Worth Every Step

by K. G. MacGregor

  “You didn’t even tell them I made it to the top?”

  “Why don’t you tell them, Mary Kate? They’ll like hearing that from you.”

  Bobby just didn’t get it. He was a good guy, but he would never get it.

  Now overwhelmed with the horror that she had almost made the biggest mistake of her life, Mary Kate had the sudden urge to jump out of the car. She wanted to leave Bobby right here in the garage and run back inside the airport, get on the next plane to Miami, and be there to meet the woman she loved when she walked out of customs. Daring herself to do something so bold, Mary Kate fidgeted with both her seat belt release and the door handle.

  “I can’t believe it’s taking so long,” Bobby said as he eased the car forward.

  Mary Kate tuned out his irritation and concentrated on relaxing her grip. “I’m going to close my eyes for a little while. I didn’t sleep much on the plane.”

  “That’s all right, Mary Kate. I’ll wake you up when we get to Mooresville. Oh, before I forget, I went ahead and got us a room for a week at the Days Inn in Myrtle Beach starting next Saturday. It’s not on the ocean, but we can always drive over every day.”

  A whole week at the Days Inn in Myrtle Beach. Be still my heart.

  Mary Kate flung her door open, causing the annoying chime to sound in warning. “Pop the trunk. I have to get something.”

  Bobby complied and stretched his neck to watch her as she hoisted the green duffel over her shoulder.

  “Thanks for coming to get me, but I’m not coming home just yet.”

  “Mary Kate!”

  “Look, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Go on to Myrtle Beach without me, or take your brother or something. I promise I’ll come talk to you as soon as I get home.” She couldn’t say anymore. No matter what, she wasn’t going home with him.

  Recklessly, she picked her way between the cars that were stacked up at the toll booth, and crossed a stream of oncoming traffic to re-enter the terminal. The line for Hartsfield’s major carrier held hundreds of passengers, which meant there was no hope of getting to the ticket counter before Bobby paid his fare, returned to the parking garage and caught up with her. A quick glance at the board revealed another option, and she hurried along the entryway to an agent at the far end.

  “I need to get to Miami,” she said, slapping her credit card and passport on the counter.

  “How many bags?” he asked, not even making eye contact.

  “Just these. I’ll carry them.” She looked over her shoulder nervously for signs of Bobby.

  “I can put you on the two thirty that gets in at four, but if you’ll go straight to the gate, they might let you on the one that’s leaving in twenty minutes.”

  “Perfect.” She fidgeted while he ran her card. She signed the slip quickly and collected her boarding pass. Through the throng of passengers at the main counter, she caught a glimpse of someone who looked like Bobby, and her stomach tightened. “Is that the only line to get through security?”

  He shook his head and pointed in the opposite direction. “You can go in down there, and there won’t be as many people.”

  “Thanks.” Without looking back, she lowered her head and walked briskly to the back of the line. As others came behind her, she jockeyed for a position that would keep her out of view. Finally, she presented her ID and boarding pass, and when she collected her things at the far end of the conveyor, she breathed a sigh of relief. Without a ticket, Bobby couldn’t follow her in here.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Mary Kate.”

  She shook herself and blinked.

  “Wake up. We’re here.”

  Here was in her parents’ driveway, a world away from where her dream had taken her. “What time is it?”

  “Almost twelve thirty. You slept the whole way.”

  She sat up and rolled her neck, shaking off a sinking feeling in her stomach as she got her bearings. “I guess I was beat.” She got out of the car and heard the front screen door slam.

  “There you are!” Her mother stood beaming on the porch.

  The whole family appeared, and Mary Kate walked sheepishly to greet them. She hadn’t realized it was Sunday and that Bobby was bringing her here instead of to her apartment. “I made it.”

  “You sure did.” Her mother hugged her as the others watched. “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yeah, and I got the pictures to prove it.”

  “I’ll get your camera,” Bobby said. He plucked it from the pouch on her backpack. “We can look at these before lunch.”

  Alarmed to realize that her camera held mostly pictures of Addison, she grabbed it from him. “Not yet. I want to download the good ones and put them in a slideshow so you can see them better.”

  “Let’s eat,” her father said.

  Carol Lee led the way back inside. “I want to hear about the safari. Wayne said he wanted to go to Africa and do that, shoot him a jaguar or something.”

  “We didn’t shoot anything, Carol Lee. We just took pictures.” Never mind that jaguars didn’t live in Africa.

  Dinner was typical Sunday fare, more food than five adults could ever eat. Mary Kate had no appetite for any of it, but gladly accepted a glass of ice-cold sweet tea. Her eyes kept darting to Bobby, who seemed more interested in eating and talking about Myrtle Beach than in hearing about her trip. It was irritating, and she almost said so.

  But her problem wasn’t with Bobby. He could have been perfect, and she still would have wished her dream had been real. In that flash of subconscious fantasy, she had glimpsed the only path that would lead her to happiness. Once she let herself believe it could happen, the other barriers fell away. No matter how tough they made it, the right road was worth every step.

