Small Town Girl

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They laid Papa John to rest but kept his memory alive-Tess McPhail and a list of mourners that read like the Who's Who of country music: Garth, Reba, Vince, Alan, John Michael and more.

Congregating with her peers, sharing music with them again, even if for so sad a reason, pointed out to Tess that she had been out of the mainstream too long. She was back. She had music to make, work to do, work she loved. She'd better get to it without mooning about Kenny Kronek.

She did exactly that in the days that followed.

On her first full day back in the office she had an intense six-hour meeting with her business manager, Dane Tully, to go over everything that had happened since she'd been away. She met with Ross Hardenberg, Ralph Thornleaf and Amanda Brimhall, respectively her road manager, producer of her upcoming tour and clothing designer to discuss the show in detail before rehearsals began. She went into the studio and recorded the overdub for "Tarnished Gold," so Jack Greaves could complete the vocal comp of the song, then went back afterward to give her final approval of the finished product. Working with Jack, she chose the background singers and studio musicians for "Old Souls," the new song by Ivy Britt, and spent a day in the studio recording it. Seven record label executives-from the president down to the vice president of marketing-came by to hear the album in progress. Tess and Jack met with them to discuss jacket photo, jacket design and the release dates of individual singles from the album. Tess explained that they had one more song to record and she wanted it to be the title song-could they wait till they heard it?-because she thought it would make the best video off the entire album. They listened to the rough cut of "Small Town Girl," the one made in Mary's living room, and agreed to wait until it was recorded and mixed before deciding on the album title. She and Jack discussed sequencing (the order in which the songs would appear on the album), which everyone considered vital to an album's success.

Tess met with Sheila Sardyk, the woman who coordinated all of her fan clubs, so Sheila could compose the next newsletter for fans and get it out to club leaders in all the cities around America. She spent two days on the photo shoot, for which a photographer, his assistant, and a stylist were flown in from New York. At the end of the shoot she took them out to dinner.

She had her quarterly meeting with her CPA to project both her income and her quarterly taxes, and to discuss the changing laws regarding payment of contributions into the retirement funds of her employees. She talked with her advisor from Merrill Lynch about long-term investments and the constant shifting and diversification of Wintergreen Enterprise's financial portfolio.

She received a treatment for a video, which she read and disliked, and called the MCA marketing department with ideas of her own. She did an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine for an article that would run in September, to coincide with the release of her new album. She posed for their photographer for two hours, then played hostess over luncheon with the Good Housekeeping crew at her own home before they flew back to New York.

She signed over three hundred autographs (in six batches) on postcards and publicity photos for fans who had requested them by mail and had sent in their requests through the clubs.

Concert rehearsals began.

On the personal side, she went to the doctor complaining of fatigue. He took a blood count and ordered her to eat more red meat. She received a beautiful letter and card from Mindy Alverson, complimenting her on her singing at the wedding, promising they would not lose touch again, and asking for a luncheon date the next time Tess came to Wintergreen. She answered Mindy's letter with a handwritten note, accepting the invitation for next November (after the tour ended) and offering free concert tickets anytime Mindy and her husband wanted them, in any city they chose. She lost the five pounds she'd gained in Wintergreen. She made sure she called her mother every other night, and Renee on the weekends. She received a graduation announcement from Casey-she would graduate the Friday night before Memorial Day-and put off answering it, wanting to fly up there and see Momma and Kenny, too, but afraid she couldn't afford to take the time off.

Burt got back in town and called again, and she finally agreed to go out with him. They met at the Stockyard and sat in one of the small, intimate dining rooms fashioned from yesteryear's cattle exchange offices. Burt ordered the Cowboy, a hearty beef steak with grilled onions, and Tess ordered the live Maine lobster from the tank up front. They toasted each other with wine, and caught up on each other's lives, and after dinner went downstairs to the Bull Pen Lounge and danced a couple fast ones to the house band until some tourists who'd been eyeing her finally got up the courage to come over and ask for autographs, then she and Burt left.

