by Anne Malcom
“Hello?” Mia called, waving her hand in front of my eyes.
“You’re not allowed to pretend to lapse into some kind of waking coma, you’re still going to have to tell us,” Amy chirped.
“Did I miss it?” Lauren asked, moving to the last available chair.
“Miss what?” I questioned, although I already knew.
She gave me a look. “Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what everyone is here for.”
“Because I had a conversation with Kace?”
My question is followed by eye rolls all around and looks to show me that I was not fooling anyone.
“Kace, you’re calling him Kace?” Mia put extra emphasis on his name as if she knew something. Which of course she didn’t, because there was nothing to know.
“That’s his name, Mia,” I replied.
“It’s a good name,” Lauren commented.
“Great name,” Amy corrected.
“What does his name have to do with me?” I asked the group, doing my best to sound neutral, if anything sounding slightly pissed off.
“It has everything to do with you,” Mia said. “Considering you had the look on your face when you were talking to him.
I frowned. “What look?”
Amy sipped her drink before speaking. “Um, the look. The one where you’re imagining him naked and also fighting against that image because you’re a strong woman and don’t want any man, no matter how hot, to have that kind of control over you.”
All the women nodded in agreement, and I had to fight to keep my expression neutral so they wouldn’t know I agreed. Because that was exactly how I’d felt.
“We’ve all been there,” Lauren added gently.
I drained my drink, standing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to check on my kids, then getting myself another beer, and I am not having this conversation.”
The women let me off the hook. I guessed because they’d already said what they had to say. They’d already planted the seeds. And now they were going to wait. I knew them too well to think anything different.
Which was fine. They could wait for as long as they wanted. Nothing was going to happen with Kace and I.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 9
It was a school day. Lunch had come and gone. I was in town running errands, groceries, pharmacy, buying things so I could make Lily a costume for the school play. Things I’d done for years. Things I would’ve been doing if Ranger were alive.
Which was what had me walking into a bar before one in the afternoon on a Wednesday.
Amber didn’t have much in the way of bars and restaurants, but there were a decent amount considering the size of our small town. And with Mia’s bed and breakfast with the spa attached gaining national attention, more and more people were flocking to our town.
Laura Maye’s bar was not a dive bar by any stretch of the imagination. It was sleek, trendy and offered a beautiful view of the ocean. If you wanted a dive bar, there were a couple on the outskirts of town where the damned, the lonely and the unemployed drowned their sorrows. I should’ve gone to one of those bars. That was where I belonged. But there were limits on how much I’d let my grief control me.
Laura Maye’s bar wasn’t empty, a few people sat along the windows, taking in the view, having afternoon drinks. Thankfully, I didn’t see any familiar faces, just what I assumed were tourists enjoying the excuse to day drink in a nice bar, in a small town on vacation from their responsibilities for a while.
“Hey there, honey,” Laura Maye said with a smile when I walked up to the bar.
Her hair was piled in a messy bun at the top of her head, curls hanging down in tendrils with glittered barrettes scattered through it. She had on blue eyeshadow that matched the suede mini dress she wore .
“What brought you here to Amber?” I blurted, suddenly desperate to fill my head with someone else’s demons instead of my own.
If she was surprised at the question, she didn’t show it. She grinned, taking some bottles from the bar before pouring them into a cocktail shaker. “Ah, if you want to know the answer to that, we’re both gonna need a drink in our hands.”
“As much as I’d love to say yes, I’ve got to pick up the kids from school. Even one of your cocktails will make sure that doesn’t happen,” I said.
She giggled. “Don’t you worry, sugar. I’m doin’ half strength, and I’ll get Donny in the kitchen to whip us up some jalapeno poppers and nachos to soak it all up.” She winked, calling out to Donny.
Laura Maye made quick work of making the drinks. She was an expert after all. Though she owned the place, she spent a good amount of time behind the bar. People from three towns over knew about her cocktails. This place got packed on the weekends, so there were other bartenders who helped, but she worked hard and constantly. She’d created all of this herself, and even though she could’ve relaxed, letting the place rake in the money, that wasn’t her style. Not at all.
After taking care of the other customers, she sat down beside me, drinks in front of us.
“Now, you’re not the first person to ask me this question,” she said. “Not that our girls are pushy or nosy. They’re curious. Want to know that they’ve got shoulders to cry on if that needs to be done. Vaults to keep their secrets in.” She sipped her drink. “I’ve cried enough tears to know that I won’t need a shoulder for some time. My secrets don’t need to be in vaults exactly, just haven’t been ready to come out into the light. Guess I’ve been waiting for the right time, the right person.”
She reached over to squeeze my hand. “Glad I waited, ‘cause I get the feeling that this is the absolute right time for that.”
She sighed, looking out the window for a beat, a faraway look in her eyes. “I grew up in the South. To a Momma and Daddy who didn’t love each other. Barely even liked each other all that much. But they feared God enough to know that divorce was a sin, and they surely didn’t want to anger him by getting one. So they stayed together. Made each other angry and bitter. Even my Momma. She was a romantic. A former pageant queen. My God, she was beautiful. Always, absolutely always had her hair done. Makeup on. Heels, outfit, everything matching.”
