Twang

by Julie L. Cannon

  What I craved, without being conscious of it, was the type of intimate friend you could pour your heart and soul out to, with unflinching honesty, without fear. I refuse to blame any holes in our friendship on Roy Durden. The problem lay with me. It was simply because of my own preconceived notions that I didn’t expose my past to him. I wanted to make sure he kept me up on a pedestal.

  I feel schizophrenic now when I say that at the same time I wanted to unburden myself to Roy, I adored the fact that he asked me no penetrating questions. He never once mentioned my faux friend, Lisa, the one I presumably wrote “Honky-Tonk Tomcat” about. And she’d become almost famous as journalists continued to pursue more details about the story I’d spun early in my career. He listened and gave me advice as I talked about writing “Never Change” and “Escape to a Place.” I loved hearing about Roy’s latest culinary experience or his brush with stars such as Faith Hill and Tim McGraw while eating breakfast at Bread & Company in Green Hills, or Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman while shopping at Whole Foods in Hill Center. I’d ask him were they friendly, and he’d say, “Yep. Nice enough. But didn’t seem to want to chat.” I just nodded, because I understood how hard it can be when a fan assaults you in public.

  I read plenty of articles saying I was snobby. One even called me “stuck up.” I’ve never been good at small talk, but I was even more standoffish and gave off the wrong impression at that point in my career because I didn’t think people would like me if some things in my past came out.

  Speaking of things in my past—and I know this may sound ungrateful—but looking back I don’t really see Mike Flint as a friend. Then or now. I love Mike, I respect him, but one thing that hurts me is the fact that he never really listened to me, not even during those times I forced myself to spill a teeny bit of my guts to him. I tried to tell him I didn’t want anymore autobiographical songs the first year, after “I’m Leavin’ Only Footprints” was number one on the Country charts for months, then the next year when I went through agony to write “Blue Mountain Blues,” and finally the next year when my album Smoke Over the Hills went platinum. After that, I figured it was useless.

  When it came to accolades I had plenty. There was a doll designed in my likeness, a Jenny Cloud Country music star doll. People even wrote to tell me they’d named their horse or their boat or their airplane after me! For so long I thought being a star would solve all my problems, and when five years of megafame had come and gone and I realized it wouldn’t, I was stupefied.

  It took me those five long years full of pain and frustration to understand that with Mike, I would always be Jenny Cloud, singer with a tortured past he wanted to exploit. He lived in a business world that didn’t have time for emotional breakdowns, and it was always a devil dance between my artistic, emotional self and Mike’s analytical world of bottom-lines. Yet I have to admit he was, is, a brilliant businessman. He’s got this natural instinct for figuring out exactly what the country music market needs next, and he knows how to help me craft that certain song with an emotional arc. Also, the man’s a brilliant salesman and marketer. I never doubt that I’m extremely lucky to have him. He just made my life a living hell there for a while.

  Now I feel like a hypocrite, because it would be a lie to say I didn’t love hearing all those reports about my number-one hits, the sales to retail outlets, the platinum-selling albums, record time on the Billboard 100 lists, and avalanches of new fans signing up for my Internet fan page.

  Yep, to say that my life was all morose back then would be a lie. The parts I loved about my fairly quick rise to stardom, the parts I absolutely adored were those sublime moments of being on the stage and singing to an audience. I craved that microphone in my face like nothing else, and those times when the thrill of performing my music rushed up and down my spine were priceless. Day by day and song by song, the world of a country music diva unfurled before me, beautiful high points with me spinning deliriously, stunned and drunk with my successes.

  But the low points were deep and dark and shoved me to the edge of despair. I worked hard at playing the mental game of rewriting, reframing my past, of trying to block certain images from the screen of my consciousness. Like Wynonna Judd sang in her hit, “No One Else on Earth,” I put up my mental fences. But no matter what I did, there was one place where the bull always managed to bust through—that helpless, strange country between being awake and falling into dreamland, that state between consciousness and unconsciousness. Way too often I would find myself sitting bolt upright in bed, blinking in the dark, slightly hysterical about some evil memory that was trying to materialize. Many nights I paced around cavernous Harmony Hill, running from sleep, but at the same time knowing those objectionable little documentaries were where my hit songs germinated.

