Carnival
D. M. Thornton
Contents
Also by D.M. Thornton
Quote
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty One
22. Twenty Two
23. Twenty Three
24. Twenty Four
25. Twenty Five
26. Twenty six
27. Twenty Seven
28. Twenty Eight
29. Twenty Nine
30. Thirty
31. Thirty One
32. Thirty Two
33. Thirty Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Author Stalker Links
Also by D.M. Thornton
The Answer
Distracted
Lost
Lost Without You
Lost Forever
What Lies Beneath The Flowerbed
Accepting Magnolia
Copyright
Carnival Copyright ©2018 by D.M. Thornton
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information visit
www.dmthornton.com
Cover design by Ampersand Book Covers
Editing by Brieanna Denton
Formatting by Kylie Sharp @ Indigo Assisting
Dedication
I didn’t know love until there was you…
For the three I love more than life itself.
“We loved with a love that was more than love.”
~Edgar Allan Poe~
One
Piper
“Iced, venti, decaf, almond milk, toffee nut latte, no whip, please.”
“Name,” the girl behind the counter asks. Her tone passive. Bored.
I try a smile. “Piper.”
The girl scribbles on the cup before slamming it down on the counter beside her while another barista scoops up the cup to begin crafting my coffee. “That will be six dollars and sixty-seven cents.”
I rummage through the cash in my wallet and pull out six dollars then search through the zippered pouch for the exact change. My finger pushes the coins around as I count each one in my head. I’m not fast enough to the girl’s liking; she grows impatient and clicks her tongue at the top of her mouth. For some reason, I thought employees in the service industry were supposed to be cheerful. It seems this girl never got the memo.
An arm brushes my shoulder and the change is dropped onto the counter in front of me. “There ya go, sixty-seven cents.”
The chill hits me before his words have the chance to settle. The voice that has haunted me since preschool is standing behind me paying the difference in change for my morning coffee. I mumble a stiff thank you and step to the side, grabbing my coffee from the bar and refusing to glance in his direction. I hear the murmurs from some of the customers in line as I pass them on my way to the door. They don’t know him like I do. They only know of the glamour and fame his name carries, a name not given to him at birth. But I know the real man behind the facade.
My feet carry me quickly along the sidewalk toward my office building. The clicking of my heels against the concrete grows annoying with each rushed step. It’s in my sights, less than half a football field away, so close I can almost smell the ink being printed on the glossy paper. Close, yet so far. Especially when my name is being yelled out over and over again across the morning LA smog.
“Piper Posey! Wait up, Piper,” he shouts.
I find myself still, waiting for him to approach me. I turn slowly, my hand gripping my iced coffee like my life depends on the cold plastic to freeze my pounding heart. The last time I saw Oliver Leif was when we graduated from high school almost thirteen years ago. In that time, I went off to college, graduated, then began writing a column for a local magazine. Oliver, on the other hand, torments me through the radio every morning during gridlock traffic and sells out arenas all over the globe. Hard to imagine such a punk from my childhood could have turned out to be the lead singer for one of the hottest rock bands.
To my dismay, he’s not sore on the eyes either, but then he never has been. He’s always been good-looking. Oliver and I have always had a love-hate relationship. He loved me and I hated him. Which is also so far from the truth it’s pathetic. I have loved Oliver since the first day of preschool when he hugged me and told me my mommy would always come back. Then, he told me to stop my crying because only babies cry and shoved me into the dollhouse. Every day he would console me in some way only to turn around and pull my pigtails or steal my toy. “Sharing is caring,” he’d say. He always found a loophole.
“Oliver.” I grumble his name like it’s sour on my tongue.
Without warning, he swoops in and wraps his abnormally long arms around me and pulls me in to a tight hug. “So good to see you, small fry.”
Ah, the short jokes. There have been many. I fake a strained laugh. “Likewise, I’m sure.”
“What have you been up to these days?” he asks, putting my feet back on the ground.
I shrug my shoulders. “Stuff.”
“Stuff? Wow, you’re just as boring as you were back in the day,” he teases. “I can see you haven’t grown any either.” He laughs at his own lame jokes.
“Yeah, well, the Circus called; they want your abnormally long torso on display in their freak show,” I sass back.
Oliver chuckles and pokes me in the ribs, causing me to squeal and jerk to the side, which sends my coffee slipping from my hands. The cup lands at my feet with a splat, the lid popping off and all the ice and coffee splashing back up against my legs. I’m standing in a puddle of coffee, the liquid dripping down my shins into my shoes. Ignoring Oliver’s roaring laughter and empty apologies, I snatch the cup up, turn, and walk away from him, my shoes squishing and clicking. My cheeks are warm with anger and my hands are beginning to shake, my free hand balling into a fist at my side.
