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One of the traits that all good music journalists should have is the ability to observe.
Anyone can ask questions of another person; anyone can nod their head and say to a friend, "That was the greatest song I have ever heard!" But it takes a crazy amount of patience to sit back, to opt to wait instead of babbling on at length, and to savor the silent realizations that come with being quiet and seeing an artist perform.
The same can be said for the simple art of studying other people in general.
The things that one can learn about the nature of human beings only increases when the words cease to fall out of your mouth and you become the watcher of the world. It is a chance to see people at their most honest, after all, because body language and the random, yet ingrained, gestures of everyday life cannot lie.
Words, though, can be beautifully deceptive.
Spencer knows all about words and how they can pretty a picture up; how words can turn crap into gold; how words can be used like smoke and mirrors when you do not want to see what is right in front of you. It is a part of her professional existence – to string phrases and thoughts together and make a reader fall in love with an artist or an album – and it is a part of her other life, too.
That other life, usually in the shadows where Spencer likes to keep it, seems to be knocking on the door more frequently these days. That other life, looking better than it ever truly was, is a mirage in the mirror of Spencer's mind and she cannot seem to shake the feeling that everything is way too close to the surface now. The memories and sensations and dreams, all of them fading like the seasons, but still able to rock the boat and send Spencer reeling into choppy waters.
Spencer is busy watching the other women in this car and that other life is busy watching Spencer.
For now, she'll blame Mississippi and the humidity that does not die with the enveloping evening for all this pointless introspection. To look further inward, to maybe pick apart the real reasons, is a terrifying thought and Spencer is already unsettled on this journey.
The leash is in her hand; time to jerk that pup back onto the sidewalk.
The conversation within Sharon's car has rambled on – one minute, it is calm and then the next minute it is shrill laughter filling up the cabin. It reminds Spencer, briefly, of high school days. There is a certain way that young women talk to one another, equal parts friendly and bitchy. It is the chatter atop bleachers and over phone lines. It is the snark that hovers around classrooms and the gossip that curls around the ear.
Spencer would like to save her somewhat decent amount of hipster cred and say that she was never that kind of girl, but that would be a sad little lie to tell.
She was exactly that kind of girl for the first two years of high school – less The Breakfast Club, more Heathers… at least, the early part of the film, where it was all matching clothes and too much attitude.
Spencer isn't even sure why she acted like that back in those days.
Then again, that could be just another tiny white lie Spencer tells herself in order not to truly see.
"Do you mind if I smoke, Spencer?"
"What's New York like?"
"So you really think Ashley is good?"
The questions bounce around like that for a while and Spencer does her best to answer each one with a smile – a slightly put-upon smile, but a smile nonetheless.
And as Spencer replies, she does some of that casual observing.
Spencer notices the way Sharon, the woman at the wheel, tilts her head as she listens to whomever is talking and the lazy way her honey-brown hair tumbles down with the leaning. Sharon rolls her eyes at a couple of comments and taps her cigarette through the crack of the window. There is a delicate kind of highlighting on Sharon's face – a touch of blush, a glimmer of lip gloss – and when Sharon smiles, an echo of wicked thoughts linger along that mouth; a shade of bitterness hovers about that grin.
Kaye is the one with the laughter that could cause glass to shatter. It is the amusement of the guileless, the sort of thing that most people lose track of as they progress from child to adult. Kaye, however, has retained this type of honest joy and Spencer knows that any annoyance that flares up inside is more than likely born of envy rather than true dislike. Kaye's eyes, a wonderful shade of pale blue, seem to dance with all the inquiries she directs at Spencer - body comfortably turned around in the passenger seat as the car jostles along curves and flies down greater highways than Morgantown can offer.
And, lastly, there is Kyla Davies, the one who kicked off this merry little chase that Spencer has found herself on and the current presence at Spencer's side in the back-seat of Sharon's car. Of course, Spencer took in quick details as she stood with her rental car and Kyla faced her down from the porch steps - brunette hair and dark eyes and tan skin; a determined scowl upon full lips.
Now, as they ride to Monticello, Spencer is able to get a better kind of look at this woman.
Kyla Davies still has the fresh-faced sheen of a girl enjoying their youth, living from paycheck to paycheck and content to drink the night away in some bar with her friends. Kyla may have to deal with bill collectors every once in a while but she'll forget them once she shuts the door.
Unlike Sharon, Kyla does not carry the gaze of someone a little too hardened about life or love or any of the other things that like to trip up the world at large. And unlike Kaye, Kyla does not appear to meander through existence in a subtle state of blissful ignorance.
