Love Me Tender

by Laurie Horowitz

  Patton walks away so quickly that he is gone before Leslie can think of anything to say that might make him change his mind about her. Maybe those words don’t exist, and the idea that they do is the worst kind of wishful thinking.

  Chapter 21

  I’ve really got to thank you,” Nola says, taking the iPad from where Patton left it and cradling it in the crook of her arm.

  “Thank me?” Leslie asks. She hasn’t moved from where she was standing when Patton thundered away.

  “Olive was so right about you. She said you were like a lion that hadn’t been fed in weeks.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Leave it to Olive. She knew when she sent you down here that you were starving for a good story. You played right into our hands, digging up dirt where there really was none—or not much anyway. I couldn’t have bought this much publicity for thousands of dollars. The story has gone viral. People are fascinated by your passion for bringing down a struggling musician. You managed to create a sensation. Journalist Leslie Stern. Give her some wire and a few sticks and she’ll blow up the Viridian Tower.”

  Leslie can’t believe what’s she’s hearing, but it all makes sense now. Even though Nashville isn’t exactly on The Courier’s beat, Leslie never even questioned the assignment. She’d been used as a pawn in a game being played by two sorority sisters.

  Leslie has always believed that anyone can be violent if pushed hard enough. She is not prepared, though, for what she does next. She grabs Nola’s iPad and flings it across the room. It crashes to the floor, making the clunking sound of technology corrupted beyond repair. Everyone backstage stops to stare. There is a moment of absolute silence.

  For once, Nola has nothing to say.

  Chapter 22

  Where the hell have you been?” Patton asks when Hunter finally comes through the door to the bungalow. He’s dragging his feet, and his shoulders slump like a tired old man’s.

  “I’ve been with that girl, Sarabeth. Nola’s friend.”

  “You’ve missed my shows.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I fucked up.” Hunter collapses onto the sofa.

  “I wish you had been there. But I shouldn’t have cut you out like that,” Patton says.

  Hunter stands and goes into the kitchen. Patton follows. Hunter opens the door to his whiskey collection. “Want one?” he asks, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam.

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” Patton says.

  “That’s never stopped me before.” Hunter pours a short glass and offers it to Patton, who refuses it. Hunter slugs his down and sighs with satisfaction. “That’s better.”

  “Are we going to get past this?” Patton asks.

  “If Mary Sue Parker didn’t split us up in the tenth grade, this isn’t going to do it.”

  Patton laughs. “Mary Sue Parker. She was so hot.”

  “She has three kids now.”

  “Haven’t kept up with her, but I see you have,” Patton says.

  “Facebook. She posts every time she farts.”

  Patton and Hunter return to the living room, where Hunter stretches out on the sofa.

  “Nola says we need someone to do the social networking stuff. You’re good at that. You interested? That would make you part of the team.” This idea has just come to Patton, but he thinks it’s a good one. He’ll run it by Nola. If she doesn’t like it, she can stuff it. “Turns out I already have a pretty big online profile.” Patton puts his computer on Hunter’s chest. It’s open to Leslie’s article.

  Hunter looks at the screen and pretends to read, but he’s already read the story five times and each time it makes him feel a little sicker. After giving it enough time to make it look like he’s seeing the piece for the first time, he looks up.

  “Bad luck,” he says. “But, on the upside, you’re getting plenty of attention.”

  “Not the kind I want.”

  “I’m sorry.” Now would be the time for Hunter to admit that he’s largely responsible for this debacle, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He stands and walks the length of the room and back.

  “Not your fault. You’re the one who wanted me to stay away from Nola. I should have listened,” Patton says.

  “The truth is, I could never have done what Nola has done for you. Look at the evidence. We’ve been at this since we were eighteen and you’ve gotten more attention in the last week than you’ve gotten in the last three years. She knows what she’s doing, and I don’t.”

  “She has connections that you don’t. It’s not the same thing.”

  “I should probably get my ass into work. I have the lunch shift,” Hunter says.

  “That reporter is staying at your hotel. Ever run into her?”

  “It’s a big place.”

  “She screwed me over with that story. But why do I still want her?”

  “What do you mean, want her?”

  “She came back here after the show at the Bluebird.”

  “So, you screwed her, and she screwed you.”

  “It wasn’t like that. I really like her. How could I like someone who’d do this to me?”

  Hunter turns a little green since he knows he’s at fault, too. “If you really like her, maybe you can forgive her.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If not, there are plenty of fish in the sea,” Hunter says, leaning on the cliché.

  “What if you only want one particular lobster?”

  “A lobster isn’t even a fish. It’s a crustacean.”

  “That may be the problem.” Patton leans back in his chair and closes his eyes.

  After Hunter leaves, Patton calls his mother.

  “Everything all right?” she asks. “I’m just getting ready for work.” He can hear her bustling around. He pictures their little house with her magazines and ashtrays strewn around. When he lived there, he was always picking up after her, but now the thought of her sweaters slung over chairs and her shoes kicked off in the front hall gives him a cozy feeling. Maybe he should go home for a while.

