Country

by Danielle Steel

  “Now you look like a country music star’s lady”—He narrowed his eyes, looking at her spectacular body in the jumpsuit that fit her like a second skin—“and maybe a little like Elvis.” She laughed, and she actually wore it in Memphis, and wound up on YouTube, and Louise sent her a nasty text about it, and Stephanie didn’t care. She was happy.

  The concert in Memphis at the FedExForum was a huge success, and she stood backstage with Michael while they watched Sandy and Chase perform.

  “That’s quite a look, Mom,” Michael teased her about the jumpsuit, but he had to admit, she looked incredible in it, and not like the mother he remembered in denim skirts and flip-flops from his childhood. It was a whole new image. She felt like a new person, having kept the best parts of the old one, but she was free to be herself now and felt like she was growing every day. And she liked sharing it now with Michael. She had never expected him to be with Sandy, but she suited him to perfection. And when they had minor arguments because Sandy was stressed or tired, or nervous before a performance or after long nights in rehearsal with no sleep, or he was tired after working all week in Atlanta, the arguments always ended with one of them teasing the other out of it, joking about it, or with a kiss. Stephanie loved watching them together.

  “It’s quite a life, isn’t it, Mike?” Stephanie said as they stood backstage together. “They’re both so talented. It’s hard to imagine being able to do that. I always wished I could be a singer. I wish I had a voice like Sandy,” she said enviously, but with admiration for Sandy’s talent.

  “You could always take lessons and have some fun with it. You have a nice voice, Mom. I remember when you were in that choir in Marin.”

  “I’d feel silly doing it around Chase.” Michael understood that—he felt daunted by Sandy sometimes too. Her singing voice was so huge, it filled the room sometimes. Despite her talent, Sandy looked up to Michael too. They had achieved a good balance of mutual admiration and respect.

  The crowd went crazy at the concert in Memphis, Derek had been backstage with a new girlfriend, and they went back to Nashville late that night, with everyone asleep on the bus. And Michael went back to Atlanta on Sunday. The following week, Stephanie and Chase went to one of the playoff games with the Braves, and they took Sandy with them on a private plane. Sandy stayed in Atlanta for a few days with Michael, and Stephanie and Chase came back on the plane after the game. Chase was a big sports fan, and went to the World Series and the Super Bowl every year, and before they left, he had promised to take Michael with him.

  “Thank you for being so nice to my son,” she said as they flew back to Nashville. It was the end of September by then, and she’d been there for a month, and it was beginning to feel like she always had been. She had no plans to go home, and no reason to, and he made her so comfortable in his Nashville life. He was in the process of planning a tour in the spring to cover a dozen major cities. He hadn’t toured for a while, and his manager thought he should. And there was a promoter offering him a fortune to do it, although he had told Stephanie that tours like that were grueling, but it was part of his business.

  He told her about the business meetings he had coming up that week, as they flew home from Atlanta. It was a long list, and he said he hoped she’d come with him. He teased her sometimes that she had become his new partner. She went everywhere with him.

  “I don’t want you to get tired of having me around, or feel you have to take me to all your meetings,” she said when they talked about it.

  “I never get tired of having you here, Stevie.” She kissed him when he said it, and she never got tired of him either, but by the time she’d been there for six weeks, she realized that everything they did was about his work and his career, his recordings, his rehearsals, his photo shoots, his plans, his concert tour, his interviews. She didn’t mind it being all about him, and he included her in all his major decisions, but she felt she was losing her own self again. She was his shadow and nothing more. She had nothing to contribute other than her presence and her love, and no life of her own. Nothing to confirm to herself who she was.

  She tried to express it to him, but he didn’t hear her. He just kept telling her how important she was to him, and no woman in his life had ever meant as much to him, as they went from one meeting to the other. She was with him at everything he did, but he had the talent and the career, and she felt as if she were along for the ride. All she added to his life, as far as she was concerned, was the fact that she loved him. It didn’t feel like enough in exchange. She needed something more to do than helping him pick what shirt he wore to a photo shoot, or what outfit he wore on stage at a concert, or select what photograph worked best on the cover of a CD. She loved it, but it seemed like too little for her to do. And by mid-October she was starting to look distracted and unhappy.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” He had been sensing for weeks that something was bothering her, although she never complained to him. She felt like she was losing her identity again. She had been the boring wife and carpool mom of a lawyer for twenty-six years, and now she was the girlfriend of a big music star, wearing sequins. What had really changed? She tried to make his life better in countless ways, but always felt it wasn’t enough.

  “Maybe I need to go home for a while, and try to figure out who I am,” she said to Jean in one of their early morning conversations. She had been struggling with it since Bill’s death eight months before, and she still didn’t have the answers. She was wondering if she ever would. She had taken the wrong fork in the road years before when she gave up having a career when she married Bill, and now it was too late at her age. She had no special talent. There was no business she wanted to start. She had no job experience, so she had nothing to sell in the job market. All she could do was what she was doing for Chase, follow him around and look adoring. It didn’t feel like enough to her, even if he was happy. She explained it all to him again, and he looked worried.

