“So you read the Bible,” he mused. “You do realize you work in a bar.”
“And?”
Colin held up his hand. “I’m not being disrespectful,” he said, wary of another tongue-lashing. “I just meant . . . Is a bar the best place for a Bible?”
“Can you think of a better place for a Bible?” she asked.
Colin shrugged. “I see your point,” he said. “But how many times have you actually used this Bible in here?”
“Counting tonight?” She thought for a moment, then smiled. “Once.”
He continued to stare at the book in front of him. “Tell me,” he said finally.
Julie leaned back until she was against the wooden column behind her. “If you’re asking me to tell you how I got to this point, it’s a long story.” She sighed. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“I am,” Colin said. “It’s what I came here for. That, and to apologize for being such a jerk last night.”
“You think you’re the first jerk I’ve had to deal with in here?”
“Probably not, but I’d like to think I’m the first one to apologize.”
Julie told him a story that night that he thought about many times over the years. About a girl who was raised mostly by her grandmother because her mother was a drug addict, in and out of jail and in and out of her life. Julie’s grandmother was a staunch believer and attended church on a regular basis, but she taught Julie much more than what it meant to be inside a church. She taught Julie how to practice Christianity, and how to accept her mother for who she was without carrying a torch of anger over who Julie wanted her to be. “I’m not saying you love her behavior. I’m saying you love your mama,” her grandmother told her. “Anger and grudges won’t hold anyone hostage except you. And when you feel like pointing out others’ mistakes, remember that you’re going to make a few of your own. We all do.” Her grandmother was right, of course.
One night Julie drank a little too much and went home with a boy, and the alcohol coupled with his charm led to his bed. That was the last time she’d seen or heard from him, and a couple of months later she realized she was pregnant. Julie said it would’ve been easy to become bitter, but when she looked at her baby, she knew God had given her a blessing. She could never consider her daughter a mistake, so she chose to see the joy in the situation instead of the pain. She went to a junior college during the day, worked at the bar at night, and tried to spend any spare time she had with her child. She focused on the things to be thankful for and not the things that tested her.
“As far as a formula,” Julie said, “I don’t know what to tell you. Focus on the good instead of the bad? Maybe that’s it. Forgive people even if they aren’t sorry? I don’t know, Colin, but it works for me. I don’t know if it will work for you. You have to figure that out yourself.”
“So you’re saying God is your magic formula,” Colin said, completely missing her point.
Julie laughed. “No,” she said. “He’s not a big magician sitting in the sky with a magic wand. But he’s not sitting up there with a flyswatter either, just waiting for one of his flawed humans to screw something up. You have to find your own way. My way happened to begin with a Bible and a really cool grandmother. This is what works for my life. Maybe you’ll need to hang upside down from a tree and chant. I don’t know . . . I’ve never been the kind of person to push my belief system on somebody else. I can only describe the view from my standpoint.”
Colin’s life had begun to feel so empty and meaningless to him that anything she had to offer was worth a try. That night Colin began a journey with Julie, who led him by the hand—but only because he asked her to. He began to attend church with her, her grandmother, and Dani. While it took him many months to really comprehend the words of the pastor, Colin dug in. He studied the Bible every second he could. He had long talks with Julie’s grandmother and the pastor of the church. Slowly, Colin began to change. The anger he’d harbored toward his father for so many years faded somewhat. It didn’t disappear, but he wasn’t defined by it anymore. But it wasn’t until he joined a team of men at the church who built houses around the country for the homeless that he really “got it.” Colin had found his calling, and he saw it as an opportunity to mend fences with his father.
He went home to Biloxi in March of that year, right before Easter. He drove straight to Jasper’s office without telling him he was coming. He had played out every scenario in his head on the drive down from college, and they all ended the same way: with Jasper embracing his son and telling him how wrong he’d been.
