Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  Drive

  Stephanie Fournet

  Contents

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  A note from Stephanie

  Books by Stephanie Fournet

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Untitled

  DRIVE

  By Stephanie Fournet

  Blue Tulip Publishing INC

  www.bluetulippublishing.com

  © Stephanie Fournet 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book whole or in part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Untitled

  Drive

  Copyright 2017 Stephanie Fournet

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946061-19-5

  ISBN-10: 1-946061-19-0

  Cover Art by Jena Brignolia

  Untitled

  For Hannah, because the sea really is a good place to think of the future.

  Chapter 1

  Jacques Gilchrist awoke to the strains of his grandfather’s accordion and questioned his life choices.

  White sunlight blazed through his bare windows straight onto his bed, but that had not been enough to drag him from sleep. Not after a night when he dropped his last rider off at 2:12 a.m.

  And there was his problem. As an Uber driver, his busiest hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights were from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Prime time for bar departures. Which meant he’d slam into bed near three in the morning, but Pere Albert — or “Pal” as Jacques had called him since he was eleven — believed sleeping past eight was a cardinal sin.

  “Joe Pitre à deux femmes… Joe Pitre à deux femmes…” Pal bellowed from the bottom of the stairs, his accordion a merry assassin to the quiet of the morning. “C’est Rose et Rosa… Et moi, j’en ai pas.” Pal stomped his foot in time with the traditional Cajun song, and for a seventy-six-year-old man, he was still strong enough to make the windows in Jacques’s room rattle.

  Jacques pushed himself up and scrubbed a hand over his face, wondering for the ninety-third time why he didn’t get his own place.

  Pere Albert, pronounced the French way (Al-bear), went to bed every night at nine sharp. He rose at five on the dot, and Jacques knew the old guy did so without an alarm clock. He just sat up, stepped into his brown scuff slippers, and shuffled to the kitchen to make coffee. Pal had probably done this his whole life, but Jacques could only vouch for the last fourteen years — the span they’d lived together.

  “Eight hours a sleep and a good wife,” Pal used to say on weekend mornings when Jacques would stagger downstairs as a grumbling teenager. “Das all a man really need.” Other than cringing in embarrassment at his grandfather’s thick Cajun accent, Jacques usually had no reply.

  Of course, that was before they’d lost Grandma Lucille.

  So, for the last five years, every time Jacques managed to get up before eight, he’d come down and find Pal sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the empty space across from him. And in those moments, Pal wasn’t in his seventies. And he wasn’t Jacques’s grandfather. He was just a man missing the woman he loved.

  Which was why, at the age of twenty-four, Jacques Gilchrist still hadn’t moved out. Without Jacques sleeping past eight, Pal would have no reason to rattle a cast iron skillet on the stove for a good two minutes. Or have a sudden coughing fit in the hall right outside Jacques’s bedroom.

  Or stand at the foot of the stairs with his accordion, singing “Joe Pitre” at the top of his lungs.

  Pal wrapped up his song with a flourish as Jacques descended the stairs and stepped into the kitchen.

  “Morning,” he mumbled to his grandfather before heading for the coffeepot.

  “It almost nine,” Pal cautioned, setting his accordion down on an empty chair. Not, Jacques noted, in Grandma Lucille’s old spot. “Dat gonna taste like crank case oil by now.”

  Jacques just nodded, poured the coffee dregs into the sink, and cleaned out the basket.

  “Might as well make enough for the boat of us,” Pal observed, taking his seat at the head of the kitchen table and flapping open the newspaper he’d surely finished reading an hour before.

  “As if I’d do anything else,” Jacques said, waking up a little now.

  Pal just snickered into the newsprint.

  “No gig last night?” Pal asked after Jacques filled the reservoir and flicked the button that read “Brew.”

  “No gig last night,” he confirmed, moving to the table and sitting across from his grandfather. “Without the band, I’m not ‘brand specific’ for some of my usual venues.”

  His band, Epoch — the central focus of his life — had fallen apart a month ago, and Jacques hadn’t quite recovered. When word spread that he’d be playing solo, Jacques Gilchrist could gather a crowd, but not as many venues wanted a one-man act. People had flocked to the stage when he had drums and a bass to back him up. They’d danced. They’d sung along. They had made him believe it might happen for him.

  But Chris, his bass player, was getting married in June and said he needed to “cut that shit out.” Jacques had asked him more than once why getting married meant he had to give up performing, but his buddy’s only response had been, “C’mon, man. We gotta grow up sometime.”

  He should have seen it coming. Chris had been missing the odd rehearsal to go look at houses with Courtney, and he’d been working later at H&R Block and talking about finishing the coursework for his CPA certification.

