So at the end of the last fan fic I wrote, there was talk about Rayna writing an autobiography. I decided the way I'm going to do it is in a separate fic here, cuz we still need a wedding in that other one! Probably each short chapter will be a scene in Rayna's past, like the writer asks her about it and she's remembering it. Of course not every detail she's "remembering" would go into a book…but I thought this would be a really good way to imagine her early years and the beginning of her career…I would love to hear reviews on this idea, hope you like it!
Rayna closed the door behind Lucy Hayes and leaned against it with her hands on her forehead. "That was crazy, right?" She said to Deacon. "I mean, really. I didn't even know what to say."
"You, speechless?' Deacon teased. "That's a first."
She reached over and smacked his arm gently. "Ha ha."
She still was not at all enthused about the autobiography idea. The girls were all for it. Of course they were. They'd walked in here a half hour ago and fallen instantly in love with Lucy, then ran off to give her a tour of their bedrooms. They thought she was going to make them famous.
Rayna hated to break their bubble by telling her daughters she thought having a country superstar for a mother, and the mayor of Nashville and a famous guitar player as fathers had already made them famous enough for her liking, thank you very much. She would have preferred to keep them out of every single corner of the damn book if possible. But she knew it wasn't. And she also knew that some day Maddie and Daphne were going to be old enough to read it. Hell- the words, "Mom, I googled myself and look what I found" already scared her to death every time she heard them.
"You know," she said with a sigh. "I mean, if I don't do it, what are the chances someone is going to write one five years from now anyway? Some unauthorized pile of garbage with all the facts wrong….ugh, I don't even want to imagine."
"So that's a yes then, huh?" Deacon said. "We're gonna be seeing more of Lucy Hayes?"
Rayna looked like she'd been poleaxed. "Well I don't think I really have a choice now. Would you have said no to that woman?"
He laughed. "I guess not."
"She said I owe her one day a week where she gets to follow me around and ask questions."
"Well that's not so bad, right?"
Rayna made a face. "I guess. Because we both know how much I just love talking about myself."
He pulled her into his arms. "At least we know it's going to have a happy ending."
"That," she said. "Is an absolute guarantee."
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Lucy was there by 8 am on Wednesday morning just like she had promised. She didn't even knock on the front door, just scooted right in with a plate of muffins and a thermos of coffee.Same Yankees hat. Bright yellow pants and a faded gray sweatshirt that said "I'm the boss so get moving."
"I bring my own coffee," she said. "Because I like it extra strong."
Really? Rayna shot Deacon a look as she ran around like a crazy person packing lunches and double checking backpacks. Did she just walk right into our house?
Damn him for looking so amused by this whole thing.
"Mom, don't forget I have rehearsal for the talent show after school," Maddie reminded. "You said you'd pick me up."
"I can pick her up," Deacon said. "In case you get…caught up in things. I'll be at the studio all day anyway."
"Oh, don't change anything you have planned on account of me," Lucy said cheerfully. "I'll just tag along. Just go about your every day business."
"Um….okay," Rayna said cautiously. "Then everybody out the door. We're going to be barely on time. Like always."
"Is Lucy coming with us?" Daphne asked as she snagged a muffin off the plate in passing on her way out the door.
"Well, I guess she is, " Rayna said brightly. "Won't that be fun?"
Oh boy. This was just going to be so much fun she could hardly stand it.
The girls chattered on in the backseat, and gleefully answered Lucy's questions about everything from school to talk of the upcoming marriage between her and Deacon.
Rayna noticed in a hurry that Lucy had a way of getting information without seeming too intrusive. She was an avid observer, once in awhile writing in the notebook that had emerged from her purse. Asking questions that naturally led into conversation Rayna probably would have never brought up on her own. She'd been interviewed by a hell of a lot of reporters in her life, and 90% of the time they went for the jugular halfway through the questions. They didn't care about the truth. They cared about the dirt. But this was different. Lucy was different. She was a writer, not a reporter.
She had to admit to herself by the time they bid the girls goodbye in front of the school and headed for the next stop- the supermarket- that maybe Deacon was right. It wouldn't be so bad. But by the end of the morning, Rayna was already dying to know what was in that notebook. What did it say already after only a few hours?
"So, Lucy said, as she sat at the counter and watched Rayna mixing up cupcakes for Daphne's class party the next day. "Tell me about the first memories you have as a little girl."
Right down to business.
Rayna paused for a minute and looked up from stirring the mixing bowl. "Oh gosh," she said slowly. "Well I guess that would be…my father. My very earliest memories are of my father."
"Not of your mother?"
She hesitated. "I don't like talking about him much. He did some awful things in his lifetime."
"Listen," Lucy said in that no-nonsense but gentle way she had. "For this to work you have to trust me. You can tell me whatever you want," Lucy said. "But ultimately what goes on the pages belongs to you. They're your memories. The good ones and the bad ones."
She sighed as she started scooping cupcake batter into the tins.
"No," she said. "Not of my mother. My earliest memories are of my father. Being in his arms as he danced me and my older sister Tandy around the room. Hearing him laugh." ….
