Miss Me When I'm Gone (8 page)

“Jeremy?” I repeated.

“Yeah. I don’t mean like getting back together. Like, I think she liked talking to him more than me. About the book. About what was on her mind. Like he was smarter. Older. Maybe . . . knew her better, really.”

“What makes you say that? Did you
hear
them talking?”

“Well, he called the house once or twice. And sometimes I’d hear her talking to someone quietly in the office, with the door closed. I’m not sure it was always him, but once I heard her address him by name. And I heard her saying once, ‘Well, this book is going to be very different.’ I’d hear her mention Shelly, and Frank . . . but I didn’t mean to imply they were getting back together. Nothing like that. It was just a sign to me that she didn’t feel close to me anymore—that she felt more like talking to
him.
She was tired of me.”

“And you?” I asked. “How did you feel?”

“Me? No, I didn’t get tired of her. It was like . . . she just woke up one day and decided I was too young, too naive for her. That she’d kind of run out of things to talk to me about.”

Gregor shrugged. “You know, sometimes it seemed like she wasn’t actually writing much. I know she was behind on her deadline. But I felt like the book was getting to her, and I’d say so. She didn’t like that.”

“Getting to her? How’s that?”

“Well, it seemed like . . . going backward for her, somehow. Instead of coming up with, you know, a new topic, she was going into this old personal stuff that she’d supposedly put to bed a long time ago. I thought it was making her . . . unhealthy. She was in Emerson all the time. And that was her prerogative . . . whatever. I don’t know what she was doing up there. But when she’d come back, she’d sit at her computer for hours, drinking wine while she wrote or . . . whatever she was doing. She’d stay up late. She wasn’t eating much. It was like this project was driving her crazy. Spending so much time in that . . . space. Her mother’s death. Shelly’s death, I mean. And when I tried to talk to her about it . . . to at least say, ‘Hey, maybe you need a break from this,’ she’d gently push me away. Like, ‘Whatevs, Gregor. You don’t have anything like this in your life. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ”

“Would she say that?”

“No. But that was just . . . what it felt like.”

“Right,” I said. “I see.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “In general, I had thought she was losing her way a little. Wasn’t really taking care of herself. And the fall. It was a shock, but part of me knew she’d been sort of . . . out of it lately. It could have been a little alcohol. Or just distraction. I dunno. I should have told her she should be taking better care . . .”

Gregor trailed off. I put my hand out on the table—not to touch him, but still as a gesture of support. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d disliked about him the first time I’d met him. He was a little on the dopey side, but a nice guy in general.

“Gregor, no one ever really told Gretchen what to do. That’s not how it worked with her. She would’ve listened to you quietly and politely thanked you for your concern, and then gone ahead and continued whatever she was doing.”

Gregor nodded. He stared into his empty coffee cup for a moment, then leveled his eyes at me. They were a nondistinct green gray, gentle to the point of drooping. I wondered still what Gretchen had seen in them.

“Yeah,” Gregor admitted. “Yeah, I know.”

Chapter 13

“Would You Hold It Against Me?”

Dollywood

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

I was a hundred feet in the air on the Thunderhead roller coaster this afternoon, staring down at the trees and thinking of Dottie West. Probably I should have been thinking about Dolly. But no. Just as my car hit the top, I shut my eyes tight. My stomach dropped as the coaster went racing toward the ground, but I missed the view. As the car twisted around the ride’s remaining curves, I thought,
Dottie West wouldn’t close her eyes.
I opened my eyes at the bottom of the drop just so people watching from the ground wouldn’t see what a chickenshit I am.

Certainly I had Dottie West on the brain because I was listening to her in my car on my way to the park. I know I should’ve been listening to Dolly, but I hit a Dolly-wall when I heard “Me and Little Andy.” (Sorry, Dolly—I love you, but I can’t stand it when you do that baby voice.) Anyway, I switched to some early Dottie West (her album
Suffer Time
), listening to the title song and “Would You Hold It Against Me?” several times over. Both solid songs from Dottie—more to my old-fashioned taste, I must admit, than the adult contemporary style of her later career.

