This missing scene is the phone call with Luke about Maddie and Rayna's thoughts after that call. Updated with an inexplicably left out paragraph.
Rayna wanted to throw the phone as far as she could. She was about as angry as she could ever remember being at one of her daughters. And although she was also angry with Luke for letting it happen, she also knew that he couldn't watch Maddie a hundred percent of the time. And Maddie was clever, always had been. And mulishly stubborn. When she wasn't digging her heels in, refusing to memorize a poem she thought was stupid, or blowing off homework, or stomping off the soccer field when she made an error, she was snooping in her parents' closet, running off from a social event, hosting an unauthorized party when no one was home, or taking her boyfriend to her father's house when no one was there. She knew Maddie was fascinated with Juliette Barnes, had been since she'd become popular, and no amount of reasoning with her had changed that. If Rayna were honest, she'd admit it probably had the opposite effect.
So it wasn't completely Luke's fault. God knows, she got caught up in all the backstage dramatics before a show. It was why, when she'd take the girls out on the road with her, someone always went with them, to keep an eye on them while she was busy getting ready to perform or actually performing. But it was his watch. And he had at least had the decency to accept the blame. She'd apologize later for blowing up at him.
She got up from the couch and started frantically pacing. She'd need to leave the house in twenty minutes to make the drive to John Tune. She had to get her emotions at least somewhat under control before she got there. She picked up her phone and found Deacon's number. She hesitated just a moment, wondering if she should call him. He'd just told her he was going to stay another day and it sounded like he and Scarlett had finally mended fences. She thought they both needed to be in Natchez and finish what they'd started and she knew, if she called and told him what Maddie had done, that he'd take the next plane back to Nashville.
She would handle this on her own, for now. When he came home, she'd tell him and they'd deal with the fallout together.
She headed through the darkened streets of Belle Meade until she got to Harding Pike, turning to head towards Briley Parkway. She thought back to the conversation she'd had with Luke.
"Hey, how'd it go? She almost home?" she asked.
"She is, be home within the hour." Luke hesitated for only the briefest of seconds. "But, there's something you oughta know."
She didn't like the sound of that. She wondered if Maddie and Colt had had a fight and her daughter was coming home upset. "What happened?"
"Well, seems she ran into Juliette Barnes backstage. Best I can tell, from what Colt tells me, they went off to talk. Next thing I know, Maddie's on stage, with Juliette, performing."
Rayna gasped audibly. "Are you serious? Why didn't you stop it?" she cried.
"Rayna, I didn't know. I was busy, getting things ready, talking to my peopleā¦."
"Luke, she's sixteen years old! And just sixteen. I was depending on you to keep an eye on her, keep her safe. And she's up on stage with Juliette Barnes?" She was standing then, angrily pacing the room. "I trusted you!"
"Rayna, I'm sorry. I didn't know. But you know how it is backstageā¦." Luke's voice was surprisingly calm, not rising to the bait of her anger.
"Yes, I do know!" she shouted, her voice rising with both fury and anxiety. "And I always made sure I had someone to keep an eye on my girls, so nothing like that would happen. I've protected her. You knew that! Damn it, Luke, this is the last time I'm letting her do this. I thought I could trust you to take care of her."
"I did, Rayna. But she's a teenage girl, not a baby." Luke's voice was getting an edge to it. "And believe me, I read Juliette the riot act for doing that."
Rayna put her hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "You know Juliette's out of control, Luke. You should never have let her near Maddie. This is, oh God, I can't believe you let this happen." She sighed loudly. "This is the last time she'll be allowed to go to one of your shows!" And then she hung up.
She felt heartsick. She'd wanted to give Maddie something fun to do after all the darkness that had gone on after Deacon's surgery and everything with Beverly and the business with Teddy. She wanted to treat Maddie a little more like an adult, even though she was only just sixteen, and so she'd put her on the plane with Luke and Colt, with a little apprehension, and let her go to Atlanta for the show. Maddie had been thrilled to be allowed to go and Rayna had trusted her to act appropriately. But Maddie had completely abused that trust.
She rested her elbow against the door and leaned into her fist as she drove. She remembered back to when she herself was sixteen and realized that, in many ways, Maddie was a lot like she had been back then. She was always pushing the envelope, sneaking out of the house to go to an open mic. If her father had just been more reasonable, maybe it wouldn't have ended up like it had. But Lamar had forbidden her to pursue her music and she had been determined, much like Maddie.
She knew Maddie wanted to perform, she made it perfectly clear over and over. And although she and Deacon were on the same page that they wanted her to do it right, Rayna knew Deacon wasn't quite as hardline about it as she was. But he wasn't the one that had had to defy her father to do what she loved. She was happy to help Maddie, let her perform in controlled situations where she'd given permission. She wanted to protect her, because she knew what it was like, and she knew Maddie wasn't ready, any more than she had truly been ready for all that came along with a career in music at that young age.
She and Deacon would never kick Maddie out of the house the way Lamar had done to her. Lamar Wyatt wasn't a fan of country music and he hadn't been a supporter of hers, although after he'd died she'd found out that wasn't as true as she'd always believed. She and Deacon would support Maddie, but not like this.
She was angry at Juliette, although she wasn't surprised. She'd been wary of the younger woman's influence on both her daughters, but especially Maddie. Maddie had seemed to develop this closer relationship with Juliette in the aftermath of the car accident that had put her in the hospital. It had bothered her that Maddie would reach out to Juliette for support when she was troubled. She had watched over these last few months as Juliette seemed to teeter on the edge of being out of control and she was even less of a fan of Maddie hitching her star to Juliette's.
Maddie knew better than to do this. She had to have known Luke would tell her. she wasn't just angry at her daughter's decision, because, at some level, she could understand her desire to be on a big stage like that. She herself knew the allure, understood that pull, appreciated Maddie's desire to perform. But the music business was different these days and Maddie was too young and too inexperienced. The genie out of the bottle, though, and she wasn't sure how she was going to get it back in and she wasn't sure what the ultimate fall out would be.
As she exited Briley Parkway for the airport, the thought that had been playing around the edges of her brain ever since she hung up the phone with Luke came roaring to the forefront. I'm jealous. I'm jealous of my own daughter. That she stood on that big stage, in front of twenty thousand people, and performed. At sixteen. When I was practically begging for a spot at the worst sort of honky-tonks around town. She swallowed hard and shook her head, as though to push that train of thought far, far away. All that mattered was what had happened, not where.
She pulled into the private airport parking lot. She looked over at the time and noted that the plane would be landing in less than ten minutes. She took a deep breath. This would likely not be a pleasant homecoming. For either of them.
I will have a second missing scene up hopefully by the end of the weekend. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
