Chapter 102

The venue hosting the No. 1 party seemed a little small when we pulled up to the curb.

The Music Row reporters were stationed out front with their cameras and microphones. The dark SUV we arrived in was nondescript and the driver Liz had selected for the evening wasn’t one of the faces that normally showed up around her.

It was a pretty big surprise for everybody when the door opened and Liz stepped out to the curb.

She looked great – if I do say so myself.

Liz wore a pair of tight white jeans, a black camisole and a black jacket with white lapels. Her black boots had heels so high that she was two or three inches taller than me when I joined her on the sidewalk.

I had gone with Liz’s suggestion as far as clothing. I wore blue jeans, a light blue shirt that had taken forever to put on and button and a dark blue blazer. I wore the blazer on my left arm and draped it over my right shoulder. It wasn’t done for style purposes. Liz had told me that it would be warm inside the bar and it would be a bitch to take the blazer off if I wore it beneath my sling.

After a minute of contemplation, I figured out that she was right. Liz hooked her arm through mine so she had to do the waving for both of us.

We had almost made it to the door before the newsies got over their shock and started to shout questions. This time, it was Liz that acted as spokeswoman.

“Travis is feeling a lot better,” she said in a loud voice. “And so am I. We’re here to congratulate Conny and Melissa on their song. This is their night.”

I found a seat well away from the crowd and encouraged Liz to make the rounds. I wasn’t about to risk having someone slap me on the back or even brush against me.

I was still taking a lot of medication that didn’t mix well with alcohol so I could only look longingly at the beers and mixed drinks that everybody else was drinking.

Lucas was the first person to find me in my corner. I hadn’t seen him or Gwen since the incident and I stood to shake his hand. Instead, he put his hand on the back of my head and tilted his forehead until it met mine.

I didn’t know if this was some sort of Nashville greeting that Liz had failed to prepare me for or what.

“Damn, man,” he said when he finally released me. He used his palm to push a tear out of his eye and I wondered how much he’d already had to drink before we arrived. He shook his head and sighed. “That was some shit. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you out and about. Is Liz here, too?”

His voice wasn’t slurred in the slightest. It suddenly dawned on me that what happened to Liz (and to me) had deeply affected a lot of people.

I gestured to where Liz was standing with Lucas’s wife.

He was wearing his trademark grin when he turned back around.

“You guys should bring the kids out this weekend,” I offered. “It’s the Fourth and I think Liz might be planning something.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I got a gig Monday in Chicago. I’m doing a show at Wrigley after the Cubs game. I’m looking forward to it.”

His eyes darkened for a moment.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “I know to stay away from baseball talk.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, laughing at him. “It’s probably time I get over that anyway. Who are the Cubs playing?”

“The Braves,” Lucas said. “That’s my team, you know. I grew up in Georgia and I always dreamed of being David Justice or Tom Glavine.”

“Omar Vizquel and Jim Thome,” I admitted.

“Man, they were so boss,” Lucas said. “I didn’t get to watch many Indians games in Georgia but I remember the World Series.”

“Oh, sure, bring that up,” I replied.

We stood talking about childhood memories for the next few minutes. I think Lucas let everybody know that it was OK to visit with me. Before long, people I had never met (or even heard of) were stopping by to talk to me or get a picture with me or just say hello.

During my research into the life of a superstar, I had read about the wild parties that happened on tours and the seemingly excessive use of alcohol (and other drugs) in their personal and professional lives.

I had braced myself for the sort of party that would have had cops swinging clubs during my college days. I figured with the type of people in attendance (wealthy, egotistical, immune from most consequences) that things would be rowdy in a hurry – and devolve from there.

Instead, it was the type of gathering that I had attended while working at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Alcohol was available but I wasn’t the only person in the room with a soft drink in his hand. People were doing what Lucas and I were doing. They were talking and joking – getting to know each other or visiting with people they didn’t see often.

Many of the hard-drinking tales had come to me during my research into Melissa Shepherd. She was well known to liquor store owners where she played (or rather, Claire probably was).

Conny, on the other hand, was seen as the quintessential girl next door. She was bright and bubbly. She had completed a college degree before trying out for (and winning) the televised talent show that had launched her to stardom. She had married a well-respected, soft-spoken athlete. She hadn’t even taken much of a hit in the media when she helped to orchestrate his trade to the Tennessee Titans from the Seattle Seahawks.

I wondered if the light party was in deference to her sensibilities – but I didn’t want to ask Lucas. Ben was a closer friend but he was in Los Angeles with his wife and children while she auditioned for a part on a new sitcom.

I was happy when Liz arrived back at my side. It wasn’t just because I liked having her close to me. It wasn’t even because I’d seen most of the male eyes in the room tracing her every movement – particularly if they could find a way to be behind her when she was moving.

I was in a strange place with only a few people I’d ever met. But the people I didn’t know had no problem pointing me out and coming to speak to me about things I preferred not to talk about with strangers.

Of course she brought a host of people with her – including representatives from each of the labels that represented the stars for whom the party was thrown.

Two men and a woman from Conny’s label seemed pretty persistent – or perhaps they were just obtuse. Finally, Liz just shook her head.

“I’m not free to discuss representation for another two months,” she noted. “I’m abiding by the spirit and the letter of the agreement I signed. This night is about Conny and Melissa. Let’s make sure we keep it that way and table business talk until the appropriate time.”

Thankfully, Melissa and Conny made their entrance before anybody else had time to waylay us.

Then Liz did something I didn’t think was possible.

She blended into the woodwork, content to let others have the spotlight.

