by Rachel Hauck
“Your logic confounds the wise men.” Taylor munched on a few fries, doing a bit of emotional sorting, thinking through the morning, deciding the things she loved about the chapel. Wanting to go back.
“Heard from Jack?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Makes me wonder. I think he’d be dying to get his phone back.”
“Makes you wonder what? He’s busy with a meeting this morning.”
Fresh off a divorce, Emma’s favorite sport these days was marriage-bashing, and Taylor didn’t want to play. Especially not after experiencing the goodness of the chapel.
“My one and only date with Jack in high school was at the Fry Hut.” She grabbed a few more fries, savoring each bite, then taking a long sip from her soda straw.
“Javier took me to Nashville for a concert.” Emma reached for more fries, staring out at the lawn. “But he’s gone and I’m over crying about how I thought divorce would never happen to me. You know how families have traits? Like everyone is overweight, or everyone is skinny, or they all play an instrument? Our family trait is everyone divorces.”
“Shut up. That’s what you want our legacy to be?” However, the truth in Emma’s claim rattled Taylor. As far back as she knew, both sides of the family were wildly successful at divorce.
“Doesn’t matter what I want. It’s true. Makes me wonder what you were thinking when you eloped with Jack.”
“I don’t know . . .” He swept me off my feet.
“Well, ‘I don’t know’ is as good a reason as any.”
“Hush. Eat your fries.”
“You ready?”
“Are you?” Three days she’d waited to marry him. Even on Martha’s Vineyard, a romantic elopement required due legal process. But with each day, she envisioned a life with Jack, and it was a beautiful one.
“More than.”
He brushed the dangling curl of her updo from her neck. They used the three-day waiting period to get ready. They both bought something to wear. Jack bought plain platinum bands and got a haircut. Taylor got a mani-pedi and a facial. This morning the stylist swept her hair up in ringlets and curls.
“Are we crazy?” she said.
“I like crazy, don’t you?” He swept his hand around her neck and drew her into him for a kiss.
Yeah, she liked Jack’s kind of crazy. “I can’t believe the Jack Forester of Rock Mill High is marrying me.” The brooding scholar-athlete with the wounded past had dumped her after one date. But there were plenty of girls waiting to take her place. “All the girls wanted to rescue you in high school.”
He grinned. “Well then, here you are, rescuing me.”
She sobered. “Do you need to be rescued, Jack?”
“No, but I’ll admit to whatever you want to make you stick by me.”
“Jack, I want to say I—”
“We’re ready for you now.” The officiant beckoned for them to follow him to the beach.
Jack took her hand. “Let’s go.”
Taylor squeezed his hand. Like a couple of crazy kids, neither had said “I love you” yet. Getting married felt like it deserved some kind of love confession, didn’t it?
“Jack, you know we should—”
“I know, have a back door.” He stopped and peered right through her eyes and down to her soul. “If it doesn’t work out we can walk away, no fuss, no muss.”
If it doesn’t work out . . .
She wanted to say “I love you” and he instituted an escape clause.
“—so, the chapel. It’s nice? I need to drive out there.” Emma frowned at the empty fry bag.
“You should wait until you’re in a more pleasant state of mind concerning marriage,” Taylor said, still trapped between Emma’s conversation and her memory.
She should have stopped Jack right then and there with a “What do you mean ‘If it doesn’t work out’?”
But she was committed to and caught up in the moment. She believed she could beat the odds. That’s what crazy people did—the same thing as everyone else, only expecting different results.
“How was Coach? I see him downtown once in a while. At Ella’s.”
Emma had taken after Granny and gone into banking right there in Heart’s Bend. She claimed the smell of money was her favorite perfume.
“Fine, I guess. Doesn’t seem like he’s in his eighties. He’s as old as Granny was but looks like he’s got a lot of living left to do.” Taylor sipped from the soda, listening to the sounds of the street. A screen door clapped shut. The hint of a country melody. A car starting. “Here’s what’s weird. Coach spent ten years building this chapel, and for whatever reason, he never used it, and is now selling it.”