  “You look like you’re about to fall asleep, Mary Kate,” her mother said. “Why don’t you go on back there to your sister’s room and get yourself a nap?”

  “To tell you the truth, what I’d really like is a hot bath and my own bed. I’ve been up all night on the plane.” She looked at Bobby with pleading eyes, but he didn’t take the hint. “Will you run me over to my house, Bobby?”

  Her mother pushed back from the table. “Let him eat his lunch, Mary Kate. I’ll take you.”

  She didn’t care how she got there, as long as it happened sooner rather than later. She collected her bags and backpack from Bobby’s car and tossed them into the bed of her father’s pickup, which was in the back of the driveway.

  “I appreciate this, Mom.”

  “It’s all right. I can see you’re worn out.”

  “It’ll probably take me a couple of days to get back on Georgia time. It was the same way when I got there.”

  “I bet you were proud of yourself when you got to the top of that mountain.”

  “I was. I can’t even describe it.” The ride to her apartment was too short to share the story of their weary overnight push. “It was one week ago today. I can’t believe Bobby didn’t tell you I made it all the way up.”

  “Oh, I knew already. I saw Deb at the grocery last week and she told me. Said you sent her an e-mail.”

  Mary Kate remembered her note, including her declaration to Deb that she was going to break up with Bobby as soon as she got home. No way would Deb have said anything to her mother.

  “Did you do much thinking about you and Bobby while you were over there?”

  She gave her mother a sidelong look. “Have you taken up mind reading?”

  She laughed. “Is that a yes?”

  “I thought about him a lot on the way home. I think I’ve finally made up my mind what to do.”

  “Just let him down easy, Mary Kate. No point in bruising his ego.”

  Startled by the assumption, she couldn’t resist pushing the envelope. “What would you think if I transferred over to Oak Hill? Or maybe got a job in Newton County? They always have openings.”

  “You want to leave your school?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it anywa
y. I never liked the idea of Bobby being my boss. Breaking up with him just makes it that much worse.”

  “Yeah, I can see that might be touchy. Lord knows I couldn’t have worked for your daddy.” She pulled into the apartment complex. “Speaking of your daddy, he came over and started your car the other day just to make sure it was okay.”

  “Good. Tell him I appreciate that.” The conversation was surreal. She had just admitted to her mother that she was dumping the best catch in Hurston County, and they were talking about her car.

  Her mother turned off the engine, but neither made a move to exit the truck. “When are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t want to talk to him while I’m so tired. No telling what I’ll say.”

  “You ought not wait too long, Mary Kate. He told Carol Lee he thought ya’ll would be ring shopping this week.”

  She shook her head in dismay. Where on earth had he gotten that idea? “I never said anything to make him think that, Mom. He told me at the airport that it was time to decide and for me to think about it while I was gone.”

  They each plucked a bag from the bed of the truck and started up the steps to her apartment. Mary Kate was looking forward to being alone.

  “Men only hear what they want to hear, honey. Didn’t you know that?”

  Mary Kate didn’t know anything about men, and she didn’t want to study them anymore. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

  “That’s not for me to say. It’s between you and Bobby.”

  “But you’re my mother. You’re supposed to know me better than anybody.” She put her key in the door and opened it, letting out a rush of stale air.

  “I think I do, Mary Kate. You never heard me planning what to wear to your wedding, did you?”

  “How did you know?”

  Her mother took her firmly by the shoulders as they stood in the doorway. “When a girl’s in love, she smiles all the time. I don’t think I’ve seen you smile at Bobby since last fall. It was like the thought of getting married scared you half to death.”

  “It does.” Mary Kate felt a wave of shame for dragging this out so long. “I’m worried I’m going to disappoint you and Daddy.”

  Her mother said nothing, just wrapped her in a comforting hug.

  Exhausted and frustrated, Mary Kate began to cry. “I don’t want to marry him.”

  “It’s all right, honey. Just break up with him and be done with it. You’re not going to disappoint us. Maybe you’ll be ready to settle down in a year or two, or maybe even five years…whatever. People don’t get married right out of high school like they used to.”

  “What if they don’t get married at all, Mom?”

  “I don’t want you to be lonely, honey. And I don’t want you to have regrets. But you’re only twenty-four years old. That’s a long way from having life pass you by.” She hugged her again, and spun her toward the bedroom. “If I were you, I’d skip that bath and go straight to bed. You call me tomorrow if you want to talk some more.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome.” She started out the door and stopped. “You reckon I’ve been gone long enough for somebody else to clean the kitchen?”

  Both of them laughed as she left, and Mary Kate collapsed on the couch. Her emotions had been on a roller coaster for the past twenty-four hours. The stress of wanting to please her family had factored in more than she thought, and now that her mother had shown her a little daylight, she wasn’t going to waste it.

  The new stress was what to do about Addison. Deb had always said lesbians didn’t choose between women and men. They chose between women and nothing. Both of those were better than marrying Bobby.

  She needed to sleep, but not as much as she needed to talk to Deb. After two rings, her friend answered. “My body is back in Mooresville, but the rest of me hasn’t caught up yet.”

  “Mary Kate! When did you get back?”

