“Okay, what about your art?”
Before she could say more, we heard a noise coming from the tool shed at the far end of the yard, followed by silence once again.
Dismissing the noise as an animal most likely, Lacy relaxed and asked, “Speaking of your art, how’s school going?”
“Good,” I said truthfully.
“So, have they taught you anything about painting, or are you teaching them a thing or two?”
“Hate to admit it, but there’s a lot I didn’t know. If you saw one of my paintings from a few years ago compared to some I’ve done recently, you’d never believe they were both mine,” I said, glad to have a conversation that didn’t involve Claire or her innuendos. Claire never discussed my art. Drawing and painting was my passion in life, next to Lacy Dalton, and never once had Claire seemed interested.
“I wish you’d paint something for me sometime. I love your work.” Her sights lifted from the porch railing to me. “I’d like to have a Nick Martin original to brag about someday when the world discovers how talented you are.”
“I wish I was as confident as you are.”
“I don’t know why you aren’t. You know good and well that your paintings will hang in museums someday.” When I shot her a skeptical frown, she lifted her chin proudly. “I know it to be true.”
“I thought I was that good too until I saw some of the stuff the rest of my class comes up with.”
“I feel the same way about my music. When it’s just Mr. Porter and me, and he’s bragging to everyone that I’m his immortality in the flesh, I feel like I could be the next Chopin or something. Then when recital comes around and I hear the other students, I think I’m not half as good as some of them.”
“You’re not half as good, Lace. You’re ten times better.”
She blushed and looked away. “Thank you. Hey, maybe we’ll both be famous someday and host big parties together when we become high society.”
“Sounds cool.”
“And when you and Claire get married, and when Kevin and I get married, we’ll live in huge mansions next door to each other just like we do now. We’ll send our kids to private schools together in our limo’s, and they’ll grow up being the best of friends just like we did.”
I laughed at her dreamy, innocent notions, wishing her sparkle would rub off on me so I could see the world through her naive eyes. “Think high society could handle a bunch of backwood hicks like us, Lace?”
“Who knows,” she said, with a dreamy sigh. “It would be nice, though, to get away from here, wouldn’t it?”
I knew how much Lacy loved the mountains of our North Carolina home. The sights and smells, the animals, the streams and brooks on the mountainside behind our two houses inspired her. When the weather was nice, she loved taking walks in the woods alone with her guitar and manuscript paper, finding serene spots where she would create for hours. Kevin never understood the artistic inspiration that nature provided her. I knew how she felt. The beauty of the forest inspired my artwork as well. I had painted just about every beautiful spot to be found in those woods. No matter how much she loved her home, though, Claryville was too small for Lacy. She had dreams, and those aspirations would quickly wither and die if she stayed here, leaving her only a bitter shell filled with resentments over what she could have been.
“You ever want to leave here for good, Nick?”
Before I could respond, another noise came from the tool shed.
Lacy sat up straight again. “What is that?”
“It’s just a raccoon, Lace. Forget it.”
The noise sounded again, and she stood up this time. “Let’s go check it out,” she said, smiling with adventurous enthusiasm.
“Lace-” I started, but she was already halfway down the steps.
“You’re not scared, are you?” she asked, with laughter ringing in her words. “Come on.”
Suddenly I didn’t want her to find Claire and Kevin. I no longer wanted to be responsible for the pain she was about to feel, and I panicked when I realized that it was too late to abort my plan. Nevertheless, now that events were set in motion, I had to play this off right.
“It’s just a possum or a fox. Come on,” I said, trying to coax her back up to the porch.
Her smile faded, and she narrowed her eyes. She looked from me to the shed, and then to the side yard, toward the front of the house where Claire had parked her car. Lacy looked back at me as her eyes lit up with realization.
“I forgot. Where’s Claire? Is she upstairs sleeping?” Before I could answer, she hurried on. “No. Andy and Rhonda would have a fit if they knew she was sleeping over.”
