Chapter 14
TEN YEARS LEFT
That year, we were invited to the Country Music Association Awards at the Ryman. Clayton and I were nominated for a duet from our most recent album about two people who couldn’t help loving one another.
She wasn’t invited to the actual ceremony, but she could come to the reception afterward at the Hermitage Hotel.
On the surface, everything was the same, but I knew she could feel me pulling away.
As much as I still loved her, I couldn’t shake this feeling that something had broken between us.
I had given her a glimpse of the demon child, the me beneath all of the lies and names, because she was the only person I really trusted.
And she’d treated that inner part of me like ignorant trash that didn’t know better.
Inside, the Ryman had been transformed into a sleek backdrop for the broadcast. I waited in my seat as they set up the enormous cameras and figured out the angles, the machinery buzzing something god awful.
Clayton was busy roaming the rows and shaking hands with the other stars, while I was instructed to stay put and look pretty.
I could feel that wild cat getting agitated.
I needed to take a walk. Calm down. But then the orchestra started playing and everyone scurried back to their seats. It was time.
I waited patiently through the other categories and speeches like it was a wedding for someone I didn’t know well.
I’d been around a few years and I’d met folks along the way, but Clayton didn’t introduce me much.
I was usually sequestered somewhere with Hess when I wasn’t performing.
These people were still strangers to me.
When our category finally came around, I clenched my fists and focused hard on the voice of the announcer.
He gave a dramatic pause, and then he was saying our names amid a roar of clapping, and Clayton was taking my hand and pulling me out of my seat.
I’d told myself I didn’t give a damn if I got some award.
But of course I did.
I floated above the boot-scuffed floor as Clayton led me to the stage by the hand. As we climbed the few steps, I prayed to God I wouldn’t trip on my long, flowy gown. Then we were up behind the podium squinting into the bright lights. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Clayton stepped in front of me to speak into the microphone and kept hold of my hand, pulling me behind him like I was a child.
His tall frame blocked the lights, so that all I could see then was the square of his dark-blue suit.
I heard him thank the Country Music Association, and then he was tugging me off the stage.
I tried to say a thank-you into the mic, but I was too far away for the sound to register.
It had been so quick, and now it was over. I sat in my seat as the other categories were called, buzzing and empty.
On the off chance we won, I’d rehearsed my speech in my head while I tried to sleep the night before.
I debated whether I should thank Hess, or if people would get suspicious.
Everyone knew we were best friends. A girl is allowed a best friend.
So I decided I would thank all of the Mom Washburn girls together, with Hess in the honorary last spot, and that would be safe.
Regardless of what happened between us, I owed my life to her.
I also wanted to thank God and the golden place he’d created for music that sent me messages throughout the day.
I knew people might think I was strange, but I didn’t care. I was an artist.
None of it mattered now. I’d been blotted out by Clayton.
I might as well have stayed in my seat; at least I’d have hung on to a little dignity.
I bitterly mused whether he would have been nominated if it weren’t for me.
Everyone knew he was washed up. Our audience came to see me sing at our shows, to hear my voice and see what I was wearing.
Phoebe had made me a fashion icon of sorts, though I only knew this from reading magazines.
I was kept away from the rest of the world and the fans.
The mad cat thrashed around inside me, clawing to get out. I couldn’t sit there burning up with resentment for the rest of my life.
Ten years.
I only had ten fucking years left.
There was no way I was using those to keep some man’s career afloat, as much as I loved him in a complicated way.
He’d taken such tender care of me, like the rich, sweet father I’d never had.
And I truly believed he loved me as much as he could.
But I also knew he’d built a comfy little prison for me with his care.
He controlled every aspect of my life so I could never leave or move past him. He had me right where he wanted me.
At the after-party, I fumed. Clayton had no idea, because he was off schmoozing with our award in hand, receiving congratulations and clinking glasses. Hess and I were at a table in the far corner, and I barely spoke to her, focused instead on burning holes into the back of Clayton’s hair-piece.
