Small Town Girl

You Come Home,' and when it ended Burt Sheer took Tess into his arms and lowered his bearded face and kissed her with enough feeling to raise the fine hairs all over her body. But while he did so, she pretended he was Kenny Kronek.

She forced Kenny from her mind, giving the kiss an honest chance, kissing Burt back the way he wanted to be kissed. But the beard, though soft, somehow no longer appealed. And the taste, though pleasant, was not the one she knew. And his beautiful musical accolade, though touching, was eclipsed by the kind deeds of another for her mother, and even for herself.

Burt ran his hand to Tess's breast and she thought how ideal that the hand played music, like her; that he sang, like her; that he was part of the close Nashville family of musicians, like her. How simple it would be for them to slip into each other's lives, two who understood the performers' lifestyle and all its demands and vagaries.

But nothing happened inside Tess. In that visceral, carnal core where sexual abstinence should have created a quick starburst… nothing happened.

She caught his wrist as it descended toward her stomach, and said, 'No, Burt.'

He drew back and looked into her eyes. 'I thought you wanted it, too.'

'I thought I might, but… I'm sorry.'

He returned his hand to her ribs and said, 'The last time we were together I thought this was where we were headed.'

'The last time, maybe. But things happen.'

'Things?'

She took his hand from her ribs and held it, dropping her eyes while the two of them remained side by side on the piano bench.

'You met someone,' he said.

'Sort of.'

He studied her downcast face, then hooked both hands over the edge of the bench and hunched his shoulders.

'So is it serious?'

'No.'

'Well, if it's not serious, then what's going on here?'

'It's someone I knew when I was young. Someone from back home. He's sort of a friend of the family.'

Burt studied her in silence awhile, thoughtful. Then he raised his hands and let them slap his knees. 'Well… how can I compete with that? You and I haven't got a history.'

'I enjoyed supper though, and dancing.'

Paltry crumbs, her words, and they both knew it.

'Well…' He sighed and pushed himself up. 'I know when it's time to make an exit.'

She walked him to the door. Their good-byes were stilted until he took her hand and looked down at it while speaking. 'You probably think that every struggling musician who comes along is playing you for how you can boost his career. I just want you to know I'm not one of 'em.'

And with that he walked out, leaving her to realize that what he'd said was true, and had been for years. Every struggling musician who paid her attention became suspect for exactly the reason he'd cited. Though she'd had a gut feeling Burt's motives were honorable, how in the world could she tell, when she was worth upward of twenty million dollars? When she could spark a career with little more than a word to the right label executive?

But Kenny had no musical career. He didn't want her money or her fame or a home in Nashville. He wanted exactly what he had in Wintergreen. He'd told her so, and that's why she hadn't called him or answered Casey's invitation, afraid that he might be the one to answer the phone and she'd get all soft and mushy about him again.

She put off making that call until it absolutely could not be avoided. Casey would graduate on Friday night. At nine on the preceding Tuesday night, Tess was exhausted. She had just finished another hundred signatures and writer's cramp had set in. She had a bad case of PMS that had given her the disposition of Joan Crawford, and she wasn't too crazy about the haircut the New York stylist had given her. Kelly had had to leave the office early to go to the dentist, and Tess, forced to do her own dialing and waiting, had been put on hold by a new secretary who forgot her on the line. Shortly after that Carla Niles had called with the news that her regular doctor said there was nothing wrong with her throat, but she still had a raspiness in her voice, so she had set up an appointment with a throat specialist. Until she saw him the rehearsals for the concert were in limbo. Then, to top it all off, Tess had run out to grab a sandwich for supper and on her way she caught the handle of her favorite big gray bag in the car door and it had trailed on the blacktop all the way to the restaurant and gotten rubbed in half. Returning to the office, Tess made the mistake of reading a batch of fan mail in which one letter chewed her out for insulting half the women in the world by using the phrase 'just a housewife' in one of her songs. Did she think being a housewife was easy? If so, she should give it a try and find out what real work was!

All in all, it had been a horseshit day when she picked up the phone to dial Casey's house at nine o'clock that night.

As she'd feared, Kenny answered.

'Hello?'

Perhaps she was working too hard, perhaps it was the PMS, but for whatever reason, hearing Kenny's friendly voice unglued her. Without the slightest warning, she began to cry. Trying to disguise the fact, she failed to reply immediately.

'Hello?' Kenny repeated, sharper. Then, growing irritated, he barked, 'Hello, who is this?'

'Kenny, it's T-Tess,' she managed.

'Tess, what's wrong?' he said, the change from irritation to concern immediate in his voice.

'N-nothing,' she blubbered, then, '…everything. Hell, I don't know. It's just been an awful day, that's all.'

'Tess,' he said, the way he might to a child, soothing. 'Hey, come on, darlin', nothing's so bad it won't feel better if you talk about it. I'm here, you can talk to me.'

She felt better already, so decided to baby herself a little, something she rarely did. 'Hey, Kenny, would you call me darlin' one more time? It sounds good tonight.'

'Darlin',' he repeated matter-of-factly, 'now you go ahead and talk. What was so awful today?'

So she talked. She admitted to Kenny that her empire was getting to be more than she could handle without relinquishing personal control. But there were so many stories about superstars whose dominions had crumbled under mismanagement, whose agents or accountants or business managers had cheated the stars they worked for, undermining them to the point of ruin.

'I'm not going to let that happen to me!' she vowed. 'And the surest way to let it happen is to give over control to someone else. That's why I watch everything so carefully.' Under questioning, she admitted she was keeping tabs on more than any one human being should be expected to, and she'd been doing it for eighteen years while her business concerns grew and grew.

'You've got to learn to delegate,' Kenny said. 'That's what you pay these people for.'

'I know. But look what happened to Willie Nelson. He's probably still putting on concerts to pay off his debts.'

'Is there someone you employ whom you don't trust?'

'Well…' She thought for a second. 'No.'

'There,' he said reasonably, 'it's you, not them. You know, Tess, it's possible that you think of yourself as omnipotent, and when you come right down to it, that's a pretty egotistical attitude, isn't it? Did you ever think that by not trusting them more, you undermine them? By placing your full, unadulterated trust in them you might get more production out of them, more cooperation, certainly a pride in their work that will boost their egos. And you know what happens to output when egos get boosted.'

She knew he was right, knew, too, that most people wouldn't have had the temerity to say something like that to Tess McPhail because of who she was. She respected him for his honesty as well as for his sound advice. 'How did you get so wise, Mr. Kronek?' she asked, feeling much better, her frustration and weariness dissipating.

He chuckled quietly. 'By running a two-person office with such a grinding routine that the last time either one of us surprised the other was when Miriam came out of the bathroom with the hem of her skirt accidentally hooked