“Ah, c’mon Piper. It was an accident,” Oliver shouts after me. “Piper!”
My name fades the faster I walk until it vanishes completely when I’m cocooned behind the solid glass doors of Los Angeles Lifestyle magazine. I toss the cup in a trashcan as I walk by and plop down into my seat. There is not much difference from being outside to being inside my office. My name is repeated up and down the hallway in front of my door, but at least they are voices I can stand hearing. Eventually, I become deaf to the sounds, white noise rustling around me, and focus on the column I’m supposed to be writing.
Every time my toes wiggle in my shoes, they stick together. I glance down at my feet and snarl. A brown outline squiggles along the leather of my white pumps, showing me exactly where the coffee has stained the material. I can’t concentrate with my feet sticking in my shoes, so I go into the ladies’ room to scrub my feet clean with some wet paper towels then walk barefoot back to my office.
I left my desk for only a few minutes, but long enough to have five new emails blinki
ng at me to be read. The first two are from my editor needing corrections on my first round of edits and to tell me I need to add more to the beginning and ending paragraphs. The third email is from my sister, Luna, and the fourth and fifth are from my boss. I open the emails from my editor and skim her messages before attaching the document she needs and sending it back. I’ll work on the add-ons later. I’m about to open the email from Luna when a third message comes through from my boss, so I click open Mr. Mynbock’s email instead, regretting it immediately.
Three messages of rambling bullshit. He wastes minutes of his precious life writing me three messages about being behind on deadline. First, I’m not late…yet. I have until five o’clock today to get in my final draft. Of course I am only on my first round of edits and I still need to do the add-ons, but technically, I’m not late. Second, my office is adjacent to Mr. Mynbock’s office, so it would be easy enough for my boss to get up off his ass and come talk to me face to face. And third, our offices are partitioned by glass. When I glance up and look over in his direction, all I see is his fat, round face staring back at me. His round wired glasses sit crooked on his pudgy face and what hair he has left on his head is sticking up in a white puff of frizz. Somehow, under that sloppy exterior, is a man who is amazing at his job. He’s pushy and rude and is very much like the absent-minded professor, but when it comes to being the CEO of the magazine, he knows what he is doing, like Hefner and Playboy.
Mr. Mynbock’s slanty eyes glare back at me as he taps the face of his watch with his sausage finger. I hold my eyes firm on his and send him back an email saying I will have the final draft on his desk before I leave this evening, and then I flip him a thumb’s up before deleting his messages. Of course, I don’t start on the things my editor needs, the things that will have me handing in my final piece before I leave. Instead, I open Luna’s email and read through her message.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: YOU’RE GOING
Be ready by 7. And I will not take no for an answer.
When Luna says she won’t take no for an answer, she really means I have no other option than to do as she says or she will club me in the knee with a steel pipe. Luna may not have fiery red hair like I do, but lord knows we share the same fierce attitude. She just happens to follow through with some of her threats. The causing bodily harm type of threats.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: WHATEVER
Fine
I hit send then open up the edits from my editor. For hours upon hours, I stare at the computer screen. My fingers type rapidly against the keyboard, and I pace the floor of my office when I can’t think of ways to better my column. I add more, but Keri deletes it. It’s flat. I spin the words into something fresh and off the cuff, but Keri deletes it. It’s too detailed and boring. We have gone through three rounds of edits and four rounds of add-ons with no end in sight. It’s four-thirty, and at the pace I’m going, I’ll never get out of here. And I won’t have my final draft on Mr. Mynbock’s desk by five.
Defeated, I rest my forehead on the desk and tap the balls of my feet on the floor. It’s my idea of a grown-up temper tantrum. I mutter curse words beneath my breath and whine. My head begins to vibrate, sending me jolting up in my chair when my phone starts to buzz from inside my desk drawer. “Looney Tune,” I greet my sister with a cheerful tone, but my face would tell another tale. “How be you?”
“Seven sharp, Piper. Wear something cute,” she orders.
The pounding in my temple spiders down behind my ear and into my neck, so I press the tips of my fingers against the points throbbing through my skin trying to ease the pain. “Yeah, about that.”
“Nope, not having it. Whatever excuse you have you can swallow and choke on it. See you at seven.”
