Rayna
It was the middle of summer and the heat was overwhelming. This was when she was glad they had a pool in the backyard. It wasn't a huge pool or a fancy one, just a standard pool. Her mom had gotten her dad to put one in, back in the days when they mostly got along and he would typically do most anything to please her. There was a cement pool deck around the pool where there were several lounge chairs, regular chairs, and small tables and big umbrellas set up. She couldn't remember the last time her father had gotten in the pool. She couldn't even remember seeing him in a swimsuit, although Tandy told her that when they were a lot younger he would sometimes get in the pool with them. Those must have been the happier times, the times she mostly didn't remember. Tandy, being older, could remember some of it, but once their mom died they didn't talk much about that anymore.
She had put on a cobalt blue bikini and walked out to the pool with a towel that she placed on one of the lounge chairs, then went to sit on the edge of the pool. She had pinned back her short bob behind her ears. When she had looked at herself in her mirror that morning, she'd run her hands through her hair, wondering if maybe she should let it grow out some. There was a senior girl at her high school named Natalie, who had long dark hair that hung halfway down her back. Her hair was straight and super shiny. When she walked down the hall her hair sort of swung back and forth against her back. With her almond shaped eyes, perfect nose, and perfectly straight teeth, she was one of the prettiest girls at school.
When she looked at herself in the mirror she thought her face looked round and maybe even a little plump, especially her cheeks. She had freckles scattered across her nose, her cheekbones, her forehead, and her chest. Her hair was a reddish-auburn color, not quite as dark as her sister's, something she'd inherited from her mother, who was stylish and always put together. But she wished her hair wasn't red. She'd been called 'carrot top' by her classmates, even though her hair wasn't really the color of carrots. She also had to endure teasing because of her love of country music, but that one she mostly shrugged off because she had decided she was going to be a country music star one day, like her heroes Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Her eyes were her best feature, she thought, deep blue and sparkling. Her teeth were straight except for that small overlap on her front teeth which was hardly noticeable. She wasn't plain but she wasn't pretty either, she didn't think. She was just... her.
She was startled a bit when her older sister sat down next to her, adding her feet to the water. Tandy gripped the edge of the pool and leaned forward slightly. "Hey, sweetie. What's going on?" Tandy had an apartment near Vanderbilt, where she went to college, so she didn't live at home anymore. But she came home often, usually when their father wasn't around, and especially in the summer.
She sighed. "Just wishing I had long, straight hair like Natalie Winfield."
Tandy wrinkled her nose, signaling her disagreement. "No, you don't. You'll realize before long that having some natural wave is much more flattering." She reached out and plucked at a strand of her hair. "You could probably grow it out a little though."
"Why is wavy hair more flattering? Her hair is like a sheet of silk."
"It also looks thin and flat against her head. Wavy gives you something to accent your pretty face and give you some lift."
She shook her head. "I'm not pretty."
Tandy frowned. "Of course you are." She smiled. "You have the prettiest smile, sweetie. It just lights up your face. Plus you have a gorgeous figure." Her sister bumped her shoulder against hers. "Why are we talking about this anyway? You're going to be a country music star. Right?"
She gripped the side of the pool and scissored her legs in the water. "That's my dream," she said.
"Have you looked for some open mics you can go to? Daddy's going to be out of town so much this summer you should take advantage."
She nodded. There was a music newsletter that came out every Thursday at newspaper racks around town that listed the weekly live music events at almost all the many music venues in Nashville, along with information about open mics and other opportunities to sing at different locations. Now that she was 16 and had a car, she could get herself anywhere she wanted. All she had to do was sync the dates her father was out of town with the showcases she wanted to go to. Almost all the open mics paid nothing but were a chance to sing a few songs in front of an audience and, hopefully, someone in the crowd would have a Music Row connection that could launch a career. "I've picked out several places and called to get all the information. Most of them don't require that you write your own songs. That's what worries me. And it's what keeps me out of the Bluebird, where I really want to go."
