Small Town Girl

CHAPTER FOUR

Tess found it difficult to stay awake when they returned to the family lounge. Her coyote's timeclock was definitely wound down after she rose at moonset. She was on the davenport nodding off when a male voice said, "Ladies? I'm Doctor Palmer."

She stretched to her feet as he entered the lounge and shook hands all around. He was wearing blue scrubs on all but his head, which sported a crop of wavy nickel-gray hair. He had minimal lips, a forthright chin and nose, and he wore silver-rimmed glasses.

"Our local star," he said, releasing Tess's hand. "It's nice to meet you." To all of them he said, "Your mother's doing fine. The surgery went very well and we didn't find anything unusual, no evidence of cancer, which is always good news. The hip joint was pretty well worn out, so this should get rid of her pain. I understand one of you will be taking care of her for a while."

"Yes, me," Tess said.

"You'll want to get her standing tomorrow and walking the day after. The nurses here will help, of course, but I want to reassure you that it's best to start using the hip right away. We don't let people lie around after surgery the way we used to. She'll be getting physical therapy while she's here, and you'll be helping her with therapy at home. The therapist will give you some instructions."

"When can she go home?"

"She'll be discharged in five or six days, depending on how well she's progressing. She should schedule a follow-up visit in two weeks. That's when we'll take the staples out. Then another visit four weeks after that. We'll take an X ray at that time, and barring any problems, I'll see her on a yearly basis after that."

"When can we see her?"

"They're just taking her up to her room. Give her time to get settled, ten minutes or so, then you can go right up."

"Is she groggy?"

"Somewhat."

When the girls went in to visit Mary, they found her dozing with the head of her bed propped up. Sensing she was no longer alone, she opened her eyes and smiled wanly. They went to both sides of the bed and Renee spoke. "It's all done now. The doctor said it went just fine."

Mary nodded weakly. She had oxygen prongs in her nose, an IV drip going into her hand, and a catheter trailing from under the sheets. An adductor pillow held her legs apart beneath the sheets.

"So tired," she murmured, and her eyes drifted closed. They took turns touching her hands, kissing her cheek, smoothing the hair back from her forehead, but it was obvious Mary needed sleep more than anything. A nurse came in, smiled, and began taking her pulse. After writing it on a chart, she said, "She's going to sleep for a while. We can call you when she wakes up if you'd rather wait in the lounge."

So they returned to the lounge to sip more coffee and pass the hours taking turns checking on their mother. As the day progressed and the anaesthesia wore off, Mary's discomfort grew. The nurses gave her pain pills and a light sedative. She was asleep and the girls were in the lounge late that afternoon when a teenage girl stuck her head around the doorway.

"Hi, everyone, how's it goin'?"

Judy looked up from her magazine. "Oh, hi, Casey."

Renee said, "Well, Casey, what are you doing here?"

"I was out riding my horse. How's Mary doin'?" She was dressed like a barrel racer who'd fallen on hard times-cuter than a bug's ear, with a loose blond French braid, a messy straw cowboy hat, faded shirt with pearl buttons, and blue jeans with enormous holes in the knees. When she advanced into the room, the smell of horses came with her.

"Pretty well, actually. The surgery went perfectly and she's been resting a lot."

"Well, hey! Sounds good!" She moved like an aging rodeo cowboy, with a graceless sway. "I don't believe we've ever met." She extended her hand to Tess. "I'm Casey Kronek. I live across the alley from your mom."

"Hello, Casey. I'm Tess."

"I know. Heck, everybody knows. I told my dad soon as I found out you were coming home, 'Hey, I gotta meet her!' And, I gotta tell you, I'm excited to be shaking your hand at last. So your mom, she's doin' okay, huh?"

"Just fine."

"I don't suppose people can see her yet."

"Tomorrow might be better. She's been sleeping a lot."

"Well, that's just as well, 'cause I stink." Casey looked down at her sorry jeans and sorrier cowboy boots.

Tess burst out laughing and said, "Yes, you do, actually."

"I was going out to ride my horse and it wasn't that much farther over here, so I figured I'd just sidetrack a little and see how Mary's doing. Your mom's one fine old babe. She's always been like a grandma to me, and I feel bad that she's got to go through so much pain and misery to get her hips fixed up." Abruptly she turned to Judy. "So, I hear Tricia's going to the prom with Brandon Sikes."

