Chapter 2
Thanks for all the wonderful comments thus far! This story is following the first season with both their (and maybe a few other) perspectives. It is kind of different than the other stuff I've done.
Eleven
Sometimes I forget how long it has been since Deacon and I have been together.
I remember when Scarlett was born. We were in Nashville when his brother-in-law in Ohio called, telling us the news. Deacon hated the name Scarlett. He'd said "no baby should be named after a color, or a fever, or a woman who wears curtains." The dry sentiment made me laugh out loud. It was something so unlike Deacon.
In honor of her birth, we went to the movie store and got 'Gone with the Wind'. Deacon fell asleep on the couch before the Civil War started.
And tonight she was back stage at the Opry. She was a beautiful young woman. No, not a woman, an adult. It is times like tonight when it smacks me in the face how long Deacon and I have been together. It also reminds me how long we've been apart.
The last time I saw her, she was no more than six or seven. We'd been in Cleveland for a two night and she and Laura had come backstage. The four of us had eaten dinner back at Laura's house before the show and spent the night with them after. Deacon had gotten drunk, embarrassingly so that night. But still he'd kept his temper in check and if it bothered Laura, she hadn't said anything.
Now Scarlett was an adult. She'd gone through elementary school, middle school, high school, and found her way to Nashville…all in the years that Deacon and I had been apart.
Twelve
I don't have to go to an AA meeting.
I lied when I told her that in the middle of the bridge. But her voice was cracking and her eyes were filled with tears and I knew taking her up on going to Tootsies would be a mistake.
She's been sentimental lately. Between her latest record having subpar sales and her fights with the brass and whatever else was going on, she'd been talking about the good ole days a lot.
In the last fourteen years, she'd been the one to make sure we never crossed the line. She'd been the one who always gave me a warning look or made sure to keep us out of situations that would lead to more. Normally, she'd veer a 'remember when' story into a conversation about present day issues.
It hadn't always worked. There had been once on the anniversary of Vince's death. It had been the first one I'd gone through sober and it had been unbearable. She found me in a hotel bar down the road from the place we were staying. I had my six month chip in one hand and a full glass of whisky in the other.
She dragged me out of the bar and we ended up sitting on a brick wall for hours, crying and holding onto each other for dear life. We'd kissed then. It had been the first time in almost two years we had. She'd pulled back immediately. Then they had talk after talk about how it could never happen again. Well, actually I didn't talk so much. She talked and I listened. Truth be told, I didn't even hear half of what she said. I was too busy realizing that whatever delusion I had about kissing her and her coming to some realization about us was just that…a delusion.
She did the same thing after we almost kissed that random night in Orlando and during their camping trip in the Rockies and the time they danced at Gilly's Bar for hours.
They had a bunch of talks then too.
Those talks involved how committed she was with Teddy and how good I was doing with my sobriety. She always sounded like a school teacher reminding her worst student about how important it was to behave.
Those conversations led me to go to more AA meetings.
So it was better to avoid the talks, which meant avoiding the possibility of a kiss, which meant avoiding Tootsies.
Thirteen
I always have Snickers in the Halloween bowl.
Most years, we are on the road somewhere. But a couple of times, we've been in Nashville on October 31 and I always buy candy for the neighborhood kids.
She had insisted on buying candy that Halloween. She said we'd never done Halloween together and she wanted to. So for two hours, we'd given out candy to every nurse, witch, ghost, superhero, and Disney Princess. I'd turned out the front porch light and then she burst into tears in the middle of the living room a second before jumping in my arms.
It had taken twenty minutes and several "Baby I love yous" before she wiped her nose on her sleeve and admitted she was late.
I'd stupidly asked" late for what?" before realizing what she meant. Back then, my stomach had clenched in absolute fear. But she was crying and her hands were trembling and so I promised her we would figure it out. After a while, we got in the truck and drove to the grocery store. I stayed in the car while she went in and got two test.
That whole night seemed like a complete out of body experience. I didn't know if I was more scared of a baby or Lamar Wyatt but either way I had been absolutely petrified. She'd gone into the bathroom after I kissed her and promised her we'd get through this together.
When she emerged a few minutes later, she said they had to wait three minutes before knowing.
So I walked over to the nearly empty candy bowl and brought back a Snickers to join her on the bed. I'd taken a bite and handed the other half to her. Then she'd gone into the bathroom and came back out more hysterical than before. I was pretty sure I had stopped breathing for a second before she told me the test was negative.
