“Well?’ I prompted nervously.
Elaine shut the door and came back to stand in front of me. Her voice trembled slightly. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“You mean no one came?” I whispered shocked and sad, even while another part of me rebelled. So what if the townspeople did not turn up for my wedding. I didn’t care. They and their high and mighty, self-righteous sensibilities could go to hell. I was getting married today to the man of my dreams. Nothing, and no one, was going to spoil that for me.
Elaine took my hand in both of hers. “No one came? The church is packed to the rafters, Lara.”
“What?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Everyone has come to see you get married. Heck even Rhett Haverbooke. He brought his wife and all six of his brats. Snooty cow Kayleigh looks like she’s chewing on a handful of hornets, but she’s out there in her Sunday best too.”
“Really?” I gasped.
“And guess who else is there? Loopy Luther. Sitting in the front row.”
“Marybeth Luther came to witness me marrying the heathen?”
“Yup. Clutching her rosary and praying for your salvation, no doubt.”
I was suddenly nervous. A host of butterflies were fluttering madly in my stomach. “Did you see Kit?”
“You can’t exactly miss him. He’s bigger than everybody else.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He turned around and saw me, so I’d say he’s waiting impatiently for you.”
I smiled. “How do I look?”
“Like a woman who’s marrying a heathen,” she chirped.
“Are you thinking the red dress is too much now?”
“No, way. I think it’s perfect.” She touched the little flowers in my hair. “You look bewitching in it, like some kind of forest siren that lures men onto their bloody deaths.”
“Elaine?”
“Just kidding. You are the most radiant bride I’ve ever set eyes on. Hell, I’d marry you myself if Kit wasn’t so big and fierce.”
I giggled. “You’re mad.”
“Are you ready?”
I nod.
“Shall I go get my father?”
“Yeah.”
She went out and I stood in the stillness of the room alone. I took a deep, calming breath and the strangest thing happened. I thought my Ma was in the room with me. The sensation was so strong, I called out. “Ma.”
There was no reply, but something that felt like a feather landed on my shoulder.
I didn’t move a muscle.
“Ma,” I called again. Again, the feather light touch on my hand this time, and suddenly, I understood. My mother had reached out from heaven to bless me on my wedding day. Tears of awe and love filled my eyes, and ran down my face.
“I love you, Ma,” I whispered.
Then the door burst open and Elaine came in with her father.
“My goodness me,” she exclaimed. “Don’t you dare start crying. You’re ruining all my good work.”
“Stop bullying the poor child,” her father scolded. “She can cry on her own wedding day if she wants to.”
“Pa, how many times does Ma have to tell you? Stay out of women’s business,” she said, and began to dab at my face.
I grasped her hand. “My ma was here, Elaine. I felt her.”
She became still. “Oh, Lara. What a beautiful thing to happen on your wedding day?”
“It was. It was the most peaceful and beautiful thing that has ever happened to me.”
“What did it feel like?”
“It was just a feather light touch and the sensation that she was in the room with me.” I paused. “She was happy for me, Elaine. Very happy.” More tears flowed from my eyes.
“I’m so glad for you, Lara, but now, you’ve got to stop the waterworks, or all my hard graft will be for nothing.”
I was still trembling while she repaired what I had ruined. Then, she thrust my bouquet into my hand and guided me towards her dad’s arm. I laid my hand on it, and he led me out into the church where my beautiful future waited with open arms.
Epilogue 1
Kit
Three months later
The waves roared, one after the other, constant motion that created the most soothing sound I had ever heard. I dug my toes into the sand and watched as a pretty woman in a bikini walked by. Then I looked again to my right, to the incomparably beautiful woman in a sleek one-piece suit, her hair cascading down her shoulders, her eyes closed, her toes pushed into the sand, and her head tilted back to catch the sun’s rays and the soft breezes.
As we listened to the waves roll in, I described the scene around us: the ladies in their bikinis, the colorful towels spread on the sand, the surfers trying to catch a wave and doing a shit job of it. It was not weather for surfing. I told her about the kids and the sandcastles they were building down the beach. I told her the sky was so blue it looked almost unreal, so clear that if I stared at it too long, I would get dizzy.
Condensation ran down the ice bucket in little rivulets of cold. I ran my fingers through it and then touched Lara’s thigh. She jumped and laughed at me. “Stop being so evil.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “Wanna beer?”
“Yeah,” she said.
I opened it up with a delicious hiss and handed the ice-cold bottle to her. I opened up my own and looked over at her. She raised her beer in the air and tilted it toward me.
Her wedding band flashed in the light. “To Roger,” she said.