"Yes, he finally asked her."

"Boy, he's cute! And nice, too."

"She thinks so, too."

"Is she going to college next fall?"

"She's been accepted at SEMo, plans to be an elementary teacher. How about you?"

"Oh, gosh no!" Casey held up both palms. "No college for me, thank you! I haven't got the brains for that. Raising horses is more my style. Hey, Renee, we got the invitation to Rachel's wedding, and we'll be there for sure. It's pretty exciting, huh?"

"Yes, and not far off now. Less than a month."

"They gonna live here?"

"For a while."

"Bet you're relieved, huh? I mean, who'd want their kid to get married and then move off right away? I guess that'd be kind of a bummer."

"I'm glad they're staying, for a while anyway. You still singing with that little band?"

"Nope, we broke up. Couldn't find anyplace to get a gig around here, plus Dad said it was keeping me up too late at night and even if I didn't want to go to college, I had to finish high school. He said the band was getting in the way."

Renee turned to Tess. "Casey's just like you, Tess. Singing all the time."

"Shh!" Casey scolded. "She'll think I'm coming around here looking for her to help me get a break or something. She's prob'ly thinking, 'Help! Another one!' " Casey clasped her hands on her head, then dropped them. "I really just came to check on Mary, And to bring her this." She handed something to Renee. "It's a four-leaf clover. Found it out in the pasture. You give it to her and tell her Casey sends her love and I'll see her tomorrow or the next day, okay?"

"Sure will, Casey, and thanks for coming. She'll appreciate it, I know."

"Well…" Casey stood a minute longer, her index fingers hooked into the belt loops of her jeans. Abruptly she stuck out her hand to Tess. "Sure was nice to meet you, Miss McPhail… ah, Tess… Mac… I don't know for sure what to call you."

Tess could scarcely keep from wincing at the strength of the girl's handshake. Beyond her cute face, little about her was feminine, but it appeared she assumed the masculine body language on purpose.

"Around here everybody uses 'Tess'. Out there"-Tess gestured at the rest of the world-"it's Mac. Take your pick."

"Mac, then." Casey smiled and released Tess's hand, stepping back. "There is one thing I'd like to ask you if I could. Since we go to the Methodist church where your mom goes, and where you used to go-well, my dad directs the choir there and I heard you're going to be around for a while taking care of Mary, so do you think you could come and sing with us one Sunday? It'd really be awesome. I mean, just think of it-Tess McPhail and the Wintergreen First Methodist Church choir! We'd really have a packed house that day!"

The idea of standing in the choir loft and being directed by Kenny Kronek was about as appealing as chewing glass.

"Let me think about it, okay?"

"Sure. You think about it." Casey shrugged. "I suppose you get a hundred people a month asking you to do things for their groups-speeches and singing and signing autographs. I didn't mean to crowd you."

"You didn't crowd me. Public appearances are all part of my job, but I still want to think about it."

"Sure, I understand." Casey beamed straight at Tess, and a touch of high color painted a backdrop for the smattering of freckles on her cheeks. "Well, I better go. Nice to meetcha."

"Same here."

" 'Bye, Judy. 'Bye, Renee."

" 'Bye," they both said.

When she was gone, Tess remarked, "On top of everything else, Saint Kenny directs the church choir? Since when does he qualify?"

"He doesn't," Renee answered. "I guess all he's ever done was sing in the high school choir. But when Mrs. Atherton got sick, there was nobody to take over and Casey talked him into it. Since he already sang in the church choir and nobody else volunteered, he agreed to do it. That was about six months ago and nobody else has come forward yet, so he's still directing."

"How do they sound?"

"Pretty decent. They haven't been invited to back up Pavarotti or anything, but"-Renee shrugged-"decent."

Judy spoke up. "Saint Kenny?"

"Well, isn't he? Mother seems to have canonized him."

"He's very good to her."

"Very good to her! He might as well move right in! He plants her garden, fills her water softener, installs her new garage door! Hell, I'm surprised he didn't show up to do her hip replacement surgery this morning! I mean, every time I turn around I'm running into this guy. What is going on?"

