Her Younger Man (A Country Music Romance): a Renny and Rachel Romance

by MacLaren, Nancy

  “C’mon Renny, don’t be oblivious. You know what he meant.”

  “Is he worried about the tabloids? Our reputation? That the girls won’t flock around me? That’s fine with me. I don’t care about all that, I’ve already sacrificed enough for our success, and it’s time for me to have what I want.”

  “Like a family?” That stopped him cold.

  “What do you mean?” How could he not know? Suddenly I was as furious as he was.

  “I can’t have children Renny! I’m way past that. Don’t you get that? That’s why we have no future together. It has nothing to do with anyone else, not Reade or Garrett or the fans. I am too old to give you what you want. Period.”

  He let go of my hands as though they were live wires and sat back, stunned. He’d never thought about that part of our age gap, I could see that. Why would he have? It was a fledgling little flame of a relationship. Men aren’t like us women who are picking out china patterns the minute our hearts go pitty-pat.

  Now it was out. It was said. There was no going back or pretending we could be anything else than what we were right now, a sexual folly, as Renny had called it. I could hear Marlene’s voice in my head telling me what a fool I had been to ruin the best thing I’d had in my life in the last 20 years, telling me I should have taken what he had to give for as long as it was on offer. But I’m too brittle. I break too easily and I was falling in love with this man and to save myself some major heartbreak it was time to tell the truth; we were not made to last.

  He sat staring at the city, gloomier than I’d ever seen him. He got up and walked away from where we had been sitting. His silence was all the answer I needed. He hadn’t thought about it. Well, to be honest neither had I until Reade mentioned it.

  Why did Reade mention it? Why would anyone jump to the conclusion that we were serious about each other after two weeks?

  I got up and stood next to Renny. “Damn him,” was all he said.

  “I’m confused about one thing. Why did Reade feel the need to talk to me? It’s only been two weeks for God’s sake.”

  “Because I haven’t been with anyone in two years.”

  “Two years isn’t that long to not be in a serious relationship, it’s been a lot …”

  “No, Rachel,” he stopped me, “I haven’t had sex with anyone in two years. Not even casually.”

  That threw me for a loop. A sexy beast like Renny Taylor celibate for two years? It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did.”

  “Does this have anything to do with your ex-wife?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. Not here and not now. C’mon, let’s go back to the hotel.”

  We walked back not talking, not touching. It was over. You could feel it in the air.

  For the first time Renny and I went to bed without having sex. I tossed and turned but I realized he would never go to sleep as long as I was restless so I forced myself to lie quiet, to pretend I was asleep. My mind was far from the escape of sleep. It whirled and ran through every moment, every conversation, every feeling I’d had in the two weeks I had known the man next to me. It had been ill-fated from the very beginning. Even when he had tried to show me he cared with flowers and gifts I had found a way to fuck that up. I couldn’t stay here, not for another day and night as Renny was kind and considerate. I couldn’t stand to know he would never look at me the same again, with lust and longing. With hope.

  I waited until I was sure he was asleep before rising, packing my bag and leaving the room. I didn’t know when the next plane to Portland would leave but I was going to be on it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I cried all the way to Portland. Thank goodness the plane was full of sleepy people and no one took notice except the kind stewardess who kept bringing me tissues and 7-up.

  I waited at the Toronto airport for several hours waiting for the 6:20 flight, hoping my luck would hold out and Renny wouldn’t wake up until it took off. Even if he had woken up and figured out where I had gone maybe he was just letting me go. It was for the best. Clean break. It was fun. See you in another lifetime. This wasn’t some romantic comedy where he would come rushing down the runaway shouting my name until I forced the plane to stop and we were reunited while all the passengers applauded. But a girl can’t help but wish.

  I landed in the drizzly grey of a Portland afternoon. I rode the MAX train home as the rain got heavier and the sky got darker. The city and I were in the same mood and it suited me fine. This was reality. This was home. This was the rest of my life.

  I checked my cell phone obsessively for the first few hours and then gave up. He was up by now, knew I was gone. He was letting me go. Smart man. Damn him.

  I spent the rest of the day and night curled up sobbing. For a little variety I switched from the living room to the bedroom and even broke down using the john. It just proved that this was the right move; if I was this devastated after two weeks think what I would have been like after a few months, or years. Think what I would have felt watching him leave me for a younger woman, a woman who could give him all I had to offer and everything else. I needed to grieve, which I knew how to do from vast experience, and then get on with my life. The whole world seemed dull and lifeless.

  I know, again from vast experience, that routine is very important when dealing with grief so I got up Monday morning, put on my best little reporter outfit and took the train into work. How could everything still be here, I wondered. Doesn’t it know that the end has come? Don’t all the people on the train understand that all that awaits them in their futile, meager little lives was disappointment, sorrow before a welcome death?

  I was a little bit depressed.

  No one even noticed me as I came in and sat at my desk. I looked at my calendar, checking my appointments for the day; an interview with the new host of the AM drive radio hour at 10, a telephone consultation with the star of a series currently filming in town at 2 and then, nothing for the rest of the day. I had two stories I needed to finish for the deadline on Tuesday so I hoped work would absorb me enough that I wouldn’t think about Ren.

