Chapter Nineteen
Carmen turned back to look at me, and I realized that had been out loud.
“Seriously?” she said.
“We are married.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “So has the blind-to-what’s-right-in-front-of-them duo finally seen some clarity?”
“My underwear is currently under a pile of leaves in the woods,” I said.
She nodded. “Okay then.”
“And he asked me to marry him again,” I rambled like I was reading a grocery list. Or like I was numb. Or like I’d just been fucked and proposed to, declared love to, and then given a house and eight hundred thousand dollars.
I mean, that would throw a person a little off balance, right?
“Oh my God.” Carmen turned to square off in front of me, bringing my foggy focus back to her. “Lanie, what did you say?”
I blinked. “Nothing yet.” At her incredulous look I continued. “That was right when the peanut gallery showed up and I never got the chance.”
“Do you love him?”
I blew out a breath. “Oy with the L word.”
“Really?” she said. “How old are you? Did you hear your aunt? Quit being a pussy!”
“I’m pretty sure that word never came out of her mouth or her pen.”
Carmen sighed. “Okay look, let’s talk more later, I gotta run. I’ll text you with the money details, and I’ll go pick up the deed from the mortgage company and get it to you next time I’m this way.”
I watched her drive away and I glanced back at the house where my husband was inside somewhere sulking. I’d fix that. First, I had to make another trip down that—down my little rocky path, to my old stone fireplace, to where my underwear and bra were communing with nature. I wasn’t wired for commando. Open plumbing with a dress was just weird.
I made it down there and retrieved my treasure, then sat on the bench and leaned back against the stone, closing my eyes. It really was magic there. I’d just experienced it. And it was like the stress of a million weights were off my shoulders, but they’d moved to my stomach.
Why was I so friggin anal when it came to love? My mother, okay, but I was a grown woman, not a child. I was fully capable of deciding my own actions and not being governed by some myth that her story would become mine. Where were my big girl panties? I looked down at the pair in my hand. Well maybe I should start with wearing them instead of carrying them.
It was when I was almost back up the path, emerging from the trees, that I felt it. Maybe I heard it, too, a faraway rumble or something down the road. But it was more of a knowledge. Intuition? Whatever it was named, it was bad.
I jogged the rest of the way, noting the absence of his truck. The weights in my stomach swelled to something more like water balloons when they’re filled too full. I couldn’t catch a good solid breath. And when I went inside, nothing so and cluttered and lived in had ever felt emptier.
“Nick?” I called out, already knowing there wouldn’t be an answer. Not a human one, anyway. Ralph jumped down from the couch and wagged his way over to me, stretching from a nap.
My eyes burned, and I dropped the bra on the floor as I ran upstairs.
“Nick!” I cried anyway, running to his room.
All the air left me as I saw his closet door open and empty. His suitcase gone. His pictures of Addison—gone. I whirled around and ducked into his bathroom. Cleaned out. He didn’t have much with him, and taking his leave wouldn’t have been difficult, but still—I was down there for all of ten fucking minutes!
“How dare you,” I sobbed, not even aware I’d been crying till then. “How could you just—leave? Not say good-bye?”
Something made me turn around and go to my room, and there it was. A piece of notebook paper with handwriting on it. My second one of the day. With his wedding ring on top.
“You son of a bitch,” I breathed.
Lanie,
I’m sorry. It’s easier this way. Telling you bye face to face would be too much after today. But I love you enough to let you go. Go get what you’re looking for. It isn’t me. If it was, then you could have said you loved me. And you could have said yes. Even through the fear. I know because I was scared too.
It stopped being about the money for me and I wouldn’t even take it if Addison didn’t need it, so if that’s still on the table, please wire it to the account below.
Hope you kick ass in Cali.
Love,
Nick
* * *
I felt sweaty. I felt sick. Driving around town knowing damn good and well he wasn’t in Charmed anymore, but having to look, anyway. Just in case. I’d run to my car to retrieve my phone and texted him. Nothing. Called—went to voicemail.
Hey, this is Nick. Talk.
“Why the hell would you do this?” I said. “You don’t even know what I was coming in to say. You just assume you know the score and make the decision for both of us.” My breaths skipped with my sobs. “Well that was an asshole thing to do, Nick.”
Now I was driving in circles and considering chasing him back to Sage, but I was too pissed and proud for that.
“The Blue Banana,” I muttered, doing a U-turn in the middle of Main. He wouldn’t leave his job high and dry, would he? He loved it there. He loved being Chef Nick.
