Twang

by Julie L. Cannon

  “I’ll relax when I’m dead. I’m gonna get out there tomorrow and do my tilling.” I turned to Jennifer. “Got to work our dirt hard on account of the clay and limestone. Tell you one thing, when the Lord starts sprinkling his yellow talcum power is how I know spring’s here.”

  Bobby Lee shook his head. “The Lord’s talcum powder,” he said under his breath in a snide voice, but I got keen ears.

  “Ain’t a thing wrong with calling pollen the Lord’s talcum powder!” I said.

  Tonilynn didn’t say word one to her sassy offspring. In fact, she was cutting up Bobby Lee’s pork chop!

  “You’re ruining him,” I said.

  Tonilynn squinted her eyes at me. “How would you like it if you couldn’t get up and walk or run around?”

  “That boy, that man,” I said, “is a lot more capable than you give him credit for. Bobby Lee could be somebody if you didn’t smother him.”

  “Hush your mouth!” Tonilynn said, and her face got pink.

  I did not. I said, “When it’s something Bobby Lee wants to do—like fishing—he literally flies in that wheelchair! But when you come around, he turns into a helpless invalid.”

  Nobody said anything for a long spell. I saw Jennifer sliding her butter knife up under the side of her plate so the pot likker from the collard greens wouldn’t run into anything. I had a mind to tell her that the pot likker was where all the good vitamins were, but I didn’t want Tonilynn fussing anymore. So I turned to Jennifer and said, “I saw you on the television after that song of yours about the honky-tonk tomcat came out, and I told Bobby Lee your voice reminds me of Patsy Cline’s, so pure and all. And you look like Cher, back when she was doing that show with Sonny Bono. Look just like an Indian with your long silky black hair and that pretty skin. You got any Indian blood?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” she said, her eyes darting this way and that.

  I could not imagine not knowing what blood was in my family tree. “Well,” I told her, “you ought to look into that whole Indian thing. That right there might be something that would benefit your career. Seems like if you got black or Indian blood in you, they roll out the red carpet.”

  Tonilynn gave me an evil look.

  “Everything is real good, Miz Gomer,” Jennifer said.

  “Talk about a good cook,” I said. “My mother made the best buttermilk biscuits in this world. She also made fried chicken, pound cake, apple cobbler, peach pickles, and fig preserves good enough to die for. She tried to teach all of us children soon as we could stand on a chair to reach the stove. ’Course, my first love was gardening and mostly I stayed outdoors, but I did manage to pick up a few tricks. It was Tonilynn’s mother who was a real natural in the kitchen. Norma used to win ribbons at all the fairs.”

  “Really?” Jennifer turned to Tonilynn.

  “That’s what I’m told,” Tonilynn said.

  “Norma no longer walks this earth,” I teased.

  “What happened?” Jennifer set her biscuit down and looked at me.

  “When she saw Tonilynn, she died.” I knew as the words leapt out of my mouth, they was a tad on the mean side. That poor skinny thing grabbed hold of the table, and I noticed her fingernails were bit down past the quick. Tonilynn gave me one of those exasperated looks of hers before she turned to Jennifer and said in the softest voice, “She died in childbirth.”

  Jennifer’s eyes got all sparkly the way they’ll get when tears are fixing to spill, and I figured it was a good time to bring up the subject of marriage, so I said, “There’s bound to be hard things on this earth, but I’m the type who chooses to look at the silver lining of every cloud.”

  I got quiet for a minute to let Jennifer’s curiosity build. Tonilynn and Bobby Lee knew what I was fixing to tell because I’d told it umpteen times. “When I came of age, didn’t no man come courtin’ me. My three sisters had beaus coming out the woodwork, but at six-foot-two-inches tall, I towered over most of ’em. At first I didn’t mind being alone. I didn’t want to do anything anyhow but work in my garden. I was purely content.

  “But then my sisters got married and moved off, and when I was thirty-five, Mama and Daddy went to their graves within six months of each other, and left me with only my hens clucking and fussing and hunting bugs in the yard.