  Not even close. If I’d still been overseas I wouldn’t have had a moment to give to him. One tends to focus on staying alive in those circumstances. But entertainment writing? In peaceful, prosaic Portland? Lots of room in the old brain for obsessing, wondering, hurting. This was not going to be as easy as I hoped.

  I made it through the day without a major meltdown. A couple of times I took off to the women’s room a little faster than usual and Caroline raised her eyebrows. I think she knew something was up but luckily she had the same deadline I did and she types a lot slower than me. Still, as a precaution I went down two floors to use the restroom so she wouldn’t corner me and demand the details of my obvious unhappiness. She probably figured it out already anyway. It was a pretty easy guess that my fling with the sexalicious Renny Taylor had come to an end. Caroline is one of those people who doesn’t do the messy parts of friendship so she probably had no desire to have me cry on her shoulder. For once, I was grateful for her shallowness.

  The week went by with more of the same; I cried at home and picked up the pieces of my life back at work. I was also very unsettled about everything. I had been so grateful to get the job at the paper because I was basically looking at food stamps to survive. Having taken an advance and not written a book I had been forced to give the advance back (some of which I had spent) wiping out the last of my savings. There I was, at 57, after 30 years working my ass off as a journalist, risking my life to be a journalist, and what did I have to show for it? A house with bad plumbing and no savings. No husband of family either. I felt as though I had made every wrong choice in life there was to make. It was like at every crossroads, every time I had to choose one thing over another I had stopped, asked myself what is the very worst decision I can make and that was what I went with.

  I was grateful I wasn’t living under the Burnside Bridge but Renny had made me remember who I was and what I was capabl
e of. I was a writer. A writer of things that mattered, like little girls sold into marriage.

  I got out my manuscript and read through it. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered, in fact some of it was damn good. Although parts of the stories I told in the book still made me tear up and pulled at me, the feeling now was more of indignation and determination. Maybe I was strong enough to finish this? Maybe enough time, and distraction, had given me the distance I had needed.

  I sent an email to my editor, enclosing a couple of the better chapters, and told her I was ready to give it another go. Just like Renny, I didn’t hear from her either. Seems I had burned bridges all over my life.

  I still had Marlene though. A good BFF is the greatest asset a girl can have and I was blessed with Marlene. She didn’t ask all the gory details. She just made me dinner, fed me ice cream and watched re-runs of Downton Abbey with me. Late Sunday, a week after my flight from Toronto, she was finally demanded to know what was going on with me and Ren.

  “Okay,” she said, grabbing away my Peanut Butter Cup Core pint, “enough ice cream. What happened in Toronto?”

  I told her the whole debacle. I steeled myself for her ‘you’re an idiot’ speech but it never came. She just listened before taking my hand and saying, “Of course you had to leave.”

  For some reason that made me cry all over again. Even Marlene, the most optimistic and romantically inclined friend I had saw that Renny and I were terribly wrong for each other. What I had deep down hoped would be a pep-talk, a ‘you go get ‘em Rach and damn the consequences’ had turned into an affirmation that my instinct to protect myself had been a good one.

  She got up and took the melting Ben and Jerry’s back to the fridge and washed off the spoon. On her way back to the couch she saw my manuscript on my desk by the window. She picked it up and started reading. She sat down in my crappy office chair and read for another ten minutes before speaking.

  “This is good. This is really good.” She brought it over to me placing it on my lap. “This is you Rachel. I know you feel you have nothing and have achieved nothing in your life, but this,” she pointed at the manuscript in my lap, “this is something the world needs to read. And my friend, this is something you need to write.”

  “I wrote my editor,” I told her,” she didn’t write back.”

  “Get a new one. Damn it Rachel, you are a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and this is another waiting to be won.”

  Marlene grabbed her coat and purse, then came over and gave me a quick kiss on the head. “Think about it sweetie, that’s all I ask. I’ll check in tomorrow.” I looked down at the manuscript but didn’t touch it. Maybe Marlene was right. What was I thinking, Marlene was always right! What I needed was to get over this silly little love affair and spend my time productively, doing what I know how to do, write.

  After she left I curled up on the couch and read through everything I had written up to that point. A lot of it was crap but that’s to be expected on a first draft. Some of it was really good though. In fact, some of it I don’t remember writing, that’s how bad my state of mind was. Funny thing was, the stuff I didn’t remember was the best. Maybe I had needed to be that emotionally immersed to get out my best. I thought about my favorite quote about writing; Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.

  I was bleeding, albeit internally, so now I needed to write.

  I sat down at my desk and didn’t get up until the morning. By then I knew what I had to do; beg.

  After a morning of persistent (and possibly annoying) phone calls to my editor’s office she finally got back to me Monday afternoon. I had emailed over several chapters for her to read and hoped she’d had time to look at them. I’m not great at begging but I needed my advance back to finish the book. I needed the advance to get on with my life, what was left of it after I’d emptied all my tear ducts and my heart was numbed.

