Do Right By You
"I want to do right by you, Deacon."
He smiled like he somehow understood when Rayna said those words, but inside he screamed, What the hell, Ray? I mean what the hell does that mean? And that song…what did that mean, exactly?
Not long ago, Deacon kissed her in that elevator, and he's no innocent, no choir boy, he knew damn well that she was kissing back, welcoming him, responding with passion. Then she even agreed to let him come over to her hotel room, until Teddy showed up and spoiled the whole damn thing. Then he sees her flirting with Liam, her smile glistening off the marble of the lobby. Then comes her divorce, which he had to learn about from the tabloids. From the goddam tabloids. That's Rayna for you. Make you think you can walk on air and then walk away. Guess some things never change.
But this, this is cryptic even for her. "I want to do right by you." What's she's saying…that's she's not going to walk down that old overgrown lover's lane with him again, but that she's somehow keeping her distance for his sake and not for her own?
She's free now. Finally free of Teddy, and there'd be no sin in taking her to his bed anymore, but still she's holding him at arm's length, even when she had no problem wrapping those same arms around Liam.
As Deacon watches Rayna sashay in that typical Rayna way of hers out the door of the Blue Bird, he wonders if the consolation he's been spoon feeding himself for years is a lie. She'd be with me if not for Teddy, he's told himself for ages now. If not for Teddy, she'd be with me.
But Teddy's out of the picture now, legally speaking, and Rayna's still not running into his arms. And why's that? Because she's got to do right by him? That Bob Dylan song springs to his mind: "Do right to me baby, and I'll do right to you to." Like Jesus said, you got to do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Well he knows exactly what he wants to do to Rayna. God knows he's run it over in his mind on many a sleepless night.
More lines from that Dylan creep up: "Don't want to hurt nobody, don't wanna be hurt. Don't want to treat nobody like they was dirt." Sometimes he feels Rayna's treated him that way – the mud she walked through, the mud she has to scrape off her boots before walking through the threshold of her home with Teddy. Dylan's lyrics keep running through his mind – don't want to confuse or be confused, don't want to betray or be betrayed, and, oh, yeah - "don't want to put my faith in nobody." Yeah, he should have learned not to do that by now. Rayna sure as hell learned not to put her faith in him.
She wants to do right by him. By him, not to him. Now there's a fine distinction, and he's got no idea what it means. Because all he can think of is "if you do right to me, baby, I'll do right to you too." And she could do right to him right now. She could home with him, slide under those cool sheets beside him, beneath him, on top of him. He can't imagine anything righter in all the world.
Yet all he sees his her high heels clicking on the ground outside the Blue Bird, and that door slamming shut. Just one more closed door in a long line of closed doors.
Maybe he'll hammer it down.
