Once Upon a Rose Read online

Deanie and the other waitresses knew something was

  up when his "people," vicious-looking men with walkie

  talkies and professional sneers, entered ahead

  of the star. Then came the photographers, giddy as

  prom queens with cold duck, clicking away as

  Vic Jenkens opened the clearly marked Krispy

  Kream door and feigned an expression of

  surprise.

  Something about the absurdity of the situation struck

  Deanie as riotously funny. She began

  to giggle, squinting against the flashing lights,

  ignoring the hush of the other waitresses and the

  surly glares from Jenkens's people.

  Vic Jenkens immediately spun to face her,

  cool fury evident in his eyes. Deanie

  swallowed, a smile still on her face. He was

  much better looking in real life than in print.

  "What you laughing at, girl?" His voice was

  deep, and although he was not speaking above a

  conversational tone, it silenced the whole store.

  She cleared her throat and pointed to herself, her

  eyes questioning and innocent.

  Jenkens's expression softened, and he rubbed a

  hand over his carefully whisker-roughened jaw, his

  gaze raking Deanie with undisguised enjoyment.

  The star liked what he was seeing.

  "What were you laughing at?" This time there was a

  hint of amusement in his voice.

  "Oh, um ..." She shifted in her sensible

  shoes and patted her hair under the hairnet.

  "It's just that you looked so surprised by those

  guys," she said, motioning to the photographers.

  "And, well, I mean ... this was more

  planned than most weddings I've been to."

  At once he grinned, an engaging,

  soul-melting and practiced smile. Deanie,

  beaming, returned the smile.

  And so began one of Nashville's and eventually

  --thanks to supermarket tabloid coverage--the

  nation's favorite oddball romances. Vic

  Jenkens took the adorable waitress out to dinner

  that evening, and from then on they were a couple. Vic

  Jenkens, that newly reinstated good ol' boy, and

  his salt-of-the-earth woman became a

  publicist's dream.

  And Vic discovered an untapped resource of

  songs. On their first date she explained the story

  of how she'd written his current hit. Instead of

  laughing, he actually believed her, and he called

  his manager right then from his car phone. Deanie was not

  only paid for the song but was told she'd receive

  royalties if Vic ever recorded another of

  her tunes. She sent him more tapes the next

  day, and by the time he went back on the road, her

  songs were included in his concerts.

  Wilma Dean Bailey had finally made it in

  Nashville, but not at all the way she had

  envisioned it. It was stardust, yes. But it was

  secondhand stardust, shrugged from the broad and

  well-connected shoulders of Vic Jenkens.

  Soon into the relationship Deanie felt a

  vague uneasiness growing in the pit of her

  stomach. She did not want to depend on a man

  --any man--for her identity. People were kind to her

  now, strangers smiled, but it was for all the wrong

  reasons. She had seen firsthand what dependence on

  a man could cost a woman. Every time she needed a

  reminder, a swift glance at her rail-thin,

  overworked mother usually did the trick. Somehow,

  Deanie would emerge from Vic's ever-looming

  shadow.

  She held on to her Krispy Kream job, in

  spite of her growing bank account. As other

  waitresses came and went, Deanie remained,

  pouring coffee and selling doughnuts to Vic's

  fans who waited in the shop in vain hopes that their

  star would visit. He never did. But the

  prospect of seeing him kept crullers and

  jelly-filleds moving faster than a brakeless

  truck down a mountain.

  The romance, such as it was, suited Vic's

  agenda perfectly, stilling rumors that he had

  gone Hollywood and left the real South

  behind. With Deanie occasionally on his fringed arm, the

  press could cluck approvingly at his success,

  give his records more airplay, make his

  videos even more appealing. Who could begrudge such

  a nice guy?

  He was shrewd enough to keep in constant touch with

  Deanie, even when his touring schedule took him

  across the country. Sometimes he asked her to play

  her new songs over the telephone. Other times

  he would have his manager shuttle her most recent

  tape to his hotel on the road. The manager

  even made sure she had plenty of top-quality

  recording cassettes to use on the new machine

  Vic had given her for her twentieth birthday.

