Tobias was high, but not on weed or hooch or any other kind of artificial joy. He’d been the upset winner for every category in which he was nominated, plus he’d managed to sound reasonably intelligent during his acceptance speeches. But most importantly, Liddie was by his side, just the way he’d hoped and imagined she’d be one day. He was going to have to leave her for a bit now, though, as he was slated to perform in an all-star “jam session,” which, of course, was not extemporaneous at all and therefore was not a real jam session. But the crowd loved these tributes, and he relished the opportunity to play with some people he didn’t normally encounter, so he gritted his teeth and agreed to do it.
Now, he was taking advantage of the intermission by backing Liddie into a quiet nook and kissing her silly before he had to get ready to perform.
“I’ll be back before you know it, and then after only a few more awards, we can get out of here and celebrate properly.” He nipped the side of her neck, and she made a little noise that threatened to undermine all his self-control. “We were invited to the Mercury after-party, but I’m thinking we might just need to blow through and head back to the hotel.”
“Whatever you wanna do, Toby.”
His laugh rumbled through his chest. “I’m just saying, festivities just might start in the limo on the way to the after-party.” He kissed her again, and then again. “You still have lipstick on. That is so crazy.” One more kiss. “Okay, darlin’, I’ll see you after I present and perform, okay?”
“Okay, Toby. See you back there.”
Tobias winked and ambled off, and Liddie watched him walk away until he rounded the corner. She decided she’d better take advantage of a bathroom break while she could, so she slipped into the ladies’ restroom. A quick glance in the mirror on the way to the stalls told her that while she might still have lipstick on, the rest of her face was a shiny mess. Yikes. She’d take care of that in a moment.
Liddie used the time in the seclusion of the stall to take some deep breaths and recharge. She closed her eyes and, as much as possible, blocked out the noise of women coming and going. That is, until she heard Tobias’s name.
“I just do not get it. He was with Candy before—what’s so special about this woman?” one woman said.
A second woman responded, “Apparently, they were high school sweethearts or something, but then she had a thing with Tobias’s father. Can you believe that? Disgusting.”
“He must be stupid, then. Once a cheater, always a cheater. And to cheat on you with your own father? She’s got problems, as in mental issues. There is no way I could ever forgive someone who did something like that to me.”
“Poor Candy,” the second woman said. “Did you know she took care of Chet all those years and he didn’t leave her a dime? But I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, because, you know, she got hardly any spousal support. Such a shame. She should have gotten way more, especially because they didn’t have a prenup!”
“Well, I don’t think prenups were a thing when they got married.” Someone turned on the tap, so Liddie had to strain to hear. “Though, it was kind of tacky on everyone’s part, the way they just flip-flopped. Makes you wonder if they shared everything all the time, right?”
“Oh my God! Gross!” the second woman shrieked. “But they obviously have something going for them. Maybe they have really big dicks . . .”
Liddie had heard all she needed to. It’s not as if she was going to bust out of the stall and go all shock and awe on these women, but enough was enough. She took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and stepped out of the stall.
“Honey, they have really big bank accounts. That’s all a girl needs. She can put up with anything else, am I right?” Woman One said, until she caught a glimpse of Liddie emerging from the stall. “Oh, shoot . . .”
“How y’all doin’?” Liddie chirped in her most saccharine voice. She began to fastidiously wash her hands, sneaking looks in the mirror to gauge the women’s reactions. The women’s smiles were frozen on their faces as they tried to have a surreptitious conversation with their eyebrows and eyes.
“Okay, ladies. Let’s cut the crap. I heard every nasty, mostly untrue word that you two uttered, and I’m going to set the record straight. Chet Harper raped me when I was seventeen. Candy had been screwing Chet since she was fifteen, including all the time that she was married to Tobias. She didn’t do crap to take care of Chet. In fact, she abandoned him as soon as he got sick. That’s why she didn’t get anything. So y’all can keep running around with Candy, but beware that the company you keep reflects on you. Y’all enjoy the rest of the ceremony.”
Liddie put her hand on the door pull but paused before she left the restroom. “And for the record, the biggest thing about Tobias is his heart and his kindness, but, honey, everything is physically proportional, and that, my dear, is mighty fine.”
She marched out the door and made her way back to the auditorium. She nodded at Marty, who was sprawled out and looking at his phone while he waited for things to start back up.
“Hey, Liddie. I was wondering where’d you’d gotten to.”
“Hey, Marty. Yeah, I had to verbally kick some ass in the ladies’ room, but it’s all sorted now.” The lights flashed off and on. “Oh, seems like I got seated just in time. I’ll talk to you in a bit.” She turned around but could hear Marty cackling behind her, a big smile spreading across her face as the lights dimmed and the emcee stepped out onstage.
“We’re going to open the second half of our ceremony with the best of the best. The folks who are behind me on this stage need no introduction because they embody the sound and spirit of all genres of modern singers and songwriters.”
The emcee stepped off the darkened stage, and a tall figure stepped up to take his place. Like a train whistle in the night, the familiar strains of “Orange Blossom Special” cut through the dark, a spotlight slowly illuminating Tobias’s six-and-a-half-foot frame as he stood with his Dobro. He progressed into the showier portions of the song at breakneck speed, and the crowd went wild. A fiddler stepped in to take over, and as Tobias handed off the song with a flourish, the crowd erupted in noisy applause. Soon other musicians joined Tobias and the fiddler, each taking over the melody and sometimes moving on to another piece or bending the original tune until it was almost broken. Liddie recognized newer, popular songs that garnered radio play sprinkled in with the standards as the musicians created their tapestry of sound. And then, one by one, each musician faded out and into the background until, once again, only Tobias could be seen and heard. He wasn’t playing anything standard, though. He wasn’t even performing anything he’d recorded. As Tobias ended the performance, he was playing something new, something special, something he’d only shared with Liddie to date. When his hands stilled but the note continued, the crowd rose to its feet as one, but Tobias was gazing directly at her, and only her, and she knew that her heart was his and always had been.