by LuAnn McLane
Lilly snickers.
“Okay, so Toby can’t act.” Carrie pauses and looks at me in the mirror. “You’re wondering what my little speech has to do with you, aren’t ya?”
Knowing it wouldn’t do any good to deny it, I nod my head. “Sorta.”
Carrie puts her hands on my shoulders and says, “You’ve got it in ya, Macy. You just don’t know it.”
“I’ve got what in me?”
“The ability to break out. Do exciting things. Go places.”
A little shiver goes down my spine. I’m about to ask her how or why she thinks this when Lilly says, “I’m tellin’ ya she can read your face. It’s spooky.”
“Oh stop, Lilly. I’m just giving Macy a little advice.”
Lilly leans closer to me and says in a stage whisper, “I’m telling ya . . . spooky.” When she wiggles her fingers in the air, Carrie laughs. I’m not sure if they’re kidding or serious and I suspect a bit of both.
I’m about to ask Carrie a few more questions when Tammy comes rushing into the room. “Done! Man-oh-man, am I ever ready for some Jack’s Bar-B-Que. Y’all ready? Carrie, can you break away and join us?”
“No, I’m heading over to Greystone Record Studios to do makeup for a music video. I’d beg off but I’ve been moonlighting for them on occasion since they’ve been shorthanded,” she explains, and then sort of frowns at me. “Hey . . . Macy, I know they’re in need of a hair stylist too. Would you want me to put in a good word for you?”
“Whoa now, wait a doggone minute,” Tammy says. “You’re beating me to the punch. I was gonna ask Macy to fill in for Cindy while she’s on maternity leave.”
Carrie shrugs. “You’re gonna be in the studio working on a new CD, right?”
“Yeah . . . but I have a few gigs.”
“Then she could do both.”
Lilly shakes her head. “Do you think they’ve forgotten you’re standing right here in the room?”
I kind of chuckle but my brain is trying to process the fact that I’m about to be offered a job by Tammy Turner and Greystone Records.
Tammy ponders this for a moment. “I suppose she could.” She turns around to face me. “Well, Macy, whad’ya say?”
8
Never Been Kissed
My mouth opens but of course no words come out. Realizing that I look as if I’m trying to catch flies I snap my jaw shut but then stand there blinking like a dork. “Um . . .” is all I manage, so I swallow, clear my throat, and then try again. “I don’t know that I’m qualified.”
With a grin Tammy reaches up and fluffs her hair. “I’ve already received tons of compliments on my flirty new do, Macy. I know your shop is small but I really don’t think that being qualified is an issue. Truth be known, you would be better at the traditional styles that most of us want anyway rather than some of the off-the-wall cuts from the high-end stylists sent our way. Need I remind you of my recent disaster?” She raises her eyebrows at me and I try to grin but it comes off as more of a lip tremble. “But look,” she says gently, “I know this is being thrown at you from out of left field. You don’t have to give us an answer right now. Think on it.”
“Okay, thanks. I will,” I tell her while a voice in my head is screaming that I should jump all over this opportunity. I suddenly remember what Carrie had just preached to me and shoot her a questioning is-this-what-you-meant-before look. Her answer is a slight shrug.
Lilly gives me a nudge with her elbow. “I know. Frustrating. She gives you just enough information to confuse the hell outta ya.”
“What are y’all yappin’ about? You know how I hate bein’ outta the loop,” Tammy complains, but then nods. “Oh I get it. Did Carrie give you one of her famous face readings?”
“I don’t read faces,” Carrie insists.
“Heck if she doesn’t,” Tammy argues. “It’s uncanny.” She snaps her fingers. “Had me pegged right off the bat.”
Carrie sighs and looks at me. “I get . . . I don’t know . . . vibes. What you read into it is your decision.” She comes over and gives me a hug. “I hope we didn’t overwhelm you, Macy. Think it over and I promise I’ll put in a good word if you’re interested. I can’t guarantee the job but I do pull some weight.”
“Thanks, Carrie. It was very nice to meet you.”
