Chapter 25: Mississippi and Louisiana

The song ‘Jackson’ had turned into a fifteen-minute jam-session between Ashley, Dave, the backup singers, and each member of the band.

Everyone in the entourage was onstage at the Mississippi Coliseum. The others in the large arena were fifteen-thousand fans of Ashley – a sell-out crowd. They were wild, and they LOVED Ashley. There were signs, t-shirts, banners, and a hundred other ways they expressed that love besides making one helluva lot of noise after every song she sang.

Dave was haloed in that experience with her. He sang six songs with her, including Jackson, Texas Dawn, Loving More Than One, Alabama Sunshine, Mississippi Delta, and I Love My Truck. The latter song was just about a solo performance with Ashley only singing a few of the choruses with him along with the backup singers. The applause for all of them was staggering and intimidating to Dave. He again had the ‘Fake it until I make it’ mindset.

Dave felt a little more comfortable on stage in front of the crowd compared to Birmingham the week before. The crowd was smaller, but that didn’t seem to matter. There were still thousands of people ‘out there’ watching him. Again, however, he gave an entertaining performance and his voice never broke except when he intended.

He’d spent another week at Ashley’s home outside of Nashville, and then the morning of the concert she’d become the passenger on the back of his Harley as they led the bus to Memphis. There, his passenger changed over to Celeste, who’d returned from the visit to her parents; she rode with him from Memphis to Jackson.

Ashley and-or Celeste had been his bed partners during the week. Kyle stayed over in the city a few nights at his small studio apartment. Marina was with him except during the business day.

Monday, there’d been the breaking news about Ashley have Dave’s baby instead of her husband’s, and to underscore the fact that she lived in the Circle. The latter point was not new news but the media treated it that way.

People magazine did a major spread covering the extensive interview of Ashley and Dave gave on Monday afternoon. The article, complete with photos that were taken on Monday, appeared on newsstands and the Internet on Thursday. Us and Hello magazines showed up for a Friday joint-interview to follow-up on a few other items and questions. Kyle was around for that interview and the picture-taking session. Hello magazine went in with Us magazine for the Interview, so there were three reporters that visited Ashley in Nashville that afternoon. Everyone was very polite.

As Dave sang Alabama Sunshine with Ashley, a number she’d done alone in Birmingham, he noted several signs held up by audience members: We Love Your Lifestyle; Make Love to Me Dave – I want your baby; and We’re Glad You’re Poly. He found no negative signs but could conjure up what some of those might call either one of them.

At the end of the concert, just before Ashley did a reprise of Texas Dawn as an encore, she went to the side of the stage and picked up Kendall from Celeste. She carried the baby on stage with her to a huge ovation. Kyle and Dave came up and stood on either side of her and waved at the audience. Everyone waved and bowed, including Kendall with her mommy’s help. A thousand pictures were taken.

She passed the baby to Kyle and then the band launched into her encore. The place went wild all over again. Jackson was a huge success.

The extended family gathered back in the hotel room at the Marriott that night. Late night dinners had been held for them by the room service staff, so they were able to have more than just burgers or bar food. Dave had a steak.

“What now?” Dave asked. “I want to continue my road trip on the Harley, but I don’t want to screw up you guys, especially now that the cat is out of the bag about Kendall and the March baby.”

Ashley asked, “What would be your route left to your own devices?”

Dave gestured, “West from here to Baton Rouge, then north through Arkansas, Missouri, into Illinois and then Indiana; from there up Michigan to the Upper Peninsula, into Wisconsin, and then into Illinois and Chicago. Remember, I told you about the fan club convention the first week in October that I’m speaking at with Cricket.”

Ashley glanced at Kyle. “Would you want me to sing at your meeting?”

Dave jerked to attention. “That would be stellar. Hell, yes. Would you?”

Kyle was looking at his phone, “That’s the first full weekend in October?”

“Yes.”

“We can be there. No charge.”

Dave pulled out his phone and called Chris Reeve. Despite the late hour, he picked up immediately. “Hi, Dave. What’s up?”

“I hope I didn’t wake you?”

“No. Matter of fact, you caught me in flagrante delicto deep inside of Eva. She can hear you, too.”

A feminine voice from close by said, “Hi, Dave. Wish you were in me, too.”

Dave ignored the blatant sexual offer, “Hi Eva. I just called to give you a heads up, with some news that I think you’ll like. How would you like Ashley Steerman to sing a short concert for the fans in conjunction with my keynote speech on Friday evening? No charge. Maybe for forty-five minutes or so.”

“WOW! REALLY! FUCK, YES.” Chris’ instant enthusiasm for the phone could be heard by everyone in the room.

Dave said, “Chris, allow me to introduce Ashley to you.”

Ashley spoke up and Chris started to exude thanks and appreciation for her willingness to support the fan club. She just laughed and she told him that her ‘agent’ – Kyle Hanks – would be in touch in the coming week to work out the details.

After the phone call ended, Kyle looked up from his cellphone and asked, “Hey, if you worked the next few weeks right, could you be in St. Louis two weeks from today?”

“Yes. Another concert?” Dave asked.

“Yes, at the Enterprise Center on Saturday evening. It’s a twenty-thousand seat sellout. We’d love to have you on the stage.”