Even during her days at school, Liz Larimer was always front and center. She was a lightning rod for bullies not just because of her awkward appearance. It was also her demeanor that brought them around. She had a caustic wit and she lacked the good sense to know when to cut her losses and walk away. I didn’t think she had it in her DNA to remain anonymous.

But at the party, she did just that. We deftly shifted to an unoccupied corner of the room as the label reps were throwing out statistics and demographics about the airplay, the downloads and the streaming sales.

Liz put her drink on the table and sat down on one of the high stools before taking my arm and slipping it around her waist.

Conny and Melissa were finally given a chance to speak and it didn’t take long for Liz’s anonymity to disappear.

“Where is she?” Conny asked as she looked around. “I know she’s here.”

Melissa was also craning her neck. Claire jumped up beside her and she pointed right at me.

“He’ll know,” Melissa declared. “Where did Liz run off to?”

I realized that Liz was literally in the shadows.

“I should have known she wouldn’t be far away from him,” Conny said, laughing and pointing to where Liz was trying to hide. “Get up here, Girl!”

Liz waved her hand as though she was shooing them away.

“I’ll send Evan to get you,” Conny declared, still laughing.

“Don’t bring me into this,” her husband said.

“It’s your song,” Conny said.

“It’s your song,” Liz countered.

“No,” Conny replied. Since Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain came to Mohammed, as it were.

Conny and Melissa, still carrying their microphones and their drinks, made their way through the crowd until they stood at the table we had appropriated.

Melissa gave me a quick hug but Conny kissed me softly on the lips. I could taste the fruity flavor of her drink – and I doubted it was the first she’d had that evening.

“So, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” Conny began. “Oh, wait, that’s a different story. The genesis of this song is just as dramatic. A few years ago, when Liz and I were both stupid bitches, we got into a little bit of a pissing contest.”

I hoped like hell that nobody was recording the party for Internet upload. Conny was seen as wholesome. She never cursed in her songs or sang about risqué topics.

She seemed unperturbed at her language but I saw one of the execs from her label cringe slightly.

“Except it wasn’t us doing the pissing,” she continued. “It was all a fabrication from our handlers through the media. Liz and I didn’t even know each other very well. It took a tragedy for us to spend any time together. A series of tornadoes hit my home state and Liz was one of the first people to agree to come and do a benefit concert. We got to talking and we figured out it was the assholes in the suits that were feeding us the bullshit. We found out that we sort of liked each other. So we sat down one night and wrote ‘My Daddy Can Whip Your Daddy.’ That’s all it was. It was my former label and her former label fighting it out with us in the middle. We sang that song at the last couple of shows and we planned to cut a single to help out the people that lost everything. Then the douche bags at her label and the fuckwits at my label couldn’t agree on some stupid thing or another. Do you know what it was?”

Liz just shook her head.

“Me either,” Conny said. “But I’m sure, given the people we’re talking about, it was trivial. So the song just sat there and sat there and sat there. Then last month, we broke it out again. I changed labels a few years back so it was all good from my end. But, well, we all know about RFN now.”

Conny reached up and patted my cheek.

“Thanks to this guy and the brave men that look out for Liz, we can all take it as an object lesson and not another tragedy,” she said. “But the upshot is that Liz still couldn’t sing the song. I really wanted to put it out there so Liz suggested that Melissa was the perfect voice for the duet. And damn if she wasn’t right. So here we are. From the shelf to the top of the charts in a week! It makes you wonder how high Liz would have climbed if she didn’t have her label holding her back.”

I glanced down and Liz was actually blushing. I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed by the praise or if she felt bad for Melissa. Conny certainly made it sound like the singer was second or third choice.

But Melissa was smiling and shaking her head.

“I got the recipe for Blakely’s Island Punch,” she said to the crowd. “It looks as though Conny might not be used to the amount of alcohol. She gets sort of vulgar when she’s loaded. And I wouldn’t recommend laying any more smooches on Travis either. My money is on Liz if it came down to a fistfight.”

Conny looked at me for a moment and I could see her eyes were glassy.

“Sorry,” she said to Liz. “I just hadn’t seen him since all the shit went down.”

“It’s OK,” Liz said with a wink. “I’ll give Evan a kiss later to make up for it. Just don’t get the idea we’re up for swinging or swapping.”

The room broke out into laughter when Evan chimed in with “Aw, shucks.”

Melissa had been taking a sip from her drink and she was struggling to keep it from coming out of her nose, I think.

“I think Liz has been into the punch, too,” Melissa said. “On a serious note, I’m thrilled to step in and help out on the song. I got to hear it in Dallas and I loved it from the first time I heard it. I’m just sorry about the circumstances that led to me joining on the record. Although ... I did tell Travis that he didn’t have to go to such great lengths to keep my name out of the tabloids.”

She shot me a quick wink.

“So here we are,” Melissa said. “The bro-country guys never debuted at Number One. Sorry, Lucas.”

“No problem,” Lucas said, grinning at her.

“I’ve had some good songs but I couldn’t do it,” Melissa continued. “Conny’s had some great songs and she couldn’t do it. Liz ... we all know about Liz. As talented as she is, she couldn’t do it. It took collaboration for it to happen. It took Conny’s fans; it took my fans; it took Liz’s fans. Women in our genre have gotten a pretty bad rap. We’re not just the tomatoes in the salad. Take a look at us right now. We’re the lettuce; we’re the cucumbers; we’re the green peppers and the radishes. And we’re the dressing. We’re the whole damned salad and it’s time people realized it. Every good song has a place on country radio. Every good artist deserves to be heard by the masses. I’m not just talking about the women. I’m talking about guys like Tony Garcia. He doesn’t fit the niche so he can’t get airtime anywhere but Texas.