Lost in NashVegas Page 4

  “Maybe.”

  I’m being a little stubborn, I admit. But if I’m going to dive off the high dive, I want to know the pool is full of water. Preferably heated.

  It’s after eleven when we finally flick off the porch light and go to bed. Eliza’s words echo in my soul as I close my eyes.

  I’m moving to Nashville to become a published songwriter. A hit songwriter. I let the notion sink down deep in my soul like Momma’s tulip bulbs in rich soil. Maybe one day after a little sunshine and rain, they will bloom.

  4

  Sunday after dinner everyone gathers out on Grandma and Granddaddy’s porch—all the family plus Paul Whitestone and Jeeter Perkins. We’re fat and happy from a lunch of chicken and dumplings and sweet tea.

  Granddaddy picks up his fiddle and Paul his scuffed banjo. “Run in and pull a guitar, Robin,” Granddaddy says. “How’s that song go that you were singing the other night? ‘Ooo, let me be your Country Princess’?”

  “You’re the ugliest princess I ever did see, Burch,” says Granddaddy’s brother, Uncle Chet, as he angles against a porch post, chomping on his toothpick. Laughter ripples under the eaves, riding along with the breeze.

  “Wrong key,” I call through an open window. “Take it down to D.” Finding Granddaddy’s new Gibson, I decide that today’s as good a day as any for poking the bear, raising the dead, and in general, walking on water.

  Hi, everybody, I’m moving to Nashville. A nervous twinge makes my heart beat a little faster.

  But Momma’s in good humor, happy there ain’t so much as a spoonful of her dumplings left over. She bustles between Grandma’s kitchen and the porch. “Here’s a jug of Mother’s sweet tea,” she says. “Ice is in the cooler.”

  Grandma Lukeman’s iced tea is the best in Freedom. Maybe the best in all of Alabama. Ask anyone. She makes a ton of it every morning for Harold’s Diner, a little meat and three on the edge of town. Arizona is the head waitress. She tells me they run out of Grandma’s tea every day, right in the middle of lunch.

  “Can’t keep it around,” she says. “If Harold asks her to make an extra couple of gallons, we run out even faster.”

  I hurry to get a glass of tea before it’s all gone and before Granddaddy completely butchers “Your Country Princess.” He’s encouraging Eliza to sing with him. Of course, Eliza sings in the key of Q. There’s a reason the girl went off to college to study literature.

  Meanwhile, Granddaddy, Jeeter, and Paul wail like lovesick bulls. “‘Merry-go-round and something, something lights . . . Ooo, I want to be your Country Princess.’”

  Granddaddy’s hound, Bruno, rises up on his front paws, sticks his nose in the air, and howls at the porch ceiling. On key.

  I laugh so hard I can’t play. “Bruno sings better than you, Liza.” Never have I seen Bruno, in all his ten years, lift his nose and join the singing.

  “Oh, hush up.”

  “Right catchy tune, Robin.” Granddaddy says. “Got the makings of a hit.”

  Hint, hint. He’s always hinting, prodding, and pushing me to take my pill-box size talent to Nashville. He’s convinced I’ve got something special.

  “What else you been working on?’’ Uncle Dave, daddy’s brother, leans against the porch rail. He and his wife, Aunt Ginger, never had kids, so they love on me, Eliza, and Steve as their own.

  “Well,” I strum an F minor, then move to C. “The reverend mentioned how Mary poured oil on Jesus’ feet. Got me thinking about her. She was always running to Jesus.” I glanced around. “Y’all don’t really wanna hear this, do you?”

  “Just sing,” Eliza says.

  I close my eyes, blocking out the dozen pair of eyes staring back at me, and let the melody wash down.

  Here she comes again,

  Kneeling at his feet.

  She breaks open the box,

  The perfume it is so sweet.

  And not knowing that he’ll die,

  She anointed him for life.

  I play it through a few times, fiddling with new words and extra chords. “That’s about all,” I finally say, opening my eyes.

  Uncle Dave croaks, “Down right moving, Robbie Rae.” He clears his throat and looks left over the lawn.

  Granddaddy taps his heart and says in a husky whisper, “You got it right here, girl, right here.”

  The afternoon moves into evening, and I still haven’t made my announcement. Fireflies dart around the porch, flashing green, urging me to go, go, go.

