Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  Lee tried not to let his smile grow. “Mrs. Clark, it’s a little late for that now, but this isn’t your first rodeo,” he said, shaking his head. “You did great the last time.”

  The laboring mother didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, but this one’s coming a bit faster than Desiree. I mean—” She stopped mid-sentence and grabbed Lee’s hand. The fetal monitor echoed proof of her contraction, and Lee checked the baby’s heartrate. “Lord, I gotta push!”

  “You go right ahead, Mrs. Clar—” His words choked off when she squeezed his hand in a death grip.

  “Dr. Hawthorne, you aren’t even gloved and gowned yet,” Bev scolded. “Out of the way, and get ready!”

  Bev pushed him aside and took his place. “He’s nice to look at, honey, but he’s just like every other man,” Bev told Mrs. Clark. “You have to tell him what to do every damn day.”

  Mrs. Clark’s second child, a healthy son she was naming Antoine, was born at 5:04 p.m., which gave Lee just enough time to finish his charts before his shift ended. As always, natural births invigorated him, and he found himself looking forward to eating dinner and talking to Marcelle for a few minutes before he showered and crawled into bed.

  As he turned onto St. Mary on his drive home, Lee gave thanks for about the millionth time that he’d won out on the Great House Battle of 2014. Marcelle and his stepmother had rallied hard for the cottage in River Ranch, but Lee liked the area around the Saint Streets.

  It wasn’t only that it was closer to UMC. The neighborhood just felt real. Live oaks shaded the houses. Vegetable gardens grew in front yards. People of every age and color walked and rode bikes on its streets in the evenings.

  And it was a hell of a lot more affordable than River Ranch.

  The house he’d bought on Dunreath had been built in 1938. The walls were center-match, the roof was slate, and the Spanish arches on both sides of his living room — cracks in the plaster on each — reminded him of New Orleans. The best part was the screened front porch with the cypress swing.

  One day, I’ll even get to enjoy it, Lee thought as he pulled his white Cherokee into the drive behind the house, parking next to Marcelle’s black Miata. She had her own townhouse in Greenbriar, but on nights when he was home, she slept over. If she didn’t, they’d never see each other.

  He crossed the back yard along the path of paving stones and ducked under the covered deck, throwing a longing glance to the two kayaks that hung from the ceiling.

  Soon.

  Lee trudged up the back steps, hoping to find some brisket still in the fridge from his dad’s Sunday barbecue two days before. He’d missed the event, but his stepmother, Barbara, had sent home leftovers with Marcelle.

  From the kitchen he heard the hair dryer across the house. Marcelle wouldn’t hear him, so he didn’t bother shouting. Instead, he pulled open the refrigerator door, found the plastic container of shredded brisket, and grabbed a fork.

  Even cold, the barbecued brisket set him moaning. He knew it would be better on bread — bread, with a little mayonnaise and sliced tomato. Maybe he’d even make two sandwiches, but he needed to work his way up to that.

  Then again, if he emptied the container straight into his mouth, that was okay, too.

  Footsteps clicked down the hall, but Lee couldn’t bring himself to pull his face away from the dish.

  “Leland, what are you doing? We have the health clinic auction tonight.” Marcelle stood over him wearing a frantic look and a black cocktail dress. “We need to leave in thirty minutes!”

  Epilogue

  One year later

  Rainey: I’ve officially become a bag lady.

  Rainey texted this confession to Jacques when she realized she’d filled up the second spare room closet in her house with plastic grocery bags.

  Jacques: For someone who attended the Grammys with me just a few months ago, that’s rather alarming.

  His response and the memory of that magical night made Rainey smile. She and Pal had flown to L.A. to join Heroine, who had been nominated for two awards: Best New Artist and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Rain in Her Name,” while Jacques and Kate had been nominated for Best Song as composers of “Rain in Her Name.” They’d walked away with Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Rainey had never been more grateful for waterproof mascara.

  Rainey: I really miss you.

