Small Town Girl (23 page)

He had chosen mostly familiar hymns for the group as a whole. For Tess's solo he picked "Fairest Lord Jesus." She approved heartily, and so did the choir after they'd run through it. The beautiful old traditional hymn crowned their practice with a sense of celebration that was still intact as the session ended and they said good night. A woman near Mary's age was one of the last ones to leave. "I'm sure you don't remember me," she said on her way out, "but I'm Clara Ottinger. I've known your mother my whole life long. I remember when you were just a little shaver about so high, you used to stand up on the front steps in your yard and belt out songs to people who were driving by in their cars. I said then, That one's going to make a name for herself,' and you sure did. Well, good for you, honey." She squeezed Tess's arm. "We're sure proud to have you back."

Everyone was gone. It was ten after nine and the vesti-bule door resounded with an echo behind Mrs. Ottinger. In the choir loft, Kenny picked up a crumpled tissue that had been dropped on the floor and tossed it on top of the organ. He turned and met Tess's eyes across twenty feet of disarrayed chairs and music stands. Funny how their silences had gotten more comfortable tonight.

"They love you," he said.

"They love you, too," she replied.

Nightfall had painted the windows black and left the cavern below in darkness. Two inadequate ceiling lights hung by chains over the choir loft, tinting the hardwood floor gold but making shadows of Tess's and Kenny's eyes. There was a peculiar intimacy to the place, and their purpose there. Like last Sunday morning when he'd been watching her from his back step, they recognized how their growing familiarity was changing them.

He turned his attention to straightening the chairs and music stands, moving along the lower tier while Tess did the same along an upper one. Somewhere in the middle, they met, the job done.

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome."

They stood close, silence all around, captivated by each other but fighting it. He turned and headed for the organ and she followed, giant-stepping down to the lowest level. He slid onto the bench and switched off the gooseneck light that Josh had forgotten to turn off, then reached up for his own music, which lay askew on top of the organ. While he was tamping it together she came up behind him.

"Kenny, I have to talk to you," she said over his shoulder.

"Sure." He put the music in a flat pouch and zipped it.

"About Casey."

"What about her?"

"May I?" she asked, indicating the organ bench.

"Sure." He slid over and she slipped onto the bench beside him, joining her hands loosely in her lap. She took a moment, realizing that what she was about to say would have a major impact on his life as well as on his daughter's. She did not take it lightly.

"I want to take her to Nashville to sing harmony with me on 'Small Town Girl.' "

He sat so still she knew he didn't like it. But he looked into her eyes and gave himself time to adjust to what she'd just said.

"I figured this was coming."

"But I wouldn't ask her without asking you first."

He waited a long time before looking away and whispering, "Shit," forgetting where he was.

"You understand what I'm talking about… a recording session on a major label."

"Yes, I understand."

"It's what she wants, and she's good enough."

"I know. I realized that Sunday afternoon."

"I've already heard from my producer and he likes what he's heard on the demo."

She waited but he said no more, neither looked at her nor acknowledged what she'd said, but stared straight ahead at the empty wooden music holder on top of the organ.

She said, "Look, I know what you think of me and—"

He waved off her remark. "That was gone a long time ago, Tess, you know that."

"All right, then, what you thought of me, but if you think I'd let anything bad happen to her you're wrong. I'd be there. I'd look after her. I'd see to it that nobody took advantage of her."

"I know that, and I appreciate it. But what about her life?"

"You really think my life is so bad?"

"It's abnormal—no home to speak of, half the time traveling, no husband, no kids."

"It's rewarding when it's what you love to do."

He allowed himself a small explosion prompted by frustration. "
But it isn't what I want for her
!"

She let his outburst fade away before challenging him quietly. "The choice isn't yours, Kenny."

Tormented, he stared her down before breaking. His shoulders slumped slightly as he admitted, "I know that."

