Reba: My Story (28 page)

The hairsplitting went on. I had a habit then—and to this day—of collecting all the toiletries hotels have in the rooms for their guests. Like if I stayed at one hotel for a while, I’d always use the same bar of soap for as long as it lasted, and when new ones, along with shampoo, conditioner, and so on, would keep showing up every day, I’d take the extras home and save them until I had a bag full enough to send to the Red Cross or the Reba Ranch House, or to churches at Christmas time. On that day, there were two bags of collected toiletries under our bathroom sink.

Charlie said, “Leave one of those bags for me.”

“What for?” I asked.

“I don’t want to ever have to buy another bar of soap,” he said.

That spirit never left him. In 1993, I asked my collaborator Tom Carter to give Charlie a chance to tell his side of the story for this book. At first Charlie said he’d do it, but then he changed his mind. He called Tom to say that I owed him $500 for a bed I took when we split up; if I would pay him for the bed and give him some additional money—he never said how much—he might agree to an interview.

I told Tom not to call him back. Just to forget it. I had only been trying to do right by Charlie, to give him a chance to tell his side. But I guess he didn’t want to accept that.

I
WANTED MY PARTING WITH CHARLIE TO BE FRIENDLY AND FAIR
. The legal process wouldn’t allow it. Funny how people can get married in the space of minutes, then spend months in court trying to get out of it. Through his lawyers, Charlie asked for a share of our assets that I didn’t think was fair, for as my lawyer put it: “The source of the income earned by the plaintiff is the plaintiff’s unique God-given talent
which had already been discovered and developed at the time the plaintiff and the defendant were married.”

And so the depositions began. A deposition is testimony, taken under sworn oath, that is admissible in a court of law. Depositions were taken from Charlie, my bookkeeper Linda Bowerman, Red Steagall, Bill Carter, and Jimmy Bowen, as well as me. I remember that I was interrogated as if I were on the witness stand, with a tape recorder and court reporter taking down every word.

I didn’t like the personal questions, and didn’t like having to answer them in front of relative strangers. None of those people had been on hand when Charlie and I had nearly frozen to death feeding cattle. Not one had helped me cook his meals or do his laundry. None of them had seen the inside of our bedroom or were witnesses to how cold our marriage had become. Yet they all would have something to say about what happened to us now.

For the trial, other people I knew were called in to testify, with some subpoenaed to Atoka County from as far away as Nashville. I hated it that people who worked with both Charlie and me—who were friends to both of us—were put in the position of having to take sides. But most didn’t, and there wasn’t any damaging testimony from anyone.

Finally, the divorce was granted in November 1987, by Atoka County District Court Judge Doug Gabbard II. Part of his ruling read: “When these two parties married in 1976, they moved into a house which they rented for $10.00 per month and to which they had to haul their own water. They had few possessions and the Defendant owed at least $40,000 in debts. Eleven years later the parties now have substantial assets, primarily due to Plaintiff’s successful singing career …”

Yet, while I’d agreed to give Charlie our 215-acre ranch and our house, the judge still awarded him what turned out to be $580,000. I was astounded at the inequity. Charlie had been a benefit to my career, and I had testified
as much. But it was hard for me to see why he deserved so much of our net worth.

A
FTER THE DIVORCE WAS FINAL, THE ATOKA COUNTY NEWSPAPER
ran a front-page story about it, which was picked up on the AP wire and circulated all over the country. That story brought me a scolding letter from a fan, who wanted to know how I dared get a divorce when she had looked to me as a role model. That brought everything into perspective.

Certainly I believe that marriage should be for life, but things don’t always work out according to our beliefs. Who of us can ever judge whether another person’s troubles are really too much to bear? Like everyone else, I’ve made mistakes in my life, but I learn from my mistakes and go on with my life. Sure, I could say, I wish I’d never married Charlie Battles, but that’s not true. I loved Charlie with all my heart, wanted to marry him, and for much of our marriage, I was happy. And when that changed, I changed my plans. I am very uncomfortable being seen as a role model in that way. No one is perfect but God, and that’s what I told that fan when I answered her letter. That she should look to Him as a model. Not to me.

I
MOVED TO NASHVILLE AFTER THE DIVORCE.

Years earlier, I had told a newspaper in McAlester that I would never leave my home state, and I meant that sincerely at the time. Atoka County, Oklahoma, was the only home I’d known for thirty-three years, and many of my neighbors seemed to me like family. But Charlie had come from northeastern Oklahoma as an outsider and, over the years, had won their acceptance. Maybe I was reading more into it than I should have, but I felt the community, or maybe it was just the court and the judge, had taken Charlie’s side in the divorce proceedings. That left me feeling betrayed and very hurt.

So when I moved out of the ranch at Stringtown, I wasn’t looking to find a new place nearby. Instead, I moved to Nashville.

From my first day in Nashville, it was “Onward! Don’t look back!” A new era of my life had begun.

