Loretta Wakes Up
By Molly Wilcox
It wasn’t meant to be forever.
She wasn’t planning on driving off and leaving her baby girl in that house to rot alongside her daddy. Truly, you have to believe her, that wasn’t the plan.
When the meth came to town, Ruby’s father became a man who could ruin anything good with a single breath, and Loretta knew that if she didn’t run, he’d destroy her completely. And he almost did, too.
Loretta stood now in a drugstore aisle in Los Angeles, one hand resting on the rack of tabloids, the other shaking around a bottle of generic ibuprofen. She hadn’t planned on stopping. Was just picking up aspirin, maybe a sandwich and a coke from the cooler. But then there she was—Ruby. Staring back at her from the glossy front page. Red hair, the bluest eyes, headline blaring: Rising Star Ruby Davis Hospitalized Amid Rumors of Breakdown.
She didn’t breathe for a long moment.
Her first instinct was pride. Stupid, overwhelming pride. Her baby—her baby—had made it. All the way to the top. But it came tangled in that familiar knot behind her ribs: guilt so loud it nearly knocked her off her feet. Loretta gripped the edge of the shelf, heart rattling and ears ringing.
She blinked, and it was twelve years ago again. A cracked window, summer sweat, Ruby’s favorite pink backpack slung over a chair. Her little girl asleep in bed, long limbs tangled up with a stuffed animal. Loretta had stood in the doorway knowing she couldn’t stay—not another night. See, she’d been having dark thoughts. The kind that snuck up on you and put objects in your hands that shouldn’t be there, like knives and bottles of pills. She’d been on the edge of doing something so dark there was no returning.
If she’d stayed, it would’ve swallowed her whole. So you have to understand that Loretta left for Ruby. Because if she didn’t, Ruby wouldn’t have had a mother at all. Course, that’s what ended up happening anyway, didn’t it? Loretta ran to save herself, and to save Ruby.
And she paid for it every day since.
She had gone back, too. Three years after. Clean, shaky, holding a chipped cup of coffee in her hands like it might keep her grounded. She knocked on doors, asked around. But by then, Ruby was gone. Vanished. Like the earth had swallowed her whole. The whole town seemed different suddenly, like people were moving slower and had less to celebrate. Her family had slammed doors in her face one right after the other. She was the jezebel woman, the freewheeling woman, the traitor. She left them, and she had the audacity to try to come back.
Loretta had cried in her car until her body cramped from the effort. Told herself Ruby was somewhere safe. Told herself Ruby was better off. She said it so many times it started to sound like truth. She somehow believed it, though, she could feel that Ruby was out there, somewhere, alive.
Then Ruby’s album came out. She was in a grocery store in Tennessee picking up half a dozen eggs when she heard, unmistakably, Ruby’s voice. It was older then, a smidge deeper, but it was her baby’s. Loretta screamed like she’d seen a ghost, and in some ways she had, the eggs dropping to the floor and cracking at her feet. A mess of gooey orange yolks dribbled out onto the linoleum.
“Ma’am!” someone yelled behind the counter. “What in the hell is going on?”
“Who is that?” she yelped. “Who is singing this song!” She screamed to know the truth that she already knew.
A boy around the age of 20, her daughter’s age, kindly replied, “Ma’am, that’s Ruby June Davis.”
At that, Loretta buckled. Her entire body folded haphazardly to the floor, years of wondering and punishing herself and forgiving herself and punishing herself all over again exploded into the air. She wailed. She screamed. She sobbed at the joy of knowing her daughter was alive. At the shame of it all.
The man behind the counter ended up calling the police, which didn’t result in as much of the dramatics as you might expect. He was more worried about her than threatened by her—he thought she might need psychiatric help. Which, in reality, she usually did.
The cops came and asked her questions. The two men were friendly towards her, and she quickly understood that she was going to get off without harm done. She was a beautiful woman, after all, despite her aging features. And as far as she knew, beautiful women were treated politely by men in uniforms.