Hess put a hand on my arm. “Why don’t we just leave? I can tell you’re not having a good time, and we should get on the road anyway.”
Hess and I were supposed to go to the cabin for a few days before the tour started. We’d planned to leave that night so we could wake up in the mountains the next morning.
But I didn’t want to slink off, hiding myself away from the world. Wasting my precious time before I was forced to go back into the studio, to sing his words and spout his principles. Eat his food, wear his clothes, ride in his car, because neither he nor Hess would teach me how to drive.
I was in the mood for destruction.
“I don’t want to leave tonight. I want to celebrate.” I left Hess at the table and asked for a glass of vodka at the bar. The bartender hitched his eyebrows at the request, but I didn’t take the bait. I shot it down like water, the sting of it matching my fury. I asked for another, and he poured.
“A lady after my own heart.” The voice was creamy behind me, smelling of Tom Collins and gardenia. I turned around, and there was Alice Buckley in the flesh. She’d just lost best album of the year. She was another divorced country star like Clayton, and it gave her a haunted patina that I liked.
She signaled the bartender for two more, and he lined them up. Alice and I knocked glasses and downed them. I let out a guttural holler, and that was how I knew I was drunk. The hillbilly was coming out.
Alice slapped me on the back and laughed. “You are not what I expected. I thought you were this little lamb in a wedding dress following Clayton around.” She dabbed her lipstick with a napkin and asked the bartender for another. “But you ain’t that at all.” She winked at me and slung it back.
I saw Hess and Clayton watching me from different sides of the room, and I started to sweat under the jeweled collar at my neck, suddenly aware that it was choking me.
I tried to loosen it with my fingers, but it wouldn’t give.
“You think there’s anything to get into around here?
You know, something more than just jawing? I’m so antsy I might shed my skin.”
Alice thought about it for a moment, and then she got this devilish look on her face. “I know just the thing.” She leaned over the bar and grabbed a bottle of champagne in each fist. The bartender didn’t try to stop her.
We pretended to hide the bottles behind our backs as we snaked around the edge of the party toward the doors, and then hightailed it down the hallway, giggling like banshees. We got in the elevator, and she asked the bewildered conductor to take us to the top floor.
As we ascended, the light dimmed, and the world tilted.
Next thing I knew I was on my knees on the hallway carpet as if I’d just tripped. Alice was hunched over laughing in front of me.
Then I was climbing a metal ladder up the side of the building with one hand, the bottle in the other. My heel slipped on a rung, and I kicked both shoes off into the void below like the world was my bedroom.
Then I was on my back on a hard, gritty surface looking up at the stars, reminding me of that Fourth of July years ago when Hess and I first fell in love.
I moved against a body. Thick, chemical-coated hair was in my mouth and eyes. There was only that feeling between my legs and the hair smothering all other perception.
And then there was a whole lot of nothing.
I came to in my soft, starchy bed. Consciousness was a heavy burden, and I longed to go back under and sleep forever.
Or at least until I felt like a human being again.
But when I turned over, I saw Hess hunched on the side of the bed, faced away from me.
Her shoulders were shaking. I reached out for her, and she shrank away from my touch.
I closed my eyes with my arm still outstretched on the comforter, attempting to conjure some stronger self to rise to the moment. But I was destroyed.
I reopened them and watched Hess pace in front of the bed.
I saw in the light slanting through the curtains that her face was bare and rubbed raw.
Hess was the kind of woman who could swim all day in a creek, and she’d look better than most women could ever hope for.
I’d woken up next to her hundreds of times, and she always looked fresh as a baby’s bottom.
I’d never seen her so unraveled. It scared me.
“Are you just going to lie there?” she asked icily. Her anger had only ever been the sweet, nourishing kind meant to help me find the right answer. I didn’t recognize this voice.
“I’m not feeling very good.” I half expected her to start tending to me, maybe get me some aspirin and a glass of cold water. But she just stood there, staring daggers into the wall. She’d yet to actually look at me.
“How could you? Just explain it to me. Because I don’t understand how you could actually, physically do what you did. It is beyond my intelligence.”