His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas

by Theodora Taylor

  Grandma and I spend the rest of the night talking. For dinner we eat cold chicken leftovers from the last Sunday Dinner of the year. Just two days ago, even though it feels like years have passed. But it’s still good, still the perfect meal for two women who don’t feel like cooking.

  After dinner, we talk some more. About Grandma’s life, about my mother, and about my grandma’s theory that Valerie had gotten too much of her side of the family, and not enough of Paw Paw’s, which was made up of good factory workers who worked faithfully at their jobs until they retired.

  By the time I dragged myself to my room, I’d rethought everything I knew about my grandmother. Everything I knew about my family. I’d spent so much time obsessing over Beau, the last living symbol of the father who would never love or so much as acknowledge his half-black daughter, that I hadn’t learned enough about those who were closest to me.

  But Grandma, I discovered that night and over the next few weeks, had a rich history. One she was suddenly willing to share with me. Maybe because the Sunday Dinner was on hiatus until the spring. Maybe because she knew, like only the best grandmother in the entire world could, that I needed this kind of consoling, stories to fill up all the empty spaces Colin had left behind. Colin and my half-brother.

  I guess I had been wrong about not being able to bear life pretending I was my nephew or niece’s nanny when I was really their aunt. Finally having my brother in my life, even without him knowing who I really was, had been better than this. And I feel his absence, along with Josie’s, like a big gaping hole in my heart.

  But if all the stories my grandma tells me over those next few weeks don’t quite fill that hole, they do fill me up with songs.

  Suddenly, instead of producing one or two halfway decent songs a month, I’m producing at least one a day. All sorts of songs. First love songs, break up songs, fuck ‘em songs, life songs. I can’t write them down in my journal fast enough.

  At first I do what I used to. Take my guitar down to the creek every time I feel inspired, even if it’s in the middle of the night. But then one day I get inspired when it’s raining, so I use Colin’s trick of closing my eyes and work inside.

  That day, my grandma acts like I’ve done something unforgivable to her when I come out of my room for lunch.

  “All this time, you been hiding your light underneath a bush. You better not be going down to that creek no more, Best Grandbaby.”

  So I don’t. Instead I practice in my room, and try not to get embarrassed when my grandma compliments me.

  “You should take all those songs of yours into Nashville. Let somebody get them on the radio,” she says on Christmas night.

  I tell her the truth, that I had dreamed of doing just that in my secret heart, but Colin would never let it happen. Especially not now.

  “Even if I gave him my chicken for free?” my grandma asks.

  I smile, unable to love her more in that moment. “That would definitely sway me, but probably not Colin.”

  My grandma tuts. “Men can be stubborn. They sure can.” She then looks at the calendar. “Has it been half a month of Sundays yet? You two can get this all figured out when you go see him. Them songs of yours belong on the radio.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her as much as I love her half a month of Sundays advice, I’m not going anywhere near Colin. The look on his face as he got into his truck told me all I needed to know about the likelihood of him ever agreeing to see me again. And I’m not nearly as much of a psycho as he and Beau accused me of being. I have no desire to play a game of restraining order chicken with either of them.

  A box with all my things arrived in the mail a few days ago. No note. And the shelter’s address was on the return label, like Josie was trying to tell me to forget their home address. Putting all my things back into my room, like I’d never left my grandma’s house at all, told me just as loudly as anything that I’d messed up everything beyond repair. And there was no going back.

  But it seems to make my grandma happy to talk about my possible reunion with Colin, so I just say, “Not yet, Grandma.” Which is the truth.

  That night in my room, thoughts of Colin keep me from falling asleep. That and my uncertain future. The truth is, I have no idea what I should do with myself now. I don’t think I can go back to being a home aide. My heart was never fully in it, and it had just been a way to make ends meet.

  But I saved up a lot of money during my months with Josie and Beau, and now that I was no longer planning to use that money for a demo…

  I suppose I should look into going to college or something, I think to myself. Look into training for another profession, since songwriting isn’t going to work out.

  At least not in Nashville. I could go to L.A., like my mother. Try to pursue success in a genre outside country music.

  The thought of moving to L.A. unsettles me though. I don’t like the idea of not being a few hours drive from my grandma. What if she needed me? What if…

  A surge of anger suddenly breaks through all the self-hate I’ve been feeling since what happened with Beau and Colin. My grandma’s right. I’ve been hiding my light for a really long time. And now it seems a little messed up that Colin gets to control what happens to my songs, make sure no one ever hears them. Like he still possesses me, even though he threw me away like a bag of trash back in Alabama.

  A dangerous thought comes into my head and I know then that my grandmother is right. I’m not nearly as boring as she or I thought I was.

  It takes about an hour of fiddling with the mic Colin sent me way back when our relationship was still sort of innocent, then figuring out the camera on my laptop, and last but not least, setting up an account on a popular site for uploading videos you want the world to see. But soon enough, I’m ready.

  And maybe because no one’s actually looking at me, my voice doesn’t shake as I sing the first line of the first song I wrote after moving back into my grandma’s house.