Judy and Renee exchanged baffled glances.

"Maybe you'd better tell us what's going on," Renee responded. "The guy helps Mom-what's wrong with that?"

Judy added, "And we've known him our whole lives long, so, yes, what is wrong with that?"

Tess stood before her sisters caught in an unjustified bout of temper. How could she reveal-especially to Judy-that Kenny had set her off by ignoring her? If that didn't sound like a star with a bloated ego, what did?

"I send her money all the time. Plenty of money! What does she do with it? She could pay to have her garage door installed, and she could hire someone to mow her lawn, and have the Culligan man come and service her water softener, but instead she has Kenny Kronek do it. It just aggravates me, that's all! And you know what else hurts? The fact that I offered to buy her the house of her choice, a brand-new one so she wouldn't have to be replacing garage doors and everything else that's crumbling to pieces around the place. She could have a dishwasher, and a laundry room on the main floor, and an air conditioner and anything else she wanted, but she said no. For heaven's sake, have you taken a look at her kitchen cupboards lately? The Formica is worn right down to the underlayer in spots. And her front steps are tilting and the sidewalk is cracking apart. Her bedroom carpeting is as old as we are, and the tile in the bathroom is still that god-awful putrid stuff that was put on when the place was built. I send her nice clothes from really good stores when I'm out on tour, and she wears that lavender polyester slacks set that she probably bought fifteen years ago. I just don't understand her anymore."

When Tess quit speaking, a deep, thoughtful quiet spread through the room. Judy and Renee exchanged discreet glances before the latter spoke quietly.

"She's getting old, Tess."

"Old! She's only seventy-four!"

"Old enough that she doesn't want change. She wants what's familiar."

"But that's absurd."

"Maybe to you, but not to her. There's a lifetime of memories in that house. Why would she want to move away from it?"

"All right, I'll concede that she probably wouldn't want to leave the house, but couldn't she update it a little?"

"You know what your trouble is?" Judy said. "You haven't been around to see her aging. You come home once a year or so and demand that she be the same as she always was, only she's not. Sure she gets stubborn, and sure she thinks that there's no use making changes at this late date, but if she's happy, leave her alone."

Tess stared at Judy. Then at Renee. "Is she right?"

"Basically."

"But does Mother have to look so shabby? Can't you get her to do something with her hair, Judy? You own a beauty shop."

"I've tried. She knows she can come in anytime for a style or a perm, whatever she needs, but it's always some excuse. Either her hips hurt or she has gardening to do."

"Oh, don't even mention gardening! That's the last thing on earth she needs is that garden!"

"It gives her great joy, her garden."

"It gives her hip aches, that's what it gives her."

"That, too, but you're not going to change her mind, so why try? She's had a garden her whole life long, and we all know she doesn't need to raise her own vegetables, but it makes her happy, so let her be."

"And while you're at it, let Kenny Kronek do what he wants for her," Renee added. "The truth is, he seems to be able to convince her to make changes when we can't. Jim told her I don't know how many times that she should have an automatic garage-door opener installed, because it hurt her hips when she bent down to reach the handle. He even offered to do it for her, but she always said no. Then one day she just announces that she's got one and Kenny put it in for her. I don't pretend to understand, but the two of them get along like peas in a pod, so I'm just grateful to have him around."

When Tess went into Mary's room for the last time that afternoon, she looked at her differently, trying to grasp the fact that she was aging, that at seventy-four she had a right to be getting a little feisty. Perhaps Judy was right. Perhaps coming home so seldom left Tess with the illusion that time was not marching on.

She pressed the four-leaf clover into Mary's hand. "That's from Casey Kronek. She came by to see how you are and said to give you this. She found it out in the pasture where she keeps her horse. Said to give you her love and tell you she'd be back to see you tomorrow."

"Oh, isn't that nice. That Casey's a sweet girl."

"Listen, Mom… I'm going to leave now but I'll be back tomorrow. Anything you want, you just let me know, and if you're uncomfortable during the night, you ask for a pain pill, will you?"

"I will."

"We're going to be going, too," the other girls said.

They took turns kissing her and left her looking drowsy and pale.