“To Roger.”
“I wish I had met him.”
“He would have loved you. Maybe too much. I might have got jealous.”
I watched as she took one long pull of the beer. Then she casually handed her almost-full bottle to me. “That was delicious.”
I was puzzled. “Just one sip?”
Lara smiled and leaned back on her chair. “As soon as I have this baby, you can bring me an ice-cold beer at the maternity ward, and I promise I’ll drink the whole thing.”
I sat straight up, my heart pounding. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” she said smugly.
I stared at my wife. She leaned her head back and smiled up at the sun. The news hit me in the gut and gave me the strangest feeling, a warmth that was entirely different from anything else I had ever experienced. I reached over to take her hand. “You’re sure?”
She nodded and pulled my hand up to kiss my fingers. “And I was thinking … if it’s a boy, we can name him Roger.”
Tears stung my eyes. This woman had brought everything I ever dreamed of into my life, and now she was giving me even more. I looked at her flat belly, thinking about how wonderful it would be to see it grow.
“I love you,” I said against her hand.
“I love you too,” she replied, and we sat together in our little cocoon of happiness, with our little secret deep in her belly, and somewhere, my old friend Roger was laughing, and sipping a beer in our honor.
Epilogue 2
Lara
Six months later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_UYLPSn6U
“Hey. How’s it going in Cloneland?” I asked as soon as I heard Elaine’s voice on the phone.
Cloneland was Elaine’s nickname for Hollywood. When she first arrived there she was stunned by how uniformly beautiful, blonde and tanned all the women were.
“It’s shocking how white everyone’s teeth are,” she whispered the first time she called back. She claimed their teeth were so blinding she had to buy her first pair of sunglasses.
For the last two months she had been, her words, not mine, working her ass off twelve hours a day, six days a week, doing whatever anyone asked her to do for a production designer friend of Haverbrooke, but she was happy. So happy, in fact, she forgot to ask for the latest gossip, not that I’d know any.
“You’re not going to believe what just happened to me,” she squealed excitedly.
I sat down. �
�What?” I asked, smiling.
“I think I just sold my screenplay. Remember that production designer friend I told you about?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember how she was going to mention to a producer friend of hers that I had a script?”
“Yeah?”
“The producer asked for the script.”
I screamed with joy for her. “So you have to take it to him?”
“It’s moved along a bit farther than that.”
“What?”
“I didn’t want to tell you in case he didn’t bother to get back or said he hated it.”
“Well.”
“He said he loved it that I had a blind heroine, but could I rewrite to make her 13 instead of 17 so she will be more appealing to the tween market.”
“Your heroine is blind?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the story about?”
“It’s a story about a blind girl who finds a hurt baby deer in the forest and saves it from the hunters.”
“I’m so happy for you, Elaine.”
“I owe it all to you. Thank you, Lara.”
“Owe it to me? I didn’t even know you were writing screenplays.”
“You got Haverbrooke to help me, didn’t you?”
“No way. I don’t even know the man.”
“Lara. You are such a lousy liar. I mean, how obvious can you get? I tell you I want to go LA and Haverbrooke’s secretary calls me up to offer me a job, and wait for it, in Hollywood, working as what? Oh, yeah, a production director’s assistant.”
“If your screenplay hadn’t been good enough the producer would not have wanted it. You do know that, don’t you?”
She laughed. “Yeah, I know that. Okay enough about me. How’s the baby coming along?”
“Just fine. We went for the 20 week scan the other day. Kit says she is gorgeous. He says she has my nose.”
“That’s a good thing. His nose would be too big on a girl.”
“Her eyes were closed, but her eyelashes are really long. He said they were so long they were almost an inch long. For the first time in my life I felt sad that I couldn’t see.”
“Oh, Lara. You will see her soon.”
“Yes, I know. I can’t wait to feel her little body, her little face, her little hands, hug her, kiss her, smell her. I’m counting the days before I can be her mommy.”
“Oh fuck. Someone is calling me. I gotta go, but I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, and congratulations, Elaine. I’m real proud of you.”
“Thanks,” she sang, and making a loud kissing sound, rang off. I lay the phone back on the table and stroked my stomach. I heard the front door open and I began to smile.
Kit’s footsteps came across the room towards me. He knelt beside me.
“How are my two girls today?” he asked.
“Missing you,” I whispered.
“I got a surprise for you,” he said.
I grinned. “What?”
He took my hands and put them in my lap. Then he put something that felt like a plastic or silicone square wrapped in a napkin in my hand. “What is this?” I asked.
“It’s your daughter’s face.”
