Rio and Polly

Chapter 12: Perfect And Gorgeous

***TW for body-shaming language***

About two weeks after Rio held his press conference, I opened my door to go to work, happy to see there weren't any reporters on the sidewalk outside my apartment building. They'd been dwindling over the past few days, and it was a huge relief to me. Fortunately, they discovered just how boring I was: I went to work, came home from work and occasionally went to the grocery store. I was never drunk or half-dressed or seen with another man, so me carrying sacks of groceries was about as scandalous as they were going to get with me.

But this morning, there was another guitar waiting for me, the fourth one he'd handed off to me now.

The second one had been his mother's gift to him for Christmas one year, about a year after he'd bought himself his first guitar. His mother had seen the beat-up used guitar he'd worked hard to buy himself and determined to do better for her son. She'd saved all year, and it was his only present that Christmas, but it was new and better quality than his first one.

You know what this guitar means to me, his note had said. You know how much I loved my mama and this is one of the few things I have left that she gave to me. But you mean more to me, Polly. Someday, I'd hoped we could hand this down to one of our children, but it's yours to do with what you will -- just as I am because my heart is in your keeping. Do with me what you will, darlin'. I'll wait forever.

I'd taken that one inside and placed it carefully in the corner beside the first guitar.

A couple of days later, the third one had been in front of my door. He must have had people keeping reporters away from my door, and someone else delivering the guitars because for the first few days after the press conference, the streets and sidewalks outside my apartment had been overrun with paparazzi.

The third one had been given to him by the first and only music teacher he'd ever had in high school. He'd worked with Rio after school, both of them jamming on the guitars provided by the teacher. The principal, also musically inclined, had often accompanied them on the piano. When the school year had come to an end, the teacher had given Rio the guitar he'd used and told Rio he had a gift and expected to see him on TV someday. That teacher was the first one outside of his mama to believe in Rio.

Another note was tucked under the strings on the neck: Sometimes you don't appreciate the gift you've been given. This guitar was one of the most meaningful gifts I've ever received because even more than the guitar, someone had recognized that I had a talent and had believed in me. That was the minute my dream of the foundation began. I wanted to find children who had untapped talent and give them the tools to develop it. Someday, when we opened our first school, I wanted to display this guitar with the story behind it and the power of one person's belief in another. You know there's a lot of emotion wrapped up in this guitar, but it's nothing compared to the emotions and love I have wrapped up in you. Not taking care of the gift of you, Polly, is something that I regret to my soul. I hate that I hurt you the way I did, and I will never take you and the gift that you are for granted again.

This fourth guitar was one of the fanciest-looking guitars Rio owned, bought when he started to make some money playing in local venues. This was the guitar that Rio had played the first time he sang one of his songs on TV, on the Greyson Whitlock Late Show. Greyson's PA had called Rio and said Greyson liked the rough, unpolished quality Rio had that most country music stars were lacking and had invited him to play on his late-night talk show. The guitar was beautiful, with intricate wood inlays and the sound was exquisite. I'd accompanied him on his trip to LA for the show -- the first time we'd both ever flown on a plane -- and I remembered my heart was near to bursting as I watched from the studio audience as Rio played This Is All For You, a song about how he created the music and the lyrics just for me. The YouTube video of that performance had gone viral, and suddenly Rio's name and face were being recognized more and more often. People began asking for his autograph, and I heard This Is All For You on the radio all the time.