Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Girl concedes defeat
Dixie
I wake up in a fog of heat and pain. Someone’s run me over with the church bus and then reversed to make sure I got the message.
My joints are on fire, my knees have jumped into the conflagration, and when I attempt a vertical position, a wave of nausea rolls through me so hard that I have to flop back against the pillow and breathe through it.
At least my thumbs work.
I text Dee: Hypothetically, if someone’s hands decided to stage a rebellion, what’s the going rate for a personal assistant? Asking for a friend.
And Deacon: I’m having a bad day and I need someone to open things for me and not be weird about it?
And then because it really can’t wait, I give up and text Jack (who will be nearby, I know it): Fuck. FUCK. Okay fine, I can’t do this alone today.
For the next few minutes, I try to block my dad’s voice out of my head. Try harder, his voice orders. You can do it. Just try harder.
I can’t remember the last time I was this tired.
I did a virtual appointment this morning with my Nashville doctor, but she was fresh out of miracle cures.
She said she’d look into adjusting my biologics, but for right now all I can do is take ibuprofen and rest. My fifty-dollar co-pay buys me the gem: You have to listen to your body, Dixie.
And now my body’s grumpier than fuck and my inability to get out of bed is embarrassing.
“C’mon, Pearl. Get it together.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Progress! The next step is simple: I plant my feet on the floor and push myself upright. I’ve been doing it since I was two, so I’m a pro. I’ll just power through this.
Someone knocks on the door.
“Dix? Can I come in?”
Of course it’s Jack. I wouldn’t put it past him to have been sitting outside my door.
“Yeah,” I grouse. “Ohhhh. You thought I texted for help? You must have misread that, but while you’re here… Can you help me stand up and get dressed?”
Jack comes in with a travel mug in one hand and a deeply concerned look in his eyes. This is bad. He’s dressed for going out in dark slacks and a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His tie hangs loose around his neck. I want to drink him in, but even that’s too much effort.
He crosses the room in three steps. “You don’t look better.”
Fortunately, I still have enough strength left to raise my right hand and flip him off. “You’re such a charmer, Reverend.”
“I’ll be nicer when you’re back in bed.”
“You always are.” I wink at him. Flirting feels safe. Flirting means not admitting the truth.
He doesn’t wait for me to lie down because he’s bossy.
He sets his travel cup on the dresser and then eases me back down himself.
I don’t know how he does it, but he scoops me up and he’s my very own human elevator.
It feels so good to be horizontal that I don’t even bitch about him taking over like that.
Once he’s got me arranged to his satisfaction, he crouches down beside to me, his hand smoothing my hair back from my face. “What can I do?”
“Well, you did promise to be nice to me once I was in bed.”
“I think you need a rain check on that. And—”
I need to tell him that I’m fine, that I’m totally making it to the talent show. Easy-peasy. But his fingers are applying this delicious pressure to mysterious points on my skull and it feels so good that I decide to just lie here.
“Okay, you’re not fine.”
What? No! Why isn’t he convinced?
“It’s just a flare,” I say. “It’ll pass.”
“Yeah,” Jack says, his voice full of sympathy. “But not in the next twenty minutes. You have to stay home.”
I rage internally as I imagine what everyone will say when I don’t show up. Having my dad’s voice stuck in my head is turning out to super inconvenient. He thinks I should suck it up and go.
“I don’t want to leave y’all hanging. The choir needs someone to keep tempo and Dee’s got stage fright, and—”
Jack’s hand strokes over my hair. “Dixie, I came in here planning to tie you to the bed.”
“Kinky,” I whine. “Why are you teasing me like that?”
“Because you need to take care of yourself. You come first.” His hand is cupping my cheek now. “You already did your part. You wrote a song. They learned it. You gave them confidence. You made them believe. Now it’s time for them to show it.”
“Is this the speech about the mama bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest? And how we’re all supposed to yell FLYYYYYYY and not think about what happens if mama bird has really bad judgment or startles baby bird so badly that baby stumbles over its wings and then it’s a splat fest?”
“No.” He gives me a small smile. “Although I might steal that for a sermon.”
“Copyright, Preacher Man.” I reach up and smooth his beard down where it’s sticking up some. Somehow my hand stays glued to his face.
I refuse to cry. I hate crying and crying in front of people is the worst. Tear ducts, you’ve been warned: no misbehaving.