  “About two hours ago. I’m so tired I can’t think, but I wanted to call you before I went to bed.”

  “I’m glad you did. I can’t wait to hear about your trip. You want to get pizza or something tomorrow night?”

  She sighed, thinking of her mother’s advice to be done with it. “I think I might try to talk to Bobby tomorrow night.”

  “So you haven’t told him yet?”

  “It seemed like a bad idea to tell him on the way home. I didn’t want to get dumped out on the side of the road.”

  “Tuesday night, then. And I’m buying, because we’re celebrating.”

  “I’m about to go to bed, but I wanted to ask you something. My mom said she ran into you the other night.”

  “Right. She caught me buying beer.”

  Mary Kate chuckled, thinking back to the time her mother had snuck up on them when they were drinking behind the shed. “You didn’t happen to say anything about me and Bobby, did you?”

  Silence.

  “Deb?”

  “Not specifically.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She brought it up. All I told her was that I got an e-mail, and that you’d made it to the top. Then I told her one of the girls you met was coming to visit. I swear I was just making conversation. Then she asked me out of the blue if I thought you were going to get married and I said I didn’t think so. I didn’t tell her you told me for sure.”

  “How did she act?”

  Deb hissed through her teeth then drew in a deep breath. “Kind of like she expected it. She wanted to know if you ever talked about Jessica anymore.”

  “Jessica?”

  “Look, it’s your own business and you don’t have to talk to me, even if I am supposed to be your best friend.”

  “What’s my business?”

  “Mary Kate, people aren’t stupid. I don’t know what was going on over there, okay? All I know is that all you talked about for six months was climbing that mountain, but then you sent me an e-mail that was Addison this and Addison that. That’s how you used to be about Jessica. You talked about her all the time. Your did.”

  Though she was alone in her apartment with the curtains drawn, she was blushing furiously. “There was never anything between Jessica and me,” she said tightly. She didn’t want to talk about Addison.

  Several seconds passed before Deb spoke again. “Your mom called me last Christmas when you wouldn’t take Bobby’s ring. She asked me point-blank if you were gay, and I said I didn’t know.”

  “My mother asked you that?”

  “And then she talked about how you were with Jessica, how you came home all depressed after she got married. I told her that you never said anything to me about feeling that way, but I didn’t think you were in love with Bobby. I swear that’s all I said.”

  Her heart felt as if it would pound out of her chest. “Addison and I…we fell in love with each other, Deb, but it’s all up in the air.” This was unbelievable. “Say something.”

  “I can’t talk. I’m wearing this gigantic shit-eating grin.”

  She let out a muted scream. “You better not be laughing at me. Addison will kick your ass.”

  “I thought you wanted me to kick hers.”

  She shook off a happy image of the two women meeting. “What else did my mother say? How did she feel when you talked about it last Christmas?”

  “To be honest with you, she wasn’t all that thrilled about it, but she didn’t want you to marry Bobby if you weren’t sure. And she said something about how you never talked with her about this kind of stuff.”

  That was consistent with the message her mother had given her before she left, and then again today. “But what if I tell her about Addison?”

  “She might not like it at first, but it’s obvious she’s been thinking about it…trying it on. If you ask me, I think she’d want to know.”

  Mary Kate doubted seriously that her family would accept Addison as her lover, at least not anytime soon, but for now, she would settle for them not going ballistic. Maybe it would help i
f she convinced her mother that Addison made her happy. “I need sleep. My brain isn’t working anymore. Wish me luck with Bobby, okay?”

  The anxiety left her body like a brush fire, flaring up then dying down to smolder. How could she have been so insane to think marrying Bobby was the right path? Her mother was right. She wasn’t at a fork in her life, just with Bobby. Ending things with him bought her time to test other waters.

  She blew out a raspberry and rolled her eyes. Fires, forks, waters. How many metaphors did she need to make sense of her life? All she wanted was the chance to see if she and Addison could build on what they started. Even if they had to do it long- distance, it was worth a try.

  It was a quarter to three, which meant Addison’s plane was still in the air.

  She located the scrap of paper she had torn from the pad at the Sopa Lodge and dialed the number, which went to voice mail immediately. “Hey, there. I miss you already, and I’m not crying anymore. Call me and help me figure out how we’re going to do this. But not now. I’m going to sleep for three days. I love you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was seven a.m. before Mary Kate awoke. Her only interruption had come at six the night before, when Bobby had called to see if she wanted to get dinner. Sleep was more important than food, she had told him, but they firmed up plans to see each other tonight. She had all day to practice what to say.

  Food was a priority now. Too bad she hadn’t thought to shop for breakfast bars or oatmeal before leaving. No milk, no eggs, no bread. The freezer held Popsicles and two pounds of hamburger. Hitting the drive-thru would require getting dressed, something not on her immediate agenda. She scanned the cabinets again, reluctantly settling on a can of fruit cocktail.

  Her bags were stacked beside the door, untouched from when she had dropped them. Practically everything she owned was dirty. She began the tedious task of separating things into small piles, and started the first load in her compact washer. It would take all day to get through this, but she had the time.