Page 33 of Night Songs

I still couldn’t get over the eeriness of meeting strangers who already knew me, like I was an amnesiac reentering my life after a lengthy coma. At least he didn’t tell me how “grown-up” or how “beautiful like my mother” I was. I was 5'10" and broad with copper hair. I looked nothing like her.

The young singer finished her song, then took a bow to roaring applause. “There’s something about her,” I said. “I can’t look away.”

He smiled. “Reminds me of your mother.”

I wondered if he still loved her, and what had really happened between them. He had an elegance I hadn’t expected, and he didn’t instantly repel me like other men his age. Seeing him now, it was a little easier to believe that Belle had once been in love with him.

“I’ve been listening toClayton & Belle.”

“Studying the classics, are we?”

“I keep wondering—did you fall in lovebeforeyou wrote the album, or while you were recording it?”

He smiled again, though this time it seemed strained. “That is a hard question to answer, young lady.” He paused. “What I can say is this: The first time I heard your mother sing, I fell in love with her voice.”

I was seized with a sudden envy, as if this man didn’t deserve to have these precious memories when I had none. I wished I remembered the first time I saw her, the first time I fell in love. Though I guess no child ever remembers that—the memory isn’t necessary, because the love has always been there, like an organ pulsing in your body. To not have that love must be like a birth defect that deforms you for the rest of your life.

“What happened between you? Why did you break up?” I asked quietly. I wanted him to hurt like I did, and to remind him of his place in her story.

His eyes darkened. “Your mother valued freedom over everything else, and I didn’t understand that until it was too late.”

I tried to parse his words for meaning, but they seemed deliberately vague. “But then you worked together again, later.”

Years after their divorce, when my mom started recording country pop and became really famous, Clayton was the producer on all of her albums, and this baffled me a little. Shelli’s parents had been divorced since she was three, and they’d barely made eye contact at graduation.

“Yes, well, I’d learned my lesson. I was only ever meant to serve her greatness. Nothing more.”

Why were people always giving me cryptic answers to my questions about her? “But how did it happen?” I pressed.

The twinkle returned to his eye. “After she signed her new record deal, she came out to LA for a bit. I was out there producing, expanding into rock and pop. When I heard she was in town, I begged her to have dinner with me. We got to talking about her vision for the new album—she said she wanted to be huge, like a Greek titan. A massive star. It would have sounded arrogant and delusional coming from anyone else, but she made it sound mythical, like she was a warrior from a great tale.

“I went home that night, and I played the demo she’d given me, what would become theMile High Womanalbum. It sounded like God himself reaching down and thumping me in the chest. I knew I had to be a part of it, if it was the last thing I ever did. I called her up the next morning, and I asked her how it’d come to her, and you know what she said?” His eyes were shining. I shook my head.

“She said, ‘It was the sound of my little girl coming into the world.’?”

My face flushed, and the heat traveled down my neck and the backs of my arms.

With her set now over, the singer ran at us and jumped onto Clayton, hugging him tight. He grinned and held on to her like a grandfather, and I stepped away, still reeling.

Hess came up beside me in her black sequined suit. Her forehead was shiny with sweat, and it occurred to me that I’d never seen her like that; she always looked cool as a cucumber, no matter the temperature. “I see you met Clayton,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Is he what you expected?”

I shook my head dazedly. “No, not really.” I looked over at him talking to the singer, his eyes crinkled at her excitement. “I assume all men his age are sort of…”

“Clueless?” she supplied.

I chuckled. “Yes. That.”

“Well, you’d be right. But not Clayton. He’s a different kind of cat.” I watched her lock eyes with him across the way and give him a subtle nod that he returned. They clearly weren’t close, but they seemed to share an understanding I wouldn’t be able to penetrate, no matter what questions I asked.

Hess craned her neck around the barrier and peeked at the thousands of people in the crowd undulating like a sea in the shimmering heat.

“Do you ever get nervous?” I asked, and she smirked.

“I never did when your mother was with me. I thought I was one of those people born without stage fright until she was gone, and I had to go out there on my own. Even now, I still get a little sick right before.” She took a long sip of water, and I saw a bead of sweat trickle down her temple.