Somebody Everybody Listens To
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
CHAPTER ONE - she’s not just a pretty face
CHAPTER TWO - crazy
CHAPTER THREE - i saw the light
CHAPTER FOUR - wide open spaces
CHAPTER FIVE - me and bobby mcgee
CHAPTER SIX - down on music row
CHAPTER SEVEN - breathe
CHAPTER EIGHT - i’m so lonesome i could cry
CHAPTER NINE - shine
CHAPTER TEN - i feel lucky
CHAPTER ELEVEN - you’re gonna be
CHAPTER TWELVE - if teardrops were pennies
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - mockingbird
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - a place in this world
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - independence day
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - daddy’s hands
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - redneck woman
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - a good man like me
CHAPTER NINETEEN - ocean front property
CHAPTER TWENTY - crazy dreams
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - hard workin’ man
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - he stopped loving her today
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - i’ll fly away
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - home
Acknowledgements
DUTTON BOOKS | A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Suzanne Supplee
eISBN : 978-1-101-43292-1
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To the ones who listen,
Julie Strauss-Gabel and Ann Tobias,
and to the ones who make me feel like somebody,
Scott, Cassie, Flannery, and Elsbeth
You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.
—DOLLY PARTON
everything begins with an ending
EVEN ON GRADUATION DAY, the Starling High School gymnasium smelled just like it always did—a combination of old sweat and dust masked somewhat by cherry-scented disinfectant and floor polish.
In spite of my C average, I sat on the stage with snooty, holierthan-thou valedictorian, Desiree Gibbons, on my left and some three-piece-suit guy the principal introduced as the superintendent to my right. I knew the ceremony lineup by heart, of course. As soon as Brother James quit praying, which at the rate he was going might be sometime after Labor Day, I was to sing the National Anthem. Then, after Desiree finished her long-winded speech about what a great student she’d been, I’d launch into that tearjerker Trace Adkins song, “You’re Gonna Miss This.” After that, Mrs. Lyn, our guidance counselor, would call our names, and Principal Langford would hand out the diplomas.
Admittedly, “You’re Gonna Miss This” is a very pretty song. It’s all about growing up and appreciating every little stage of life, no matter how miserable you may feel at the time. But, truth be told, I’m not going to miss much about Starling High School.
“And now, we have Retta Lee Jones to sing the National Anthem for us,” I heard Brother James say. Discreetly, I unstuck my navy skirt and polyester graduation robe from my sweaty thighs and clicked toward the microphone in the painful high heels I’d borrowed from Mama.
While the crowd of proud parents and grandmas and aunts and uncles got to their feet, I took a deep cleansing breath, the kind my chorus teacher, Miss Stem, taught us to do way back in ninth grade. Oxygen filled my lungs, making my diaphragm expand, and in that moment of so-quiet-you-could-hear-a-pin-drop anticipation, I let the words ease off my tongue, soft and low at first—Oh-h, say can you see—then after a few lines, louder—the bombs bursting in air. At what so proudly we hailed, I closed my eyes.
When I belted out that last line, the land of the free and the home of the brave, I glanced down at the kids in the front row, and Shelton Albright caught my eye. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and I remembered then that he’d gone and signed himself up for the army. The room thundered with applause. Daddy whistled. Desiree clapped enthusiastically, and even the superintendent gave me a thumbs-up.
It was the kind of moment most people would want to last forever, but I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could get on with my real life, the one I’d been staring out the window and daydreaming about all through high school.
eileen regina edwards
a.k.a. Shania Twain
BORN: August 28, 1965; Windsor, Ontario, Canada
JOB: McDonald’s.
BIG BREAK: Deerhurst Resort, Huntsville, Ontario, in the late eighties.
LIFE EVENTS: After her parents’ tragic death on November 1, 1987, Shania became the guardian of her three younger siblings.
CHAPTER ONE
she’s not just a pretty face
“COME ON, RETTA. DO IT. PLEASE.” Brenda pleaded, and batted her purple-shadowed, kohl-lined lids at me. “It’s the least you can do after I bought your supper.”
“It was a Happy Meal,” I pointed out.
“Well, I still bought it,” Brenda replied, and stuffed our empty food containers into the sack. It was graduation night, but Brenda and I decided to skip Tercell Blount’s big show-off party out on River Road. Instead, we sat on Baker’s Point, gossiping and listening to the radio, just the two of us. Just like always. Brenda rummaged through her pocketbook. In search of a cigarette, I knew.
