Chapter 13

I had told Mom I’d leave early. I was on the road by five. The Rolling Stones, The Police, U2, Janis Joplin, and The Cars kept me company on the road. I watched the LowCountry turn to hills and the traffic pick up as the miles rolled by. When I got bored around Knoxville, I put the Go-Go’s on. The song, Our Lips are Sealed came on and I was revived.

I pulled off the freeway in Nashville and put the top down at the first stop I came to. The air was cooler. There was a lot of grass and no bridges. I was very definitely inland. I stopped at a store and picked up some flowers. I pulled into Sally’s neighborhood, passed McGavock High School and Two Rivers Golf Course and made my final turn. The houses were simple, single-story homes but they were all well-kept.

I spotted what I knew was Sally’s little red Honda Civic hatchback and parked on the street in front. After eight hours of driving, I was happy to be at my destination but a bit anxious about who would answer the door. Things had not ended well the last time I saw Mr. Hinkleman, although I was pretty sure he’d had a bit of a revelation because of that meeting. I grabbed the flowers and a photo album I’d put together and walked to the door. I knocked, and, of course, Mr. Hinkleman answered.

“You must have gotten an early start. Come on in, Jack. Good to see you.”

“Really?” I asked, a bit surprised.

With a very genuine smile, he said, “Really. I’ll get Sally. She has no idea.”

“Dad! I’m going to be late for work. Look what time it is,” I heard her complain.

“You’re not going to be late for work. There’s someone I want you to meet,” I heard him say as he led her down the hall.

“I don’t have time for ... Jack!” She turned the corner in a red dress that reminded me of a saloon girl in a western. The hem was higher in front than in back and it laced up in front, accenting her new and improved boobs. Her hair was wavy and, for lack of a better word, big. She looked great.

“You have the day off, Sally,” and he smiled and disappeared as Sally ran across the living room to hug me.

After she was done trying to squeeze me to death, she stepped back and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Is that a real question? I’ve never been to Nashville, silly. I thought I’d visit the home of country music.” She squeezed me again.

It was impossible not to notice. “Sally, you have...” I whispered.

“Boobs. I know. Aren’t they great?” she asked, much too loudly.

“Shhh. How am I supposed to answer that?” I whispered back.

“You could say you’re happy for me,” she whispered, giggling. “I have to check. Dad said I have the day off but this is the first I’ve heard. Let me check. Oh. Flowers. I’ll take those, she said and danced around the corner. Whew.

She came back and dragged me into the kitchen. “Tell us what’s been happening,” Mrs. Hinkleman said.

The four of us sat at the kitchen table and I told them about my year. I told them about swimming and baseball, Vince and Lani, It’s Academic, and Kim and my discussions about college. I told them about our land and K&J Properties, LLC, and the K&J Ranch and Dance trailer I’d bought for Kim. I told them about Angela, Kim’s mom having surgery, and that Mom and Dane were getting married soon. They asked a lot of questions.

“I almost forgot. Kim and I got interviewed by Debby Dare and ended up on the evening news. It seems like the entire Lowcountry must have seen it. We got a couple of hundred letters and messages including one from Marion’s Bridal. So, we answered that one and got free engagement pictures and worked at a booth at a wedding show at the convention center.

“This part was really funny. When we were doing engagement pictures, Kim was changing clothes, I was talking to the photographer. He was really professional. Anyway, he said he’d done photo shoots for all these magazines like Vogue and Elle and Playboy. I asked him how he kept his mind on photography. It’s a good question, right? Anyway, he looks at me and says, ‘I’m as queer as a three-dollar bill. You, however, are very attractive.’ He was kidding with me but it was pretty funny.”

Mr. Hinkleman laughed at that. They all did. “Did you wink at him?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? I didn’t know what to say. A lot of guys would think being a photographer for Playboy would be the greatest job in the world and he just thought it was another job. Oh, and when we did the wedding show, we answered questions and stuff at a booth for Marion’s Bridal. Well, it got kind of slow so Miss Katie, the owner, had Kim put on a wedding dress and walk through the hall. I went to get her and walk her back to the booth and that really drew a crowd.”