  “Rachel, so good to hear from you,” she said. I bet. It took you long enough to get back to me. “What can I do for you? We did receive the last installment on your advance some time ago so no apologies necessary sweetie. I know you were having a tough time.”

  “I come not to apologize but to grovel Amanda. I need the advance back. I’m writing the book again.”

  “Oh, well that’s great. I’m happy you’re back at it.”

  “Before you say another thing I need to know, do you still believe in this story?”

  “I do. I always did. It’s just that … well, the climate has changed here a little. I’m sure you heard of the merger.”

  “I sorta did. Some big media company bought you out, right? But you’re still a senior editor?”

  “True. And I can green light books it’s just that I’m talking about the war climate. People are getting a little bit of war-fatigue, if you know what I mean.”

  “War fatigue, huh? You mean like the fatigue, anxiety and devastation the Afghani women and children have been feeling for the last 200 years?”

  “Now Rachel, we know that it’s tough for them but…”

  “No, you don’t. You haven’t been there. Very few Americans have any idea of what is happening there. If they did they wouldn’t be screaming for a withdrawal of our troops.”

  “Still, Rachel, people are done with it. They want to move on to other stories. They want some happy endings and we both know we didn’t exactly win this war, right?”

  “So you’re telling me that I missed my window of opportunity. I get it. Thanks anyway.”

  “Wait, wait. I didn’t say that exactly. I was just letting you know it will be a hard sell with my higher-ups. The advance may not be as big. Let me talk to George, have him read the chapters you sent, which are brilliant by the way, and get back to you. When do you need to know?”

  “Today. I just quit my job so unless you want to me to become a homeless, get me that advance back.”

  “Rachel, Rachel, don’t quit your job. I read some of your articles, they were great. You really know how to get under the skin of some of those pompous celebrities. It seemed like you were having fun with it.”

  “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. I had to quit Amanda, it was hurting my soul to be writing about such nonsense when the world is burning to the ground.”

  “People like that nonsense, Rachel, it sells. But I will do my best. Smoochies.” With that she hung up.

  I had lied to her. I hadn’t quit my job, officially. I just hadn’t gone to work today and wasn’t planning to for... well, ever again.

  I sent out a prayer to the goddesses of female writers and sat down to open a vein or two.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Writing a book takes a long time. I was lucky I had half of it under my belt when I began the process again, but it is all-absorbing and I relished the work. Amanda had gotten me a slightly smaller advance but with my love of Top Ramen and red beans and rice it would do.

  I had the book in rough draft form within three months and was feeling like I knew who I was again. I had sent the draft to Amanda and was waiting for her notes, so I had a few days to kill. Marlene suggested a trip to Seattle and I couldn’t see why not. Nothing was keeping me in Portland.

  We took the train up along the Puget Sound from Portland to Seattle. For a little over 30 bucks you get a 3 ½ hour ride along some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. These are parts of the Sound you can’t see from any road and I love the rolling, clacking of a train.

  Marlene and I talked some but we mostly enjoyed gorging ourselves with the view. Ah, this is a great life, I thought, happy for the first time since leaving Toronto three months ago. A glass of wine, a great friend, an advance warming my bank account and spectacular nature, who could ask for more? Not me, I answered my internal committee. Not me.

  We arrived in Seattle in the early afternoon and we had tickets to see a new play at Seattle Repertory that night. We each only had a rolling suitcase but we decided to take a cab to our hotel before venturing down to Pike Place Market for som
e fish-throwing and fresh flowers.

  Somehow Marlene had gotten us a room at The Sorrento, one of Seattle’s oldest and most luxurious hotels. Right in the heart of town but years away in style. I loved it the minute I set eyes on it. In a way, it was Seattle’s version of The Benson but unlike a few months ago, I felt right at home with the swag. Somewhere between interviewing Renny Taylor and writing a book about Afghanistan I had slipped back into my self-esteem. I was confident about my place in the world now and although, I couldn’t travel like this all the time I was perfectly fine with a little luxury now and then.

  The room was glorious, the day spectacular and rain-free and my spirits high. Marlene and I walked down to the market promising ourselves we would take a cab back up the brutal hills. Sure enough people were crowding the stalls looking for fresh foods, flowers and artisan crafts. I found a unique bracelet in a small shop and had to buy it while Marlene stocked up on wine and tulips. We grabbed a cup of coffee and sat back to watch as the fish sellers tossed their fish across the aisles all the while hawking their wares.

  In some ways it reminded me of the best parts of Afghanistan, the humor, the pride and the camaraderie. I had tried to show in my book that it’s not all Taliban and beheadings. These were proud, hard people who wanted what we did; to raise their families in peace.

  With only a couple of hours before the play started Marlene and I walked up a block to First Street to find a cab. We were laughing as we waved down everything yellow we saw but it was rush hour and they were all full. Neither of us were relishing the idea of climbing the steep Seattle hills to our hotel when a dark sedan pulled up in front of us and the passenger window rolled down.

  “Hey Rachel, need a lift?” It was Jed! Talk about perfect timing.

  Marlene climbed in the back while I piled in next to Jed. I was genuinely glad to see him.

  “What you doing in Seattle girl?” he asked.