  Rainey tucked her phone in her back pocket and felt the buzz of his reply. She told herself to wait at least until she filled up her wicker basket with plastic bags — from Wal-Mart, Albertsons, Rouse’s, and virtually every takeout place in town — and carried them downstairs to the kitchen counter. There, she would cut two bags at a time into strips, open the strips into loops, and knot the loops together to make plarn.

  Also known as plastic yarn.

  And after Rainey did this with about five hundred plastic grocery bags, which usually took no less than three hours, she had enough plarn to crochet one six-by-three-foot sleeping mat. That sleeping mat would go to one of Lafayette’s four homeless shelters, and if a cot wasn’t available for someone, at least he or she would be given a mat that kept moisture from the ground from seeping into blankets and clothes.

  When the first two bags had become plarn, she allowed herself to read Jacques’s text.

  Jacques: I miss you, too. Soon, baby.

  Rainey tsked. After the Grammys, Jacques had been home for most of March, but then Heroine had set off on their fifty-show, four-month North America tour on April first. Since the page on Rainey’s calendar had just flipped to June, the end of August seemed eons away.

  Rainey: Two months is not soon.

  She set her phone face down so she wouldn’t be tempted to read Jacques’s text until she plarned another two bags.

  She’d learned how to make the sleeping mats from Dawn Phillips, a pastor’s wife from Conroe, Texas, as the two of them sat in the waiting room on the eighth floor in M.D. Anderson’s Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Center. Holi had been a patient at the center for eight weeks. And even though Holi was a married woman now, Ash was starting the last year in his MBA program, and she refused to let him defer for a semester to sit by her side while she had chemo and radiation to wipe out her immune system before her body would take Ray’s stem cells to rebuild it. So, Rainey had volunteered for the job.

  And given the fact that while Holi was undergoing treatment, Rainey was either worried about her, missing Jacques, or bored out of her mind, she was grateful for the project.

  The one boon of being in Houston for weeks on end was that she had been able to catch Heroine’s show when they’d opened for The Chainsmokers at The Woodlands Pavilion in late July. At the time, Heroine’s self-titled debut album had been number 64, and their summer release Lightning in a Bottle had debuted on iTunes, between Twenty One Pilots Blurryface and Halsley’s Badlands. It eventually made it to number 6, and the pride Rainey felt was nearly enough to cause a stroke. At the show, Rainey had screamed herself hoarse as Heroine played to an electrified crowd. Then she’d watched The Chainsmokers from the comfort of Jacques’s embrace, and she’d spent the night in his hotel room, their first time alone in nearly a month.

  That one night, by far, was the highlight of her time in Houston.

  The easiest phase of a stem cell transplant, Rainey had learned earlier, was for the donor. And even that part was pretty harrowing. Ray, the hero that he was, hadn’t balked at all at the sight of the infusion chair where he had to sit for three hours while an IV in one arm took blood from his body and sent it to a machine that separated out his stem cells and then sent the blood back to his body through an IV in his other arm.

  Rainey knew this because she, Jacques, and Gloria had gone with him. Rainey went for moral support, but Jacques went by invitation. In the short time the Lopez-Craines had been in town, Ray had developed just a small case of hero worship for her boyfriend — which only got bigger after he heard Jacques play his guitar. But Rainey noticed, too, that the ad
miration was far from one-sided. Jacques genuinely laughed at all of Ray’s clever observations, and when her little brother launched into any topic — from wormholes to driver ants — Jacques gave him his full attention.

  She loved him all the more for that.

  Once it was determined that Ray was a perfect match for Holi, he and Gloria had stayed in town another two weeks while Cliff had to return home to work. Ray needed five days of drug treatment to stimulate the production of stem cells, and then he had to have a couple of days to recover from the ordeal. Thankfully, when Cliff went back home, Gloria finally accepted their invitation to stay at the house.

  For Rainey and Holi, having Ray in the house — horsing around, complaining when his mother told him to take a bath, and coming down in the mornings sleepy-eyed and in stocking feet — brought John Lee to mind in so many ways. And when Ray stirred those memories, Rainey and Holi made a point to share them. John Lee was Ray’s brother, too, after all.