I opened the photo album to our engagement pictures and one of Kim in a wedding gown. “Wow,” Mr. Hinkleman said.

“No kidding,” his wife added.

“I’m happy for you,” Sally said. “You know that she asked him to a football game while we were dating and he said, ‘no’ right?” They looked at me, at least a little surprised.

“You didn’t make the drive to sit around talking with us,” Mrs. Hinkleman said. “Why don’t you show him the town, sweetheart? Your daddy talked to Merrill and you have the weekend off, but he wants you to work a couple of nights this week.”

“Sweet. How long are you here for?” Sally asked.

“I have to leave no later than Tuesday morning. Vince, Lani, Kim, and I are driving to Atlanta on Wednesday to check out Georgia Tech and Emory.”

“Let’s not waste time. Want to see Nashville? Ooh. You need to see my gym, first.”

We went out to their garage and she showed me her gym. She had upgraded from a bench to a power rack and had gone from adjustable dumbbells to fixed weights, all the way up to forty pounds. She had a set of high-quality bands, with carabiners attached to the wall of the garage so she could hook them up at different heights.

“What do I need?” she asked.

“You can do a lot with what you have. Let me think a minute.” I paused to consider what she would need rather than what I would want. “You look good, Sally. You really do.”

“Thanks. I’m getting Mom’s boobs. That helps,” she laughed. I tried to ignore that but she was cute enough before, and now, well, she looked pretty good.

“A box would be good. They’re easy to make. If you make it twelve, by sixteen, by twenty, or something like that, you can adjust your exercise really fast.”

“What’s it for? What do you do with it?”

“Jump up. That’s it. You do a standing jump and it works your legs. When you get to where you can jump to the highest distance easily, pick up a couple of light dumbbells and start over on the low height.”

“Ooh, I bet it works the butt, too. I can’t believe you drove all the way here. Wait. You didn’t ride your bicycle.”

“No. I would have. Oh, Sally,” I said, and we hugged again. “Let’s not reminisce, at least not too much, okay?”

“Probably best that way. If we did, you’d want to see my new boobs,” she said, laughing again. “Is that your car?”

“Yup. That’s 1 FISH. Want to go?” I didn’t need to reminisce to want to see her new boobs. She looked great.

I told her about my car, which she loved, and we took off for a guided tour. I left the top down and we drove a couple of blocks to McGavock High School. We pulled into the very large and very empty parking lot. We walked around the campus and she told me about her classes and friends. She lived in a completely different world. She’d gone from Porter-Gaud to Saint Andrews, to McGavock and her days at Porter-Gaud were just a memory. They were a memory from a different world that her friends in Nashville knew nothing about. It made me sad.

When she told me about one of her classes, she’d ask about one of mine. She asked about the new people I’d met. She laughed about Gizmo, was interested in Mei and Cherry, and didn’t know what to make of Marci, which made two of us.

She gave directions and we drove north, parallelling the Cumberland River for three miles to The Grand Ole Opry, which, for some reason, I expected to be a much older building. I knew it was a Mecca for Country Western musicians. We parked and walked around it, ending up at the ticket office to see a list of upcoming events. I was suitably impressed.

Then we drove a couple of blocks to Merrill’s Ranch, where Sally worked. “I love this place. We’re here on my day off. I love it. Are you hungry? It’s a weird time of day. Too early for dinner. They have an amazing peach cobbler.”

We walked into a very large, very noisy restaurant. There were peanut shells on the floor and a three-piece band playing what I thought was bluegrass on a small stage next to an upright piano. A waitress spotted Sally and pointed to a table. We walked toward the table, another waitress greeted Sally. “Is Merrill here?” Sally asked.

“Kitchen,” she said, pointing with her chin because her hands were full with plates of food.

“Is it always like this?” I practically shouted.

“No. Sometimes it gets really busy.” Holy crap. It seemed about as busy as it could get. “Do you want to see a menu?”

“What are you going to have?”

“Peach cobbler and a root beer float.” Not exactly the healthy type snack I’d been eating lately. Perfect. I held up two fingers.