Outside, they took great gulps of the sweet air. They looked up at the blue spring sky. But they were all silent as they walked toward their cars. In the parking lot, Renee gave Tess a genuine good-bye hug, but Judy offered only a moue that passed for a kiss on the cheek but was not.

It felt like being released, driving away, even in Mary's old Ford Tempo. The spring day was glorious and had warmed up to eighty degrees. Creeping phlox and irises were blooming in front yards. Here and there, rhododendrons made a splash of color. Tess took her time, stopping at a Kroger supermarket and buying herself some fresh vegetables, low-fat salad dressing and boneless chicken breasts before heading back toward Wintergreen. Driving along the familiar roads, she found herself cataloging her mixed feelings about being home again.

There was something to be said for living away from family. Out there, in Nashville and beyond, she was clear of the daily reminders of her mother's health, of Judy's jealousy and all the other petty irritations that had cropped up in the twenty-four hours she'd been home. Being here had brought moments of nostalgia, but more often she became aware of how different she was from the girl who'd left. Her values and priorities had changed. Her pace had changed. Her acquaintanceship, scope and obligations. Was that necessarily bad? She didn't think so. What she had accomplished with her life had taken tremendous energy and commitment, so much, in fact, that on a day-to-day basis there was little room left in her mind for what she thought of as social trifles.

Judy's jealousy was a social trifle.

Mother's stubbornness was a social trifle.

When Tess was wrapped up in business she forgot about such things. At home, idle, they niggled and their importance in the overall scheme of life got blown out of proportion.

When she pulled up in the alley at five o'clock, another of those social trifles was waiting to irritate her: Kenny Kronek was mowing her mother's backyard, dressed in blue jeans, a white V-neck undershirt and a navy-and-red Cardinals baseball cap. He looked up but kept on mowing as she stopped in the alley and activated the garage door. Throughout the jockeying of cars, which took a while, he went on cutting swaths up and down the length of the yard, disappearing to the front, then reappearing in back. When her mother's car was tucked away and her own returned to the apron, Tess took her groceries and headed for the house. She and Kronek met head-on when she was halfway up the sidewalk.

Though they'd have rather snubbed each other, the woman they both loved had had surgery that day. They could hardly pass each other without mentioning it. He stopped and switched the motor to idle.

"How'd it go?" he asked, his weight on one hip, no smile on his mouth.

"Perfect," she snapped, as rudely as possible.

"And Mary?"

"Doctor says she's doing great. No complications at all. They'll be getting her up to stand tomorrow."

"Well, that's good news."

They both felt awkward, speaking with surface civility while wishing they need not.

"I met your daughter today," she told him.

He reached down, picked up a little stick from the grass in front of the grumbling mower and threw it into the garden. "She told me she might stop up there. I told her she should wait at least until tomorrow, till Mary was feeling a little better."

"She's quite refreshingly natural."

"Meaning she smelled like horses, right?"

Had he been anyone else, Tess would have laughed. Since he was Kenny, she forcibly refrained. "Some. But she apologized for it."

"She loves her horses." He still wouldn't look at her, but sent his gaze roving over the lawn and the backyard buildings, his weight once again on one hip in a stance she found cocky.

"She asked me to come and sing with your church choir."

He gave her a quarter of a glance and mumbled as if cursing under his breath, then scratched the back of his head under the cap, bouncing the red bill in front. "I told her not to bug you about it. I hope you don't think I put her up to it."

She remembered the crush he used to have on her in high school and said with enough sarcasm to nettle him, "Now, why would I think a thing like that?"

He squared the baseball cap on his head, gave her a drawn-back, deep, disgusted assessment from beneath its visor, then rolled away toward the mower, leading with one shoulder. "I gotta get back to work." He turned up the engine till it pounded their eardrums.

She leaned closer and shouted above the roar, "You didn't have to mow this lawn, you know! I was going to call my nephew!"

"No trouble!" he shouted back.

"I'll be happy to pay you!"

He gave her a look that cut her down to about the height of the grass. "Around here we don't pay each other for favors," then he added insolently, "Ms. McPhail."

"I was born around here, in case you've forgotten! So don't take that tone with me, Mister Kronek!"

He let his gaze clip the edge of her face and offered, "Oh, excuse me… Mac, is it?"