  “Well, I still had my garden, and gardening was the first job. Says so in Genesis. Says God formed man and then he planted a garden and there he put the man to till it. But what got me is what he said later, that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and I may not be one of those feminists, but I believe that includes females too.

  “Of course I talked to the Lord about it, as he’s the one said ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ I told him I was still menstruating regular and that I was mighty lonely down here, and I didn’t doubt in my heart he would answer me.

  “Time galloped on and I stayed busy, kept my faith strong. I can still remember clear as anything the day I was out in the garden picking a mess of butterbeans and up drives Dr. Fred telling me Norma had died in childbirth. But what shocked me was when her husband ran off the day of the funeral. Left his infant daughter, Tonilynn Jasmine Pardue. Now I can’t judge Dan. How could you blame an eighteen-year-old boy?

  “Tonilynn was the most precious thing. Little bright-eyed face with eyes like a hickory nut and hair like dandelion down. And smart as a whip. Knew how to read when she was four years old. But had her a wild streak.

  “That’s why I wasn’t surprised when she got in the family way when she wasn’t but fifteen, and her not married. I threw her out of the house because young folks need to learn their actions have consequences.”

  Just by the way all the color had drained out of Jennifer’s pretty face, I knew she was most likely misjudging me, so I added, “Believe me, it wasn’t no picnic. I missed my girl so much. I missed seeing that precious child she birthed. I didn’t get to do all the cuddling a grandma wants to do.” I paused to look hard at Tonilynn when I said the next part. “But I did what I had to, called ‘tough love’ when it hurts you and the other person.

  “And you know what? After they came back up here to Cagle Mountain, I never did find out which one of those boys was Bobby Lee’s daddy. But the years have passed and none of that matters. I couldn’t love Tonilynn or Bobby Lee any more. In fact, they’re both like my very own.

  Jennifer stared at me with those unusual green eyes.

  “Some things are just better the way they turn out to be than if we’d got what we asked for. All those years I pined for a family, and I finally got me one, and I can honestly say I couldn’t have dreamed up anything better. That’s the beautiful thing about a family. Doesn’t have to be what’s written in Webster’s—male marries female, their sperm and egg meet, and they have children. No, families are built on love, and, honey, if you need yourself a family, we’d be proud to have you. Anytime you need a place to run to or just folks you can let your hair down with, you come on up here to Cagle Mountain.”

  “Well . . . thank you,” that child squeaked in this tiny voice.

  7

  On the trip home, Tonilynn asked me to guess what Aunt Gomer’s two greatest fears were. Feeling a little shell-shocked, I just said, “What?”

  “Satan and having to go to a nursing home.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Know what I say to her whenever she gets all worked up?” Tonilynn turned her liquid brown eyes from the road and looked at me like the answer was obvious. “I tell her, ‘Aunt Gomer, first off, you don’t have to be scared of the devil. The Lord’s stronger than him and that’s like saying you don’t have faith.’

  “And about the nursing home, I say, ‘Aunt Gomer, if, and that’s a big old if because 99 percent of the things we fear never happen, but if you have to go to a nursing home, you’ll be so out of it you won’t even know you’re there!’ ” She laughed and slapped the stonewashed denim stretched over her thigh.

  I don’t think I even blinked. It was an eye-opening expe
rience seeing from whence Tonilynn came. Her homestead was certainly what folks would call backwoods, maybe even backwards. That old tin-roofed farmhouse with tar-paper siding, hens pecking around a tractor tire on its side in the front yard, a lopsided well house with a communal drinking jar, and a hound dog whimpering at some dream as he slept beneath the kitchen table. I thought of how Aunt Gomer maintained that God answered her prayer with her sister’s death, and that brought forth something I’d overheard one of the sound technicians at the studio saying about Tonilynn. He said, “She’s just one of those wack-job born-agains who acts like Jesus is her best friend.”

