Lost in Tennessee

by DeVito, Anita

  “Katie. Wait.”

  She stopped only because Butch took her arm, but she couldn’t look at him.

  “You bought that dress for me, didn’t you? And the boots.” He lifted her chin until he held her gaze.

  “I, uh, wanted to do something to, um, show you how you make me feel.”

  He took her mouth with his, bending her back until her arms wrapped around his neck. He held her to him, assaulting her mouth until her full lips were swollen and body breathless. “Thank you,” he said against her throat. “This is one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten.”

  The crowd went wild when Butch McCormick stepped out from the wings to host his portion of the Grand Ole Opry that night. Kate sat wide-eyed while little old ladies from as far away as Kansas swarmed into the aisles to snap pictures of the stars on stage. Butch wore his favorite faded jeans, the trendy button-down shirt Trudy had insisted upon, and the boots Kate gave him. “Y’all like my new boots? Fancy, aren’t they? I don’t think I’ll be bringing in the hay in these, but they sure are nice for dancing.”

  Kate laughed as Butch did a quick shuffle, remembering what they had done just a few hours ago with their boots on. Save a horse, ride a cowboy.

  Butch danced over to his acoustic guitar and played a dreamy melody that quieted the audience right down. He sang of hot summer days and slow summer nights, of girls that tasted like sweet lemons and honeysuckle, of old friends and lost loves. The ladies adored him. Kate saw more than a few draw fingers over tear-filled eyes as they came to their feet.

  Butch made a few jokes to dry the tears and traded the acoustic for electric. “It must be these boots. I just can’t stop dancing.”

  He tore into a fast, upbeat tune. Some were on their feet, others in a seat, but everyone in the house moved.

  Near the end of Butch’s set, Kate saw Jeb jerk to attention. He whispered to Tom and Hyde, and the three men slunk out of their seats. Kate watched them disappear through a door and reappear in the wings. Jeb approached a tall woman with a Barbie-doll figure and a yard of thick, blond hair.

  Kate leaned in toward Trudy. “Who is Jeb talking to?”

  Trudy looked past Jeb, her breath catching. When she spoke, she practically growled. “Fawn.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Are those real?” Kate asked.

  “The diamonds are, the tits aren’t,” Trudy said. “She made him give them to her as a wedding present. She said they went with the dress.”

  “The diamonds or the tits?”

  “Both.”

  Butch introduced the next performer—a little, old man of great renown whose last record was released a decade before Kate was born—and went off stage the opposite direction of his ex. Security joined Jeb, and Kate lost sight of them as they stepped deep into the wings. When the curtain fell on the second intermission, Kate and Trudy sprinted from their chairs to get backstage. A big man with a flat face, who looked as dense as he was thick, blocked the doorway.

  “Do you know who I am?” Trudy demanded. “I am Butch McCormick’s best friend. I demand to see him.”

  When that didn’t work, Trudy pouted, then begged, and finally cursed before lifting her chin in the air and walking to the bar. Two Jack and Diet Cokes later, she sat stewing about the fact that the security guards didn’t have her name and face committed to memory. The intermission ended, and they returned to their seats.

  Kate watched the last portion of the show anxiously. She wanted to be with Butch but had no idea where he was or how to get to him. Each minute lasted an hour. She just sat with nothing to do but wait.

  “We are going,” Butch insisted. “Everywhere.” Butch wanted to share Nashville with Kate and wasn’t going to let his ex-wife spoil it. He had brought Fawn here only a few years earlier, wanting to share his past with her, but she wasn’t interested in his past, only her future. He expected Kate to be different, and she didn’t disappoint. Kate stayed close to Butch, absorbing the scene. She asked about the old times, laughed at Butch’s audacity, made friends with every bartender, and left as a favored guest. Butch loved the way she jumped in with both feet and accepted the sometimes odd assortment of characters without reservation. Exuding a natural sexuality that captured and held people’s interest, she paid attention to each and every one of them, drawing out details, rewarding the far-fetched storytelling with hearty laughter. He had no idea why she didn’t previously have a man wrapped around her day and night.