  What I now call my “breaking point” came after five years, dozens of hit songs, two platinum albums, and one particularly ugly romantic relationship.

  SECOND VERSE:

  THE BREAKING POINT

  5

  At five o’clock on an overcast February afternoon in 2009 just outside Nashville, members of my entourage traipsed in and out, rocking the floor so it felt more like a boat bobbing around in the ocean than yet another trailer. I felt exhausted from pasting on smiles all day. My new hairdresser stood behind me with one pink cowboy boot up on the rung of my chair, painfully pulling out a set of hair extensions she’d put in for a photo shoot earlier.

  “You’re ruining your makeup, hon. The way you’re sniveling and carrying on.” Tonilynn’s eyes met mine in the mirror.

  “Who cares? I don’t care,” I said, shrugging at my image in the huge, brightly lit mirror, at black trails of mascara running down my cheeks.

  She pursed her lips, raised her flawlessly applied eyebrows. “Well, I’m with you, hon, I never thought it was fair the way us women have to suffer so much for beauty. Men have it E-Z, while us gals are continually waxing, plucking, polishing, smoothing, firming, uplifting, dyeing, and enhancing. But,” she paused with a dramatic sigh, “I reckon I ought not to complain about beauty, since it is how I make my living.” She smiled as she yanked another strand of my hair.

  I flinched and more tears came.

  “Reckon you’re just tender-headed,” Tonilynn said around a bobby pin between her teeth.

  I tried to ignore her, but I was offended at her insinuation that I was weak. “I’m not tender-headed!”

  “What you crying about, then?” She fluttered around to the other side of me, leaving a trail of perfume that smelled like honeysuckle.

  I focused on making my expression neutral. The words out of this woman’s mouth were fire, and I was wood. A mental bucket of water I’d filled all those years ago and left near my vulnerable places stood by ready to douse any flames.

  When the quietness between us grew too loud for Tonilynn, she used her free hand to squeeze my shoulder, then leaned down close to my ear to whisper, “If it’s on account of all that ugly stuff they keep printing about you and Holt Cantrell bustin’ up, I wouldn’t give a fig. I’d say to myself, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but . . .’ ”

  I ground my teeth together hard and totally disengaged from this meddling woman. Why did love have to be so difficult? And how dare she refer to personal things! Well, things the trashy tabloids printed were still personal. Whenever I happened on headlines or articles about Holt Cantrell and his accusations, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest with a sharp knife. All I wanted was for this day to be over. I longed with every cell in my body to hop back in the Lexus and drive home as fast as I could, get into my real clothes, and put on some Dolly Parton or Johnny Cash to drown out everything else, away from the people and the thoughts I’d dealt with all day long.

  I had a quick little fantasy about firing this nosy beautician on the spot, but Mike said she was extremely good at what she did, and best of all, dependable, and I hated the idea of going through the hassle of hiring and breaking in yet another employee.

/>   “Hey, hey, what’s all this?” Tonilynn walked around and crouched down in front of me, examining the face I could feel crumpling. She took my hands and held them in hers, rubbing circles on my knuckles with her soft thumbs. “What’s wrong, darlin’? You can tell Tonilynn, you know. Talk to Tonilynn. Some of my clients have told me I’m even better than their shrink.”

  Her regional twang made I sound like ah, but it was soothing, and her eyes were compassionate. It didn’t bug me in the least the way she referred to herself in the third person. I did that, too, and I’d often wondered if it was something I ought to talk to a psychiatrist about—the way I thought of Jenny Cloud the country music star as if she were an entirely different person from Jennifer Anne Clodfelter of Blue Ridge, Georgia. A couple of times, I’d decided I would, but then Jenny Cloud talked Jennifer Clodfelter out of it.

  “You’re just one of them poor little rich girls, ain’t you?” Tonilynn continued, her words so smooth they slid into one of the cracks in my soul. She couldn’t know how right-on she was. I had a successful career where I made tons of money, beauty (according to all the articles I’d read about me), and enough fame that I had become a household name. I should’ve been the happiest woman in the world. But I was miserable.