I found a large house in a very pretty part of town
where all of the transported “Okies” could stay. Sheri McCoy made the move with me, and so did Cindy Owen, a friend from Jackson, Mississippi. Larry Jones, who was still my bus driver and pretty much acted as my bodyguard and protector, moved into the apartment over the garage.

We were not only living together, we were working together, so our lives were completely intertwined. Sheri kept on as my hairdresser until 1988, when she smashed her shoulder and right upper arm in a car wreck when she and her family were going to Wyoming to visit her sister Mary. Since she couldn’t raise her arm to fix hair, she switched over to working in my office until she got the chance to start her own business. She and Ann Payne Rice, a good friend of all of ours, created a company that would advise performers on their wardrobes and get them ready for videos and photo shoots; and she also goes on the road quite a bit with Trisha Yearwood, who is also a super singer and a good friend of mine. Cindy Owen took over my fan club and correspondence; her duties have expanded to a gigantic degree but she’s still in charge of the fan club today.

Larry is now the head of transportation for Starstruck, the company that I set up to manage my affairs in 1988.

Work became my refuge after the divorce. It’s funny—I had grown so accustomed to the status quo, to the strain and the icy cold tension. But now touring got to be much more fun and much less pressured.

I
AM SO GRATEFUL THAT THE PEOPLE IN MY ORGANIZATION
—Sheri, Cindy, Larry, Narvel, and others—rallied around me during those hard days of being on my own for the first time and making a home for myself in a new place. One of the ugly facts about divorce is that it always affects more than two people, and most members of our work family had been friendly with Charlie too. I know our split was uncomfortable for everyone, and I suppose it was inevitable
that certain friends would drift away. I was saddened that one of those was Linda Bowerman.

Linda was the secretary and bookkeeper who ran my office at the Stringtown ranch. She took great care of me. Naturally, after I filed for divorce, she felt awkward conducting my business right under Charlie’s nose. So I agreed to construct a small, freestanding building on her property in Centrahoma, Oklahoma, that would become the new offices of the Reba McEntire organization.

The building cost $15,000. I told Linda I’d split the cost of it with her since she’d get to own the building, and she agreed. But once I moved to Nashville, I saw very quickly that I had been naive in thinking that I could live there and still keep my headquarters in Oklahoma, 700 miles away. My record label, my manager, and everything else affiliated with my business were located within a few blocks’ radius in Nashville; and it was clear that I needed to move my offices there too.

When Linda first came to work for me, Susie had just quit because of a falling out she and I had, and she decided not to come back and teach Linda her bookkeeping techniques. So Linda had had to hunt through all of my records and come up with her own systems of bookkeeping and business management. Those first few days were hard for her, I’m sure, and I appreciated the way she’d taken charge. Her skill and her friendship had kept me going in leaner times, and I fully expected her to share my more prosperous days.

When I played Norman, Oklahoma, in November 1987, Linda and her family came to see me, and I told her of my plans. The expression on her face told me what I didn’t want to hear.

“What am I going to do?” she said.

“Linda,” I said, “I’m sorry. I know I told you that this would never happen, but I’m going to have to go back on my word, and I apologize to you with all my heart. But it won’t work this way, my business being in Oklahoma and
me being in Nashville. Why don’t you come to Nashville with me?”

“What about my family?” Linda said.

“Move them too,” I told her, “you and your husband [Pee-Wee] and your whole family. There are great opportunities in Nashville.”

“I’ll have to talk to Pee-Wee,” she said.

After my sound check that day in Norman, I walked offstage and ran into Pee-Wee. His feet were spread apart and his arms were folded across his chest.

He stunned me by saying, “I’ll give you until noon tomorrow to get your stuff out of that office or I’m burning it to the ground.”

“Now, Pee-Wee,” I said. “Let’s talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he said. “You’ve lied to Linda. You’ve let her down and you’re worthless.”

I made one attempt to reason with him, but he was in no mood to listen.

“Pee-Wee,” I told him, “you’ve got this all wrong. The divorce, the move—everything happened way too quick. How was I to know how it was all going to wind up?”

“Shut up!” he said. “I’m talking.”

“Go right ahead,” I said.

When I could finally insert a word into his tirade, I asked why he and Linda didn’t consider moving to Nashville.

“We don’t want to move to Nashville if you’re going to be there,” he snapped.

If that was his attitude, there was nothing I could do. “We’ll have the stuff out of the office by noon tomorrow,” I said, and walked away.

Once again I was leaving someone who I had once thought would be a permanent fixture of my life. The Oklahoma of my young life was becoming a crumbling memory. I was also learning and maturing very quickly. I went to Narvel and told him what had happened.

He said, “I’ll take care of it.” And he did!

Larry Jones borrowed a truck and he, Jim Hammon, my tour concession manager, and his wife Debbie, Mama, Narvel, and I drove from Oklahoma City to Centrahoma and pulled onto Linda’s place at nine the next morning.