Loretta told them nothing of interest. They did not know that she left her daughter. That she had spent the last eight years wondering where she’d been. She just told them that she was overcome by emotions from the beauty of the song. And since she’s a woman, so often swayed by something as fickle as emotion, they nodded and asked her to please take care of herself.
From there, she drove straight to the local library where there was one computer, as clunky as can be. It was a small town, and this being the dawn of the internet and everything. The computer screen glowed in the dim light, casting a bluish haze on the plaid wallpaper.
Loretta sat stiff-backed in the chair, her hands hovering over the keyboard like she was afraid to disturb the machine.
She clicked the little blue “e” icon.
Then came the sound—the robotic screech of dial-up. A series of beeps, a hiccup, then that long, scratchy wail like a robot in pain. The modem was connecting, or trying to. Loretta held her breath, willing it to work. In the other room, kids were doing homework on long tables, presumably waiting for their parents to pick them up.
Finally, the homepage loaded. Half-formed graphics. A spinning hourglass. One bar of progress crawling like molasses at the top of the screen. She typed Ruby June Davis into the search bar, misspelled it the first time, then again. She wasn’t much of a typist. She hit Enter.
And then—nothing.
Well, not nothing. A slow drip. One pixel at a time, the search results began to populate. She leaned forward, gripping the sides of the desk like she could somehow make it go faster. Her leg bounced uncontrollably.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered.
There were no instant results. No endless scroll. Just a handful of blue links slowly crawling into view, some of them broken, some leading nowhere. One was a fan forum, another a mention in a Teen Beat article. But then, there it was: a headline in The Los Angeles Times, dated two days ago. Ruby’s name, “The Diamond Qualities of Ruby’s Debut: The Pop-Rock Album’s Shine Will Last” written by a man named Alexander Jones.
Loretta stared at the photo, frozen. It would take another full minute for the image to finish rendering. But she already knew. It was her. Her girl. Older now, thinner. But still her.
The screen flickered. A pop-up ad swallowed the window. She swatted it away like a mosquito and clicked back to the article, praying the connection wouldn’t drop.
She read the article seven times. The first time she read it so quickly she hardly retained any information. The next time she read it painfully slowly. By the seventh time, she wrote down Silverline Records. That’s where she would go.
Now, in a drug store in Los Angeles with shaking hands and Ruby’s face staring back at her. And this time, there were no excuses. No lies she could tell herself to soften the blow. Her girl had built a life without her. Had fallen apart without her. And the ache in Loretta’s chest was louder than shame.
She wanted to find her. Wrap her arms around her daughter and say, I’m sorry. I was young. I was sick. I didn’t know how to fight for both of us. But the fear gnawed at her—what if Ruby didn’t want to be found? What if she slammed the door? Screamed in her face?
She tucked the magazine under her arm and walked to the register, the ibuprofen forgotten in her hand. This was it. This was her moment. Not to be mother of the year, Lord knows, not to be forgiven—but just to show up. To make sure Ruby knew someone was still out there who never stopped looking.
Even when she had no idea where to go.
————————————————
When she first arrived in Los Angeles, Loretta couldn’t tell which way was up. Sure, she’d been to Nashville once, always looking around every corner wondering if Ruby had ended up there. She always thought that a city would suit Ruby, but never in her life would she have imagined her baby girl would’ve gone all the way to California. Loretta had never been farther west than the Mississippi River or farther east than Roanoke, Virginia. Her life was small, and venturing out often felt scarier than staying put.
Los Angeles was sprawling, with more cars and more people than she ever imagined. And the ocean— now that was something, wasn’t it? Blue, endless, and loud. Not gentle like she imagined it would be, but really wild and alive and rugged, crashing against the shore like it was angry at the land. She’d seen it in photographs and movies, sure—but nothing prepared her for the sheer vastness of it. The way it made her feel small, like the world was so much bigger than the one she’d survived.
