Somebody Everybody Listens To (24 page)

“So what does the article say?”

“Uh, let's see . . . she says . . . ‘Lately, I'd rather clean out the lint screen on my dryer than go hear another country-my-ass singer, but on Friday night, I was pleasantly surprised when Retta Jones climbed onstage.' The next part goes into detail about your outfit.”

“Skip that,” I said. “What does she say about my song? My voice?” My heart was flopping around like a fish out of water.

“Okay, she says, um . . . ‘Unlike many of today's young performers, she actually sings on pitch and stays on key.' The next part is in parentheses. It says, ‘I never thought I'd see the day when this was a big deal, but that's another article.'”

“Is there anything else?”

“It says, ‘This girl will make a mark of her very own. You heard it here first. Judy Dickenson.' She always ends her
New & Noted
column with ‘you heard it here first,'” Emerson explained.

Judy Dickenson must have been that woman in the front row. She'd smiled at me. I could see her clearly now—red glasses perched on the end of her nose, wild hair, pen scribbling furiously. “So can I get one of these papers at your bookstore?”

“Sure, we have a whole pile of them. They come out twice a week—Wednesdays and Fridays. You should definitely photocopy the article, include it with your publicity materials.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, even though I had no publicity materials.

“Tell you what, come by the store this evening around six. I'll set aside a stack for you, then maybe we can go celebrate.”

“Sure, I'd love to.” Just then Ricky pulled up out front, and the noise was deafening. Something was wrong with the muffler on his tow truck (he was always so busy taking care of everyone else's vehicles he neglected his own), and it sounded like gunfire every time he revved the engine.

“What's
that
?” Emerson asked.

“Oh, it's nothing. I'll explain later. See you at six,” I said, and hung up.

For the rest of the day, I floated around on a cloud of happiness (and Meguiar's Ultimate Compound). Ricky was restoring an antique car for his brother as a surprise fiftieth birthday present, and he'd spent countless hours buffing out the paint. I was dying to tell Ricky about the article, but I decided it would be more fun to wait until tomorrow when I could show it to him instead.

Around five I put away the bulky files and index cards and went to get ready. “Well, at least
you
clean up right good,” Ricky said when I emerged from “my room,” as we now called it. “I reckon I'll have to run myself through the car wash before I go home.” He held up his filthy hands and grinned at me.

“But I thought you were done with the really dirty part of the restoration,” I said, glancing around at the big mess he'd made.
Again
. Dirty rags were everywhere, the floor was coated with oil stains, and the windows were cloudy with compound debris. The result was beautiful, however, a shiny black prize of a car with silver stripes along the sides, flashy Cragar mag wheels, whitewall tires, dark tinted windows, and a catalytic converter that made the engine purr like a kitten. Ricky lovingly called it the Redneck Rider.

“Aw, I decided to degrease the engine one more time. Now the inside looks just as nice as the outside.”

I glanced under the hood. “Looks good,” I said.

“So you got big plans tonight?” Ricky asked.

“I'm meeting this girl who works at a bookstore. I met her my first day in Nashville. She's a student at Vanderbilt.”

“Must be pretty smart if she goes there.”

“Yep, she is. She's nice. Seems down-to-earth.”

“That's important.” Ricky scrubbed his hands at the sink and hummed Lynyrd Skynyrd under his breath, and for a second I just stood there, listening to him and feeling grateful. If it wasn't for Ricky helping me out in Belle Meade that night and offering me a job, there wouldn't have been any Mockingbird performances or a lady writing an article about me.

“Hey, Ricky,” I said.

“Uh-huh?” He didn't turn around.

“I really appreciate all you've done for me.”

“Aw, hon, I ain't done nothin'. I appreciate all your hard work around this place. I feel bad I keep on messin' it up. Now that the Redneck Rider is fixed, maybe I'll be neater around here.” He tugged a paper towel off the roll and wiped his thick hands. In spite of his vigorous scrubbing, I could see they were still stained with grease—
hard-workin'-man-hands
, same as Daddy's.

 

When I arrived at the bookstore, Emerson had already locked the door and flipped the sign to CLOSED
.
I tapped on the window, and she hurried over to let me inside.

“I still have to close out the register,” she explained. “It'll only take a sec.”

“Oh, I'm not in any rush. Take your time.” I followed her to the counter, watched as she counted out the coins and bills and emptied the register tape. She was all dressed up—stylish pencil skirt, short-sleeved melon-colored cardigan, chunky necklace with shiny glass beads, and lemon-yellow ballet slippers—and I wondered if we were going someplace fancy for our celebration.
Hopefully not,
I thought, although I didn't say anything.

“So did you fly here on cloud nine?” she asked when she'd finished.

“I could have. All day long it's all I thought about, and I remember that lady, too. She was sitting right in the front row, but I had no idea who she was.”

“Oh, you wouldn't have known her, especially being new in town. It's kind of a strange story, actually. She was just this housewife with a passion for music. Anyway,
Nashville Listens
was about to go under. They couldn't
give
the papers away; it was mostly syndicated columns and national news, information people can get off the Internet. Then the paper was bought out by a Nashville businesswoman, and she changed everything, made it entirely local news. She hired all these area writers and food people and artsy types; a lot of them were smart women from her country club, including Judy Dickerson. I know all about it because she's a friend of Mrs. Scribner's, my boss. Anyway, this group of women got the paper going again, and Judy's column became wildly popular. She can spot real talent, and a lot of the people from her
New & Noted
column have ended up with record deals.”