“People are crazy. Did he give you the story?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe some girl broke his heart and he never recovered.”
“I suppose.” Taylor chewed on the end of her straw. “That would be sad.”
“Oh my gosh, I want more fries. See what you did to me. They definitely have to be in heaven. Or I won’t go,” Emma said.
“So hell is a better option? I’m pretty sure there will be no fries in hell.”
Emma laughed. “Then that settles it. No hell for me.”
“I don’t think heaven is intended for our carnal satisfaction, Em.”
“Well, one morning in a chapel and look who’s got a sermon.”
“I’m just saying.” Taylor wadded up the fry bag, feeling full. And a little queasy. Ever since rushing to the airport yesterday, her system was off.
Stress. Just stress. She thought the fries would be the perfect comfort food. Yet here she was with greasy, salty fingers and a gurgling belly.
“So, how is married life?”
“Adjusting.”
“Could’ve knocked me over with a feather when you called to say you’d eloped.” The warm edge of the noon sunlight fell over their legs. “With Jack Gillingham.”
“Forester. He’s using his real name now.”
“There’s a brave soul.”
“No one in New York knows his dad is a scalawag. Besides, it’s his legal name.”
“And is it yours? Are you a Forester too?”
“A Branson.”
Emma made a face. “Why? You never struck me as a feminist, keep-your-own-name kind of girl.”
“Haven’t got around to it, is all.”
“You eloped and I got divorced.” Emma raised her hand in a mock toast. “To us.”
Emma leaned back, propping her elbows on the step behind her. “I didn’t want the divorce, you know.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. So, Taylor, be careful, okay? Don’t let Jack get away.”
Taylor nodded, shaking the empty soda cup. “I’ll do my best.”
But it wasn’t solely up to her. Jack had a say in things. Like an out clause.
“If it doesn’t work out we can walk away, no fuss, no muss.”
JACK
The day remained all sunshine and blue sky as Jack cruised across the Heart’s Bend town line. He’d grabbed lunch at a diner outside of Nashville and called Hops, delivering the good news that FRESH Water was a 105 client again.
But Hops didn’t care about FRESH. He cared about Jack accepting the job in London. “You’re the best man for the job,” he said.
The whole exchange made Jack anxious. And now that he was on his way to Heart’s Bend to exchange phones with Taylor, he knew he had to ask her point-blank about Doug. If any confidence remained from winning FRESH, it was leaking out of him fast.
He didn’t even mind visiting the old hometown if it ensured him he’d not lose his wife. A quick stop-off would make it easy to avoid Rise Forester’s neighborhood.
If he didn’t have the golf game with Lennon, he’d visit Sam and Sarah. Meanwhile, he rehearsed what he wanted to say.
“Aha! Confess. You’re having an affair.”
No, too reality TV.
“So, what’s really going on with
you and Voss?”
Too casual sounding.
“Listen, do you want to be married? To me?”
But if he could peek over the edge of his insecurities, he’d admit Taylor seemed frustrated when Voss showed up at the apartment unannounced. She didn’t want him there any more than Jack.
What a moron. Doug had to manipulate to get what he wanted. The accusation boomeranged, popping Jack right in the heart.
And are you any better?
He squirmed in his seat, not enjoying the scrutiny of being under his own microscope.
He wanted to say things to her, he did. It bothered him that intimate words were so hard to speak. Even when he felt them, his heart bursting, he couldn’t say them.
I love you!
Taylor had whispered the words a few times while making love, but he didn’t exactly repeat it so she quit. He didn’t blame her for that, or even for maybe falling out of love with him altogether.
He’d married an amazing woman one lucky weekend, when the demons of rejection and heartache were on a vacay from his soul.
And just when he believed his rash, impulsive proposal might turn into the best decision he’d ever made, wham, those nasty devils returned and crushed him with the boot heel of “Reject!”
