A Nashville Collection (2 page)

The girls' three-tiered clogging platform has broken clean through.

For about ten seconds, there's a heavy hush over the auditorium and a collective holding of breaths. Are they all right? Then, a snort. A muffled guffaw. A fading tee-hee behind someone's hand.

But when Elvira—or is it Elmira—sticks her round hand in the air and says in a high-pitched voice, “We're all right, Papa,” it's over. Laughter explodes like water balloons and douses every one of us.

Arizona hides her face behind her hand. “This is terrible. Oh, the humiliation.” She ducks behind the stage curtain, pressing her face against the cold wall, honking and gasping for air.

“See?” I say, pointing. “This is what I'm talking about. What if that happens to me?”

She just shakes her head. Can't even get it together enough to chew me out or give me ten reasons why I'm wrong.

Paul is trying to pull the triplets out of the rubble. He's so shaken he forgets to set down his banjo. His weathered hand grasps one of the girls', but his grip breaks, and he stumbles backward.

His look of panic sobers me. “Somebody help them,” I mutter.

Jeeter strides into view from stage left and, without making a big to-do of it, motions for a couple of the stagehands to hop up and help out.

This isn't right. Poor Elvira, Elmira, and Eldora. I can't just let them be embarrassed like this. I can't.

Something in me snaps. Jumping back to my case, I grab my guitar and strap it on. “Okay, Lord, here I go. Guess it's time to cowgirl up.” And if He doesn't go with me, I'm done for.

Against their will, my legs carry me out to center stage. The lights are bright. And hot. More cold sweat beads up under my arms. Shivering and half praying for the tornado siren to go off—that'd get me out of this pickle while saving face—I pull my pick from my hip pocket, squinting in the light, and step up to the mike.

“Hi, everybody. I'm Robin McAfee.” My voice is weak and squeaky. “I'm, uh, gonna, er . . .” I tune my guitar for the hundredth time, distracting myself from the fact my feet are telling my brain to
ruunnnn.
“I'm gonna, ahem, uh, sing a few songs. No, a song. One song.”

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I'm sitting on Granddaddy's back
porch singing “Jesus Loves Me.” I'm on Granddaddy's porch . . .

But when I finally strum my first chord, I realize there's no sound coming out of the monitor. I'm playing to myself. My heart starts jitterbugging, and my brain tells my feet to run. Run
now
! No. Steady, Robin. Steady. Can't let the girls' tragedy, as funny as it is, be the highlight of the evening. Let it be my humiliation instead. I take a step back to gather myself and calm down.

“Yow! Watch it, Robin.” Joe Boynton looks up at me, shaking his hand. It's red with my boot print.

“Sorry.” Heat creeps across my cheeks. “What're you doing down there?”

Joe holds up a cable. “Plugging you in.”

“Oh. I've never . . . well . . . never done this before.”

“Yep, I know.” He hands me the cable, which I hastily plug into my guitar hookup, then taps my leg. “You're good to go. Knock 'em into next week.” He winks and clicks his tongue.

Yeah, knock 'em into next week. That's my secret plan. All this quaking in my boots is to throw 'em off. I close my eyes and step back up to the mike. Since I'm not looking, I bonk my chin and send a loud
thunk
reverberating into the auditorium, followed by a very high-pitched
s
queal. Snickers ripple from the crowd.

Run, Robin, run!

Joe
pssts
me from the wings. “Don't point your guitar at the monitor,” he mouths, motioning with his hands.

Every cell of my five-four frame is trembling. Are the triplets upright yet? I glance back. They are but look rather stunned. Two of the men move broken boards from the stage. I hope Jude Perry from
Freedom Rings!
isn't here. He prides himself in displaying other people's tragedies on page one of our local paper, above the fold.

“Go on, Robin,” Jeeter urges from the wings.

Cough, clear throat, bonk my chin on the mike,
again
. Dern it all. All this stalling is only dragging out the nightmare.

“I wrote this song about a friend of mine.” My voice sounds like a cassette tape on fast forward. I try to slow it down. “She was born with a cleft palate and hated to smile or have people see her face. But, uh—” I strum a chord and a little bit of courage creeps in. “My friend is beautiful. I hope someday she sees herself as others do. This is for you, Rosalie.”

