ME AGAIN: Starting Over

MADISON

MADISON

The emotion of a dream

Nashville Bridgestone Arena

19 July 2013

“It was fantastic, incredible, unimaginable!” I enthuse as soon as Libby came to wake me up. I’m still wrapped up like a chrysalis in my Tiffany-colored sheets in my splendid princely bedroom on the third floor of the Parker Mansion. She doesn’t imagine me coming back at the three in the morning completely beat and not having slept a wink.

“You must be mad!” she says in an incredulous smile when I could be bothered to answer her good morning. “A little birdie told me about …”. I stop her before she could say anything more.

I’ve known her all my life and know when she’s joking. She is the daughter of the governess who works with us, with her father having died when she was little, which is just one of the very many things we have in common. Growing up together without one of our two rôle models brought us together. She is two years younger than me, but has always been on my side, accomplice to so many moments of madness and carefree hours spent.

“My God, you had to see him, B!” I call out, jumping back and forth around the room as if a tarantula had just bitten me.

“Heavens above, Mad, calm down a second! You didn’t even kiss him!”

“Wait … you’ve gotta see something before you keep on thinking I’m insane”. I fumble around on my very expensive smartphone and look for the video of the concert I found on the Web.

We both broke out in excited screams. I know she likes Chris too and, had she been there with me, she definitely would’ve filmed me as I climbed over the barricade in front of the stage to reach him.

“He looked at me, B! Can’t you see? Those beautiful chestnut eyes of his crossed with mine and he smiled at me; his hat almost came off”.

“Noooo... oh, my word!” she yells on seeing the runway sway and me nearly falling into the void.

“Did you see? He seemed almost like a God coming out of a magic portal and when he drew near to the side, everything ignited. We just look like so many damned souls in search of Paradise, huh? Because that’s just the way I feel, dammit”.

“Did you touch him, though?”

“Just the toes of his boots! With both of these fingers!” Triumphantly, I show my right hand, the one that succeeded in touching his black inlaid Caborcas with their reinforced tip. “The tingling in my hands throughout the concert! I don’t want to wash these anymore, B!” I gloat, looking dreamily.

“You’ve gone totally outta your mind”.

“And you’re not realizing the wicked way he looks at you ─ absorbs you! ─ as he sings live into his mike. It’s always different, more and more intense! It was a dream being there”.

I’m still smiling out of feeling blessed, as the melody of More of you comes out of my concert playlist.

Your love’s been so true

It makes me want more of you

Again and again

I fall more in love with you

I sing at the top of my lungs, imagining those words could reach him and, in my dreams, they do. One part of me is and always will be linked to him. In my worse moments, he’s always been there.

From the moment you wake me up

Till you kiss me goodnight

Everything that you do

It makes me want more of you

Libby’s duetting with me while I’m trying to disguise my bloated dark circles under the eyes with layers of concealer. I finish putting my makeup to the high pitch of the last verse and then slip on my gorgeous lacquered Louboutins beneath a pair of skintight black denims. With a couple of sprays of Pure Parfum onto my neck and one into my hair, I take my roomy Birkin and the keys to my red Porsche inside and I’m ready for a super city breakfast, shopping trip with Libby attached.

“And where are you going?” my father’s voice thundered.

“To Opry Mills, Daddy! Want another Charvet Place Vendôme?” I smile sneeringly.

“I don’t need a new tie. Sit down!”

I try to object, but his eyes are threatening a storm, so I comply with him.

“Please don’t argue, I haven’t time to waste … Libby, would you wait for us downstairs a moment?” With the same shadow in his eyes, he ushers away my friend who slips away, saying goodbye to me as if she already said goodbye to that day we’d no longer spend shopping.

I sit down, waiting for him to have his say. He does so after a few silent moments as if to reiterate the idea that he is in charge of conversation.

“Had fun last night, did you?” His angry voice reverberates; I can tell from yards away. I nod without saying more, because I know that everything I say would make him even angrier.

It's a given he’s no lover of country music and telling him about the emotions I felt wouldn’t have helped keep it light. He tolerates the genre just because he likes to see me happy and, when I listen to and sing along to these songs, I am the picture of happiness.

“Sure you had fun(!)”. He closes his eyes and I see what this is all about.

“Daddy...’

“Don’t! Don’t try to justify yourself”.

“Daddy, nothing happened. I just came in later than I usually do!”

“I permit you everything, Madison. You don’t want for anything because of me. You can do what you want, when you want. You are totally free living your life. You get vacations, designer clothes, the car, parties”.

I nervously gnaw at my fingernails as I listen to this endless list of luxuries he concedes me.

I already know this premise and it doesn’t lead to anything good normally, but to the conversation quickly ending and a near total loss of interest in one another.

“Care to explain to me, then, why you always have to embarrass me? Why must I see my daughter all over social media, climbing like an ape on heat onto a protective barrier behind security?”

I pretend I don’t know what he’s saying, but I make a tactical mistake. I look at my phone, hoping that a serendipitous phone call or something else to distract him. Nothing could.

“You are dumb! And you think I’ll buy your nonsense by flicking your eyelashes at me and offering to buy me a stupid tie? Don’t you think how I might feel in front of other people?”

“Daddy, nothing happened and nobody knows who I am?”

“Your ass is all over social, just like that gorgeous face of yours. Do you think that nobody knows you’re my daughter? Is this the respect you bring the Parker name? You’re confirming more and more that you don’t give a damn about me, nor about the future I’m creating for you”.

“Daddy!” I call out on the point of tears, because what he’s saying isn’t true and nobody asked him to plan my life by serving me the keys to power on a silver platter.

“Pay attention, young lady! Over the years, you’ve taken too many liberties! I’ve tried in all ways I could to fill the void that is an absent mom and, if my best hasn’t been good enough, I’m sorry. I don’t think, however, I deserve your disrespect! Remember I’m the head of the most important multinational in the country, I have an image to uphold and I’d appreciate my family doing the same. You are my family, whether you like it or not”.

I’m feeling the void opening up beneath my feet. I love my father, I love everything he’s been able to do, but I’m often compared more to his employee than from someone cut from the same cloth.

“No more concerts, young lady. And no more public events until you learn you have a rôle you need to respect. You've got a partner who would do everything for you. I recommend you re-evaluate your priorities”.

I slam the door behind my father who, without saying a word more, leaves to resume the rôle he loves so f*****g much.

Suddenly, I feel tired. With the door closed, I draw the curtains and put on the playlist on my smartphone, connecting it to my Bluetooth earphones.

The tears are quick to fall and they slowly hug my pillow, the only testament to my suffering, erasing every trace of my appearing happy.

“Cause love is more precious than gold

It can’t be bought, no, and it can’t be sold

I got love enough to spare

That makes me a millionaire