"I'm sure you could write a song," Tandy said.
She shook her head. "I don't know if I could or not. I wouldn't even know what to write about. And what if it isn't any good? That would almost be worse than not writing one at all."
Tandy shrugged. "You won't know unless you try. I know you like to mess around with Mom's guitar. Just write about something like your big dreams. I bet you can do that."
She sighed, scissoring her legs again. "I don't know. I'll think about it." She sighed again. "It's harder to get into a Bluebird open mic anyway. You have to call in and then hope you're lucky enough to get selected." She straightened out her body, balancing on the edge of the pool with her butt. She looked over at her sister. "I'm hot as fire. I'm getting in," she said with a grin. Then she let herself slide into the water, feeling the coolness against her back, shoulders, and neck.
She was startled when her father walked into the den early one afternoon. She hadn't expected him home that early and had been trying to write a song. She had her guitar on her lap, not that she was confident in her ability, but it made her feel like a songwriter. She'd been struggling for days trying to come up with a song. She'd never be able to do an open mic at the Bluebird without an original song and she was feeling frustrated. She was trying to work with Tandy's idea of writing a song about big dreams.
"What are you working on, Rayna?" She turned towards the door to see her father standing there.
"Daddy. I didn't think you'd be home this early," she said. She felt that quiver in her stomach that she'd always felt when her father caught her doing something she knew he wouldn't like.
He took a few steps into the room, looking around. His eyes lit on the album covers she had scattered on the floor. She'd been hoping for some inspiration from some of her favorites – John Conlee, Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire – and she was sure her father would not be happy. He frowned, then turned to her, pointing his finger towards her. "Rayna, I thought I told you I didn't want that hillbilly music in this house," he said, raising his voice, his eyes like cold steel.
"I'm sorry, Daddy. I just brought these downstairs." She felt a knot in her stomach. These were her mother's albums and Tandy had brought them to her after their mother had died. Daddy will toss these out if he finds them, so keep them with you.
"Well, get them out of here."
"Why do you hate country music so much?" she asked, staring back at him. "I don't understand."
"You don't need to understand, young lady. All you need to know is that I don't want that in my house. And since it's my house, it's my rules." He turned and stalked back out of the room.
As she watched him leave, she sighed heavily. She set aside her guitar and went over to collect all the albums. Then she added her notebook. She picked up her guitar and took everything upstairs to her room. It puzzled her, her father's hatred for country music. The thing that made it harder to understand was that her mom had loved country music and played it often, yet to her knowledge he'd never made her mother put it away. She wondered if it just reminded him too much of her. But forbidding her to even listen to it made no sense. And since she intended for it to be her career, she wasn't planning on putting it aside.
"He'll just have to learn to live with it," she said to herself as she walked into her bedroom and shut the door.
She wished she could have worn something different but getting past her father made it necessary to dress like she was doing what she'd told him – studying with a friend. The fact that she didn't have many friends was something she was sure her father was unaware of. She certainly didn't have friends she'd go study with. Still, she wanted to look like an aspiring country artist. She knew the Bluebird was for songwriters – and she had written a couple songs, although she wasn't sure how good they were – but it was also a place where artists were sometimes discovered.
She looked at herself in her full-length mirror. She'd decided to wear a sleeveless white top along with a denim skirt. The skirt was shorter than what she usually wore and she kept tugging at the hem. She had previously put a pair of boots in her trunk, along with the guitar her mother had given her, because her father would get enraged if he ever saw her wearing them. She never understood why he was so adamantly opposed to her interest in country music and boots just seemed to set him off. She was wearing a pair of plain flats that would look perfectly respectable.
Mr. Watty White was the one who'd told her to sign up for the open mic at the Bluebird. He told her he knew people there and would make sure she got in. He'd seen her at a daytime open mic down on Broadway and had given her his card, showing that he was a legitimate producer. She'd been nervous going down to Broadway. It could be a rough area, although less so during the day than at night. But Wyatt Industries headquarters was nearby, and she didn't want her father, or anyone else who might know her, to see her. Not that he'd be on Broadway, but he had eyes everywhere, that she knew for sure.