“I have to be really honest and then you and I will talk about what happens next,” Jack says and then waits until I nod.
I’m a captive audience and we both know it.
“I want to stay. God help me, Dix, I want to stay here with you. But this talent show is our best shot at raising enough money for the roof. If I thought me staying would take away your pain, I wouldn’t move from this spot.
But I can’t fix this. What I can do is take what you taught them and get them on that stage.
I can show up—for you. Even if you’re not standing beside me, you’ll be there. ”
My hand falls. Gravity has won. “Go. Kick butt.”
“You’re not gonna be alone. I asked Deacon to come sit with you.”
What? No! I mean, sure, I sort of, not quite accidentally texted the man about an assist, but this feels suspiciously like babysitting. At the very least, it’s an unequal exchange. Jack’s getting sex out of this and sex is the great equalizer.
I frown. Force the words out. “Jack, absolutely not—”
He’s unswayed by my glower. “You need someone here. Someone to nag you to drink water and keep an eye on your fever. I trust him.”
“I must look real sexy right now.”
He brushes the damp hair back from my forehead. I could get used to this. Just a little. “You always look sexy. Even when you look like you could murder someone for a heating pad.”
“I want to go,” I say. “I’m not a quitter.”
“You’ll be there. I’m FaceTiming you in. You think I’m going on that stage without you? Hell, no.”
He kisses my forehead (my forehead!) and leaves before I can get any more sentimental.
A few minutes later, Deacon shows up with a blue sports drink and a bag of frozen peas.
When I tell him I’m not sure what the peas are for, he grumbles that I should google it.
He also grumbles about being drafted into nurse duty but tucks Dee’s ugly-ass blanket around me and glares until I’ve polished off half the sports drink.
It’s disgusting and when I tell him so, he argues that I must be feeling better and that he’s the best nurse ever.
“Don’t think I won’t sit on you if you try to sneak out,” he warns, flipping through the Netflix offerings on his tablet. Apparently, we girlfriends are having a movie night.
I make wide eyes at him. “Are you threatening assault? I’ll have you up before the nursing board, Backwoods.”
“Don’t tempt me, Nashville.”
He keeps one eye on me while pretending to care deeply about reruns of Storage Wars. I drift in and out, the ache in my joints dulling to a constant throb. When Jack’s name lights up my phone, Deacon grunts and hands it over.
Three photos have come through in quick succession.
After hours of driving deep into rural Tennessee, the fairground looks exactly like what you’d expect—a sprawling collection of metal buildings and wooden pavilions scattered across red Tennessee dirt, strings of lights twinkling between structures.
There’s a shot of the main barn with its doors thrown wide, through which I can see a stage flanked by hay bales and backed by a hand-painted banner for Raise the Roof.
The third makes me smile despite everything: the choir van parked between two pickup trucks, with Slate lurking in the background.
Not surprisingly, he looks like he’s questioning the life choices that led him there.
Jack’s text arrives a second later: Your venue, m’lady. Very fancy.
“Time to watch the train wreck,” Deacon says as I scroll through the pictures.
“It’ll be amazing.”
“Yeah.” He winks. “We could pray on it, you and me.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” I say lightly. That line hasn’t worked out for me, but I’m willing to be proved wrong.
When I hit Accept on Jack’s call, his face fills the screen, backlit by stage lights. His beard is ruffled like he’s been running a hand over it.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says.
“Hey yourself, showstopper.”
He flips the camera around to show the packed theater.
A lot of people have shown up. The choir’s stage left, fidgeting and giggling.
I spot Dee straightening someone’s cowboy hat and Slate cracking his knuckles like they’re about to fight, not sing.
Down front, five judges sit at a long table with scorecards and water bottles, looking official and ever so slightly bored.
“Totally ready,” I say.
“Thanks to you.”
He adjusts the phone while we talk, maybe putting it on a tripod near the edge of the stage. It’s hard to tell because the image tilts and I mostly get a shot of his beard followed by a flash of the ceiling and the lighting rig.
“Am I about to be your emotional support livestream?”
“Stay with me, okay?”
“Always.”
The choir is up ten minutes later. I have a good view of them as they file out onto the stage in their matching cowboy hats and bandannas. They’ve gone full country with denim and boots, looking like they’re ready for a barn dance rather than a church talent show.
The room quiets. Jack steps forward, clears his throat, and gives a brief, heartfelt intro about community and music and roofs that don’t leak.