If you don’t know country music outside of the biggest names, you might not know Dottie West. You might not know that she won country music’s first Grammy for female vocalist, or that she’s known to many as “the first truly liberated woman of country music.”

Dottie West (born Dorothy Marie Marsh) grew up in poverty, helping her mother support her nine younger siblings. She endured sexual abuse by her father until she was seventeen, when she finally had enough. She went to the local police and reported him, and eventually testified against him and put him in jail for forty years. Despite all of the struggles, she managed to make it to college. She went to Tennessee Tech, where she studied music and met her first husband, Bill West, a steel-guitar player. By the time they moved to Nashville together, they had three kids (one more would come later). There they pursued their musical dreams together, befriending other aspiring songwriters like Harlan Howard, Hank Cochran, and Willie Nelson. Dottie and her husband often hosted and fed struggling musicians in their home.

In early performances, Dottie dressed in girlish ruffles and gingham and sang relatively demure songs. Like the early country music star Kitty Wells, she exuded the image of a dutiful housewife and mother who just happened to sing a little on the side. Still, in her early years she befriended Patsy Cline, who was breaking the country music gender barriers at the time.

Dottie got her big break in 1964, when her song “Here Comes My Baby” (cowritten with her husband) hit the top ten in the charts and won her a Grammy, leading to a regular spot for her in the Grand Ole Opry. While she continued to perform and produce albums, her sales and chart performances were spotty by the late sixties.

But things changed for Dottie in 1972. She and her husband divorced. Dottie did not waste much time feeling sorry for herself, however. She began dating younger men, much to the shock of the Nashville community. (She eventually married a drummer twelve years her junior, and after she divorced him, a sound engineer twenty-two years her junior—with a number of younger boyfriends in between, according to some.)

Her career took off again. Coca-Cola paid her to write a commercial jingle. She wrote “Country Sunshine,” which became a big hit and earned her two Grammy nominations (plus a Cleo Award for the commercial). She began to record with Kenny Rogers, and the pairing proved commercially successful.

By the late seventies, her look and act had changed considerably. She became known for her painted-on spandex outfits and mane of red Farrah Fawcett–style hair. Her songs became more sensual. Dottie, who had famously refused to sing Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” because it was too racy, went ahead and recorded it after her divorce—along with other sexy songs like “She Can’t Take My Love Off the Bed.” The sexual revolution was very real for Dottie West. While her career and family life before divorce were surely rewarding, she was willing to change with the new times and embrace everything they had to offer.

Her success continued. Her 1980 recording “Lesson in Leavin’ ” was number one on the country charts. She made appearances on
The Love Boat
and
The Dukes of Hazzard,
and posed for the men’s magazine
Oui
.

But it ended rather sadly for Dottie. The hits dried up by the late eighties. Due to overspending and bad investments, Dottie filed for bankruptcy in 1991. She lost her house, and all of her personal possessions were auctioned off to pay back the IRS. That same year, she was in a car wreck that destroyed her Camaro. Her old friend Kenny Rogers gave her a car to use, but it crapped out on her on her way to a Grand Ole Opry appearance. An elderly neighbor saw her by the side of the road in her sparkly performance garb and offered to drive her the rest of the way. He lost control of his car, and Dottie died a few days later from injuries sustained in the accident.

She had plans to make a comeback with a duet album, but hadn’t yet started recording it. After she died, a copy of
Women Who Love Too Much
was found on her bedside table, with sections marked for rereading.

I do wish she was in a happier state when it all came to an end, but at least she was on the way to the Opry, and at least she’d had a hell of a run. She’d packed in more after her divorce than most people do in an entire lifetime.

When I say that Dottie West didn’t close her eyes, I mean that she allowed her life to change. After her divorce in 1972, she looked forward. She didn’t cower in her old life or her old identity. She wasn’t afraid of the future’s possibilities (and it held so many for her, both richly rewarding and deeply tragic). After my own divorce, I wonder if I really have the nerve to proceed in the same way—to open my eyes both to what I’ve been
and
what I could be next.

