Dan Kepler, Olympia Records
Levi sighed. Yeah, Dan was laying it on a little thick in that last email, it was true. Frankly, the label rep had been downright rude about Massachusetts, which Levi had found to be perfectlynice in his admittedly limited experience with the place. But even with the heavy-handed description of the various merits of Magnolia Shore versus those of Nashville? Yeah, even so, Levi felt a little bit of a pang about leaving his home behind. Dan clearly thought Levi was crazy, and while Levimostlydidn’t think so, he wasn’t immune to moments of self-doubt any more than anyone else.
He looked up, checking out the diner around him. There was an older gentleman in one corner eating a bowl of matzoh ball soup while working on a crossword puzzle. There was a family with twin toddlers, two exhausted looking parents, and a grandmother who was gleefully soaking up all the attention from the small children while the parents ate in what seemed to be a rare moment of peace.
None of them gave Levi so much as a second glance. Well, the boy toddler briefly held up a plastic toy truck with an expression of glee, but when Levi gave him a little wave, he just grinned and went back to the plate of French fries that he was sharing with his sister.
In Nashville, Levi couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just go to a diner and grin at kids without risking being recognized. It sounded self-absorbed even in his own head to think of himself as being so famous that he couldn’t even go out and about, but the fact of the matter was that he’d had too many experiences to let himself believe otherwise. Too many days where, while trying to just grab a cup of coffee, he’d been stopped by a fan who wanted his signature and a photo. Too many dinners interrupted by someone who wanted to tell them all about that time they went to his concert in this or that city.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like his fans. Having fans was what let him have a career in music. That was how it worked.
But he did always have to be “on” in Nashville. He always had to address the possibility that someone was watching him,that they would be taking his picture for social media. He had to budget extra time for every errand, just in case someone stopped him.
He was grateful, but he was also exhausted.
The anonymity was a huge relief.
Here, he could observe the world around him in the relaxing knowledge that he wasn’t being observed in turn. Maybe that was unfair to want, but he figured that since he wasn’t going to post pictures of anyone on the internet, it wasn’tterriblyhypocritical of him.
It was all verynormal.
Take the waitress at this diner, for example. She had a classic ‘girl next door’ way about her, what with her blonde hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck, green eyes unadorned by makeup, and a simple outfit of sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt with the diner’s logo.
She was pretty, but not in the ornate, purposeful way of women who dressed up to go out to concerts in Nashville. Not that Levi objected to such a thing. He’d dated several women in the music scene who tended toward a more glamorous style, and he still had the utmost respect for them, even if their romantic relationships hadn’t worked out.
Even so, this woman’s unassuming, everyday prettiness appealed to him.
Not that he expected that he would get a chance to talk with her beyond the brief exchange they’d shared while he’d ordered, since he didn’t think he had seen her pause for more than a minute since he had arrived at the diner. She smiled attentively at each of the customers she served, but he noticed that when she wasn’t interacting with anyone, a tired sort of slump took over her posture.
The door opened, and the icy blast of wind that came through the door reminded Levi that he had been watching the waitressfor probably longer than he ought to have let himself. He turned in the direction of the door and instead watched an older woman come in from the cold.
It was good that he did, because, as he watched, the woman tucked a hardcover book under her arm so she could free her hands to remove her gloves. Doing so, however, caused a photograph to slip out of the book and fall on the floor. The older woman didn’t seem to notice, as she just kept walking toward a free table at the front.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Levi called, stepping out from his booth to grab the photograph. “I think you dropped this.”
The woman turned with a quizzical but friendly look. She had a young sort of energy, even though her appearance put her somewhere in her seventh decade. Her short haircut was stylish, however, and there was some pep in her step that said that age had not stopped her from living life to its fullest. She reminded Levi of his own mother, who was currently enjoying retirement with Levi’s father from the back of an RV that his success in music had let him gift to them.
Another reason to hesitate over taking a step back from his career. It let him support his parents in their twilight years, something that was extremely important to him after all the years that they had scrimped and saved for his first guitar, for all those music lessons, for all the things that had let him become the man that he was.
“Oh my,” the woman said, pressing a hand to the front of her coat when she saw what he was holding. She looked down at the book under her arm, with a faint expression of surprise on her face. “Thank you so much!”
“Of course,” he said. He turned the photograph over in his hands before handing it back, just an unconscious gesture, but he paused when he saw that the photo showed a man on a horse. He wore a large cowboy hat.
“Hey,” he said, looking up with a smile. “This looks like my kind of fella.” He feigned tipping an imaginary hat, accurately predicting that it would make the older woman smile. He exaggerated his natural Southern drawl. “Levi Hawkins, at your service, ma’am.”
He had a brief flash of worry that the woman would recognize his name, but, if she did, she didn’t show it outwardly, instead merely sticking her hand out to shake, which caused her to juggle the book and then drop it.
“My goodness,” she said as Levi scooped up the hardcover before she could even think about bending. His mother, even on her cross-country adventure, would magically sense it if he made an elderly lady pick up a dropped book. He might be in his thirties, but he still flinched at the idea of his mama calling him up for a good old-fashioned scolding.
“I am doubly in your debt today,” she said, tucking the book under her arm more firmly before taking a second attempt at a handshake. This time, they managed it without losing any of the lady’s possessions. “I’m Miriam Landers. It is very nice to meet you.”
“You as well,” he said. “Is this a good place to get some reading done?”
He nodded at the book that had given them so much trouble.
“Son, any place is a good place to get some reading done,” she told him, her eyebrow arched playfully.
“My mom would really adore you,” he said with a laugh.