She squeezes my shoulders. “Same here. Good luck in whatever you decide, sugar.”
“Tootles, Carrie,” Tammy calls over her shoulder as she breezes out the door. With two index fingers pointed in the air she says, “Look out, Jack’s! Here we come!”
Lilly and I follow her out the door and are quickly joined by the bodyguards. I smile and Boone almost smiles back until he remembers to have his badass bodyguard face on. He holds the heavy front door open with ease but instead of the big tour bus, there’s a black SUV waiting to whisk us over to the restaurant.
“Everybody else already over there?” Lilly asks as we slide across the cool leather bench seat.
Tammy nods. “Ready and waiting to chow down. My trainer’s gonna have a fit especially since we have the music video shoot coming up, but I’m gonna splurge and eat whatever I want today.”
Lilly gives me a look. “She kills me. Only fluctuated five pounds up and down easy as pie. All I’ll have to do is smell the barbeque and I’ll pack on a couple of pounds.”
“I hear ya.” I give Lilly a knuckle bump.
“Oh shut up.” Tammy flips her phone shut and turns around in the seat to face us. “Quit your complainin’. You two are cute as Christmas!”
I have to smile at Tammy’s comment. I can’t believe how down-to-earth she is. Of course I’m having trouble believing any of this is truly happening.
But it is.
And then ohmigod, I remember that Luke is on his way to join us before driving me back to Hootertown.
“You thinkin’ about Luke?” Lilly asks after Tammy turns around to answer her phone.
“How’d you guess?”
“You had a dreamy yet slightly panicked look on your face. Like this.” She imitates my expression.
“Good Lord.”
Lilly pats my leg. “Okay, not quite that bad,” she admits. “But believe me, I know where you’re coming from.”
I’m guessing she’s referring to Keith Connor, the drummer, but when she doesn’t elaborate I don’t have the nerve to ask her. Even though it feels as if I’ve known Lilly for a long time I remind myself that I’m not really a part of this crew.
But I could be.
That thought hits me like a ton of bricks. Would I ever have the courage to uproot myself and leave Hootertown for Nashville? Could I leave the Cut & Curl, my daddy, my friends and start a whole new life amongst strangers?
Lilly taps her knee against mine. “Don’t worry. You’ll handle this thing with Luke,” she says, mistaking my new panic attack for more Luke anxiety. “Are you wishin’ Tammy had kept her nose out of it?” She lowers her voice an octave and continues. “Or are you secretly glad?”
I toy with the edge of my shirt before answering. “Both, I guess.”
Lilly sighs. “It’s scary to put your heart on the line, isn’t it?”
“Oh . . . yeah.” I wonder again if she’s referring to her own love life but before I decide once again whether or not to go there, we turn onto lower Broadway, better known as Honky-Tonk Highway. Even though it’s afternoon, there are wannabes performing in the hole-in-the-wall bars. My personal favorite is Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge that stands out since it’s painted purple. Looking out the tinted window, I notice that it’s mostly tourists pointing cameras in all directions but when the sun goes down, the neon lights will flash and flicker, bringing Nashville alive with music and nightlife.
“There’s nothing quite like this place, is there?” Lilly comments.
“You got that right,” I agree with a nod. “I usually visit here a few times during the summer but with the wedding and all I haven’t gotten the opportunity. I had forgotten how much I love this town.”
“So Hootertown’s only about an hour away?”
“Give or take depending on traffic.”
“Then Luke should be arriving soon,” Lilly points out with a glance down at her watch.
Holy cow, she’s right. My heart skips a beat until I remind myself that Luke is doing this as a friend and I should keep this all in perspective.
“Here we are, girls!” Tammy announces when she finally snaps her phone shut. “I don’t know about y’all but I’m famished. Pulled-pork sandwich here I come.”
Boone comes around and opens the door for us. I blink in the sunlight as he politely offers his huge hand in assistance from the SUV that’s pretty high up from the ground for a short person such as me. “Thanks,” I tell him, and this time he forgets and smiles before quickly reverting back to badass bodyguard mode.