She stood there on the pier, both hands gripping the wooden railing like it might pull her in. The wind whipped her hair around her face, and the salt clung to her skin. She blinked hard, trying to keep herself from crying. It wasn’t just the beauty of it. It was the thought that Ruby had stood here too, maybe just miles away, maybe even on this very beach. The same wind, the same sea air. It made the distance between them feel smaller.
Where was her baby? Would fate have them run into each other on the street? The idea of that felt wrong, being that she’d hoped for that moment every day for eight years.
She whispered a mumbled prayer. Not to be forgiven. Just to see her again.
From the beach, she drove to Silverline Records. Her brain seemed to be detached from her body as it led her inside the glass doors, as it asked a woman at the front desk where she could find Ruby June Davis. As she explained that she was actually not just a crazy fan looking to meet her idol, but her mother, Loretta Lou Davis. The girl looked at her questioningly, then made a call. Loretta stood before her patiently.
The girl said, “Troy Langford will see you. You’ll find his office down the hall on the right,” she pointed. Loretta nodded and put one foot in front of the other.
She pushed open the large office door as someone opened it at the same time.
“Oh!” she yelped. “Excuse me, sir, I’m sorry for barging in—”
“Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Davis!” the large man said, a greasy smile plastered on his face. “Please, please. Come in and take a seat. I’m so happy to see you. Troy Langford.”
Loretta stepped in behind him, clutching her red pleather purse like it might float away if she loosened her grip. Her eyes scanned the room—walls lined with records that gleamed under the overhead lights, a massive desk sitting like a throne in the middle, and framed photos of Troy arm-in-arm with faces she half-recognized from tabloids and TV specials. And then there was Troy himself: sharp suit, silver at his temples, posture that said he still thought of himself as the man in those photographs. He was handsome, polished, and worn just enough around the edges to remind her of herself. In his presence, she felt small.
She took a seat in a worn, leather chair in front of his desk while he positioned his arms on the desk in front of her. A framed picture of a younger version of him and what looked to be his wife stared at her.
Loretta’s attention snapped to her right, where she saw Ruby’s album hanging on the wall. She couldn’t look away.
“What brings you in today?” he asked, smiling softly.
Loretta’s head reattached to her body, giving her an immediate feeling of guilt and shame. Did this man know what she’d done? Did he know Ruby? Did he know all of her regrets without even a second glance?
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said, finally meeting his gaze.
Troy’s face lit up. “There it is—that accent! Ruby’s slips out every now and then, usually when she’s mad. It’s cute as hell. But yours? It’s downright cinematic.”
Loretta flushed, the compliment landing somewhere between flattery and insult. She could feel his eyes sizing her up like she was some folksy novelty, straight out of a small-town postcard. The nerve.
She wondered if Ruby tried to scrub the twang out of her voice—if she practiced sounding slick and polished like the man before her, the way this city seemed to demand. If maybe her daughter was trying to erase the very place she came from.
“Ruby’s got your eyes, too,” he continued. “As big and blue as a lake.”
“That’s why I’m here, really,” she pressed, confidently speaking with her accent that this man knew nothing about. “I’m looking for my Ruby.”
She couldn’t bear to speak more words than that. How would that sentence continue? Looking for my Ruby, because it’s been eight years… because I drove away and haven’t been able to find her since. Because I lost her? None of those answers would suffice.
“I see,” said Troy. His face looked truly concerned, as if he couldn’t trust the wild woman before him. She was, ultimately, an untrustworthy narrator. “Well, I have to tell you, Loretta, she’s quite the marvel, that one. But, you know, she’s fragile, too.”
Of course she was fragile. Her mama had driven away, shattered some part of her soul irreparably.
Loretta nodded. “Yes, I understand that.” She fidgeted with her purse before putting it down on the seat next to her. “You see, I owe Ruby some explanations. And I shamefully don’t know how to get a hold of her. Can you please just tell her I came by. She needs to know I’m looking for her. I’ve been looking for her.” Loretta couldn’t meet his eyes, but her voice sounded as strong and earnest as she could muster.