Whether or not Taylor encouraged Voss was one thing. But another man—a good-looking, rich, well-connected man—was trying to steal his wife, and Jack knew sure as shooting he couldn’t compete.
So did he let go or fight? He had perfected letting go by the time he was ten. He had the emotional stickiness of used tape.
The Fry Hut popped onto the horizon and Jack gave the place two horn toots as he passed by. He’d taken Taylor there on their first, and last, date in high school. His buddy Bryan had promised Jack the use of his employee discount. Of course the Fry Hut didn’t have an employee discount . . .
But the fries he shared with Taylor that night were about the best food he’d ever eaten. It’d been a cold fall Saturday and Jack drove them out to a plot of land off River Road. They climbed onto a love seat he’d wedged in the bed of his truck, snuggled under a blanket, and counted the stars.
Jack felt like the King of the World that night. He had plans and dreams. But after one date, he felt those strange gurglings of affection for Taylor and backed off. Whenever possible in his life, he did the leaving. Because just when he thought everything was good, he’d walk through the door to see somber faces.
“Jack, this is your last day with the Feltons.” Or the Crandalls. The Horches. The Arguses. The Taggs. Just when he started feeling settled, off he’d go to another foster home.
But that was then. This was now. He was in command of his destiny. Aiming the Mustang through familiar hometown streets, Jack slowed, turning onto tree-lined Chelsea Avenue where the wealthy in town lived fifty years ago. Now the rich lived north, on the edge, closer to Nashville.
But the south side was now part of the historic district.
He parked along the curb in front of house number 828, a three-story Tudor once featured on HGTV when it was lit up for Christmas.
He didn’t need to wonder if Taylor was here. She sat on the front steps with Emma. His heart raced as he stepped out of the car, his pulse thick in his ears, catching the sheen of her golden-brown hair in the light and the lean cut of her long legs. Shew, she made him want to shout to the world, “I love this woman!” She made him all twisted up with love.
“Jack.” She jumped up, brushing her hands over her shorts as he made his way up the walk. “You’re here. Did you call?”
“I called my phone and left a voice mail.” He held up her phone. “Have you been missing this?”
“Actually, no.” She squinted at him through the sunlight, pulling his phone from her pocket. He wanted to grab her, hold on to her, never let her go. “But I know you’re missing this. You have some calls from Hops.”
“Thanks, and you . . . you”—he cleared his throat—“have some messages too.”
“Addison?”
“No.” Just say it. Doug Voss! “Hi, Emma.”
“Hello, Jack. Welcome to the family.”
“Th-thanks.”
Taylor unlocked her phone. “H-how did it go? Did Colette call?”
“No word from Colette yet, but I got the account back.”
“Yay, Jack, way to go.” She raised her hand for a high five. Which he returned, wrapping his fingers around hers and drawing her to him, leaning his lips to her ear.
“Doug Voss texted you a dozen times.”
“What?” She pulled away.
“He wants you to meet him in LA.” When he released her, she examined her messages, avoiding his gaze.
“Well, I don’t want to meet him.”
“Then why does he keep texting?”
She raised her gaze to his. “You think there’s something behind his insanity? Like me . . . encouraging him?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Oh my gosh, Jack. Did you see me refuse him the other night? And did you have this jealous streak when we got married?”
“When we got married you weren’t texting with Doug Voss.”
“I’m not texting him. He’s texting me.” She flashed the face of the phone to him. “But apparently you’re texting him.”
“I had to respond. He was disrupting my meeting.”
“I told you, he likes to win, get what he wants.” Taylor started up the walk toward the steps where Emma sat watching. “I’m going inside.”
“Jack,” Emma said. “Come on in. Granny has a ton of books, LPs, photographs. Go through them and take what you want.”
“Thanks.” But he didn’t want anything but Taylor. He skipped up the steps after his wife. “How’d the shoot go today, Taylor?”
