Small Town Girl

  Bring her, Kenny, she thought. Please bring her yourself.

  But at two-thirty, when a red Ford Bronco pulled into her driveway, Tess saw only one person inside. She had been sitting at the piano, playing, where she could see out the front window, and when Casey alone got out of the Bronco, Tess’s heart grew leaden. Her chest felt as if it were caving in upon itself.

  He had not come. Only Casey, slamming the door and walking toward the house in sunglasses, shorts and a straw cowboy hat, smiling.

  Ah, well, Tess was a performer, was she not? She could hide her disappointment for Casey’s sake, and make her welcome as exuberant as the girl expected.

  She threw open the front door before Casey could ring the bell.

  “Hey, honey-child, you made it!”

  Casey catapulted into her arms, and when they’d hugged and laughed with pleasure at seeing each other again, Tess asked, “Where’d you get the Bronco?”

  “Dad surprised me and bought it for me for graduation! Can you believe it?”

  “Very nice.”

  “He said my old pickup would never make it, and if I was going to be out on my own I needed reliable transportation. Pretty great dad, huh?”

  “Yeah, pretty great. Well, come on in and I’ll show you the place, then we’ll get your stuff unloaded and stashed in your room.”

  At her first sight of the living room Casey stopped and crooned in an amazed Missouri drawl, “Oh, my Looord in heaven, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life! Mercy, woman, this is where you live?”

  “This is where I live.”

  “And that piano …” Casey moved toward it as if mesmerized, touching its shiny ivory surface as if to ascertain it was real. “And these windows.” She looked up. “Would you look at ‘em! Why, I betcha you can see into God’s living room from the top of that.”

  She followed Tess between two neoclassical columns into the dining room, whose ceiling created the second-story balcony that overhung the living room, and into the rear kitchen, through the French doors onto the screen porch, from where they looked down at the pool area below. Next they checked out Tess’s home office, tucked behind the triple garage, then retraced their steps to the front of the house and went up the curving stairway to the second level. All the while, Casey never stopped babbling, admiring the house, exclaiming over everything. Lordy, could that girl talk. Incessantly! But Tess enjoyed it, and the feeling she got from watching her experience true luxury for the first time in her life.

  In the open doorway of her own bedroom suite Casey halted and said, “You mean I get to stay here?”

  “This is your room. And that’s your bath.”

  “My own bathroom?”

  “That’s right … take a look.”

  Casey entered as if it were a sanctuary, halting in the bathroom doorway, peering around it at the glass-walled shower, the marble tub, the long vanity and giant mirror. “This is bigger than my bedroom back home. My gosh, Mac, you mean I could own a house like this someday if I make it big?”

  “Someday, maybe. Why not? A major part of achieving success is believing you can.”

  Casey gazed around, and said, “I wish Dad could see this. He wouldn’t believe it.” She roamed back into the bedroom and investigated the panel on the wall beside the bed. “What’s this?”

  “A sound system.”

  WSM country radio was tuned in, and the voice of Wynonna came softly through the speaker. “You mean you’ve got it piped all through the house?”

  “Well, I’m a musician.” Tess flapped her hands. “Got to have music in the place. The components are in the living room, in the built-in cabinets beside the fireplace.”

  “What’s playing now? Radio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you play CDs or tapes or anything?”

  “Anything.”

  “So, how come your new tape’s not playing?”

  “It can be, in a second.”

  “Well, put it on!” They clattered back downstairs, and as Casey hustled after Tess, she said, “Hey, I really love your new album. Thank you so much for sending it to me. It’s going to be a great seller. Platinum! Double platinum! Dad says so, too, and I never played it for anybody else, just him, like you said.” Tess started the tape running and Casey ordered, “Turn it up!” The volume got rowdy and Casey started singing along. Tess sang, too. They sang all the while they left the front door open and went outside to empty the Bronco; while they hauled Casey’s stuff upstairs, and hung her clothes in the closet and stashed some cardboard boxes in a corner, and set her suitcases at the foot of the bed. The tape finished and Casey yelled through the house, “Hey, run it again! I love it!”