The last eight years saved her life and ruined it all over again. Loretta wasn’t the bright, lovely woman she once was. She’d fallen victim to the shackles of guilt and shame—oh, how it grew like weeds and thorny roses throughout her body. It turned her hair grayer, faster. The skin around her eyes thinned so quickly. But who was she to care about frivolity anymore? She didn’t have the right.
“Or, could you tell me where she is? I don’t want to blow up her life, I swear it. I just want to make things right.” She tried not to lose her cool. Pleading with a strange man in a fancy suit seemed like a lost cause.
“Loretta,” Troy mused. “You have to know, it looks a little—well, it looks a little odd.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “You come back into her life just as she’s making real money. I’m not sure if I can trust you, if I’m being honest.”
“Please,” she stammered quickly, suddenly fearful. “Oh, dear god. Please believe it’s not like that. I don’t want anything from that girl, not one penny!” She was shaking at the very thought of it. “I just—you really want to know? I heard her singing while I was in a grocery store in Tennessee. Just a few weeks ago. I fell to my knees. Do you hear me? I fell to my knees when I heard my baby girl!”
She was shaking, pointing a finger at Troy. “I didn’t know where in the entire world she was, but I knew she was alive. And that she did it. She made something of herself. And once I understood she was in Los Angeles, I just got in my car and drove. I went looking for her, I swear to God, I went looking for that girl.”
Loretta and Troy both had tears in their eyes, unable to conceive of the reality of the situation.
Troy inhaled slowly before responding. “Mrs. Davis. I’m sorry for offending you, that really wasn’t my intention. I know you’ve both had a hard time with all of this. I can’t even imagine. Here’s what I can do for you. I will tell her you’re in town, okay? I promise you this. Write down your cell phone or an email, and I promise to give it to her.”
Loretta nodded. She scribbled lorettalou@hotmail.com on the paper in front of her. Oh, how she wished she had one of those cell phones now.
“But I have to warn you, if she doesn’t want to talk to you, I can’t give you any of her information. And you won’t be let back here.”
There it was: the overt judgment and disapproval she had become so familiar with. Yet, she understood. And somehow she felt peace knowing that someone was protecting her girl, although she wished it was her.
“I understand,” she nodded. She felt so small in this oversized chair, in a room full of golden statues and platinum records and celebratory accolades. “Please tell her,” she said again, in confirmation. “I’ll check my email every day.”
Troy nodded and he swallowed back the urge to show emotion by biting the insides of his cheeks.
“I promise,” he said. He stood up because he couldn’t take it. “Loretta,” he said. “It was lovely to meet you. Your daughter is a strong girl. She’s doing just fine.”
Loretta nodded at everything he just said, willing it to be true.
“Thank you, Mr. Langford. I hope to hear from you very soon.” With that, he closed the door. She stood in front of it one moment longer, absorbing the bite sized nuggets of information she’d just heard.
Ruby’s eyes. Ruby’s voice. Ruby’s strength. She was doing just fine. Her head started to detach again as she wandered down the hall, until the girl at the front desk spoke.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Loretta asked, not hearing her clearly the first time.
“Are you going to Ruby’s show tonight?” the girl asked.
“Oh,” she said. “Well. Yes, of course,” she lied, thinking as quickly as she could. “But you see, I’m not from around here. Do you think you could print directions to the venue?” She kept her arms at her sides, fiddling with her knee-length skirt, to keep from shaking.
“Of course,” said the girl with a smile. “You know it’s really crazy, you look just like her.” At that, Loretta beamed. Her girl had always been her carbon copy. The difference was Ruby was stronger, smarter, and wiser. There was certainly no doubt about that.
The girl printed out a MapQuest route to The Greek Theater and handed it to Loretta.
“With afternoon traffic, it’ll probably take you about an hour to get there from here. But if you leave now, you’ll probably get there just in time! I think Troy is leaving soon too—”
Loretta grabbed the girl’s hands and squeezed them. “Thank you, darling. Thank you.”
“Of course, Mrs. Davis,” she exclaimed. “Enjoy the show!”
