe that’s not a real magazine, but you get what I’m saying. Where Colin’s staying now doesn’t remotely look like the servants quarters of some rich family’s house. Everything about the suite is practically rapping “started from the bottom, now I’m here” with a fully produced studio beat behind it.

  I feel seriously out of place as Ginny shows me around. Too country to be kicking it with all this pretty carpet and ultra modern furniture. At the same time, I can’t help but think about how Josie will react to this place. Josie might not be in love with Colin yet, but do-gooder or not, she definitely will be a little bit impressed by how far he’s obviously come.

  “Sorry about the accommodations,” Ginny says after she finishes the tour at the sitting room’s sofa bed, which is where I’ll be sleeping. “It’s pretty much the best you can get in Birmingham, which isn’t exactly known for having five-star hotels. But Colin puts up with it because Alabama’s his home state. I hope you can manage to make yourself comfortable here.”

  Well, I don’t know about comfortable, seeing as how I’ve never so much as set foot in the sort of place that even offers penthouse suites. But as for the rest, I tell her, “I’ll be fine, thanks. The only thing I’m worried about is finding some pajamas.”

  “Maybe you can make use of one of the hotels robes,” Ginny suggests. “But we will have to look into getting you another dress for tomorrow.”

  Oh yeah, tomorrow. I’d temporarily forgotten about the brunch with Josie. Forgotten or deliberately tried to put it out of my mind. One of those.

  “I’ll set an alarm,” I tell her. “Get up early and go shopping for something.”

  “No, no, no,” Ginny says. “I’ll take care of the dress, keeping in mind Colin’s notes about simplicity.”

  She pulls a cloth measuring tape out of nowhere and straps it across my chest.

  Her eyebrows go up when she sees the number. “You’re very well endowed.”

  Yeah, I might not be as thin as Josie with her willowy frame, but my other assets, namely a big set of tits and plenty of ass, have attracted enough attention over the years to make me glad I usually wear scrubs to work. Especially for those male clients who don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves. I swear, some days I think Viagra is a curse sent straight from the devil himself.

  “I’ll also keep that in mind,” she says. “See you at eight, bright and early.”

  “See you,” I say to her back, a little sad to see her go.

  The truth is I’m not used to being alone. I’ve always stayed with my grandma between live-in gigs, and now being somewhere all by myself feels, I don’t know, wrong, I guess. Like sitting on the marble steps, waiting for Rose Gaither’s son to arrive. But this time I don’t have a guitar.

  I turn on the TV for some “company” as my grandma likes to call it when she leaves hers running while she’s going about her day.

  The first Star Trek reboot is on Fyos, which is my favorite cable channel, but one I hardly ever get to watch at home with grandma, since she has a hard rule about not watching anything with aliens or monsters or any other mess that don’t make sense. So soap operas and talk shows, yes. Sci-fi, no.

  I curl up on the couch, figuring I’ll watch this one movie, then go find that robe Ginny mentioned, unfold the bed, and go to sleep.

  At first, it’s a little hard to concentrate after what happened tonight and what might happen tomorrow. But eventually the story draws me in, just like it always does. I’m really enjoying what’s got to be at least my eighth viewing of this flick, when a voice above me says, “Star Trek, huh?”

  I look up and there’s Colin, standing at the top of the sunken living room steps, in a fresh t-shirt—this one features a black-and-white image of a man I think might be Woody Guthrie, playing the guitar. He’s also switched out his white Stetson for a wide-brimmed, black cowboy hat that casts a long shadow over his face.

  “Hi,” I say, my eyes going to the foil catering pan tucked under his arm.

  “Hey,” he answers. He hesitates at the top of the stairs, but then decides to come sit on the couch, too.

  “I was planning on taking Josie out for a nice dinner tonight after you left,” he tells me, setting the foil catering pan down between us on the couch. “But I guess cold chicken and a movie will do.”

  However, he wrinkles his nose at the conversation Kirk and Spock are having on the TV.

  “Like Star Wars better myself. Josie and me used to spend all day in the backyard when we were kids, re-enacting the big Luke-Vader fight.”

  I don’t even ask who played Vader, because I already know.

  “Yeah, Star Wars had some really good fights. But Star Trek’s got good fights and good characters. Star Wars is all about the battles, and Star Trek’s all about the people.”

  Colin takes the top off the foil catering dish, unleashing the good smell of Josie’s fried chicken.

  “Stars Wars is about the people, too. Anakin, Luke, Yoda—they’re people.”

  I take a piece of chicken, not bothering to wait for another invitation. It’s been a long day and I’m powerfully hungry.

  “Yeah, but Star Trek’s more about the people. Plus, I like Spock more than I like Yoda.”