At Tess's house Burt sat down at the piano in the living room and said, "I wrote a song for you. Come here and I'll sing it." She sat beside him on the sleek cream-colored bench and watched his blunt fingers move over the keys while he sang a song that would have swelled the hearts of most women. It was called "I Wanna Be There When You Come Home," and when it ended Burt Sheer took Tess into his arms and lowered his bearded face and kissed her with enough feeling to raise the fine hairs all over her body. But while he did so, she pretended he was Kenny Kronek.

She forced Kenny from her mind, giving the kiss an honest chance, kissing Burt back the way he wanted to be kissed. But the beard, though soft, somehow no longer appealed. And the taste, though pleasant, was not the one she knew. And his beautiful musical accolade, though touching, was eclipsed by the kind deeds of another for her mother, and even for herself.

Burt ran his hand to Tess's breast and she thought how ideal that the hand played music, like her; that he sang, like her; that he was part of the close Nashville family of musicians, like her. How simple it would be for them to slip into each other's lives, two who understood the performers' lifestyle and all its demands and vagaries.

But nothing happened inside Tess. In that visceral, carnal core where sexual abstinence should have created a quick starburst… nothing happened.

She caught his wrist as it descended toward her stomach, and said, "No, Burt."

He drew back and looked into her eyes. "I thought you wanted it, too."

"I thought I might, but… I'm sorry."

He returned his hand to her ribs and said, "The last time we were together I thought this was where we were headed."

"The last time, maybe. But things happen."

"Things?"

She took his hand from her ribs and held it, dropping her eyes while the two of them remained side by side on the piano bench.

"You met someone," he said.

"Sort of."

He studied her downcast face, then hooked both hands over the edge of the bench and hunched his shoulders.

"So is it serious?"

"No."

"Well, if it's not serious, then what's going on here?"

"It's someone I knew when I was young. Someone from back home. He's sort of a friend of the family."

Burt studied her in silence awhile, thoughtful. Then he raised his hands and let them slap his knees. "Well… how can I compete with that? You and I haven't got a history."

"I enjoyed supper though, and dancing."

Paltry crumbs, her words, and they both knew it.

"Well…" He sighed and pushed himself up. "I know when it's time to make an exit."

She walked him to the door. Their good-byes were stilted until he took her hand and looked down at it while speaking. "You probably think that every struggling musician who comes along is playing you for how you can boost his career. I just want you to know I'm not one of 'em."

And with that he walked out, leaving her to realize that what he'd said was true, and had been for years. Every struggling musician who paid her attention became suspect for exactly the reason he'd cited. Though she'd had a gut feeling Burt's motives were honorable, how in the world could she tell, when she was worth upward of twenty million dollars? When she could spark a career with little more than a word to the right label executive?

But Kenny had no musical career. He didn't want her money or her fame or a home in Nashville. He wanted exactly what he had in Wintergreen. He'd told her so, and that's why she hadn't called him or answered Casey's invitation, afraid that he might be the one to answer the phone and she'd get all soft and mushy about him again.

She put off making that call until it absolutely could not be avoided. Casey would graduate on Friday night. At nine on the preceding Tuesday night, Tess was exhausted. She had just finished another hundred signatures and writer's cramp had set in. She had a bad case of PMS that had given her the disposition of Joan Crawford, and she wasn't too crazy about the haircut the New York stylist had given her. Kelly had had to leave the office early to go to the dentist, and Tess, forced to do her own dialing and waiting, had been put on hold by a new secretary who forgot her on the line. Shortly after that Carla Niles had called with the news that her regular doctor said there was nothing wrong with her throat, but she still had a raspiness in her voice, so she had set up an appointment with a throat specialist. Until she saw him the rehearsals for the concert were in limbo. Then, to top it all off, Tess had run out to grab a sandwich for supper and on her way she caught the handle of her favorite big gray bag in the car door and it had trailed on the blacktop all the way to the restaurant and gotten rubbed in half. Returning to the office, Tess made the mistake of reading a batch of fan mail in which one letter chewed her out for insulting half the women in the world by using the phrase "just a housewife" in one of her songs. Did she think being a housewife was easy? If so, she should give it a try and find out what real work was!

