You'd Be Mine(21)

“We leave in fifteen.” He gets up and pats my shoulder, giving it a familiar squeeze. “You stink, my friend.” He starts for the flap of curtain that divides his bedroom and pulls it open. He plops on his bed, kicking off his boots before crossing his legs and placing his hands behind his head.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night, huh?”

He readjusts his hat farther down over his eyes. “Stop fishing, junior. I ain’t telling you a thing.”





8



Annie


thursday, may 30

biloxi, mississippi

We spent the days in between Georgia and Mississippi in the recording studio. Immediately after my panic attack, I was assigned a manager. I suppose it was completely naive of me to think I could get away without one for the duration, but I thought Trina was enough, even if she wasn’t technically ours. Thankfully, a quick call out to Patrick Royston saved the day. His lovely wife, Connie, has fifteen years of tour management under her belt after touring with the Dixie Chicks in the ’90s and early 2000s.

I hired her on the spot and washed my hands of things. Good riddance. Until she came knocking on my door the next morning, saying she’d scheduled us studio time. Our label decided they wanted to ride the wave of our sudden popularity and needed an album to release by summer’s end.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but it seems Connie is a force to be reckoned with. Behind her sugar-sweet image, she’s cut from the very same cloth as Trina. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were sisters in another life.

I don’t mind, really. It’s not comparable to the high I get from a live performance, but I’ve been stockpiling songs for years. While a good number of them are childish or more emo than I care to admit, enough are salvageable for an album. Besides, I would prefer not to have time to think right now. It’s as though the Muses heard my cry for distraction and answered posthaste. Between the hours spent in the studio and the hours preparing to be in the studio and the scheduled publicity appearances on various local radio stations, I can barely remember my last name most days (though there is no shortage of people willing to remind me). Thanks to my new manager, however, I now have a ready response to the “Clay Dilemma.”

I give a coy smile and a cute little wink. “No comment.”

Of course today, Long-Winded Larry with WPK out of Biloxi isn’t buying it. He shakes his head. “Oh, now, y’all cain’t see this, but the lovely Miss Annie Mathers just gave me a wink worthy of her momma. You ain’t getting off that easy, girl. Inquiring minds beg to know; are there any sparks between you and Clay?”

I glance at Kacey, who shrugs helplessly, and bite my lip. The thing is, in show business, only a sliver of the acting is confined to the stage. I let loose my Tennessee roots. “All right, Larry. Let me tell you about Clay Coolidge. That man can sure ’nuff fill out a pair of blue jeans. Whew!” I say, fanning the collar of my button-down before leaning closer to my mic and lowering my voice conspiratorially. “And what you ladies witness onstage, Lord, in person it’s a thousand times worse. Like staring down the sun. But I’ll be honest with y’all … Clay’s not to be tied down. It would be a disservice to the man to place a claim.”

Larry nods in approval. “Fair enough, fair enough. So, Miss Mathers, we like to do a little game with our guests called Twelve-Minute Tunes, where we give our callers a chance to come up with any topic of their choosing and you, our star guest, will have twelve minutes to write a song about that topic and perform it live on the air. How’s that sound?”

I squirm in my seat, but otherwise it sounds like a semi-fun challenge. “Can I request a second cup of coffee first, Larry?”

He laughs. “Of course! We want you to be ready.”

We got to commercial as Larry and his assistant field a handful of phone calls, choosing a few to air. The first offers the President, the second suggests the World Series hopefuls, and the third obviously was my headliner. They weren’t messing around.

“What’ll you chose, Annie?”

I take a slow sip of my coffee, the lyrics already clicking into place in my mind. “Well, I’d rather drink paint thinner than offer political insight, and I’m a fair-weather Tigers fan, so I guess that means I’m writing about Clay.”

Larry cheers, and Connie gives me a thumbs-up. Kacey pulls out her fiddle—always ready for me, even on the fly.

I reflect on how little I truly know Clay Coolidge so far. From the moment he turned up on my porch, hungover, to his defensiveness after our first show. He’s a conundrum, but I doubt many see that. His MO is straight-up Trouble with a capital T, but his eyes are full of something more.

Of course, I can’t fit all that in, and anyway, Long-Winded Larry and his listeners aren’t interested in me waxing poetic about Clay’s “something more” on their morning commute. They’re only interested in the trouble part and how that bodes for little ol’ me.

So that’s what I give them.

Larry comes back from a weather/traffic report and I still my strings, ready to go. I’ve jotted down a handful of notes on some scratch paper, but I don’t need them. When words mix with melodies in my brain, it’s nearly impossible to erase them, regardless of nerves.

“All set?” he prompts off mic.