She sang her 2 favorite songs – Rose Colored Glasses, which was the song that made her want to sing country music, and Wayfaring Stranger, the first country song that her mother shared with her. She wondered if anyone could see her knees knocking or hear the nervousness in her voice. It wasn't her first open mic – she'd been doing them here and there since before she was 16 - but she was always nervous when she did one. Her mother was the one who'd introduced her to country music. Actually Virginia Wyatt loved all music, but country music was her favorite. She had made music a part of both her daughters' lives, although Tandy had been more interested in the symphony.
As she sat at the table watching the other performers after her, she thought about her mother. Virginia had died 4 years earlier, in a car accident on a dark road late one night. She and Tandy had been at summer camp and had been awakened before dawn to find their father there to share the awful news and take them home. Those had been the darkest days of her life. She was young enough to still be a little overwhelmed by what was happening around her and didn't understand it all. But what she did understand was that her mother, whom she'd always looked up to, was gone and never coming back. Her father had always been absent regularly, traveling for business, but after her mother's death, it was as though he'd left their lives too. She'd felt adrift, abandoned in a way. She had tried to cling to Tandy, but her sister was handling her grief by dating around and acting out.
She was feeling a little down in the dumps and was also worried about her father finding out she was there. She started to leave, but a gentleman with salt and pepper hair and kind eyes sat down next to her. She was instantly on alert. "Rayna, is it?" the man asked, his voice a little gruff but with a smile on his face. She nodded cautiously. "My name is Watty White and I just wanted to tell you I thought you were quite good up there. Do you write any of your own songs?"
Even though he was a stranger, she knew instinctively that he wasn't a danger to her. "A little," she said, which really wasn't the truth. "I'm not very good."
He sat silently for a moment, seeming to be considering something in his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, placing it on the table in front of her. "If you can pull together a couple of songs, give me a call. I'd like to see you do the Bluebird open mic, but you need your own music." He smiled then. "I hope to hear from you."
She hardly knew what to say. "Thank you," she said. He got up and walked out of the bar, as her eyes trailed him. She looked back at his card and saw that he was a producer at one of the big studios in town. She took the card and slid it into her purse, then got up and left the same way he did.
Now she was hoping to stand on the stage of the Bluebird, the place where dreams could come true. Mr. White had told her she would have a spot, but she didn't want to get her hopes up until she knew for sure. She took a deep breath, then picked up her purse and headed downstairs. She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that night was going to be one she'd never forget.
She parked where Mr. White told her to. He was a lot older than her and it felt disrespectful to call him Watty, even though he'd asked her to. He'd also been very kind to her, listening to her song for the night and giving her some suggestions. She went around to the back of her car and got her boots and guitar out of the trunk. She went back and sat in the car, trading out the flats for the boots. She checked herself in the mirror and then realized it was too late to do anything even if something had been amiss. She took a deep breath to settle the butterflies in her stomach and got out of the car, locking it behind her. She took another deep breath and headed for the entrance.
When she walked in, she caught her breath. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but this was so much more. There was a buzz in the air and it gave her goosebumps. The space was much smaller than she'd expected, but it gave the place an intimate feel.
"Hey, Rayna." She turned to see Mr. White, a kind smile on his face. "Don't be nervous. Your song is good and you're ready for this." He pointed at a table along the back of the space. "I'll be up there."
She smiled, feeling a little nervous still but better knowing he was there. "Thank you, Mr. White. I really appreciate this. I hope I don't disappoint you."
He shook his head. "You won't. Just have fun."
Almost before she knew it, she had pulled up to the house. She got out and ran in through the kitchen door and then up the back stairs to her room. When she closed the door, she laid down on the bed, reliving the night. She could barely remember singing on stage. Mr. White told her she'd done well, but all she could think about was the handsome man whose eyes had been on her the entire time she was on the stage. She was surprised she'd remembered the words to her song or the chords on her guitar. She couldn't remember whether she was good or bad because her insides had been aflutter. She couldn't remember his name, but she knew she would see his face for the rest of her life.
