Chapter 4 – Carolina
I can’t believe I’m getting ready to move not only from one place to another but from one plan to another entirely. Despite all my previous best-made plans, in two days I, as a newly divorced woman, will be starting work as a secretary at a prestigious law firm in a city completely foreign to me.
My new boss, Garrett Mack, is one of the firm’s named partners: a billionaire and one of the most prominent men in Albuquerque. It’s a good thing I’d applied to jobs far and wide, because he was one of the few people who had called me.
Other than that, there hadn’t been many good leads. A perfume company had wanted me to come attend an orientation where they would train me in the art of making lots of money by going door to door hawking their Britney Spears rip-off perfume for commission only— no thanks. A couple guys called, wanting to film me doing nude photography—pretty sure those jobs were code for prostitution.
And I had had one promising call about doing administrative work for a local cooling and heating company, but it had fallen through when they called me to let me know they’d hired the owner’s niece instead. Good ole nepotism was alive and well in America. And apparently, so was the unemployment rate, because it seemed impossible to find a job.
When Garrett Mack called me, I was increasingly desperate, not only hiding out under my covers but beginning to sneak ice cream and vodka and O.J. under there with me as well, to make the time pass faster. Of course I jumped at the chance to work for him, even if it does mean moving more than half way across the country to a place I’ve never been.
It’s still mind-blowing to me that all of this will soon be my reality. I sit with my coffee at my favorite coffee shop for the last time. The movers are at my home getting ready to transport all my worldly belongings to another dimension— or at least that’s what it feels like. It’s all too overwhelming, and I don’t know if I’m ready for it. Of course, I’m not about to admit that out loud.
As I drink my homemade cappuccino, I lock eyes with Martha Grecco, the owner of Grecco’s Coffee House. She has known me since I was a little girl. She isn’t just a barista, although she does make the most incredible bottomless cappuccinos anywhere in the world, but she is also my second mom. I smile at her as I wipe a smear of whipped cream off my nose, which had accidentally landed there as I sipped from the giant mug.
Martha had been the one to introduce me to Jake. She truly was a godsend. And now, as if I needed another reminder, her eyes confirm for me that this is really a final moment, the end of a chapter in my life. Because I’m moving so far away from this town and from her, I suppose it’s an end of a chapter in her life, too.
My coffee is almost empty when I receive a text from the movers telling me it’s just about time for them to hit the road. The tears begin to well up as I imagine the long journey before me and all that I’m about to leave behind.
There hadn't been a day in my life that I ever pictured myself leaving this beautiful place I called home. After all, Stone, South Carolina may be small, but it’s a tight knit community, with beautiful rolling green hills, close to the Atlantic Ocean and not far from the Appalachian Mountains.
Plus, this is where Jake Wharton and I first met. This is where I cheered on the varsity team at every one of his football games. This is where we planned to raise our children someday.
We’d had it all, and then some. Our lives had been so carefully planned. We would have a boy and then a girl. The first would be Jackson, and his sibling we’d name Lucy. It was all so beautiful… naïve, but beautiful. So many of the firsts in life had happened right in this town.
Gazing through the glass for a moment, the place seems suddenly magical— my town, my home. But no longer. The day is a bit cloudy and overcast, yet somehow the sun is still peeking through, providing a bit of optimistic light. It looks like a Norman Rockwell picture, a comparison that isn’t lost on me. My life was supposed to turn out like that— a slice of hometown Americana, a dream come true.
As I look out from Grecco’s front window from my favorite table in the corner, I can see the Kennedy High School football field where Jake had played, and the Burlington Heights Hotel, the site of our senior prom. Just around the corner from the hotel is the skate shop where Jake worked all through high school.
I can see just a smidgen of the bleachers jutting out from behind the school. The first time Jake kissed me was on those bleachers. Mrs. Mullen told us to tone it down, although I think she was a little late with her request, since he already had his fingers in my shorts.
Further down the road is the dry cleaners where we snuck my prom dress in for cleaning, desperately hoping to get the red wine stain out before my dad saw it. I thought for sure he would know that I had drank that night, gotten sloshed, and spilled the cheap Merlot all over myself.
I wonder now as I reminisce: will all these memories fade away once they aren’t so ever present in my day to day life? I half hope they will, since fewer thoughts of this town will also mean fewer thoughts of Jake and the future we were supposed to have but now never would.
Martha comes over to take my mug. I place a ten dollar bill on the table, and she smiles.
“Cari, it’s on me, baby girl,” she says, using her special nickname for me. “It’s your going away coffee present. I’m gonna miss you, sweetheart.”
I choke back tears and whisper, “I know Martha. I’ll miss you too. But we’ll chat by phone and email.”
