Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “Too bad Laura’s feeling poorly,” Emory said, “but I needed this.” They laughed together. Laura feeling poorly was how they referred to these outings. One or the other of them would call and say, “I hear Laura’s feeling poorly. We might ought to take her a casserole.”

  “Did you bring the poppy seed chicken?” Christian asked.

  “You know. I believe I happened to have left that on the counter.”

  Abby, Neyland, and Gwen were already seated at one of the six-top round tables.

  “I love that there are five of us,” Christian said. “It means we always have a purse chair.”

  “Is that why y’all let me in?” Neyland asked. At twenty-five she was the baby among them and had only joined their group about six months ago, when she’d opened her shop and they’d gotten to know her. “So you could get a table for six?”

  “Absolutely,” Gwen said. “We were so tired of having to hang our purses off the backs of our chairs or put them on the floor that we went looking for another friend.”

  Emory waved at three women on the other side of the room—June from Eat Cake, Dayna from White Lace and Promises Bridal Attire, and Ella from The Enchanted Garden. They all looked a little shell-shocked.

  “Looks like the wedding venue folks aren’t having a good day,” Emory said.

  “No,” Neyland said. “Prissy Matthews’s wedding is this weekend at St. Paul’s. I understand everything was going fine until her grandmother flew in from South Carolina. Now, nothing is good enough—not the flowers, the cake, the bridesmaids’ dresses. She’s probably trying to get a different groom.”

  “At least that’s one wedding we don’t have to deal with,” Christian said. Prissy was a local and the reception was going to be at the old opera house.

  Laura came up and set a big pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea on the table. She wore the same frilly pink apron she wore for the tourists.

  “I know Abby and Neyland are on foot, but who’s the driver for the rest of you tonight?” Laura asked.

  “Me,” Emory said.

  “Are you sure?” Christian asked.

  “I’m sure.” In truth, Emory never drank anymore, hadn’t since that night. But she sometimes pretended to drink.

  “Me too,” Gwen said. “I had to come separate.”

  “And thank you for that,” Abby said. “Laura, please put Gwen’s tab on mine.”

  “No!” Gwen protested.

  “Yes,” Abby said. “You insisted on paying the sitter.”

  “Then, thank you,” Gwen said. They all knew how Abby struggled financially but they knew about her pride, too.

  “Abby,” Emory said. “We’ve got a big anniversary party this weekend. Are you by chance free Saturday night?”

  Abby smiled with some relief. “I’m working the lunch shift so that would be great.”

  “Bring Phillip,” Gwen said. “I don’t know if Dirk will be back or not but there will be someone who can watch the kids.”

  “Maybe Ginger,” Emory said.

  Gwen laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  Christian, Abby, and Neyland looked up with questioning expressions.

  “Ginger Marsden. Jackson’s personal assistant—though she does the kinds of things I would imagine a manager would do. She showed up two days ago unannounced. Abby, that’s why we left Mill Time without eating.”

  “You know, a little heads up would have been nice,” Abby said.

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for a million dollars. He doesn’t run into people who have no idea who he is very often. It was good for him.”

  Christian laughed. “You didn’t know who Jackson was, Abby? That’s rich.”

  “No,” Abby said. “I’ll tell you who’s rich. Conley. She got a two hundred dollar tip for doing nothing. I don’t think she even brought water before they left. I thought the money had been left by mistake and was going to call you, Emory. That’s when everyone told me who he was and that they were pretty sure he’d left the money on purpose.”

  Emory got the feeling that Jackson had meant the money for Abby and her heart melted a little—never mind that Abby would have been furious at the gesture.

  “Conley can thank Ginger,” Emory said. “I’m sure Jackson felt he owed her something as a consolation prize for being deprived of waiting on him.”

  They all laughed together.

  “Beau once told me that there was always a little friction between Ginger and Jackson’s manager,” Christian said. “I think there was a time before Jackson made it big, that she did everything for him. Negotiations, bookings, all of it. When it got to be too much, he hired other people but she has control issues.” She took a sip of her drink. “At least that’s what Beau says.”

  “She’s trying to get the memorial concert organized,” Gwen said. “And as far as I can tell, Jackson’s not much help.”

  That was an understatement. In fact, Emory wasn’t convinced he was going to do the concert. She had only seen him in passing a few times since the night Ginger arrived but she’d heard him playing his guitar very late at night on the family wing porch. His playing was tentative, almost like he was trying the music out, trying to decide something. She’d heard him play what she thought of as “her song” a few times but, thankfully, he hadn’t sung along. She’d forgiven him that once—actually thought it was a little funny. She wasn’t sure she’d think that now.

  “Here we go!” Laura appeared with their food and another pitcher. “French mint tea for the drivers and sustenance for all!”

  “And what is going to sustain us tonight?” Neyland grinned and rubbed her palms together.

  Laura gestured to the server in the middle of the table. “Tomato pies with smoked chicken on the bottom tier. Crab-stuffed mushrooms and marinated asparagus in the middle. Crème brûlée on top. Enjoy.” And she was gone as two more tables filled up.