“Record deals?”

Emerson nodded. “I told you it was big.”

“Thank you so much for calling me. If you hadn't, there's no way I would've known. I mean, I don't usually even read the paper.”

“Oh, I'd been meaning to call you anyway. It's just my classes were superbusy and work was nonstop, and then I interviewed for a new job and found an apartment.”

“A new job?”

“At the Nashville Public Library. I start next week.”

“That's great. Now you can loan books out legally.”

“I know. Mrs. Scribner actually suggested it. Turns out, she knew I was loaning books out. It's not like I did it every day or anything, and I kept tabs. If anybody'd failed to return a book or damaged one, I would've reimbursed her. But not a single person kept the books. Or damaged them. Isn't that amazing? I actually wrote a paper about it for one of my classes this summer. It's called ‘Inherent Good: Hardwired to Do the Right Thing.'”

“Did you say you were moving, too?”

“I got a tiny apartment over on Natchez, but yesterday there were complications, and now I'm in a quarrel with my father. Long story,” she said, and waved it off. “So I saved twenty copies of
Nashville Listens
for you. Is that enough?

“Twenty? Uh, I think a couple will do. Like you said, I can always make copies of the article. I'll give you the exact change, so it won't mess up your closeout.”

“Sorry. I'd give them to you for free, but I promised—”

“No, I'm happy to pay for them,” I said, and handed her the money. She stuffed it into a cash bag then tugged open the safe.

“So you've worked retail, too, I take it?”

“Close enough. At a diner back in my hometown.” I tucked the newspapers under my arm and waited by the door while Emerson switched off the lights and set the alarm, then we headed up the street to a little restaurant called Nacho Mama's.

Thankfully, the menu prices were reasonable. We ordered tacos and refried beans and rice and virgin daiquiris, and while we waited for our orders, Emerson spread the newspaper out between us. I could feel her watching me as I read the article.

“So what do you think?” asked Emerson.

“I think I'm dreaming. Out of all the people in Nashville to write about and she writes about
me
? I don't know what to think.”

“Do you have any performances lined up?”

“I'm singing at the Mockingbird again this Saturday. There's another open-mike night.”

“Maybe you should take this article around to a few labels, let them know you're playing. Capitalize.”

“That's a good idea. I'll put my CD in with it, too. I did a demo.”

“Really? Can I hear it?”

“Sure. I have some in the car. You can have one to keep; consider it a payback for letting me borrow those books.”

“Pretty soon I can let you borrow books all the time.” Emerson grinned and held up her glass. “To our success!” she said.

“To our success,” I replied, and we clinked glasses.

The two of us spent the rest of the evening getting to know one another. Emerson was an English major and planned to go to graduate school. She was thinking of becoming a librarian someday. Her parents were older, semiretired and living in a golf community, and she had a younger sister who planned to start applying to colleges this fall. She'd left a serious boyfriend back in North Carolina, but this past spring, he'd gotten some girl pregnant; teary-eyed, she explained he was going to marry her next month. Her mother was a breast cancer survivor, five years in remission this coming November. More than anything, Emerson wanted to find something important to do with her life.

I told her about Brenda and Mama and Daddy (for now, I left out the King Asshole details), and I explained that the noise she'd heard today was Ricky Dean's tow truck and that I was living in a garage. Emerson didn't comment, but I could tell by the way her mouth dropped open she was horrified, although she did another toast to “my ability to delay gratification.”

It was our scowling waitress who finally broke things up. “Can I get y'all anything else?” she asked for what was surely the tenth time.

I glanced at the clock, realized Nacho Mama's was ready to close. “No, just the check,” I said. “Sorry if we've kept you here late.” The waitress rolled her eyes and hurried off.

“So would you mind if I came to hear you on Saturday? I haven't been to the Mockingbird in ages, and now that my summer classes are finished, I have to make up for lost time. Once fall starts I'll be nose to the grindstone again.”

“Oh, I'd love it if you came.”

“Great. We can talk later in the week and firm up our plans.”

I walked Emerson to her car then she drove me to mine. She hugged me right before I got out, which was slightly awkward. I was used to Brenda, who mostly just lights up a cig and says “See you tomorrow, lame ass” when she drops me off. I missed Brenda something terrible, though. I couldn't wait to get back to the Auto Den so I could curl up on my sofa (I'd bought some real sheets, a pillow, and a blanket on sale at Target a few days ago) and call her.

The whole drive back to the Auto Den, I felt myself latching onto this new life here. I had all the windows rolled down, and it was a pleasant late-summer evening. My back wasn't even sticking to the seat the way it usually does. And Ricky had fixed my radio. I could listen to music and drive in what was now my very own car. I remembered Goggy suddenly, felt guilty that I hadn't even stopped by to see her last time I was home. First thing tomorrow, I'd go over to Sam Hill's Market and pick out a postcard to send to her,
if
they had anything decent, that is. Most of their postcards were pictures of mudflap girls in thongs or bottles of Jack Daniel's. On second thought, maybe I'd go elsewhere for a postcard.