He skipped the elevator and bounded up the stairs to his father’s second-floor office. His secretary, Nancy, tried to flag him down, asked him to stop, but Colin didn’t want to wait. He wanted to start this reunion now.
“Dad,” he said, flinging open the office doors, “I’m sor—” What he saw stopped him in his tracks. Jasper was in a passionate embrace with a woman whose face he couldn’t see, but it was not his mother. He turned around and left . . . and never again set foot inside Jennings Construction.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Who is she?” Jacey asked from her knees on the balcony. She was hiding behind a huge potted plant.
Georgia, on the other hand, was leaning so far over the rails that Jacey feared she would fall.
“I don’t know who she is, Crouching Jacey, Hidden Moron,” Georgia said. “She just went inside the hotel. Shall we investigate?”
“No,” Jacey said. “I don’t care who she is.”
“Nice try. Come on, let’s go look at her up close.”
“Why is he even at that house?” Jacey asked. “And why won’t he answer my calls?”
“Both valid questions . . . that we can’t answer from this balcony. Come on, get up. You look ridiculous.”
Jacey stood up reluctantly and looked at the deck next door. Colin was still standing there, the same place he’d stood to watch the woman walk into the hotel. She felt an urge to throw something and yell. She didn’t like the unfamiliar feeling. Then it dawned on her: She was jealous. Great, she thought. Another feeling to add to the hodgepodge of emotions already swirling around.
“Put on your sunglasses and let’s go.” Georgia urged her to the door.
Jacey allowed herself to be shoved even though she knew the idea was absurd. “What are we going to do? Knock on every door in this hotel?”
“If necessary,” Georgia said. “But we can start at the pool area.”
They got off the elevator on the first floor, and Georgia pulled Jacey through the lobby toward the back of the hotel grounds.
“Slow down,” Jacey said. “I can’t see anything in here with these shades on.”
“The early bird gets the worm,” Georgia said. “Haven’t you ever heard that?”
They got outside and saw the woman almost immediately. Jacey stopped in her tracks and stared. Georgia shoved her so hard she fell against a chair that skidded across the concrete and made everyone look. Including the nameless woman.
“Oh no!” Georgia said, grabbing the chair. “Sit down . . . just sit down like we’re just . . . sitting down.”
Jacey was fixated on the woman two tables over, who sat by herself and faced the pool. She was quite pretty, very well-dressed, and had just hugged the man on whom Jacey had staked her claim. Jacey wanted to run up to the table and say, “Who are you and how do you know Colin?” But instead, she had to settle for sitting and staring. She turned to Georgia.
“What exactly are we doing?”
“Recon,” Georgia said. “We’re doing recon.”
“And after we gather the recon, what will we do with it?”
“We’ll . . . have it gathered. I don’t know, just shut up,” Georgia said. “And keep watching her. I’m going to do a walk by.”
“A what?” Jacey asked.
“I’m gonna walk by her table,” Georgia said, exasperated.
“Be careful,” Jacey whispered.
Georgia stopped and looked at
her. “Yes, I’ll be careful. If she points her sunscreen at me, be sure to call 911.”’
“Why do I let you talk me into things?” Jacey asked.
“Because I get stuff done.”
Jacey couldn’t argue the point. She watched in horror as Georgia stopped at the woman’s table and said something to her. Georgia smiled and walked slowly back to Jacey.
“What did you say?” Jacey whispered.
“I asked her what time it was,” Georgia said.
“You have a watch on your wrist and your phone in your hand,” Jacey said.
Georgia shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they work.”
“What did she say?” Jacey asked.
“She said it’s six thirty,” Georgia whispered.
Jacey sat up. “That’s it?”
“That’s all I asked.”
“So we know nothing more than we knew on the balcony, right?” Jacey stood up.
“Where are you going?” Georgia asked.
“Back to the room,” Jacey said.
“No!” Georgia grabbed her hand. “Plan B in full effect, starting now.”
“Dare I ask?” Jacey said.