  "It's like giving a baseball bat

  to Grandma," Lorna muttered after Deanie showed

  her the new equipment.

  "What?" Deanie snapped.

  "You know what I mean. The gift is for himself,

  baby. He's giving himself a bunch of songs for the

  price of one fancy-looking machine. That's

  all."

  Deanie tried to ignore her mother's comment, but

  at night, after late conversations with Vic,

  Lorna's words came back to her. Every time she

  decided to break away on her own, he would come

  back with flowers and a hang-dog expression. She

  couldn't stand the thought of making anyone unhappy.

  Theirs was a curious relationship. Deanie never

  did get over feeling like an outsider, as if some

  secret joke were being shared by all of Vic's

  friends, and she was never told the punch line.

  She tried to talk herself into falling in love with

  Vic, but the best she could manage was a detached

  admiration for his singing voice. She did fall in

  love with the way he wrapped his voice around her

  songs, wringing from them all the emotion she had ever

  managed to instill. And she was truly flattered that

  he was showing her so much attention. Yet something

  wasn't quite right.

  Through reading the music industry trade

  publications, she knew that most labels were

  favoring singers who performed their own material. The

  days of the singer as a mere interpreter of another

  writer's songs seemed to be fading; the hot stars

  all wrote their own stuff. She could sometimes see

  greedy appreciation of her work in Vic's

  bluer-than-blue eyes, and he would nod in

  subdued acknowledgment. But he never came right out

  and praised her. He always seemed to be

  doing her a favor by even listening to her meager

  efforts, much less recording her songs.

  Vic also suggested she smoke cigarettes

  to calm her nerves, to sooth her growing

  suspicions of his motives. He assured her

  that most of the truly successful Nashville names

  were two-pack-a-day smokers, and that nonsmokers

  were even considered outsiders. Against her better

  judgment and to keep his nagging at bay, she began


  to smoke. Only after she had become hooked did

  she realize he'd probably harbored an

  unconscious--or perhaps even conscious--desire

  to see her voice ruined. She was never able

  to completely quit, but she did manage to cut

  down to a few precious cigarettes a day.

  Deanie was not stupid. After the initial

  enchantment of dating a star dwindled into a dull

  routine, she realized how he had been using her.

  It had taken one brief conversation to point her

  toward reality.

  On one of the increasingly rare evenings they spent

  together, she decided to make a clean break. The

  speech was beautifully set in her mind.

  After a candlelight dinner, he turned his eyes

  toward her--the same eyes that had been used so

  effectively in his last video. He told her,

  with wrenching honesty, how much music meant to him,

  how his granddaddy Jenkens had taught him to play

  the guitar and sing, how they used to huddle together and

  listen as their voices blended with the crackling hum

  of summer cicadas. His granddaddy was gone now,

  he said, his voice rife with emotion. He'd

  give his last Grammy to speak but one more time

  to his granddaddy, to thank him for the miraculous

  gift of music.

  She reached up and touched his face, and he

  smiled.

  Wilma Dean Bailey did not tell Vic

  Jenkens what was on her mind that night. He had

  shown her a side she'd never seen, had never

  imagined existed. He was vulnerable. He needed

  her.

  Two days later she was brushing her teeth. The

  television was on in her bedroom, the cheerful

  postdawn sounds of "Good Morning America"

  filtering through the din of running water. Then she

  heard another voice, familiar, cajoling. In

  a daze, she stepped into the bedroom, still blotting

  toothpaste foam from her mouth.

  There, hunched in a chair across from

  Joan Lunden, was Vic Jenkens. She had

  almost forgotten about this interview, the reason he had

  caught the red-eye to New York the night before.

  "It was my great granddaddy Jenkens ..." His

  voice broke, and he turned his soulful eyes

  on Joan Lunden, who was on the verge of tears

  herself.

  Vic hadn't been talking to her the other night,

  opening up and trusting her with fragile emotions.

  Vic Jenkens had been rehearsing.

  It was suddenly all clear to her: how he had

  been wooing not Deanie but her songs, how he had

  managed to keep her ability so well hidden from

  everyone but his manager.