My eyes scanned the parking lot as I pulled in and parked crooked. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be there long. No truck. My heart sank a little lower. I got out and swiped at my face as I went in, hoping I didn’t look as deranged as I felt. I’d gone from sex in the woods to ditched to panic attack in a short time, with no assistance from a mirror to see what affect that might have. I glanced at my reflection in the window and decided not knowing was better.
A couple of people nodded in my direction, a few more looked at me funny, and more just pretended I wasn’t there. I was good with that.
I went to the lunch counter and tried peering through the order window, but all I could see was Dave, the fry cook.
“Is Allie here?” I asked a younger waitress who looked terrified.
“Um, Miss Greene?” she said, clutching her pad. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Just need to talk to her.”
“Can I tell her what it’s about?” she asked. “Get you a free drink on the house?”
My head started to pound out a rhythm. I looked down at her nametag. Brianna.
“Brianna, there’s no problem. Allie’s a friend of mine and I need to talk to her if she’s here,” I said. “Kind of quickly. And do you know if Nick—if Chef Nick was here?”
Her eyes lit up. Even the young ones appreciated beauty.
“For a minute, yes,” she said. “He was talking to Dave—or Chef Dave now,” she said, chuckling.
I gripped a nearby chair. There was someone sitting in it, so I had to apologize.
“Sorry,” I whispered to them. “I might be having a nervous breakdown.” I turned back to Brianna. “Can you get Allie now?”
The waitress scurried off, and I caught sight of a more accurate reflection. Good God, I was a mess. I smoothed my hair down and pulled a leaf out of it. Jesus Christ. My eyes teared up again thinking of where that would have come from, and then another thought chilled me. In this kind of old-fashioned dress, if I squinted just right, I looked a lot like my mother.
Including the part about being a mess. Over a man.
You aren’t your mother, honey.
Then why was I acting like her?
“Lanie?”
I jumped and smiled to cover it as Allie walked up, a concerned look in her dark eyes.
“Hey, Allie.”
She gave me a once-over. “I’m gonna guess this has something to do with Nick quitting.”
My bottom lip quivered. “I was hoping that wasn’t the case.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I wish that, too, but he said he had to go.” She nodded back toward the order window. “He said Dave was up to speed, that he’d been teaching him as he went when there was time, so we’ll see. We’re gonna miss him around here, though. I told him he had a job if he ever decided to come back.”
I nodded, a hand against my sternum as if everything might disintegrate if I didn’t hold it in.
She tilted her head. “Did y’all break up or something?”
“Or something,” I breathed. “Thank you, Allie.” I squeezed her shoulder as I passed. “Talk to you later.”
“Mrs. McKane?”
Stab.
I turned to see Nick’s protégé, Dave. coming from the kitchen.
“Yes?”
“Ma’am, Nick gave me his motorcycle and trailer, and—”
“I’m sorry, what?” I clutched at my throat before my heart could escape out of it. His motorcycle? “He—he gave it away?”
Dave looked unsure as his gaze darted from Allie to me. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “We always talked bikes and stuff while we worked. I’ve always wanted one, and I kind of know what I’m doing around an engine—”
He thought I needed to know it was going to a good home. No. It wasn’t a dog. But it was Nick’s pride and joy.
“I’m sure you’ll be great with it,” I said, holding out a hand. “I just didn’t know he was—getting rid of it.” Of me. If he handed that thing off, he wasn’t coming back. He was handing me off too.
“So—I was wondering when a good time would be for me to come pick it up?” Dave asked, his words having a weird echoey quality.
“Anytime,” I said, turning. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Hey, you want a coffee to go?” Allie asked. “You look like you might need one.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I have a feeling I might just want to go to sleep.”
I wandered back out into the sunlight and caught the glint off my fake diamond. The “glass” he wanted to replace with the real thing only hours ago. I’d have to get divorce papers drawn up with Carmen.
I got back into my car, turned it on, and cranked up the air conditioner to full blast. Let it blow on me while the world broke around me. His smile, his eyes, the way he laughed at the silly things I’d do, the way he’d look at me when I was all he saw in the world. The way his eyes darkened when he wanted me and the way his hands felt on my skin. The way it felt to be wrapped up in his arms.
The way the words I love you, Lanie McKane sounded on his lips. He’d waited for me to say it back. To say anything even close. Instead, I said, We definitely have some things to talk about.
I laid my head on the steering wheel and came apart.
“I love you too, Nick,” I sobbed.
