Kitty Lane still held my hand in both of hers. “Mr. Whitfield,” she said, turning to the father of Courtney, “I have known this woman for forty one years. Wanda Jean Lowe sewed the dress I wore on my first night at the Opry. I could not pay for it, and she handed it to me in tissue paper and said, pay me when you are famous. I have never forgotten it.” She smiled at me and squeezed. “And when I found out she had built the biggest costume company in Nashville and sold it this spring for four million four hundred thousand dollars, I wanted the whole room to know.”
Courtney lost her color. “Wanda Jean, I did not realize,” she began. “No, dear, you did not ask,” I said, as gently as I could. “You handed me a coat check ticket and a tray of mints and told me I was used to that kind of work. I stood at that table for three hours in my good shoes, and I took every coat with a smile, because I wanted to see who you were when you thought I had nothing.” The string quartet had stopped playing. Somewhere a crystal glass chimed against a plate, and the whole ballroom was suddenly listening to a seventy five year old woman who had never raised her voice in public.
Then I turned to my grandson. “Tanner, where is the guitar of your grandfather?” He went gray. “Grandma, I can explain.” “The 1958 Martin D twenty eight that Floyd played every night of our marriage,” I said. “The dealer on Broadway paid you twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars. He told me so himself on Friday.” Mr. Whitfield turned slowly to his daughter. “Courtney, what is this about a guitar?” Courtney opened her mouth, and then she closed it. In the long silence, Kitty Lane quietly slipped off her bracelet and laid it on the table, as if she were making room for the truth.
A 1958 Martin guitar sold behind her back gave one grandson the weekend to bring his grandmother back to the stage in Nashville.
I stayed calm, because Floyd always said that a steady voice carries farther than a loud one. “Here are my terms. Tanner, by Friday you will buy that guitar back from the dealer, and you will pay for it from your own pocket, whatever it takes. If you cannot, I will pay the dealer myself and you will repay me every month. You will apologize to your father and to every person in this room who heard the toast. And Courtney, you will never again ask a woman to stand behind a coat rack in order to feel taller.” Courtney nodded quickly. Her father sat down and said nothing.
On Saturday I walked into the music shop on Broadway, and a surprise was waiting. Kitty Lane had called ahead. The dealer, a quiet gentleman named Mr. Ledbetter, had the guitar out of the case and laid across the counter, still in tune. Behind him stood six session players, men I had dressed in rhinestones when they were skinny boys with big dreams. “Miss Wanda Jean,” one of them said, “we heard the Martin was coming home.” They did not charge a single dollar for the strings. They only asked whether they could play a verse of an old song for him, and I said they could.
The money consequences came without delay. Tanner had to borrow against his truck to buy the guitar back, and the dealer would not move on the price. The father of Courtney, the owner of the bank, quietly took the matter into his own hands and reduced the allowance that Tanner and his mother had both grown used to. The charity that had hired Courtney for the gala heard what happened and gave her a polite and permanent vacation. For a long season, she could not walk into a restaurant without feeling every face turn. It was a hard lesson, but nobody can say it was an unfair one.
I decided to turn the sorrow into something sweet. With part of the sale money, I started a fund in the name of Floyd, because he never had a chance to see the world he helped to build. The Floyd Lowe Fund buys guitars, fiddles and mandolins for young players in Davidson County who have talent and nothing else. Twelve instruments went out in the first month. A boy from Antioch, fourteen years old, opened the case and stared at the strings for a long time. Then he whispered, “Madam, is it really mine?” I told him it was, and that he should play it loud.
Courtney came to my house alone on a rainy Tuesday, carrying a plain bouquet from the grocery store. She stood on the porch without her pearls and without her smile, and she said, “Wanda Jean, I have been ashamed every single day.” I invited her in and made a pot of tea. We sat in the kitchen under a wall of old costume sketches, and I showed her how a hem is turned and how a sleeve is set, and she asked about every design on the wall. By evening, she was holding a needle for the first time in her life. I thought, there is hope for this girl.
Tanner took longer. He worked the loading dock at my old company for three months, and he never missed a shift. The new owners had kept the shop on Music Row, and the seamstresses taught him to fold and ship the sequined jackets, and he learned each of their names. One afternoon he found me in the back room and said, “Grandma, the sound of that sewing machine is the best sound in Nashville.” I smiled. I told him that Floyd used to say the same, and that a person who respects the work will always be rich.
Last month, in the little house in Berry Hill, we held a gathering for the birthday of Floyd. Kitty Lane sang an old song, and the six session players backed her on the porch, and Tanner handed me the guitar with both hands. I laid my palm against the warm spruce top and felt the whole long marriage come humming back. Courtney stood by the door in a plain dress she had made herself, a little crooked at the hem, and I told her it was perfect. Then Kitty began the second verse, and every voice in the yard joined her, and I swear I heard Floyd singing the harmony.