All in all, it had been a horseshit day when she picked up the phone to dial Casey's house at nine o'clock that night.

As she'd feared, Kenny answered.

"Hello?"

Perhaps she was working too hard, perhaps it was the PMS, but for whatever reason, hearing Kenny's friendly voice unglued her. Without the slightest warning, she began to cry. Trying to disguise the fact, she failed to reply immediately.

"Hello?" Kenny repeated, sharper. Then, growing irritated, he barked, "Hello, who is this?"

"Kenny, it's T-Tess," she managed.

"Tess, what's wrong?" he said, the change from irritation to concern immediate in his voice.

"N-nothing," she blubbered, then, "…everything. Hell, I don't know. It's just been an awful day, that's all."

"Tess," he said, the way he might to a child, soothing. "Hey, come on, darlin', nothing's so bad it won't feel better if you talk about it. I'm here, you can talk to me."

She felt better already, so decided to baby herself a little, something she rarely did. "Hey, Kenny, would you call me darlin' one more time? It sounds good tonight."

"Darlin'," he repeated matter-of-factly, "now you go ahead and talk. What was so awful today?"

So she talked. She admitted to Kenny that her empire was getting to be more than she could handle without relinquishing personal control. But there were so many stories about superstars whose dominions had crumbled under mismanagement, whose agents or accountants or business managers had cheated the stars they worked for, undermining them to the point of ruin.

"I'm not going to let that happen to me!" she vowed. "And the surest way to let it happen is to give over control to someone else. That's why I watch everything so carefully." Under questioning, she admitted she was keeping tabs on more than any one human being should be expected to, and she'd been doing it for eighteen years while her business concerns grew and grew.

"You've got to learn to delegate," Kenny said. "That's what you pay these people for."

"I know. But look what happened to Willie Nelson. He's probably still putting on concerts to pay off his debts."

"Is there someone you employ whom you don't trust?"

"Well…" She thought for a second. "No."

"There," he said reasonably, "it's you, not them. You know, Tess, it's possible that you think of yourself as omnipotent, and when you come right down to it, that's a pretty egotistical attitude, isn't it? Did you ever think that by not trusting them more, you undermine them? By placing your full, unadulterated trust in them you might get more production out of them, more cooperation, certainly a pride in their work that will boost their egos. And you know what happens to output when egos get boosted."

She knew he was right, knew, too, that most people wouldn't have had the temerity to say something like that to Tess McPhail because of who she was. She respected him for his honesty as well as for his sound advice. "How did you get so wise, Mr. Kronek?" she asked, feeling much better, her frustration and weariness dissipating.

He chuckled quietly. "By running a two-person office with such a grinding routine that the last time either one of us surprised the other was when Miriam came out of the bathroom with the hem of her skirt accidentally hooked up on the waistband of her panty hose." Tess burst out laughing while Kenny went on. "She turned her back to me to sit down in her desk chair and I looked through my office door and raised a finger as if to say, 'Hey, Miriam, guess what?' but, hell's afire, you ever tried to tell your secretary that you just got a wide-angle shot of her hind end? Wouldn't have been so bad if it was a shapely one, but you've seen Miriam, haven't you?"

"No, I haven't." Tess was still laughing.

"You haven't! Well, Miriam's the kind of woman that if you ran into her at a bar you'd say, 'Hey, Miriam, pull up a couple o' stools and let me buy you a drink!' "

Tess's laughter billowed once more, igniting his own, and they spent some enjoyable time letting it pour forth across a couple hundred miles of telephone wire. When their mirth wound down, Tess wound right down with it. She released a huge breath, stretched out in her chair and ran a hand up the back of her hair. "Gosh, I feel so much better."

"Well, of course you do," he said smugly. "I'm good for you."

"You really are, Kenny. Too good."

They enjoyed the thought for a few beats before he inquired, "So tell me-where are you right now?"

"Still in my office on Music Row."

"Time for you to call it a day, isn't it?"

"Yes. Actually, I'm really tired tonight, and kind of cranky. At least I was until I talked to you." They were both affected by the significance of what she'd said and sat awhile absorbing it.

