“I don’t know why, though,” I said.
CaCee looked at me a long time. “You’re just a beat-up little bird, aren’t you?”
I nodded, and we drove back to our home away from home. That night I was still flying from my time with Dolly. I didn’t know what awaited me in Nashville. The tabloids were already sneering about me going country like it was a gimmick, but so far everyone I’d met in town had been kind to the new kid.
The new kid. I had been that so many times when my family moved around, and that’s why I always sat with the lonely kids at lunch. I knew what it was like. CaCee was right: Dolly and Willie were so kind because they didn’t need anything material from anybody. They had it to give, and they’d sit with me.
I WAS IN NASHVILLE AT A TIME THAT IT FELT LIKE IF I RAISED MY HEAD TO DO anything in the public eye, someone had a peashooter pointed at me. I had started dating a nice, normal guy, Tony Romo, the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, around Thanksgiving, and even that was something for people to pick apart.
Tony had seen my dad out a lot for about a year and had asked to be introduced. I always told my dad no, that I wasn’t interested in athletes. “I’m a musician girl,” I said. I believed that I could only date people who could relate to me because they were in the business. Which I guess was my code for, “I like emotional torture and fixing dark people.” But I was watching ESPN one day at my parents’ house, vegging on the couch, and they did a little interview with Tony. They asked him something like, “Who’s your dream girl?”
He answered, without a beat, “Jessica Simpson.”
My dad laughed. “Told ya,” he said.
I thought about it for a minute. I liked his smile, and he seemed nice. What if I went off script and took a break from the dark and twisted?
“Dad, call him,” I said. “Tell him I’ll see him.”
We met in secret and hit it off. A few days later, our families both watched him win a Thanksgiving Day home game, then all had dinner together at our hotel restaurant. He sat next to me, and near the end of dinner, he started giving me puppy dog eyes, kind of leaning in like he was willing his lips to mine.
“Are you seriously trying to have our first kiss in front of all these people?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
Is this what real dating was? You simply went for it? “Well, try it,” I said, to him and to me.
We had a very chaste kiss and it felt right. We went public quickly, which was also new for me. It was easy. He had no interest in drama. He said the Lord’s Prayer every night before bed. A solid person who was the kind of guy that, as a kid, I imagined marrying.
Because we were so public from the beginning, I was very proud when he invited me to the December 16 home game against the Philadelphia Eagles. It was a Sunday, and close to a hundred thousand of football’s true believers all filed into the sacred church of Texas Stadium for the 4:15 game. The biggest thrill for me was that I got to bring my grandparents to sit with me. Nana and Papaw kept looking around, amazed at it all.
The Cowboys had a 12-2 record but had just had a lousy game the week prior. This was a chance for redemption. I proudly wore a pink version of Tony’s jersey with his number nine on the front, and there I was, cheering on my guy. Annnd he proceeded to play the worst game of his career. It was bad from the start, and when the camera showed me huge up there on the screen, people found the reason. Why was this guy, who just signed a six-year, 67.5-million-dollar deal, playing so poorly? It must be the blonde in the bleachers.
“Send Jessica home!” the chant began. “Send Jessica home!” I couldn’t quite make it out at first, because it didn’t occur to me that anybody would be giving me a role in how the Cowboys were playing. If I didn’t hit a note at a concert, the audience wouldn’t start screaming at Tony to get the heck out of the arena. My Nana and Papaw understood what was happening, some protective instinct kicking in as their beloved Cowboys booed their granddaughter.
“Don’t you listen to them,” Nana said. I became mortified that this was happening in front of them.
Can I just tell you how much I knew about football? What it’s like to be a coach’s granddaughter growing up in Texas? When there were four minutes and nineteen seconds left in the game, Eagles running back Brian Westbrook got the ball and gained twenty-four yards before suddenly taking a knee just inside the one-yard line; everyone around me thought he was hurt. Did I? Nope, I knew what he was up to. Dallas had no more time-outs. If he actually scored the touchdown, we might get the ball back, and if we got the ball back, we might at least go out fighting. No, he wanted us to suffer. He took a knee three more times, letting the clock bleed out. It was insult added to injury, a humiliating 10–6 loss.
And, somehow, it was my fault.
“Jinx” was the word everyone used. The media was cruel, and even Tony’s teammate Terrell Owens talked about me to the press. “Right now, Jessica Simpson is not a fan favorite,” he said, “in this locker room or in Texas Stadium.” He also helpfully added that the last time Tony played close to this bad was the year before, when he had dated Carrie Underwood. T.O. later apologized and I held no grudge, but people had a new villain. They printed huge photos of me and made giant popsicle sticks of my head to taunt Tony with at every single game. People dressed like me and acted stupid in the crowd. I didn’t want that kind of power. I found myself having to assure people that I wanted the Cowboys to win.
Perhaps sensing I was vulnerable, John inserted himself into the national conversation about me, because why not? He posted an open letter to Cowboy fans on his blog, telling them “That girl loves Texas more than you know. It’s one of her most defining traits as a person. So please don’t try and take that away from her.” When Lauren, my publicist, called to tell me what he did, I threw the phone on the couch like it was the boogeyman.
I figured Tony would get sick of people calling me a jinx and tell them to knock it off. He was constantly interviewed on the sidelines or at postgame press conferences. He could just look the camera in the eye and tell people that he was responsible for his performance, and to leave his girlfriend alone.
I waited.
UNWELCOME AT MY BOYFRIEND’S GAMES, I WAS FREE TO FOCUS ON MY work in Nashville and see him when we both were off. It was what I needed. I got to work with the best people, including my producers Brett James, who wrote Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” and John Shanks, who’d worked with Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Kelly Clarkson, and a cool girl named Ashlee Simpson. At my writing sessions, I would bring my notes from journals and even old emails from snuffed-out flames. Like Dolly had, musicians and songwriters in Nashville accepted me, making me feel like I belonged. I loved hearing about their journeys, how they would just write a song and then bring it to the famous Bluebird Cafe to test it out for an audience.
Artistically, that winter was a magical time for me, but it was extremely taxing emotionally. It helped that I was in a good relationship with Tony, despite the apparent football jinx, which allowed me to write happy songs like “Come on Over” and “You’re My Sunday.” But there was also a reckoning with my weaknesses and the pain I’d experienced. The daily writing sessions were like therapy, tearful and raw. Doing songwriting, I felt nekkid in front of fluorescent lights. Adrienne and CaCee would come and get me, and I’d get in the car all talked out. At the house, I wouldn’t even take off my heavy ski jacket. I marched into the kitchen, pulled down a bottle, usually Ketel One, and sat at a little desk. Night after night, I sat at my laptop, going down Google rabbit holes or Skyping with Tony. I kept the bottle next to me, drinking until I’d take the edge off all those bubbling emotions and kept going until I couldn’t even feel the smoothness of simple thought. I was just a body, needing to rest until my brain kicked in again for the next writing session.