I frowned. “What? How?”
“It’s a 3D printed ultrasound. I sent the ultrasound files to Poland and they produced this.”
Speechless, my fingers mapped the little raised face. Her little nose, her lips, her eyes, and then I began to cry with joy.
“Oh, Kit. Thank you. Thank you,” I sobbed. “She is so beautiful. Our daughter is a little miracle.”
He held me close. “Yes, she is as beautiful as her mother.”
“Oh no. She is far more beautiful, and her eyelashes. My goodness. I never thought a baby could have such long lashes.”
“I love you, my sweet and wonderful wife,” he whispered in my ear.
“I love you too, my wonderful husband, and little baby Carson is the most amazing and splendid treasure I could ever have dreamed of. I’m so glad fate delivered you to Durango Falls, and you went and put up that weird advert at the library.”
I felt his breath close to my temple, then he lifted me into his arms.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, laughing.
“I realized I’d better take advantage of the last few quiet moments we have left before the little one comes.”
“What did you have in mind?’’ I asked as he carried me upstairs.
“I thought I’d put you on your back for a little rest, Mrs. Carson, since you must be very tired, what with being pregnant and all.’’
Mr. Carson was wrong. Turned out I wasn’t tired at all!
THE END
Hypnotized
Georgia Le Carre
Untitled
Hypnotized
Published by Georgia Le Carre
Copyright © 2015 by Georgia Le Carre
The right of Georgia Le Carre to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-910575-15-4
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Quote
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.
—Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Prologue
Marlow Kane
The chick behind the counter smiled at me and licked her lips. Shit. That was an invitation if ever I saw one. Sorry, honey, I’m married. Hey, I’m not just married, I’m in fucking love. I had the perfect life. A beautiful wife, two little terrors, a successful career. In fact, I was poised to dominate my industry.
The results of my research would soon be made public and I was going to be a star! Life was good.
‘Keep the change,’ I told her.
Her smile broadened and yet there was disappointment in her eyes.
I grinned and shrugged. ‘If I wasn’t already hooked I’d ask you out. You’re gorgeous.’
‘I’m not jealous,’ she said flirtatiously.
‘My wife is,’ I told her, and picked up the tray of drinks: cappuccino for me, latte for my wife, and two hot chocolates for my monsters. Suddenly I heard a man shout, ‘Fuck me!’ And though those two words had nothing to do with me, my body—no, not just my body, every cell that lived inside me—knew.
They concerned me.
I whirled around, jaw clenched, still clutching the paper tray of drinks as if it was my last link to normality. For precious seconds I was so stunned, I froze. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Then an instinct older than life kicked in.
The tray dropped from my hand—one cappuccino, one latte, and two hot chocolates—my last link with normality falling away from me forever, and I began to race toward the burning car. My car. With my family trapped inside. I could see my beautiful babies screaming and banging on the car windows.
‘Get out, get out of the fucking car!’ I screamed as I ran.
I could see them pulling at the handles, their small spread palms hitting desperately on the glass. I could even see their little mouths screaming for me.
‘Daddy, Daddy. Help!’
It was heartbreaking how frightened and white their little faces were. I couldn’t see my wife. Where was she?
I was running so fast my legs felt as though they might buckle, but it was like being in slow motion. Time had slowed down. At that moment thoughts came into my head at sonic speed, but the disaster carried on in real time, slow time. Suddenly my wife lifted her head and I saw her. She was looking out through the window directly at me. I was twenty feet away, but I saw it. I kept on running, but it was like being in a dream where your mother suddenly turns into a green elephant.
You don’t go, What the fuck?
You just carry on as normal even though your mother has just turned into a green elephant. I just carried on running. I no longer looked at my children. My gaze was riveted by the sight of my wife. I was ten feet away when the car exploded.
Boom!
The force of it picked me up and threw me backwards. I flew into the air and landed hard on the tarmac. I didn’t feel the pain of the impact. Coughing and choking at the smell, the taste and the heat in the thick, black, acrid smoke that poured from the wreckage I got onto my elbows and watched the fire consume my family.
Burning debris rained down. A small pink shoe landed within touching distance. It was charred and still smoking. I felt my body go into lockdown. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It could.
There was no grief then. Not even horror. It was just shock. And the inability to comprehend. The loss, the carnage, the tragedy, the green elephant. People came to help me up. I was shaking uncontrollably. They thought I was cold so they wrapped me in blankets. I wasn’t. I was on fire. They sent me in an ambulance to the hospital. I never spoke. The whole time I was trying to figure out the green elephant. Why? How? It confused me.
His Frozen Heart Page 34