  “Do you feel like I don’t respect you?” That was the last thing he wanted, because he did, a lot, but she was quick to shake her head.

  “God, no! I just feel like a bimbo, and I am losing myself in your life.”

  “You give me the strength and inspiration to do what I do, which is an incredible gift to me. I’d be nothing without you, Stevie. Or I’d be the half man I was before.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said emphatically. He had already written half a dozen songs to her and said they were his best songs. “You need to feel loved if you’re a creative person, to keep the juices flowing. I know you love me. That’s a first for me. I was limping along until you got here.” It made her feel important to him, and she knew she was, but she still felt she was shortchanging him and herself. She needed to offer more and bring more to the table than styling his photo shoots, loving him, and inspiring his songs. She wanted to be more than just his muse.

  “You deserve better than that, Chase.” He didn’t like the look in her eyes when she said it.

  “What are you saying?” His blood ran cold as he asked the question. He was afraid of the answer. What if she left him? He was as insecure as the next guy, despite his good looks and his stardom. And people were unpredictable. You could never predict human nature.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking I should go home for a while, and figure out who I am and how to contribute to your life in a meaningful way, without losing myself. Maybe I’ll never figure it out. Maybe I’m just meant to be someone standing on the sidelines, cheering. Maybe all I am is a natural fan, and no one in my own right. But I want to be more than that, Chase. I owe it to you and to myself. I need to find my place in the world and in your world. I need some time.” This was all so new to her.

  “You want to go home?” He looked heartbroken as she nodded sadly. She knew she had to. She was losing herself again in his identity, and couldn’t find her own.

  “For how long? A couple of weeks or forever?” He looked fr
ightened as he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. She didn’t want to promise something she couldn’t deliver. And she felt like she had a lot of soul-searching to do. She had been a wife and mother for more than half a lifetime. And now she had become a kind of professional girlfriend to a rock star. But who was she in all that? And what did she have to give? She needed to find the answer.

  “Shit, Stevie, I’m going to be lost without you. You can’t leave me now.” But he knew she could, and it sounded like she was going to.

  “I have to, or you’re just going to wind up with some dumb bimbo on your hands who helps you pick your shirts out, or listens to your concert tour plans. You deserve a whole person. And I want to be that person. I just have to figure out how to get there.”

  “Maybe you already are there. Sometimes we make life more complicated than it needs to be. Sometimes we already are the person we want to become, and we don’t know it.”

  “Then I have to find that out,” she said firmly, but she hated to leave him as much as he hated to see her go. She had never been as happy, but she also knew that something was missing in herself. She didn’t know what piece, but there was a hole in the puzzle and she wanted to find the pieces to fill it. Otherwise she would feel incomplete and empty forever. And she wanted to be a whole person for herself, and for him. Chase was already satisfied and happy with what he had—he wasn’t asking for more. But she was setting the bar high for herself and didn’t want to let herself or him down.

  “When are you thinking about going?” he asked her sadly, afraid of the answer. It was mid-October.

  “I don’t know. A couple of weeks maybe. Before Thanksgiving. The kids are coming home for the holiday anyway, so I have to go home by then.” She would have liked to invite him to come to San Francisco, but with Charlotte and Louise’s hostile attitudes, she didn’t want to expose him to that, so she couldn’t invite him, although she knew that Michael had invited Sandy, which she thought was brave of him.

  For the next two weeks, Stephanie could sense a kind of lingering sadness between them. Chase was unhappy that she was going back to San Francisco, and she didn’t like it either. She was much happier in Nashville with him, but she thought it was important for the long haul, so they didn’t run into trouble later, as she and Bill had. Jean pointed out in their regular conversations that he was a different person and thought she was crazy to leave him.

  “What if you lose him?”

  “Then it wasn’t meant to be,” Stephanie said quietly. She believed in what she was doing and that she needed to leave for a while. His life was so all-consuming that she had to get away to get some perspective about him, herself, and their life.

  “Stephanie, why are you doing this?” Jean challenged her. “Are you being self-destructive?” Anything was possible—maybe she thought she didn’t deserve him.

  “I don’t think so. I just don’t want to be Alyson or me the way I used to be, just a robot serving my master.” It was a hell of a thing to say about their friend, but Jean didn’t disagree with her, although she thought Stephanie was being a little harsh.

  “You were a hell of a good wife and mother—let’s not get carried away here. But you never thought about yourself, and neither did anyone else. Bill certainly didn’t. But Chase loves you, Steph. It’s not going to turn out like your marriage to Bill.”

  “Maybe the problem here is me, not them,” she said honestly. “I do it to myself. I do everything for everyone to make their lives easier and better and then I don’t know who I am, and they don’t care. I’m the full-service wife and mom, and now I’m the full-service girlfriend. Maybe that’s okay, but I need to decide that, not just do it.” Listening to her, Jean hated that Stephanie was putting a good relationship at risk, with a man who genuinely loved her, after being unhappy with Bill for all those years.