  I nodded, pulling out the favors and balloons for a fullblown pity party as more hot tears poured out of my eyes and snot began to trickle from my nostrils. Tonilynn made a noise like a dove’s coo, bent forward, and wrapped her arms around me. Without thinking I snuggled my wet face into her shoulder, feeling her large bosoms so solid and comforting, inhaling her scent of hair chemicals mixed with honeysuckle.

  She held me, talking a mile a minute about how she’d worked for Holt Cantrell once. “It was way, way back, when he first got to Nashville, and let me tell you, hon, I learned I couldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw him. Some men are just snakes, believe me, and even if he is a star who makes millions of bucks for every hit song, he’s still a two-bit scumbag slid down into sharkskin boots.” She was shaking her head as she patted my back. “I can only imagine Holt’s ego now that he’s got to be so famous. But don’t you worry about a thing because you’re leaving him in your dust with the record sales. Right, darlin’? I believe I overheard Mike saying you’re breaking all sorts of records.”

  I snuffled up a few tears through my nostrils. The title song of my latest album, I’ll Be Yours Until Forever, was the one currently zooming up the playlists. It had been an immediate radio hit and was daily gaining support and visibility. Ironically, it had been written about my feelings for Holt Cantrell.

  I managed a nod, but it didn’t stop the tears. After a while Tonilynn pulled away and tugged a flattened tissue from the pocket of her blouse, patted my cheeks with it, cupped my chin in her soft hand, and looked directly into my eyes. “That ain’t all that’s bothering you, now, is it darling? You’re carrying a mighty heavy load.”

  I gulped, blinked, nodded.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk things out, you know. Tell your troubles to Tonilynn.”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound would come out. She was still looking into me with her eyes like chocolate pools I wanted to drown myself in. “I . . . I can’t,” I said after several false starts.

  “Yes you can.” Tonilynn threw out a lifeline. “If grass can grow in a sidewalk, you can tell Tonilynn your troubles. Trust me, everything’s going to be A-OK. You’re a strong woman. You’re a survivor. I say good riddance to that snake Holt Cantrell. Believe me, you’re better off without him. I could tell you some stories, only I don’t want to gossip on account of that’s a sin. But like I said, good riddance.

  “And listen, don’t you worry ’bout the fallout from his ugly accusations affecting your career like the magazines are saying, ’cause you’ve got a voice that’ll take you anywhere you want to go. I mean, you’ve hardly been here in Nashville, what? four, five years at the most? And you’re already leaving lots of longtime stars in your dust.” She wove a strand of my long hair between her fingers. “You hear me, hon? To zoom up to the top like you have in such a short time? You keep that chin up.”

  All of a sudden Tonilynn released my hair and stood straight as a two-by-four. She put her hands on her ample hips, snorted like a racehorse. “Hmphh! Makes me so mad I could spit! Those trashy rags have no right to run your name through the mud! All they’re trying to do is make a dime off your misfortune; couldn’t care less about the human part of a star!”

  She searched my stunned face. “Don’t that make you mad?”

  “I . . . um . . . well, I . . .” My heart started racing, my palms got clammy, and my tongue froze. I still didn’t know if I was to blame for what had happened with me and Holt or not.

  Tonilynn laced her fingers together beneath her chin and tipped her head. “Oh, baby girl. You don’t always have this much trouble expressing yourself, do you?”

  I shrugged and sat there like a lump. But my silence didn’t seem to faze Tonilynn. “Listen,” she said softly, “I’ve been knowing for a while you’re a woman who’s toting some serious baggage around with her. Even before you and Holt Cantrell hooked up, before Mike called me about working for you, I’d see you on the television, singing and whatnot, and I’d say to Aunt Gomer, ‘Now, there’s a woman who’s toting around a heavy load of something. I know in my heart somebody took, no, they stole her dignity, and she’s carrying around a load of shame so heavy there’s times she can’t hardly breathe. Somebody close to her wounded her.’ I actually said that aloud to Aunt Gomer.”