After the Thunderhead ride is over, I get on again and try to keep my eyes open at the top. I fail. A little later, after an elephant ear and a ride on the Dollywood Express steam engine, I try again. I do it this time. Eyes open all the way down. It’s terrifying. I suddenly have a newfound respect for all of the screaming teenagers around me. They see it this way every time. But of
course
they keep their eyes open for every ride. Because what are we all even here for, if we’re going to just shut our eyes the whole time? I wonder how I might be at trying things that way from now on. If I can manage it outside of the magic butterfly gates of Dollywood.

Because I know these things are true: You must try, if the chance comes along, to sing your “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” Sing it. Say the thing you’ve been wanting to say. Ask what you’ve wanted to ask. Don’t worry about people petty enough to hold it against you. Don’t try to anticipate how it all will end. Because that’s not in your power anyway. So open your mouth. Open your eyes. Love too much. Wear gingham. Wear white spandex pants. Do
everything.

—Tammyland

Chapter 14

“The Games Daddies Play”

In Aunt Dorothy’s kitchen

Emerson, New Hampshire

I’m told there are two prime candidates: Keith and Bruce.

Keith was Shelly’s real boyfriend most of that year, but her friends say that she’d also been running around with Bruce by the end of the school year.

Bruce was the brains and Keith was the brawn. Keith was a good baseball player who had to go to summer school every year. Bruce was good at science and math, and helped Shelly with her trig homework. That’s how she got started with him. Problem was she maybe didn’t know how to stop with Keith before she got started.

My great-aunt Dorothy says there are two types of people in Emerson—the people who leave and the people who don’t. (Shelly didn’t. My mom, Linda, did. And brought me with her eventually.) Bruce was going places. Keith wasn’t going anywhere.

That’s how Shelly’s close old friends tell it. Keith was one of those people you could just tell was going to stay here his whole life. His father had a plumbing and pipe-fitting business and Keith started working there after he graduated from community college. He pined after my mother long after she broke up with him (which was about three months later than she should have, her friends admit). She even returned to him occasionally for a couple of weeks here and there, and once, a couple of years later, when she was around nineteen and in her wildest, most destructive years—when there was no one else interesting to hang out with.

“Poor Keith,” says my mom’s old high school friend Diane. “Each time, he thought it was for real.”

By the time my mother died at age twenty-four, Keith was happily married to another woman.

I can’t tell which guy my mom’s friends or Aunt Dorothy think is the one.

They all say I look so much like my mother—a mirror image, practically—that they can’t see anyone else in me.

I say to them, “No, you’re just saying that. You know.”

Only Aunt Dorothy is willing to venture a guess.

“You’re smart. You can’t write a book if you’re not smart.”

I don’t think this is true. What she means, nonetheless, is that she’s putting in a vote for Bruce. Bruce turned out to be a chemistry professor in southern New Hampshire. So he didn’t go too, too far, but he left Emerson, anyhow.

My mom’s friends Judy and Diane don’t want to say. It could go either way. They think Aunt Dorothy has a point. But they also admit that the timing—and they believe they know a bit more about the timing than Aunt Dorothy would—points more to Keith. Poor Keith, one of them says again. I think that their affection for my mom—I mean Linda, not Shelly—makes them uncomfortable with this conversation. They wish I didn’t need to ask. But no, they say, they won’t tell her I was asking. They will leave it to me to have that conversation with her. They don’t think she knows either.

Shelly just wasn’t talking back then. In high school or ever after.

They say they think that Shelly’s stubborn silence on the matter was very carefully reasoned: She didn’t want to have to marry Keith and she didn’t want to keep Bruce from Going Places. And frankly, by the time she was showing, she didn’t particularly care for either of them anymore.

And what the hell does this have to do with Conway Twitty? Damned if I know! It’s not the daddies playing games in this circumstance.

“Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy”

Randy’s Hot Dogs

Emerson, New Hampshire

Poor Keith proves relatively easy to get in touch with. I know where he lives, I’ve got his phone number, and Judy’s brother’s friend has even got his e-mail address. With all of these options available, I decide to take the gentlest approach. I send him an e-mail explaining that I am Shelly’s biological daughter, that I’m writing my second book about her to some extent (a bit of a fudge, I guess) and talking with people she knew.