  But wasn’t it nice to feel like part of a family for a while? I sure didn’t have to put on airs to hang out at Cagle Mountain. And even if Tonilynn was hopelessly wacko when it came to religion, she was unpretentious not to mention entertaining and easy to talk to. The same with Bobby Lee. What you first noticed about Tonilynn’s son, after the wheelchair, was how ruggedly handsome the man was, with his sun-kissed skin and his long, unstyled chestnut hair. He favored his mother quite a bit, but where Tonilynn had deep brown eyes and a cute nose, Bobby Lee had hazel eyes and a classic Roman nose. Not bad to look at.

  It was that very night, as soon as I decided to redirect my energy away from judging Tonilynn to just accepting her, that I opened up a space to create what I’d been yearning for—a true friendship. Where there’d been a cavernous, lonely ache inside of me, a tiny flame of hope flickered to life. The flame grew brighter with each thump of my heart as it dawned on me that I could reveal things to Tonilynn without fear of judgment. Not that I wanted to reveal everything. There were some things I’d never share.

  Generally I avoided the terrace at Harmony Hill, but the next evening a full moon lured me out onto the bricks. It had been more than three months since the ugly incident with Holt, and as I stood there looking up at the nighttime sky, a recollection moved in of the two of us during one of our good times. At one end of the terrace was an enclosed sitting porch, with candle chandeliers and a fireplace, and Holt and I were sitting on the sofa there, our legs entwined as we gazed out the big window, watching the stars make their appearance. Suddenly he jumped up, pulling me to my feet, and we danced to Josh Turner’s deep, sexy voice singing, “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” and laughed at how we were acting it out.

  The memory was so vivid I could smell Holt like he was right there in my arms again, that lingering scent of evergreen from his cologne mixed with the faint aroma of leather from his hatband you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t oh-so-close. I heard him whispering “Love you, babe,” into that soft place behind my ear, making my breath catch in my throat. I felt his five-o’clock shadow tickly rough, making my insides melt as he whispered, “We’re the next Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, you know.”

  For a while I was carried away, my body recalling all the delicious sensations of being held, adored by Holt Cantrell, with his bedroom eyes and that devilish grin he kept on his lips. Then all of a sudden, my breath caught in my throat and everything evaporated as I recalled a recent article in Country Weekly.

  Maybe I was a thief and a psychotic mess! Maybe I had pushed and pushed until Holt finally reached his limit, having no choice but to twist my arm around my back until it almost snapped. I shouldn’t have called the police because really, the whole episode wasn’t Holt’s fault! It was mine for pouring his Jack Daniel’s down the sink. That was stealing, really, if I was going to be honest with myself.

  I started to cry, and that’s when I dug my cell phone out of the floppy pocket of my sweatpants. I needed to call Holt and apologize, set things straight. He was in Vancouver on tour, but he’d be home in three days, and when he got back to Nashville we could pick right back up where we’d left off.

  But right before I pressed the button to call Holt, I remembered Tonilynn saying, “He’s a snake, hon.” It was hard, but I managed to stop myself with the thought that I’d wait and talk to Tonilynn some more about what led up to me pouring Holt’s whiskey down the sink, about what he was watching on the screen of his laptop. Those things he said he wanted me to do!

  It was hard, going back and forth between pining for Holt and then remembering Tonilynn’s warning. I had to make it through the two days until I was scheduled to be back in the Hair Chair, and there was nothing on my agenda except playing around with some songs in progress and an afternoon meeting with Mike about the liner notes for my upcoming album.

  I wondered if I had it in me to talk to Mike this time. My stomach had started aching continually and I felt like I was walking across an emotional minefield anytime I’d sing or hear “Dirt Roads and Sequin Gowns.” The spirit of the song was supposedly one about rags to riches and overcoming; this poor little girl lives in a shack on the side of a dirt road, and as she grows up, she sings to passersby, with her muddy knees and her dirty feet and wearing tattered dresses. She’s dreaming of becoming a star, and then, years down the road, she’s standing onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, in a sparkly dress, happy.

  The final verse goes: When she sings the song that plays in her heart, she’s wearing a sequined gown. Sometimes it’s red, sometimes it’s blue, but it’s never gonna be dirt brown. It’s never gonna be dirt brown. When she sings the song that plays in her heart, she’s wearing a sequined gown.