"Tess will be fine, whenever you choose to come off your high horse long enough to speak to me!"

"Looks to me like I'm the one who got off his high horse first today!"

"But you sort of forgot who I was in the house last night, didn't you?"

"Bet that doesn't happen too often anymore, does it?"

"No. People are generally better-mannered than that!"

They were both still shouting.

"You know, you always did have an attitude."

"I do not have an attitude!"

He let out a snort and began pushing the mower away, calling back over his shoulder, "Look again… Mac!" He could say Mac with such an insulting tone she wanted to run up behind him and trip him! Instead, she stormed into the house and slammed the grocery bag down on the counter, wondering when in the last eighteen years she'd been this riled. All the while she used the bathroom, and changed into a cooler shirt, and opened up the windows in the stuffy loft, and put away her groceries in the refrigerator, the mower kept droning around the house, reminding her he was there, circling.

To distract herself, she decided to call Jack Greaves, who informed her that Carla Niles was coming in to cut a new harmony track on "Tarnished Gold," and that he'd have it couriered to her tomorrow. She called Peter Steinberg, who ran some foreign sales figures by her and said Billy Ray Cyrus had called asking if she'd sing at a fund-raiser for a children's hospital in August. She called Kelly Mendoza and asked her to check their August calendar and get back to Cyrus; Kelly gave her a report on the day's mail and phone calls and said a fax had come in with the week's Gavin Report and that her current single, "Cattin'," had dropped one notch on the radio chart. Also, her custom-made boots had arrived from M. L. Leddy in Fort Worth. Would she like them sent down to Wintergreen?

While Tess was on the kitchen phone a car pulled up and parked behind Kronek's open garage door-the same car as yesterday, a white Dodge Neon. A woman got out and crossed the alley toward him. She was fortyish, wearing low-heeled pumps and a summer business suit of pale peach. As she approached him he stopped mowing and moved a couple steps in her direction. She was carrying a portfolio, which rested against her leg as the two of them talked. She pointed toward his house and continued casually gesturing while they discussed something. Kenny jabbed a thumb toward Mary's house and the woman glanced over briefly. Then she smiled and headed back across the alley while he returned to his mowing.

Who's that! Tess wondered, watching the woman disappear into the glass porch.

A half hour later Tess was washing a head of lettuce when she looked out the window and saw the woman, who had changed into slacks and a white blouse, carrying a tray out the back door to Kenny's picnic table. A moment later Casey followed with another tray. The woman hailed Kenny, who by this time had finished mowing Mary's yard and was halfway through with his own, and the three of them sat down to eat supper.

A mistress? Tess wondered. Could it be Saint Kenny actually led a life of promiscuity? Certainly the woman was more than a mere housekeeper, changing clothes the way she had and joining the family for supper. There was an unmistakable air of familiarity among the three of them as they sat down to share the meal.

Tess caught herself wondering and spun away from the window. Who cares, she thought, as she put a chicken breast on to poach, then went into the living room to do what she'd been eager to do all day long. Armed with a small tape recorder, staff paper and pencil, she sat down at the piano to work on the song idea she'd had last night.

The old upright piano was badly in need of tuning, but the easy action of the keys and its exceptional resonance surpassed many on which she'd played. This was one of her favorite parts of the work she did. Composing seemed like play, always had. At times she found it ludicrous that she should be paid for doing something that gave her such absolute pleasure. Yet the royalties from her original songs brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. She'd always been imaginative, and the process of combining a theme, poetry, and music into one entity sometimes so captivated her that she didn't hear when she was being spoken to. During the years when she and the band had toured by bus she often wrote while they were rolling down the highway, setting down the words first, along with a basic melody line, to which she added chords by using a miniature two-octave electronic keyboard that she could hold on her lap and listen to through earphones. Sometimes her lead guitarist would work with her, especially on the more upbeat songs that would be guitar-driven.

The lines that had entered her head last night in the bathtub began to take concrete musical form. The words gained tune and rhythm.

One-way traffic crawlin' 'round a small town square,

Eightee years've passed since she's been there,

Been around the world, now she's coming back…

The last line of the verse kept eluding her. Ideas came, but she discarded them, one after another. She sang trial lines, picking out an accompaniment on the piano, but still liked none. She was wholly immersed in composing when a voice called from the open kitchen door, "Hey, Mac? It's me, Casey!" Tess was holding a chord with her left hand and committing it to paper with her right when Casey bounced into the room, uninvited.

