George Stevens, the producer, sent someone to ask if I wanted a redo when the show was over. My parents said yes for me. In the dressing room, it was like someone had died. I kept staring at a printout of the lyrics, and they all blurred together.
The show over, there was a knock on the door. I assumed it was my cue, and stood up, ready to walk the plank.
It was Dolly. She was wearing a white gown that sparkled, her blonde hair falling around the rainbow medal on her chest. She looked like an angel.
“Now, I hear you’re gonna sing that song again,” she said. “Before you do, I want you to know I wrote that damn song and I don’t even remember the words.”
It was a lifeline, her kindness and grace, in that moment. There are people whose cups run over—and yes, I worry I am risking a boob joke here when both Dolly and I are in the frame—but whose cups run over with love and grace. She is one of them. That she took the time to make me feel better on her special night will always mean the world to me.
I went back out to the stage, and the band was set. The audience had gone home, and it would just be us in the empty opera house. A producer told me they would dub in the applause later. I went out to the mic stand, and I looked out at the theater. With no audience, you could appreciate its beauty, like the red velvet lining of a jewel box. But there was no feeling. No warmth.
I had to sing to no one. Alone. I tried, but it was too sad. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”
I looked at the band, whose time I had wasted, and I wanted to disappear. I walked off the stage and looked back at the empty seats, and then into my dad’s eyes. “I will never sing again,” I said.
There was an afterparty, and I didn’t want to go. I didn’t think I deserved to. My parents made me. “This is disrespectful,” my mom said. “You have to go.”
I recently asked my mom why she was so intent on making me go to the party. “That was the thing that I had to do a lot that I hated,” she said. “Making you do stuff. But it’s business.”
I’m glad I went. I avoided everyone, but I wanted to thank Dolly again. Reese stood by her, when she saw me, she said in a full southern drawl, “Oh, honey.”
Dolly asked how it went, and I shook my head.
“Don’t you even worry,” she said. She probably knew I’d pull a Cinderella and flee the ball right quick. She gave me her number. “If you need anything,” she said. “Anything. You call me.”
A photographer wanted a picture, and Dolly called a bunch of the girls together. She put her arm around me, and Shania put her hand on my shoulder as Reba hugged me from behind. Reese and Allison bookended all of us.
“Smile!” Dolly said. And I did. Because you do what Dolly Parton tells you to, even if it’s hard.
That picture ran in a lot of places and for a long time I hated it. I hated that girl trying to smile in the center of these incredibly talented people. But now that I have learned to forgive myself, I see the bigger picture. I see four women and one fairy godmother supporting me solely because they knew I needed it. To Reba, Shania, Allison, Reese, and especially you, Dolly: Thank you.
I TOLD MY THERAPIST THIS STORY A FEW MONTHS BACK, ABOUT JOHN breaking up with me right before I went onstage.
“That’s not love,” she said. “You know that, right? I mean, he never loved you.”
She said it so casually, like this was something I should have figured out a long time ago. I felt a dagger, right in my heart again. I was still protective of him.
“What do you mean, he never loved me?”
“He was obsessed with you,” she said. “Love and obsession are so different. One is healthy, one is not.”
I didn’t know the difference then. Thank God I do now.
It wasn’t long before he was back in my life. I flew out to New York City to be with him for a New Year’s Eve party. We were in a good place, at least for us, and John seemed to welcome the press attention this time. Our rule was that we would never acknowledge in interviews that we were dating. We’d hide in plain sight.
He asked if I wanted to join him when his winter concert tour kicked off in Florida later in January and I dropped everything. From then on, I abandoned my life to be the girlfriend on the tour bus. It reminded me of when I was touring with 98 Degrees, and sometimes that felt right, and other times it brought back memories that made me uncomfortable. You create a family on the road, and there’s a feeling of intimacy as you arrive at a new city at four in the morning. Though this time around our bed was at a Four Seasons. John was a superstar in music, respected by veteran performers as much as he was loved by his fans. People just loved to watch him play, and he brought an improvisational spark to all those years of preparation, playing guitar until his fingers bled.
I remember sitting alone at a soundcheck at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, my feet up on the seats as he played guitar onstage. I’d worshipped Nick in concert halls, but Nick wasn’t always happy when it was me on the stage. How would John react to me performing again? I was so intimidated by John professionally. John was this guitar god, truly one of the greatest in history. He would look at me during certain songs, always reworking the playlist depending on his mood. If I was in the crowd up front, security would take me back to his dressing room during the last song of the encore so I could be there waiting for John. I’d think of Almost Famous and sing “Tiny Dancer” to myself, the L.A. lady in love with a music man. The groupie with her own platinum album and the clothing business raking in hundreds of millions.
I would periodically take breaks to go back to do work in L.A. The paparazzi started taking pictures of John even when I wasn’t around. In the beginning, he made a joke of it, putting an arm up to where my shoulders would be. Embracing my ghost as he walked. That’s what they wanted, right? Me. He already had fame, but I was a paparazzi target. And he welcomed becoming collateral damage.
In early February, Ken and I dyed my hair brown. I did it because I was trying to be someone new. I was going through a more “artistic” phase, carrying around my Leica camera and becoming really passionate about photography. I was obsessed, spending at least thirty minutes on each picture, color-correcting and making certain aspects pop. When I mentioned my hobby in magazine interviews, it became a cue for the writer to sneer at me to the reader.
But John encouraged it. First, he bought me vintage books on photography and technical manuals, then he decided to get his own Leica and he became better at it than me. Aw, damn, I thought, that was my thing.
With my camera in hand, I realized the tour was an amazing opportunity for the Collection. I would be in the middle of the crowd, taking note of what everyone was wearing. I photographed what women looked and felt good in before it got filtered through some fashion magazine. I wanted to know what jeans women really wore on a date, and how high a crop top people really wanted. John loved clothes, so when we went shopping together, I would pull luxury items, like something from some Japanese designer he was suddenly crazy about and think how I could make that spirit translate to something more accessible to our buyers. I sent tons of photos back home to the Collection, and on a tour bus, I had nothing but time to create mood boards and tear inspiration from magazines. I still wasn’t ready to go back to music. My acting career wasn’t satisfying me either. I knew Blonde Ambition could have been a lot better and wasn’t surprised when it later bombed.