Even now he wondered what would have happened if that test was positive. For years I was relieved it was negative but now….now it was more a bittersweet memory. Her career would have been vastly different if she'd been a knocked up twenty three year old in the country music. Their lives, their music, their…everything would have been so different.
That child would have been twenty something now, probably as old as….Juliette Barnes. He heard the doorbell ring and grabbed the candy bowl.
Fourteen
I miss fighting with him.
We haven't fought in a really long. We disagree. We have differences of opinions but we don't fight anymore. And God knows I miss fighting.
Okay, I don't miss the drunk yelling and screaming at each other for half the night fights. But I miss the stupid fights. I miss the fights about whether we are going to Daddy's for Christmas or fights about the set list. I miss fights where I'm angry about Edgehill's publicity or Deacon is aggravated that he thought I flirted with some radio DJ.
We'd yell and fight. I'd stomp my foot and he'd yell back. He'd punch the air and I'd slam a door. But we couldn't stand it, being angry at each other. As soon as the yelling stopped, he'd give me that look or he'd see bite my lip.
And then he'd say what he always said, "hey". And I would run to him. I'd always run to him and he'd always walk towards me. Most of the time, we'd end up tearing each other's clothes off. Sometimes we'd talk first or work on an idea for a song. Then we'd get to the make up part. But we always did the make up part. Often more than once.
Until today. Today we actually had a fight. A small one. A stupid one about a guitar. A guitar some little girl gave him as a bribe. A stupid little girl that was sleeping with Deacon, that was writing with Deacon.
And now I was staring at ceiling in my bedroom and he was probably doing the make up part with Juliette Barnes. And I was trying to remember how his voice sounded, low and husky when he'd whisper he was sorry too.
Fifteen
I haven't played with a blue guitar pick in nearly a decade and half.
I actually don't play with picks very much anyways but never blue ones.
Well that isn't always true. Every once in a while I do it just to see if I can still get a reaction out of her. And I do. She always blushes when she sees me holding one. And then I always think about that Valentine's Day and that generally leads to me spending an extra ten minutes in the shower or getting really lost in whatever girl I'm taking home.
It had been our second; maybe third Valentine's Day and she'd bugged me for weeks about what I wanted. I got annoyed and told her I wanted another guitar pick. I had dozens already but I was annoyed and just wanted her to quit asking me. She asked what kind and I told her "blue."
We'd been in some half decent hotel. I bought her favorite white wine we'd planned to go out to dinner after the show.
I jumped in the shower and came back out to find Rayna laying on the bed naked. Well she was naked, except for strategically placed blue guitar picks.
My eyes met hers and we just smiled at each other for a long moment. Back then, it felt like time just stopped when they were together like that. And that night, seemed to go on forever. They'd come up with some very naughty uses for guitar picks.
For years after, they'd randomly be on stage and he'd pull a blue pick out of his pocket. Sometimes when he was really bad, he'd hold the pick between his teeth as though he needed both his hands free between songs. Either way it wouldn't matter, he'd be playing with the band tonight at the Bluebird. She wouldn't be there to see whatever color pick he uses.
Sixteen
I have a box of things at Daddy's house.
It is a red box, Rubbermaid brand. It had held Christmas decorations for years but then had turned into my box after I moved out of Deacon's house. I kept it in the bench of the window seal seat in my room. Most people didn't know the bench was hollow. Daddy did and Daddy probably knew the box was there but he never moved it and never mentioned it.
There would be years on end that I never looked inside. But I kept it anyways. And today I needed to see it.
The box had at least a hundred colored photos: pictures of the two of them performing on stage, goofing around on the tour bus, pictures of Vince, Mark, and other band members being stupid. There was his grey t-shirt that lost his scent years before, a guitar pick, a stuffed elephant, the necklace I wore the night we wrote 'Postcard'. There was a Japanese fan that use to be a bright red, now it was more a rose colored.
There were programs and fliers from their early stuff. There were the pages of scribbled notes and lyrics that became some of their most famous songs. There was a key with a big piece of wood attached from the Bay bridge Motel. There was the garter he caught at Coleman's wedding and notes he'd written her on the back of cocktail napkins.
I hear Daddy yelling at Martha, asking why my car was out front. I put the lid on the back box and wiped the tear that had escaped. I looked at my watch. I could make dinner, tuck the girls into bed, and still have time to make most of Deacon's show.