  While Kate explored new territory, Trudy hung on Butch’s arm as they bar hopped around the music district. Butch expected Kate to be a little jealous that Trudy kept coming between them. Maybe he wanted her to be a little jealous and hang on him herself, but when Katie smiled at him, they shared a private moment, one that lovers shared, one that transcended charming strangers and clingy friends. Butch gave a lock of her hair a tug, laughing together at the fish story that had grown six inches since he’d heard it last.

  In one of his favorite little bars, Steel Strings, Trudy pushed Butch to the stage when the band took a break. He chuckled when Trudy pulled Kate off the bar stool at the back of the long room and raced ahead of the crowd to a pair of empty chairs at the front of the stage.

  Butch sat on a stool, cradling a borrowed guitar. “Y’all don’t mind if I play around?” he asked the crowd.

  The crowd cheered, and the owner, Donny Dowd, the man who had given him a start not so long ago, loved it when the patrons ordered another round instead of walking down the street. Flashes from cameras, phones, and tablets lit up the room like the Fourth of July.

  “Let’s have a round of applause for the boys.”

  Cheers rose from the crowd and bounced off the ceiling.

  “I’ve been working on some new songs, and y’all are going to be my guinea pigs.”

  The crowd clapped and whistled, egging Butch on. “This one doesn’t have a name yet. It’s about my parents and the way my mother looks when my father walks into the room.” A romantic, hopeful song spun from the guitar as Butch sang about the light in her eyes, the spring in her step, and the reason she laughed. How he was the one she reached out for, the one she held on to.

  Butch finished the song, and the ladies went wild. They bounded to their feet in a standing ovation and elbowed the men they were with until they stood, too.

  A tall blonde with huge rocks stepped onto the stage, a full plastic cup in hand. “Looks like you have another hit, Butch.”

  “Fawn.” Butch steeled himself. He had hoped the conversation Jeb had with Fawn at the Opry would settle things for the night. A flair for drama enhanced Fawn’s talent as an actress. She could make a scene like the best of them. With the divorce now public, that’s the way she would view this, him—as a scene to be made. He had a choice: the high road or the low road. “Everyone, you know Fawn Jordan. Fawn, this is everyone.”

  Fawn stalked across the small stage. Butch knew from the look in her eye that trouble came with her. With a quick flick of the wrist, her cup emptied. Butch pushed the borrowed guitar out of the splash zone in the nick of time. The well-aimed drink soaked his hair. Ice fell to the floor, bouncing across the worn stage.

  Butch took a deep breath and thought he should have seen that coming. At the back of the room, Jeb and security rushed to their feet, but the going was rough as the audience clogged the aisle to watch celebrity lives crash and burn. On his own for a few more minutes, Butch ignored Fawn and talked to the audience.

  “I don’t think she liked my song. I thought it was pretty good, myself.”

  Fawn pitched forward at the hips. “Don’t you dare pull that bullshit, Butch McCormick. You sit up here, painting a picture of a good man, a family man, when you are nothing but a selfish, egotistical, backstabbing son-of-a-bitch. You think you can just toss me out? I’m not one of your bitches, bouncing across the stage to kiss your feet just to be thrown out in the morning. The minute you’re not the most famous person under the roof you toss me out. I’m your wife. You have respons
ibilities to me.”

  Butch knew he shouldn’t say anything. You didn’t win the battle by sticking your head out in a gun fight. He knew that. But you didn’t win by keeping your head down and never firing a shot, either. “Likewise.”

  Fawn’s eyes flashed, and Butch knew she understood the deeply layered accusation. She never wanted a husband, she wanted an agent. She insulted everything he believed in when she used their marriage as a career booster. With the flatness in his voice and the resignation in his eyes, he told her.

  Fawn arched her back, outrage and alcohol straining her made up face. “You no good son-of-a-bitch.”

  Fawn raised her hand to slap him. Butch saw it, expected it, but Kate leapt onto the stage to stand squarely in front of Butch. Trudy clamored up onto the stage to run to Butch’s side.

  “It’s time for you to go,” Kate said, in a controlled, neutral voice.

  “Katie.” Butch calmly set the guitar back on the stand. “Go on and sit down. Don’t get in the middle of this.”

  Fawn glared at Kate. “You’re protecting his little whore?”