She knew my parents well. They didn’t like Claire and would have a conniption if they woke up to find that she’d sneaked over after hours.
Lacy looked back up to the porch and searched for what, I knew not. “Where’s the blanket you brought out with you earlier?”
Blanket?
I tried not to seem confused, but something must have flashed in my eyes to betray me, for she started to turn away.
“Lace, let’s go have one more beer before you gotta go back in,” I said, taking her hand and trying to pull her back to the porch.
She yanked free and ran across the yard toward the shed. I thought she might jerk the door open and “ah-ha” them, but halfway across the lawn, she slowed to a creep that would have put a cat burglar to shame.
I followed and caught her once again. I turned her around to face me and held her by the shoulders to prevent her from pulling away.
I tilted my head close to hers so I could speak quietly. “Lace, I should’ve told you when you came out because I knew they were in there, but please don’t go look. You already know what’s going on.”
Tears pooled in her beautiful blue eyes, but she refused to let them fall. I wished I could just kiss her and make her forget everything in the world with my lips, especially what was going on in that shed. Instead, I said, “It’s bad enough to know what they’re doing. But you can forget that in time. Seeing it is something much harder to get out of your head. I’ve been there. I know.”
She glanced to the shed, her gaze lingering for a moment before coming back to me. “I need to see it. If I don’t, I might try to tell myself it never happened, and then I might forgive him.”
Much as my guilt plagued me, the damage was done. I let her go when she pulled away.
We crept up to the wooden shed and peeped through the dusty window in the back of the building, into the moonlight-streaked darkness within.
Though they were cloaked in shadows, a single candle on dad’s workbench lit enough to see their naked bodies moving together on the floor. I looked over at Lacy, and my heart fell in regret.
Though Lacy had a fair complexion to begin with, her face was now stark white. Her eyes were open wide and glistening with unshed tears. Her lips quivered as a defeated sigh escaped them. The scene she witnessed seemed to physically impact her, for she took a step backward as if she’d been struck. She blinked a few times and then cast her stunned gaze toward me. A split-second later she turned and ran back toward her house.
I caught up with her at the bottom steps of her back porch. She stared back at me with wide eyes, the tears only seconds away from falling.
“I’m so sorry, Lace. I should have told you. Better than that, I should have sent you away sooner. Maybe deep-down part of me wanted you to stay so you’d catch them when they came out together. But I never wanted you to see it with your own eyes like that.”
After a moment, she glanced over her shoulder toward the shed. She raked her hair back away from her face, lifted her chin proudly, and then, with her look one of cold detachedness, she said, “Please don’t tell him I was out here tonight.”
“It’s not my place to.”
Before I could say more, she made her way up the porch steps and disappeared into her house.
Lacy
The sound of Andy Martin, Donald Cary, and my father talking outside be
low my window woke me. I couldn’t distinguish their words, but I didn’t need to. It was Saturday. They would stand out there chit-chatting for a good twenty minutes while they each drank their morning coffee, then they would go hang out at Shorty’s diner over breakfast until the bowling alley opened. In nicer weather, they would have hit the golf course for a weekly dose of eighteen holes first and then went bowling afterward.
I didn’t want to get out of bed. I’d stayed up crying most of the night, and when I did sleep it was more fitful than restful. More than not wanting to get out of bed, though, I didn’t want to leave the house for fear of an inevitable run-in with Kevin.
“Hey, kiddo,” said my mother, opening my door after knocking with no response from me. “I’m going to run down and help Rhonda open the shop. Be ready to go by the time I get back.”
When she saw my tear-swollen eyes staring vacantly up at the ceiling, she came in to sit beside me. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
Just the sound of her voice was like a faucet bringing the tears back. I sat up in bed and threw my arms around her neck, unable to remember another time in my life that I’d held her tighter.
“Lacy, honey,” she said, forcing me away enough to look at me. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Oh, Momma, it was horrible! I hate him! I’ve never hated anything or anybody in my life, but I swear I hate him!”