“You’re not smoking in here.”
“It’s my car,” Brenda replied.
“Well, you’re still not smoking in here. Do you want me to sing or not?” I asked, like I was making a huge sacrifice. The truth is I love singing for Brenda.
“Oh, fine,” Brenda snapped, and dropped her steamer-size purse onto the floorboard again. The weight of it nearly broke my toe. “I won’t smoke, but do Bobbie Gentry first. ‘Ode to Billie Joe.’ I just love that song.”
Brenda switched on the headlights then climbed onto the hood. “Rett-a! Rett-a! Rett-a!” she chanted, and raised her cigarette lighter.
“This is not a Pink Floyd concert,” I reminded her.
“I’m just preparing you for fame is all,” Brenda said, and increased the flame to torch mode. She made roaring crowd noises and pounded the car. She may be just one tiny, skinny girl, but she can make the racket of forty people. I closed my eyes and imagined it then—an eager audience, the glare of stage lights, the plunk of a guitar, the haunting swell of violins, then me, Retta Lee Jones, a.k.a. Bobbie Gentry, circa 1967.
“It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta daa-aay . . .” I paused for effect, then took off toward Choctaw Ridge.
When the song was finished, Brenda gave me a standing ovation. “God, I wish I could do that, Retta. I so wish I could do that. You sound just like her! Do another one. Come on. Do Dolly this time. ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ Please,” she pleaded, and sat down again.
Dolly’s intonations came easily—maple syrup with a little Marilyn Monroe mixed in. The slight warbling in her silky voice reminded me of a hummingbird or bumblebee. Like me, she’d grown up surrounded by nature, and I wondered if these sounds had influenced her vocal cords somehow.
After some Loretta and Tammy, I climbed back in the car and polished off my Sundrop, although the last thing I needed was more caffeine. Singing always gets me keyed up, makes my hands shake ever so slightly, and my heart race. Brenda stood outside the Camaro and did her best to blow the cigarette smoke in the opposite direction. She’d gone quiet all of a sudden.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Brenda didn’t respond. She just stood there with her back toward me. Her shoulders looked so narrow and bony, fragile somehow, even though Brenda is one of the toughest people I know. “Everything’s changing, you know that? You. Me. Wayne. Everything.”
“Well, it’s not changing quick enough,” I said glumly.
“But it will. Our lives are in fast-forward now that high school’s over.” Brenda took a drag and blew swirly smoke rings into the air. “I’ll start nursing school in the fall, and you’ll be off in Nashville by then.”
We were silent for a minute.
“Retta?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got to do it. And I know it’s gonna be hard and all, but it’ll be much worse being left. It’s always easier to be the one leaving.” Brenda dropped her cigarette butt into the McDonald’s cup, and it sizzled on impact. She put the lid on again then slid back into the driver’s seat.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I have no car and no money. I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon,” I said.
“Why are you like this all of a sudden, Retta?”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” She frowned at me. “Retta, nobody else at Starling High School had a clue about what they wanted out of life, except for Desiree, of course. But you . . . well, Retta, you always knew what you were meant to do, and it used to be so much fun to talk about Nashville. You were all gung ho, Miss Positive Attitude, nothing’s gonna stop me, but for weeks now you’re nothing but doom and gloom about the whole thing. It’s like you’ve just given up or something.”
“Now it’s real,” I pointed out. “I’m not sitting in algebra class daydreaming.”
“Let’s take the T-tops out,” Brenda said suddenly, and popped the one on her side. Brenda’s car is historic, or just old, depending on your perspective, so instead of a sunroof, it has two removable glass panels. I took out the one on my side, and we slid them both into the backseat. “We could drive by Tercell’s,” Brenda suggested. “I heard her daddy was setting off fireworks tonight.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood for silly Tercell or her daddy’s fireworks. “I had to buy a hot-water heater two weeks ago. Did you know that?”
Brenda ignored me and fumbled through her CD case.
“Last month it was the TV,” I went on. “One minute Daddy was watching Lonesome Dove for the hundredth time, and the next minute the stupid thing was dead. The picture tube went bad, and you can’t fix that. You just have to buy a whole new television.”
“Maybe the picture tube was sick of Lonesome Dove,” said Brenda.