Though she understood what he was going through, she felt compelled to speak for Casey. "She'd get a chance to meet some studio musicians and maybe sing backup in some other sessions if nothing more. But Nashville's a small town. The word will spread fast that she's there as my protegee. Opportunities will happen for her after that. I want to give her that chance, Kenny."

She gave him time to think about it awhile. At length he spoke as if arguing with himself, in a quiet voice, watching his thumbnail absently dent a line in the leg of his trousers. "This is hard, you know. She's my only child and when you only have one you think about things like grandchildren and a place where you'll visit when you get old, and then you realize you're thinking selfishly and that you can't rely on others to make your happiness for you, but it's… it's hard letting go."

She laid her hand on his bare arm. "Of course it is."

He looked down at her hand, then covered it with his own, rubbing the back of it and toying with an oversized silver-and-turquoise Indian ring occupying the finger where most women wore a wedding ring.

Realizing what he was doing he withdrew his hand and she took hers back, too.

"When would she go?" he asked, meeting her eyes.

"As soon as school is out. The album's scheduled to come out in September. They've already released one single from it. We'd have to get into the studio and record our song in June so there'd be time for mixing and mastering and distribution."

"How long would she have to stay?"

"That's up to Casey. You can record a song in a single session. Sometimes it takes two, sometimes you actually get two songs done in one session. Just depends. If she comes, though, she can stay at my house until she finds a place of her own."

He stared at her, thinking.

"I know lots of people in Nashville," she reassured him, "at radio stations and at the Opry, all over town. She won't have any trouble finding a job. You know the story—there are big stars who started out as ushers at the Opry. Kris Kristofferson started that way." Still he looked unconvinced.

"Oh, Kenny…" She touched him again, then thought better of it. "If it hadn't been
with
me it would probably have been
without
me, and isn't it better that I'm there to see after her?"

He hooked his hands over the edge of the bench, hunched his shoulders and stared at his knees. She could almost read his mind.

"I suppose you're thinking, 'Why did Tess McPhail have to come back home?' "

"Yeah," he said, "that's exactly what I'm thinking."

Their eyes met again and they sat absolutely still beside each other, realizing there was more than one reason for him to think that. Finally he straightened his shoulders, seemingly bone by bone. "Come on," he said, sliding off the bench and tugging her after him. "Take me for a ride in your shiny new car and make it up to me, okay?"

They walked downstairs together and she waited while he turned off the lights in the vestibule, then shoved the heavy door open and let some night glow show the way down the bank of steps to the street out front where her car waited. Lights shone from the windows of the houses around First Methodist, from a streetlamp a half block away, and from scattered stars.

The moon, however, was far from full.

"See?" she said, pointing up. "Half-moon. It's not full at all."

"Ahh… well, in that case, your neck is safe."

They got in and slammed the doors. When she'd started the engine she left her foot on the brake.

"So where do you want to go?" she asked.

"I thought we were going home."

"I thought you wanted a ride."

He studied the reflection of the dash lights in her eyes. "All right, then… go on up to the stop sign at the highway and turn right."

While she pulled away from the curb they both rolled their windows down and let the spring night rush around their heads. He lay back in the seat and closed his eyes. After a while he opened them and watched her as she drove. She was shorter than he, her seat pulled farther forward, so he could study her undetected. When necessary, he told her where to turn. The air scrolling around his head smelled of greening things and night damp, and farther out of town, of dusty gravel roads and pastures. Sometimes it smelled of her, some faint perfume he couldn't quite catch. She kept her speed around thirty-five so the night sounds could be heard—insects, and gravel hitting the undercarriage, and the wind patting their ears.

"I thought you
would
be a speeder," he said.

"I think you have a lot of misconceptions about me."

"No more than you have about me."

"You might be right. Anyway, why hurry? It's nice to get away from the house for a while."

"Mary tells me you two don't get along so well."

She glanced over. "When did she tell you that?"

"At the hospital."

"I think it's mainly age difference."