Sally motioned to a waitress what I assumed was our order and a couple of minutes later, a very large cowboy came out of the kitchen, smiled, and walked our way. I knew he was a cowboy because of the bolo tie and belt buckle. He turned a chair around and sat next to us.

“Merrill, Aquaman. Aquaman, Merrill.”

“Hey, Aquaman. What brings you to town, besides the obvious?”

“Just the obvious. She’s giving me a tour of Nashville.”

“No better place to start than right here,” he said. “Hey, Sally, Linda Ronstadt is coming in November. Want tickets?”

“You know I do.”

“Beebe is taking orders. I’ll let her know. How many?” Sally held up two fingers. I wondered who the other ticket was for or if she even knew, that far out.

A song ended and they announced they’d be taking a short break. It got a lot quieter.

“How do you know Sally?” he asked.

“I knew her before she became famous,” I said and he laughed hard and loud. “Charleston.”

“Jack was my first ever sweetheart.”

“Nice. Well, Aquaman, your loss is our gain. Hey, Darlin, has he heard you play? Just a song or two while they’re on break.”

“Thanks a lot. Put me on the spot, why don’t you?”

“You don’t have to, but it’s mighty quiet in here.” It wasn’t quiet. It just wasn’t as noisy as it had been.

“Do you mind?” she asked me. I frowned and shook my head. Are you kidding?

She walked toward the piano and a couple of customers said something to her when she walked by.

“This is quite the place,” I said and Merrell looked back at me and smiled. “Busy and noisy.”

“Just the way I like it. Before you leave, have her walk the hall with you.” He pointed at the walls, adorned with signed pictures of presumably famous musicians. “There’s a picture of Sally with Tanya Tucker at this end of the hall. I’ll bet she’ll want you to see it,” he smiled. I thought Merrill’s picture should probably be in the dictionary next to the word affable.

Sally started to play. The song was familiar but I couldn’t place it until people started to sing along. It seemed like half the people in the restaurant knew the words and were singing Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 as Sally played. When that song was over, everyone cheered and she started on another one. I didn’t recognize it.

I tapped Merrill’s forearm. “What is this?”

“All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down. Hank Williams, Jr. She knows what people like and she’s building her repertoire. A lot of times, someone will ask for a song she doesn’t know and she’ll come back the following week and have it down.”

“She’s having a good time.”

“She is, and my customers love her. I’m glad you two came in. I have a few customers that know what shifts she works and they come in when she’s here. Of course, we have that with a couple of other folks I have playing, too. Good for business.”

Sally finished the song and came back to the table right when our peach cobbler arrived. “Good to meet you, Aquaman. I hope you enjoy your stay in Music City,” he said standing up. He reached out to the waitress and tore the top sheet off her pad, taking care of our bill, squeezed Sally’s shoulder, and went back to the kitchen.

“I bet he’s a great guy to work for.”

“The best.” That described the peach cobbler and root beer floats, too. When we finished, Sally gave me a tour of their hall of fame. There were a lot of musicians I’d heard of but even more that I didn’t know and some of the pictures looked pretty old. Of course, I recognized Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, each standing next to Merrill with big smiles. It was very nice to see Sally’s smiling face on the wall. Tanya Tucker was pretty and if Sally had been smiling any bigger, it would have broken her face.

We walked out the front door as the band started playing again. It was still light and we had time. She gave me directions for a driving tour of downtown. So, we drove past a couple of museums and the Ryman Auditorium. “That’s where the Grand Ole Opry used to be,” she said and then it made sense. The Grand Ole Opry wasn’t a building but an event and the Ryman Auditorium was the old building I thought the Opry should be in. Sally was an enthusiastic guide, pointing out ‘where it all began’ or ‘where the magic happens’ and stuff like that. If there would have been a test at the end of the tour, I would have failed.

I continued to follow her directions as we talked. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going. We ended up at Shelby Park on the Cumberland River. There was a boat launch, playground, and a couple of baseball diamonds.

“Is this where you go to think?” I asked. She laughed. “This is as close as Nashville has to a Wappoo Cut, isn’t it?”