Deacon
"Deacon! Deacon!" He looked up and saw his sister Beverly pull into the gravel drive, calling out to him through her open window. He was loading his stuff into the bed of his truck, and he knew he needed to hurry before their father got home. She jumped out of her car and ran over to him.
He looked around. "Where's your stuff, Bev?" he asked. He noticed that her makeup was streaked with tears.
"Doug doesn't want me to go," she said, tugging on his arm.
He frowned. "Beverly, why does he matter? You broke up with him. Now we're going to Nashville. Or I thought we were."
She looked conflicted. "I do want to go. I do. But you know how it is." She looked around, then back at him. "I love him, Deacon. And he wants a future with me. Please stay. We can still perform together around here. For now."
He shook his head. "You know I can't do that, Bev. I gotta get out of here."
"Mama and I need you, Deacon," she pleaded.
He looked away from her. "Then y'all should come with me to Nashville. I ain't staying in Natchez one more day. You know that." Their father, Gideon Claybourne, was a violent alcoholic, had been for as long as he could remember. Now that he had the chance, he was making good on his promise to himself to leave Mississippi for good. Actually, it was his and Beverly's promise to themselves. They'd been performing as a duo in bars around Natchez and into Louisiana for months. They'd been talking about going to Nashville to pursue a music career for years. She grabbed his arm, and he shook it off, glaring at her. "I'm leaving, Beverly," he said. "You can come with me or not, but I'm leaving now."
She stood there crying. She was the toughest person he knew, wouldn't back down from a fight, even with their father, but now she was giving up a real future. "Please don't leave me, Deacon," she cried.
"What about Doug? Ain't he gonna protect you?" He slammed the tailgate shut and walked around to the driver's door. He looked back at her. "You sure you're not coming? This is your chance." She wrapped her arms around her waist and looked away. He sighed. "I ain't coming back, Bev. This is it." He got in the truck, started it up and pulled out of the drive. As he headed for the main road, he looked back and saw her standing there, her arms still around her waist, watching as he drove off.
He hadn't gone back. Beverly had stayed, married Doug, and now they had a newborn baby girl. They talked every few weeks, but the conversations were short and often ended in anger. She blamed him for leaving her when he knew she only had herself to blame. He sure wasn't where he'd hoped he'd be at this point – thought if his sister had come, they'd be playing in nicer places – but he would never go back.
As he crossed over the Cumberland River, he put thoughts of his sister aside and thought about the songs he wanted to perform that night. When he had time off, he was always writing. Even when he had breaks at work, he wrote. He had lots of notebooks filled with lyrics and music arrangements. People seemed to like his music, but he couldn't seem to make inroads the way he wanted. He kept thinking the Bluebird would be his ticket. He didn't know why he was so sure, but it was the place where magic happened. The place where label execs and A&R guys came to check out new talent. You never knew when they'd be there, but there were lots of stories in Music City of the greats who'd been discovered there. But it hadn't happened for him. Yet, he kept telling himself. He would be performing at a small suburban bar on the west side of town that night, but he would keep trying the Bluebird, hoping one day something magical would happen.
He focused back on his songs. He was going to be performing a new song that night that he'd written called A Showman's Life. It was about that elusive dream, the acknowledgement that for so many success wasn't in the cards. He wasn't ready to believe it for himself, but he'd gotten caught up in the negative feelings he sometimes faced. He felt like he was always fighting off demons, the leftover crap from his life back in Natchez. From his tense calls with Beverly, he'd determined that not much had changed. He'd told her more than once that Doug was a jackass, but she'd never listened. Now that she had married him and had a new baby, she'd boxed herself in.