“The second I get a decent amount saved up, just enough to maybe buy some really crappy car, I have to help pay the electric bill or the phone bill. Daddy works hard and all, but he’s never gonna make any real money at Movers and Shakers, and it’s killing him. His back is in spasms every night when he gets home.”
“For one thing, that’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard of. I mean, you want all your stuff moved without the shaking, right?” said Brenda.
“Whatever. The point is Mr. Hawkins hardly pays him anything. And the little bit I contribute helps out some, but it means I can’t save up enough to leave. And when, or if, I do leave, what’ll Daddy do then?”
“Well, your mother could always get a job,” Brenda said, and pressed her lips together. I could tell she was trying hard to keep her strong opinions about my mother to herself.
“Yeah, well, Mama says she’ll get a job the day Daddy learns to turn on the stove and/or operate the washing machine. You wanna know what’s weird?”
“Nope.”
“It’s like there are these two mes. There’s the one me that really believes I’ll go to Nashville and pursue my dream and be a singer, and then there’s this other me that just laughs and shakes her head and says it’ll never happen.”
“There’s not anybody else in that head of yours is there?”
“And you wanna know what gets to me more than any of that other stuff?” Brenda switched on the light and checked her teeth in the rearview mirror. “That maybe I’m not good enough anyway,” I went on. “That maybe I’ll somehow scrape together the money and get to Nashville only to find out—”
“Shut up, Retta!” Brenda snapped off the light. “I’ll listen to you piss and moan about money because that’s a serious problem, but this other stuff is stupid, and you know it. All you’ve heard your whole life is what a great singer you are. Most people would sell their soul for your voice. Tercell would settle for an A-cup just to sing like you—and in case you haven’t noticed, she is very fond of her double-D’s.” Brenda pushed in a CD.
“Please don’t play that Shania song again.”
“Maybe you should really listen to it,” Brenda said, and advanced to track three. “She’s Not Just a Pretty Face” eased out of the speakers, and Brenda cranked the volume and sang along off-key. When it was over, she lowered it again. “Shania’s parents died, Retta. Can you imagine getting a phone call like that, finding out that both your parents are dead?”
“I don’t like to talk about this,” I replied. Brenda had told Shania’s tragic story a million times, and it always gave me a pit in my stomach, like something bad was about to happen.
“She was left with all those brothers and sisters to take care of, and she was still a kid herself.”
“I know,” I said.
“Somehow she made it, though,” Brenda went on. “She’s not just a pretty face, which is how come I love that song so much. Shania’s tough and strong. Just like you and me. It’ll work out. You will get to Nashville, Retta,” she said with way more confidence than I deserved.
Brenda started the car, and we drove around for a while—all through town and past Tercell’s house out on River
Road. We didn’t stop, though. If you ask me, graduation night is highly overrated.
Brenda cut the lights when we were almost to my house. It was late, and the last thing either of us wanted was for her to wake my parents, specifically, Mama. Mama loathed Brenda almost as much as I loved her, and the reason wasn’t complicated. When I was little, Mama and I were close, but as I grew up, not so much, and my mother had somehow convinced herself Brenda was to blame. That was stupid, of course, but once my mama gets something stuck in her head, there’s no getting it out again.
“So you’re going out with Wayne tomorrow night, right?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Brenda and Wayne have a standing date every Friday night.
“Yeah, there’s the annual pig roast out at McClellan’s farm. All the employees are invited. Bobby will be there.” Brenda gave me a teasing grin. “You could come with me and Wayne, give that boy one last memory before you leave town.”
“And do what with Tercell Blount exactly? Pry her off him with a crowbar?”
“Or maybe beat her with the crowbar.” Brenda laughed.
“You are such a redneck,” I said, and watched as she took a sip of her Dr Pepper. Obviously, she’d forgotten there was a cigarette butt floating inside.
“Oh my God! Gross!” Brenda pounded the steering wheel. “Gum, Retta! I need gum! Quick!”
“Now you know how Wayne probably feels every time he kisses you. Just like licking an ashtray,” I said, and dug through my purse for a stick of Juicy Fruit.
I climbed out of Brenda’s car and watched her back down our steep, washed out driveway. Long ago, Daddy’d given up on refilling the crater-size holes. The minute he refilled them, it rained like crazy and washed everything away again. Brenda waved and sped off up the road, headlights turned on this time.