  She comes off sounding victorious, but I knew the story between the lines. I knew the soul-wrenching cost of fame.

  Tomorrow came as it always did, and it was a rainy April day. Usually I loved rainy days for songwriting. I’d sit in a spot on the floor at one of the deep windows in the den with my coffee on the low sill and my notebook open between spread-eagled legs, looking out at what was blooming in my garden, and beyond that to the branches of trees reaching upward to the sky. It was calming and inspirational at the same time. But that day I felt a heavy weight pressing down on me as I contemplated the afternoon meeting with Mike. I penned the first words that flashed through my mind; The dark side of a star.

  I held my notebook to my heart and almost wept from the truth. There was so much from my past I needed to keep buried, and I knew I could do it if I didn’t have Mike constantly pushing, pushing, saying stuff like, “Being happy is awful for writing a country song, Jenny girl. Fans just want to hear about sad things, like leaving and heartbreak,” and “You just need to put yourself in a dark place until you can come up with something good,” and “You know as well as I do that as a songwriter, heartbreak’s invaluable. It’s good to have these terrible things you’ve gone through. Dig deep for that heart-rending song.” He also loved quoting Conway Twitty: “A good country song takes a page out of somebody’s life and puts it to music.”

  Just thinking of the superconfident way Mike said all these things made my skin draw up tight.

  I dressed in my disguise and drove to Panera Bread for our two o’clock meeting. Even though my stomach had been sending out echoing rumbles, one bite of cinnamon crunch bagel and a third of a cup of espresso was all I could handle. I sat staring at the front door, hugging myself.

  “Jenny Cloud! How ya doin’, sweetheart?” Mike said loudly in that charismatic Southern drawl when he walked in, those fancy black cowboy boots of his making a grand entrance. I flinched, ducked down. It was a good thing the other chairs in the front room were empty at this hour.

  “Fine,” I said around a powerful whiff of Herrera for Men.

  “Good, good. Lemme run grab a libation and we’ll talk. ’Kay?”

  “Sure.”

  Mike returned with coffee, sunk into a chair, and stretched his long khaki-clad legs out in front of him. “So,” he said after a gulp, “you’re absolutely gonna love what marketing came up with for our new album. No other word for it but genius.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and smoothed it out flat on his thigh. “Okeydoke. Listen at this: ‘A country music star and the autobiographical songs that reflect the sorrows and pain, the disillusionment of her childhood.’ ” He looked up at me with those hazel e
yes like bullets to my soul. “Nice, huh?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Or how ’bout this one? ‘A Country Music Diva grapples with the drinkin’, cheatin’, lyin’, and leavin’ of her Southern roots’?” Without pausing for my response, he continued. “Here’s another: ‘When the music calls her home, a country music superstar must deal with the dark memories and the people who didn’t keep their promises.’ ”

  Mike grew even more excited, talking fast and gesturing with his free hand. “ ‘Each of the songs on this album is the kind of a steel guitar-drenched, tear-in-your-ear ballad that Jenny Cloud can deliver like no one else. These are stories, songs carved from Cloud’s own experience.’ ”

  I finally managed to make a sound. I laughed, a humorless little snort.

  Mike leaned forward and touched my wrist. “I knew you’d like them too. These are incredible, like I said.” Smile crinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes. “Flint Recording is sure taking care of you, aren’t they darlin’? We’re gaining visibility in places where country music doesn’t usually go. We are on a roll!”

  I lifted my espresso for a drink and my hand was trembling so that some trickled from the corner of my mouth and dripped down onto my blouse.

  “Key words here are support and visibility, Jenny,” Mike continued, “which we’re getting from radio and from the digital retailers. The goal here is to sell more albums, and speaking of that, we’ve got to make sure your CD’s packaging will achieve that as well. I’m supposed to be getting design ideas for the cover tomorrow. You want me to e-mail them on to you, or do you trust me to choose?”

  I dried my chin on my shoulder and looked at Mike, beseechingly, I thought.