  Colin grunts and takes a bite of chicken. “Why don’t you flip around a little?” he asks with his mouth full. “Star Wars has gotta be playing somewhere. Always seems to be no matter what hotel I’m at in the world.”

  “What are you not understanding about ‘I’m watching Star Trek?’” I ask him.

  “Last time I checked, this was my hotel room, and you’re here on my dime. I think that’s gives me the right to choose.”

  I harrumph. “I saw a TV in your room when Ginny gave me a tour of this place.” I take my own bite of chicken to emphasize my point, but then I end up closing my eyes in appreciation, because the chicken is so, so good. Again, not as good as my grandma’s, but I have to give it to Josie, she really put her foot in this here chicken, and I’m hungry, so it is hitting the spot exactly.

  Another mark on the board for Josie, I think. She’s good lookin’, she’s a do-good
er, and she’s a good cook. Definitely the kind of woman who’d make any man a better than fine wife.

  That passing thought blooms into an idea for a lyric. I reach over to my purse, and pull out my moleskin journal, glad I packed it even though I didn’t bring my guitar on this trip.

  “What’re you doing?” Colin asks me around his own mouthful of chicken. The question’s casual. But I can feel his curious eyes on me as I write.

  “Writing down some thoughts that maybe ought to be lyrics,” I answer.

  “So I can turn it to Star Wars?” he asks, reaching for the remote.

  “No, absolutely not.” I grab the clicker before he can get to it, and put it on the other side of me.

  “You’re not a nice woman,” he tells me, snatching up another drumstick from the pan sitting between us.

  “And you’re not a nice man,” I shoot right on back, without looking up from my journal.

  I sense rather than feel him go still beside me. “What makes you think I’m not a nice guy?”

  With a sinking feeling inside my chest, I belatedly remember the pre-concert montage, including a snapshot of Colin’s recent People Magazine cover feature, which had been titled, “The Nicest Bro in Country.” On the way over here, Ginny had gone on and on about how everybody liked Colin. His staff, his fans, reporters, even rappers cited him as one of the coolest, most laid back guys on the planet.

  Colin, I re-realize way too late, still hasn’t recognized me as the girl from that long ago night at the Lancer mansion. But other than what had happened between him, Mike, and me, I have nothing to base what I just said on.

  “I dunno,” I answer, carefully closing my journal and replacing the elastic band around its cover. “Just a guess.”

  “Just a guess,” he repeats. His voice is a little harder now. Not so easygoing. It sends a chill up my back. No, not a chill. That’s the wrong word.

  His voice sends a strange, hot heat through me. One that makes it hard not to shift nervously under his blue gaze, much less meet it.

  “Is ‘just a guess’ why you’re blushing now, Red?” I hear him ask beside me.

  Ugh, stupid nervous tic! I’ve never been one of those light-skinned girls who went around wishing she looked more black, but this blushing situation is making me incredibly jealous of Josie’s nut brown skin.

  Another possibly good lyric, but this time instead of writing it down, I desperately try to relieve the tension with a joke grenade. “Alright, alright, if you want to watch Star Wars so bad, you can have the couch and I’ll take your big ol’ bedroom tonight. Seriously, I don’t mind.”

  Colin chuckles, and to my great relief, the sexual tension goes down a few notches.

  “Nah, I’ll watch Star Trek. I like this one anyway. Not as much as I like Star Wars, but it’ll do.”

  It’ll do. I slide a quick look over at him, wondering if that’s how he feels about my company tonight. The original plan was that he was supposed to be going out for a fancy dinner with Josie, after I conveniently left with an excuse about having to catch a flight back to Nashville for a label meeting.

  I take another drumstick, thinking this meal’s not the only thing serving as a replacement for something much better tonight. The cold chicken is definitely not dinner at a five star restaurant and I’m definitely not Josie. But I guess Ginny was right about what Colin was willing to put up with. Cold chicken and watching Star Trek with me will do for him, at least for tonight.

  Now why that makes me feel so bad inside, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I take another bite of chicken and watch the movie, trying my hardest not to think about it.

  7

  That Other Night

  “Honey, pumpkin, sweetie pie, c'mon. Don't do this to me! I need you!”

  “No!” I answer, crossing my arms. I don't let myself look at my mother as I say this. She doesn't often use terms of endearment on me. So when she does, it makes it hard to deny her a thing. Especially when her large brown eyes are set on beg, like they are now.

  But I try to stand firm this time. I tell her, “I'm not going out there with you.”

  “You have to, pumpkin. Chances like this don't just come along every day, and you know how hard I had to work to get this one. How's it going to look if I've got to go out there without a guitar player, cuz you a trifle scared?”

  It's true. We're at The Rusty Roof, and the head of Big Hill Records is out in the audience. Valerie's right. Opportunities like this didn't come along often.

  But I'm not just a trifle scared. I know deep down to my bones that going out on that stage tonight isn't a good idea.