  Security approached rapidly. Jeb stopped being polite and physically moved people out of his way.

  Kate spoke softly. “This isn’t the kind of publicity you want, Fawn.”

  “How the hell do you know what I want?” Fawn screamed and swung out at Kate, drawing dagger-like fingernails across Kate’s throat. Pushing Kate to the ground, Fawn launched herself at Trudy.

  “You backwoods whore,” Fawn screamed, this time slapping Trudy, pulling her hair.

  Butch couldn’t move fast enough. He tried to separate the two women, but Fawn kept coming, and Trudy fought back. Kate set her brow, lifted Fawn by the waist and tossed her away from Trudy. Butch tied Trudy up, stopping certain retaliation. But it wasn’t over. With fire in her eyes, Fawn charged Kate. Kate set her feet wide and steady.

  Butch winced. This wasn’t what he wanted. “Katie, no.”

  Kate never flinched. She simply stepped out of the way at the last minute. Thick electric cords that snaked across the stage caught Fawn’s fuck-me heels, sending her careening into the set-up of guitars.

  Fawn screamed as she covered her nose. “You bitch! I want you arrested. I’m going to sue you for every cent you have!”

  Trudy clung to Butch, keeping him from getting to Kate. “Trudy, let me go.”

  “I think my nose is broken.” Trudy wrapped her arms around Butch’s waist, preventing him from walking.

  Kate pressed a hand to the scratches on her neck, muttering words not fit for prime time. She stepped over the two guitars that were collateral damage.

  Butch saw the storm front brewing. He didn’t want Kate involved in the mess of his life. He refused to have her dragged through the mud. Frustrated, Butch pulled at the arms Trudy had locked around him. “Trudy, let go! Kate. Don’t. Damn it. Jeb! Get up here.”

  The muscles in Kate’s bare arms flexed as she took the bleached hair by the roots. “Try that again, and I don’t care who you are, you’ll find yourself at the dark end of a deep hole.”

  Security reached the stage, pulling Kate away and lifting Fawn to her feet.

  “You assholes! Get your hands off of me. I’m going to sue you, too. You…Edward. And you, too, José,” she said, reading the tags on their shirts.

  Flashes from the audience made it look like Steel Strings had installed a disco ball. Butch knew where those pictures were headed. Where they already were. What picture had she painted of him? A petty husband, jealous of her success. He wanted to tell the world how she turned him out of their house, out of their bed the minute she didn’t need him.

  But he didn’t.

  Even with adrenaline coursing through his veins, he wouldn’t air dirty laundry in a public shouting match. He followed security until he reached Kate, dropping his voice low enough that no one would hear but her. “I said no. What part of that didn’t you get?”

  Kate tugged the now strapless dress upward. “But she—”

  “Butch?” Trudy’s voice trembled from behind him.

  Kate’s heart sunk when Butch turned away from her. She lived with the cold shoulder her entire life, yet the bite stung when she thought herself immune. Tom leaped onto the stage, and she let him lead her to the edge.

  “I’m impressed, Katie. I would have laid her out.”

  Hyde took the last drag of his beer and held his hand out, helping Kate jump from the short stage. “She didn’t need to. The ex-Mrs. McCormick did the work for her.”

  Butch jumped from the stage and scowled at Kate as he went swiftly past to talk to Donny, the owner.

  Good, Kate thought, be pissed. He should be pissed with the way the fake-titted Fawn Jordan treated him.

  Jeb elbowed Tom. “Get her out of here before Fawn presses charges. We’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

  Kate gawked for an instant before she found her voice. “Her press charges? Are you fucking kidding me? She tripped.”

  Tom followed Jeb’s advice and pulled his cousin out the back door and into the alley.

  “This is bullshit, Tom. She comes in and assaults Butch twice, and she gets escorted out the front door. I protected Trudy, and I get dragged out the back like yesterday’s trash. I didn’t even hit her.”

  “I’m not dragging you out like yesterday’s trash.” But he was. Tom had both hands firmly around her arms and pulled Kate in the opposite direction of Fawn Jordan.

  In the skinny alley with brick walks and a sour smell, Kate shouted in a voice too high and too loud. “How could he just sit there and take it?”

