I popped the first piece in my mouth, strawberry with a chewy center, and kicked the dust of the road out from under my saddle oxfords.
“You think there’ll be any new kids in our class?” I asked.
Katie Jo groaned, “Who in their right mind would move here?”
I giggled. “What’s so wrong with here, Katie Jo?”
“It’s just so dull. I’m going to grow up and move somewhere marvelous. Maybe New York City.” Then she shrugged. “Maybe Florida.”
What seemed like too soon later, the stern, unsmiling Mrs. McLeary was saying, “No, no, you’re an ‘S,’ so you go here. Move over a spot.”
While Mrs. McLeary was discussing something with the sixth-grade teacher, as she was just beginning to line up her row of freshly washed children, shirttails slightly askew from the morning walk to school, Katie Jo darted out of line and stood behind me. We both giggled.
I couldn’t imagine ever being as brave as Katie Jo. But thank the good Lord she was. Because if Katie Jo hadn’t been her rule-breaking self that morning, my entire life could have been different. Katie Jo’s spot behind me moved everyone up one space, and, as I would find out only moments later, put me beside the most beautiful, blue-eyed, blond-haired boy I’d ever seen.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Katie Jo.
She shrugged. “Never seen him before.”
I looked back over, my first real crush grabbing my heart right out of my chest before I even knew what a crush was.
There we were, me in the fifth-grade line, him in the sixth, out front of the one-story elementary school, standing on the blazing asphalt. That massive flag waving was something to be respected almost as much as the cross itself. And the president was only a step below Jesus.
As we finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, little hands over so many beating hearts, Dan turned, those dimples gleaming, to smile at me. I heard Katie Jo giggle, and I guess I borrowed a little of my best friend’s gumption that day. My ribbon-tied pigtails trembling with anticipation, I reached over and took Dan’s hand. And that was it. My heart was stolen forever.
Annabelle
Per-fect
Everyone needs a little struggle in her life because, when it’s all said and done, it’s the struggle that makes you strong. As I lay in bed that night after a beautiful dinner at the very upscale Chesca’s, hearing D-daddy’s snores through the doors of our adjoining rooms, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Lovey was a little too old to have to struggle now, if she wasn’t strong enough already. Maybe it was that she was so practiced at the life she was leading now, but she acted as if this horrible time seeing her husband in decline was business as usual. I was just his granddaughter, and, watching a nurse butter his bread and feed it to him, seeing the stares of the other patrons as she cut his meat, it took away part of that essence of D-daddy, that strength that he had, the way you knew he would always be there to protect you. Her entire world had collapsed in an instant, taking away the man that she had loved for a lifetime.
My mom and aunts, they whispered when she was out of earshot that she’d never move into assisted living. She talked a big game, they’d say, but, at the end of the day, she couldn’t part with all her things. And, while we all agreed that that level of security would probably be nice for her, I felt like maybe she’d had enough change, that having the strength to live the life she was living and still hold her head high was enough to have to deal with without having to pare down all her worldly possessions and move somewhere new.
On our walk back to the Harbor View after dinner, I had said, “I don’t know how you do it, Lovey. Taking care of him all day, every day must take an incredible toll on you. Traveling with him, taking him out to eat all the time . . .”
She had just shrugged. “I’m not going to hide him away like some sort of shameful secret. He might be an invalid, but he isn’t dead.”
She stood up a little straighter.
My heart ached to remember that Ben was thirteen years older than I, and that, chances were, I was going to be facing this same fate one day. I exhaled deeply and heard Ben’s voice in my ear: You can’t worry so much, TL. Today is all we really have.
I smiled and let myself go back to that wonderful night that changed my world forever.
After I’d slammed Holden’s car door during the epic cruise-control argument, I didn’t know things were over between us. But he wasn’t the kind of man who would come after me when we were fighting. So I didn’t waste my time looking out the window or dreaming of hearing footsteps on the concrete stairs up to my third-floor condo. As I picked up the phone to call my best friend Cameron to see if she wanted to go out, I realized it: I didn’t care if I ever saw Holden again. I wasn’t angry. I just really, truly didn’t care. Had I ever loved him? I guess we always ask ourselves that question in the aftermath of what we think will be the rest of our lives.
