Open Road Summer(9)

With some clever editing, an innocent snapshot taken at his birthday pool party last year looks like a naked, full-on make-out picture. This photo undermines Dee’s squeaky-clean image and all but exposes Jimmy as the boy all those songs are about.

The story begins: Teen country star Lilah Montgomery is the subject of the most recent nude photo scandal. This shocking photo surfaced the same day as the first show of her sold-out headlining tour. Montgomery has been a media darling for the past two years, known for her Southern manners and good-girl reputation, but this photo does beg the question: how much of her sweet-as-iced-tea personality is an act?

“Those *s.” My voice sounds gravelly, a primal anger surging inside me.

Dee sits perfectly still, eyes staring at the screen. The web page reflects back in her irises, which are as wet and blue as pool water. I know this feeling of paralysis, when you realize that the hot pain in your back is a knife.

“You could show them the real picture,” I say stupidly, grasping for a solution.

“It’s already out there.” Her words are strained, almost a whisper. “There’s a picture of Jimmy all over the Internet, and they’ll find him now.”

She’s right, and I can’t deny it. The media circle Dee’s life like vultures, waiting until their prey is weak enough to attack. This is their moment.

“Peach!” I yell toward her bedroom door. “Peeaaach!”

This is the same instinct as screaming for your parents when you’re sick in the middle of the night—that somehow, a grown-up can fix it. Peach hurries into the room, panic replacing the sleepiness on her face.

“What is it?” she asks, rushing to us.

I turn the computer screen toward her.

“Oh no,” she mutters, covering her mouth. “No—they didn’t.”

Dee swivels, facing Peach. “Did you know about this?”

“Lissa told me that it was a small possibility,” Peach admits, her face wrenching with guilt. “She told me not to say anything to you, because the label was trying to pay off the magazine so they wouldn’t run it.”


“You could have at least warned me!” Dee cries. “I’m not a child! I had the right to know about this!”

I chew the insides of my cheeks, desperate for a cigarette. You quit, I remind myself, but my mind travels to the emergency pack I have stashed in my suitcase.

“I’m sorry,” Peach says. “I’m so sorry.”

Dee hangs her head in defeat. She turns back to the computer, staring again at the headlines.

“This is so unfair. It’s a lie!” Her voice cracks. “This could ruin everything—my new record, the whole tour . . . everything.”

I can’t stand it anymore, and I slam my laptop shut. “This is bullshit.”

Normally Peach would reprimand me for my language, but instead she says, “I know.”

Another tear slips down Dee’s cheek, and I reach my hand over to hers. “Can we sue them? She’s a minor. Peddling something as a nude picture has to be illegal.”

“Probably,” Peach mutters. “Lissa said a bunch of mumbo jumbo about emergency meetings and legally pursuing responsible parties and media redirection.”

“My brothers,” Dee says, her thin shoulders shaking with absorbed sobs. “They’re so little. How are my parents supposed to explain this to them?”

She stands up, smacking her palm repeatedly against the closed laptop, like the computer itself is to blame.

“Delilah . . . ,” Peach says in a soothing voice, but Dee holds up one hand to stop her.

“Don’t,” she snaps. “I need to call my mom.”

She closes our bedroom door behind her with a slam, and I let her go, praying that her family’s flight home has landed by now. Peach retreats to her own bedroom, and I have a staring contest with the minibar. I’ve always thought of myself as an enthusiastic but purely recreational drinker. It disturbs me that I’m drawn to it now, in a moment of crisis.

I stand up and pace, moving toward the freestanding rack that holds Dee’s wardrobe. My mind wanders as I run my hands over the fabrics, the summer dresses and fitted jackets. These are outfits for interviews, press meet and greets, sound checks, and basically any photographable circumstance. Dee’s whole life is carefully chosen, fitted, and pressed, but imperfections sneak in all the same—a missing button, a rip in a hem, a vicious rumor.

When Dee signed with Muddy Water Records, its media staff scrubbed her personal presence off the web. Though a few kids in our grade have ponied up pictures of Dee, only two have ever included Jimmy—a picture of them at sophomore-year homecoming and a picture from a football game where people in our class were crammed into the bleachers, arms slung over one another’s shoulders. But in those pictures, Dee and Jimmy were among a big group of people. And frankly, neither of those pictures is interesting.

This picture is interesting, so I shouldn’t be surprised that someone sold it. People will do anything for money. But we’re from a small town outside Nashville—a small town where people take great care to protect Dee and, for that matter, Jimmy. They moon over the time Jimmy pulled over to help them change a tire and about how proud they are of the example Dee sets for their kids. Others have stories about the time Jimmy’s dad came into his vet clinic in the middle of the night to care for their sick dog or the time Dee’s mom showed up with a casserole after someone’s grandmother passed away. It’s the unwritten law of small-town folks: we guard one another. That Southern brand of trust is stronger than whiskey, and, when broken, it burns even more.