  “Things are great. I have a new manager,” Patton says.

  “I thought Hunter was going to manage you.”

  “You’re looking for your keys, aren’t you?”

  “You know me so well.”

  “Why don’t you leave them in the bowl I put by the front door?”

  “Sometimes, I forget,” she says with a girlish giggle. Patton hears her strike a match, and he knows she’s about to take a long drag on a Virginia Slim.

  “Turns out Hunter doesn’t know much about managing a musical career.”

  “I could have told you that,” she says.

  “Why didn’t you?’

  “I knew you’d figure it out. Anyway, loyalty is important, and you guys have that between you.”

  “Loyalty doesn’t get you a record contract.”

  “It’s not like you to be so cynical, honey.”

  “I played at the Bluebird.”

  “God almighty. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come.”

  “It was last minute. You’ll come next time. If there is a next time.”

  “Of course there’ll be a next time.”

  “I’ll come and see you, Momma. You got any time off next week?”

  “My usual Sundays and Mondays. But don’t you worry about me. Career comes first, baby, and don’t you forget it. You’re going to be big. Look, hon. I’m off. I’m going to be late.”

  “Someday, I’ll be able to take care of you. You won’t have to wait tables anymore,” Patton says.

  “And what would I do then?” she laughs.

  “Relax and hang out.”

  “You know what I always say.”

  “What, Mom?”

  “Leisure is overrated.”

  He’s smiling when he hangs up. He can guarantee that she’s never said that. Still, he can always count on his dizzy-headed mother for a certain amount of good common sense. Her belief in him has helped Patto
n believe in himself. He hopes he can do the same for kids of his own someday.

  Patton sits down with his guitar on his lap. He picks at a few sad songs, ending with “Whiskey Lullaby.”

  He knows he isn’t likely to meet another girl like Leslie, at least not anytime soon, and the idea of an endless succession of women who mean nothing to him is so bleak that he thinks it might be worth trying to forgive this one. He has to admit that no matter what she’s done, he’s still crazy for her. But he’s a fool. She was only after a story.

  A part of him wants to write a scathing song about her, but right now, he’s mostly feeling mellow. He plays “Northern Lights,” then tinkers with a new song about a golden girl and a broken heart. He doesn’t expect to stop playing for hours.

  Chapter 23

  Leslie spends another day meandering through Nashville. There are plenty of things to see in the city. Belle Meade Plantation, Fisk’s Stieglitz Collection, and Robert’s Western World. High culture to low. Leslie looks at it all but doesn’t see a thing. Her inner eye is stuck on Patton, and nothing else makes an impact on her.

  Eventually, her wandering takes her to the only place she wants to be—right on the street where he lives. She stands at the base of his front walk, afraid to move forward. Mournful music is drifting through his open windows. She can’t move closer, but she can’t walk away. These sad songs he’s playing give her a little hope. At least he’s not inside celebrating his good fortune at having gotten rid of her. She has known him such a short time, how is it possible to miss him so much? She knows one thing, for certain; she doesn’t want to be parted from him. And that’s a problem because he hates her guts.

  She stands there for a long time. Part of her wants him to see her, and the other part is afraid he will. She lingers in the dark until the music stops. A light wind tickles her face. She drinks in the sweet honeysuckle air. And then, she takes one last look at the ramshackle bungalow and reluctantly leaves.

  She walks all the way back to her hotel, through good neighborhoods and bad ones. She feels bulletproof. If three guys jumped out of the bushes and mugged her, it would be nothing more than she deserves.

  As her feet hit the pavement, one line repeats in her head: I have to fix this. I have to fix this. I have to fix this.

  Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a clue as to how to do it.

  By the time she wakes up the next morning, an idea has come to her. If writing is what got her into this trouble, then writing will have to get her out of it.

  Leslie takes her laptop and goes to Eighth & Roast near Douglas Corner. She needs to get out of the hotel. That’s where she did what she’d thought was her best work, but that work only put her in this position.

  New story. New venue. She spreads out on one of the large tables in the coffee bar. Pens. Paper. Pencils. Computer. Notecards.

  She is on her second cup of black coffee when she notices that other Eighth & Roast patrons are looking at her. She takes a compact out of her bag and checks to see if she has anything weird on her face or in her teeth. Nothing. Perfectly normal. No makeup slashed from eyebrow to chin. She catches the eye of a fat woman in a skirt that’s way too short for her. Her legs look like the legs of a healthy baby—all dimples and folds.

  “What?” Leslie finally says.

  “You assume I am staring at you,” the rotund woman says.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t you the girl who wrote that nasty-assed article about Patton King?”

  There are probably ten other people scattered around the tables and they all look up.

  Leslie thinks briefly about the possibility of denying that she’s the one who wrote the story, but remembers that the column had a stylized drawing of her face at the top. She sticks out her chin and lifts her humble chest. “Yes, I wrote it.”

