Page 39 of What Would Dolly Do?

I let myself into the flat as quietly as possible and was attempting to make my way unseen to the sanctuary of my bedroom with a blonde Dolly wig in one hand and the borrowed pair of fluffy mules in the other when I got caught in the act by my mother.

‘There you are!’ My mother’s powers of observation couldn’t be questioned but I found it a little strange she didn’t seem to see anything unusual in me creeping across the hallway in a far-too-tight hot pink ensemble.

I suppose that’s what years flirting around the edges of showbusiness had done to her.

‘I was about to send out a search party, why are you not answering your phone?’

With the trip to see Gordon and Morag, my unexpected encounter with Dorrie and then the press siege at the club I hadn’t realised my phone had run out of battery.

Again. I started to say that but Mum wasn’t interested in explanations and cut me off, snapping, ‘Never mind about all that, he’s been here for the last hour …

waiting for you!’ The last part was hissed at me with lots of eye-rolling and jerky head movements in the direction of the closed living room door.

‘What? Who’s here?’ I was picking up now on her agitated state and could see she looked flustered but also rather delighted.

That was weird. Oh no … Tom? It had to be.

Mum actually looked quite star-struck. What the hell was Tom Coltrane doing in my home, hanging out with my parents?

When I’d left him at the hotel this morning after breakfast we hadn’t made any plans for him to come to the flat.

‘Tom’s here?’ I hissed back, trying to stop my mum from opening the door to the living room and announcing my presence. Too late, damn it.

For the second time in the relatively short period we had known each other, country music superstar Tom Coltrane was confronted by the sight of me, half-dressed as Dolly Parton with no reasonable explanation on offer.

He looked bemused and bamboozled as I entered the room, but then I clocked my dad sitting with a guitar on his knee and I figured maybe Tom’s befuddlement might also have something to do with the fact my parents had been ‘entertaining’ him with some of their Moonshine Trio favourites while they had him trapped three floors up. Oh good grief, no.

‘Hey, you okay?’ I asked trying to signal both sympathy and a meaningful apology with my face but Tom’s expression was not one I was able to read.

His eyes went from my bare toes, up my legs clad in pink satin and rested on my chest where the diamanté buttons of my jacket were straining to contain my bust. Tom’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight; he knew my own breasts were not capable of such a feat on their own.

I was prompted to reach inside the ill-fitting jacket and remove two scrunched up bar towels I’d shoved inside earlier in my desperate attempt to recreate a suitably ‘Dolly’ embonpoint.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked slowly in a voice that sounded like he thought I might well be nuttier than a squirrel eating a walnut whip.

‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ I joked feebly as I dropped the bar towels on the floor while recalling our first encounter in the back office of Sonny’s Bar. That funny episode, which had brought us together, seemed a million years ago right now.

Mum and Dad, with a sensitivity that caught me almost as much by surprise as everything else that had happened so far that day, pretended to remember they suddenly had to go out.

‘We’ll give you two some space,’ Mum said in a quivering voice while lingering by the doorway unable to take her eyes off Tom until Dad almost frogmarched her out.

I’d been desperate to see Tom myself but now he was right there in front of me it wasn’t the way I had imagined it at all.

I’d wanted him to put his arms around me and shut everything else out so I could feel the realness of him, of us, but once we were alone he didn’t make a move towards me.

An unfamiliar awkwardness between us wasn’t helped by how ridiculous I felt standing there in a borrowed Dolly Parton costume and when I tried to explain the reason for it Tom sighed with obvious irritation at the mention of the press pack waiting for me outside Sonny’s.

‘I managed to fool them though and get away, thanks to Dorrie. I dunno what would have happened if it hadn’t been for her.’ I was waiting for Tom to see the funny side of this situation but he was obviously having a complete sense of humour failure.

‘Alternatively, the press now have pictures of y’all dressed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, which are most likely circulating on the internet even as we speak, with captions poking fun at the both of us!

’ I’d never heard Tom use such an exasperated tone with me before and he wasn’t finished.

‘Did ya even consider the whole thing might have been a complete set-up? This Dorrie person was just a honey trap, sent to get y’all talking and land a scoop.

I can just imagine the fun they’ll have on the subs desk coming up with a caption to go with …

’ He let the sentence tail off as he waved his hand in my direction but the word that was left hanging in the air was ‘ that’ , which was not very flattering.

Tom was being rude and I didn’t like it.

It also rattled me to think there might be the slightest chance there was some truth in what he was saying.