  Arizona stops by to visit with her new beau, Ty Ledbetter, then Steve’s wife, Dawnie, and last but not least, two more of Granddaddy’s old bluegrass buddies, Earl and Grip.

  Jeeter, Grip, and Earl sing backup for Granddaddy on “Just As I Am.” Jeeter’s high harmony is raspy but sweet. I play the lead notes.

  Reverend Miller and his wife, Jenny, pull up, waving as they take to the porch. “We heard the music.”

  “Come, sit, Preacher, Miss Jenny,” Grandma says, motioning to the spare chairs. “The peach cobbler is about to come out of the oven.”

  The reverend steps up to the porch. “Looks like you got the whole crew out, Burch.”

  “We do, Eli,” Granddaddy says. “Come on up and take a seat.”

  Reverend Miller takes the wicker rocker by Granddaddy, holding Jenny on his lap.

  “Here you go, Reverend. Jenny.” Grandma hands them each a tall tumbler of iced tea.

  “Loralee’s tea. What a treat.”

  Reverend Miller enjoys the tiniest details of life, finding beauty in simplicity. His eyes always twinkle like he’s 100 percent sure Jesus loves him. He’s in his midfifties, I reckon, and has spent a fair amount of his life as a missionary in South America. During his last few years, he enjoyed the hospitality of a guerilla group.

  Kidnapped and held prisoner, he got the tar beat out of him for believing Jesus is the Christ. When he shared his testimony with the board of elders at Freedom Bible Church, they hired him on the spot. On his first Sunday in the pulpit, good ole boys from all over the county packed the pews, wanting to see a man who endured suffering for his convictions.

  I wrote a few lyrics about him and worked up a melody, but I found it hard to do justice to his trial when I’d barely begun the fight myself. I tucked it away for another day.

  “Piping hot cobbler.” Grandma and Momma bring out the warm, sweet smell of peaches and vanilla. “Who wants ice cream on theirs?”

  Every hand goes up.

  “Let me help,” Jenny says, hopping up. “Dawnie, how’s that baby?”

  “Not making me sick anymore,” Dawnie says grinning, hand resting on her slightly round belly.

  Grip taps the reverend on the knee. “Did you ever think you wouldn’t make it out of prison alive?” He wrinkles his face as if anticipating pain.

  I see a shadow of something pass across the reverend’s composed expression. Is it pain? Devotion? Faith?

  “Don’t we all ask that question when times get hard?” He puts a pastoral hand on Grip’s shoulder. “When the bills are more than the paycheck? When our kids lose their way? When our weak heart feels cold toward Jesus?”

  “Oh, no, Preacher,” I protest. “What you went through . . . None of us have been beaten or locked away in a cold dark cell for what we believe. A rogue kid or overdue bill hardly compares.”

  “I don’t know if I can claim that my trial surpasses the heartache of the abandoned spouse or an abused child.”

  “Here you go, Eli.” Grandma hands him a plate of cobbler covered with ice cream.

  “Thank you.” The reverend picks up his fork. “But, I tell you folks, I had to pray hard to love my captors.”

  Love? Can we just canonize him now? How do you even want to love people who beat the crap out of you? Yet isn’t love like that a required ingredient for all Christians? Isn’t it what Jesus did?

  The reverend cuts off a bite of cobbler and continues his story. “But every time I so much as breathed, ‘Jesús Cristo,’ they’d starve me for a
few days. I considered it fasting.” He actually chuckles. “Or they’d lock me in solitary, put a fist to my face or a rod to my back.”

  A bolt of terror runs down my spine. And I’m chicken to sing in front of folks.

  Grandma passes me a plate of warm and cold sweetness. Doesn’t seem right to enjoy cobbler while the reverend talks about his suffering. The porch congregation is mesmerized, picking at their food, pondering.

  “It’s funny,” he continues, “when you’re in a place where only God can sustain you, something happens to your soul. You find your destiny.” He spears a chunk of cobbler and looks right at me. “You find out what you’re really made of.”

  I flinch as if a sharp puff of air has hit my face. Is he talking to me? It feels like he’s talking to me. Should I move to Nashville? Discover my destiny and find out what I’m made of—clay or steel?

  Steel. Please let it be steel.

  “Well, I didn’t come here to talk about me.” The reverend points his fork at the banjo and guitars. “How about some singing, Burch?”

