After quickly tidying up the checkout area, Gertie and I reached for our purses at the same time.
“That youngla-dy looks awfully fa-mil-iar,” she singsonged, slipping her purse strap onto the crook of her arm. “I’veseenher be-fore.”
“You’re thinking of Ursula Andress. Livy looks just like her. Only prettier.”
“Oh, I know Ursula. She’s that sexpot inDr. No. Wayne’s dragged me to see it three times now, and it’snotbecause of Sean Connery.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
As we weaved our way through the robe racks, I yanked Gertie’s sleeve. “I know! You saw Livy at the last protest rally you attended.”
“Why, Miss Withers, you caught me.” Gertie’s eyebrows lifted as she gave me the peace sign, and we headed toward the escalator.
Gridiron Restaurant
Memphis, Tennessee
Monday, July 28, 1969
Three days later Livy showed up at Goldsmith’s again wearing a darling miniskirt, asking me to go to lunch. She claimed she had this great idea she wanted to run past me. The one time I’d dared to wear a miniskirt, Dad ordered me back to my room to change, telling me I looked like a streetwalker.
We walked over to the Gridiron and had to wait ten minutes for a booth. I felt giddy having Livy back in my life. Sure, there was a ten-ton elephant in the restaurant with a sign on his back reading:Livy walked out on your friendship three years ago, and now she wants back in. Without a verbal apology.But I did not care. She had a gravitational pull, tugging me inside her orbit. Always had.
“Have you listened to the records?” she asked as soon as the waitress took our order.
“Three of them.”
“That’sall?”
“It was hard enough listening to three. I told you I’d have to sneak. It was incredibly risky.”
“And? What’d you think?”
“You were right. Joni Mitchell’s voice is life changing. Same with Joan Baez. But the Crosby, Stills & Nash record is from another galaxy.”
“I knew it!” She bounced in her seat. “Tell me all about it. Where did you listen?”
“It was the biggest high-risk gambit of my life.”
Sometime around one in the morning—once I knew my parents were long asleep—I had picked up my desk chair and set it down inside my walk-in closet. Even though my better sense told me not to, I stood on the chair and reached for my old record player high atop the shelf. I couldn’t battle the temptation another second. The records were burning a hole in my soul.
Before stepping down, my eye caught sight of something else covered in dust. Ron’s guitar case, with his Martin tucked inside. Just the sight of it made my heart leap. I considered it half mine.
Without an electrical outlet in the closet, I had to plug in the record player outside the door and stretch the power cord underneath. My heart felt like a hammer pounding inside my chest, elation intensifying with every beat. One by one, I pulled the albums out of Livy’s shopping bag and studied their covers. The mere feel of them in my hands sparked that flame I’d once felt while holding a brand-new Beatles record.
Livy had affixed numbers on the covers indicating the order in which she wanted me to listen. That made me snicker.Bossy Livy rides again.
My surprise lay on the bottom with a note taped to the cellophane:Save the best for last!The Beatles, the White Album. I clutched it to my chest, tempted to listen to it first.
But the three guys sitting on a tattered velvet sofa were calling my name.Crosby, Stills & Nash. I ripped off the cellophane, then reveled in the sound of the album cover cracking open. Pressing my nose inside the fold, I lingered, savoring the new-album scent, then studied theinside photo. Three handsome faces, all wearing fur parkas, stared back at me, inviting me to take a listen.
I pulled the vinyl from the cover, then removed it from the sleeve. Shiny and unblemished, I held the record on the insides of my palms—careful not to smudge it—then gently placed it on the turntable. I lowered the needle. And the volume.
As soon as I heard the opening guitar chords of the first song, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” I lay down on my back. Seconds later all three guys sang together in flawless harmony. “It’s getting to the point, where I’m no fun anymore.”
Holy crap! What the heck is coming out of my record player?The music was so melodic, so pretty, so outta sight, for a moment I forgot where I was. Instead of a closet full of hanging clothes, I was surrounded by palm trees, stranded on a desert island, listening to my own personal Crosby, Stills & Nash concert.
By the end of the first verse, I had left planet earth. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn a supernatural power had lifted me to the ceiling, high above my record player.
