Chapter 4 #3
We followed on the unlit, winding drive as Hess explained how Lou had left provisions in her will to turn Bellewood into a museum whose proceeds would fund music education in rural Tennessee.
The estate had partnered with the Country Music Hall of Fame to set up the exhibits, and now it was a popular side tour. Thousands visited every week.
“I wanted you to see it without all the crowds,” she added.
We rounded a bend, and a house loomed into view, my eyes now accustomed to the dark.
The front had the same Greek columns as Hess’s parents’ house, but these were painted hot pink, and two large pink wings extended from either side, making it look like the White House if it’d been designed for Barbie.
I saw a light blink near one of the bushes at the front, and I wondered if it was a faulty outdoor light. Then another one blinked a few feet away, and then another, and another, until the house glittered.
“Do you remember lightning bugs?” Hess asked me, and I shook my head in wonder. It was amazing what beauty a person could forget.
Hess disappeared for a bit, and then there was a heavy clang, and the house lit up all at once like a carnival ride, dispersing the twinkling bugs. The facade shimmered with tiny pink bulbs, and a Belle Powers song I didn’t know poured from a fake rock speaker next to me.
Phoebe jumped up and down clapping, then led the charge up to the front door where Hess let us inside.
The entryway was a grand two-storied situation that led to a corded-off living room decorated entirely in different shades of pink. An enormous portrait of Belle Powers done in pink rhinestones instead of paint hung above the magenta fireplace.
I stood behind the plush exhibit rope and tried to remember something of this room, but it looked like no one had ever set foot here, much less played on its rug.
The flamingo satin of the couch shone so slickly, I imagined you’d slide right off.
And the smell only reminded me of church, with its crumbling carpet and burnt coffee.
The kitchen, which I expected to be homier, looked like it’d been dipped in liquid gold—gold counters, gold stove, gold fridge.
There was a gold bowl of gold fruit sitting on the solid gold breakfast table in the corner.
I couldn’t imagine someone cooking, much less eating, in the kitchen without going blind.
I wandered into a more subdued room with nothing but a white grand piano and a desk stacked with notebooks, scribbled napkins, and a Krystal takeout menu with a few lines written in the spaces between the prices.
I had been ignoring the accompanying placards to force my own memories, but now I read this one for the “Music Room.”
It described Belle’s voracious songwriting habit—at any moment, she might come up with a few lyrics or chords and have to write them down on whatever was available.
One time she wrote a whole song in turquoise eyeliner on a hotel mirror and the maid left it for the next guest, afraid to scrub it off.
This was the room where she assembled the fragments into songs, and this space, at least, still buzzed with life.
I wondered if she’d ever let me sit with her in here, or if this was a place she went to be alone to make her music.
Even in this room, it was hard to imagine a child had ever lived in this house.
Upstairs, I found a series of themed guest bedrooms connected by a hallway lined with gold-framed pictures and small placards.
The first showed a young Belle in a poofy vintage wedding dress and daisy-studded wig standing next to a middle-aged man in a tuxedo and lustrous tan.
I studied the date on the placard, 1967, and did the math. She was my age—eighteen.
The placard identified the man as her first husband, country star Clayton Redd.
It said in ’67, he was visiting a friend at a rival label’s studio and heard Belle sing for the first time.
He scooped her up from the competition, brought her out on tour, and, in essence, launched her career.
Belle’s first four albums were recorded with him, and then later, he produced her crossover albums that made her the big star she is remembered as today.
While their romance didn’t last, he would always be known as one of her most important collaborators.
Hess came up behind me and studied the picture over my shoulder. “She hated that dress. But Clayton insisted.”
“How old was he?”
Hess pursed her lips. “I think he was mid-thirties… maybe thirty-four, thirty-five?”
“That’s disgusting.” She looked like a child bride sold off to this bronzed creep.
Hess laughed. “I know this sounds like a cop-out, but things were different back then.” It seemed like she wanted to say more, but she stayed quiet.
“I didn’t know she was married before my dad.”
Hess smiled absently and nodded, but again, she didn’t say more.
We moved on to Belle’s master bedroom, which had a more restrained butterfly theme. Next to her bed, I saw the first photograph in the house that wasn’t a splashy portrait or a posed photo with another celebrity.
I craned my neck to get a better look, but the rope partition kept me at the edge of the room. Hess scooted it aside and gestured forward. “Go ahead.”
I crept gingerly over to the photo and picked up the frame.
In it were two women about my age in matching dresses and holding guitars—one glossy, freckled brunette that was undoubtedly a young Hess.
The other I didn’t quite recognize—she was bone thin with frizzy copper hair like my own fanned around her head and a feral intensity in the face. I asked Hess who she was.
“That’s Lou.”
I stared back at the photo, embarrassed I hadn’t placed her. But she looked so different from the images I’d seen, as to be an entirely separate person. Even the light inside her burned a different color.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. When your mama took off her wig and makeup, no one recognized her. Even when she was real famous, we could go out to eat in the middle of Nashville and no one would have a clue who she was.”
I stared even harder at the photo, trying to force some recognition beyond my own hair color, perhaps some connection to the warm chest I sometimes dreamt of. But nothing came.
Instead, I noticed what looked like dark branching lines showing through the chiffon neck of the dress.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing at them.
Hess squinted at the image and shook her head. “No idea. Must be a shadow from the camera.” She took the frame from me and set it back on the table. “Let’s see the next room.”
Out in the hallway, the other women joined us as we approached the last door with a sign that said NO TRESPASSING in cheery pink cursive. Hess took a key from her pocket, opened it, and let me walk through first.
The child-sized four-poster bed looked like a castle with turrets built around each post. In the far-right corner, there was a wooden jungle gym with a slide leading down to a ball pit.
On the other side, there was a tiny white baby grand, a miniature guitar, and a shelf lined with books and beautiful, pristine dolls.
On a small vanity arched with real glass bulbs, a few framed photos stood next to a set of silver hairbrushes. The first photo showed a younger, more effortless Phoebe at the beach with a girl of about two or three in a Tarzan-like bathing suit, flexing her tiny guns like a miniature bodybuilder.
A dark-purple mark slashed across her collarbone.
That little girl was me.
“You used to run around bellowing like a wild woman, so I made you a wild woman’s bikini.” Phoebe laughed from behind me.