Stella dared a gasp, then felt foolish.
Billy leaned back in the booth. His dark curls spilled across the cushion behind his head. “You don’t believe me,” he said.
Stella laughed. “I don’t make it a habit to believe anyone at first.”
“That’s that business mind of yours,” Billy said, reaching for a cigarette from the pack he’d thrown on the table between them. “Hold on to that. Always trust your instincts. What else do you have?”
Throughout the next three months,Stella and Sally worked harder on their songs than they ever had. Billy had arranged for a first session in the recording studio in July of 1978, and they didn’t want to waste anyone’s time when they got there. Not theirs, not his.
The morning they were scheduled at the studio, they woke up early, practiced their scales and harmonies, did their makeup, put on their outfits, and walked the half-mile to the iconicstudio, which they’d now passed by a thousand times, it seemed like. They’d seen countless country stars coming in and out. Now, they were entering, as though they counted themselves among them. It was only when they arrived and started talking to the various staff members at the studio itself that Stella realized they hadn’t spoken to one another at all that morning. It was as though they were both too lost in their heads to realize.
They’d been too nervous to eat, but food and coffee were waiting for them. Stella urged Sally to eat something, but Stella herself stuck to coffee, and Sally followed her lead. When Billy came in, he was friendly and professional, treating them like every other star who’d come in, surely. But just before they went into the studio itself, Billy caught Stella’s eye and smiled in a way that made Stella feel singular. She didn’t understand it, but she felt something bubbling between them. Maybe she needed to ignore it. Or maybe ignoring it would destroy their career before it had even begun?
All of Stella and Sally’s practice served them well. That first day in the studio, they recorded four songs, back-to-back, before Billy called it for the day and invited them out to eat. Over steak and potatoes and red wine (which Stella muttered to Sally not to drink, as she was far too young), Billy explained to them that he’d seen numerous artists come through that studio. “But you’re the real deal,” he said.
Stella told herself not to get her hopes up. She told herself to keep her head down, to keep working. But she could see that the words deeply affected Sally. Probably, Sally already had dreams of dropping out of high school and traveling the world with her guitar.
After that first night with Billy, Sally and Stella floated home, chatting happily about what came next. When they reached their door, Isaac was waiting for them. Sally’s smile was so enormous, the only real clue Stella needed to understand that Sally andIsaac were in love. Sally threw her arms around Isaac and squealed, “We’re going to be famous!”
Isaac cackled. Overwhelmed with happiness, Stella invited Isaac into the apartment, where they put on records, danced, and ate dessert. Sally told Isaac everything that had happened that day, without leaving anything out. She even told him, “I think Billy really likes Stella. Really, really likes her.”
“That’s silly,” Stella told them both. “Billy travels constantly. He works with studios all over the world. He works with Debbie, Sonny, and Minnie Walden.” What she meant was,he’s probably already forgotten about me.
That night, Stella thanked Isaac again for picking them up in his truck that fateful day. “You changed our lives,” she said. “You’ll never know how much it means.”
Isaac blushed. He was hopped up on sugar and love. “You changed my life, too.” He shrugged. “I’ll never forget it.”
Over the next few weeks, Stella, Sally, and Billy cut that first album together. Billy was easy and fun to work with. He genuinely loved music and never seemed in a bad mood. When they were finally finished recording, he threw a big party for them at the recording studio, telling everyone there that the girls would be big stars. Frequently throughout the night, Stella caught Billy looking at her in a way that startled her. She’d begun dreaming about him about once a week, but she’d told herself that it didn’t matter.
But that night, for the first time, Billy came over and asked her to dance. Lots of others at the studio were paired up, slow-dancing to an old sixties track that everyone still loved. Sally was in the arms of Isaac, as usual. They were teenagers in love.
Stella couldn’t say no to Billy’s offer. She was drawn to him in a way that made it difficult for her to breathe. As they began to dance, slowly and gently, she brought her eyes up to meet his. She thought about her wedding to Harvey, how frightenedand empty she’d felt. She wondered what it would be like to get married to someone like Billy Long—then reminded herself that that was impossible. She was already married. Her name wasn’t Stella McGee.
It was too much to explain.
“You’re so beautiful, Stella,” Billy said then.
Stella didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet.
Things went back to normal after that. Sally was in her senior year of high school, and Stella was still working nights at Boo’s Country Western Bar. But slowly, Billy began to get the word out about Sally and Stella’s album. It was going to come out in February of 1979, and he told everyone he encountered that it was “going to take over the charts.”
Three times before the end of the year, Billy took Stella out to dinner. This was difficult to schedule, as Stella was so often needed at Boo’s and Billy was so often out of town. More than that, Stella didn’t want to give Billy the idea that she was falling in love with him, even though she was.
Sometimes, Boo teased Stella about her future. “You won’t need me anymore,” Boo sang in a sad country-western twang. “I did everything for you, but you still went away!”
Stella laughed, but she could see that Boo was sad about losing her soon to “a life of fame and fortune,” as he put it.
“We’ll still come play at the bar all the time,” she promised.
“That’s what they all say, Sugar,” Boo said.
Stella felt a tenderness toward Boo, one that told her she would always keep in touch with him, even when she and Sally were living in a mansion in Los Angeles, even when they were performing on late-night talk shows. Even when they sold out studios.
Yes, Stella had begun allowing herself to dream big. In the back of her mind, of course, she was worried about Harvey and her father, about what they would do when they saw “Heidi’s andCarrie’s fake names but true faces.” But she imagined that they’d be protected by their money, by all the important people who believed in them, by Billy.
Maybe everything would be brilliant. Maybe it would be beyond her wildest dreams.
14