He tried not to think about his parents, especially his father. Growing up in that household had been like a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. He wasn't really sure what drove his father to drink, although Gideon had often referred to it as the 'family curse', so he suspected his father's father might have been that way as well. When Gideon wasn't drinking and life was stable, things felt more normal, but it didn't take much for him to turn dark, and when he did the whole family paid for it. It had seemed to expand over the years from yelling and screaming to pushing and shoving to eventually real physical abuse. He could remember, after one particularly vicious beating, grabbing a bottle of the cheap whiskey his father drank and heading out into the woods. It was only about half full, but he'd drunk it all, erasing the memory with each successive swallow, and then passed out. The hangover the next day was brutal and he had vowed right then to break the cycle. He didn't know if he was predisposed to the disease of alcoholism, but he didn't want to risk it.
He felt alternately sorry for his mom and frustrated with her. She took the brunt of her husband's anger, often stepping in front of her children in order to protect them, but as time went on her attempts became more half-hearted and he and Beverly felt their father's wrath the most. He knew she'd been beaten down, feeling trapped in a situation she couldn't figure out how to get out of, but he also resented her putting him and his sister in harm's way. He still occasionally called her, but the conversations often ended badly, with him expressing his anger over her inability to get herself out of her situation. Beverly had told him their mom had serious depression issues, but she didn't know what to do either.
What he felt these days was mostly a sense of relief that he was out of that environment, but there was still enough darkness and pain to feed off of as he wrote song after song. There had been times when he'd wanted to drink. Many of the people he'd met since moving to Nashville, both inside and outside of the music industry, seemed to make a habit of going to bars or drinking during songwriting sessions. He'd dealt with the latter by slowly pulling back from co-writes and with the former by forcing himself to drink club soda and then leave early.
He suddenly realized he'd gotten to his destination, The Golden Spoke. He pulled into the parking lot and parked along the side of the building. He got out, reached for his guitar, and headed in. There were already people at the bar and a few at tables scattered around the place. He would start his set at 7:00 and he was about 30 minutes early, which gave him time to be sure his guitar was tuned properly and that he gave a final look at his set list. He grinned at the pretty blonde behind the bar as he walked over to get a bottled water.
He leaned on the bar. "Hey, baby," he said. "How's it going?"
As he drove back across town after his set, he did the same debrief he always did. He thought back over the songs he'd done, the reaction from the crowd, and his own instincts as to whether the song hit the mark or not. The songs that got the best reaction usually were the ones he felt the best about beforehand, so it was good to get that confirmation. The new song, in particular, had gotten an enthusiastic response. The Spoke had been pretty full that night, even for a weeknight. It had been several weeks since his last gig there. They paid okay, but the tips were generally good. He was lucky. He had been able to land sets at a variety of locations around town most nights of the week and generally every Friday and Saturday, even if it was down on Broadway. The Spoke was farther out – Bellevue – but he wasn't one to turn anything down.
Plus Samantha Beasley worked there. He smiled when he thought about her. She was blonde, with creamy skin and velvety brown eyes, slender but still curvy in the right places. She was a server at The Spoke but also worked as an office assistant at one of the warehouses off Briley Parkway north of the city. Her dream was to be able to get a better paying job and maybe go to college. They had been dating for a while and he thought she was fun. She had an ease meeting and talking to people that he didn't have. She loved to go dancing and tried to get him on the dance floor with her, but he'd never been good at that, generally standing on the sidelines. Luckily, she didn't seem to be bothered by it. She would dance with other people but always come back to him.
Her story was similar to his in that she'd had a rough life growing up. When she was 6 her father had gone to prison for murder and her mother had died of a drug overdose. She went into the foster system and had had a mix of decent and not-so-decent foster parents, mostly the latter. She'd told him the last foster home she'd been in was awful and she had run away, hitchhiking her way to Nashville. Nashville hadn't been her goal, but when the car of the person who'd picked her up in Lexington broke down in Nashville, it became her home. She had met 2 girls at a diner who were a little older than her, both servers, and they had taken her in. The three of them still lived in a small apartment north of the river.