It’s a great speech. He even talks about why they chose this song—“it means a lot to our choir director, who’s absent tonight due to illness, but who’s right here in our hearts nonetheless”—and then…
“Sometimes the best families are the ones you choose.”
Then they start.
“Hallelujah for the mess we are
Small-town sinners ’neath Southern stars
We ain’t angels but we’ve got big hearts…”
It’s my irreverent anthem about small-town misfits, turned into a rollicking, gospel-infused barn burner with handclaps, stomping boots, and a call-and-response section that no one can resist.
“Hallelujah for the mess we are
Small-town sinners ’neath Southern stars
We ain’t angels but we’ve got big hearts—
Hallelujah for the mess we are!”
The whole audience is on their feet, stomping along with the choir’s boots hitting the staging in perfect rhythm (and by perfect, I really mean enthusiastic as hell). “Come on, y’all!” Jack yells, and the crowd roars back: “Give it all!”
They aren’t just watching the performance. They’re part of it.
I have to admit, it isn’t perfect. Dee doesn’t get a single sound out. Slate’s rap is downright terrifying.
They nail it.
By the end, I’m crying. It’s so stupid. Deacon hands me a tissue without a word as the applause thunders through the phone, right up until the call cuts out. It’s an hour before Jack calls me back, although the group chat with the choir has blown up in the meantime.
Dee: We did it!! We’re on the podium!!!
Slate: This is not the Olympics. There’s no medal ceremony.
Walter: They’re gonna SHOW US THE MONEY
Dee: Very Christian
Walter: They’re gonna SHOW US THE MONEY
Toby: Did you hear me? I was SO loud!
Walter: Shoot. How do I unsend a text message? Toby, get over here and show me.
Slate: Everyone heard you. You were great.
Walter: I do have a few notes for our next performance.
Slate: I’m never doing this again.
Dee: We’ve got to do it at least once more, but with Dixie. She’s choir now. We love her.
Walter: Can we say that?
Slate: [[Sends black heart emoji]]
Slate also sends me a picture, although I think that might not be on purpose. It’s an out-of-focus shot of Dee’s hand and her shoulder.
“We placed third,” Jack announces when I answer his call later. “Out of twenty-five acts. We got a check for fifteen grand.”
“Third place?” I’m either going to joke about this or cry. “Fifteen grand’s nice, Jack, but that’s not an entire roof. We needed a win. Like, full-on miracle territory. You can’t order a third of a roof. It’s the whole roof or nothing.”
“Okay,” he says, as if it’s no big deal.
“What?”
“Okay, it’s a third—but that’s a third further than we were this morning. Why can’t this be a start of the solution and not a catastrophic, gloom-and-doom ending?”
“I failed you.” It seems super clear to me. “I didn’t get the win. Hell, I didn’t even get to the venue.”
He can’t argue with me on that. It’s the truth, as is the fact that he’s still twenty-five thousand dollars short for a new roof.
If I suddenly discovered a magic lamp with a wish-granting genie, I’d totally wish him up a new roof right now. I’d give up a chance at a different dream if it would get him what he needed.
And if I could fast-forward time and skip ahead ten years or even twenty to some fantastic time when I’m a successful country music singer who sells out big venues and gets signing bonuses and charts every other week—I’d give him that roof.
I’d put a big, pink bow on it and say Merry Christmas, Jack. You deserve this! Love, Dixie.
Wait. I mentally rewrite my gift tag. With warm regards, Dixie! Or maybe Best, Dixie? This isn’t love. It can’t be.
“Dixie Pearl,” he says, for once oblivious to my inner turmoil. “You got us this far. You did this.”
“No,” I tell him. “We did this. You and me.”
He smiles, soft and full of something I don’t want to a name just yet.
After we end the call, I lie back against the pillows.
The pain’s still here, my fever hasn’t broken, and my body feels like a skin sack full of wet cement.
But inside, somewhere real deep down, I feel warm.
Not just from Jack. From all of them. From the idea that maybe I don’t have to be the one holding everything together all the time.
Maybe trusting someone isn’t the same thing as giving up.
Maybe being vulnerable doesn’t mean being weak.
Deacon nods at the tablet. “Want to see what other disasters are airing tonight?”
“Sure. But nothing with singing. I think I just got my fill.”
He snorts. “You’re the boss.”
I’m not, though. Not here. Not tonight.
And for once, that feels okay.