“Sweetheart, who?”
“I hate her, too!”
“Oh, my God, Lacy! Who?”
When my sobs came so hard that they stole my voice, mother crushed me to her bosom, trying to soothe me. After a few moments of her caressing my hair and rocking me back and forth, I finally calmed a little.
“Lacy, please tell me what happened.”
I sniffled back my tears and tried to keep them at bay. “I’ll tell you, Momma. I need to talk about it, to tell you. But go open the store first. If I tell you now, it’ll take too long, and you’ll never make it to the store to help Rhonda open on time.”
I wiped my eyes. Mother stared at me for a moment in indecision. “Honey, I don’t like leaving you like this.”
“I’m okay, Momma, but I really do need to talk so please just go and hurry back.”
Her brow wrinkled with worry, but she relented. She leaned over to kiss my cheek and pulled me in for a parting embrace.
“I love you, Lacy.”
I choked down a sob, and with a shaking voice full of renewed tears, I said, “I love you too, Momma.”
As soon as my mother left me alone, I changed out of my pajamas and forced myself to get dressed. I might spend the whole day in tears, but my world was still turning—even if Kevin Martin wasn’t in it anymore.
While I waited for my mother to return, I called the airlines in Asheville and confirmed that there was indeed a flight leaving tomorrow tonight. I would find an opportunity to approach Nick later this afternoon. After our mutual betrayals the night before, I felt sure he would sympathize with my plight and agree to drive me to the airport—if for no other reason than to spite Kevin.
I couldn’t help but wish I didn’t live next door to Kevin. Yes, I had been stubborn about not wanting to sacrifice my music for him, but there hadn’t been a question that Kevin was the essence of my heart and soul.
How was I going to face him now without feeling the vilest hatred for him? How would I ever be able to look at Claire again and not see her in his arms? Poor Nick. Was this how he felt knowing Claire had been repeatedly unfaithful? How he could stand to look at her, much less continue dating her and sleeping with her, was unfathomable.
I had a new appreciation for his strength now, and my heart went out to him. I was outraged beyond mercy over Kevin’s single infidelity. How could Nick allow himself to be continually degraded and humiliated so foully? Nick deserved better. He was wonderful and smart, talented, funny, kind, and handsome enough to have any girl he wanted. Was he completely without pride and dignity? Or did he care so little for Claire that her indiscretions meant nothing to him? If that were the case, why would he stay with her?
Maybe this time Claire had finally gone too far.
Nick
I had woken early to the sound of my mother leaving for the shop. I abandoned the notion of going back to sleep when my father, Jerry, and Donald Cary departed for their ritualistic Saturday of folly an hour ago.
After showering and dressing, I came outside with my first cup of joe. I settled down with my feet propped up on the back-porch railing, curling my lips into a smug, satisfied grin. The same one I’d worn all morning.
“Oh, yeah,” I said under my breath, resting my head back and closing my eyes to exhale a contented sigh.
I’d give Lacy a few more minutes to get up and moving around. Then I’d go over to shower her with concern and make sure she was holding up all right.
The door opened, disturbing my peace. Kevin came out to join me, looking miserable and deflated.
“Hangover?” I asked.
“That too, yes.” Kevin sank into the chair beside me with a thud. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “God, I can’t believe I did that. Why did you let me do that?”
I suppressed a smile, trying to contain my glee. “I take it you weren’t satisfied with Claire’s performance.”
“It’s not that, it’s just… God, I can’t believe I did that!” he repeated, with more force this time, accompanied by his fist slamming down on the chair arm. “God, I can’t believe I did that! You gotta swear you won’t tell a soul. And you gotta make sure Claire doesn’t either. God, if Lacy finds out…”
His regret was so poignant that I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
I slapped a hand down on his back and reassured him. “I swear to you, Kevin, if Lace finds out, she won’t hear it from me.”
“God, I can’t believe I did that,” he said again, as though those seven words were the only ones in his vocabulary suddenly.