They both had the next night off and he was looking forward to seeing her. They had actually met at a bar where he had worked as a barback for a while, near the Grand Ole Opry. She and her friends had been out on the town and she had chatted him up for a good part of the night. Before she left, she'd given him her number. These days, since he was getting more paying gigs, he'd been able to drop that job, but he had definitely called the girl. And the rest, as they said, was history. He smirked.
They were eating tacos at a hole in the wall place near where Sam lived. "You wanna go back over to my place after this?" he asked.
"What about going dancing first?" she asked.
He made a face. "What about hitting the 5 Spot? They got a really good band playing." He gave her a little smile. "I'll bet you could dance a little to their music." The 5 Spot had more of his kind of music. She would usually drag him to one of those bars where they played top 40 stuff, which was his least favorite kind of music. He would do it for her, but the 5 Spot was more rock and alt-rock. His first love was country music, which is what he would write and perform, but if he had to choose a place where they could both have fun, the 5 Spot was more his style.
She nodded. "Okay." She reached across the table for his hand and smiled. "And you're gonna get up early to drive me back over here? I mean, I do have to go to work tomorrow."
He only hesitated for half a second. He really didn't want to have to get up early to drive her home, but he would do it just so he could wake up next to her in the morning. "You bet," he said with a grin.
He was always a little embarrassed when he brought Sam to his apartment. When he'd come to Nashville, he'd had enough money saved up for a boarding house kind of set up for a couple months. Luckily he'd landed a full time job and, along with part time jobs and paying gigs, he was able to get a small studio apartment in a rough part of East Nashville. It had a tiny kitchen, a small bathroom, and enough space for a bed, a couch, and a TV. Sam's place was a little nicer but it was still fairly small, and she shared it with 3 roommates, which meant little privacy. The roommates doubled up in the bedrooms, which meant if they wanted to spend the night together they had to do it at his studio.
Sam actually helped him keep it a little neater than he might have otherwise and he tried to maintain it when she wasn't around, but it was hard to make such a small place look good. He was on the 3rd floor and once they climbed the stairs and walked down the breezeway, they came to his apartment. One positive about it was that it was an end unit, which meant he had a side window, along with a small block window in the tiny bathroom. They stopped at the door and he unlocked it, letting her walk in ahead of him. She dropped her purse by the door and he turned on the light, closing and locking the door behind him.
She turned to him and put her arms around her neck, smiling. "That was fun," she said.
He put his hands on her waist and kissed her. "Glad you liked it. You want any water or anything?"
She shook her head. "I'm good."
He separated from her and when into the kitchen, leaving his keys and wallet on the counter and grabbing a bottled water out of the fridge for himself. When he turned back, she had settled onto the couch and he joined her there. She tucked into him, putting her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. He put an arm around her and rested the other arm on the couch.
"You think we might ever someday get a place of our own?" she asked, surprising him.
"That what you want?" he asked, not opposed to it. In fact, he liked the idea.
She shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, I'd hate to leave the girls, but I would." She looked up at him and smiled. "What do you think?"
He smiled back. "I like it. I think we should talk more about it."
They didn't talk anymore that night about moving in together, but as he drove back across town the next morning after dropping Sam off, he couldn't get it out of his head. It would be kind of a first step for them, an agreement that they were in a committed relationship. He liked her a lot, wasn't sure he loved her. Yet. But he also wasn't sure he was ready for more than just living together. He didn't know why, because he'd certainly never seen it in his own life, but he believed that when he met the right person he'd know it immediately. He hadn't had that sense with Sam and still didn't, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen. Maybe they'd grow into it. They were young though, both just 19, and he was definitely not ready for anything beyond what they had.
He didn't want to be alone though. Occasionally, when he was growing up, there would be flashes of what a real family could be. A meal together, singing together. His father was quite good on the guitar and would sometimes spend time with him teaching him how to play. His father was the one who told him songwriting was 3 chords and the truth. Gideon Claybourne wrote a little bit, mostly little ditties for him and Beverly when they were younger. He had a cloudy memory of Gideon encouraging him to write, when he was young, but he wasn't sure if it was a real memory or just wishful thinking. He'd never shared anything he wrote with his father and kept it hidden from anyone until he and Beverly started performing together.
