Chapter 10
FOURTEEN YEARS LEFT
If I was a creature of the road, I was also a creature of the studio session.
I loved the manic late nights. The feverish collaboration. The worldless feel of it. We were only in that box, floating through space, separate from time and its demands.
Recording an album was me at my most primal. I didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than someone who received music all day from the heavens.
We’d start recording around nine a.m. Clayton liked to get an early start, much to the chagrin of the players who were still drunk from the night before.
As long as they played well, he didn’t mind.
They were the A team, a handful of musicians the labels used for all the high-profile sessions in Nashville.
I insisted Martha play on the record, and I saw their side-eye the first day.
But that went away real quick when they heard her play.
A lot of guitarists have a tang to their sound that can be too sour and bright.
But Martha’s playing is like honey; the guitar kind of melts away and all you can hear are the notes ringing in their sweetest form.
Clayton would hand out the music, and everyone would study it and put in their two cents.
I’d never been taught how to read music, and Clayton had noticed early on.
He said having a natural genius would only get me so far; I had to learn a few technical skills.
Naturally, I balked at this, but eventually I came around.
When we were ready, I’d go in the corner by the door with a microphone.
They’d turn the lights down and put on colored ones, in red or blue.
The song would start, and the music would fill the room like a powerful perfume.
It was so strong that it’d soak through my skin, marinating me like a chicken for hours.
Around midday they wouldn’t need me anymore, and I’d walk out into the world, the music still buzzing in my meat.
The studio was on Music Row, where record-label offices lined the street on either side.
I couldn’t go a few feet without being invited to a barbecue celebrating an album release.
None of the big stars paid me any attention, but it was fun mingling with the backup singers and engineers and all the people that went into making a record.
It was one big party, and it didn’t matter which label you were with.
We were all making music and having a good time.
Then I’d head to Darlene’s to start my shift.
I wasn’t getting paid much for the sessions, and I still had to make rent at Mom’s.
Plus, I liked hanging around with the cowboys and listening to Darlene bitch about everyone.
Hess still performed in our old slot, but Clayton forbade me from joining to rest my voice.
It was hard not to jump onstage with her, but I loved watching her sing.
When I got off work at midnight, I’d head back to the studio with a brown paper bag of fried bologna sandwiches.
They didn’t need me, but I couldn’t stay away.
By that time, the room would be stuffy and warm from the steam rising off the musicians.
They’d all be half drunk and excited to see me.
Martha and Clayton were the only sober ones, keeping everyone on track and nailing the takes.
I’d stay until around two a.m., and then I’d get a ride home.
First, I’d sneak into Hess’s room and give her a kiss.
Then I’d tiptoe to the kitchen, inhale the plate Mom left me, and sit on the back porch smoking a cigarette.
I’d still be so high on music that I’d need a few hours to come down before my mind would quiet.
Sometimes I’d take long walks around the neighborhood, making larger and larger circles with Mom’s house at the center.
Time dissolved and blurred in the middle of the night, but it didn’t feel any less valuable to me.
It was still this precious time, wasted by so many, when I could experience more of what life had to offer.
By the time I was ready to sleep, it was time to get ready for the studio, and I’d launch back into it. For me, the album was recorded in one very long day.
After we finished the record, Clayton decided I needed fixing up.
We went to Harvey’s and bought bigger wigs, designer makeup, fancy clothes. He tried to hire some fussy stylist, but I wouldn’t let anyone but Phoebe dress me.
He took me to my first dentist. I had so many teeth that needed pulling they decided to start over and give me a whole new set made out of porcelain. Like a fancy toilet.
He took me to my first doctor with a medical degree.
I was used to seeing the granny witch back in the holler, but I’d never been to an MD.
He did a full examination from snout to tail, looking for all my creepy-crawlies.
He gasped when he saw the birthmark on my chest. Said he’d never seen anything like it.
Turned out I was pretty healthy, considering I’d lived with total abandon my whole life.