The ladies made him sound dumb, but I imagine he couldn’t possibly be dumb enough not to read between the lines.

He responds quickly—within a few hours—to say he’d be happy to talk to me. He remembers my mother fondly and he’s seen my book on display in the library and knows Shelly would have been very proud.

He suggests lunch at Randy’s, Emerson’s famous hot dog joint in a converted gas station. (Unless you’re a vegetarian, he writes cautiously.) We’re gonna do this real townie style. I’m really excited about this—it’s gonna be some good cinematic stuff, meeting your potential biological dad in a hot dog joint.

I arrive early and can’t decide what to listen to in the car while I wait. Something thematically appropriate? Like Red Sovine’s masterfully cheesy “Giddyup Go”? No, too much. I look frantically through my “Daddy” playlist. (You’d be surprised—well, maybe you wouldn’t—how many country songs have the word
daddy
in them.)

I decide on Buck Owens’s “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy”—a ridiculous choice, to be sure, but it’s upbeat and cheerful and it calms my nerves while I sit and tap the wheel and wait for noon to get a little closer. I’m loath to be the weirdo waiting by the tub of famous Randy’s relish for her illegitimate father (wait—is he illegitimate? Or just me?). A few repeats in, I’m singing along softly and yelp when someone knocks on my passenger-side window while I’m looking in the other direction.

A middle-aged man is peering at me, looking uncertain. He has very tan skin and all-white hair combed back in a way that reminds me of Michael Douglas in
Wall Street.

It’s him. I hope to heaven he didn’t hear what I was listening to. Please, please.

When I get out of the car, he tells me he didn’t mean to scare me. He’d just recognized me right away.

“You really look so much like her,” he says. “It’s amazing.”

He tries to pay for my dogs. Santa indeed. I don’t let him. He’s nervous and hesitant and doesn’t know what the dining protocol is under these particular circumstances, so he lets me trump his outstretched dollar bills with mine.

There is something Vegas about his appearance, but his manner is cautious and soft-spoken. He says he never met anyone who wrote a whole book before. Without much prompting, he starts in with high school stories about Shelly.

He tells about Shelly scoring the winning goal at a girls’ soccer game.

I gobble my first hot dog down while I try to listen, then start on my second. Sports stories bore me to death, even, apparently, when they involve my enchanting mother. I’m distracted by the large sign above his head that says
NO DANCING
. The sign is memorable to me. It’s been here since before Shelly died. She brought me here at least a couple of times when I’d visit
. Why would anyone want to dance in here?
I remember wondering.

Keith feels my distraction and finishes the second story quickly.

He says, “Are you just writing about your mother? Or was there something else you wanted to discuss?”

“Yes,” I admit.

I’m surprised by his forwardness. He quickly tells me that one of my mother’s friends told him I was asking.

I’m speechless for a moment. I realize that I had no clue how I’d bring it up and am now grateful to him for doing it. I like him.

“The truth is I don’t know for sure. If anyone knew, Shelly did. And I’m not even sure she did.”

“There are ways to find out,” I say softly, focusing on the nub of my second hot dog.

“Were you interested in finding out?” he asks, and watches me, licking a bit of spicy relish from the corner of his mouth, then waiting, still openmouthed.

“I think so,” I say. I hurry to add that it would be simply to know, to set it to rest, that I have a wonderful family who raised me and I don’t expect anything of him.

“And I know it’s a choice my mother made a long time ago.”

I catch myself, realizing I said “my mother” where I meant Shelly.

He didn’t notice. He said he could understand my feeling of wanting to know. And he didn’t want to deny me that. As far as expecting anything of him—we could see what happened. If the results were what he suspected they’d be, he’d like to spend a little time getting to know me. If I decided that was all right. Because he’d always wondered. He’d accepted Shelly’s choice to stay silent and to grant guardianship to her sister and her sister’s husband. They were good people. But he’d always wondered.

I nod and say okay. That we’d have to see.

I listen to “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” a few times on the way back to Aunt Dorothy’s.

I like Keith. I’m hoping for him without quite knowing why. He’s not what I expected. And that might be kind of nice.