She raised her nose from her phone where she’d been typing and scrolling. “Fine.”
“She said the place is unbelievable.” Emma, filling in details, was trying to be the soft center between them. It bode well for Jack that Emma seemed to be on his side, or at least not against him.
“Then AQ should be happy.”
“Jack,” Emma said. “Are you staying for the weekend? Getting to know your new kin?”
“Actually, I need to get back. Lots of work to catch up on and I have a golf game in the morning.”
“Really? You can’t stay?”
“Emma, leave him alone. If he has work to do, then he has work to do.” Taylor’s stubborn glare locked with Jack’s. “Besides, he hates it here.”
“What? You hate our sweet town?”
“No, I’d just rather be somewhere else.” Jack stepped over to Taylor, shoving aside Emma’s words and the accusation her town was not good enough for him. He might like HB more if Rise Forester didn’t dwell here. “Say, Taylor, I used your idea, you know, Colette Greer tossing water on folks. They loved it.”
Her eyes widened. “But you don’t have Colette on board yet.”
“No, and that is the kink in the works. Do you think you could call her? I could stop by her place Sunday, or Monday, any day, and see if she’ll join us.” This was rare for him. To be so reckless with an account.
“I don’t have any clout with her.”
“You can try, can’t you?” He took Taylor by the hand and led her away from Emma’s eager ears. “Look, Colette aside, I’m sorry about what I said, about you and Voss. But what am I supposed to think?”
“Just because everyone else has let you down doesn’t mean I will. See, Jack”—she rapped softly on his forehead—“the ghost of Rise Forester clouds everything you believe.”
“Like it or not, this is who I am. I’m trying here.”
“Me too, but you make it so hard.” Taylor pursed her lips into a thin line. “I’ll call Colette.”
“Thank you. And Doug Voss . . .”
She sighed. “Please forget about him.”
Jack exhaled, the dust of his past swirling in him, coating his thoughts, emotions, and marriage. “I-I can stay
for a while if you want. But I do have work to do.”
“It’s okay.” Taylor smoothed her hand over his chest. “I’ve got stuff to go through here with Emma. I’ll see you next week.” She leaned forward, inviting him into a kiss.
Jack pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers, loving her, tasting her, letting his touch say what his words could not.
Chapter Fifteen
COLETTE
Justine insisted on working Saturday afternoon, claiming they needed a jump on their deadline. So Colette gave it her all, but she was tired and moving slowly.
Nevertheless she’d dressed, fixed her hair and makeup, and brewed a pot of tea the way Mamá used to. Zoë was off on weekends so she had to fend for herself.
“I know I’ve been sort of random in collecting information, Colette, but I’m trying to get a feel for how your story should flow.”
Across the study, Justine twisted the cap from her Diet Coke and took a big gulp.
“Eclectic is fine.” Though Colette preferred stability, predictability, boundaries, and consistency. Routine. Everything working on a soap like Always Tomorrow provided.
“Tell me about Peg.” Justine read from her computer. “She seems to be a bit witchy. What kind of relationship did you have with her?”
“I loved her. We’d endured a lot together, Peg and I. But she was always a jealous one. In Heart’s Bend it boiled down to the fact that we loved the same boy.”
FEBRUARY 1949
ROCK MILL HIGH
The end-of-school bell pealed through the concrete and metal hallway, voices rising, bouncing with laughter, the exterior doors opening to the crisp cold, the air swirling with tiny snowflakes.
Colette arranged her books in her locker, covertly peeking toward Mr. Kirby’s shop class. Jimmy and Clem would emerge at any moment.
Slowly she rearranged her books, moving trigonometry to the left and chemistry to the right in a reverse alphabetical order. But tucked in her hand was the winter dance flyer.
Saturday, February 12th
Six o’clock
Less than a week away and no one had invited her to go. But she’d made up her mind. If Jimmy didn’t ask her, she was going to be forward and ask him. Well, maybe she would hint very strongly.