Sure, now I could say it.
I didn’t care who walked by or wondered. I let myself shatter.
* * *
Ralph and I had to make a trip back home. The real home. In Louisiana. I met with movers and packed up the rest of what I was bringing. At least what I was bringing to Texas. I could have left him back in Charmed and had Carmen come stay with him that night, but truth be told I liked his company. And I was about to be leaving him for a couple of days anyway to go for my initial orientation in California.
California.
What I always wanted. And what the rest of town expected. That’s the story we had sold them, after all. The story we’d sold ourselves.
I kept having to tell myself that more and more. It had been two weeks.
“How you doing back there, boy?” The tail thump told me what I needed to know. His mom left him behind, he got a new mom and dad, and then the dad left. As long as he could see me, he was good. “We’ll be home to your backyard in a couple of hours.”
I’d get back and get unloaded, leave on Monday for my orientation, look for a dog-friendly apartment, fly back, and start the second round of packing for California. Only what would fit in my car. Around Ralph. That was all I needed.
One person didn’t need a lot. Granted, my old place didn’t reflect that. I had accumulated a lot of worthless crap. But I’d thrown out a lot of it while I was there, left the furniture behind for my coworker’s niece (she’d decided to take it over), and kept what needed keeping.
It all just seemed…trivial.
And the closer I got to Sage, the magnets started pulling at me.
On the way there, I was able to ignore the tug. I was on a mission and I knew I’d be coming back by. Now—God, it was killing me. I saw the diner, scanned the parking lot with the eye of a professional stalker (no Nick truck), and passed the turnoff road with no less than three punches to the steering wheel, a ten-mile-an-hour slow down, and I lost count of the curse words.
“Keep going,” I muttered.
My chest burned and my knuckles whitened on the wheel, but I kept going. Then Ralph whined like he needed to do his business, and I turned that baby around. Turned down the road I’d followed Nick down nearly two months earlier, and took the curves with an increasingly loud pounding in my ears.
What if he got mad that I was there? What if he didn’t want to hear what I had to say and told me to leave? Or worse—what if he took me into his arms and told me he never wanted to let me go again? My breathing got erratic just thinking about that. What would I do? No question. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
I’d sent his money to the account number he left for me, but I still hadn’t filed for divorce. I couldn’t do it. Not yet. If that’s what he wanted, he could take care of that.
The final turn came into view, and my palms started to sweat like crazy with anticipation. I swallowed hard and tried to take a deep calming breath, blowing it out as I rounded the clearing.
And stopped.
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
A large FOR SALE sign decorated the front yard. No lawn chair. No fern. No truck. No Nick. No anything. It was like he was never there. The hot tears streamed down my face for the five hundredth time in the last two weeks, as I realized this was it. It had been my last ace in the hole. If nothing else, if I could just get up the nerve to come here, that’s where he would be.
And I was too late.
Again.
I got out and let Ralph out to do his thing, staring at the home that I never knew him in, except for one fifteen-minute stretch and the first time I ever saw him in a towel.
We got back in and I turned around, refusing to look in the rearview mirror. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t say good-bye—
I stopped, sucking in a deep breath. No. I wouldn’t do that to him. Even though he did it to me. Even though he wasn’t there to hear it or see us or know I was doing it. I looked at the house in the mirror.
“Good-bye, Nick,” I whispered. “I love you.”
And then I rounded the bend back to the highway.
* * *
Houston Intercontinental Airport was a beast. Highway construction nearly made me miss my exit, and then I couldn’t find the damn parking garage for nearly thirty minutes. Once I did, the little machine that spits out your ticket wasn’t working, and the guard who wasn’t expecting to do anything other than occupy space in the booth that day looked at me like I needed to fix it.
Fifteen minutes and several irritated drivers behind me later, I was parked and shouldering my two carry-ons. It was only two days, so I’d managed to pack professional but easy clothes and not need to check a suitcase. For some reason, that was important to me. Like a suitcase meant I’d get stuck there forever or something. Which was an odd issue to have, considering I was moving there. It didn’t get more stuck than that.
Luckily I’d planned in a ridiculously large buffer of time, because an hour in security, another twenty minutes by walk and tram to my gate, and I felt like I’d already been traveling for a full damn day. My shoulders ached from the carry-ons, my feet were already tired, and as I settled in to wait for boarding, I cursed the fact that I hadn’t included a bottle of Tylenol in my bag.