I gave him a few more moments of introspection before I finally asked, “So, I take it you’re rethinking this whole thing with Lace?”
“I’m an idiot,” he said, finally lifting his head to stare despondently toward the tool shed, his eyes glazed over with unshed tears of remorse. “I’m a fucking idiot. God, if she ever finds out…”
Before I could suggest that he should have considered that last night, we heard a car pulling up in the driveway. I assumed that Grace had returned home to pick up Lacy for their shopping trip. Then we heard the beeping of a transmitter radio. There was a loud burst of static followed by a man’s muffled voice, another beep, and then static again.
Kevin and I both looked at each other in alarm, and my gut clenched.
Lacy
Anguished wailing woke me.
Exhausted, I had fallen asleep waiting for my mother to return. When I looked at my bedside clock, I discovered she’d been gone for nearly three hours. I made my way to my bedroom door just as another gut-wrenching cry infiltrated the house.
“Daddy!” I called out, as I hurried down the hall. “Daddy!”
I took the steps two at a time when he belted out with another wail.
“Daddy, what’s-”
I stopped short at the bottom of the stairs.
Andy and Donald sat on either side of my father on the sofa. Rhonda, Nick, and Kevin hovered over by the upright piano in the opposite corner of the room. Between them, standing in the middle of the living room, in front of my father and his reinforcements, were two uniformed police officers. The absence of my mother was most obvious, and in light of the way my father still sobbed and howled, the teary-eyed pity of every single person looking at me, and the fact that she long ago should’ve returned from the shop, I didn’t need to be told why.
This was my tornado. Its destruction would reach the farthest corners of my soul.
I just stared at the shiny silver star on the chest of the young officer closest to me. My chest constricted and breathing was sudden
ly a struggle. When I stood there, staring at the officer’s shield for what felt like eternity tenfold, Kevin was the first to start toward me.
My expression must have betrayed my horror, for Nick quickly put a restraining hand on his brother’s arm.
My attention turned back to my father, who still cried incessantly while rocking back and forth. He looked up, and his gaze landed on me for the first time. His eyes widened and filled with visible relief for a split second, until he realized that it was I, not my mother, who stared back at him. Then he buried his face in his hands and resumed his hysterical lament.
Rhonda was the one to finally come to me, pulling me against her petite, motherly frame. She was my mother’s best friend. They wore the same perfume. When she guided my head to her shoulder, that scent was what brought me out of my shock. I stared over her shoulder toward the same star-studded police officer, who eyed me with sympathy.
“Oh, Lacy, honey,” she crooned. “You poor thing…”
When she met my vacant eyes, dry from shock, Rhonda broke down in sobs, and I knew she was useless to me now.
My father was useless to me now.
Kevin was useless to me now.
I had only me now.
Calmly, slowly, and without a word, I made my way toward the kitchen and out the back door. Once outside, I ran. I ran and ran until I tripped over a tree root and fell. Then I got up and ran again, not caring about the fresh rip in the right knee of my jeans, nor the blood that drizzled down my leg. Tree twigs slashed at my arms and face, briars snagged my sweater, and still, I ran in an uncaring fury.
Finally, I came to my favorite clearing by one of the many dribbling brooks on the mountainside. I fell to my knees beside the water and gasped, trying to catch my breath. My eyes welded shut lest a single tear fall and turn into a torrent.
My mother was gone. My beautiful, loving mother was forever gone to me.
Gone were our mother-daughter talks, her sweet perfume, her hair against my cheek. I would never see her smile or her dazzling blue eyes ever again. She wouldn’t be there to see me graduate from high school. She wouldn’t be there to listen with me in excitement the first time I ever heard myself on the radio. She wouldn’t be there when I drove my first car, or for birthdays, or for holiday dinners. She wouldn’t be there on my wedding day, or to be a grandmother to my children, or any other important event that might ever come my way. Every day, for the rest of my life, she wouldn’t be there.
Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1) Page 5
