Page 41 of What Would Dolly Do?

Given the floor, Stella did a rather passable, and quite honestly hilarious rendition of ‘Adelaide’s Lament’ from a show I’d always loved, Guys and Dolls .

Yes it was funny, but it packed a punch too.

Stella’s sharp delivery really got across how Miss Adelaide’s coughs and sneezes are due to the emotional distress caused by her gambler boyfriend’s repeated refusals to marry her.

That’s the thing about a great song – whether it’s country or a showtune.

The great ones? They really say something.

I sat transfixed as through the medium of musical theatre Stella was making the salient point that psychosomatic medical symptoms could be connected to your love life.

She was too clever for her own good, that girl.

With her twangy, nasal ‘Noo Yawk’ delivery, Stella’s performance was as entertaining as it was unexpected. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. ‘You’re … good! Really good.’ I clapped long and loud while Stella bowed and blew kisses.

‘Twelve years of amateur dramatics and a degree in musical theatre at a top drama school wasn’t completely wasted then.’

I stopped applauding. ‘What?’

It turned out Stella had always harboured huge ambitions to be an actress but after slogging it around the audition circuit in London for several lean years she had finally thrown in the towel when the bit parts didn’t lead to a big enough break. The revelation explained an awful lot.

‘They say it’s the hope that kills you,’ she said.

‘I think that means if you keep putting yourself up for something, keep tossing your hat in the ring then you are just inviting disappointment and rejection. So I came back to Edinburgh, stopped setting myself up for failure, got a regular job and tried to put all ambitions to be an actress behind me. But do you know what I think now?’ Stella sank into a chair and put her chin on her hand and she looked at me with her big, kohl-rimmed eyes.

‘I think it’s the hope that makes you feel alive.

What’s the point in living if you don’t take a few risks?

Once you take the hope away, what have you got left? ’

What indeed? I looked at Stella sitting there and saw a very different woman to the one I thought I knew. I understood exactly what she was trying to tell me.

‘I’m gonna give that guy from the record company a call. I’ve come too far to give up on myself now. Reba Moon is here to stay.’

‘Good girl! And what about Tom?’

I shook my head. Negotiating a deal with Tom Coltrane was not going to be so easy but Stella wasn’t prepared to give up on our romance just yet.

‘You said he asked you to go back to Nashville with him?’

I tried to explain how Tom’s invitation had felt like an insincere afterthought in the middle of our row.

He had clearly been annoyed with me and off the back of accusing me of still being involved with my ex, selling my story to an undercover reporter and embarrassing him with the press he’d suddenly announced I should go with him to Nashville.

In that moment it had sounded ridiculous.

‘But he still asked you to go. Why would he do that if he didn’t mean it? What if you had said yes?’

Well, that was a good point. What would have happened if I’d said yes? There was no way of knowing the answer to that as I had given a very clear, very firm ‘No!’

Stella was confusing me more and more now.

I was already hazy on the details of what Tom and I had said to each other while we traded insults and argued.

What I did remember clearly was standing there in a second-hand Dolly Parton costume and being made to feel like a second-rate singer and a second-rate date compared to the incredible Juliana Ripon.

Stella suddenly slapped her own forehead; ‘Oh that reminds me, I meant to say, your mate Dorrie has been in a few times asking after you.’

‘Dorrie? What did she want? What did you tell her?’

Stella looked slightly stunned as I bit her head off. ‘She wanted to know if you were okay. I said you were off sick. She seems like a real sweetheart and her show is amazing … have you seen it?’

‘Huh? You’ve been to see her show? Dumb Blonde? It’s a genuine play? She really is an actress, not an undercover reporter?’

Stella looked at me like I was Daffy, Donald and all the other Looney Tunes characters rolled into one.

‘Well unless she’s the most gifted actress the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has ever seen, spent months writing and crafting a musical play, printed leaflets and posters so she could spend an entire month performing in a sought-after venue with the sole purpose of using all of that as a cover story just so she could pick up a bit of tittle tattle on you and Tom Coltrane, then I think it’s probably safe to assume that yes, Dorrie is exactly who she says she is and not a gutter press journo trying to pick up a sordid little scoop! ’

When she put it like that it was bloody obvious: of course Dorrie hadn’t been sent to lure me into a honeytrap!

Stella was looking at me as though she was trying to figure something out.

‘I know, I know … I’m an idiot.’

Stella shook her head. ‘You’re not an idiot but you do have the tendency to do a good impression of an idiot sometimes.’

‘Gee thanks!’

‘What I’m trying to say, Reba, is you need to trust your instincts more. It seems to me they are very rarely wrong.’

Now she had my attention: Stella didn’t hand out compliments like sweeties but I wasn’t sure what she was basing that assessment on? Patiently she began to explain.

‘When you worked at the jewellers didn’t you tell me the old guy said you had a real knack for spotting fakes?’

That was true, Gordon had told me my skill in spotting a true diamond was a gift I had. Maybe it was the years spent sewing rhinestones onto country costumes but to me the real jewels always stood out a mile.

Stella had more to say about how Tom’s experience of fame over the years could well have given him an understandable level of paranoia. ‘But don’t let his suspicions cloud your judgement. Not everyone is out to get you and I think you know the real diamonds among the fakes when you meet them.’

Was Stella right? It felt like she was on to something: why did I not trust my own instincts?

I’d known Guy Grayson was rotten from the moment I met him.

I’d liked Dorrie at once and my faith in her had proved to be correct.

I’d instantly bonded with Laura and Fergus too and I was sure they were good people.

They were all real gems, I was sure. But what about Tom Coltrane?

Was he a diamond? Or just a rhinestone I’d been dazzled by?

Our conversation was interrupted by the noise of my vibrating phone juddering on the bar. I pretended to ignore it.

‘Aren’t you gonna see who it is?’

When I hesitated before picking it up, Stella asked, ‘Could it be Tom?’

‘Highly unlikely,’ I told her. ‘I’ve blocked his number.’

‘What? Why?’

I found it a hard thing to defend. I barely remembered doing it but in my feverish sickness when the pain in my head was pounding so badly I think I just wasn’t thinking straight.

Tom had called several times but I cancelled the call rather than answer him.

Maybe it was cowardice. Maybe it was self-preservation but I’d eventually hit the block button and hoped it would stop things hurting so much. If only life was that simple.

Stella was closer to my phone than I was and as I dithered she glanced at the screen, I saw the expression on her face change. ‘I don’t think Tom’s given up on you yet, Reba.’

‘What? What d’you mean?’

Stella held up the phone towards me so I could see who was calling.

It was Laura, Tom’s little sister.