Besides the fact that my room was about one-third as big as the room I had at the farm, the real problem was, there was only one bathroom and because it wasn’t very big either, I had to keep most of my things in my room. I could see that the only time I would have any real privacy was when Mother darling and Cory had to go to the garage owned by Del Thomas, one of the other musicians, to practice and prepare their music. At least for a good part of those days, I would have the apartment to myself, not that there was much to do in it. There was only one television set and Cory wouldn’t pay for any cable or satellite reception, so the set was able to show only local stations pulled out of the air by a rabbit-ear antenna. Some improvement to the life we had, I thought. At least Grandpa had cable and I had my own television set there.
Mother darling saw it in my eyes.
“This is just a temporary residence for us, Robin. As soon as I start makin‘ big money, we’re gonna have a place of our own.”
“By then I’ll be on social security,” I said, and she came as close to slapping me as ever.
“It would help,” she said, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips, “if you would be a little more encouragin‘. I’m doin’ this for both of us.”
“Right,” I said.
Cory watched our little arguments with a wide, stupid grin on his face. Most of the time he wouldn’t say much. He would just shake his head and go, “Robin Lyn.”
“I’m Robin,” I shouted at him. “Not Robin Lyn.”
“Heck, girl, most of the girls I know here got two first names.”
“I’m not from here.”
“Right. You’re from a bigger, more sophisticated town,” he said, and laughed. Mother darling laughed too. It wasn’t long before I felt like it was me against them. She sided with almost anything he said or did.
For my part, I couldn’t see where he was so connected and important in the music business. If he knew so many influential people, why was he living like this and why didn’t he have another singer, one with more experience or fame than Mother darling? I couldn’t believe how much hope and faith my mother was putting in him. From what I could see, he didn’t even seem as successful as the musicians Mother darling played with back in Granville. It was as if she was blind or just didn’t want to see. I actually felt sorry for her, but it wouldn’t be long before I would feel sorrier for myself.
In fact, I felt sorry for her the very first night there. Cory called his two other band members and told them to come over, supposedly to talk about their music and hear Mother darling sing and play her guitar. She got as nervous as a hen. It was as if she was already auditioning to play the Grand Ole Opry.
“What songs should I choose? Which ones do I do best?” she asked, more of herself than to me as she flitted about the small apartment, going from the room she was sharing with Cory to the bathroom and back, barely concerned at all about my room and how I was adjusting to this.
She paused once to say, “Oh, you have a view of the street from here. That’s more interestin‘. We’re lookin’ out on the courtyard.”
“Right. I’ll spend my time watching cars go by,” I said.
“There’s nothin‘ to stop you from fixin’ this room up any way you want,” she said. “Cory said that would be just fine. He was only usin‘ it to store things and occasionally let someone sleep over when he had too much to drink or somethin’. I’m not sure what shirt to wear. I’ve got that one that sparkles like the Electric Horseman. Bet that would be good, huh?”
I didn’t answer. I just continued to take my things out of my suitcase and put them in the drawers of the rickety, old, chipped, and faded dresser. After I cleaned out the spilled tobacco and gum and other junk, that is. The closet was crowded with Cory’s clothing, cartons of sheet music, six pairs of old boots, and a guitar with broken strings.
“Where am I supposed to hang things?” I asked.
“Oh, hell,” Cory said, overhearing me. He rushed in, scooped up clothes, lifted them off the rack, and threw them in the far left corner of the room. “Don’t matter if this stuff’s hangin‘ or not. The closet is yours completely, Robin Lyn,” he said with an exaggerated stage bow.
“Robin,” I said sharply, and he laughed. He had already opened a bottle of beer. It seemed he didn’t move without one in his hand. I noticed a tattoo on his right forearm. It was a picture of a heart split in two with tears dripping from it and the words My Heart Cries for You underneath. He saw me staring at it.
“You can read it better like this,” he said, turning his arm so I’d have a better view.
“Why would you put that on your arm?” I asked, grimacing.
“Oh, didn’t your mother…”
“Sister,” Mother darling corrected from the bathroom where she was fixing her hair. He laughed.
“Sister, I mean, tell you I once had a song on the charts called ‘Broken Heart’?”
“No, she left out that little detail,” I said.
“Kay Jackson. You never told her the important guy you’re working with?”
“Oh yes, she told me that,” I said. He sucked on his beer bottle and then smiled.
“You want to see the rest of the song?”
I didn’t, but I could see it was important to him.
“Sure.”
He opened his shirt and there were two lines tattooed on his chest with that broken heart between them.
Each time it beats a beat, My heart will cry for you.
He took his shirt off completely and showed me his back, where there were two more lines tattooed.
Each time I see your face, My heart will cry for you.
He turned back to me, undid his jeans, and lowered them and his briefs almost to his private place. Another two lines were on his abdomen.
When I see your hand in someone else’s hand, My heart will cry for you.
Then he turned around and dropped his pants and briefs to his knees. There across his buttocks was tattooed:
Until the very end of time, My heart will cry for you.
He pulled up his clothes and turned around to sing some more of his song.