  “I’m an asshole. I’m an asshole. I’m an ass-hoooole,” I croon into the mic, then I grin and sing, “It’s a family curse.”

  A couple of hours later I’ve uploaded twelve songs, including the three I wrote before I went on my writing binge, onto the video site. My voice is raw, as are my emotions. But my mind… it’s finally at peace.

  Afterwards, I switch off the computer, sure I’ll never look at the site again. So many people upload videos there everyday, I can’t imagine anyone will ever bother with mine. But the point is that they’re there. My songs now have a place to live. Somewhere Colin can’t touch them.

  And it only kind of hurts when I glance at the time and date on my computer screen and realize it’s now the day after Christmas—the day of Beau and Josie’s wedding. I hope they’re happy now, without the shadow of what I kept from them hanging over their special day.

  Despite that realization, the peaceful feeling stays with me, and the sleep that’s mostly been dodging me for the past few weeks suddenly comes crashing down on my shoulders as I crawl into bed. Next month, I decide. Next month, I’ll go to the community college and get registered for something. Start looking for a new job, something easy enough that I can do it while taking classes.

  But tonight, I’m going to sleep, because it’s something I finally feel like I deserve.

  Chapter 38

  “Has it been half a month of Sundays yet?” my grandma asks me as I leave out the front door the month after Beau and Josie’s wedding. Despite the temperature, she’s sitting out on the porch. She’s been doing this more and more lately, sitting on the porch, still as a wood dove, as she stares off into the tree-lined horizon.

  She misses the Sunday Dinners, I can tell. And she seems sad because she doesn’t have much to do. Seriously, I can’t wait for it to be spring again. Not just because I miss the fried chicken, but because she has less energy without it. Like a Duracell Rabbit that’s lost its drum and can’t be bothered to turn itself on without anything to beat.

  �
��I’ll be back in about an hour or two,” I tell her, ignoring her question. I drop a kiss on her papery brown cheek. “I’m just going over to the community college for a little bit.”

  “What you want with the community college?” she asks my back. “I thought you was supposed to be focusing on your music.”

  “Music won’t pay our bills, Grandma,” I answer without turning around.

  “It would if you got it on the radio!”

  This time I don’t answer. I just get in the car, because I know it’ll only open up a whole can of back and forth talk if I do. Grandma’s not one to let a subject rest if she hasn’t had the last word. There were a couple of reasons my mother took a job all the way down in Alabama. One was the opportunity to make better money than she would have here. The other was just plain ol’ wanting to get away from Grandma, who like all grandmas, was a different story to her daughter than she was to her grandbaby.

  But as it turns out, she might have a point about community college. I know from the moment I step out of the car that I don’t belong here. I feel no excitement as I walk through the halls, crowded with students in hoodies and jeans, laughing and talking about plans for the weekend. Plans that involve words like “kegger” and “bar” and “wasted.”

  Strange, I hadn’t felt all that old before I stepped onto this campus. I’d thought it would be like an episode of that sitcom, Community… zany and fun. But walking down the hall toward the registrar’s office, I just feel washed up. And sad.

  I don’t want to do this. College is a fine choice for a lot of people, but my heart just isn’t in it. It feels like another delay. Another pause button hit in a lifetime spent not living my dreams.

  But then I think of my mother, who’d spent nearly her whole life and all of mine chasing after things she could never have. Like my already married father, then country music fame, then who knows what in L.A, before she finally settled on being a backup singer, most famous for being the star of a documentary about backup singers who’d settled for being backup singers.

  I don’t want to be like that.

  I get into the long line in front of the registrar’s office, ignoring the sad country guitar twanging in the back of my head.

  “You ain’t going to write that down?”

  Ugh! It’s Colin again. I’ve now become used to the fact that it’s his voice I hear in my head whenever I’m struggling with my music, but I can’t say it’s ever going to be anything less than completely unsettling.

  “Use it or lose it. Nice sad song like that, you don’t want to lose it. Better get out your journal, Blue.”

  I try to ignore him.

  “You know you could have done this on the computer,” Colin’s voice points out. “Nobody does it this way anymore.”

  That’s not true. There are like twenty plus students in front of me, so obviously I’m not the only one who decided to show up in person. Plus, this was the last day to register for classes for the winter semester, so it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.

  “Nobody but the idiots who missed the online registration deadline because they’re too busy smoking weed and the senior citizens who don’t like to be bothered with technology.”

  I frown, noticing an awful lot of the people in the line either look like they’ve stepped out of a stoner comedy or have gray hair.

  And Colin’s voice inside my head turns suspicious. “You’re not a stoner or a senior citizen, so why didn’t you register for classes before the deadline? If you’re sure this is the road you ought to be taking, why’d you put it off so long?”

  “Shut up,” I hiss. “Just let me be.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “And I’m just saying get out of my head!”

  Colin’s voice goes quiet, just in time for me to notice there are a number of people in line now looking at me. The guy standing behind me, in a beanie reeking of weed, takes a visible step back, like I’m the one with a questionable mental state.

  Luckily I’m saved by the sound of my phone going off in my purse.