After stepping down to the sidewalk I look up at the JACK’S BAR-B-QUE sign and have to grin. When Jack lost his lease in a building that was torn down for the Hard Rock Café, he landed this amazing location in the heart of lower Broadway between the Ryman, Tootsie’s, and the Ernest Tub Record Shop. The garish neon sign sporting flying pigs was Jack’s answer to the controversial monster PLANET HOLLYWOOD sign erected without city council permission. I find it amusing that Planet Hollywood has since closed its doors but the flying pigs over Broadway remain.
“I’d love to eat out on the back patio,” Tammy comments as we’re being ushered upstairs to the private Nashville room.
“I know, Tammy, but you’d never get to eat a bite. All you’d be doin’ is signing autographs.”
She pulls a face. “I know. But it’s such a pretty day and you never know who we might see goin’ into the back-stage entrance to the Ryman.”
As we walk up the steps, Lilly curves her hand over her mouth but says loud enough for Tammy to hear, “She’s the biggest autograph hound ever.”
“Nuh-uh.” I look over at Tammy to see if Lilly’s pulling my chain.
With a grin she raises a clenched fist in the air. “I will get Toby Keith if it’s the last thing I do.”
“She means it,” Lilly says. “I once saw her chase after Dierks Bentley like a crazed groupie.”
“He’s cute as a button. All that curly hair . . . !” Tammy says with a sigh as if that explains everything. “What I really love though is getting the legends like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Believe me, I still get starstruck at the CMA awards. Seriously, I have a little autograph book that I carry around with me. Remind me to show it to you.”
“So, did you get Dierks Bentley?”
“No! He slipped through my fingers,” she complains with a laugh.
“Did he know that it was you—you know, Tammy Turner chasing after him?” I ask as we enter the Nashville room that has a cool view of Broadway. The smoky aroma of ribs and pulled pork makes my stomach rumble.
“No! See, we were heading into, I don’t know, Star-bucks or something.”
She looks at Lilly, who nods. “Sam needed some caffeine.”
“I spotted him out of the corner of my eye. I turned to Lilly and Sam, who I knew would understand, and said, ‘Hot damn, that was Dierks Bentley!’ And we were off like three crazy fans!”
“Um . . . make that two crazy fans. I was roped into the whole thing by you and Sam just like I usually am.” Lilly groans as if reliving the memory. “We were in high heels, for goodness’s sake. I almost broke a doggone ankle. Sam is a huge fan as well. Oh yeah and did I mention crazy too? She slipped off her heels and sprinted down the street with Tammy huffin’ and puffin’ after her.”
“I was not huffin’ and puffin’. I do believe that was your own heavy breathing you’re recalling.”
I have to laugh as they continue to argue. I’m so entertained by their banter that I don’t immediately realize Luke has already arrived until he stands up from where he’s seated at the long table near the rear of the room. My heart pounds as he walks my way.
“Wow,” Lilly whispers in my ear. “Those blue eyes are killer.”
Thank goodness I swallow the nervous giggle that bubbles up in my throat—a horrible habit that’s sometimes difficult to explain because it tends to happen at totally inappropriate times. Such as now. It bubbles up again, so I try to disguise it by clearing my throat, making for a weird low-pitched giggle/clear that thankfully everyone chooses to ignore except for Lilly. When she reaches over and discreetly squeezes my hand, her small gesture actually helps to calm my giggle attack even though the cat’s still got my tongue.
Luckily Tammy takes control and extends her hand to Luke. “Hey there, you must be Luke. Tammy Turner. Nice to meet ya.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Turner,” Luke says, and gives her what I know is a firm handshake. “I’m a big fan of yours.”
“Why thank you, Luke. You can call me Tammy. Oh, and this is my friend and backup singer, Lilly Mason.”
“Nice to meet you too, Lilly. I do believe I’ve met your sister, Sam.”
Lilly smiles. “Once you’ve met her you’re not likely to forget her,” she announces loud enough for Sam to hear. “I mean that fondly of course.”