  “I asked Noel to join us tonight,” Emory said, “but she had to get ready for the quilters.”

  “How’s that going?” Abby took a bite of tomato pie.

  “They’re an easy crowd,” Christian said. “Don’t you think so, Emory?”

  “Definitely. They just want to look at quilts and quilt. You hardly know they’re on the place. And we could use a little of that right now.”

  Gwen nodded. “No doubt. Though they like their cheese straws. I had to make another batch this morning. Jackson wandered in while I was putting them through the cookie press. He acted like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen in his life—said he’d always wondered how they came out looking like crinkly little worms. I told him I doubted that. If he’d always wondered, he would have asked. Anybody could have told him you put the dough through a cookie press with the star plate.”

  “Not me. I couldn’t have told him,” Emory said. “But then, I haven’t wondered about how it’s done. I just thought it was Gwen magic.”

  “You go on thinking that.” Gwen ate a mushroom. “It’s heaven to eat someone else’s cooking. Anyway, I finally had to run Jackson out of the kitchen. He observed that I spend more time filling the cookie press than I do cranking out the cheese straws. He advised me to calculate how many times I had to fill the press and then purchase that many cookie presses. Then, after making the dough, I should fill them all at once so I wouldn’t have to stop. I suggested he go invent a machine that would constantly pump dough into the press and then go write a song about it.”

  “So is Jackson going to have a new song for the concert?” Christian asked. “He always has.”

  “Not sure,” Emory said. “Neyland, what’s going on with your jewelry?”

  • • •

  “What do you mean you aren’t going to sing at the benefit?” Ginger’s eyes were bugging like Jackson had never seen them and he’d made her bug her eyes plenty over the years.

  “I mean what I said. I do not plan to perform. No singing. No guitar playing. No appearing to ‘say a few words.’”

  “You aren’t even going?
You can’t mean that.”

  “Ginger, tell me this. How many times have I ever said something that I didn’t mean?”

  She rolled away from the little table she was using as a desk. She started to cross her legs but realized she couldn’t. “Let me see. One. You were never going to speak to Brad Paisley again after he hired—fair and square, I might add—that keyboard player you wanted. Two. You were never going to put another bite of vile, poisonous white sugar in your system. Three. You would never co-write a song with anyone, no matter what. Four. You—”

  “I was a kid when I said all of that. Did you write it down so you could hold it against me?”

  “I didn’t need to.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

  “I am not doing this concert. You might as well know now.”

  “You can’t do that, Jackson.” Her tone turned serious. “Tickets have been sold. Contracts have been signed. Donations are coming in.”

  “You’ve got a lineup that’s so bright you could see them from Mars. You’ve got a whole list of future members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Tickets to see just one of those artists would cost as much as these are going for, for the whole kit and caboodle.”

  “But people are coming to see you. You know how it always is. Everyone performs but it’s when you come out last that the place erupts. You know what it’s like to go to a concert to see one of the old legends. You’re sitting around all night waiting for that one song. Jackson, in this venue, you are that one song and you aren’t even an old legend. You have to be there.”

  He sat down on the bed. He’d do it if he could. He’d do it for his parents and Camille, who’d be twenty-two now, probably beautiful with her whole life ahead of her. But he couldn’t. He had thought he might be able to, this one last time. He’d been fine when he’d picked up his guitar and wrote that mean little song about Emory. But since then, he’d tried playing his guitar late at night when no one could hear. But every time he played, he smelled the smoke, saw Trace become a live torch.

  “Ginger, I don’t know why you even took this up.”

  “Somebody had to.”

  “Why? Nothing had been done except booking the Ryman. I was going to pay them off.”

  “Nothing had been done? The board has been working on this ever since last year and so have I. I got commitments from the other artists months ago. And besides, just when were you going to pay off the Ryman? The night of?”

  Good question. “I would have gotten around to it.”

  She sat silently nodding her head up and down with staccato little moves.

  “Have you talked to anyone?” she asked.

  “Sure. I talk to people all the time. Emory, Sammy, Gwen. I’ve talked to Dirk twice today. I went down and passed the time of day with the quilters this afternoon. Boy, were they surprised to see me! And I’m talking to you right now.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it. Have you met with a therapist? I’ve told you there’s no shame—”

  He stood up. “You might want to take that advice your ownself. You might need someone to help you face that I am not doing this benefit. Not. Doing. The. Benefit.” And he got up and stalked out.

  Maybe he’d go for a run.

  Or, on the other hand, maybe he’d go spend some time with Jason Bourne. He had the whole set on Blu-ray.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Thanks for picking me up at Christian’s,” Emory said to Gwen as she turned into the Beauford Bend gate. “It’ll save the trouble of getting her car back over there tomorrow.”

  “We designated drivers have to stick together.” Gwen stopped in front of the carriage house.

  “No,” Emory said. “Drive on over to your house and I’ll help you get the kids inside. I can walk back over.”

  “That would be great. This single parenting is hard.” Once home, Gwen lifted a sleeping Julie from her car seat. “You get the baby.”

  “When’s Dirk coming home?” Emory breathed in Carter’s baby smell when she lifted him over her shoulder.

