Grier left the room and stepped into the lobby where the seventy plus girls stood looking as if they no longer had anything to live for.
Her heart went out to them, and she wished somehow that she could tell them life would hold joys and wonders far more amazing and wonderful than a date with George. That this let down was really just a little pot hole along the way.
“Girls, I want to thank you for coming out today. I understand that each of you had your hopes up for this. I wish that I didn’t have to disappoint any of you. If it were up to me, every single one of you would be the winner.”
A half smile and shrugged shoulders met the statement. Grier watched as they turned and trudged from the lobby through the doors of the Inn. Gil looked at Grier. “They’ll get over it. At sixteen, everything is life or death.”
The two of them rejoined the group of still bubbling over teenagers, and Grier began the process that would shatter the hopes of yet a second round of eager girls.
The interviews were conducted in a small sitting room off the main lobby. Gil directed each girl in and out and held her to the five-minute time allotment like a German shepherd holding a suspect in place while the arresting officer questioned him. If it weren’t for his careful monitoring of the time she spent with each girl, they could be here until midnight.
The difficult thing was that each of the girls had something about them that made them special. Some of them were funny, some serious, some more eager to know about Grier’s career than about George.
Anderson Randall was a tough nut to crack though. She walked into the room, wearing a deadpan expression that hid what Grier already knew was a beautiful smile. “Hello, Anderson,” Grier said.
“Hi. I prefer Andy.”
“Have a seat, please, Andy.”
She pulled out a chair, crossing her arms across her chest, looking suddenly awkward and gawky.
“So why are you here today, Andy?”
“I want to go on a date with George like everybody else here?”
Grier smiled. “Now why don’t I believe that?” She looked down at the application Andy had filled out, saw the 4.0 GPA, the interest in historical architecture. “You don’t seem like someone who would care an awful lot about that.”
“What do I seem like I would care about?” she asked, a little short.
“Meeting someone on your own?”
“Around here?” Andy said.
Grier inclined her head, then said, “So why do you want to go out with him?”
Andy’s gaze went wide, as if she felt she was being unfairly prodded as to her motivation. “Does it really matter?”
“Yes, actually, it does,” Grier said. “I just kind of have a feeling that you’re not here on your own.”
“That’s not true,” Andy said. “I am here on my own.”
“And your mother very much wants you to be?”
“And my daddy very much doesn’t want me to be. But I don’t really care what either of them thinks. I’m here because I want to be here.”
Grier considered this, doodled on her paper for a minute and then said, “What if he’s not what you’re expecting?”
“Well, I’m not expecting much. Surely, he’ll live up to that.”
Grier laughed then, charmed in spite of herself. “He would certainly have his hands full with you.”
Andy looked surprised by this. She glanced away, folded her arms across her chest and bit her lower lip. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to go somewhere, do something different, be somebody different?”
“Actually, I have,” Grier said.
“Is that why you left here?”
Grier raised an eyebrow. “How did you know—”
“My daddy said you used to date Uncle Darryl Lee.”
Grier had to press her lips together at the sound of uncle and Darryl Lee paired together. “Yes, that was a very long time ago.”
“He’s not as bad as everyone makes him out to be,” Andy said. “He just likes to have fun.”
“Nothing wrong with that as long as no one gets hurt.”
Andy considered this. “Daddy thinks he’s irresponsible.”
“Your daddy could be right.”
“I think Daddy would do well to borrow a little of Uncle Darryl Lee’s live and let live.”
“Hm,” Grier said. “So what is your daddy going to say if you win this date with George?”
“There’s not a whole lot he can say.”
“Actually, you’re sixteen. There’s a good bit he could say. If there’s a chance that he won’t allow you to do this, then it’s really not fair to take the opportunity away from another girl.”
“Don’t say that!” Andy erupted with clear indignation. “This is something I want to do. My mom already signed the consent form. It doesn’t matter what Daddy thinks.”
“Andy—”
“Please,” she said. “Don’t eliminate me based on that. Give me a chance!”
Grier’s heart twisted a little at the pleading in the girl’s voice. She wasn’t sure of the origin of it, but she knew it was real. She remembered suddenly what it felt like to be sixteen and yearn to be anywhere in the world except where she was. Even if it was just for a day.
Gil entered the room with an abrupt knock and a pointed glance at her watch. “Okay, time’s up.”
Andy stared at Grier, then stood and in a soft voice said, “Please.”
“Thank you, Andy. It was nice talking with you.”
While Grier waited for the next interviewee to come in, she thought about the look on Andy’s face and wondered about the real truth behind why this was so important to her.
Chapter Fifteen
Dear Andy,
Will u b my girl?
____Yes ____ No
Note from Kyle Summers
Second Grade – Timbell Creek Elementary
Andy didn’t bother to wait for her mother.
She stormed out of the Inn, click clacking down the sidewalk in her ridiculously high heels and, waiting until she had rounded the corner out of sight, tossing them in the shrubbery by the sidewalk.