“So take me back and hold me tight and never let me go.
Please mend a heart that’s torn in two, A heart that loves you so.“
He laughed.
“I couldn’t get the whole first verse on me. Well, what’cha think?”
For a moment I had to convince myself I had seen what I had seen.
“What I was thinkin‘,” he continued, gulping some more of his beer and not waiting for me to respond, “is I might have the woman I love tattooed with the rest of it. Then, whenever we stood naked together, we would have the whole song between us. Huh?”
He looked at Mother darling and then at me and burst into laughter.
“Look at her face, Kay.”
Mother darling did, and then she laughed, too.
“Let’s call the boys and tell them to come over earlier. We want to get this thing goin‘.”
He looked at me again and sang, “My heart will cry for you.”
Then he put his arm around Mother darling and went out to the living room to call his fellow musicians.
If anyone’s heart’s crying, I thought, it’s mine.
Before the musicians arrived, I left the apartment to explore what looked like it would be my new neighborhood for some time to come. Down on the lower level, in front of the apartment closest to the street, I saw a girl who looked about my age, with licorice black hair tied in a ponytail. She was sitting on a lawn chair and seemed to be singing to whatever was coming through her earphones. She wore a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off to her shoulders and jeans. I thought the T-shirt was splattered with red paint, until I drew closer and saw the red dots were all connected to form a pair of lips. Underneath it read, Don’t Give Me Any Lip.
When we made eye contact, she took off her earphones.
“Quien esta usted?”
“Excuse me?”
??
?I asked you who you were in Spanish. That’s what I’m doing with these earphones, learning Spanish.”
“Oh.”
“So?”
“What?”
“So who are you, or is that a secret?”
“My name’s Robin Taylor,” I said, making sure to leave out the Lyn. “My mo… sister and I are staying with a friend for a while.”
“Quien?”
“What?”
“I thought you might have figured it out by now. Who? Quien? Get it?”
“I don’t speak Spanish,” I said sharply. I was just going to keep going, but she leaped out of her chair.
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m studying it.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to run off to Mexico and live on a beach and drink tequila and not care what time it is, ever,” she vowed. I guess I looked pretty skeptical. “I am!” she insisted. She looked back at the front door of her apartment. “I’m tired of my stepmother telling me what to do, what to wear, what to eat. My father never says anything. She’s got him wrapped around her you-know-what.”
This time I smiled.
“Quien esta usted?” I asked, and she broke into a wide smile.
She had a round face that made her dark brown eyes look too small. Heavy boned, she looked a good twenty pounds overweight. It gave her a more matronly look, especially with her big bosom and wide hips. I imagined that when she said her stepmother was telling her what to eat, she was trying to get her to lose weight.
“Mi nombre es Kathy Ann Potter. And I’m warning you now, don’t call me Pothead,” she said with a face bracing for a fight. Then she smiled again. “So, who is your friend?”
“Friend?”
“Who are you and your sister living with?”
“Oh. Cory Lewis.”
“The vampire? That’s what my stepmother calls him because he’s out all night and sleeps all day.”
“Musicians usually do,” I said, “and so do singers. My sister is a singer in his band, or will be.”
“Peachy keen,” she quipped. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Just for a walk.”
“Forget it. There’s no place to go around here. You’ve got to get into the city. You wanna go to Stumpin‘ Jumpin’ with me and my friend Charlotte Lily tonight?”
“What’s that?”
“A dance club. You got to be twenty-one, but we can get in. Lots of college boys go there.”
“Twenty-one? How are we going to pass for that?”
“Charlotte Lily’s sister’s boyfriend is one of the security guards. Lots of kids under twenty-one get in.” She glanced at her watch.
“Can you meet me here in about an hour? We’ll take the bus and meet my best friend, Charlotte Lily, downtown by the Tennessee Fox Trot.”
I smiled in amazement. Talk about someone making friends fast, I thought. For all she could know, I was a serial killer.
“Well?”
“An hour?”
“You need more time to dress?” she asked. “You’re not going out in just a pair of jeans and a shirt like that with sneakers, are you?”
“Oh, no. What do you wear to this, what did you call it, Somethin‘ Jumpin’?”
“Stumpin‘ Jumpin’.” She smiled. “Something sexier,” she replied. “It’s very hot.”
“What’s the other place? What did you call it, Tennessee Fox Trot?”
“Oh, the carousel at Riverfront Park.” She tilted her head with suspicion. “For people coming here to be in music, you sound like you don’t know anything about Nashville.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Except it’s the home of the Grand Ole Opry, where my sister intends to sing.”
“Oh, sure, her and about two million others,” Kathy Ann said.
“She might make it,” I muttered. Funnily enough, I could be critical and skeptical about Mother darling’s chances of becoming successful, but I didn’t like anyone else being that way.
“I hope she does,” she said without much emotion. “Well, you going or not? I have to call Charlotte Lily and let her know, make sure it’s all right with her, too.”
“What kind of a place is this?”
“Fun with a capital F,” she replied. “Are you afraid of fun?”
“Terrified,” I said dryly. “Okay, I’ll see you in an hour.”
