If it wasn’t for the pestering of my
roommate Eli’s crazy girlfriend Marti, we never would have gotten together.
Marti can be obnoxiously persistent when she wants to. All of us were studying
at OSU-Okmulgee at the time.
This is Lee Ann. I’ll try not to interrupt,
but when I heard this idea I wasn’t a fan. “Marti! I grew up in Muskogee. In a trailer park. You said
he’s a photographer. Like Peter Parker - I don’t think this is a good idea!”
“It’s a great idea. Opposites attract, y’know.” Decisive head-shake from me and
a dubious snort. “Just once, to meet him?” Marti pleaded. “Fine…”
“She’s
– different but you’ll like her, Mike. And it’s just a date, not like I’m
askin’ you to marry her or anything.
Please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?” That finally wore my defenses out
eventually, and so I unenthusiastically agreed to go on a blind double date
with her and Eli. And so that’s where I first met Lee Ann, in a Braum’s one
Friday night.
The
usual amount of older people were there, and a couple of teams from the local
YMCA kids soccer league were having their fall-season-wrapup parties at the
restaurant, with parents and siblings in tow, so the place was really crowded
and noisy. She had darkish hair and her fingernails were painted teal. I
noticed that because I’d never seen any girl use that color nail polish before,
and because it looked good, like the uniforms of the Charlotte Hornets, San
Jose Sharks and Arizona Diamondbacks. Honestly,
a dude would compare to sports… She
was wearing a black leather jacket, jeans and – I noticed this since it was
practical – running shoes. I was hoping she didn’t notice that I’d buttoned my
shirt crooked due to nervousness. Yeah,
I did notice that. I also thought you were strange. But in an interesting way. She
says she was wondering if she was too standoffish. We talked about
surface-level things of the likes-and-dislikes variety, somehow the topic of
country music came up, which we both enjoyed. We got into a long argument over
Taylor Swift; I said she was terrible, Lee Ann liked her.
I
didn’t call her, even though I wanted to. I even picked up the phone a couple
times with that intention, but I couldn’t ever quite finish dialing her number.
Me? Why would I have cared? I was half
afraid he would call. But I was also somewhat disappointed and pissed off that
he didn’t.
# # #
This
inability to communicate continued until we ran into each other one afternoon
in a shopping center parking lot in Tulsa about two months later. It was a
chilly day, and the wind kept slamming her largeish Hobby Lobby bag into her
hip.
“Good
day of shopping?” I asked, pointing at the sack.
“Huh?” she asked, startled. “Oh, yeah. Found
some cool scrapbooking stuff on sale.”
“Cool.
You scrapbook?”
She
nodded. “I like to, when I have time. What’re you here for?”
I
pointed my thumb at Guitar Center. “I need to get some cables for my amplifier,
browsing around for some other stuff, kind of to get an idea of prices.”
Her
brown eyes sparkled. ”You play?!”
“Yeah.
Learned in middle school. Why?”
She
looked down at her Asics and coughed, self-conscious. “Would you….be willing to
teach me? I have an acoustic with one of those funny little plug-things-“
“Okay,
so it’s possible to hook it up to an amp. Acoustic-electric.”
“-
but I don’t know what kind it is. It’s bright orange, if that helps-“
“Not
really,” I smiled a little.
“-but
I don’t really know how to play. The strings are kinda tarnished and grimy,
so…”
“That’s
not hard to fix. And sure, I guess I could try.”
“Do
you sing?”
“Not
when people can hear me.”
“If
you’re going to Guitar Center anyway,” she bit her lip. “do y’mind if I tag
along? Could use some advice on what stuff to get.”
“Sure,
why not?”
“Thanks.”
“No
problem.” I held open the door to the store, she walked in. “When do you want
to start?”
# # #
“Ever wonder what the history a guitar’s seen in its
previous life?”
Lee
Ann was scowling at her aching left hand, trying to shake the muscles loose, so
she wasn’t really paying attention to this comment. “Mm…not really, no. What’d
you mean?”
“I
dunno. Like, what happened to yours before it wound up with it?”
She
thought a moment. “I know I’m new at this, but you said guitars usually have
names, right?”
“Most
of the time.”
“When
I bought it, I heard that it-” she gestured at her Ibanez, “was called Steve.
So that would mean it belonged to a girl?”
“Probably.
Not sure why, really, but that’s usually the way it goes, the guitar becomes
the opposite gender.”
“And
yours is Sophie.”
I nodded, patting the black Takamine. “Ready to get started again?”
She
shrugged halfheartedly and we began practicing again.
“Okay, “Never Alone” by Sara Evans is pretty easy. So the
chord progression on this one is D-A-Bm-G,” I said. “So to make a D, that’s
your first finger on the third string, second fret, second finger first string
third fret, third finger second string second fret.”
“Tell me this gets easier…” she muttered. “And don’t strum
the top two?”
# # #
“Come On Over Tonight to a Brad Paisley concert?” I texted
her around New Years.