We hug. She takes my coffee cup, and I decide to sit for a just a little bit longer. The movers can wait. God knows I’m paying them enough. I’m not quite ready to let go the pangs of nostalgia washing over me. I always was a glutton for punishment, and today— my last day in Stone, my last day in the only life I’d ever known— is no exception.
Chapter 5 – Carolina
I think of all the what-ifs that had plagued me over the last year. What if Jake hadn’t left me? What could I have done differently? Would I be leaving still to take this job at the law firm in Albuquerque? Is life a predestined event? Do certain decisions and events change the course of things?
I don’t have any answers. I guess I’m just afraid.
Jake Wharton was my high school sweetheart. Our families knew each other even though he was clearly from a different part of town, the bad part, though that isn’t something I’d ever say out loud.
My mom and dad are prominent in our small community. My dad had been on the Mayor’s Council when I was growing up, and he’s a professor of political science at the community college. My mom is a nurse in the newborn nursery at the local hospital.
Jake’s family is a little more homegrown. His mom is a single parent, and she works as a lunch lady at the junior high cafeteria. Jake's mom has always been nice enough— Geraldine is her name. She used to sneak the tough girls single cigarettes and watch as they went out to the loading dock to share a Marlboro Red. But I was way too proper in junior high to get caught up in that.
Jake is the youngest of three kids. His two brothers were in jail for drugs or something. It was always a sore subject that no one talked about. But he was different, so sweet and cute, although he was very much a nerd in junior high. It didn’t matter though, since I wasn’t even considering boys at that time.
Something happened just as he got to high school. Something changed. His freshman year, he started to get taller. I did notice that, and I saw that he had started to fill out. He kind of looked like a cross between Harry Potter and Harry Styles, but cuter— and probably taller— and he was still sort of on the skinny side.
Then one day, when I was celebrating my birthday with ice cream and cake at Grecco’s, Martha walked up to me when I was picking a flavor at the counter— I think it was butter praline— and she turned to Jake who was also there and said, “Carolina, have you met this fine young man, Jake Wharton? He works at the skate shop across the street, and he is such a sweet kid. He sweeps up for me at night.”
Jake turned eight shades of red. We each mumbled “hi,” and he walked away. And that was our infamous introduction.
Still, throughout the years, he would always say “hi” to me and hold doors for me, which I thought was so adorable. The truth is, I was kind of full of myself. By that time, I had become pretty popular, and the guys were lining up. I probably wouldn’t have noticed Jake if he had laid down in front of me.
I liked the bad boys, and one in particular— Taylor Hecht. He was dark, like super dark. He looked like an extremely mean but sexier version of James Dean. Funny enough, I’d had a poster of James Dean on my wall in fifth grade, and I’d swear on a Bible they were related in some way.
Taylor smoked filterless cigarettes and drank Jack Daniels right out of a flask on the front steps of school, and not one teacher said a word. One of the reasons, I always assumed, was that his dad was the most respected judge in the county. Looking back, he was probably having sex with every teacher in school, including the male ones.
Still, I was so in love with him. I could not care less where his dick had been, as long as I was his main girl. And I was, for a while. The girls on the water polo team absolutely hated me for it.
Why water polo? Well, those girls were the only jocks who were not only pretty— like cheerleader pretty— but they had the added element of being considered bad girls. All of them were stoners, and every one of them was blonde. They were creepily similar, but the guys didn’t seem to mind. They knew they could get laid easily if they attended a water polo party.
Jessie Smith almost took me out once during cheer practice on the track field. I was coordinating a pyramid when she stormed over. Apparently, she had realized I was dating Taylor. She was big too— like a foot taller than me. Suddenly, I was looking at her nose as she confronted me, right up in my face. My teammates jumped back in a panic.
“Hey, Carolina, why are you such a slut? Taylor and I have been dating for a year. You freaking know that. Is it too hard for you to keep your legs closed? Yeah, that must be it. I hear your dad is thinking about sending you out of the country before you bring home an STD and shame the Abbott family name.”
Suddenly, as if a guardian angel had coordinated the timing, Taylor walked up in the middle of the scuffle, pulled me in close to his body, and started making out with me. Then he said to her while leaving me breathless, “Hey, Jessie, is there a problem?”
She stormed away, and I was so wet I thought for sure everyone on the cheer team could tell.
Jake happened to be coming out of the locker room and saw the embrace. He looked sad. All of a sudden, I started to see him differently, but I wasn’t quite over Taylor yet, even though I knew Jessie had been telling the truth— Taylor had been playing the field and dating both of us at the same time.
I wasn’t ready to grow up yet. I still wanted to be with the bad boy even though I knew we were going nowhere, fast.