I’m left with silence and a pounding headache that will last me for days, and yet another email appears in my inbox telling me to try again. The last round of corrections for the add-ons Keri so desperately wants me to make are too dry.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Drier than the grass in California’s drought…
Are you trying to make me suffer a slow and agonizing death? For all that is holy on this earth, please give me something that holds depth and passion. Words on paper are merely words. I want heart. I want earnest feelings to backup said words. I don’t want to be here until midnight, so give it to me. Give it to me now.
~K.
I dig deep inside my soul and pull out the last string of words I can find. They come straight from my ass is more like it. It’s all about selling it, and I’m selling these add-ons like my life depends on it. Now all I need is Keri to buy it. I attach the newest round of bullshit to an email and shoot it over to Keri, crossing my fingers she signs off on them. I’ve hit the point of delusion, my eyes burning from the constant strain of the computer screen and my head throbbing from the overload of words pulsing through my brain. I slide down in my chair and drape my arm over my face. If Keri denies these add-ons, I may crumple to the floor. I’ll be in the fetal position hiding under my desk in a puddle of tears.
The ping from my computer has me sitting straighter and peeking through slanted eyes. My breath expels from my lungs in a single push of rushed air, relieved Keri finally approves and sends me her sign off for the weekend. I email the final copy of the column to Mr. Mynbock and grab my things, then walk the seven steps into his office.
“The final draft is in your email,” I say, entering his office without invitation. “If you need me to change anything, I’ll do it from home.” I walk away before Mr. Mynbock has an opportunity to find something he doesn’t like about this week’s column, and shout over my shoulder, “Have a good weekend, y’all.”
Fletcher’s home before me, which is surprising. He is never home anymore. I’d like to think it’s because the elections are coming up and he is busy with upcoming debates and rallies and whatever else needs to be done before the polls, but I know he has some extracurricular activities on the side. By extracurricular activities, I mean mistresses who think he’s special just because he is running for state senator. One of these days, my balls will catch up with my feisty attitude and I’ll leave. I just have never found the right time to follow through. Or, I’m a glutton for punishment and stay because deep down, I love Fletcher and always have. We have always had a strong and passionate relationship, inseparable to the point of unhealthy, but now it is toxic and stale and lonely.
“Hey.” My voice is strained when I greet Fletcher with a kiss on his cheek. “How was your day?” It should be easy to ask the love of your life the simplest of questions. It’s not. It has become a chore to pretend like we still care for each other, but we do it anyway out of reasons I don’t think either one of us are ready to say out loud.
“Same stressful shit. Yours?” he asks without looking up from whatever it is he’s writing.
I hang my purse on the coat rack by the front door since the kitchen table is lined with documents and Fletcher’s laptop. “Same stressful shit,” I repeat. Neither one of us know about the stresses in either of our jobs. I don’t think either one of us care how much stress the other might be under. We have become numb to each other’s feelings, cohabiting out of laziness to change any aspect of our relationship. I can’t even say we are cohabiting, rather coexisting. We don’t live as a couple and we haven’t had sex in sixteen months, but who’s counting? We have become roommates, more or less.
Luna will be here in twenty minutes which doesn’t leave me much time to get ready, so I head for the bathroom to freshen up my makeup and change my clothes. When I come out of the closet, Fletcher is sitting on the bed. “Sushi sounds good, doesn’t it?” he says randomly.
I glance up from the watch I’m trying to fasten around my wrist. “I suppose.”
“You loo
k nice.”
His compliment should put a smile on my face, I can’t remember the last time he’s paid me one, but instead, it furrows my brows. “Um, thanks.” I turn toward the mirror and drag some lipstick over my lips and dab under my eyes with the pads of my ring fingers, trying to blend the concealer over the dark circles.
“So, sushi?”
I look over at him. He’s running his hands nervously along his pants. It takes me a second to realize he is asking me if I want to go get sushi with him. My eyes blink on a tick. “Oh, um, I’m sorry. Raincheck? Luna wants me to go to some concert with her. She’ll be here any minute.”
He looks disappointed, but he doesn’t push. He nods his head and leaves the room without so much as a sigh. Fletcher ignores my goodbye when I pass him on the sofa on my way out. He doesn’t bother looking up from his laptop. He doesn’t wave, doesn’t flip me a middle finger. I shrug off his cold shoulder and leave the house, exiting through the security gate surrounding our property.
Luna is waiting for me at the curb in her beat up old Jetta. I see her ratted curls ten feet away. “The eighties called, they want their banana comb back,” I tease as I slide into the passenger seat.
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