  “How about that white girl who tried to go on earlier?” I ask my mother. “She didn't even make it through her whole song, them men out there were riding her so bad.”

  The petite blond had come off the stage in tears, because some the male audience members in the front had gotten so loud and lewd with their catcalling.

  “Two minutes,” the stage manager calls out from the stage entrance.

  My mother grabs me by the arm. “You think I'm some scared little white girl?” she asks me, like I've insulted her beyond all get-out. “Those men out there ain't nothing I ain't dealt with before. Now come on!”

  All traces of sweetness are gone from my mother's voice now, replaced by the stubborn fierceness she carries around, hidden like a knife under her cute-as-a-button surface.

  I know if I don't go out there on that stage with her, she'll never let me forget it. Will probably go right on ahead and dump me at my grandparents' house, like she's always threatening to do if I even hint I have something I'd rather be doing on a Friday or Saturday than performing with her.

  I can already hear her telling folks all about it. “I almost got in with Big Hill, but Kyra flaked on me for no good reason, and made me go out there and do a less than professional showing.”

  Valerie must see the crack in my resolve because she pounces on it with some more honey.

  “Baby, I know you're scared, but you've got to be brave for me now, because I can't do this without you.”

  Valerie's right, I decide, my heart softening as I push aside my fears of those drunk fools in the audience. My father abandoned her. My grandparents don't hardly speak to her anymore. I'm all she has. Not just her backup guitar and backup singer, but all the real backup she has in the world, period. I can't let her go out there alone…

  Still I eye the burly men in the front row nervously as I walk on stage behind my mother.

  I'm used to folks double taking when we come onstage. My mama in her cowboy hat, cut-off jean shorts, and flannel shirt tied bikini style at her breast like a Daisy Duke poster. Me in a little cowgirl outfit that I really need to start thinking about changing. It's not so cute anymore now I got all these new curves.

  But the guys up front more than double take when we come out. Their mouths drop open, and then the F-bombs start flying. “What the fuck…? Who the fuck…? Why the fuck…?”

  I decide not to get all the way up on the stool they set out for me. Instead I kind of perch on it, so I'll be ready, just in case we've gotta run.

  “Oh, calm down, ya'll” my mother calls out to the men with one of her thousand watt smiles. “You'll understand soon enough once I get to singing.”

  Like the ambitious country artist she is, she finds the Big Hill head in the audience and throws him a big fake-eyelashed wink. Then she gives me the cue to start before the men have a chance to respond.

  I do, and the men quiet down. My mother might be a little crazy for trying to make it as a country singer in Alabama, I think to myself, but at least she's got the voice to back up all that crazy.

  For a whole verse the quality of my mother's voice, singing one of my songs, is enough to hold the men in thrall. For a whole verse, I get to thinking maybe coming out here on stage wasn't such a bad idea. For a whole verse, I think maybe my mother really will get her meeting with the Big Hill exec, and maybe he'll actually give
her a record deal.

  Then I see one of the men sneer, and raise his arm. He's got an empty beer bottle in his hand, and I know what's going to happen next, even before it leaves his hand.

  I stop playing and singing and scream. “Mama!” even though I'm never supposed to call her that. Especially when we're out singing in public. When we're on stage, I'm supposed to call her Val so nobody guesses she's old enough to have a kid.

  My mother turns, probably to hush me, and her turning to scold me is what takes her out of the thrown bottle's range before it can hit her square in the chest.

  Instead it hits me. Smacking sharp into my face. I hear the sound of glass breaking, and then I feel something warm rushing down my face, followed by a much hotter pain.

  Then I hear my mother scream, “Oh my God!” as I tumble from the stool.

  “What is wrong with you?” I hear her yell at the guy who threw the bottle. “She's only a child!”

  “Red.”

  “She's only a child!”

  “Red.”

  The one word pulls me out of the dream. Makes me open my eyes to find for countless time in fifteen years that this is a memory, not something happening to me right now.

  Right now, I'm not in some honkytonk bar, but on a couch, my flushed face pressed against someone's chest. That same someone's fingers on my old beer bottle scar.

  I jerk back into a sitting position, my wide eyes landing on Colin, who's also in the process of sitting up. But much slower with his hands in the air like someone who knows he's been caught doing something he shouldn't have.

  “What were you doing?” I ask him, even though my frantic mind is easily putting together what happened.

  I'm still in the purple lace dress I was wearing last night, and the couch isn't folded out. We must have fallen asleep while watching the movie, with me somehow ending up all the way in Colin's arms.

  It's morning now, with soft rays of light illuminating everything in the room. I can easily imagine what Colin saw when he woke up. My puckered scar in the full morning light with no makeup to mask its appearance. And now my scar is once again throbbing. Because of the nightmare, because of Colin's touch…