I’d told Dorrie everything, not just confirming the rumours that I was seeing the famous singer Tom Coltrane but revealing my true feelings about him; feelings I’d not even confessed to Tom himself.

I was regretting how much I had shared with her now; she knew everything about me, my brush with the law and Guy Grayson’s weird vendetta against me plus my fall out with Robbie.

If she wanted to, Dorrie could write a book about me, not just an article.

I wanted to defend myself and defend Dorrie too but I wasn’t sure how to begin.

I thought if I could just go and quickly change my clothes I might be able to think more clearly and explain things better but Tom wasn’t interested in giving me a chance to do that.

‘Did ya say anything to her about me?’ he asked somewhat aggressively and the look on my face must have given me away as Tom then launched into a big lecture about dealing with the press and how I obviously didn’t have a clue.

‘It’s best to keep your mouth shut, especially when ya don’t know who to trust.’

Trust. The word resonated with me on many levels.

He seemed to be insinuating that he didn’t think he could trust me.

That was hurtful. Maybe I had made some mistakes but I would never do anything deliberately to cause trouble.

Surely he knew that? I wasn’t sure I was now able to trust him to do that, to think the best of me.

How well did we know each other really? Well enough to trust the other, no matter what? It wasn’t looking good.

‘Why are you here, Tom?’ As upset as I was at Tom’s rudeness it dawned on me that there must be a reason he’d come looking for me at my flat.

He suddenly looked more shifty than annoyed and began a long and convoluted story that mentioned his American manager Waz Monsoon, a great deal, and ended with him saying he had to go back to Nashville ‘immediately’.

There was something he wasn’t telling me. I presumed it had something to do with Juliana but he didn’t like it when I brought her name up again, asking, ‘Have you spoken to her?’

He didn’t answer me one way or the other, just shook his head in an exasperated way.

‘So you’re going back to Nashville to see her?’ I thought it was a pretty reasonable assumption to make but at this Tom exploded.

He started yelling about his career, how he had work to do and commitments to honour and not everything revolved around me or Juliana or any other woman and I needed to realise that.

He even asked if things were truly over between me and Robbie?

Was he serious? As he ricocheted between defensiveness and accusations I was left reeling.

‘For God’s sake, Reba, this whole mess could wreck everything, just as I was getting back on track with my music.’

He looked like a wounded animal and I felt for him, truly I did.

I was witnessing the downside of fame right in front of my eyes, the pressure to keep succeeding, the intrusion into your private life.

Just two hours earlier I had admitted to myself for the very first time that I had fallen in love with this guy.

Unfortunately, I’d also admitted that fact to a complete stranger and now the repercussions might be about to make the situation even worse.

But what about me? I didn’t appreciate being referred to as part of a ‘mess’.

Charming. The longing I’d had to put my arms around Tom was being replaced with a desire to punch him on the chin.

I saw red. I was no longer in the mood to tend to Tom’s fears or worry about the emotional state of a Hollywood actress I was never likely to meet.

It was clear if I didn’t look out for myself no one else was going to.

‘So did you just come to say goodbye and give me a lecture on public relations or was there anything else?’

That took the wind out of his sails and he opened his mouth as if to say something but then shut it again.

‘No? Well, I have to say, Tom, this has been fun but if you’ve got a plane to catch don’t let me stop you.

’ I don’t remember exactly what happened next but Tom made some lame remark about coming over to ask me to go with him to Nashville.

It was laughable really, he was clearly trying to backtrack and make himself look like the good guy despite all recent evidence to the contrary.

I think I did laugh when he said it which seemed to annoy him.

‘You want me to come to Nashville with you? What? Now? … Well I suppose I am dressed for it!’ I scoffed as I gestured to the tasselled country outfit I was still wearing and tried to cover up my breaking heart with a comedic retort.

Tom wasn’t laughing though and accused me of lacking ambition and not being serious about my singing career.

What the …?! Eventually he even used Dolly against me.

‘What are ya going to do once I’ve gone, Reba? Go back to being a two-bit copycat Dolly Parton, parroting another woman’s songs instead of bothering to find your own voice?’

I couldn’t bear to listen to any more. If he was leaving on a jet plane why didn’t he just get on with it?

Why had he felt the need to come around, hurl accusations, ask stupid questions and make me realise he thought I was an untrustworthy, untalented liability.

I presumed it was making him feel better about being a two-timing, self-entitled, washed-up loser.

I can’t remember quite how I put it, but I yelled something that alluded to all of that and the upshot was that in my very first …

and last … row with Tom Coltrane I got the last word.

His only response was the slam of the door as he stormed out .