  My skin drew up tight. “Who told you that?”

  “Oh, let’s just call it a little voice inside my head.” Tonilynn reached over and got a container of hair clips from the counter, and began to rifle through them with her perfectly manicured fingers, finally closing the lid with a sharp snap.

  Things were quiet for a while, then she said, “Now, I don’t want to—how do the young folks say it?—freak you out, but the best way to describe it is to say I have these gut feelings, or intuitions. May sound like a magical power, but it’s actually the spirit of revelation, one of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Ghost called the word of knowledge. Some folks call it the spirit of knowing. But either way, it’s the Lord letting me see beyond a person’s exterior. Many times smiling people are crying on the inside. Like I see your pretty stage smiles, but I know you’re actually sad, sad, sad on the inside.”

  I looked at Tonilynn, at her flawless makeup, her perfectly coiffed hair, and suddenly a red flag flew up. Roy Durden appeared in my mind’s eye and he was saying, “She sounds like one of those religious wackos who speaks in tongues and watches the Ernest Angley Hour.” I cleared my throat, looked at my watch. “Gosh,” I said. “Look how late it is! Time for supper.”

  Tonilynn reached over to pat my shoulder. “You don’t need to be scared, hon. I don’t know the particulars about your past.” She paused dramatically. “But the Lord does.”

  I made a little sound in my nose, a snort, and said in my best cynical voice, “Is that so?”

  There was a long silence. Tonilynn tilted her head to one side and pointed upward with an index finger. “Ain’t you a believer?”

  I shrugged. “Um, maybe. Not exactly. Used to be, but now . . . it’s more like . . . more like I’m on to him. Like I realize God doesn’t give a fig about us down here.”

  Tonilynn smoothed a rumpled towel. “Tell me why you gave up on the Lord.”

  I leaned my head back to stare at the ceiling. “Okay. When I was fifteen, it was late on a Friday night, and my father had all these drunks over to the house, and I . . .” I yanked my head back down and shook it so hard I thought my brain was rattling. Was I losing my mind?! I pressed the pads of my index fingers to the corners of my eyes to dam tears.

  Tonilynn reached over to cup my chin. “That’s all right. I’m sorry, hon. We don’t have to go there if you’re not ready. But let me tell you something you can take to the bank. You may’ve given up on the Lord, but
he hasn’t given up on you. He does too care about you! Every single little thing that concerns you concerns him! He ain’t some distant creator who put you on this earth and then left you alone, saying, ‘Good-bye, good luck. Hope you make it all right.’ ”

  I pulled away. I’d broken out in a sweat without realizing it, and the cool air of the trailer made me feel dizzy. After a spell, Tonilynn cleared her throat. “Jennifer?” she said in a voice soft as dandelion down, “I don’t want you to be scared of me. This sensitive ability I have, this super natural gift, which all that means is just ‘more natural,’ you know, super natural, is a divine impartation to perceive a person’s need so I can minister to her, or him. You know, help out.”

  I could literally feel my eyes widening.

  She laughed at my face. “Relax. I told you all that because I especially don’t want you to confuse my gift with those psychic predictions of earthquakes and murders and the like. Those are Satanic prophecies, inspired by the enemy.”

  She was wacko, sure enough.

  “Hey, speaking of the devil, there’s something else I reckon I better let you in on if we’re going to work together.” Tonilynn smiled. “I have this habit that might seem strange if you’re not used to it. I talk back, right out loud, to the devil. I’ll be walking along, or doing something like fixing a client’s hair, and I’ll say, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ and if I’m in earshot of anybody, they look at me like I’ve lost my mind!” She laughed and shook her head. “But I just remind myself it makes old slewfoot tremble. Gives him a colossal headache.”

  I stared at her in the mirror, wondering, Is this real or am I dreaming?

  “It ain’t no accident you and me got put together like this, you know,” she continued, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Ain’t no accident you’re sitting in what I call the Hair Chair. The Hair Chair’s a place where you can talk to Tonilynn. Let all the tears and the ugly stuff spill on out. Now, I’m not patting myself on the back. Believe me. This divine impartation I have is a gift, just like salvation.”