"Hi!" the girl said brightly, bringing Tess around on the piano bench.

She stood jauntily in the middle of the room, smiling. Her stable gear was gone and in its place clean blue jeans with a yellow cotton T-shirt tucked into her slim waist. Having left behind her cowboy clothes, she seemed also to have abandoned the bowlegged cowpoke attitude that went with them. Instead, she had adopted a young Debbie Reynolds perkiness. Come to think of it, the tilt of her nose, the hair in a single French braid, the wide, interested eyes slightly resembled the young ingenue.

"Heard you playing," she said.

"Working on a song that came into my head last night while I was in the bathtub."

"You mean writing it?"

"Yup."

"What's it about?"

"It's about what it feels like to come back here after being gone so long. The people in this town, my mother, this house." Tess gestured. "How nothing changes, including some things that really need to." She went on explaining some of the feelings she'd had since she'd been back and how she was trying to encapsulate them in the song.

"Can I hear it?"

Tess chuckled and scratched her head to give herself time to think up an answer. "Well, I don't usually play my stuff for people until after it's copyrighted and recorded."

"Oh, you mean like I might steal it or something."

Casey laughed, rolling up the left sleeve of her T-shirt. "Gee, that's a good one. You think I might be that good that I could actually do a thing like that? Not likely. Come on, let me hear it," she cajoled, flinging herself into an overstuffed chair and throwing a leg over its fat arm.

"It's not done yet."

"Who cares? Play what you've got."

Tess swung back to the piano, quite taken by the girl in spite of herself. She was approached by fans nearly every day, be it on the street, backstage or at public appearances. Most put her off either by displaying an overabundance of awe or prefacing their request for an autograph by admitting, "I don't own any of your records, but…" Casey Kronek did neither. She simply flopped down in a chair like a comfortable old buddy and said, "Come on, woman… cook." Why Tess did not bristle at the girl's familiarity she couldn't say, but there was a naturalness about Casey that fell just short of presumptuousness, and the proper amount of admiration held in reserve. The truth was, given Tess's busy life, she had few friends away from the music industry. This girl came on like one, and Tess bit.

"All right. This is what I've got so far."

She played the first three lines, tacked on the temporary fourth, then tried an optional fourth. It was easy to hear that neither worked.

"Play it again," Casey said.

Tess played and sang one more time.

One-way traffic crawlin' 'round a small town square,

Eighteen years've passed since she's been there,

Been around the world, now she's coming back…

"Wider-eyed and noting what this small town lacks," Casey added in a corduroy contralto voice that was dead on tune.

"Can't return. Too much learned."

The last two lines Casey had tacked on created a haunting afterthought that would echo at the end of each verse. Tess got shivers. She heard the accompaniment in her head, picked it out on the keys, closing her eyes and holding the last chord as it scintillated off into silence like lazy smoke around their heads.

The room remained silent for ten seconds.

Then Tess said, "Perfect."

"It's what you were talking about, isn't it? Seeing the town's deficits through the eyes of somebody who used to live there."

"Exactly. I love the refrain idea. It all works."

Tess leaned forward and wrote the words and melody line on the staff paper. When she finished, she set the pencil down on the music rack, and said, "Let's do it again."

While she sang, Casey sat in the overstuffed armchair with her left leg swinging, head thrown back, eyes closed, twisting the end of her braid around one finger and quietly adding harmony, almost as if to herself.

"You know what?" Tess said when they'd finished. "I just got shivers."

"Me, too."

"That's always a good sign. Plus, it sounds like you have a great voice. Why are you holding back?"

"Because it's your show."

"Hey, if you're gonna do it, do it. Wanna add harmony this time so I can hear it?"

Casey looked unsurprised. Tess liked that. "Sure."

They sang it again and Tess recognized a distinctively unique voice. It had a touch of grit and a touch of grime, as though it could rub the calluses off a working person's hands. It had a good musical ear behind it, but most importantly, a fearlessness. Not many seventeen-year-old girls Tess knew could sing side by side with someone of her renown without quailing. Casey did it with her leg still thrown over the chair arm and her eyes still closed.