I look over and see Sam mouth, Bite me at Lilly. If Luke notices, which I’m pretty sure he does, he politely ignores it.
“I understand. I’ve got a sister like that too,” Luke jokes to Lilly, but loud enough for Sam to hear. He grins at me and while other men might have found this unusual situation with celebrities intimidating, he seems perfectly at ease. I remind myself that Luke is pretty successful in his own right and I feel a sense of pride. But it also reinforces the fact that although Luke and I might have grown up in the same town, he is polished and educated in a manner in which I’m not. He’s come back to Hootertown while I’ve never been away. While he’s thinking of taking a high-profile position at a Division I school, I’ve never even stepped on a college campus . . . unless you count watching football.
“Some women are just unforgettable,” Luke adds.
“You mean that fondly too, right?” I finally manage to interject in a fairly normal tone, thank goodness. Wait, he wasn’t referring to me with that comment, was he?
“Of course,” he replies, and for a wild moment I feel as if he’s reading my inner thoughts. When Luke’s grin widens to a smile, a warm feeling slides down my spine but then I tell myself this isn’t a Mel Gibson movie where he knows what I’m thinking. He’s merely teasing like always. Right?
“I’m only joking, Macy,” Luke says, freaking me out a little bit again, but then I guess he mistook my silent ponderings for getting ticked off at his teasing manner. I need to back off my continual wishful thinking and stop second-guessing everything he does so that I can simply enjoy his company. After all, an amazing day like this might never come my way again.
“Everybody help yourself,” Tammy announces when trays of food start arriving. “We’re getting a little bit of everything and I said to keep the barbeque comin’.”
After Tammy waves her hand in a small circle over her head the crew cheers and noisily shoots chairs back from their tables. When Luke and I hang back from the rush to the buffet I put my hand on his arm and say, “I’m sorry you got roped into this, Luke. I’m sure you’re tired after last night, and a long drive to Nashville was the last thing you wanted to do.”
Luke looks at me long enough for my defiant won’t-listen-to-my-head heart to go pitter-patter. “And maybe you don’t know what I want as well as you think you do,” he teases in a lighthearted tone, but there’s something in those blue eyes of his that gives me pause. But when I’m hoping he’ll say more we’re suddenly at the buffet table, and my typical scared-to-go-for-it mode kicks into high gear.
“Have you tried the ribs?” Luke asks as we eat and chat with the band and crew. He cuts one from his slab and puts it on my plate. “I love the sauce. We’ll have to buy a couple of bottles as we leave. My favorite is the Tennessee Original,” he says, holding up the bottle. “How about you?”
Luke nods. “Yeah . . . I like that one too. I believe it’s called the Kansas City-style. We’ll get a bottle of that one, as well. Your dad would like the Texas Sweet Hot.”
“Yeah, he would. That man puts hot sauce on everything. Even his scrambled eggs.”
Luke laughs. “Yeah, I remember that from fishing with him at his cabin. We’ll pick him up a bottle of the hot stuff.”
“Good idea,” I tell him, and it suddenly reminds me again of how much we’ve felt like a couple over the last few months while planning Jamie Lee’s wedding except, you know, that we’ve never had sex . . . or have even kissed for that matter. Mercy . . . that last thought causes an image of us in a lip-lock, causing me to choke on my sweet tea.
“You okay?” Luke asks with a slight frown. “Go down the wrong pipe?”
With my hand to my chest and my eyes watering, I nod. Lord, did I swallow the slice of lemon?
“You need a pat on the back?”
No, I need my head examined. “I’m . . . okay,” I manage. Lilly, who is sitting next to me, doesn’t help when she whispers in my ear, “I’d choke on my tea too if he were sittin’ next to me.” She bumps my knee with hers, reminding me of something Jamie Lee might do, causing me to choke and laugh at the same time. Luke, who obviously thinks I’m going into some kind of seizure, gently pats me on the back.
“Sorry,” Lilly apologizes with a straight face, but the laughter in her eyes says otherwise. Unable to speak I bump her knee back letting her know I’m on to her tactics.