  “He lives in a different world, Kate.” Tom used the deliberately calm tone Kate hated as he maneuvered her out of the firestorm. “People watch what celebrities do. They take pictures and tell stories. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or fair. It looked to me like Fawn came off as the insane one.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m not quite bright.” Kate shook off her cousin’s hands and fell into step next to him. She still glowered, but her temperature crawled back down the thermometer.

  “How’s your neck?”

  “It stings like hell. I bet she dipped those things in poison. Watch, I’m going to get tetanus or rabies or some fucked up STD.” Kate walked to a small park near the Hermitage. “I don’t want to go in yet. Let’s sit for a few minutes, maybe they’ll come by.” Sitting in the cool night, the sounds of a vibrant nightlife in the distance, the adrenalin wore off, and she began to see other points of view. “Where were you and Jeb that whole time?”

  Tom sat on the bench, draping an arm across the back. “Trapped behind a wall of people.”

  She sighed heavily. “What do you think I should have done?”

  Tom puckered his lips as he thought. After a long moment, he answered. “Nothing. It was his fight.”

  Kate dropped her head back and looked at the stars. “But—”

  “I know. I couldn’t have done it either. But think it through. If you hadn’t jumped on stage, what would have happened?”

  “She would have hit him,” she said definitively.

  “She would have tried,” Tom corrected. “Didn’t you see his face? She wasn’t going to succeed.”

  “I was watching her. Did you see her face? She hated him. She wanted to hurt him.”

  “Yeah, I got that. That’s why I get what you did.”

  All of the venom had drained away. Kate didn’t want to fight or argue, but she worried Butch wouldn’t be in the same mind. “He’s going to be mad. Think he’s a yeller? I hope so. I know how to deal with loud mad. Quiet mad rips my guts out.”

  Tom pushed to his feet. “Looks like we’re about to find out.”

  Kate stood, watching the four friends file out of a cab. Trudy walked sandwiched between Butch and Hyde, hunched over and covering her face. Jeb paid the cab, then followed behind, his glare threatening anyone approaching.

  Tom called out. “Jeb. Butch.”

  Butch turned and abandoned Trudy
to Hyde, stalking down the street until he stood in front of Kate. “What the hell did you think you were doing coming up on the stage?” Butch managed to yell without raising his voice. A honed, steel edge came into it as sharp as any knife.

  Though she didn’t feel physically threatened, he definitely invaded her space. “I was helping you. She was—”

  “Helping me?” Butch looked miserable. His long hair poked out in all directions, matted with drying beer. His shirt clung to his chest, the crumpled tails out of his jeans. His eyes were flat, hard, angry. “That was helping me? Brawling with my not-quite-ex-wife in no way helped me. This isn’t your world where you can bark orders and people jump. This is my world.”

  Kate spoke calmly, hoping he couldn’t sense the pounding of her heart and the bile rising up the back of her throat. “It wasn’t a brawl. Not on my end. I just pulled her off of Trudy. I specifically did not get into a brawl. You wouldn’t be yelling like this if Jeb did the same thing.”

  Butch inhaled sharply, and his teeth dug into his lip. He wanted to deny it. She read it on his face. “The difference,” he said, his voice now barely above a whisper, “is you and I have a relationship. What happened tonight isn’t going to make it easier to divorce her. Tomorrow the story and pictures will be all over the internet. Hell, they’re probably there already.” Butch ran a hand through his hair, disgust showed on his face when it didn’t comb through. “Your face will be all over the internet. Shit. I have to call Finch.” Butch took three deep breaths while Katie held hers, expecting him to tell her good-bye. Instead, he held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

  For nearly an hour, Butch had Finch on speaker phone. Jeb, Hyde, and Tom played on smartphones, monitoring postings about Butch like election night results. Trudy sat curled on a chair, the ice pack on her nose doing little to abate the bloom of blue and purple around her eyes.

  Kate needed some space. Too many big bodies, too much emotion, too little square footage. Pulling comfortable clothes from the dresser, she found space in the oversized bathroom. She showered, taking her time to wash the hairspray and knots from her hair. Her neck stung when the water touched the scratches.