  “Well, I thought it was mean-spirited,” the girl says. “The guy was just trying to get a little publicity. Nothing wrong with that.”

  A man gets up from his seat and walks over to Leslie. He’s a skinny fellow with a Fu Manchu mustache. “We don’t really need your kind here,” he says.

  Suddenly, Leslie feels like she’s entered a cartoon where all the characters are an exaggeration of what’s considered normal.

  “And what kind would that be?” Leslie asks. She almost adds “the mentally competent?”, but restrains herself.

  “Northerners who come down here to stir things up. You’re an unscrupulous opportunist, the very definition of a damned carpetbagger. I don’t care if Patton King is related to Elvis or not. He could be related to the Queen of Norway. Wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.”

  A girl who is standing at the counter waiting for her order turns. “Patton King is the real thing. So why don’t you take your snobby attitude and go back to wherever it is you came from.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Leslie says. “I intend to sit right here and write what I came to write. You can throw your dirty looks at me if you want, but I’m not leaving until I’m finished.”

  The barista speaks up. “Give the woman a break. She’s a customer here, same as you. Go back to throwing back your own caffeine and leave this lady alone.”

  “Thank you,” Leslie says.

  “Wouldn’t want you to think southern hospitality is overrated.”

  Leslie could leave. She could pack up all her things and slink away. She could, but she won’t. If she is a legitimate journalist, she must be prepared for the fallout from her stories. As her grandfather would say, she needs to have the courage of her convictions. It’s his voice she hears as she sits there writing.

  The process isn’t easy. Unlike the story that caused this uproar, the one she is writing now is not flowing. Every word is a struggle and none of them feel right. She chews down an entire Blackwing pencil. She buys them because she heard it’s the kind John Steinbeck used. But today she’s no Steinbeck. She’s just a hack trying to fix her mistake.

  Leslie wishes she could talk to her father. He would probably tell her not to worry about a story that will be used to line birdcages tomorrow. He’d use that expression, even though he knows as well as anyone that life is more indelible now that everything is saved forever in cyberspace. If she thinks too hard about that, she’ll freeze. She won’t be able to write a word. She has frightened herself with the power of her own words.

  Michael Stern would know just what to say, but he is in Zimbabwe reporting on more important things than up-and-coming country singers. Leslie’s father is doing a story on the arrest of war veterans for protesting against President Mugabe. And here she is in Nashville being reviled for a story she thought was her best. Still, that story was never going to change the whole world, only her world—and, in this case, not for the better.

  She thought she had done a service by exposing a fraud, but no one cared about that. The real story now was why she attacked the poor, hapless Patton King so viciously. The story has become the story.

  In spite of the looks thrown at Leslie from the hostile natives, she continues to sit, ass glued to the chair, and write. And she writes. And she writes.

  She writes that what she portrayed as a scam was no more than a cry for attention in a glutted industry. Could Patton King help it if he had the charm and the looks of a young Elvis Presley? Could he help it he was born with those same bedroom eyes and kissable lips? He couldn’t help being handsome and talented, and she should never have tried to punish him for it. His music isn’t about self-aggrandizement, it’s about moving an audience and giving them a good time. Perhaps it took him such a long time to be discovered because he stayed true to his art instead of compromising or pandering.

  Leslie writes about love. If she is the story, then so be it. She writes about how, despite her skepticism, when she got to know Patton King, she realized he was the real thing. She doesn’t care who he is related to. She doesn’t care if he has any relations at all. He’s a gifted and talented musician. He is not the joke Leslie’s first article implied.
Not only that, the man is kind. He is funny. In one night, he taught her the value of exhilaration, exuberance, and laughter.

  Each life, no matter how blessed, carries its share of loss and sadness. Patton King taught her that we will always need entertainment to lighten our load. Though the Fourth Estate is necessary and vital to democracy, there’s a lot to be said for stories that take people out of the muck and especially for tales that help them to soar among the clouds.

  This is a piece about a girl who thought she knew so much and ended up knowing very little. It’s about a major change in perspective. It’s about how a hard-nosed journalist fell in love with the next Elvis.

  Chapter 24

  Leslie wakes up to her last day in Nashville. The sun is streaming through the plate glass window. It was late when she finished her story and pressed Send. Afterward, she went back to the hotel and passed out. The first thing she does when she opens her eyes is grab the phone next to her bed to check her e-mail. There’s a message from Olive.

  “Talk about fluff. You’ve brought the puff piece to a new level. You are really something else. And the title—‘Rock & Write.’ Cute. Catchy. I have to say that the story gave me a few laughs and actually made me feel cheerful. You may have even convinced me to believe in love again. Ha. Ha. No. I wouldn’t go that far. You know how I resist that feel-good crap. But, I figure I got you into this mess, and the least I can do is help you get out of it, so I already ran the story. Besides, it’s good. It may be your best work.”