  “Don’t doubt yourself so much, Steph,” she said gently. “The man loves you. He’s not a fool. Maybe you should just trust his judgment and enjoy it.”

  “Maybe I’ll come to that conclusion too. But I’m not there yet.”

  “Don’t lose him. Be careful,” Jean said to her. “Guys like him come along once in a lifetime.” Stephanie knew it was true, but she felt like she had to earn him, and she hadn’t. Not yet. And maybe never, she admitted to herself.

  And Chase tried to talk her out of going before she left. “You’re just going to sit in that depressing empty house, trying to figure out what? You don’t need a fancy career to impress me, Steph. I don’t care about that. I’m not asking you to only be in my life and give up who you are. I love you as a person. Hell, come back to Nashville and go to medical school if you want. Do whatever you want. But please, please know that I love you and need you just the way you are. You don’t need to be more or less or different.” She could see in his eyes that it was true, and when they made love the night before she left, it was bittersweet and they both cried.

  “Maybe I’m scared to be dependent on you,” she admitted as they lay in each other’s arms and talked afterward. “What if you die, or leave me? Then what would I do? I’d be no one again and have lost my whole identity, if my identity is you.”

  “So you’re leaving me instead? Isn’t that a little crazy?”

  “Maybe I am a little crazy,” she said with a sad smile. But she wasn’t, and he knew it. She was looking for something, and striving to be better, and above all to be herself. He respected that about her, but he didn’t need it for himself. He loved her just as she was. He thought she was terrific and a lot more whole than she gave herself credit for. “Just give me some time to make some sense of all this,” she whispered as they drifted off to sleep.

  “You can have all the time you want. Just come back to me, Stevie…that’s all I want…come back…soon…” he said as he reached for her, and they both fell asleep.

  —

  Leaving her at the Nashville airport the next day was agony for them both. She had been there for two months, and his life in Nashville was part of her now, just as he was. She felt as though she were ripping out a piece of her heart when he kissed her and they said goodbye, and she could see that he was crying when he walked out of the airport. And tears were streaming down her cheeks when she went through security. She felt crazy and stupid now for what she was doing, but in calmer moments it seemed right. She needed to be away from him to find herself.

  And as the plane took off on the runway, she watched Nashville shrink below her, and thought of him with Frank and George, and Sandy. She felt like she was leaving home, and had no idea when she’d be back again, if ever.

  Chapter 23

  Stephanie was as miserable in San Francisco as Chase had predicted she would be. The weather was terrible—it rained for two weeks straight when she got back. The house was depressing and felt dead around her, in spite of the changes she had made. And there were still subtle signs of Bill everywhere. She couldn’t exorcise him from the house, or her head. She spent hours walking on the beach, trying to understand what had gone wrong with their marriage. Was she at fault? Was he? Had they simply outgrown each other? She was staring out to sea in the fog one day, thinking about it, when a funny little dog walked up to her and sat down on the sand, staring at her. He had fluff on his head and a bushy tail, a long spotted hairless body that looked like polka dots, and a pointed face. He looked like a joke someone had assembled out of random parts. He was small, and appeared to be part miniature dachshund and part Chihuahua, with a dash of Yorkie, and sat looking at her as though he expected her to do something.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said finally. “I can’t figure my own life out.” He cocked his head to one side, wagged his tail, and barked at her. His body was dark and spotted with no fur. She wondered if it was a skin problem from poor diet. His ears, the pouf on his head, and the one on his tail were blond and looked like a bad bleach job. “Has anyone ever told you how ridiculous you look?” she said to him, and he barked at her again and th
en followed her when she resumed her walk down the beach. She noticed that he had no collar and tags. He appeared to be a stray, but she didn’t want to take him home in case he was lost and someone came back for him. And he gave her a heartbreaking stare as she got in her car. He was still sitting there, whining softly as she drove away, feeling guilty for leaving him at the beach.

  She told Chase about him that night when he called her. They still spoke every day, and she hated how sad he sounded. She’d been home for two weeks and hadn’t found any miraculous answers to her questions about her life.

  “Maybe you should rescue him,” Chase suggested. “He sounds too small to just abandon out there at the beach, and a car could hit him.”

  “I felt terrible when I left him, but I was afraid someone would come back for him and then they wouldn’t find him. Maybe I’ll look for him tomorrow.” She had been going for long walks every day, but she only got more and more depressed, and she felt lost now and missed Chase terribly. She was even avoiding Jean now, who kept telling her she was insane to have left Chase in Nashville, and that he loved her. She loved him too, but she wanted to be more to him than she currently had to offer.

  Chase told her before he hung up that she could take the dog to the SPCA or keep him and put signs up that she had him, with her phone number, so someone could reach her. And then he told her again how much he loved her. And no matter what she did now, or said to herself, she felt unworthy. Bill had criticized her for years, and now her daughters did at every opportunity, and she was feeling worse about herself instead of better. Maybe they were right.