"My mother and I got that way, too, as she got older."

"I thought you two got along fabulously."

"As long as I bit my tongue."

"It's funny, isn't it," she mused, "how they can test your patience with the smallest things. You know that curled up, pitiful plastic doily the color of a pee ring that my mother keeps in the middle of her kitchen table? I threw it away while she was gone to the hospital. As soon as she comes back she sees it's gone and picks it out of the garbage and washes it and it's right back on the table. She probably had to lash herself onto her walker to keep from falling over while she did it, but she managed somehow while I wasn't looking."

He chuckled.

"And we argue all the time about what I'm going to cook for meals and how I'm going to cook it. You have to understand, I'm the world's worst cook to begin with."

"You don't like it?"

"
Nuh-uh
!" she said with great passion. "At home I have a housekeeper who does it for me or if I'm at the studio a caterer brings food in. Anytime I have to cook for myself it's chicken breast and salads. Who cooks at your house?"

"All three of us."

The reminder of Faith dropped between them like a mudslide. They rode awhile without talking, thinking about how their conversations always seemed to roll around to Faith.

Finally Tess said, "Could I ask you something?"

"About what?"

"You and Faith."

"No."

"But I—"

"No."

She shot him a sour glance, but he wouldn't look at her. She gripped the steering wheel tighter and decided she could be as stubborn as he.
Well, all right then, be that way. But I really don't have to ask, do I, Kenny? Because we both know that you sleep with her
.

Neither of them said anything further till he ordered, "Turn here."

They swung into a rutted driveway lidded by an aisle of trees that led to a cluster of buildings. One metal pole barn was larger than all the rest.

"Where are we?"

"At Dexter Hickey's. Pull up next to that fence." She did, and killed the engine. They got out and sauntered toward a chest-high wooden fence that appeared back-lit in the moonlight. Inside the paddock a half dozen horses stood close together. Roused from sleep, some lifted their heads while others slept on. Out of the cluster one dark shape separated and moved lazily, head hanging, hooves plopping softly on the battered earth as he approached them.

Kenny waited, his arms crossed on the fence, till the horse arrived and blew softly at his elbow. The white blaze on his face showed clearly against its darker hide. Kenny laid a hand between the horse's eyes and said, "This is Rowdy."

"Hi, Rowdy," she said quietly, waiting, letting the horse take her scent. He reached out his enormous head and put his whiskery nose to her hand. "You smell good," Tess said.

He didn't of course. He smelled like the paddock, fecund and equine, but it pleased Kenny that Tess was one of those who found horse scent friendly. Rowdy let her scratch his nose.

"How long has Casey had him?"

"Since she was thirteen. But she talked about having him since she was about five."

Rowdy's nose was velvet beneath her hand. She thought he'd probably fallen asleep again, for he stood motionless, breathing evenly in heavy warm gusts against her palm.

Tess asked, "Are you trying to make me feel bad for taking her away?"

"Maybe."

"Are you always this honest?"

"I try to be."

There was enough celestial light for each to see the other's eyes. On the fence rail their elbows nearly touched. Inside the pole barn another horse whickered. Behind them the engine ticked as it cooled. Above them the half-moon kept him from biting her neck.

Out of the blue she said something he never expected, said it sincerely, so that one more barrier crumbled. "I can see, Kenny, that you're a very good dad."

He'd been right earlier; the moon made people do crazy things, be it full or half. But much as he wanted to kiss her, it wouldn't be wise. There was his relationship with Faith to consider, and the temporary nature of Tess's stay here, and her fame and its demands, maybe even the risk that she might think her celebrity and wealth were the reasons he was coming on to her. Hell, who knew? Maybe they were. On second thought he didn't think so. This attraction went a long way back, clear back to the stinging memories of groping for Tess McPhail on a school bus on a choir trip, all those years ago, and being laughed at for it. Kissing her would be the height of folly, but he kept standing there thinking about it.