She looked wistful, as if she were imagining her mother.
I was imagining her, too, thinking she might’ve looked like a different version of Laura Maye. Though that was hard to imagine. There was only one Laura Maye; she was one of a kind.
“We didn’t have the money for much, so she had to get creative,” she continued. “Would go to thrift shops. Altered things with her rusty old sewing machine, making them look good as new, original. She took so much pride in herself. But her and Daddy’s constant fighting, all the money problems, living in an environment she didn’t think she’d ever end up in... it chipped away at her. At her beauty. She started to drink to escape from all of it. The life she found herself in. Then she started to go to bars, looking for men who’d treat her like they wanted her. Daddy eventually found out, making things even worse. For all the fear he had about angering God with a divorce, he didn’t at all mind beating on his wife.”
She sipped her drink, and I did the same because the story was already breaking my heart, and I had a feeling she wasn’t even half done.
“My momma loved me. She wanted to give me a life that was different than hers. She told me the dangers of falling in love, taught me the value in looking beautiful. ‘No matter what kind of ugliness the world gives you, make sure you face it with your hair did and your lipstick on’, that’s what she used to say.” Laura Maye smiled. A sad smile, full of pain.
“She said that being beautiful was a gift. That it would get me places with men. That I could use it to my advantage, as long as I never got attached. Never let myself end up like her. My daddy wasn’t a bad man. Least I don’t like to think so. He’d been the same as Momma. Thought the world had more to offer him. Quarterback in high school, meant for big things. Then he blew his knee out, and his future w
ent up in smoke. Momma’s too. He had to work in a factory. Back breaking, soul crushing work. Dawn till dusk for crappy pay. He was tired from work, tired from life, angry with everyone, most of all himself. Although he did love me in his own way.”
“Here you go, ladies,” Donny said with a smile, setting down two amazing looking plates of food. The smell reminded me that I’d had nothing but coffee and a bite of Lily’s oatmeal today.
Laura Maye grinned at the man. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
He winked at her and made his way back to the kitchen.
“Fried food and booze are the best ways to get through stories of a damaged past,” she said with a cheerfulness in her voice that amazed me. It was genuine, as was everything about Laura Maye. Except her nails, and her eyelashes.
I picked at the nachos while she continued.
“I wasn’t too great at school, except math. I liked numbers. Numbers are always reliable.” She smiled wistfully. “But people didn’t see much more than dumb, blonde trailer trash when they looked at me. And if people think that about you long enough, you start to believe them. Especially when the momma who used to tell you how beautiful you were is more concerned with a bottle than anything else.”
She popped a chip into her mouth.
I sipped my drink while I waited, watching the beautiful Laura Maye, sitting in the bar she built. The life she’d earned. As if I didn’t already have enough respect for the woman.
“I got out at eighteen, only ‘cause I had to. ‘Cause I knew that I’d fade away just like my momma if I stayed. Me and my boyfriend—I always had one of those—decided to up and leave. Decided to go to Dallas. Figure I’d wait tables while I tried to become an actress or model. Something like that. I hadn’t decided. Just needed the world to tell me I was beautiful because I didn’t believe it anymore.
That’s how it started. Well, it truly started because we didn’t have much money to our names, lived in a shitty area and it was hard getting jobs. I waited tables at a shitty bar. The boyfriend didn’t do much of anything but get himself tangled up with the wrong crowd. The kind of crowd that made him eventually convince me to work at a strip club. More money for us. Convinced me I was so beautiful that I’d make the most money.”
She laughed again.
“It took some convincing on his part. Before her fall from grace, my mother had taught me how a lady acted, conducted herself. I listened hard about that because I wanted nothing more than to be a lady. Wanted to be one with a nice house, handsome husband, beautiful kids. But I didn’t listen hard to her warnings about falling in love. I didn’t really know what love was, so when he showed it to me, I was willing to trust him with anything. And if he thought stripping was a good idea, then it must’ve been.
I earned a lot of money. Good money. But not enough. He worked on me. Quietly. Subtly. Figuring out my weaknesses, how to control me, how to make me listen to him. Sometimes he used his fists, but most of the time, his words worked just fine. So soon I wasn’t just stripping. There were private lap dances. There were ‘dates’. Nice hotel rooms. Then sleazy motel rooms. My body wasn’t mine anymore. It was his. It was up for rent.”
She drained her drink, and I did the same, needing it. Although I knew that Laura Maye’s life hadn’t been easy, I’d known that she carried around demons, I couldn’t have imagined this. Especially from Laura Maye, who I’d considered to be so strong, so sure of herself. Confident, like she’d never let anyone take anything from her. But those were rarely qualities a woman was born with. Those were usually qualities a woman acquired after people—usually men—took things from her.
“Nothing crazy happened... beyond what I’ve already told you,” she continued, her voice still carrying the same light, easy tone. “I got used to the occasional beating. To strangers treating my body like it was something that existed only for what they wanted. Then, one day... I just didn’t. I saw it for what it was. Saw that my life had turned into something much darker than my momma’s, and I realized that it would only get worse if I didn’t do anything about it.