  “Hello?” I say without even checking the number. I don’t care who it is. I’m happy to talk with anyone who will save me from the embarrassment of getting caught talking to myself.

  “Hello, is this Kyra Goode?” a woman asks on the other side of the line.

  “Yes, this is her,” I answer carefully, wondering who wants to know. The voice is unfamiliar. Not Southern, and not quite as rehearsed as a telemarketer’s.

  “The one who posted the videos of herself singing online a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes,” I answer. A few alarm bells start going off as I ask, “How did you get this number?”

  “Believe me, it took some digging,” she grumbles. “You don’t exactly have a large online footprint, and I had to try a couple of other numbers before this one. Please hold for Wyatt LaGrange.”

  “Wyatt LaGrange?” I repeat. “Like the head of Stone River Records, Wyatt LaGrange?”

  “Yes, that Wyatt LaGrange.” The woman on the other side of the line answers. She sounds less annoyed and more amused now. “Please hold.”

  “Okay,” I agree, despite being real confused. Stone River is Colin’s label. Why would they be calling me? Is it about the videos I posted online? Maybe they’re calling to tell me to take them down on Colin’s behalf.

  “Kyra Goode, you are one hard woman to track down!” a big voice booms on the other side of the line before I can get to worrying too much. “Who posts videos online when she doesn’t even have a Facebook account so people can find her if they want to talk? What kind of aspiring singer songwriter are you?”

  “Ah… I’m not a singer songwriter,” I tell him. “Just a songwriter, and I didn’t think anybody would actually look at those videos. I was just putting them up there to put them someplace.”

  “To put them someplace,” he repeats, like I’m speaking an alien language. “So let me get this straight. Colin Fairgood announces to everybody that he’s dating you. Then a few weeks later, you post videos of you singing, and you don’t expect anybody to take notice? Do you have any idea how many hits you have on that site?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Again, I wasn’t really looking to do anything official when I posted those.”

  “Oh, Kyra, I was looking so forward to this call, but now I got a headache. So what are you telling me? You’re just running around throwing up your work without a plan?”

  Actually that is exactly what I’ve been doing, but when he puts it that way, it makes me feel like an idiot.

  “I didn’t think it was possible for those songs to ever get published.”

  “Why not?” he asks.

  “Because...”

  I look around and then step out of line because I don’t want the other people to hear what I have to say next.

  “I’m Colin Fairgood’s ex-girlfriend now, and it ended… bad,” I say in a low voice when I’m out of earshot. “Like really bad, and it was all my fault. There’s no way he’s going to let you or any other country label do business with me.”

  A moment of silence. Then Wyatt LaGrange bursts out laughing, like I’ve just told the funniest joke in the world. When he’s finally done cracking up, he says, “Darlin, Colin Fairgood came in here two days ago and announced that not only was he not going to re-up his contract with the label that put him on the map, but that he was taking his new album over to Big Hill Records, because he’d just signed a deal for his own imprint with Geoff Latham.”

  “He did that?” I say. Both surprised Colin had managed to produce a new album and impressed he’d gone ahead with his dream to start his own imprint.

  “Yes, he did,” Wyatt answers, mistaking my surprise for same-mindedness. “So believe me when I say I am extremely interested in working with somebody on his shit list right now. Now please tell me you don’t already have a publishing deal.”

  “I—I don’t,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I was just in line to register for community college.�
�

  “Well, you can step out of that line, sweetheart, because I’m going to want to meet with you in Nashville as soon as possible.”

  A PUBLISHING DEAL. I can’t believe it! I drive home faster than Burt Reynolds in Cannonball Run, still unable to wrap my head around the opportunity that just fell out of the sky. Stone River Records wants to sign me to a publishing deal! Wyatt LaGrange even says he’ll have the papers ready for me when I meet with him on Monday and a list of the artists he wants me to work with to write more songs.

  At the thought of signing my first official publishing contract, I remember what Colin said to me back when I was supposed to have a meeting with Geoff Latham. About not signing anything until I let him look the contract over first, on account of there being no such thing as a label that wouldn’t try to screw a new kid for rights.

  Then I have to swallow down a lump of regret, because I’m sad this opportunity is coming out of Wyatt LaGrange wanting to get back at Colin. And, of course, Colin was probably right about me needing somebody to look over the paperwork before I sign anything.

  Finding a lawyer is definitely something I’m going to have to talk over with Bernice, but meanwhile, I have a publishing deal in the making. An actual publishing deal! I still can’t believe it.

  I get home in record time, tires kicking up the dirt outside our cabin. I jump out of the car without even bothering to cut the engine and run up to Grandma, who’s sleeping on the porch swing.

  I’ve told her before about falling asleep in this cold, but I’m too happy to chide her about it today. I just shake her, saying, “Grandma, wake up! My songs are going to be on the radio! All your praying over it worked.”

  Grandma’s eyes stay closed, and I shake her again. “C’mon, Grandma, that celebration lunch at Red Lobster ain’t going to eat itself.”

  My grandma loves Red Lobster, and I expect this to wake her up good as a bucket of ice water.

  But her eyes stay closed.