As I start the song, my heart thumps to the rhythm as if it's the bass drum. It's hard to sing when I can't breathe. But somehow, by the time I finally hit the chorus, the words are flowing from some deep place where the music dwells. I feel like I did when I was ten, swinging on the old tire swing, stretching my toes to touch the fallen leaves.

Smile for me, Rosalie,

Let your heart dance, let it be free.

Then it washes over me as if I were standing under a mountain waterfall on a hot day: God's pleasure. My insides go all mushy.

I sing through the chorus two or three times, feeling the moment, and then realize I'm not sure how to end and exit. Except for my voice and guitar, the auditorium is silent. I wonder if everyone figured the show was over once the triplets were upright and went home. I open one eye.

The crowd is staring at me. In an instant, my knees buckle like weak wood, and I lose the peaceful sensation of God's pleasure. Shoot. I play the last chord and let my vocal fade away as chills replace the warmth. Will there be a snort, a muffled guffaw, and fading
tee-hee
just like with the triplets?

Coming up behind me, Jeeter catches me around my shoulders so I can't leave. He grabs the microphone, wearing a big cheesy grin on his leathery face. “Freedom, Alabama's own Robin Rae McAfee, everyone. Let's hear it!”

The auditorium explodes with applause. Whistles. Cheering. Some people even jump to their feet.

Bumbling a bow, I whisper to Jeeter, “Can I go now?”

“I told you, Robin Rae,” he slaps my back. “They love you. Sing another song.”

He can't be serious? “Isn't one enough?”

His face crinkles into an even wider grin. “If you're a coward, I suppose so.” He sweeps his arm toward the crowd. They're settling down as if waiting for more. “You have them eating out of your hand. Might as well go for it.”

My
sweaty little hand?

Jeeter shoves me toward the mike and heads off, calling over his shoulder, “Sing.”

My smile feels rather shaky as I stand there, rubbing my hands down the sides of my jeans, riffling through my mental song catalog.

“Sing something fun,” Jeeter hollers from the wings, his hands cupped around his mouth.

“Okay, this is a song I wrote a few weeks ago. ‘Your Country Princess.'”

The beat is chompy and fast as I hit the E string then belt out the lyrics with a strong and clear voice.

You say you're working late, again.

To earn an extra fifty bucks.

You say we're gonna have a better life.

Buy me a diamond ring and you a big Ford truck.

As the song builds to the chorus, the energy of the crowd gets me going, and I stomp out the rhythm with the heel of my boot.

Ooo, let me be your Country Princess.

Plain and beautiful, that's what life is . . .

Merry-go-rounds and Christmas lights . . .

Rocking through the chorus and into the second verse, I relax a little, bravely peeking at the crowd beyond the first row. They're clapping and swaying, and when I loop back into the chorus, a choir of female voices raises the rafters.

Ooo, let me be your Country Princess . . .

A banjo starts plucking, and Paul Whitestone saunters up beside me. Next, a fiddle whines as Granddaddy Lukeman walks my way, his blue eyes snapping as he does a little Pa Ingalls jig. Behind him, Jeeter comes out with his steel guitar, and the triplets, fully recovered, stomp and swirl across the stage.

We let the music go a round without the words, the players circling and leaning together. My heart soars with the music, rising above the thousand pairs of eyes watching.

Now this I could do the rest of my life.

2

“You did it, Robbie!” Daddy picks me
up and swirls me around. “I'm so proud of you.”

Ricky Holden, my man of six months, tucks his arm around my waist and kisses me on the cheek. “How's it feel?”

“I did it for the triplets. But . . .” I grin. “It feels great.” I hope he doesn't think “Country Princess” is about him. Because it's not. Really, it's not.

Momma's off to my right, pressing her lips into a straight line. “The Lord knows Robin don't need encouragement to waste time playing music.” She clucks and fluffs like a mad hen.

“Simmer down, Bit,” Daddy says, his big hand resting gently on her shoulder.

I glance up at Ricky. He's seen Momma, on a few occasions, aflame with moral and/or social injustice, but this is his first opportunity to see steam coming out of her ears.