  Tess was downstairs in the kitchen, taking out some chicken enchiladas that Maria had left in the refrigerator, topping them with salsa and cheese and popping them into the microwave. Casey bopped in and said, “What can I do?”

  “Fix us some ice water.”

  The sound system was piped into the kitchen, too, and they sang along while Casey dispensed ice cubes and ice water from the door of the refrigerator, pausing to exclaim, “Hey, way cool!” and while Tess chopped up lettuce. They sang while Tess diced some green onions and pointed to the cabinets where napkins and silverware and plates were, and while Casey set the table. They sang while they carried their steaming Mexican food to the table, and pulled out their chairs, and sat down and picked up their forks and …

  And finally they had to stop singing to eat.

  Being together was every bit as much fun as it had been in Mary’s kitchen the night they’d discovered they really liked each other. Sometimes the music would overcome Casey and she’d break into song with her mouth full. Then Tess tried it, and some food fell out of her mouth and they both laughed, and Casey said, muffled by a mouthful of her own, “Pretty rotten manners, huh?”

  Tess, with her cheek still bulging, replied, “Uh-huh. My momma would chew my butt good!”

  “So would my dad, but what they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.

  When they finished their enchiladas they each ate a banana. It was easier to sing in between bites of banana, and sometimes Casey would direct with hers, as if it were a baton.

  The lightning bolt struck Tess when she had half her banana still left in its skin: Casey knew every word to every song on the tape! She forgot all about finishing her fruit and fixed Casey with a stare. Casey was directing and singing at the same time, hitting only the licks the backup singers hit.

  “Hey, Casey, how many times did you listen to this tape in the last six days?”

  “Heck, I don’t know. Fifty? Sixty? I wasn’t counting.”

  “You know every word, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Put your banana down and sing this with me, just the way you were.” It was a fast cut called “Last Chance to Boogie,” with scads of words. They sat at right angles to each other at the kitchen table, inched forward in their seats, eyes locked, singing to the end of the number.

  Then Tess got up and went to the kitchen speaker and lowered the volume. In the rest of the house the next cut began at full volume as Tess returned to the table.

  “Why weren’t you singing lead?” she asked, resuming her chair.

  “Well … I don’t know.” Casey looked confused, afraid she’d done something wrong. “You were singing lead.”

  “But everybody sings lead when they sing along with a song on the radio, don’t they?”

  Casey shrugged. “Not me, I guess … I sing alto in choir.”

  A bizarre, fortuitous, exciting idea hit Tess, but it was too soon to pose it to this seventeen-year-old girl. Whoa, she told herself, hold on! You haven’t even heard her in the studio yet! But with Carla out of commission for at least one month, possibly for years, Tess needed a replacement for the tour that would begin in late June.

  Frowning, Casey said, “What’s wrong?”

  Tess relaxed and answered, “Nothing. You’re am
azing though, memorizing all those words so fast.”

  “Heck, I know the words to all your songs.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve been playing some of your albums since before there were CDs.”

  “All the words?”

  “What? You doubt me, woman? You don’t believe that you were my idol since I was old enough to operate a record player?”

  Tess decided it was time to let the subject rest for the time being. “Come on,” she said, rising. “Let’s put our dishes in the dishwasher, then you’d probably like a little time to unpack or kick back, or maybe take a swim.”

  “A swim! Wow! You mean it? That’d be great!” Carrying her dishes across the kitchen, Casey recanted, “I really should call Dad first though. I promised him I would, the minute I got in.”

  “Go right ahead. There’s a phone in your room, if you want privacy.”

  “Why would I need privacy?”