  “Happy to oblige, Eli.” Granddaddy, the boys, and I pick up our instruments. Granddaddy starts a song he likes, “Grace Like Rain,” and Reverend Miller sings with more heart than any of us.

  It’s not long before the sun yawns and disappears behind the treetops. Daddy lights the porch lamps, and Grandma flicks on all the house lights. We are bathed in a warm, yellow glow.

  Eliza strolls out of the house with a second bowl of ice cream. “Did you tell them yet, Robin?”

  “Ah, shoot, eat your ice cream, Eliza.”

  “Tell us what?”

  “You got news?”

  “Come on, Robin Rae, out with it.”

  “Well,” I lean Granddaddy’s guitar against the porch rail and wipe my hand down the side of my jeans. A firefly blinks its green bottom under my nose.

  “You’re engaged!” Momma lifts her hands overhead and claps as if she were praising the Lord.

  Arizona leans from her chair, her expression doubtful. Next to her Dawnie’s eyes are wide, her cheeks puffed with ice cream and cobbler.

  Grandma echoes, “Engaged?”

  “Well, now, ain’t that something?” Grip says with a big, toothy smile.

  “Congratulations,” Granddaddy says, half-hearted, gripping my arm.

  “No, y’all. She’s not engaged.” Eliza wields her spoonful of ice cream like Zorro’s sword. “Settle down.” To me she says, “Hurry up before Momma has you pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” The word launches Momma from her chair. “Robin Rae.”

  “No, Momma.” Again, Eliza slashes the air with her spoon. “Sit down. Gee whiz. I was kidding. Go on, Robin. Your news can’t be worse than all this speculation.” She scoops another bite of ice cream and waits for me to speak.

  She is having way too much fun with this.

  I cross my arms. “Well, everyone, actually, Eliza has news.” I smirk at her. “Why don’t you tell us, Cambridge?”

  She huffs and wrinkles her nose. “Fine, Chicken Little.” She takes center stage. “Momma, Daddy, everyone . . . I received a fellowship.”

  “What’d she get? A fellow?” Paul’s a little hard of hearing. No wonder the girls clog like they’re stomping out world hunger.

  “No, she got a fel-low-ship,” Grip yells in his ear. He’s on his third plate of cobbler and ice cream. An old bachelor, anything that doesn’t taste like frozen tinfoil is gourmet to him.

  Eliza pats Paul on the shoulder. “A fellowship at Cambridge University to study English lit.”

  “Oh, mercy, ain’t that something.”

  “My daughter the scholar.” Momma presses her cheek to Eliza’s, smiling as if my sister just handed her an Eliza McAfee original—Kindergartener Finger Painting, 1990. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Daddy kisses her forehead. “I always knew you could do whatever you put your mind to, Eliza.”

  Grandma swings through the door, her blue eyes snapping. She’s carrying two tins of leftovers and hands one to Grip, another to Jenny Morris. “What’s all the excitement?”

  “I’m studying English lit at Cambridge this summer, Grandma.”

  “Well, now, we’ll have to drive up to see you.”

  “Yeah, we could all go,” Earl says. “They like bluegrass up there in Massachusetts, don’t they?”

  I slap my leg, laughing. “She’s going to England, not Massachusetts.”

  “England!” echoes around the porch.

  “England!” Momma says with a gasp. “That’s a lot farther than Massachusetts, Eliza.”

  “I’ve been working for this all year, Momma,” Eliza says. “You know I’ve always wanted to study at Cambridge. And I’ll only be gone a few months.”

  “Don’t worry, Bit.” Daddy swings Momma around in a two-step. “She’ll be fine. We could fly over and visit. Stop in on the queen.”

  Momma squeals. “Dean, stop. You’re being silly.” She laughs through her protest.

  Grip jabs his finger in the air. “Now you’re talking, Dean. We could visit the queen. They like bluegrass over the Big Pond, don’t they?”

  A snort escapes my nose. Rednecks in London. This, I got to see.

  After a moment or two more of banter and congratulations, Granddaddy holds up his hands. “Okay, what’s Robin’s news?”

  “Yeah, we haven’t heard from Robin Rae.” Jeeter folds his arms, smiling like he suspects what I’m going to say.