With the MapQuest papers held tightly in her hand, Loretta nearly sprinted out the door to her car before Troy could understand that they were going to the same place.
—————————————————————
The sun had just set in the rearview mirror behind her as Loretta pulled into the parking lot at The Greek Theater. What a spectacle this whole town was. The parking lot, she quickly realized, was almost full.
Loretta parked the 1991 station wagon toward the back of the lot. It sat low and long, with chipped paint that had once been a proud shade of forest green but now faded toward dull olive. The faux wood paneling along the sides—meant to add a touch of class back in the day—was peeling at the edges, curling like sunburned skin.
Just like Loretta, her old station wagon had been through some shit. And just like Loretta, it stood out in the crowd as being a little too old and tired to be in a town filled with brand-new, sparkling convertibles.
She clutched her purse and jogged to the ticket line where a few fans stood idly, in good spirits to see the newest ingénue. Despite trying not to, her foot tapped behind the line, garnering looks from the well-dressed teenagers in front of her.
“Next,” the man behind the window said lazily.
“Good evening, Sir,” she said quickly. “I’m looking for one ticket to tonight’s show. For Ruby June Davis,” she couldn’t help but add.
“Sure,” he said.
“How many tickets have sold?” she asked.
“Let’s see— 4,823,” he said. “You’re 24. The show sells out at 5,000, so I’d say that’s a pretty good turnout.”
Loretta couldn’t believe it. Five thousand people here to see her baby. The man handed her a ticket and pointed toward the front gate. Her ticket read: Section B Right, Row S, Seat 26.
There were a group of teenage girls, maybe seventeen, in the row next to her. They were giggling and bubbling about—wearing handmade, matching shirts that spelled out R-U-B-Y-!. Over the last week, Loretta was in a constant state of shock as she began to realize the enormity of her daughter’s album.
Within the first minute of standing there, the lights dimmed. The girls next to her let out blood curdling screams, people in front of her cheered, their arms pumping the air.
The center spotlight illuminated a woman’s figure that looked at once unrecognizable and like looking in the mirror. She was taller, thinner, more beautiful than she imagined. The figure, so confident and bold, said, “Good evening, everyone!” into the mic. Her voice echoed.
“I’m Ruby,” the woman said, and waves of cheers vibrated through the throngs of people in front of her. “And these are The Boys,” she chuckled, lifting both arms to highlight the band, extenuating her outfit that Loretta realized resembled a bird. A sophisticated, sequined, feathered, red and black bird. It was sensational.
“Without further ado, let’s have some fun tonight, shall we?” The screams around her flooded her ears. Ruby, she fully realized, was a rockstar.
Over the course of the next hour, Loretta willed herself to stay present, to stay attached, as her daughter sang, dance, wailed, and exhaled the woes of her life. Would Loretta ever be able to bridge the last eight years of her daughter’s life? She feared she would never know what it had been like for her Ruby.
So she stood in the crowd—equal parts punishment and praise—surrounded by thousands of strangers who swayed and sang and made their own narratives out of Ruby’s songs. But Loretta knew the truth behind the lyrics. She felt every word like a stone against her chest, every note like a memory she couldn’t undo.
When Ruby sang “Lady Bug,” Loretta knew. The woman who resembled Thelma—that was her. She was the one meant to be t-boned by an oncoming car, paralyzed by the sight of a ladybug in the rearview mirror. She was the one who drove that old station wagon, the same one sitting in the parking lot right now, its cracked dashboard and rusted edges parked like evidence.
“Where Back Roads Lead,” of course, cut even deeper—a song about a little girl wandering dirt roads, searching for something that had been taken from her. Searching for someone who promised safety and then vanished. Loretta was that ghost. The one who left and never came back. Every lyric was like another brick piled on her back. Still, she stood there. She let the truth split her open, let the weight of it press her into the ground. She had earned the ache.
Even in all its brutality, the music was beautiful.