Kyla Davies is a woman resting between realms; ready to face down intruders at the gate or spend good money on sending tapes to magazines and radio stations. Spencer is sure that Kyla has her own dreams – talents ripe for the picking – but they are being shoved aside for a sister with a damn good voice.
It is the kind of noble action that can turn to regret, though.
It is the kind of abdicating that can lead to future revolts – if one is not careful.
And just as Spencer knows about the power of words, Spencer also knows about the dangers of suppression.
However, Spencer could be reading these three women all wrong. It could be the heat and the toll of the flight finally catching up with her; it could be the talk with Reverend Stovall and the memories that just won't shut up anymore; it could be a million and one different things that are making Spencer feel like these early judgments of character could be completely off-base and very wrong.
It could be that Spencer is the one actually caught between realms; the world she left behind and the world she is so desperate to hold on to. The world of her career, of New York, of the type of freedom that carries a hefty price – this is the universe she is forging at the expense of Ohio and of her broken family; at the expense of the God that Reverend Stovall reveres and of the God that the elusive Ashley Davies apparently flees from.
And just as Spencer knows how to find all the stories that a musician doesn't want to tell, Spencer also knows how to conveniently lose each and every one of her own lengthy tales.
At Kyla's question, Spencer easily slips back into the journalist persona and she is still able to rein in those increasingly dominant thoughts of weary introspection – still able to make the dog walk where she wants it to, still able to play this game, still able to stay aloft on the tightrope and pretend that falling is but a distant joke.
It'll work for now, that's what Spencer tells herself once more and begs the notion to stick.
"I'll know more once I can hear her live but if she is half as good as she is on the tape then I'll have nothing but positive things to write about her." Spencer answers with a quick and easy smile.
Kyla grins back and delivers a confident nod of the head. "You won't be disappointed, Spencer."
"Will Ashley have to go with you and make an album?" Kaye asks, still turned around with the seat-belt stretched tight across the woman's shoulder.
"Oh, well, no-" Spencer replies and a soft chuckle coming from Sharon cuts into the conversation.
"She just writes for a magazine, Kaye." Sharon states as another cigarette butt is crushed into the slightly full ash-tray and the last whispers of smoke mingle with the combined scents of each woman's perfume.
It's enough to give Spencer a headache - if she didn't already kind of have one, that is.
Quite a few hours have passed since Spencer left JFK and that over-priced bag of peanuts. So now, Spencer is not only slightly bewildered and a little tired due to the turn of events since she has been in Mississippi but Spencer is also really, really hungry.
Once they hit this dive in Monticello, with its prerequisite dotting of motorcycles and rusted trucks around the gravel parking lot, the first comment out of Spencer's mouth is about food.
"Seriously, a bowl of stale pretzels will do at this point."
"Samuel has whipped up sandwiches in the back before, you know, for Ashley and the guys. I'm sure we can get you something, don't you worry about it." Kyla assures Spencer with another confident nod of the head. Kaye is already darting for the entrance and Sharon is smoking once more, walking slowly with her small purse swinging back and forth as it hangs from one hand. Spencer starts to follow the other two but Kyla grabs a hold of her forearm – a brief but solid tug that is meant to make someone halt and turn back.
"Uh, Spencer, just so you know… I, uh, didn't tell Ashley about all this, okay? So if you wanna say you are friends with Kaye or Sharon, just so she'll open up a bit more, then that might be for the best."
Spencer can feel her own shoulders sag at Kyla's admission and it takes all the energy she has left not to turn around and walk all the way back to Gulfport and to the first flight back to her nice place in the city that never sleeps. But there is a story to be found here and this story just waits for Spencer's particular touch.
And so Spencer cannot give up, even when a part of her thinks it would be for the best to run away as fast as she possibly can.
"Why didn't you tell Ashley what you were doing for her?" Spencer inquires as they walk, side by side, towards the door that Sharon and Kaye have already disappeared behind.
Kyla sighs heavily and bites down onto her bottom lip, as if she is debating on how much to divulge to this new person in their midst.
The words that Kyla ends up saying make sense to Spencer. The sentences fall off of Kyla's tongue with equal amounts of trepidation and tiredness; it is the sound of a sister's love for a sibling, sure, but also the sound of one woman's drive and another woman's resistance.
"I'm just afraid she'll never get out of here, you know? Ashley's got something special, something real special, and I won't stand by and watch her waste it."
To Spencer, though, there is the faint ringing of another story in Kyla's voice – a story that goes far beyond that of a song on a cassette tape.
It is brief peel of awareness that Spencer does her best to acknowledge but those thoughts are quickly swallowed up by the opening of the bar door; the curiosity that niggles at Spencer's brain is left out in the parking lot with the sensation of Kyla's hand on Spencer's back as the woman ushers the two of them inside.
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