  The day Ray and Gloria flew back to Bowling Green, Rainey, Holi, and even Gloria had all cried. Rainey was pretty sure her little brother would have shed a tear too if he hadn’t needed so desperately to appear strong and stoic in front of Jacques.

  But they’d made plans to visit soon. This time, Holi, Ash, Rainey, and Jacques were to go to Bowling Green for Thanksgiving. Jacques had even reserved rooms at Copper House, but when the time came, Holi had been suffering with acute graft-versus-host-disease. Jaundiced and covered in skin rashes — even inside her mouth and on her tongue — Holi was miserable and had lost an alarming amount of weight. Even with all that, Dr. Lambert described her GVHD symptoms as mild.

  Rainey had shuddered to imagine a severe case. As it was, Holi had only turned the corner in May, and she was finally starting to look and feel human again. Shaking off the unpleasant memory of her sister’s long illness, Rainey flipped over her phone.

  Jacques: It won’t seem like two months. Are you working on your mats now?

  She quickly typed her reply.

  Rainey: Yep. Making plarn. I have class tomorrow.

  Since July, when Rainey wasn’t driving Holi to and from Houston or to and from doctors’ appointments in town, she was crocheting sleeping mats and delivering them to shelters. In February, when Paulette Parker, one of the ladies from St. Joseph’s Shelter, asked her if she would teach a sleeping-mat-crochet lesson to her church’s youth group, Rainey accepted. And, to her surprise, she’d enjoyed it. Even more surprising, the kids had enjoyed it, too.

  So, she started teaching a class on Wednesday afternoons at The Boys & Girls Club of Acadiana, and although mostly girls showed up, some boys joined in occasionally. Everyone had to make a sleeping mat first, but then Rainey would introduce them to simple patterns for scarves, reusable grocery sacks, and beanies. The girls who came every week progressed quickly and were able to move onto more challenging projects. And Rainey soon grew addicted to the look of empowerment in their eyes as they realized what they could create with their own hands. And seeing those kids every Wednesday was certainly the high point of the week while Heroine was touring again.

  Another weekly routine Rainey had come to appreciate was the phone call from her father. After Ray’s surprise visit, Rainey had felt a little guilty —but just a little — for blocking her father’s number. And now when he called, which he did every Sunday, she answered. Dylan Reeves was still Dylan Reeves. Their conversations didn’t really delve beyond the surface of things, but he was the one making the effort, and his devoted weekly call made it clear to her that he wanted the relationship. If nothing else, Rainey told herself, it was progress.

  And it was one more hour when she wasn’t actively missing Jacques. She was only passively missing him.

  Rainey: And you’re wrong. Two months away from you feels like ten!

  As she had before, Rainey flipped over her phone and worked her way through two more bags even though she heard her phone buzz twice.

  Jacques: I agree. Let’s do something about it. Pack a bag.

  Rainey smirked at his joke. Mentally scrolling through the band’s tour schedule, she knew they’d played a show in Portland, Maine, the night before and were heading to Boston and then to New York City for back-to-back shows at Madison Square Garden. Both New York shows had sold out weeks ago.

  But whatever fantasy Jacques wanted to tease her with, she’d play along.

  Rainey: Sure. I’ll hop on a plane and meet you in Boston tomorrow.

  His reply came through before she could turn her phone over again.

  Jacques: Not soon enough. I have to see you today.

  Her heart did a little flutter-dance. Even from two thousand miles away, he could still touch her. And even though she hadn’t seen him in the flesh in two months, she still burned for him. Rainey heaved a long sigh.

  And her breath caught in her throat when she read his next text.

  Jacques: Open the door.

  She stared at the screen for a disbelieving three seconds.

  Jacques: I said open the door.

  A knock shattered the silence in her house. Archie startled from his nap and ran barking to the front door. Rainey’s hand flew to her mouth, and then she flew across the room. She yanked the door open.