“I’d saved what money I could,” she said with a sad smile. “My boyfriend took almost all of it. What he thought was all of it, at least. Even in my lowest of moments, I was always thinking of a way out, because on some level, I knew I’d die if I didn’t escape. So I pocketed small amounts at first after figuring out how much I could take without him noticing. I managed to keep more as he got further into drugs. Soon I had enough to leave. Not a fortune, but enough to get out, The price of my freedom was priceless. I left in the night, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a purse containing one tube of lipstick.”
She glanced to the windows, to the ocean, then back to me.
“Went as far away as I could. Lost myself in L.A. Things didn’t immediately get better, of course. I was a young, damaged girl, easy prey for that city. But luckily, I was smart. Knew that I still had the body, the looks. Knew I wouldn’t be able to get any nine to five job. So I made friends with girls like me. I’ve always been good at that, making friends. I found out about the best place to dance in the city, place called Fantasia. Apparently, they paid their dancers well, didn’t put up with any kind of pimping and even had health insurance. It was like the gold standard of strip clubs. Girls had been trying to get in there for years. But you remember, I’m smart, friendly. Found myself a way in. And as they say, the rest is history.”
She smiled, looking down at her nails. “Well, kind of. A lot happened between then and now. Enough for an entire book. A movie. But I made good money. Saved every cent I could. Always had a dream to go somewhere quiet, somewhere safe. To create something beautiful of my own.” She looked around the bar. “Think I’ve done that.”
“You’ve definitely done that,” I whispered, a tear trailing down my cheek.
“Oh, sugar, don’t cry for me,” she murmured, leaning forward and brushing the tear from my cheek. “I’ve survived, which is more than a lot of girls in my situation can say. Beyond that, I’ve thrived. Sure, I’ve got some scars, but we’ve all got those. I’ve got girlfriends, my bar, a life. I’m happy, darlin’.”
She was. She really meant that. There was always going to be a darkness to her, but that only made her light shine that much brighter.
“Have you ever found love? Since then?” I asked, marveling even more at this remarkable woman. I yearned for her to find someone who marveled at her too. Who worshipped her. I knew that Laura Maye definitely didn’t need a man, she’d proven that. But she deserved one. A good one.
“I have found love,” Laura Maye replied, her eyes twinkling. “I’ve got it all around me here.”
“You know what I mean.”
She nodded. “I do know what you mean, honey. And I’ve been close to finding it, a couple of times. Might’ve even turned into something, if I’d let it. But I haven’t got there yet. When it comes to scars on the heart, they take longest to heal. Maybe I’ll find love again. Maybe I’ll even go looking for it. But I’m okay even if I don’t.”
“I hope you find it,” I offered. “Any man who wins your heart will be the luckiest man in the world.”
“You’re not wrong on that one, honey, I’m a gosh darn catch.”
I laughed, something I hadn’t thought would be possible in such close proximity to that story. But that was Laura Maye. She was a little bit magic.
“Thank you, for telling me that,” I said.
“Thank you for giving me the opportunity,” she replied. “I don’t like traveling back into the past much, but it’s much easier when I have good company. Glad it was you, sweetie.”
“Me too.”
We let the silence swim between us for a while, it was nice. It shouldn’t have been, now I that knew the truth, the sad truth of Laura Maye’s past. But it only made her more beautiful.
“I am sure you came in here for more than listening to my story,” Laura Maye said finally.
“I don’t even know why I came in here,” I admitt
ed, looking out toward the windows. “I’m a little lost, I guess.”
Laura Maye laughed, not in a cruel way, she didn’t have that in her. “Of course you are, baby. You can’t expect to even know what direction is up right now.”
“But I should. I’m a mother—”
“A damn good one,” Laura Maye interjected. “Doesn’t mean you aren’t human. And you’ve had your heart ripped out in the most brutal of ways, forced to try to keep it together for your kids, for your friends, for the club. You’re allowed to fall apart now and again. You’re allowed to talk to your friends.”
“It feels like I’m failing,” I whispered. “He’s the one in the ground, yet I’m the one rotting. Everything hopeful inside of me, everything romantic, everything that somehow remained untarnished even through the hardest years of our marriage... The things that he nurtured, he grew, they all died. They withered inside of me first. And now I’m just decaying I feel like I’ll decompose until all that’ll be left are rotten pieces of what I used to be.”
“No, baby,” Laura Maye said firmly. “You’re young and you’re strong. Even if you don’t want to, you’re gonna have a second life. Just you wait.”
She said this with such conviction, with such certainty, I actually believed her.
For the afternoon, at least.
Chapter 10
Kace was mowing the lawn again.
Both of the kids were at Asher and Lily’s place. Now that I’d almost, kind of let myself back into the Sons’ fold once more, our rotation of playdates had resumed. Potluck dinners. Cocktail nights. Pre-gaming before any kind of game or school event.
Shopping.
Trips to L.A. to visit Lucy, Rosie and Polly.
Life was almost normal. Except I never had Ranger at my side. Except I was the only one at all of those events who didn’t have a husband anymore.