"So," she asked, more quietly, "is Faith there tonight?"

It took him a moment to answer. His voice had grown subdued. "No, just Casey and me."

"I really called to talk to Casey. I got her graduation announcement and the invitation to the party on Saturday. Wish I could be there, but… I'm afraid I can't." Her disappointment was unmistakable.

"I wish you could be here, too."

Tess knew she should end the conversation and ask him to put Casey on the line, but she simply could not let him go yet. Outside, in the distance, a siren crescendoed and faded, and down the hall a fax beeped and started printing while she imagined the sound of crickets in the backyards in Wintergreen, and him on the kitchen phone, and Casey in her room playing her guitar, and the soft summer evening settling blue upon the gardens. She pictured the houses with their backs to each other, and the aged, narrow sidewalks that had carried them toward one another during their many encounters in the alley. She wanted with incredible intensity to be there, to step out onto her mother's stoop and see him walking toward her through the warm May night. She wanted to glide into his embrace and feel and smell and taste him once again. Instead, she could only imagine him and wonder if he'd detected the slight tremor in her voice, if he understood how valiantly she was trying not to be jealous, to be realistic about what could and could not happen between them.

"I suppose Faith is doing the party for Casey."

"Yes. She's been making grocery lists, and ordering party trays, and the two of them have been digging through old photo albums and putting together a bulletin board of old pictures."

Tess had never longed to be a mother, but at that moment she would cheerfully have traded places with Faith Oxbury. On Tess's desk were pictures of her nieces and nephews, the only "children" she would probably ever have. Her eyes lingered on them, then she drove another thorn into her own flesh with a question that had been hovering in her mind for some time.

"Kenny, may I ask you something?"

"Sure." Funny how a single syllable with sandpaper edges could give away how a man feels.

"When Casey moves away, will Faith be moving in with you?"

He took some time answering, time while Tess discov-ered she was holding her breath and cataloguing each beat of her heart.

"I don't think so, Tess. This is a small town. Living arrangements like that are frowned upon."

She released the breath slowly and closed her eyes while they clung to their phones and listened to the clanging silence of things unsaid. It was torment and bliss reading between the lines, learning that each of them had missed and been missed, wondering how far to go in this conversation, which was getting dangerously intimate. Finally, when the ache in Tess's throat became too great to disregard, she clamped a hand across her forehead and uttered, "Jesus, I miss you, Kenny."

Like the rests in music, the silences in the conversation had become as vital as the spoken words. This one held them both by the throats. When he spoke at last, his voice held a note of frustration.

"I've already told you, I miss you, too, but what do you want from me, Tess? I can't stop my life for you!"

"I know. I know! I don't expect you to. But what if… what if…"

Silence.

A great, groaning, silence reaching across the distance.

"What if what?" he finally said.

"I don't know," she admitted haltingly. "I want… I want… to… to be with you… sometime… that's all. Just to be with you, do you understand?"

"To do what? Have an affair?"

"No!" Then more honestly, "I don't know, but a piece of my heart stayed in Wintergreen when I left, and I feel as if I left it there with you for safekeeping. Nothing's the same since I came back to Nashville, but I'd die without this, Kenny. I'd just die. This is my life! Yet I'm dying without you, too. I'm just so mixed up."

They thought for a while, groping for a solution, finding none.

Finally he spoke. "Maybe you love me, Tess. You ever think of that?"

"Yes, I have."

"But you wouldn't allow yourself to say it to me before you left, and you wouldn't let me say it to you."

"It's too scary. It would bring too many complications."

"For who? You or me?"

"Both of us."

"And you won't say it now."

"Because I'm not sure!"

"But you want me to end it with Faith-why?"

"I didn't say that!"

"No, but you hinted at it. You don't seem to understand that while Nashville and your career are your life, I've got one, too, and Faith is a big part of it."

"All right, all right! I don't want to argue, and anyway, it's silly, because we're arguing about something that's not even logical. I mean, I'm here, you're there, you have your business, I have my career and I'm gone a hundred and twenty days a year! Anybody with half a brain can see that what we've got here is a logistical stalemate, so I don't even know why we're on the subject!"