“We will begin boarding for Continental flight 1506 to Los Angeles shortly,” said a disembodied female voice over the speaker that wasn’t either of the chicks standing at the gate kiosk. “Beginning with first class and those with special needs or traveling with small children. Please have your boarding passes in hand.”
Of course I wasn’t first class. I was nowhere near first class. Back in the old steamship days, I would have been considered “steerage.” As in where the cows would ride. In the belly. I would have been one of the first to die on the Titanic.
Small children weren’t in my wheelhouse, but special needs? Maybe not, but if they really knew me right now, they’d make me a poster child.
I stared at the sign announcing IAH to LAX.
California. I’d been Googling the state since—well, since Nick left and there was nothing on TV and getting my laptop out was the next thing to do. I’d looked up things to do in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego. Of course I’d need to go to Disneyland. And the Lego place. Because.
Cali Dynamics was evidently on the outskirts of Los Angeles, so I mapped it and looked up apartments nearby. It would be nice to be close. I mean, I knew I wouldn’t get as lucky as the two-minute commute to work I currently enjoyed, but I didn’t want to spend hours in my car every day. My life was already depressing enough.
Just me, my dog, and—nope that was it.
Only months ago, that was fine. In fact, there wasn’t even the dog in that scenario. Ralph hadn’t entered the picture to pee on me yet, and my life consisted of me, myself, and I. Going to work, coming home, meeting up with friends occasionally, dating guys who only found me cute occasionally, and I’d been fine with that. Totally fine with that. Why did it now fall into the look-how-sad-this-is category?
Because I’d had more. I’d had a taste of coming home to someone. Grocery shopping for two. Going out to eat with a date. Having someone cook for me and letting me help. Sharing my work day antics with another person and listening to his. Hanging out and feeling that other person’s presence and knowing that a simple reach out would find me a warm hand.
Looking across the room at the other person reading, and feeling so comfortable in that silence that it fills you up.
Not being alone.
My eyes burned as the simple funny memories played in my head. I couldn’t do that. Sit and dwell. That had been fun, and sometimes not fun, and sometimes dramatic like life tends to be, but it was over. Nick was gone. He’d moved on.
Just like I was about to move on. Me and Ralph. I’d find us a little apartment that would be easy to take him out, figure out my work hours that I already knew would probably run late, and get on with it.
The job would certainly be better and more interesting than counting money out to people at the bank. Although even through its humdrumness, it had its charms. Old Mrs. Brewster who brought me the change she collected every few days from combing the park and the pond area with a metal detector. Dee Dee, the little girl whose mom worked at the donut shop two doors down, and her daily deliveries of donut holes to get us to buy stuff. Mr. Masoneaux from the candy shop down the block, who always threw in homemade lemon drops or freshly minted peppermints with his daily proceeds because he used to have a crush on Aunt Ruby. The other ladies were fun, even if one was a bit of a diva. There were plans in place to bring me out for Mexican food and margaritas next week before I left for good.
I just realized how many of those things involved food. Well, food is love. Especially when your husband is a chef.
Bam.
Those thoughts still kept coming. The zingers that poked their little stabbing prongs into me as reality dawned. I wondered if Nick experienced them. If I had gotten under his skin like Tara had.
A family of three sat down across from me, the mom and dad looking harried and preoccupied, but still holding hands while the little boy ran his matchbox car along all the chairs. Another single woman sat two over from them, and I smiled at her thinking she was more like me. We aloners needed to stick together. And then her eye caught something off to the right, and her whole face lit up. Her guy approached, looking at her the same way.
They had the more.
I blew out a breath and fidgeted, wishing the boarding would get going. The people watching wasn’t cutting it for me. Too many of them had friggin lives, and it was pissing me off. Then a lone guy walked up and took up a piece of wall, scrolling on his phone. An old lady said something next to him and he smiled politely and went back to scrolling. A good-looking girl asked if anyone was sitting in the chair nearby—something clearly unnecessary to ask, given the proximity, so it was an obvious flirt—and he just shook his head and went back to his phone.
Seriously dude, this chick was hot. And maybe he had a girlfriend, or maybe he was a jerk, or maybe he was just stupid. But the hot girl sat down and shook her head and looked around the room. She caught my eye for a second and smiled and probably thought, we aloners need to stick together.
Nothing was going to change. It was going to be the same life, just in a different place.
“Attention passengers,” the phantom voice said over the loud speaker. “We are now boarding Continental flight 1506 to Los Angeles out of Gate 45. Beginning with first class and those with special needs or …”
I stood.