  Might as well strike while the cobbler is hot. Miss Cambridge warmed the porch congregation for me. “Well . . .” I swallow hard. “I’m moving to Nashville.”

  5

  “Robin, that’s fantastic! Momma, Daddy, isn’t that great? About time.” Cambridge stirs up the crowd.

  Arizona joins her. “Robin, you’re going to be a smash.”

  “Congratulations!” Dawnie throws her arms around me. “Steve will be proud.”

  Jeeter props his elbow on the porch post. “Finally tackling ole NashVegas. Good for you. I’ll give you the number of an old friend, Birdie Griffin. She has a big house with a third-floor apartment right near Music Row.”

  “Nothing doing.” Momma thunders over to me, her footsteps resounding against the porch boards. She’s short like me, and powerful. “Jeeter, I’ll thank you and your . . . friend . . . to stay out of this.”

  “Free country, Bit.”

  I pinch my lips so as not to laugh. Jeeter doesn’t swallow sass. Not even Momma’s.

  She ignores him and turns to me. “Land a-mighty, Robin, you haven’t sung in front of anyone other than this crowd here until last Friday. It took those tubby Whitestone girls—”

  “Hey now,” Paul pipes up. That he hears.

  “Sorry, Paul, but it’s true. You should tell their momma to put them on a diet. All that clogging . . . They ought to be sticks.”

  I pick up the guitar. What was the tune I played last night up in the attic?

  “You can’t stop her, Bit,” Granddaddy says.

  “You should know, shouldn’t you?” Momma’s words are harsh, but Granddaddy’s mild expression remains unchanged.

  “Different time, different girl.”

  I glance up. “Different time, different girl? Granddaddy, what—”

  “What about Ricky?” Momma fires at me. “You’re going to break that boy’s heart.” She fusses with the same wild curl that never does what she wants.

  “Ricky’s a big boy, Momma,” I say. Although he wasn’t in church this morning, which means he’s fishing in the Tennessee River, which means he’s not acting like a big boy but a pouting baby.

  “I think we ought to be getting home.” Grip stands. “Let you folks sort this out.”

  Take me with you, Grip.

  Jeeter whispers to me. “Stick to your guns.” He presses a napkin into my hand with a telephone number scrawled on it.

  “Jeeter,” Momma hollers after him. “I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”

  Something inside s
naps. “Same to you, Momma.”

  She steadies herself by gripping the porch post. “Do you think you’re going to waltz into Nashville and magically find the courage to sing before a crowd of strangers? To talk to important people about your songs?” Momma’s cheeks are flushed and her jaw is tight.

  “Bit, simmer down,” Daddy says in a low tone.

  “Don’t tell me to simmer down, Dean.” She looks at him with pleading eyes. “Robin . . . Nashville . . .”

  Wearing her debate face, Eliza says, “It’s Robin’s life. She should do what she wants. You seem fine with me going to England. Why can’t you—”

  “It’s not the same—” Momma clams up and starts stacking dirty dishes.

  With my head down, I echo my resolve. “I’m going, Momma.” Once decided, the idea of staying in Freedom cuts off my air and suffocates my dreams.

  With her arms loaded down, Momma goes inside. Seems I’ve won the battle but not the war.

  The tension on the porch evaporates as Granddaddy follows Grandma in the house, their heads bent together, muttering, and Daddy talks NASCAR with Uncle Dave and Ty. I bend over the guitar, playing, half listening to Eliza, Arizona, and Dawnie talk about the English summer, half wondering what’s going on inside Momma’s head.

  Eliza is saying, “My real goal is to meet a Greek tycoon, fall madly in love, marry impetuously, and sail around the world on his yacht.”

  I lift my head. “Don’t you need to be in Greece to find a Greek tycoon, Liza?”

  Arizona laughs. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Semantics, ladies, semantics. What you don’t know is that I plan to meet him in Paris.”

  “Paris?” Truth is, if anyone can sweep a Greek tycoon off his feet, it’s my lovely southern sister. Her blue-diamond eyes and innocent smile make the boys go gaga over her as if they’ve found a rare treasure. But they always get their heart broken no matter how gentle Eliza lets them down. I’m already worried for the Greek tycoon.

  The screen door creaks open as Granddaddy returns. “It’s not much, Robin Rae, but Grandma and I want to help out.” He holds out a check.