  With a new determination, Deanie made two

  vows to herself. One, she would never allow her work

  to be performed by another artist unless she

  specifically approved. And two, she would never,

  ever, trust another man.

  It had taken her seven years to get this chance,

  to sing one of her own songs with a hot star like Bucky

  Lee Denton. Only her mother knew what the

  journey had cost, how agonizing some of the

  decisions had been along the way. She was still

  virtually unknown to the public, to all but the few

  who would slavishly read song credits, or watch

  the songwriters awkwardly accepting awards at

  some of the televised ceremonies.

  Deanie Bailey was unknown but, she hoped, not

  for long. She had waited for this moment, worked and

  sweated and lost sleep and prayed to be given a

  single opportunity to prove herself.

  A momentary rush of fear had jolted through her

  when she first learned that Bucky Lee would sing the

  duet with her, but she managed to push it aside.

  As her mother bid her a tearful goodbye at the

  airport, Deanie thought of all she was leaving

  behind, all that lay ahead.

  Nothing could stand in the way of her dreams now.

  Except for Bucky Lee Denton.

  Chapter 2

  If there was one invaluable lesson Deanie had

  learned during her years of songwriting success in

  the country music industry, it was when to make herself

  scarce. As the irritated, jet-lagged, and

  exhausted crew struck the video set, Deanie

  grabbed a bottle of Coke and a

  package of dry-roasted peanuts and slinked

  surreptitiously into the background.

  Not that it was easy to slink anywhere in her

  costume. It was stiff, uncomfortable, and about the

  ugliest thing Deanie had laid eyes on since

  her mother picked out the dress for her first Country

  Music Association Award ceremony. The

  headdress felt like a vise on her temples.

  She would have gladly removed it, but the damn thing

  was held on with so many pins and clips it would have

  taken Houdini to unbolt it. As it was, she

  didn't want to risk the ire of the costume

  director, who had spent the past three hours

  sewing rhinestones onto a velvet doublet that

  Bucky Lee Denton now refused to wear.

  They were losing the light anyway. Even if a

  miracle occurred and Bucky Lee emerged from his

  trailer ready to work, the sun was sinking, as if it

  too wished no further association with Deanie or

  the video.

  Deanie tried to smile at a trio of departing

  Tudor Babes, but they managed to avoid her

  gaze. Wisely, she decided not to bum a

  cigarette from a large man in overalls wielding

  a hammer.

  Funny, she mused. Even in England,

  Nashville's male-dominated network was in

  full force. Everyone was mad at her, not

  Bucky Lee, who was the real cause of the

  aggravation. She had established herself as a solid

  songwriter, an up-and-coming performer, yet all

  it took was one flash-in-the-pan guy like Bucky

  Lee Denton to make her feel about as welcome

  as a hornets' nest at a picnic.

  The grounds of the palace were lovely, although she

  preferred a less-clipped, more haphazard look

  to a garden. The flower beds were subdued, as if

  daring a stray bloom to rear its undesirable

  head. Every flower was in its assigned place, every

  shrub carefully pruned into submission, the

  approved rounded shape. It was beautiful in an

  artificial, plastic fashion.

  The ninety-pence guidebook she had flipped

  through during one of the interminable breaks highlighted the

  garden and told the illustrious history of the

  grounds. The age and splendor of the palace at

  Hampton Court was mind-boggling to Deanie, who

  paced across the lawn, eyes glued to the booklet,

  still clutching the Coke bottle.

  Gripping the guidebook between her

  teeth, she funneled the peanuts into the bottle,

  an old Southern trick. No matter what she

  was doing, whatever her state of mind, the sight of

  cola bubbling to a head with salty peanuts could

  always make her feel immeasurably better, like
r />   a bouquet during a snowstorm. The best part

  came last, when she could eat the sweet, soggy

  peanuts at the bottom of the bottle. Pure

  bliss.

  Finally she glanced up and took an unbroken

  look at the grounds, at the palace in the distance.

  An odd feeling flowed over her, a sense of

  historical smallness in the face of such

  grandeur. This was the very soil tilled by the feet of

  monarchs and cardinals before anyone had ever heard of

  Nashville or Tennessee, when the United

  States was still the uncharted wilds of America.

