'Hi!' the girl said brightly, bringing Tess around on the piano bench.
She stood jauntily in the middle of the room, smiling. Her stable gear was gone and in its place clean blue jeans with a yellow cotton T-shirt tucked into her slim waist. Having left behind her cowboy clothes, she seemed also to have abandoned the bowlegged cowpoke attitude that went with them. Instead, she had adopted a young Debbie Reynolds perkiness. Come to think of it, the tilt of her nose, the hair in a single French braid, the wide, interested eyes slightly resembled the young ingenue.
'Heard you playing,' she said.
'Working on a song that came into my head last night while I was in the bathtub.'
'You mean writing it?'
'Yup.'
'What's it about?'
'It's about what it feels like to come back here after being gone so long. The people in this town, my mother, this house.' Tess gestured. 'How nothing changes, including some things that really need to.' She went on explaining some of the feelings she'd had since she'd been back and how she was trying to encapsulate them in the song.
'Can I hear it?'
Tess chuckled and scratched her head to give herself time to think up an answer. 'Well, I don't usually play my stuff for people until after it's copyrighted and recorded.'
'Oh, you mean like I might steal it or something.'
Casey laughed, rolling up the left sleeve of her T-shirt. 'Gee, that's a good one. You think I might be that good that I could actually do a thing like that? Not likely. Come on, let me hear it,' she cajoled, flinging herself into an overstuffed chair and throwing a leg over its fat arm.
'It's not done yet.'
'Who cares? Play what you've got.'
Tess swung back to the piano, quite taken by the girl in spite of herself. She was approached by fans nearly every day, be it on the street, backstage or at public appearances. Most put her off either by displaying an overabundance of awe or prefacing their request for an autograph by admitting, 'I don't own any of your records, but…' Casey Kronek did neither. She simply flopped down in a chair like a comfortable old buddy and said, 'Come on, woman… cook.' Why Tess did not bristle at the girl's familiarity she couldn't say, but there was a naturalness about Casey that fell just short of presumptuousness, and the proper amount of admiration held in reserve. The truth was, given Tess's busy life, she had few friends away from the music industry. This girl came on like one, and Tess bit.
'All right. This is what I've got so far.'
She played the first three lines, tacked on the temporary fourth, then tried an optional fourth. It was easy to hear that neither worked.
'Play it again,' Casey said.
Tess played and sang one more time.
'Wider-eyed and noting what this small town lacks,' Casey added in a corduroy contralto voice that was dead on tune.
'Can't return. Too much learned.'
The last two lines Casey had tacked on created a haunting afterthought that would echo at the end of each verse. Tess got shivers. She heard the accompaniment in her head, picked it out on the keys, closing her eyes and holding the last chord as it scintillated off into silence like lazy smoke around their heads.
The room remained silent for ten seconds.
Then Tess said, 'Perfect.'
'It's what you were talking about, isn't it? Seeing the town's deficits through the eyes of somebody who used to live there.'
'Exactly. I love the refrain idea. It all works.'
Tess leaned forward and wrote the words and melody line on the staff paper. When she finished, she set the pencil down on the music rack, and said, 'Let's do it again.'
While she sang, Casey sat in the overstuffed armchair with her left leg swinging, head thrown back, eyes closed, twisting the end of her braid around one finger and quietly adding harmony, almost as if to herself.
'You know what?' Tess said when they'd finished. 'I just got shivers.'
'Me, too.'
'That's always a good sign. Plus, it sounds like you have a great voice. Why are you holding back?'
'Because it's your show.'
'Hey, if you're gonna do it, do it. Wanna add harmony this time so I can hear it?'
Casey looked unsurprised. Tess liked that. 'Sure.'
They sang it again and Tess recognized a distinctively unique voice. It had a touch of grit and a touch of grime, as though it could rub the calluses off a working person's hands. It had a good musical ear behind it, but most importantly, a fearlessness. Not many seventeen-year-old girls Tess knew could sing side by side with someone of her renown without quailing. Casey did it with her leg still thrown over the chair arm and her eyes still closed.
When she opened them the country western star on the piano bench was looking back over her shoulder wearing a bemused expression. 'So tell me… did you come in here to show me what you had?'
'Partly,' the girl admitted.
'Well, I'm impressed. You could take the tread off of tires with all the gravel in that voice.' Tess swung around and cupped her knees as she faced Casey. 'I like it.'
'Trouble is, it always sticks out.'
'In a group, you mean.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Like a church choir.'
'Uh-huh. Oh! Which reminds me! My dad didn't like me bothering you to sing with the choir. He said I'd been intrusive and ordered me over here to apologize, that's the real reason why I'm here. So I'm sorry. I didn't mean to butt in to your private time at home, but I just didn't stop to think. Anyway, Dad said, 'You get over there across the alley and let her off the hook!' So here I am.' Drawing forward to the edge of her chair, Casey let her hands dangle between her knees, and shrugged. 'You ought to be able to come home and move around town in peace without people bugging you the way they do everywhere else you go-'
'That what your dad said?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Well…' Tess considered awhile, relaxing on the piano bench with her hands lining her thighs, the long perfect nails pointing at her knees. 'I must say, that's a surprise.' She cocked her head. 'Tell me, is this choir any good?'
'Not much. But don't tell Dad I said so.'
Tess laughed and said, 'Oh, believe me, I won't.'
'Their voices aren't so bad, but… I don't know. I'm probably not much of a judge. I just like to sing-country's my favorite, but it's not bad singing with the choir. It's not exactly a gig in a roadhouse, but it's singing, so I'm just glad Dad agreed to direct, otherwise we didn't know what we were going to do. You remember Mrs. Atherton?'
'Sure. Glasses, about so high, wavy black hair.'
'Yeah, but it's gray now. She had bypass surgery, so I don't know if she'll ever come back and direct again.'
'Hm, that's too bad.' Tess got up and said, 'Got some chicken poaching out here. I better go check it.'
Casey followed her to the kitchen and leaned against the archway watching while Tess lifted the lid, poked the chicken breast and found it tender. She put the lid back on, turned off the burner and got her salad fixings out of the refrigerator. While she tossed them with dressing, Casey inquired, 'Have you got somebody who does this stuff for you when you're at home in Nashville?'