When she opened them the country western star on the piano bench was looking back over her shoulder wearing a bemused expression. "So tell me… did you come in here to show me what you had?"

"Partly," the girl admitted.

"Well, I'm impressed. You could take the tread off of tires with all the gravel in that voice." Tess swung around and cupped her knees as she faced Casey. "I like it."

"Trouble is, it always sticks out."

"In a group, you mean."

"Uh-huh."

"Like a church choir."

"Uh-huh. Oh! Which reminds me! My dad didn't like me bothering you to sing with the choir. He said I'd been intrusive and ordered me over here to apologize, that's the real reason why I'm here. So I'm sorry. I didn't mean to butt in to your private time at home, but I just didn't stop to think. Anyway, Dad said, 'You get over there across the alley and let her off the hook!' So here I am." Drawing forward to the edge of her chair, Casey let her hands dangle between her knees, and shrugged. "You ought to be able to come home and move around town in peace without people bugging you the way they do everywhere else you go-"

"That what your dad said?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well…" Tess considered awhile, relaxing on the piano bench with her hands lining her thighs, the long perfect nails pointing at her knees. "I must say, that's a surprise." She cocked her head. "Tell me, is this choir any good?"

"Not much. But don't tell Dad I said so."

Tess laughed and said, "Oh, believe me, I won't."

"Their voices aren't so bad, but… I don't know. I'm probably not much of a judge. I just like to sing-country's my favorite, but it's not bad singing with the choir. It's not exactly a gig in a roadhouse, but it's singing, so I'm just glad Dad agreed to direct, otherwise we didn't know what we were going to do. You remember Mrs. Atherton?"

"Sure. Glasses, about so high, wavy black hair."

"Yeah, but it's gray now. She had bypass surgery, so I don't know if she'll ever come back and direct again."

"Hm, that's too bad." Tess got up and said, "Got some chicken poaching out here. I better go check it."

Casey followed her to the kitchen and leaned against the archway watching while Tess lifted the lid, poked the chicken breast and found it tender. She put the lid back on, turned off the burner and got her salad fixings out of the refrigerator. While she tossed them with dressing, Casey inquired, "Have you got somebody who does this stuff for you when you're at home in Nashville?"

"What? You mean cooking?"

"Yeah."

"I have a housekeeper, and she'll do it if I ask her, but on days when I'm recording we're in the studio from mid-afternoon till about nine at night or so, and midway through the session a caterer brings food in. On the night of a concert I usually wait till after the concert to eat. I don't like singing on a full stomach."

"What's it like, being up there in front of all those people? I mean, it must be so awesome."

"It's the only thing I ever wanted to do. I love it."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been singing since I was about three years old. First to my dolls, then to my mom and dad, then to anybody who'd listen."

"You, too?" Tess put her food on the table and went to the silverware drawer. "When I was little I was the same way." She returned to the table with a fork and knife, and Casey pushed away from the doorway.

"Guess I'd better let you eat."

"No, listen, if you don't mind, neither do I. Sit down and talk."

"Really?"

"I only cooked one piece of chicken, but I've got a piece of pecan pie I can give you."

"Mary's?"

"You bet."

"Hey, that sounds great."

When Tess made a motion to get it, Casey ordered, "No, you sit down and eat. I'll get it myself." She knew right where to find a plate, fork and spatula. When the wedge of pie was served up she said, "Mary got any ice cream?"

"Sure. You know where."

Casey helped herself and brought her dessert to the table.

"So what kind of place do you live in, in Nashville?" she asked.

"I've got a house of my own, but I'm only there about half the time. The rest of the time I'm playing concert dates."

"Is it bad, being gone so much?"

"It was worse when I traveled by bus. It was like being marooned together, living in such close quarters with the same people day after day. There were times when I'd get sick of the bus, sick of the people, sick of trying to remember what town we were in so I wouldn't make a mistake on some radio station. But I must like it. I keep on doing it. And it's much nicer since I own my own plane."

"Your own plane… wow! Mary told us when you bought it. I was so impressed!" Tess chuckled at the girl's unbridled candor. "So tell me what it's like when you're recording," Casey prompted.

