Chapter 4

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Twenty Five

I've been visiting Vince a lot lately.

Deacon hates visiting Vince's grave, but I find it comforting. I always have. It is ironic because I don't visit Mama's grave too often. I don't find visiting that cemetery gives me any peace or makes me miss her any less. I only go when Tandy ask me to go with her.

But Vince's headstone is different. I always feel better after visiting him.

I brush the leaves off the end of the plot and sit down on the ground in front of him. I trace his name in the deep grey granite stone. Then I slowly let my fingers move over the guitar etched below the dates of his birth and death.

And I smile softly 'cause I know Vince would hate it. He would have preferred having his ashes scattered in the ocean or released into the wind off some mountain. But Vince's poor mother needed a headstone and a place to visit, so she chose her family's plot at their church.

I came here today to talk about everything, not just Deacon.

I talk to Vince about my career and Marshall Evans and how lost I feel about everything. I talk to him about the election and the girls. I admit aloud how unhappy I am right now. I haven't done that before and it is equal parts freeing and devastating to put into words what I'm feeling.

And somehow I can hear his Alabama twang telling me to "get off my cute ass and go make things right."

But I won't call Deacon.

Not after that crap he pulled the other night at his house. Somehow he can't change eleven damn words to one song. I told him I need this and he just said no. Then in the same breath he defended Juliette Barnes singing about boys and buses and bubble gum.

I tell Vince that I've been trying to do some writing on my own. I admit I want Teddy to lose this election. I tell him that I met Liam McGuinness yesterday. And that jerk basically called me an over-the-hill soccer mom. He didn't even let me in the door. I shake my head at my own thoughts. Liam McGuinness wasn't the only one who saw me as as some fading country star. Marshall Evans did too. And apparently so did my fans.

And then the morning breeze picks up. And I swear I can hear Vince's voice again, asking me what I was going to do about it.

Twenty Six

I still have a picture of us in my wallet. Technically it is three pictures, black and white.

It is the two of us at one of those stupid photo booths that she used to make us go to pose in. It had been the day we signed our contract with Edgehill and we went out to celebrate. The photo booth was in the back of one of the souvenir shops on 8th Avenue and she practically drug me through the store to the booth.

The first picture was of me smiling, looking straight ahead while she kissed my check. The second was us looking at each other, both smiling and the third was us kissing, both still smiling.

I carried it with me the first time in rehab and it had stayed in various wallets throughout the years. The pictures were faded now and it carried lines from me folding it. I have looked at the pictures a lot over the years: in holding cells, in detox places, in countless AA meetings, in hotel rooms when I couldn't sleep…and now.

Twenty Seven

Liam reminds me of Deacon.

Hell, maybe it is because everything reminds me of Deacon right now. It's been seventeen days since I've seen him or heard from. Last night at the grocery store I thought I heard his voice but it had been some twenty year old tourist looking for beer. And I had to turn off the radio because every song reminded me of him.

Still, Liam does have similarities to Deacon or at least the guy Deacon used to be. The talent, the music, the alcohol…they are all so familiar to me. He even smells like Deacon use to: whiskey and cologne. Or sort of like him at least.

And last night, just like so many nights with Deacon, I wanted to stay with Liam. I wanted to stay and make music. I wanted to stay and laugh. I wanted to stay and get drunk and forget about everything else.

Twenty Eight

I have coffee at my house.

Good coffee. Cheap coffee. Coffee I don't have to wait for. And if I wanted coffee I didn't make, I could have just gone to the diner. My diner. The diner that serves black coffee without ninety two toppings that come in weird named sizes.

But I'll be damned if I didn't drive to this stupid European bakery to get a cup. I'm pretty sure that every other person in here owns a Lexis or BMW. Hell, I'm probably the only person who doesn't live in a gated community.

But here I am. Drinking coffee with cinnamon and whatever foamed skim milk is. And I drink it slowly in that hopes that she'll stop by on her way to the Record label, like she normally does on Tuesday.

Twenty Nine

I need to be anywhere but here.

I need to be writing something. Or meeting with the Marshall again to try and convince him not to release my greatest hits album. Or I should be at cleaning something. Or…I should be sleeping since I didn't get much last night. I should be at Teddy's campaign headquarters helping him with the last few weeks of the campaign.

But here I am in East Nashville, sitting at a table drinking lukewarm coffee and eating overcooked eggs.

I look at my watch and realize he isn't coming today. Maybe…maybe he knows I'm here. Maybe he saw my car in the parking lot and just drove off. That would explain why he hasn't been here the last two mornings either.

I take another sip and look at my watch again. It won't hurt to just wait a few more minutes.

Thirty

He loves playing putt-putt.

No seriously. Loves it. I swear we've played every mini-golf course in America.

We use to play the old ones with the windmills and the big blocks as obstacles. But since then, we've played pirate ship courses, ghost town courses, Hawaiian theme course. We've played ones with dinosaurs and ones set in a faux jungle.

He is oddly competitive about it too; he actually makes us follow the rules. We have to keep score with the little pencils. And add an extra stroke if the ball goes in the water. And we can't use green balls because they blend into the green turf. He loves playing in the nicer courses that stay open at night and have prizes if you get a hole in one on the eighteenth hole.

Before we broke up, we would share a celebratory kiss on a good shot. Now we share playful high fives or one of us gives the other a pat on the back.

Or we did share high-fives and pats on the back. Now I guess that is over too.

I actually considered asking the girls if they wanted to go play at the little course down from the mall. But then I realize it was November in Tennessee and that place was closed.

Thirty Two

My bathroom is clean.

Scarlett has been here for a few weeks now. She has her run of the guest bedroom and the front bathroom. Scarlett has slowly put more and more of her girl things on the long sink and in the bathtub.

It reminds me of Ray.

When Rayna and I lived together before, I had like six inches of space in the bathroom for all of my stuff. Hell, she made me build her shelves which I thought meant I could have more space. That was wrong. She just got more places to put her stuff.

There was the hairdryer, and the thing that made her hair straight and the thing that made it curly. And for some reason she had to have the round brush and the square brush and the five different combs. Then there were the clips and the ribbons and bows.

And that was just for her hair.

Then there was five perfume bottles although she always uses the same one. And the lipstick, and the lipgloss, and chapstick. And the powder stuff and the liquid stuff. And the fingernail polishes and the silver thing that looked like some doctor's tool to make her eyelashes longer. And then there was the makeup remover and the facial soaps and moisturizers and creams and gels.

And the shower was worse. She had five different soaps, shampoos, conditioners, shaving cream and razors.

When we would be on the road, the same thing would happen. Fifteen minutes after checking into a hotel, the bathroom would have ten different things scattered around.

For almost a decade, I had no room in my own bathroom. I would get annoyed that she took an hour and half to look just like she did before she took a shower. I would make comments about too many brushes or having to carry her makeup bag and her other makeup bag.

When she moved out the first time, she left most of her stuff here. The tampons stayed under the sink, most of her makeup stayed in the drawers, and her nine extra mirrors remained on the counter space.

But then it happened. I'd come home after two nights of partying with some guys from the Roadhouse. I was still drunk and high on coke. And everything was gone, like it had been before. She'd taken her awards, her clothes, the picture of her Mama. But she'd done that before.

I passed out on the couch, telling myself I'd make things right when I sobered up.

Then I woke up and stumbled into the bathroom. There wasn't a ribbon, or lip gloss, or lotion anywhere. And that was when I realized she was gone. Really gone.