Ashley looked over and said, “Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeeee!” She laughed and said, “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” She licked her lips in a sexual manner.

“Sure. Just tell me what songs and give me the music.” Dave rose and went over to her and said, “Now, just when does this ‘worth my while’ stuff start?”

Dave rode down Mississippi route fifty-one and turned off after a hundred miles or so, and headed to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During the entire trip there wasn’t a single hill or raised bit of dirt that hadn’t been man made. He found the Louisiana State University campus and rolled slowly through the large expanse of property.

As he roamed around the campus, he couldn’t help but note the flood of students moving in every direction on the campus. When he’d been to some of the other college campuses over the summer, they were quiet and on summer break, but the new semester had started. From his prep reading, he knew that about thirty-thousand students went there.

Dave rolled down the campus, crisscrossing it various ways, and often ending at the Mississippi River. He was on Lakeshore Drive, when he saw the Kappa Delta Alpha sorority house. There were a number of girls coming and going, but he thought he’d take a picture or two of the sorority house to show to some of KDA girls in the Circle.

He pulled over and stopped his Harley at the edge of their property, and then took out his iPhone to take some pictures. He took some from near where his bike was parked, and then walked along in front of the house to take some looking dead-on at the front door.

He’d taken four new pictures when there was a feminine ‘Ahem’ right behind him.

Dave turned, “Hello.” He smiled.

“Might I ask why you’re taking pictures of our sorority house?” The question was posed by the taller of two girls. There were each wearing shorts and t-shirts with the KDA logo and Greek letters on it.

“Sure. I have a whole bunch of friends who belong to KDA at the Sarasota chapter of your sorority – Southern Florida University.”

“Sure, you do,” the second girl, a blonde said. “What’s the name of their chapter?”

“I think it’s something like the Delta Alpha or Alpha Delta chapter, but I wasn’t Greek in school so I’m not sure I have that right.”

The girl quickly scanned through some pages on her phone, and then said to her friend, “He’s right. It’s the Alpha Delta chapter.”

Dave volunteered, “They’re paired with Phil Theta Rho on our campus. They do parties together. I’ve been to a few, and so have my wives – my wife.”

“Wives! Shit. I know who you are. You’re Dave somebody.” She looked at the Harley. “You’re supposed to be riding around the country on a motorcycle. The place you live is called the Circle. I’ve seen you on television.”

The other girl announced, “He was just in People magazine. He’s the father of Ashley Steerman’s kids.”

Dave bowed, “Yep, that’s me. You want to see ID? I left her this morning after a concert we did in Jackson.”

Both nodded. Dave pulled out his wallet and passed the whole thing to them open to his driver’s license. On the opposite window was his pilot’s license.

“You fly, too?” The brunette asked.

“Yes. I own a plane.”

“Cessna?”

“Cessna Citation X, actually. You fly?” he asked.

“Taking lessons. I’ll get my license before the end of the semester. I can actually get credit for it at the university. It’s a good deal because I wanted to learn.”

“Some of my wives fly, and many of my friends.”

“Yeah, the blonde started to recall; you have ten wives or something, right?”

“Yes, but I love many other women in the Circle, including many of your sorority sisters.”

The brunette said, “Oh, we HAVE to share HIM with the sisters. This is a rare find. He’s a celeb, and he’s right on our doorstep ... and friendly ... and hunky.”

Blonde said, “Can we offer you dinner? It’s not for another hour or two, but we’d really like you to visit with us. We have some wine, too.”

“I have to get a place to stay for the night. I didn’t expect to get here so late.”

After eyeball checking with each other, the brunette said, “You can stay with us. The place is quiet after eight p.m. because study hours are in force until eight the next morning, and we can guarantee you a comfortable bed and quiet conditions.”

Dave thought about it, “You’re sure it’s all right and no one will get in trouble?”

“We have to let Margie know. She’s our president, but she won’t have a problem. Come on, bring your bike around to the back of the house. It’ll be safe there. You can just bring in what you need overnight.”

The blonde, who introduced herself as Phoenix Skye, had me follow her to a small parking area behind the sorority house and showed me a good place to park the bike. It was even out of the weather in a carport. She led me in the back way while telling me that the brunette was Devon James, and they were roommates. Dave said a little about himself.

The house was modern and amazingly neat given that forty young women lived in the place. Phoenix explained that personal stuff left in a public place was doomed to disappear after a half-hour to a large bin full of many others’ personal stuff that had been collected in order to keep the house neat. Even the girls’ rooms had to be kept reasonably neat or suffer ‘house fines’ of some kind: money or hard labor depending on the offense and its frequency.

Devon rejoined Dave and Phoenix. She said, “I told Margie about Dave and she’s really pleased at our discovery. She said we did the right thing inviting him to dinner and to stay. She’s finishing a term paper for an evening class, but will be at dinner to meet him.”

Devon said, “Come on, we’ll show you our room.” She led her roomie and Dave up the stairs and a short way down a long hall that ran the length of the house. There were girls’ rooms on either side, some facing the street and the campus, and others facing the river. A few other guys also appeared periodically, so he wasn’t the only man in the place at that time. He learned that the upper-classmen got preferential treatment and could choose their room. The river views were coveted. Phoenix and Dev were juniors, and had just the right amount of status to win a view of the Mississippi. The place was very nice.