“Ten minutes in the Hall don't make you a star, Robin Rae.” She steams all over me.

“What? Who said—”

“We're going home, Bit.” Daddy gently takes Momma by the arm, an indication her last comment was his last straw. “'Night, Robin. 'Night, Ricky.”

“'Night, Daddy.” I watch them go.

“Hey, do you want to grab a bite before the diner closes?” Ricky weaves his fingers through mine. Innocent as it is, it makes me feel like a possession. But I don't pull away.

“Not tonight. We have to work early.” I tug on his hand. “So, did I really do okay?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, you were all right.”

“Just all right?” I shuffle around him in a little Cowgirl Boogie 'N Strut.

He grins. “Maybe even pretty good. Didn't know you had it in you.”

“Me, neither. But, I did it for the triplets.” I peel my hand away from his. “Better get my guitar.”

He follows me to where I left my guitar by the stage curtain. “What's with your momma and you singing?”

“I have no idea.” I glance out to the emptying auditorium. “She's acted funny about me and music ever since Granddaddy Lukeman gave me a guitar for my tenth birthday. Momma exploded like Mount St. Helens, spewing and spitting, changing the whole atmosphere of the room. Me and five other ten-year-olds ran for cover under the trampoline.”

Ricky laughs. “Sweet Bit, exploding? ”

“Sweet Bit, nothing. You saw a little of Sour Bit just now, and believe me, there's plenty more.”

Just then, Momma runs back across the stage and stops right in front of me. “You'll be at dinner tomorrow night, right?”

Daddy ambles up behind her and gently drags her away again, hollering hellos and waving across the auditorium to Bill Hamilton and Mike Greaves.

“Robin? Dinner?” Momma calls.

“Yes, dinner,” I say with a sigh.

Saturday night dinner at Bit McAfee's is the eleventh commandment. My sister, Eliza, and little brother, Steve, are pardoned from the commandment since they live and breathe out of town, but for me it's a requirement. I'm suspicious that the eleventh commandment is why Eliza left for college, and Steve got married and joined the Marine Corps.

“Bring Ricky,” Momma calls from halfway up the aisle.

Everyone looks around at us. “All right, Momma,” I mumble, snapping the buckles on my case.

Ricky lifts my face with a touch of his finger. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just worn out.”

His very sexy blue eyes survey mine for the truth. “I guess facing your fears and your Momma in one night has to be tough.” He chuckles and bends down for a kiss.

He thinks he's joking, but he's right. I walk with him toward the stage door. “If I didn't know better, I'd think they were one and the same.”

“What do you mean?”

I shove my hair behind my ears. “Me afraid to sing on stage, Momma afraid for me to sing on stage . . . I don't know, but something's not right . . . or missing.”

He waves to his friend, Mitch Pearce, who's leaving the Hall. “You'll figure it out.”

“Yeah, sure.” Typical Ricky. I try to take the conversation deep, discuss the intimate issues of my heart, and he opts for the baby pool.

At his truck, he falls against the door and wraps me up. “See you in the morning?” He kisses me like he's not thinking about work in the morning.

I rub my hand over his short blond hair. “Bright and early.”

I bolt upright to the high-pitched beeping of my alarm, my
hair flopping over my eyes. Parting the strands, I stare bleary-eyed. Three a.m.

If the good Lord meant for folks to get up before the crack of dawn, He would've made us all roosters and been done with it.

But, truth be told, it's not waking at three a.m. that bothers me. It's the reality of the job itself—stocking shelves at Willaby's Market & Grocery. Is this the culmination of my twenty-five years? Shelving food for the masses?

The other day Mrs. Farmington came into the store, saw me blocking down the sardine section, and said in her shrill voice, “Well, Robin McAfee. What in the world?”

Yeah, that's what I'd like to know. What in the world?

After showering, I find that my Willaby's uniform is on the bedroom floor, wrinkled and soiled. Should've done a load of washing last night. I left in such a jittery rush to get to the Music Hall, half hoping for an earthquake or flash flood (regardless of dry skies) to stop the show, I forgot all about my pile of laundry. Gathering an armful of clothes from the floor and making sure it contains two uniform pants and two shirts, I hurry to the stacked washer and dryer tucked into a kitchen corner.