She thought she could take it. Thought she could stand in the shadows and let her daughter sing her story into the microphone. Let her girl pound on her chest in song and metaphor. But then Ruby started strumming the first few chords of “Orphan Girl” by Emmylou.
This was when Loretta broke.
The sob came from somewhere deep, somewhere primal. She clutched her sides as if her body was collapsing in on itself. Because how could she live with the shame of knowing her girl had to grow up without a mother?
She wailed. Not just from guilt, but from love. Because the voice on that stage proclaimed herself an orphan, yet it belonged to the baby she once held, the girl she lost, and the woman who now stood in her truth and turned pain into poetry. The teenage girl beside her wearing an “R” on her shirt rubbed her back as she sobbed, witnessing her pain without even knowing where it was coming from.
Then the woman onstage, in her grief and revolution, collapsed on stage in a pile of feathers.
No. No, no, no, Loretta thought. Without thinking, Loretta peeled herself away from the young girl’s arms. She pushed past a throng of people, past people with radios, to make her way toward the front.
“That’s my baby,” she whispered at first. Then, louder. “That’s my baby!” she screamed, over and over again. She kept pushing forward, the same sentence on her lips. A young man held Ruby in his arms onstage, her body limp in his arms as he started to walk away.
“That’s my baby!” she screamed again. Then she was hit by a wall of security. She almost fell over completely when a man caught her in his arms.
The security guards were holding Loretta’s arms and reaching for hand cuffs when the man said, “Sir, this isn’t necessary. The woman is obviously overcome by something. Let’s let her breathe for a minute—”
He turned to her. He had a handsome face and he reminded her of Mr. Langford. “Miss,” he tried again. “What’s your name? Can you stop screaming so you don’t get in trouble with these gentlemen?” He motioned toward the security guards and gave her a knowing look that said, Get it together.
Loretta’s head reattached to her body. She took a breath and nodded toward the man.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“And your name?” he asked.
“Loretta.”
“Loretta…”
“Loretta Lou Davis.”
The man smiled.
“That’s a great name you have there,” he said. “Come now, let’s sit over here for a second. See, fellas, she’s alright. Just overcome by the music.”
There she was, overcome by something again. But Loretta nodded, happy to move away from the men in uniform. The man showed her to a seat and handed her a bottle of water. As he looked at her, he looked as if he’s seen her before. She can’t muster the strength to ask him why he can’t stop staring at her.
“You look familiar,” he said. She didn’t have the energy to reply.
“That’s my baby,” she whispered again. The man nodded, as if it all clicked.
“You look just like her,” he said, confirming what she had been saying over and over again. “Just as beautiful. Just as thin.” He grinned softly at her. Loretta nodded.
“Is that your daughter?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Did you come all the way from Kentucky to see her play tonight?”
“I don’t live in Kentucky anymore,” she said, shaking her head so her graying red hair shook.
“I don’t want to be presumptuous,” he said. “But can I buy you a drink? There’s a place nearby—”
“Oh no, I couldn’t—”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, you look like you could use a friend.”
Loretta couldn’t remember the last time she allowed herself one of those: a friend. For so long, she felt she didn’t deserve it. God, she was lonely. Despite it all—her exhaustion, her shame, her sadness, she agreed to it.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The man reached his hand down to her to pull her up from the seat. He smiled.
“Miles,” he grinned. “Miles Wells.”
She wouldn’t find out until days later what one drink with a charming man could do, but Miles Wells was a journalist.
Molly Wilcox is a journalist and writer whose work spans the worlds of arts, culture, and storytelling. With a master’s in journalism from NYU and bylines in Architectural Digest, SF Gate, New York Magazine, Cultured Magazine, Observer, and Salon, Wilcox has built a career exploring how we create, consume, and connect through art, culture, and food. This is an excerpt from her debut novel, Off the Record (in progress), blending a deep love of music with an insider's eye on media and fame. Set in early 2000s Los Angeles, it follows two women musicians—one a global superstar, the other an emerging rock artist—as they navigate the pressures of celebrity, identity, and how the media defines them.