I went back up to the apartment. Mother darling was dressed in one of her outfits and was picking on her guitar. The bathroom door was closed with Cory obviously in there.
“I’m going out with a friend,” I told her.
“What? You have a friend already? How could you do that? You just walked in and out of the apartment.”
“She lives here, too. She was just downstairs.”
“Great. Where are you goin‘ ?”
“Riverfront Park. They have a carousel.”
“That’s it?”
“I’ll just learn about the city and then I’ll know where to go myself,” I told her, and went to pick out something to wear from my meager wardrobe. In the end I decided to borrow one of her western blouses and do what she did, tie it at the bottom and show some midriff. Cory was still in the bathroom.
“I want to fix my hair and put on some makeup, but I don’t have a mirror. What’s he doing in there?” I asked loud enough for him to hear. Just then there was a knock on the door and Mother darling let in Del Thomas and the third musician, a man named Ernie Farwell, who was way over six feet tall, with long arms and a long neck. He had dirty blond hair as messy as Cory’s and dull brown eyes with lids that looked poised to shut. Del was the neatest of the three, with well-trimmed dark brown hair and a trim beard. I thought he had an intelligent look, and I would soon see that he was the most serious of the three when it came to their music.
Mother darling introduced herself and then me. Cory finally emerged from the bathroom. While they talked, I fixed my hair and put on some makeup.
“Where’s she goin‘?” Cory asked Mother darling.
She told him. “Who’d you meet?” he demanded as if he had become my legal guardian.
“Her name’s Kathy Ann Potter.”
“That fat girl? Didn’t know she did anything but listen on her earphones and eat and smoke dope, I bet. Mother’s a looker,” he told Del.
“Thanks for the rundown on the neighborhood. Let’s get busy. We’ve got a lot to do,” Del said dryly.
“Sure.” Cory turned to Mother darling. “You gonna let her go out lookin‘ like that?”
She looked at me hard, turning her eyes into two steel balls of cold threat.
“Don’t you get into any trouble here, Robin. We don’t know a soul, except Cory.”
“Who says he has a soul?” I quipped, and the three men laughed. “I need some money,” I added.
She got up, went to her purse, and gave me a twenty-dollar bill.
“We have to watch our budget, you know,” she said. “Be home by eleven, and I better not hear about you smokin‘ no dope, Robin.”
“Right,” I said.
“Robin Lyn,” she called after me. She always added my middle name when she wanted to emphasize something.
“Robin Lyn,” Cory chorused. “Don’t you sin.”
I shut the door on the laughter behind me and hurried down to Kathy Ann’s apartment. She was already out and waiting.
“Don’t you look killer,” she remarked. She herself wore a silk ruffled sleeveless blouse with a collar deep enough to show the cavernous promise of her cleavage. I thought she had gone hog-wild with makeup, too heavy on the eye shadow and thick on the lipstick. Her skirt was nearly a mini, and she didn’t have the legs for it. They were short and stubby, with bony knees. She reminded me of a young girl who had snuck into her mother’s bedroom to play grown-up.
“C’mon,” she said, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the street. “I told Charlotte Lily about you, and she’s anxious to meet you.”
We started toward the bus stop and then broke
into a run when a bus pulled up. Kathy Ann didn’t seem to notice the way other passengers looked at her.
“Here,” she said, handing me a college ID. “Tonight, you’re Parker Carson and you’re twenty-one.”
“Why do we need this? I thought you said we could get in.”
“Just in case,” she said. “You have to flash something so Charlotte Lily’s sister’s boyfriend doesn’t get into trouble.”
I shrugged and put it in my shirt pocket.
“Now tell me all about yourself,” she said, sitting back and looking like a five-year-old about to hear a bedtime story, “and don’t leave out the sad parts.”
I made up a story, claiming Mother darling, who was now known as my older sister, and I had lost our parents in a plane crash. The more elaborate and far-fetched I was, the more Kathy Ann believed and enjoyed the story. I went into how we had to live with our grandparents, who were both old and feeble, with no memories, and how Grandma had set the house on fire accidentally in the kitchen one night. They were both now in homes, and we had left to start a new life in Nashville.
“Wow,” she said with envy, “you have had an exciting life already. You’re going to love Nashville,” she added when I had mentioned my concern about moving here. “You’ll see,” she promised.
With all the lights, people, and music, downtown was more interesting than I had anticipated. We went directly to the park and to the carousel where Charlotte Lily was waiting for us. She was quite the contrast to Kathy Ann. Tall and stylish in her cowgirl’s hat, red fringed-sleeved shirt, and laminated black jeans and black boots, I thought she was pretty enough to be a model. She had long, light brown hair parted in the middle and brushed down, hazel green eyes, and features as petite as mine and Mother darling’s, only with a dimple added to her right cheek. She looked me over quickly.
“Hi,” she said, and glared angrily at Kathy Ann. “You’re nearly twenty minutes late.”
“We left when I said we would,” Kathy Ann whined. “I can’t help it how long the bus takes.”
“C’mon,” she ordered, and marched ahead of us.