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The Promise by River Laurent (2)

Taylor

A light spring breeze lifts the side-swept bangs off my forehead. The air smells clean with a hint of freshly dug earth. It makes a heavenly change from the smog of LA. I breathe it deeply into my lungs. Through the lenses of my dark glasses, I watch the priest say the last rites. His voice is gravelly and solemn, but I hardly hear the words.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

There should be sadness in my heart, instead there is nothing.  I think of her as she was: beautiful and cold. No, cold is the wrong word. I guess she was bitter. She always viewed me as the competition, but when Dad died and left the house to me with the provision that she could live her life out in it, I became the enemy. How she hated me, silently, coldly, viciously.

While I lived with her I hated her back with an equal intensity, but after I left with a broken heart, I understood her bitterness. My father shouldn’t have left the house to me. It was a betrayal. He should have left it to her. She was his wife. I sent her money every month, which she neither acknowledged, or thanked me for.

I look down at my black Louboutins. I should have known better than to wear them. The heels are too high, and if I don’t hold them with the spikes hovering slightly above the ground, they sink into the soft earth.

The priest stops speaking and turns his head to look at me, a questioning look in his eyes.

I drop the red rose in my hand on the glossy white casket and turn around to leave. People I have not seen or heard of/from for ten years mill around me. Their well-meaning faces filled with genuine kindness and regret. They are good people. I grew up with them. Almost family. I can’t let them unravel me.

Smiling vaguely at no one in particular, I quickly start walking towards my car. Marco, my driver, rushes to open the door of the hired car. I slip in smoothly, and he closes the door with a click. I exhale. Relief floods my body. I’ve done my duty. I’ve given her a good burial.

Marco gets in and winds the partition down. “Hotel?”

“Yes,” I confirm quietly.

“Right.” He nods and activates the remote partition upwards.

“Wait,” I blurt out.

The partition stops its upward journey.

“No. Not the hotel. Take me to my mother’s house first.”

“Got it,” he says smartly.

The car travels through the main street of Black Rock, and it is like being in a time warp. Nothing has changed, Dairy Queen, Tucker’s Diner, the plastic dog outside the hardware shop. The green and white ‘open’ sign is still on the door of Chilli and Goose. Memories of my high school friends and I trying to buy beer crowd into my head.

There’s old Jenkins, a beer can in his hand, sitting outside his tattoo shop sunning himself in the weak sunlight. His face is pure leather from the years he’s spent in the sun, but he is still alive and well. We used to pop firecrackers into his mailbox and he would run out of his house, his face purple with rage, and screaming blue murder.

Marco drives up to the house.

The shutters are drawn. There is a sad air of stillness and neglect around it.

“You can go back to the hotel, Marco. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“You’re sure?”

I nod and get out of the car. It is strange not to be mobbed by paparazzi and fans. Actually, it’s rather wonderful not to have to run like a criminal from the car to the door all the time. For years, I believed I wanted fame. I wanted to be recognized everywhere I went. I wanted to be a big star, but now I know I don’t.

Marco drives away and I go up the wooden steps to the wide porch. I glance at the rocking chair at one corner and feel an odd twinge. A feeling. How strange. I haven’t felt anything for years. My cell rings, the sound muted, but oddly jarring. As if my other busy life has already come to intrude. I take it out of my purse and look at the screen. It’s Nick, my manager. I walk to the rocking chair. Sitting in it I click accept.

“Where are you now?” he asks.

“At the house.”

“You mean the funeral is already over?”

“Yeah,” I reply distantly. I don’t want to talk to him. The sound of the chair creaking against the wood is soothing. My mother used to sit here a lot with me in her lap after she fell ill. I close my eyes. Memories swarm back. Memories of Mom, memories of Dad, memories of Cole. My stomach clenches into a painful knot. I push the images away and open my eyes.

“Are you all right?” Nick sounds anxious, whether for me or my career is hard to tell, but he is definitely concerned. Probably for my career, I decide.

“Yes.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come?”

“Absolutely. I’m not hanging around long, anyway. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.”

“That’s good. There’s nothing left for you in that godforsaken town.”

“No,” I agree, but an ache deep inside me starts to throb. I left something here, Nick. I left my heart.

“All right, then. Call me if you need anything, or if you just want to talk, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Love you,” he says.

“Call you later.”

I end the call, and try to think of Nick’s warm brown eyes. He cares about me. He’s a nice guy. We work well together. I have a good life in LA. I have a better than good life in LA. The past is just a mirage. There is nothing left here for me, but my eyes are drawn to the wise old, spreading magnolia tree.

The swing is gone, but my treehouse is still there, the rusty corrugated roof nearly completely hidden by leaves and overgrown ivy. The wind blows and I can hear the shutters squeaking on their hinges. Some of the planks of ladder are broken and it swings forlornly in the wind. I can still remember the smell of cheese in the mouse traps. Dad and I never caught any. They were too clever. Somehow, they had found a way to steal the cheese without triggering the cage door.

Once it was my secret hideaway.

A place where no one could see me.

No one could find me.

No one, but Cole.

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