Velva Jean Learns to Fly by Jennifer Niven Read Free Book Online

serious, but I didn’t know her well enough to know what her tone meant. She said, “What else can you do?”
    I said, “Well . . . Cook a little. Clean a little. I got real good at serving Harley his meals.” This was meant funny, but she sat up straighter when I said it.
    “You could work in a restaurant maybe. You could try Woolworth’s, Marchetti’s, the T & K Sandwich Shop, Krystal, the Tulane Hotel. Hey, maybe you could work in an office—be a file clerk or secretary. Answer phones. A doctor’s office maybe, or insurance. You know, just until you get your recording money. I’ll draw you a downtown map, or you can just go right out and start looking, but either way I have to get to work.” She reached for her red purse and then handed me a key. “It’s the big city, so we lock our doors. Take mine till we get you one of your own. I get off work at four thirty, so be back by quarter to five to let me in. We’ll do dinner somewhere fun. My treat.”
    I took the key. “Thanks, Gossie.”
    She said, “Don’t mention it.” She winked and walked past me to the door. Then she turned and must have seen how everything was crowding in on me all at once—the newness of her, of the place, having to find myself a job, being so far from home, realizing that I wasn’t the only person in this town with a voice and a dream. She said, “Knock ’em dead, Velva Jean. I think compared to all you’ve gone through, getting a record contract might be the easiest thing you’ve done all year.”
    After she left I sat there for a few minutes, wondering if I had it in me, after such a long trip, after everything, to get up and get myself dressed and go out there on the streets of Nashville and find Darlon C. Reynolds and maybe get myself a job. Just thinking of it all made me tired. I wanted to lie back down and sleep.
    Somewhere, far off, I could hear my mama: “Live out there. That’s where you belong, Velva Jean.” I could see her face fading into the pillow, feel her hand in mine. And then, because I didn’t travel all those miles just to sit inside an apartment and think of all the things I dreamed of doing, I decided to get dressed.
    I walked into my room—my own room. I’d never had a room of my own before, not with Harley, not at Mama’s house, not when I was a little bitty girl. I’d always shared with someone—Sweet Fern or Johnny Clay or Sweet Fern’s babies or my husband. I opened my suitcase and pulled out the suit with the bolero jacket—the one Harley had bought me years ago. It was wrinkled from the trip, so I laid it on the bed and smoothed out the skirt, and then I set my brush and comb next to it, and then my Magnet Red lipstick, Mama’s little Bakelite hair combs, and her wedding ring. I slipped the ring on my finger for luck. Then I turned myself around in front of the framed picture of the Opry. The sun was hitting it just so, lighting up the microphone. And then I pulled off Gossie’s nightgown and got myself ready.
     
    I took out the little white card Darlon C. Reynolds had given me and walked to the Warner Building on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Church Street. I only had to stop twice to ask for directions. According to his card, Darlon C. Reynolds had an office on the sixth floor. I stood in the elevator and went up, the elevator stopping at each floor to let someone off. I’d never been in an elevator before, and I thought it was the most wonderful thing. I stood right in the center of it and felt myself whoosh up, up, up. It was almost like flying.
    On the sixth floor, the elevator man pulled open the door.
    “Thank you, sir,” I said.
    “Happy good day, miss,” he said.
    Happy good day . I liked the sound of that.
    I walked off the elevator and passed one office after another until I came to one that said “Cyclone Records.” I pushed the door and went in.
    There were chairs along two of the walls and photos hung up above of Roy Acuff and the Possum Hunters and some other