Afterward, Clayton asked to see my birthmark if I was comfortable, and I showed him the very top above my tits.
He didn’t seem seduced by it or anything, but he was intrigued.
He said we’d keep it in mind for wardrobe, and that was that.
He brought me to see a lady in her nice house across town.
She looked how I imagined Hess’s mother: an elegant woman in pearls with a modest lilac dress and matching heels.
She taught etiquette to the society girls in Nashville, and I wondered if she’d trained Hess.
It made me laugh to think of her practicing her curtsy and pretending to eat soup with the right spoon.
For the first few hours, we went through speech drills, attempting to smooth my jagged speech into something sleek and curved, like Audrey Hepburn’s transatlantic purr.
But eventually she gave up. I could pretend to be whoever she wanted, and I could create endless new personas to suit my needs, but there was no version of me that wasn’t from the country, or the South for that matter.
She spent the next few hours teaching me all the basics of acting proper until Clayton seemed satisfied, and I went along with that part. I like to know what rules I’m breaking.
When the transformation was complete, he took me to a studio to have my picture taken.
The photographer had all these ideas about me dressing up like a cowgirl straddling a hay bale and prancing around in a swimsuit with a beach ball, but I put a stop to that nonsense.
I told him to just make me pretty, and I posed real nice for him, and that was all we needed. I refused to be someone’s fool.
Then, it was time for the label to listen to the album.
I called out of work and stayed by the phone all day at Mom’s, waiting to hear from Clayton.
Hess tried to distract me with board games and the new Loretta Lynn album, but nothing calmed my nerves.
The opportunity still felt so precarious, so unreal, that I was afraid someone would come by and snatch it out of my hands.
Or Clayton would wake up one morning and realize I was nothing special and dump me on the sidewalk with the rest of the trash.
Early in the evening, there was a knock on the door. It was Clayton. His face was calm and self-assured. Unreadable as ever. He asked if I’d like to go for a drive, and I said okay. I felt like a dead woman walking, like the mafia was about to pick me off.
When we got into his Cadillac, he asked me if I was hungry, and I said “always.” I was a legend in the studio for the food I could put away.
We pulled into the Krystal’s on Gallatin and waited for a waitress to skate to our window.
The car was a quiet, dark space in the midst of the feral Saturday night crowd.
Clayton didn’t like to listen to the radio when he was working on a new album; he preferred to hold the songs in his mind without them getting infected by other sounds.
After a petite brunette took our order, Clayton went back to staring out the windshield. I couldn’t take it anymore. “All right. Let me have it. They hated it, didn’t they?”
He smiled. “They loved it. And they loved you. Your voice, and those pictures we had taken. They agree you’re going to be a star.”
There was this little jolt in my chest like I’d been struck by lightning. But I still sensed there was a catch. “Then why do I feel like you’re gonna take me out?”
He folded his hands and held my gaze. “I have a proposition for you.”
“That don’t sound good.”
He raised an eyebrow and continued. “I think we should get married.”
I instantly thought of Hess and her goddess body. We struggled to find places we could be alone and really together, and we’d had less time to spend with one another with all the work on the album. Even so, it felt like she was the center of my little life.
I looked at Clayton, and I imagined his red face hovering above me, concentrating hard and pulsing to burst. I was suddenly aware of the small space of the car, and the fancy automatic locks on the doors.
I pretended to adjust my dress, feeling for the knife in my bra.
But I’d forgotten it in the excitement. Sweat broke along my hairline, and I scanned around the car, searching for anything I could make into a weapon.
“I appreciate the offer, but…”
He held up a hand. “I don’t see you that way, either. I’m…” I looked over at him, forgetting the danger for a moment. I’d never seen Clayton at a loss for words. He was always so calm and collected, already waiting with the right thing to say. “I’m not interested in that kind of thing.”
What did that mean?
“I don’t enjoy being close to people… in a romantic fashion. I enjoy friendship, and professional and artistic collaboration. That’s all I want from others.”