Tess was still telling her when Kenny's voice came from outside the back door. "Casey, what are you still doing here bothering her?" Dark had fallen and the kitchen lights were on. The way the door was situated he had to gaze in at an angle to see the table where the pair sat, but he got a clear enough shot by putting his face to the screen.

Tess leaned forward to peer at him around the far doorway. "She's no bother. I asked her to stay."

Casey said, "We're talking, Dad, that's all."

Uninvited, he stepped inside., into the tiny back entrance, a step lower than the kitchen. Pressing a hand on either side of the doorway, he poked his head into the room. "Casey, you come on, now. I told you to come straight back home."

"Can I finish my pie first?" she said with strained patience.

To Tess he said, "You sure she's not bothering you?"

"Let her finish."

"All right. Ten minutes," he replied, then pushed off the wall and disappeared.

When the screen door closed behind him, Casey said, "I don't know why he's breathing down my neck so bad today. He never does that."

Tess thought, I don't know why a man who's antagonistic toward me would bother to come clear across the alley in the dark to tell his daughter to get home when he could have used the phone.

"What does your dad do?" Tess asked.

"He's a CPA. He's got his own business downtown just off the square about three doors down from the dress shop where Faith works."

"Faith?"

"Faith Oxbury, his girlfriend."

"She the one who was over there having supper with you tonight?"

"Mm-hmm." Casey licked the ice cream off her spoon. "She's over most nights for supper. Either that or we're at her house. They've been going together since forever."

Tess wondered how long forever meant, but she wasn't going to ask. Casey finished licking off her spoon, set it down and pushed back her plate. Propping one heel on an empty chair seat underneath the table, she slouched down and let her spine curl. "Daddy and Faith have been going together so long that people kind of treat them like they're already married. They play bridge together, and get invited to parties together, and if there's anything of mine going on at school, she usually comes with Dad. Heck, she even sends out Christmas cards with all of our names on them."

"Then why don't they get married?"

"I don't know. I asked him once and he said it's because she's a Catholic and if she married a divorced man she couldn't receive the sacraments in her church anymore. But if you ask me that's a pretty lame excuse not to marry a man you've been going with for eight years."

"Eight years. That's a long time."

"You know it. And I'll tell you something else. They'd like me to think there's nothing below the waist going on between them-I mean, he pecks her on the cheek now and then, and they'll hold hands sometimes, but she never stays overnight at our house and he never stays overnight at hers. But if they think I buy that charlotte russe they're stupider than they think I am."

"Charlotte russe?"

"Oh, it's just this name I've given it-we made charlotte russe in home ec one time-anyway, that's what I call it, this little charade they play with me, like I'm still in the sixth grade. But nobody goes together that long without doing it." Casey brought her observations up short, then shot a straight look at Tess. "Do they?" she asked, as if suddenly uncertain.

"Don't ask me."

"Well I don't think so. But you know what? Underneath it all, I have to respect him for caring enough about my respect for him not to want to jeopardize it. So we all pretend they're as platonic as siblings and she comes over and fixes supper and stays till nine or so, then he walks her to the car and says good night. And on Thursdays they play bridge, and once a week she comes over and irons his white shirts because he doesn't like the fold lines from the laundry, and once a week he goes over there and cuts her grass. And on Sunday she goes to her church and he goes to ours. But at least we all get along. Faith is real nice to me." Casey paused and took a deep breath. "Well…" She dropped her foot to the floor and slapped her knees. "My ten minutes are up and I have to get home." She got up and took her dirty dishes to the sink, followed by Tess. When she'd run water onto her plate she turned and said, "Thanks for letting me hear your song in progress, and for the pie, and for letting me ask you questions. Sorry if I got nosy, but I couldn't help myself. Could I give you a hug?"

Tess had just set her own dishes down when she found herself hugged hard and hugging back. While she was in Casey's clutches the girl pulled in a noisy breath, and exclaimed, "Ooo, you're just super! And I've always been blown away by the fact that you grew up right over here across the alley and made it as big as you did. I want to be just like you!"

With that, the impetuous girl hit for the door. " 'Night, Mac. Tell Mary I'll be up to see her tomorrow afternoon!"