  Casey dialed on the portable kitchen phone, and Tess listened while putting away the salsa and wiping off the tabletop. The conversation was the usual got-here-just-fine sort. Then Casey added, “Hey, Dad, you should see this place. It’s like a palace! Everything’s painted either ivory or white. She’s got a cream-colored grand piano in the living room, and a sound system piped into every room in the house, and there’s this huge dramatic open balcony that looks down into the living room from the upstairs hall, and I have my own bathroom, and she put flowers in my bedroom, and all this fancy stuff in the bathroom—you know, like little bottles of stuff. And she’s got a swimming pool! And you know what? I’m talking on a portable phone! Gol, Dad, it’s way too cool.”

  The conversation continued for a couple more minutes, then Casey said, “Yeah, she’s right here. Hey, Mac, Dad wants to talk to you.”

  Whereas Casey had not felt the need for privacy, Tess could have used some. But it would have looked strange, her holing up to talk to Kenny, so she took the phone from Casey’s hand and spoke while the girl listened at close range.

  “Hi, Kenny,” she said brightly, trying to act unaffected in front of Casey. This was the first time they’d talked since they’d had the tiff on the phone the other night.

  “Hi, darlin’,” he said, and her heart went ka-boom with relief. “You still mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s better. My daughter likes your house.”

  “Yes, but she’s easy to impress.”

  “It sounds like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous over there.”

  “I suppose it is. I thought you might drive Casey down and see it for yourself.”

  “I might have if I’d been invited.”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she changed the subject. “Pretty nice Bronco you bought this girl.”

  “She loaded it to the hilt. I told her that was too much stuff for her to take to your house—she should wait till she found an apartment of her own. But you know teenage girls. She said it was all stuff she couldn’t live without.”

  “There’s plenty of room here, don’t worry about it.” Casey wandered off into the living room, so Tess asked, “How you doing, Kenny? I mean, with her gone?”

  He waited a beat before answering, dropping his cheerful banter. “Worst day of my life.”

  She felt a surge of empathy and drew a mental picture of how he used to walk Casey to the house with his arm slung over her shoulder. “I can imagine.”

  “I can’t seem to stop myself from walking into her room and looking around at the empty spots. Where her guitar used to be, all the stuff off the top of her dresser. Hell, she even took her bed pillows.”

  “Is Faith there?”

  “No, not tonight.”

  “Why don’t you call her up and be with her for a while?”

  “Because I don’t feel like being with Faith. Funny thing is, I’ve felt like it less and less since you went away. I was thinking I might go across the alley and visit with Mary for. a while. Maybe see if she wants to play a hand of cribbage or something.”

  “She’d love that, I’m sure. Well, listen, I should … I should go. Casey and I might take a swim or something.”

  “Yeah,” he said, forlorn.

  “I’m sure she’ll call you again tomorrow after the recording session and tell you all about it.”

  “I told her she can call anytime, collect. I’m getting her an AT&T credit card of her own, but it isn’t here yet.”

  “That isn’t necessary, Kenny, she can dial direct from here whenever she wants to.”

  “No, no, you’ve done enough, taking her in, giving her this break with her music. She doesn’t need to run up your phone bill, too.”

  “Well, let’s not argue about it.” Casey had returned and was listening again.

  “If she needs anything, you’ll let me know, won’t you?” Kenny asked.

  “Of course. Now, you take it easy, and don’t stay around the house moping. I’ll put her back on so you can say goodbye.”

  “Hey, Tess, wait!” Casey was standing right beside her waiting to reclaim the phone when Kenny said, without warning, “I love you.”

  Tess was so stunned, she froze, staring at Casey while his words drove her heart into a backbeat and threw heat into her face. Just like that—when she was least expecting it—“I love you.” With as little compunction as he’d say “See you around.” She stood rooted, gripping the phone, unable to respond with the same words. They were not words one took lightly, or spoke without absolute certainty, and she certainly wasn’t going to say them the first time with his daughter standing four feet away. She struggled to come up with some fitting response without giving away how flustered she was.