She had never felt so stupid in her entire life. What had she been thinking to enter such a lame-butt contest anyway? It wasn’t as if she really gave a pile of cow poop about ever actually going on a date with George, Duke of Wherever. He was probably a total zero anyway.
All she cared about was GETTING OUT OF THIS TOWN. Away from her mom. And her dad. And their infernal fussing over her.
Entering this contest was exactly the kind of thing her mom would have done at age sixteen, according to her dad’s recollection, anyway.
Sometimes, Andy wanted to be exactly like her. And others, she wanted to run from the very thought. This was one of those times.
But somewhere down deep in the mess of all this, she wanted to show her dad that she could do the things that her mom did. That she was every bit as pretty. That she was her mother’s daughter.
But then that was crazy, wasn’t it? Because this morning during every minute of sitting in that room, all she had wanted was to get up and run, as far and as fast as she could from the whole thing.
A horn tooted behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Kyle idling up in his rattly old Ford pickup. He leaned across the seat and rolled down the window.
“Hey, Andy! What are you doing?”
“Walking. What does it look like?”
“You’re in the middle of town. Barefoot. In an evening dress.”
“It’s not an evening dress,” she said.
“Cocktail dress. Whatever. Where have you been?”
“None of your business.”
He revved the engine and rolled on ahead, then pulled over at an angle, swinging the door open. “Get in,” he said. “We’ll go get ice cream.”
“I don’t want any ice cream.”
“You always want ice cream.”
“I don’t want any now.”
“Andy, come on, get in.”
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She glanced over her shoulder, saw her mother’s convertible pulling up behind them, and said, “Go! Go!”
“What is wrong with you?” Kyle said, eyeing the low neckline of her dress and then jerking his gaze up when she gave him a pointed look. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“At the Inn,” she said. “Can you just go?”
He gunned the truck, and they took off. “Don’t tell me you were there for that stupid George, Duke of—”
“Stop!” she said.
He started to laugh. “You really entered that, Andy?”
“It’s none of your business whether I entered it or not.”
“Are you kidding me? You? Why in the world would you care about some ridiculous date with a—”
“A date with a duke sounds like a pretty good thing to me right about now,” Andy said.
“Since when?” he said.
“Since you became such a jerk?”
“Andy. Ever since I started playing football—”
“You don’t have time for anything you used to have time for.”
“I lift weights and run track so I don’t get out of shape.”
“And hang out with the cheerleaders,” Andy said.
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Andy, I asked you to come to the games last fall.”
“I didn’t want to come to the games. I hate football.”
“Well, I need a scholarship for college. Unlike you, mine’s not paid for.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair. You haven’t picked up on that yet.”
They glared at each other, while Andy swam in a pool of mixed emotions. Fondness for the boy she had known since she was six years old and the first day of kindergarten. Frustration for the jock he had become since school had started in the fall and he’d become such a big football star. Whatever it was they’d been to each other all these years was no longer there. And it was just high time they both accepted it.
A car laid on the horn behind them.
Andy glanced back to see her mother barreling down on them.
“My mom’s still behind us. Go! I don’t want to talk to her right now.”
Kyle swung a right on Cherry Street, hit the gas and the old truck shuddered once, then bolted forward. He hung a left on Amherst Way. Andy glanced back. Her mother had missed the turn.
“Yay,” she said, sinking back against the seat.
“So why are you running from your mom?”
“Because she makes me crazy,” Andy said.
“A person could call you Sybil where she’s concerned.”
Andy shrugged at this. “It is kind of like that.”
“What did your dad say about you going to that thing?”
“What do you think he said?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter what he said.”
“Since when?”
“Since I decided it’s time I grew up.”
He looked at her and then said, “Why don’t we go to a movie tomorrow night?”
“I’m sure you already have plans with your cheerleader friends.”
“I don’t have plans. If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, now that you think I might be going out with a duke, you’re all hot after me.”
He laughed. “Who says you’re gonna win?”
“I say I’m gonna win. And for your information, I’m busy tomorrow night.”
Kyle turned into her driveway. The brakes squeaked. “I’ll get out here,” Andy said, popping open the door.
“I can drive you up, Andy,” Kyle began.
“No need. See you, Kyle,” she said, hopping out and walking barefoot down the paved road. She had to try her very hardest not to look back.
Get the rest of Jane Austen Girl on Amazon.com.
An Excerpt from Nashville - Part One - Ready to Reach
CeCe
I’ve been praying since before I can ever actually remember learning how. Mama says I took to praying like baby ducks to their first dip in a pond, my “please” and “thank you” delivered in a voice so sweet that she didn’t see how God would ever be able to say no to me.
Mama says my praying voice is my singing voice, and that any-body listening would know right off that the Father himself gave that voice to me. Two human beings, especially not her and one so flawed as the man who was supposedly my Daddy, would ever be able to create anything that reminiscent of Heaven.
I’m praying now. Hard as I ever have. “Dear Lord, please let this old rattletrap, I mean, faithful car Gertrude, last another hundred miles. Please don’t let her break down before I get there. Please, dear Lord. Please.”