  Not cutting another album.

  Pal lowered the corner of his newspaper and raised a brow. “What you gonna do ‘bout dat?”

  Jacques met his grandfather’s gaze and refused to shrug, even though he wanted to. At least Jacques hadn’t been surprised when Blake bailed after Chris. They weren’t tight. In fact, Blake barely spoke to him outside of rehearsals and gigs. The drummer had found a new spot in a folk-rock band so fast, Jacques wondered if he’d been planning a move even before Chris pulled out. Jacques knew a few musicians who could spot him now and then, but they were all committed to other bands on a regular basis, and, frankly, the ones who weren’t just sucked.

  Which meant for now, he was screwed.

  “Find a new band,” he said. “It just has to be the right band.” He didn’t kid himself. The noose of time was tightening. He was in his mid-twenties. Make or break time. And he wanted to make it more than anything. He was good. He knew that, but he needed the right act to be great.

  Pal gave up the pretense of reading the paper and set it down. “Well, I know you been writing songs,”
he said, his mouth twitching. “You think I don’t hear you playin’ without the amp, but I do.”

  Jacques rolled his eyes. So much for trying to be quiet on his Gibson after his grandfather went to bed. But Pal was right. He was writing something. It just wasn’t coming together. The melody stirred in his blood, but so far, no lyrics rose to meet it. And he’d waited for the words to hit him like they usually did in odd moments of the day, but the moleskin he always carried in his pocket in case inspiration struck hadn’t been opened in days.

  “Sorry if I kept you up,” he muttered, pushing away from the table. He snagged his grandfather’s empty mug and brought it back to the counter where his waited.

  Pal just made coughing, snuffling noise to dismiss Jacques’s apology. Even though it was his house, Pal never held that over his head. He refused to charge his grandson rent — though Jacques covered the utilities and helped out with the groceries. And Pal had never treated Jacques like a child — even when he had been one. But the two of them hadn’t quite reached the point where they lived strictly as roommates either.

  Maybe because they both knew the situation would have to change sometime. Jacques wouldn’t always be an Uber driver looking for music gigs — at least he seriously hoped not. And Pal wouldn’t need a two-story — albeit modest — house on Saint Louis Street as he approached eighty.

  Jacques stirred sugar into his coffee and tried not to dwell on what the next step for each of them would mean.

  Chapter 2

  “I need another book,” Holi said over the phone.

  “But we packed a book.” Rainey pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could finish her crochet stitch without losing her place.

  “And I’ve been here twenty-four hours—” Holi’s cough burst over the line, and Rainey immediately winced in guilt. Her sister cleared her throat and talked through her straining voice. “… and I finished it this morning. Could you please bring me the next one? I’m dying here, Rain.”

  “You’re not dying,” Rainey scolded. “You have pneumonia. And you’re going to get better.”

  “More books,” Holi whined. “It’s so boring. Besides, what are you doing? Crocheting on the front porch like some granny?”

  Rainey leaped off her favorite front porch settee as though it were on fire. “No…” she lied unconvincingly. “Isn’t there… like… a lending library at the hospital? Couldn’t you find something to read there?” She was terrible. She knew she was terrible. If their roles were reversed, Holi would already have keys in hand and a stack of books ready to go. She’d zip across town in her Mini Cooper and be at Rainey’s side in fifteen minutes tops.

  But for Rainey Memphis Reeves, it wasn’t so simple.

  With Archie, her four-year-old golden-brown poodle mix at her heels, she opened the screen door and pushed her way inside the custom-built house she shared with her sister. Technically, the house belonged to their mother — after her parents’ divorce. And technically, Rainey and Holi were only half-sisters — the Reeves’ half — but Rainey couldn’t remember a time when her big sis, Billie Holiday Reeves, wasn’t a part of her life.

  “I don’t want just any old book. I want The Wayward One. It’s by Danielle Harmon. It’s—”

  “I thought you read that one already,” Rainey said, tucking her crochet hook into the body of her unfinished slipper-sock and stuffing it into her craft bag with its mate.

  “No—” Holi’s protest ended on a cough. “You’re thinking of The Wild One. That’s the first in the series. I want the last one.”

  “How many are there?”

  “This is number five, and I want to finish the series before I die.” Holi tried to heave a resigned sigh, but a coughing fit overtook her.

  “Stop it,” Rainey begged in whisper.

  “Please,” Holi begged in return. “I know I’m asking a lot, but Ash won’t get off work until six, and I can’t just lie here for another nine hou—”

  “Fine. Fine. I’ll bring more books. Where are they, and which ones do you want?”

  Holi cheered and then coughed before instructing Rainey to go upstairs to her room. She then rattled of a list of five titles, and Rainey wondered just how long her sister planned to be in the hospital.