"Because we miss each other, that's why. And because maybe-just maybe we really are falling in love, so the question is, do we run away from it or face it?"

"Kenny, I called to RSVP an invitation to a graduation party. How did this conversation get so complicated?"

"What I'm trying to get you to understand is that it's complicated not only for you, but for me as well. And you know what? We are starting to argue, so what do you say we wish each other good night and I'll put Casey on? We can talk about this another time."

"Fine," Tess retorted with a note of stubbornness.

"Fine," he repeated. Then nothing happened.

"So put Casey on!" Tess ordered.

"Okay," he barked, equally frustrated. "But let's get one thing straight. It was more than a roll in the grass and we both know it!" The phone clunked and she heard him holler, "Hey, Casey, it's Tess!"

Casey came on quickly, exuberant, a big smile in her voice. "Hey, woman! Less than a week and I'll be there!"

"I know. Can't wait."

"I'll be there Sunday afternoon-no, wait! Monday. Memorial Day."

"Your room is waiting. I won't be able to get up there for your party on Saturday though. I'm sorry, hon."

"Aw, shoot, I knew that," Casey said cheerfully, "but I wanted to send you an invitation anyway."

"I should have called earlier, but I was trying to think of a way to work it out."

"It's okay."

"I thought of something I can send you for a graduation gift though, but you'll have to keep it to yourself."

"What's that?"

"How would you like to hear the songs from my new album before anybody else outside of Nashville gets to hear them?"

"Oh, my gosh, Mac, are you serious!! You're sending me that?"

"I can't wait to have you hear them, but you have to promise me you won't let anybody else hear the tape. Jack would have a shit fit if he found out I'm letting it go out. Promise?"

"Not even Dad?" Casey sounded disappointed.

"Well… maybe your dad, but nobody else. Not Faith, not Brenda or Amy, or anybody else. Just you and your dad, okay?"

"You got my promise, Mac."

"All right, then. I'll see you next Monday, and you and I will celebrate your graduation when you get down here."

"Darn right. When do we get to go into the studio?"

"On Tuesday. Jack's got it all scheduled."

"Jeez, I can't believe I'm even having this conversation! It's just too awesome to believe."

"Well, believe it. Now let me go. It's late and I'm still at the office and I want to go home."

"Okay… six days, woman!"

"Six days. See you then."

Those six days passed as swiftly as fallen leaves on a river. A blink of the eye and another day was gone. Another blink, another day. Tess Express Mailed a tape of her album-in-progress to Casey. She had Maria stock one of the guest suites with bathroom sundries, and the refrigerator with foods that a teenager would like. She tried not to think of Kenny, and for the most part, succeeded. There were major concerns that kept her mind occupied, the most important of which was the continuing throat problem of Carla Niles.

Nobody had thought much of it months ago when her voice began cracking and turning hoarse. A cold, they'd thought, or some upper-respiratory thing. But when it kept on, she'd begun voice lessons, hoping that proper technique might help. Several weeks into the lessons, when the problems continued, she'd consulted a doctor, who'd told her, "There's nothing wrong with your voice." So she'd gone on using it, which-in the end-turned out to be the worst thing she could have done.

Carla finally saw a throat specialist. His report came in on the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day. He told Carla she had a hypothyroid condition, that her body had quit producing thyroid hormones, affecting her vocal chords. The doctor ordered her to quit using her voice-not even to whisper!-for one month. After that, he said, even with medication it could take up to two years for Carla's voice to return to normal.

The news threw the McPhail camp into a tizzy. With rehearsals already begun for the concert tour, Jack Greaves, Dane Tully, Ross Hardenberg and Tess brainstormed about who they could get as a replacement. The town was full of girl singers playing the small clubs who aspired to get a record contract. A stint as backup singer for Tess McPhail could jump-start any one of their careers. Ross came up with a list, and at the top was a twenty-two-year-old named Liza Lyman whom Tess had heard and liked.

"But I'm not sure her range is right," Tess said.

"We can get her in and give her a try," Ross suggested. "Think about it over the weekend, and we'll talk about it again Tuesday at the session."