A now familiar melody strings the plea together. I’ve been offering up the prayer for the past several hours at fifteen-minute intervals, and I’m hoping God’s not tired of my interruptions. I’ve got no doubt He has way more important things on His plate today. I wonder now if I was a fool not to take the bus and leave the car behind altogether. It had been a sentimental decision, based on Granny’s hope that her beloved Gertrude would help get me where I wanted to go in this life.
And leaving it behind would have been like leaving behind Hank Junior. I reach across the wide bench seat and rub his velvety-soft Walker Hound ear. Even above the rattle-wheeze-cough of the old car’s engine, Hank Junior snores the baritone snore of his deepest sleep. He’s wound up in a tight ball, his long legs tucked under him, his head curled back onto his shoulder. He reminds me of a duck in this position, and I can’t for the life of me understand how it could be comfortable. I guess it must be, though, since with the exception of pee and water breaks, it’s been his posture of choice since we left Virginia this morning.
Outside of Knoxville, I-40 begins to dip and rise, until the stretch of road is one long climb after the other. I cut into the right hand lane, tractor-trailer trucks and an annoyed BMW whipping by me. Gertrude sounds like she may be gasping her last breath, and I actually feel sorry for her. The most Granny ever asked of her was a Saturday trip to Winn-Dixie and the post office and church on Sundays. I guess that was why she’d lasted so long.
Granny bought Gertrude, brand-spanking new, right off the lot, in 1960. She named her after an aunt of hers who lived to be a hundred and five. Granny thought there was no reason to expect anything less from her car if she changed the oil regularly and parked her in the woodshed next to her house to keep the elements from taking their toll on the blue-green exterior. It turned out Granny was right. It wasn’t until she died last year and left Gertrude to me that the car started showing her age.
What with me driving all over the state of Virginia in the past year, one dive gig to another, weekend after weekend, I guess I’ve pretty much erased any benefits of Granny’s pampering.
We top the steep grade at thirty-five. I let loose a sigh of relief along with a heartfelt prayer of thanks. The speedometer hits fifty-five, then sixty and seventy as we cruise down the long stretch of respite, and I see the highway open out nearly flat for as far ahead as I can see. Hank Junior is awake now, sitting up with his nose stuck out the lowered window on his side. He’s pulling in the smells, dissecting them one by one, his eyes narrowed against the wind, his long black ears flapping behind him.
We’re almost to Cookeville, and I’m feeling optimistic now about the last eighty miles or so into Nashville. I stick my arm out the window and let it fly with the same abandon as Hank Junior’s ears, humming a melody I’ve been working on the past couple days.
A sudden roar in the front of the car is followed by an awful grinding sound. Gertrude jerks once, and then goes completely limp and silent. Hank Junior pulls his head in and looks at me with nearly comical canine alarm.
“Crap!” I yell. I hit the brake and wrestle the huge steering wheel to the side of the highway. My heart pounds like a bass drum, and I’m shaking when we finally roll to a stop. A burning smell hits my n
ose. I see black smoke start to seep from the cracks at the edge of the hood. It takes me a second or two to realize that Gertrude is on fire.
I grab Hank Junior’s leash, snapping it on his collar before reaching over to shove open his door and scoot us both out. The flames are licking higher now, the smoke pitch black. “My guitar!” I scream. “Oh, no, my guitar!”
I grab the back door handle and yank hard. It’s locked. Tugging Hank Junior behind me, I run around and try the other door. It opens, and I reach in for my guitar case and the notebook of lyrics sitting on top of it. Holding onto them both, I towboat Hank Junior around the car, intent on finding a place to hook his leash so I can get my suitcase out of the trunk.
Just then I hear another sputtering noise, like the sound of fuel igniting. I don’t stop to think. I run as fast as I can away from the car, Hank Junior glued to my side, my guitar case and notebook clutched in my other hand.
I hear the car explode even as I’m still running flat out. I feel the heat on the backs of my arms. Hank Junior yelps, and we run faster. I trip and roll on the rough surface pavement, my guitar case skittering ahead of me, Hank Junior’s leash getting tangled between my legs.
I lie there for a moment, staring up at the blue Tennessee sky, trying to decide if I’m okay. In the next instant, I realize the flouncy cotton skirt Mama made me as a going away present is strangling my waist, and Hank Junior’s head is splayed across my belly, his leash wrapped tight around my left leg.
Brakes screech and tires squall near what sounds inches from my head. I rock forward, trying to get up, but Hank yips at the pinch of his collar.
“Are you all right?”
The voice is male and deep, Southern like mine with a little more drawl. I can’t see his face, locked up with Hank Junior as I am. Footsteps, running, and then a pair of enormous cowboy boots comes into my vision.
“Shit-fire, girl! Is that your car?”
“Was my car,” I say to the voice.
“Okay, then.” He’s standing over me now, a mountain of a guy wearing jeans, a t-shirt that blares Hit Me – I Can Take It and a Georgia Bulldogs cap. “Here, let me help you,” he says.
Crossing Tinker's Knob Page 36