  Had one of Henry VIII'S wives ever stood

  on the exact spot, the same eerie glow of the

  setting sun making the horizon a pastel

  smudge?

  With another sip of soda, slightly salty

  now, she looked about the grounds, barely aware of the

  roar of a jet circling overhead. This was a timeless

  moment, far removed from the pettiness of a video

  schedule. She felt very alone, a faraway sense

  of isolation from the rest of her world.

  "It's a rather romantic place, is it not?"

  Deanie turned to see a dapper gentleman of

  about fifty, glancing in the same direction she

  was. "I apologize," he added hastily.

  "I did not mean to startle you."

  "Heck, you didn't startle me." She

  smiled.

  "I live close by, you see," he

  returned the smile. He was English, of

  course, with a neatly trimmed beard peppered with

  gray. "I saw all the commotion, the trailers and

  lorries and show people. I do love having a look

  at the workings of a film." He slipped his hands

  into the well-worn pockets of his tweed jacket.

  "I saw them film Anne of the Thousand Days

  years ago, with Richard Burton."

  "That must have been neat." Deanie's eyes

  widened in interest. "What did he look like?"

  "He was rather plain, actually. But his wife at

  the time was Elizabeth Taylor, and she was

  spectacular. She watched him, and everyone else

  watched her."

  The man suddenly jumped. "Do forgive

  me. My manners have been appalling." He

  extended a bony hand. "My name is Neville

  Williamson, and I'm afraid I'm a

  somewhat pathetic example of British

  hospitality. I do hope my fellow countrymen

  have demonstrated better style."

  "Nice to meet you. I'm Deanie

  Bailey."

  "Pleasure," he responded crisply.

  "Are you enjoying your visit so far? I suppose

  it's hardly a holiday to be working."

  "To tell you the truth, Mr.

  Williamson--"

  "Neville, please."

  "Neville, then. Well, it's just beautiful

  here. All we've done so far is wait around, but

  I'll tell you, this sure is a pretty place

  to wait around in."

  He laughed. "It is indeed. My parents

  fell in love here, in fact."

  "Really?"

  "Really. She had been engaged to another

  pilot, a chap in the Royal Air Force during

  the war. Well, he was missing and presumed dead.

  My father was a close friend of the missing pilot, and

  he decided to comfort his poor fianc@ee. Next

  thing they knew, they were in love--a grand passion,

  it seems. They waited a year to get married, and

  I was born right before the war ended. So you see, this

  has always been one of my family's favorite

  spots."

  "And the other man never did show up?" Deanie

  swept a strand of hair from her forehead.

  "Sadly, no. But they named me after him. My

  first name is his surname, you see. He was an only

  son, and they wanted the name to continue."

  Deanie whistled through her teeth. "I love your

  phrase, "a grand passion." That would sure

  make a dandy song. Could I use it?"

  "Excuse me?" He seemed genuinely

  perplexed.

  "I write songs, and that story would make a

  terrific song. Would your parents mind if I

  use it?"

  "No--well I mean, they're gone now. It

  wouldn't hurt anyone, and it might be rather nice to have

  their story immortalized in song."

  "A grand passion," she repeated, testing the

  sound. "It sure is a great story. I just hope

  I can do it justice."

  "Well, I must be off," he said after a few

  comfortable moments. "My wife makes a splendid

  tea every afternoon at this time. If I'm late, she

  eats all my favorite scones herself. Beastly

  woman." It was said with such affection that Deanie

  realized it was Neville himself who was anxious

  to get to his tea.

  "It was wonderful meeting you," she said, waving

  goodbye.

  "The pleasure was mine." Before he left he

  paused. "It just came to me! Who you resemble, that

  is. At first I thought you looked rather like Miss

  Taylor, when she was here watching Richard

  Burton. But it just occurred to me that you bear a

  spectacular resemblance to Natalie Wood.

  Have you ever been told that?"

  Deanie winked. "Once or twice. But I

  thank you."

  She smiled, and he gave a brisk wave before

  walking away. He sure was a nice old guy,