She nodded toward her mobile. “He was the first one I called. He’s in Carmel with Neil.”
Tall, fidgeting Barry Zeigler, her producer, was full of nervous energy. He was a genius in the studio. He’d produced some of the biggest hits of the nineties, when country got itself branded with the adjective “crossover” and began to transcend its Nashville and Dallas and Bakersfield roots to spread to mainstream TV and overseas.
If anybody had created a Kayleigh Towne sound it was Barry Zeigler. And that sound had made her a huge success.
Zeigler and the label hadn’t escaped the shadow of Edwin Sharp either, though. The stalker had inundated the company with emails criticizing instrumentation choices and pacing and production techniques. He never dissed Kayleigh’s voice or the songs themselves but argued that Zeigler, the recording techs and backup musicians weren’t “doing her justice.” That was a favorite phrase of his.
Kayleigh’d seen several of the emails and, though she never told anyone, she thought Edwin had a point on a few of the issues.
Finally Sheri said, “Just one thing. I mean—” A glance toward Bishop, sipping the milk he drank as religiously as he had once drunk bourbon. When he didn’t object to her getting this far, she continued, “That luncheon tomorrow—for the fan of the month. You think we can still do that?”
It was a promotion Alicia Sessions had put together on Facebook and on Kayleigh’s website. Bishop had more or less shoehorned Sheri into working on various marketing projects for the Kayleigh Towne operation. The woman had been in retail all her life and had made some valuable contributions.
“It’s all scheduled, right?” Bishop asked.
“We’ve rented the room at the country club. It’d mean a lot to him. He’s a big fan.”
Not as big as someone I know, Kayleigh thought.
“And there’ll be some publicity too.”
“No reporters,” Kayleigh said. “I don’t want to talk about Bobby. That’s what they’ll want to ask me.” Alicia had been deflecting the press—and there’d been plenty of them. But when the steely-eyed personal assistant said no, there wasn’t room for debate.
Bishop said, “We’ll control it. Set the ground rules. Make sure they don’t ask questions about what happened at the convention center.”
“I can do that,” Sheri said, with an uncertain glance toward Bishop. “I’ll coordinate with Alicia.”
Kayleigh finally said, “Sure, I guess.” She pictured the last time she had lunch alone with Bobby, a week ago. She wanted to cry again.
“Good,” Bishop said. “But we’ll keep it short. Tell that fan it’ll have to be short.”
Having conceded one issue, Kayleigh said, “But I really want to think about the concert, Daddy.”
“Hey, baby doll, whatever you’re happiest doing.”
Bishop leaned forward and snagged one of the guitars his daughter kept in her living room, an old Guild, with a thin neck and golden spruce top, producing a ringing tenor. He played Elizabeth Cotten’s version of “Freight Train.”
He was a talented, syncopated fingerpicker, in the style of Arty and Happy Traum and Leo Kottke (and damn if he couldn’t also flat-pick as well as Doc Watson, a skill Kayleigh could never master). His massive hands totally controlled the fret board. In pop music, guitar was originally for rhythm accompaniment—like a drum or maracas—and only in the past eighty years or so had it taken on the job of melody. Kayleigh used her Martin for its original purpose, strumming, to accompany her main instrument—a four-octave voice.
Kayleigh remembered Bishop’s rich baritone of her youth and she cringed to hear what he’d become. Bob Dylan never had a smooth voice but it was filled with expression and passion and he could hit the notes. When, at a party or occasionally at concerts, Kayleigh and Bishop sang a duet together, she modulated to a key he could pull off and covered the notes that would give him trouble.
“We’ll make sure it’s short,” he announced again.
What? Kayleigh wondered. The concert? Then recalled: the luncheon with the fan. Was it tomorrow, or the next day?
Oh, Bobby …
“And we’ll talk about it, the concert. See how you feel in a day or so. Want you to be in good form. Happy too. That’s what matters,” he repeated.
She was looking out the window again into the grove of trees separating the house from the road, a hundred yards away. She’d done the plantings for seclusion and quiet but now all she thought was it would provide great cover so that Edwin could get close to the house.
More arpeggios—chords broken into individual notes—rang out. Kayleigh thought automatically: diminished, minor sixth, major. The guitar did everything Bishop wanted it to do. He could get music out of a tree branch.
She reflected: Bishop Towne had missed concerts because he was unconscious or in jail. But he’d never chosen to cancel one.
He racked the guitar and said to Sheri, “Got that meeting.”
The woman, who seemed to have a different perfume for every day of the week, rose instantly and started to reach for Bishop’s arm, then thought better; she tried to be discreet in his daughter’s presence. She did work at it, Kayleigh reflected.
I don’t hate you.
I just don’t like you.
Kayleigh wafted a smile her way.
“You still got that present I got you a coupla years ago?” Bishop asked his daughter.
“I have all your presents, Daddy.”
She saw them to the door, amused that Darthur Morgan seemed to regard them with some suspicion. The couple piled into a dusty SUV and left, petite Sheri behind the wheel of the massive vehicle. Bishop gave up driving eight years ago.