  “Maybe Saturday. It can’t be soon enough.”

  “What’s he doing?” Emory followed Gwen up the steps of the renovated gristmill that was her home.

  “Not sure,” Gwen mumbled. “Something for Jackson.”

  The mumbling meant Gwen might or might not know but she wasn’t telling.

  “Aren’t we all doing something for Jackson these days?” Emory said.

  Gwen shifted Julie to her hip and fitted her key in the door. “We aren’t all going to dinner with him.” Gwen turned on the living room light and started up the stairs.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I thought you might tell me.” Gwen turned into Julie’s room. “Just throw him in the crib. He won’t wake up.”

  Emory settled Carter on his stomach and pulled the blanket over him.

  “I don’t see Duck,” Emory said as Gwen entered the nursery.

  “He’s in the diaper bag downstairs. I’ll bring him back up.” Gwen stroked her baby’s head. “Don’t you think you’d like to have one of these someday?”

  And here we go again. Emory, don’t you want to meet someone? Emory, you’re too pretty to do nothing but work. Emory, have you had even one date since you’ve been here?

  “I can have that one,” Emory said. “I could take him and run.” Because that’s the only way I’ll ever have one.

  Gwen laughed. “You could.” They started down the stairs.

  “Except Dirk would hunt me down and gut me like a fish on the fresh catch menu.”

  “About that dinner,” Gwen said.

  “What about it?” Emory paused with her hand on the doorknob. “It was no dinner at all. We left before we ordered.”

  “Be careful, Emory.”

  “Careful of what?”

  “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know Jackson. We were in kindergarten together and grew up in the same church. I love him. Dirk loves him. But Jackson doesn’t love very many people back. I want the best for you. Jackson’s a hard job. He has reason to be—one of the best.”

  Emory left, wondering what that was all about.

  But she didn’t wonder long. She needed to make a list of what needed to be done tomorrow for the Neill party this weekend.

  She changed into pajamas and had no more than settled on the sofa with her laptop when the doorbell rang.

  If Jackson Beauford thought he was coming in here this time of night while she was wearing her nightclothes, he was delusional. She was all set to tell him that, too—but when she looked out the window, it wasn’t Jackson looking back.

  She opened the door.

  “What can I do for you, Ginger?”

  “I need to talk to you. I’ve been watching for your light to come on.” She was red-faced and sweating.

  “Why did you walk all the way over here in that cast? Surely this could have waited until morning.” Emory stepped aside to let her in.

  “No. It couldn’t.” Ginger let herself down in the nearest chair. “Can I please have some water?”

  Emory went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of water and a glass with ice.

  “Thanks.” Ginger twisted the cap off and took a long drink. “I don’t need a glass. I don’t suppose someone like you ever drinks out of a bottle or a can.”

  “No,” Emory said. “I don’t. But I eat cold SpaghettiOs right out of the can with my hands. Ginger, what is this about? Because if you just want to talk about etiquette, I’ve got work to do.”

  Ginger took another drink of water and met Emory’s eyes. She was about to ask for something. Emory had no idea what that favor was going to be, but she had a good idea what it was costing a woman who was more accustomed to demanding than asking.

  “I would like for you to please talk to Jackson.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what about.”

  “And I don’t care. I’ve got plenty to do around here. You ta
lk to Jackson if he needs talking to.”

  “I’ve tried.” She hesitated. “He says he’s not doing the benefit concert.”

  “Color me surprised that Jackson is being difficult. For the ‘good guy of country music,’ he hasn’t made anything easier around here. What if he doesn’t do the concert? How bad could it look? He’s had a hard time. Put out that he’s sick and give everybody who attends some free downloads and a t-shirt. It’s not like there won’t be a show.”

  Ginger looked at the floor. “I don’t care how it looks. I care about him. And this isn’t good for him. Do you think it’s good for him to stay up half the night watching movies and then sleep half the day? To walk away from this benefit that means more to him than anything except his brothers—or at least more than anything except Beau? I’m not sure even Gabe and Rafe would rate that high.”

  “I don’t know what’s good for him. I’m not in charge of him and neither are you. I think he has to decide what’s best.”

  “So you think you have to be in charge of somebody to care what happens to them?”

  “No. But Jackson’s a grown man. He’s been through a lot—not even counting his family tragedy. Maybe he needs a break. He’s worked nonstop for years. And I’m sure he had his share of struggles getting started in the business.”

  “Oh, he did not!” Ginger rolled her eyes. “He never struggled a minute—not with his career. He bulldozed himself down to Sixteenth Avenue when he was eighteen years old with five songs and a guitar. He smiled the right smiles and threw his family’s name around through the right doors and had a gold record six months later.”

  “You are not trying to sit here and tell me he’s not talented,” Emory said slowly. In spite of herself, her hackles raised a little.

  “No! He’s walking talent. I didn’t say he didn’t work hard. Those five songs didn’t come out of thin air. I said he didn’t struggle. And he didn’t. He walked in and took what he intended to have. And now it seems like he’s trying to throw it away with both hands.”