“We’re going to walk on the beach,” Georgia said, pointing to the right. “Thataway.”
Jacey pulled away from her. “Oh, no we’re not,” she said. “I’ve already stalked him one time this week. If I show up in Mississippi, what’s he going to think?”
“I don’t care what he thinks,” Georgia said. “He owes me an explanation.”
“He owes you an explanation?” Jacey said.
“You know what I mean,” Georgia said. “Just come on.”
Jacey followed Georgia down the wooden plank that headed to the beach. When she looked over at the deck next door, Colin was gone.
“He’s not there anymore,” Jacey said. “Let’s go back in.”
Georgia stopped. “We can go knock on the door,” she said.
“No, really, I’m sure there’s an explanation,” Jacey told her. “And besides, we didn’t see him doing anything wrong. He hugged a woman. She could be anybody. She could be his sister.”
Georgia raised her brow. “I thought you said he was an only child.”
“Okay,” Jacey said. “She could be his cousin. Whoever she is, it’s none of my business. Not really.”
Georgia shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
“Fine, let’s go back in.” Jacey turned back to the hotel.
“I’m just saying . . . if it were me, I’d wanna know who that woman was.”
Jacey finally got it. She turned to look at her friend. “Not everybody cheats, Georgie. And besides that, it isn’t like he and I are . . . dating.”
“Oh, but he almost said he was in love with you, and you almost said you were in love with him. See, that sort of superseded dating for y’all. It’s like you walked before you crawled.” Georgia paused. “And I am aware that not everyone cheats. Just everyone I know.”
Jacey stopped and looked at Georgia. She knew where her words were coming from. “Listen, I know it still bothers you, so stop pretending it doesn’t.” Jacey put her hand on Georgia’s shoulder. “Let’s just go back to the room, order room service, watch a movie, and forget about it. I’m in Biloxi on a different kind of mission. He’ll call me when he’s ready.”
Georgia sighed. “Can we at least get something terribly unhealthy like fried oysters and pecan pie?”
“That sounds perfect,” Jacey said. She didn’t even glance at the woman as they strolled past her again on their way upstairs.
Jacey did try to forget about all of it when she lay down to sleep, but the truth was, it really did bother her. She hated this new feeling surging around in her body. Jealousy, they called it. That ugly feeling was pouring itself into every thought she had. Jacey had never had a serious boyfriend, so jealousy over a man was unfamiliar territory. She had dated a lot, but never seemed to find the one guy who made her want to be around him for more than two months. She always assumed that there was something wrong with her. When she discussed it with her mother one day, her mom had just laughed and assured her there was nothing abnormal about her. “When he shows up, you’ll know it,” she had said. But for years, her friends had been getting married or at least engaged at the speed of light, and she was still looking for Mr. Right. All she’d ever found was Mr. Right Now. Until she got slammed onto a roof in Mississippi. After that, everything changed.
The woman from Colin’s deck may be a perfectly lovely person, Jacey told herself. But all she could see was another woman’s arms around the man she loved. It didn’t conjure up any pleasant feelings. After ordering room service, she had eaten her fried oysters emotionally—too fast and too many. Now she was sitting up in bed wishing room service delivered antacids too.
She wanted to appear cheerful to keep Georgia at bay. There was no way she was going to mention these particular feelings to her. She’d have them scaling the wall over the balcony on knotted-up sheets. Georgia clung to her bitterness over her ex—so much, in fact, that there wasn’t a man in the country she trusted. She always joked that if she ever got into another relationship, she’d be eighty years old in the nursing home, making sure the man had one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave. Only Jacey wasn’t sure it was really a joke.
Jacey didn’t believe Colin was the type of man to tell her he was falling for her, only to run back to Mississippi to be with another woman. But whoever the woman was, Jacey could tell Colin was very close to her. She could tell from their body language that they were familiar. Just how familiar, she had no idea. Maybe living with Georgia so long had made Jacey suspicious of everybody. It certainly wouldn’t be that far-fetched. Georgia was steeped in suspicion.