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Her first memories of her childhood always had her father in the background. He was tall, and imposing, and by nature he had a loud voice. Commanding. Booming. All her and Tandy's friends at school would run away when he came to pick them up in his big black car. People who came to the door at their house always looked at the ground when he answered, and the other little girls never said yes when Rayna or Tandy invited them over. They were not even enticed by the promise of the big swimming pool, the ponies in the stable, or the lady in the kitchen who cooked whatever a person wanted. They were scared of her father.
But Rayna wasn't scared. Because he was her daddy. She didn't know anything about business mergers or tax stuff, or any of that. She just knew him as Daddy. When she was really little he would dance in the front room with her and Tandy after dinner, his big strong hands holding one of them on each arm as the Grand Ole Opry played on the radio in the corner.
Where her mother was in those early memories? Rayna couldn't remember much about her before she was in elementary school. She could only remember being very small and laughing and laughing as Lamar spun her around and the music surrounded them. He used to laugh a lot back then, before her mother started getting dressed up real fancy and going out every night.
"Where's she going?" Rayna started asking as she got old enough to notice. Those are the first things she remembered about her mother. She would sit on the bed and watch Virginia put on makeup, then wind her long dark reddish-brown hair up on top of her head. John Conley was always on the record player on the bureau. Her mother loved John Conley's songs. Then their mother would put on a beautiful dress, kiss the girls goodbye, and go downstairs.
The door would close behind Virginia, and Lamar's face would turn to a frown.
"Why does she always leave?" Rayna would ask.
"She's going to sing," Lamar would say. And he'd go down the hall to his office for the rest of the night and leave them in the care of a nanny. No more dancing. No more laughing.
Rayna didn't understand. "Why does she have to leave? Why can't she stay here and sing with us."
Tandy would bop her on the head. "Stop asking so many questions! It makes Daddy sad."
Virginia had wanted to sing since she was a little girl living on a farm with her parents in Oklahoma. They were poor, his family was old Nashville money made in banking and politics. It was not accustomed to mix the two. His family never approved of the marriage, and when she married Lamar, she never visited her parents again. He met her when she was still in high school, by coincidence that she'd been on a missionary trip with her school group visiting New Orleans. Some of the girls had snuck out of their dormitory and gone downtown to try and get into a jazz bar. Lamar had been there on business. She dazzled him. And he was her ticket to Nashville. Literally.
Within a few years of them being married, Virginia was singing several nights a week in clubs all over town, and people were showing interest. She was thrilled. When their two daughters came along, she adored them and tried her best to be an attentive mother. Lamar thought it would quell this urge for her to be in the spotlight. It didn't. She loved them, doted on them, but she was restless. She wanted to be the next Loretta Lynn.
Lamar would ask her why on earth she wanted to be like some country half-wit from the backwoods of Kentucky with too many kids and a cheating husband.
Virginia would get mad and say. "She made it, didn't she? She escaped. And so did I."
Rayna thought for sure her mother was going to be famous one day. She was always humming around the house, and just one time they'd gotten to go to the park and watch her sing a really important song in front of a lot of people. One time was all their father would allow. After that they always had to stay home.
She could sing real pretty. And she was beautiful. And those were the two most important things. Tandy thought having lots of money must be important, but Rayna would rather sing like her mama.
She remembered hearing them fight about it one night. They were in the kitchen, her and Tandy huddled at the top of the high staircase. She must have been eight or nine years old, looking back on it. Long after her father had stopped dancing them around and laughing. The house was colder now when her mother and father were both in it.
She felt alone most of the time. Except for Tandy.
"Why can't you just let me be who I am, Lamar?" Her mother demanded. "I want more. I want to be more than just a pretty face standing next to you at cocktail parties. I didn't leave my family and come here for that."
"And you think Watty White is going to get you all that?" Lamar said harshly.
"Yes. He is."
He looked tired. "You don't need a career. We have enough money to last the rest of our lives." Why can't you just be a wife and mother like you're supposed to, Virginia? And give up these….crazy thoughts."
"Why can't I do both?"
Rayna didn't understand either. She looked at her sister. "I like it when she sings . It's pretty. I'm gonna sing like that some day."
"Shhhh!" Tandy clapped a hand over her mouth.
But Rayna still didn't understand.
She did later, though, as she grew into adulthood. After she had daughters of her own. She understood why her father was so against her career from day one, why he fought it with a vengeance up until the day that he died. Why he was so insistent that she stand by Teddy on that mayoral stage, even after the man she married had lied, cheated people, and committed adultery.
Because she was like her mother, and it hurt him. She left, just like Virginia did. Her mother had hurt his pride as a husband, and she hurt his pride as a father. She was like both of them, in more ways than she cared to admit. She had the perserverance, the stubbornness, the drive of her father. And she had the heart and voice of her mother, and the restless urge to spread her wings and pursue her own desires.
In the end Rayna had done what he'd stopped her mother from doing the day he drove her off that road. She got her career, she got her family. She got both. She had it all. She proved to her father it wasn't impossible after all.
And it was the one thing on this earth even Lamar Wyatt and his money couldn't do a damn thing to put a stop to.