  “I think it’s just the loneliness, Kenny. It’ll get better with time.”

  “Is Casey listening?”

  “Yes, she’s standing right here.”

  “All right, then, I’ll hope that the next time I say it, you’ll say it back.”

  What could she say? She took the easy way out. “Here she is ….”

  Casey frowned at her, and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Tess mumbled, handing over the phone and turning away.

  • • •

  It was harrowing trying to hide her overwrought emotions from Casey when her deepest instinct was to talk about the whole situation with her, which Tess could not do yet. They swam, and looked forward to tomorrow, and Tess answered questions about what it was like in a recording studio. They went back inside and played a bunch of other artists’ CDs that Tess had gotten free at a trade show, and she told Casey about that type of promotion and how it helped a career to meet the big distributors who handled your products. They talked about when and where Casey should look for an apartment, and about Fan Fair, coming up soon, and about the concert schedule and when it would begin and where it would take Tess, but she never mentioned the possibility of Casey singing backup on the tour.

  They retired near eleven, and only then, after the house was quiet and dark, while Tess was lying wide awake in her own bed, did she examine what Kenny had said. She drew his words, like polished stones, out of the secret satin drawstring bag of her memory, and with them the image of his face as it had been the last day she’d seen him, in his office, rising and coming toward her wearing the tortured look of good-bye. “Hey, Tess, wait! … I love you.” She heard again his words coming over the phone in that offhand fashion that had caught her off guard. In her imagination she kissed him again as she’d kissed him then, and wondered if this was love, this underlying emptiness that marked each day spent without him, this feeling of jubilation upon hearing his voice at the other end of a telephone line, this urge to go back into her stored memories of him and draw them out into the light to be examined, then filed carefully until next time.

  Hey, Kenny … maybe I love you, too.

  Or was she idealizing him simply because he’d spoken the words? She didn’t think so, for she was not an idealizer, but a realist, always h
ad been. So, realistically speaking, what hope was there for any sort of relationship with Kenny when he staunchly refused to get rid of Faith? When Tess was committed to her career and he to his? When they lived in two different places with two wholly different lifestyles? And what about the difference in their incomes? Was there even the remotest possibility he was pursuing her because she was rich and famous? No—she felt absolutely certain about that. But perhaps the opposite was true. Perhaps he was the kind of guy whose pride would not allow him to live off a woman’s income. And did she have the right to ask him to?

  She hadn’t even admitted she loved him and already she was suffering some of the pangs that poets wrote about. Her disappointment today when he’d failed to show up with Casey had been sophomoric and uncharacteristic, not at all the kind of thing she was accustomed to doing: building something up in her imagination, then suffering a letdown when it turned out differently than she’d hoped. If that wasn’t idealizing, what was?

  Simply being with Casey presented its own peculiar pang, a little more difficult to psychoanalyze, but a pang, nonetheless. It sometimes felt as if being with her was a substitute for being with her father. Sometimes Tess saw a reflection of Kenny in Casey’s facial expressions or body language. Sometimes the things the two women talked about harked back to Wintergreen, where Tess had spent time with Kenny, and kept those memories green. Also, being Casey’s benefactor practically assured Tess that she’d see Kenny in the future, away from Wintergreen. Did all this make her a schemer? Unworthy of the trust both Casey and Kenny had placed in her? Was she using the girl to woo him?

  Disturbed by her thoughts, she turned onto her stomach in bed.

  The moon was up, painting the window frames the faded purple of the irises that her mother had grown when Tess was a girl. And in Wintergreen, Missouri, that iris purple moon was shining on Kenny’s house … and on Momma’s house. Had the two of them played cribbage tonight? And was he back home now, maybe lying awake, too, feeling the emptiness of the house without Casey in it? Was he missing Tess McPhail, and wondering what she thought of his bold admission of love? Was he waiting for her response?