  And there he was.

  “Jacques! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  It was on the second “Oh, my God!” that he swept her into his arms, laughing, she knew, at her stunned expression and the tears that already swam in her eyes.

  “Hey, baby,” he murmured, clutching her close and surrounding her with his scent and heat. “God, you feel good.”

  She held on tight, afraid to let go. “What are you doing here?!”

  Before Jacques answered, he planted her lips with a closed-mouth kiss that quickly became an open-mouth kiss. And his affection poured through her like honey, leaving her slow-moving and tinged with sweetness.

  Jacques drew back just enough to smile down at her. “I came to get you,” he said softly.

  Rainey blinked. “Wh-what? Get me? You’re supposed to be in Maine.”

  His arms tightened around her middle. “Like I said, I missed you.”

  The executive functioning of her brain must have taken a lunch break. Rainey shook her head. “But you have a show tomorrow night in Boston.”

  “Yep.” He nodded, grinning that self-satisfied, lopsided grin. “And I have to be at TD Garden tomorrow by 1:30 eastern time, so pack a bag, baby. We have a plane to catch.”

  “You’re joking,” she blurted. A boxing glove to the head would have stunned her less.

  Jacques chuckled, looking even more self-satisfied. “Surprising you is so much fun.” Then he leveled her with his gaze. “We leave here in one hour. Let’s head upstairs. I’ll help—”

  “Wait. Wait. I can’t just leave,” she said, pressing against his upper arms to get some much-needed distance.

  His frown was playful. “Why not?”

  “I-I-I… Holi might need me.”

  Jacques’s smile gentled. “Holi and Ash expect you to be gone by the time they get back from work.” His deep, rumbly voice was somehow as soft as a caress. “Holi’s better now, and I think she and Ash are looking forward to finally living like newlyweds.”

  He had a point. Holi had returned to work two weeks ago, and she had overheard her sister and Ash talking about booking their long-awaited honeymoon. Then a thought made her stomach clench.

  “But I have class tomorrow.” There were a handful of girls who came every week. These girls didn’t have a whole lot of bright and hope in their lives. Rainey knew they needed not only the peacefulness crochet offered, but the camaraderie, the community of sitting together, talking, and sharing the pride in making something new and beautiful with their bare hands.

  Jacques pressed his lips together and nodded solemnly. “You do have class, but it’s not here,” he said, a hint of mischief dancing in his dark eyes. “Here, you have a sub for the rest of the summer—”

  Her eyes bu
gged. “The rest of the summer—”

  “But you are teaching a crochet class tomorrow at the Charlestown Street Boys & Girls Club in Boston—”

  “What?” she shrieked, not believing what he was saying. What it meant.

  Grinning, he just kept going. “It’s exactly one mile from the arena. You can Uber from the hotel, teach your class, and have plenty of time to grab a bite to eat before the show.”

  Her mouth fell open at the realization of just what he’d had to orchestrate to be able to do this. “Jacques…” His name was just a whisper of awe.

  “You’re also teaching Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Boys & Girls Club on…” Jacques frowned, dropped his hand to his back pocket, fished out his phone, and searched it. “Ah, yes, West 35th Street in New York City. That’s just a six-minute walk from Madison Square Garden and a few blocks from the Stewart Hotel where we’ll be staying.”

  “Jacques,” she said, finding it hard to breathe. “I-I don’t know what to say…”

  He reached for her face and let his fingers run into her hair. She felt his grasp close, and he tugged her locks gently. His eyes, suddenly so ardent, full of a need that pierced her heart.

  “Say you’ll come with me. I would have taken you last summer. I would have taken you in April, but I knew you wouldn’t leave Holi until you were sure she was out of the woods.” Rainey watched him frown. “And I know how much your volunteer work means to you, so I don’t want you to stop. But I figure, if you can keep doing what you’re doing — teaching kids how to crochet and building communities — then it doesn’t really matter where you do it, right?”