Page 27 of Night Songs

We passed through the lobby at a near run and were almost to the front doors when I saw Clayton Redd sitting in one of the chairs. Hess pulled at my arm to keep us moving, but I couldn’t help myself. I turned around and walked right up to him.

“Excuse me, Mr. Redd. I saw you in the studio earlier, and I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Lulabelle, and this is Hess. We’re the Walker Sisters.”

Clayton subtly smirked as he took us in.

Hess extended an elegant hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Redd.”

Clayton gently took her hand and then released it. “The pleasure is all mine, young ladies. I hope you didn’t mind me poking my head in. You hear a lot of the same stuff around here. But you all have something special. Miss Lulabelle, you have quite a voice on you.”

I’d been cold and hard up to this point, but now I faltered. Clayton Redd likedmyvoice. I couldn’t feel my arms.

“She keeps her voice so pretty by conserving it,” Hess said to fill my silence, and the comedy of this helped pull me out of my trance.

“Thank you, Mr. Redd. That is real kind.”

He smiled. “So when can I hear this album?”

The hand on my thigh seemed to belong to another life, where Clayton Redd didn’t like my voice. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. There’s not gonna be any album.”

Clayton studied me, and I noticed there was something different about him. An intensity behind the eyes, and a sort of aloofness that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“I see.” He asked the secretary for a piece of paper and a pen, and he scratched on it and handed it to me. “I’m about to head out on the county fair circuit, and our girl singer just dropped out. We like to have a female act in the lineup. Would you two be interested in coming on the road? The pay isn’t good and the food’s even worse, but you’ll get some experience and exposure. What do you say?”

Hess and I were speechless. A few minutes ago our career had been over, and now a country legend was asking us on tour.

Clayton gracefully added, “I know you’ve had a long day. Think about it, and call that number when you’re ready. They’ll give you the details.”

We were both strangely quiet in the car on the way home, as if holdingour breaths. Once we shut the door behind us, safe in the womb of Mom’s house, we started talking at the same time, burning through all that this could mean. Hess said this was how a lot of the big acts got started, working their way through the South and performing for the people who bought the records and drank at the honky-tonk shows.

This wasn’t some grift to get in our pants. It was a real chance.

7lulabelle

1967

FIFTEEN YEARS LEFT

Life on the road was dirty and strange. This was the county fair circuit smack dab in the sweaty crack of summer. We were all damp as frogs from sunup to sundown, smelling like the salt dust of the shelled peanuts we lived on.

And I quickly realized I was made for it. I had lived most of my life on the edge of existence like the other musicians.

Hess had a harder time acclimating. She was used to a certain standard of living, and she didn’t say it out loud, but I knew she thought it was all a bit barbaric. The cheap hamburgers and passing the liquor bottle after the shows and taking naps in bus seats while we drove to the next town.

The one thing we both took to was the motel room we shared each night. We might have been surrounded by stained carpet and rusty sinks, but we didn’t see it when we were together.

As much as I wanted more, before the tour, Hess and I had only kissed. We couldn’t risk tiptoeing between our rooms after lights-out at Mom’s. It was sweet torture to lie in bed touching myself, knowing that she was only a few feet away on the other side of the wall. Sometimes I’d put my hand up to it, and I swear I could feel it pulsing.

The first night on tour, we were given only one bed at the motel. It sat there, charged, in the middle of the room, and we both stared at it, paralyzed.

All of my yearnings had stored up like muscle memory in my body, so it was the force of those lonely fantasies that finally took her hand and led her over to the bed. Set free by my touch, Hess reached around and unzipped the back of my dress. She pulled the straps down and let it fall to my ankles. Then she gently brought my slip over my head and tossed it on the ground. I shivered.

Hess unhooked my bra, turning my breasts from cones to cakes. She got on her knees and put her face in them, and when her nose grazed my nipple, it plucked my insides. They were still humming when she gave it a furtive lick. We were feeling it out as we went, and maybe we were a little timid and clumsy, but it was better for that. Something so tender needs a light, fluttering touch, not force.

I ripped off my wig and flung it into the chair. She unclipped my pantyhose and pulled down my undergarments. I widened my legs, and she swept her fingers back and forth, gently again. There was something more to her touch, like I could feel the Hess of her buzzing against me. My knees went to jelly, and I nearly keeled over.

I clutched her shoulder to stay up, and I realized she still had all her clothes on. I pulled her up to standing and frantically stripped her, and the urgency created even more heat.

When she was naked, we lay down on the bed and pressed our bodies together. Finally, there was nothing between us. I could get as close as I wanted. I slid my fingers inside of her, desperate to give her something.