Singing and songwriting was what he'd wanted to do for as long as he could remember. It was his ticket out of Natchez and when life got bad he'd jumped on the chance to go to Nashville. He sometimes felt like he was on the precipice of something, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it. All he could do was keep trying and keep working.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and buttoned up his shirt. He'd found a clean one that didn't have any tears or fraying cuffs or collar. His jeans were well-worn, and his boots were dirty and scuffed, but he figured no one would really be looking at them. He walked out, grabbing his guitar, and then headed outside for his truck. As he drove down the street, he hoped maybe this would be the time someone important would be in the audience. Someone who would hear him and think he was worth taking a second look. He'd been in Nashville for a little over 2 years, working 2 and 3 jobs at a time to make ends meet, playing anywhere he could get in. The Bluebird Café was the mecca, though, and he would be on the open mic list that night. It wouldn't be his first time, but he kept thinking that each time he was onstage, his chances would improve at being noticed. He'd been nervous as a cat the first time he'd been onstage, but he felt more comfortable each time he made it.
As he crossed over the Cumberland River, he thought about the songs he wanted to perform that night, if he was on the list. When he had time off, he was always writing. Even when he had breaks at work, he wrote. He was constantly going back through his song notebooks, looking to see if there was something he'd forgotten, something that could be turned into another song. He felt like there was so much he was feeling inside that he wanted – needed – to get out. He would try out songs on Sam, just to get her reaction, although he was pretty sure she would tell him they were all good. But she seemed to gravitate to the ones that spoke to the dark places and the struggle, maybe because they spoke to her as well. As fun and energetic as she was, he often felt like that was on all on the surface. He could sometimes see pain in her eyes or a look on her face that reminded him of his own pain, and he felt like he was writing to her as much as he was writing about himself.
He wished Samantha could have gone with him, but she was working that night. He thought he might stop by after the open mic and he smiled as he anticipated that. She liked it when he came by and Mondays were slow nights at Mac's, the place in Goodlettsville where she'd just started working, that was closer to home. She still worked at the warehouse job and picked up extra shifts at Mac's 2 to 3 nights a week. Now that they were sharing a place, she had the money to start taking classes at a local community college. Things were looking up, he hoped, for both of them. He was already thinking about later that night.
Deep down he had a really good feeling about that night. He didn't know why but he felt like something special was going to happen for him at the Bluebird. He smiled to himself and pressed a little harder on the accelerator.
He'd been transfixed by the redhead on the stage. He could tell she was young, although she had the voice of an old soul. She was a natural, with her beautiful voice, and she had the look that told him she would be a star one day. He had felt something inside he'd never felt before. He wasn't sure how to describe it – a yearning, a sense of inevitability. He was certainly attracted to her, but it was more than that. It was something he felt deep in his soul. He found himself grabbing a napkin and a pen and writing down everything in his head. He was disappointed that she left before he was finished singing, but he'd seen something in her eyes as she watched him on stage that told him she probably felt that inevitability too, although he couldn't have said why he thought so. He hoped he would see her again, but he also knew that even though Nashville could be small, it was also a place where people would come and go and who knew if their paths would cross again. He would never forget her though, that he knew for sure.
Almost before he realized it, he'd pulled into the parking lot at the apartment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the napkin he'd scribbled on. His eyes glanced over the words. It would need some polish, plus a melody, but it surprised him when he read what he wrote. The words were more hopeful than what he usually wrote, but he'd been inspired by the pretty redhead standing on the stage. He thought he remembered her name was Rayna. A life that's good. For whatever reason, she made him believe it was possible after all.
He realized he hadn't gone by Mac's after all. Instead he hustled up to the apartment and opened up his notebook, fleshing out what he'd written on the napkin. When he finally closed the notebook, the napkin was still inside.