She closed her eyes and thought about the boys instead. She wondered where they were tonight, if they were being taken care of, if they were in a good home with good people. It broke her heart to imagine them out there in the world without their mother or father. No child deserved that. Surely she would find some answers tomorrow.
Surprisingly, Jacey slept well. She woke to the sound of Gulf waves and seagulls. She stretched, rolled over, and saw Georgia sitting on the balcony with the doors open.
“Hey,” she said.
“I was trying to be quiet,” Georgia said. “Did I wake you up?”
“No. Have you been up long?”
“For a little while.” Georgia stood and walked back into the room. “No sign of Colin this morning, by the way.”
Jacey smiled. “More recon?”
“Something like that.” Georgia smiled. “I’ve actually been sitting out there thinking about what you said yesterday. You know, the ‘not everybody cheats’ thing.”
Jacey sat up in bed and pulled her covers up around her. “Georgia, I know how hurt you were . . . I didn’t mean to minimize—”
Georgia stopped her. “No, you’re right,” she said. “I picked a bad apple. And I knew it for a long time, even in high school. I just didn’t want to admit it.”
Jacey started to speak, but Georgia shushed her again.
“I felt so . . . betrayed,” she said. “That was the worst part of it. I lost my best friend, the man I was going to marry, the man I thought would love and protect me for the rest of my life. Then . . . when I found out about that girl, and all the other girls . . . it was as though I had been living a lie. For years. Everything I believed in was an illusion. None of it was real. Ever. That was the hardest part.”
Jacey reached out and grabbed her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Georgia squeezed her hand and let it go. “I’ve just been sitting out there this morning thinking about Colin,” she said. “He’s not the same kind of guy, Jacey—and I’m not saying that because he’s a preacher. He’s a good guy with a good heart, and he’s solid. Don’t let what we saw yesterday and my paranoia cloud your feelings for him. Eventually I will get over my distrust of the entire male population. I’d like to
start with Colin.”
Jacey smiled. “It’s gonna be okay,” she said. “You’ll find the right guy. And when you do, he’ll be everything you always wanted and will never give you a reason to doubt him.”
“Well . . . I’m not going that far, but I’m willing to cut your guy some slack.” Georgia smiled.
“You know what?” Jacey said. “I’m curious about who that woman was. And I think I’m jealous, too, which sucks . . . but I am keeping an open mind.”
“Jealous?” Georgia said. “That must be a new one for you.”
“It is. And I don’t like it,” Jacey said. “It made me want to slap the woman, punch Colin, and throw things.”
“Yep. That’s jealousy.”
Jacey hopped out of bed. “Come on, girl, we’ve got places to go and people to see. I call shower.” She sped into the bathroom and slammed the door before Georgia could beat her there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Georgia carefully maneuvered the Corvette over the blacktop road, complaining all the way.
“Where are we?” she asked. “This road is a pig trail. The first wild goose chase was better than this one.”
Jacey studied her surroundings. They were definitely on the right road this time. “This is the one. I’m sure of it.”
“Why in the world were you down here in the first place?” Georgia asked. “I mean, were you planning on being kidnapped?”
“I told you I was writing that story about rural Southern life. It was for a regional magazine, not just Baton Rouge. I was just trying to find some people to talk to.”
“Why didn’t you just call somebody?”
“Because you need to see things for yourself before you can fully translate them onto paper,” Jacey said. “At least, I need to. I don’t imagine it’s the same for Stephen King.”
“Thank God,” Georgia said. “He is my absolute favorite writer, you know.”
“I know,” Jacey said. “Why do you think I used him as an example? Wait . . . stop the car. Stop.”
Georgia slowed the car to a stop and put it into park.
The Sweet Smell of Magnolias and Memories Page 11