I remember it particularly because
it was the start of a new decade, too – 2010. And I couldn’t resist the pun of
including the title of one of Brad’s earlier songs in there. And she recognized
the reference for what it was – a declaration that I cared about her and an
invitation to go steady.
“She said Yes!” Lee Ann replied after what felt like
forever. I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the Rhett Akins song with
that title, or the one-hit wonder “Yes!” (complete with maybe-unnecessary
exclamation point) from Chad Brock. Either way, it was good news.
So that was our first outing as an official couple. The
concert was part of the American Saturday Night Tour, at the arena in Oklahoma
City where the Thunder play, it was called the Ford Center then. Justin Moore
and Miranda Lambert were the opening acts, and they’re both great, too. He’s
from Arkansas, and she’s counted as an adopted Oklahoman, since she was married
to Blake Shelton. And although a couple songs Brad forget the lyrics to, it was
a fantastic show.
# # #
Eli knocked on the door late one Saturday morning. “Hey,
dude? You in there?”
I
shut up quick then, and the sounds of Sophie’s strings stopped abruptly while I
opened the door.
“Whatcha
playin’?” Eli’s arms were full of grocery sacks after a run to Wal-Mart. He
knew the answer was “More Than a Memory,” but figured it would be better to
keep his mouth shut.
“Garth.
And Keith Urban,” I growled. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, about anything.
And so I wasn’t trying not to mope.
“Don’t let me stop ya.”
Eli began restocking the kitchen cabinets with chili, paper
towels and cereal. Pretty soon from the living room he could hear the anguish
within “Stupid Boy,” a reproach-filled exercise in self-flagellation. He hummed
“Even If It Breaks Your Heart” to himself, spinning around from the open
refrigerator to poke his head into the living room. I shushed Sophie and glared
at him.
“Hey. Whatever happened – just apologize. Love her like
she’s leavin’. Don’t mess this up; she’s a keeper. Y’all can meet in the middle
somehow.”
“You do know many song titles you used just then, don’t
you?”
“Uh….more than I meant to? I was thinking Diamond Rio…”
I flipped him off, and he went back to whatever he was
doing.
“C’mon. You can get
through this,” Marti consoled. We were in Marti’s living room, sitting on the
uncomfortable faded-blue hand-me-down couch she salvaged from somebody’s
driveway, and a pile of feel-good DVDs were on the coffee table, along with
several cans of Bud Light and a mostly-empty pizza box. Sleepless in Seattle was playing on the TV.
“Ooh, maybe I could
slash his tires!” I tried to cheer myself up.
“Nope, you don’t
wanna do that.” Marti had previous experience with that form of revenge. It
didn’t lead to good things.
“Yes I don’t,” I
huffed in frustration. “How ‘bout…I dunno… go sit in the football field stands at
the high school an’ drink a beer?”
“You think that’d
help?”
“I dunno. But that’s
how I process shit. Think about it endlessly. Eventually it makes sense.”
“Sure, let’s try
it,” Marti shrugged.
# # #
We got back together eventually. Having the other’s presence
around to deal with the trials that come up made life a lot easier. And we had
our share of disagreements and fights, but gradually got to understand the
histories and baggage behind most things the other said and did. She grew up in
a trailer park in Muskogee, while I bounced around southern Missouri and
eastern Oklahoma. She enjoyed reading Billie Letts novels, and I followed
halfheartedly along on the trips to the library. We were squeaking by; she was
working at Wal-Mart and I had a shake photography business going.
One day Marti send me a heads-up text that Lee Ann was
leaving for her thinking-place, so Eli and I raced over to Eagle Stadium. It
being August by now, the boys of fall were almost ready to shine, and at the
moment Morris High was having a scrimmage, maybe against Haskell, I don’t
remember. Anyway, other people were there watching, but the atmosphere was
pretty relaxed. Eli was born and raised in Morris, so he knew everyone,
including the people running the press box. So that part of our plan was easy.
I spotted where Lee Ann was sitting in the splintery orange-painted bleachers,
tucked away into the bottom-left corner, on the third row. Not many people were
nearby, except a second-grader down at the railing in her cheerleader uniform,
watching her big brother play.
“Mind if I sit here?” She shrugged.
I sat down and called Eli. He was inside the press box, and
the CD player was all set up. Somebody started it, and Josh Turner flooded the
loudspeakers. There were amused chucklings of approval throughout the stands,
first in surprise at the unexpectedness, then as they watched what unfolded.
Lee Ann’s foot tapped along automatically to the bluegrassy mandolin-led tune;
by this time she’d taught herself how to play the banjo. Then which Josh Turner song it was registered
– “Would You Go With Me?” – or maybe that was my being on one knee with a ring
I’d improvised out of an old guitar string (because poor college students have
to MacGyver things most of the time). .
She laughed in disbelief, managing to nod her assent, while
everyone else in the stands snapped pictures and whooped their congratulations.
I think it was a front-page story in the local newspaper that week. Everybody
dies famous in a small town, right? Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m stickin’
to it.
