'Yes, I mean it. I've already talked to my producer and he's setting up a recording session for the first week of June, right after you graduate. I talked to your father about it last night and he's agreed to let you come and stay with me until you can find a place of your own in Nashville.'
Casey turned to Kenny, amazed, her face streaming tears. 'You did? Oh, Daddy, did you really? I love you so much!' She flung herself against him and gave him the same unfettered stranglehold she'd bestowed on Tess. 'Thank you, thank you!' She kissed him flat on the mouth, then bounded away as the initial shock turned into excitement. 'Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it! I'm going to Nashville!' She grabbed Faith's face and kissed her, a fast smack, square on the mouth. 'I'm going to Nashville, Faith!
While Faith enjoyed Casey's reaction, Tess glanced over at Kenny on her right. He was wearing a smile with the most bittersweet edge she had ever seen. 'I think you've made my daughter somewhat happy,' he said in dry understatement.
Everyone laughed and Faith refilled tea glasses. 'I think this calls for a toast.'
The four of them touched the rims of their thick amber tumblers while Faith said, 'To Wintergreen's next star.'
Kenny added quietly, 'And to Tess for making it possible.'
His eyes met hers over the rims of their glasses as they drank, but their gazes dropped discreetly before the others. In that moment, however, she understood what it took for him to add those words and she admired him for giving Casey her freedom against so many of his own reservations.
When they lowered their glasses, another awkward moment passed, with Kenny and Tess trying to avoid eye contact with each other. 'Well,' she said, filling the void, 'I've certainly managed to ruin your supper, haven't I?'
'Ruin it!' Casey yelped. 'Are you kidding?'
Kenny pushed away his plate, and said, 'We can eat anytime.'
Faith added, 'That's for sure, but will you stay for some blueberry cobbler, Tess?'
'Oh, yes, please,' Casey added. 'You can't desert me now. I've got a million things I want to ask you!'
Tess stayed for cobbler, pushing aside the ice cream and eating mainly the berries. Sometimes she and Kenny ex-changed unavoidable glances, but they both did a convincing job of hiding any inchoate feelings.
When the meal was finally finished, Casey insisted Tess come up to her room and listen to a song she'd been working on with her guitar. Not that she expected Tess to record it, she explained, but would she come up and listen anyway, because if Casey was going to Nashville she might as well find out right now if she had more than one song in her or if she was going to be just a one-song composer.
Tess spent a half hour in Casey's room, and during that time she learned that the girl definitely had more than one song in her. She also discovered that Kenny still used his old upstairs bedroom, and that the one downstairs was called 'Faith's room.' Casey called it that as they passed it on their way upstairs. 'That's Faith's room,' she said offhandedly. Then at the top of the steps, 'And that's Dad's. This is mine.'
When Tess left, via the kitchen, Kenny and Faith were just finishing up the supper dishes. She was washing and he was drying.
'Well, guess I'll be getting back home. I've left Casey composing upstairs. By the end of the night she'll probably have enough new material to fill two albums of her own.'
Faith turned off the water and Kenny laid down his dish towel on the countertop.
'I'll see you out,' he said.
'Oh, no, you don't have to bother.'
'It's no bother.'
They went out through the porch, leaving Faith tidying the kitchen. The door slammed behind them and he followed Tess toward the alley. They walked more slowly than advisable, given that his girlfriend was in the house behind them, and the evening light ample beneath the marbled gold sky.
'Well, it's done now,' he said. 'She's going to Nashville.'
'Why do I feel like I've dealt you a low blow?'
'I'll get over it.'
Tess was conscious of his body heat warming her left shoulder blade and the fact that in all likelihood Faith was watching them through the window beside the kitchen table.
'If it's any consolation, I know how hard this is for you, and I admire you for how you're handling yourself.'
'It's not much consolation. I'd prefer she do anything else.'
'Yes, I know that. I'll do my best for her, Kenny, I promise you. Thanks for letting her go.'
They had reached the alley. When she turned to face him she made sure there was plenty of space between them. Her shoulder blade felt suddenly cold. He stood his distance, with his hands in his back pockets, as if in an effort to keep them off her.
'Faith is really quite wonderful,' she said with utter sincerity.
'Yes, she is.'
'The two of you look like you're very well suited.''
'That what you came over for, to see how we're suited?'
She wasn't sure how to answer, and finally chose ambiguity. 'What if I said yes?'
'Then I'd probably ask what the hell you're after.'
'And I'd probably answer, I don't know, Kenny. And that's the honest truth. I don't know.'
He searched her eyes while she worried about Faith watching from the house and found herself listing the things she'd grown to like about him. Somewhere in the yard a robin was repeating his one-note song the way they'll do when a sprinkler is going. And in the house on Tess's side of the alley two main floor windows faced this direction. Kenny gripped himself through his back pockets while the tension built between them, and finally he released an immense gust of breath and let his head hang. 'Jesus, why do I feel like I'm back on that school bus again?'
The time was getting long. Certainly Faith would be wondering what was keeping him.
'Listen, you'd better go back in.'
'Yeah, I'd better go back in,' he said with a note of irony, lifting his head again.
But neither of them moved.
Just like last night in the car, their reluctance to part kept them anchored face-to-face a moment longer.
Finally he whispered, 'What are you trying to do to me. Tess?'
They both knew that her relationship to Casey connected her to him as well. There were bound to be times in the future when he would come to Nashville to see his daughter.
She took a decisive step backward. 'I have to go,' she said. 'I'll stay on my side of the alley from now on. I'm sorry, Kenny.'
When she turned she discovered she was backed up against Faith's car and had to swerve around the tail end of it to cross the alley.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The week waned. Casey came over every day after school but Tess avoided Kenny and the backyard when she knew he was around. She helped Mary with her physical therapy and they seemed to argue about everything. Burt called on Friday from Omaha. Southern Smoke had played Stillwater, Oklahoma, Wichita, Kansas, and would end up back in Nashville the same week Tess returned. The two of them set a date at the Stockyard Cafe on Tuesday of the week they got back home.
On Sunday Mary announced she wanted to go to church and hear Tess sing. She'd been stuck in the house for a whole week and it was time she got out.