  Rainey stayed on the phone until she found each new book. “You really need a Kindle,” she muttered, shoving each into the purple and gray slouchy backpack she’d crocheted for Holi last fall.

  “You know I’m a purist. Paper forever,” Holi vowed.

  “Yeah, but if you had a Kindle, you wouldn’t need to wait on me.” And I wouldn’t need to figure out how to get there, Rainey added silently.

  “So… how are you going to get here?” Holi asked as if she’d read her mind. The forced casual tone of her voice was as subtle as a neon sign.

  Rainey flopped down on Holi’s bed and sighed. Archie jumped onto the mattress beside her and curled up with his head on her thigh. Running her fingers through his supple curls, she sighed again.

  Her bike was out of the question. Lourdes Hospital was too far away. If Holi had been admitted to Lafayette General, she could bike there in about ten minutes — and do it without risking her life on Ambassador Caffery Parkway. But Holi’s insurance listed Lourdes as the preferred provider, so when her bronchitis — the second bout she’d had this spring — upgraded to pneumonia, that was where they’d gone. By ambulance. And Rainey had taken the bus home.

  “I could take the bus,” she hedged. Rainey hated taking the bus, but if Holi couldn’t drive her somewhere she absolutely had to go, and if she couldn’t ride her bike to get there, she’d wrap herself up in her mocha-brown, worsted-weight, cashmere cape cardigan, put on her sunglasses, and walk to the bus stop in front of their neighborhood by Our Lady of Fatima Church.

  “Why don’t you just Uber?” Holi suggested, her voice softening in sympathy.

  Rainey’s response was immediate. “Because I’ve never done that,” she snapped, and then immediately regretted it. “Holi, I’m sorry. It’s just… you know how hard this is for me.”

  She heard Holi’s sigh over the phone and then waited out the accompanying cough. “I know how hard this is for you, Rain,” she said, and Rainey could hear the hard-edged, deep rooted love in her voice, and she knew she was about to get a lecture from her sister. “But as I’ve been lying here all morning — not reading — I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s a good thing I’m sick. Without me—”

  “Don’t say that. God—”

  “Rainey,” she interrupted. “Listen. Without me there to drive you, maybe you’ll — I don’t know — start thinking about driving a—”

  “Fine. I’ll Uber,” Rainey bit out, stopping her sister’s words and pulling them away from the subject. “I’ll download the app, get a ride to the hospital, and bring you more books.”

  “Rainey, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said, cutting her off again. And because she felt bad about that, she added a quick “Love you” before disconnecting.

  Rainey gripped the phone in her hand for a solid minute, petting Archie while she willed her breath to come slow. Then, pulling in a breath and releasing it evenly, she tapped the App Store, downloaded the Uber app, and filled in her profile and payment information. She opened the app and watched the little blue dot pulse over her neighborhood.

  As she typed Lourdes Hospital into the Where To? window, Rainey could feel her heart clutch without mercy. She hated being able to feel her own heartbeat. It seemed like a countdown. And the more she thought about that, the faster the damn thing went.

  Without completing the request, she scooted out from under Archie’s curly head, stuffed her phone in her back pocket, and sped across the hall from her sister’s room into her own. Rainey dropped down on her knees beside the giant wicker basket she kept in one corner of her room for future projects. Skeins of yarn filled the basket to such an extent that a yarn avalanche seemed imminent. But Rainey didn’t hav
e to disturb the pile to find what she wanted.

  The black cashmere was the softest yarn she’d ever handled. Rainey had no idea what she would do with it, but it was like feathers, buttery soft, and she hadn’t been able to resist it when she’d touched it months ago at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Though the name of it was Midnight, it reminded her of raven wings, and touching it made her heart slow and her breath come even without her having to tell it to.

  Most of her yarns had the same effect in her hands, but the Midnight’s power was unrivaled when she was unraveled. Its softness reminded her of childhood Saturday morning breakfasts and her mother’s favorite robe. For the hundredth time, she wished her mom and Kendall hadn’t moved to Galveston last November.

  It wasn’t their fault. Rainey understood that. The oil industry had taken a hit, and Kendall was lucky to be transferred instead of laid off. Galveston wasn’t that far. Just a four-hour drive. And Rainey wasn’t a kid anymore. She was twenty-three. But that didn’t matter. Some days, she really just wanted her mom.

  Shaking her head to banish the pathetic thought, Rainey plucked out her phone again and tapped Request Ride.

  Chapter 3

  “Mais, Jacques, you been playin’ dat song two days, yeah,” Pal said as Jacques descended the stairs Monday afternoon. “Soun’ good, but I can’t hear da words.”