Cameron answered the phone breathlessly, “You have to go out with me tonight!”
“I was planning on it.”
As Cameron told me that this sexy guitarist whose YouTube videos she had helped go viral was playing at a tiny bar that night, it hit me that, though I was nearly positive I would marry him anyway, I had no real feelings left for Holden. But the thought of the calligrapher three-quarters of the way through addressing those engraved invitations was too much for me to take. The humiliation of having to send those Save the Date follow-up cards saying, We regret to inform you that the wedding of Annabelle and Holden will no longer take place was more than I could stomach.
“Whatever you want,” I heard myself telling Cameron. “But you have to pick me up because I’m going to be in a condition tonight that you haven’t seen since freshman year.”
I realized how out of place I was going to look in the bar wearing the pink seersucker Lilly Pulitzer dress that Holden’s mom had bought. It was entirely too prissy for me, much too “Sure, I’ll stay home and iron your underwear, sweetheart.” That dress looked like the woman Holden should marry.
I slid into the passenger side of Cameron’s Camry (or CAM’SCAM, as her license plate said) and laughed at her getup. Frayed jeans that looked like she’d had them twenty years, a faded T-shirt with the armholes cut off and a deep V torn, a bandana wrapped around her head, and one feather earring. “Is this some sort of costume night?” I asked.
She looked back at me. “I don’t know, pink princess. Is it?”
“I was trying to look like Holden’s fiancée.”
“And I’m trying to look like Ben Hampton’s.”
I nodded. “Can we smoke?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You haven’t smoked in like a year. What about your fresh baby-making eggs?”
I groaned. “I know this is what I’ve planned since we were in kindergarten, but I feel like my life is going to end the day I walk down that aisle.”
Cameron handed me a lit cigarette. “Duh. That’s why I’m single.” She smiled. “That, and that Ben Hampton is my soul mate.” She sighed deeply. “We’ll probably never marry, just pledge our lives to each other like Brad and Angelina.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you can wear vials of each other’s blood around your necks too.”
She sighed wistfully. “Maybe.” Then she cut her eyes. “But you are aware that that was with Billy Bob, right?”
“I get People, Cameron. Of course I know that. But clearly your subscription isn’t up to date.”
“What do you mean?”
I laughed. “Brad and Angelina got married.”
“No. Are you serious? That is so annoying.”
“Yeah. Like forever ago.” I gave her my best faux-supportive smile and patted her hand. “Listen, am I crazy to marry Holden? I mean, is my life going to be the most boring thing imaginable?”
“Holden is . . .” Cameron paused. “He’s dependable. He’s predictable.
He’ll never let you down. He’ll never cheat on you. He’ll always have his secretary buy you something amazing from Cartier for your birthday. I mean, he’s kind of that guy that is great husband material.” She paused again, and looked at me as we pulled into the parking lot. “But, damn, Annabelle. You’re twenty-two years old. And you’re the most amazing girl I know. You just deserve more than that.”
I put my hand on the door handle. “This is going to be the worst thing anyone has ever said, but I think I just feel like, with Holden, I don’t have high expectations for how my life is going to be. So if it turns out to be basically boring but easy, I’ll never be disappointed.”
Cameron put her head on the steering wheel. “Listen to yourself. You don’t marry ‘basically boring,’ Annabelle. You marry ‘can’t live without.’ You marry ‘heart racing through your chest and feet lifting off the ground and want to rip each other’s clothes off.’ I mean, yeah. You have to be able to get along and have similar values and blah, blah, blah. But how could you possibly get through life without that passion?”
I looked at her for a long minute. And, not for the first time, I envied Cameron. She was so self-assured. She always knew exactly what she wanted. And, lately, now that college was over and I was supposedly an adult, I felt sort of lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew that life with Holden was something I was supposed to want. I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about it, so, instead, I said, “I need a shot.”
We both jumped out of the car and Cameron said, “Coming right up!”
I had never heard of Ben Hampton, never Googled him or had his YouTube video pop up on my sidebar. But when I walked into the sparsely attended bar, with a few ripped black leather chairs scattered around, and heard him crooning, he seemed familiar to me. He was so tall standing up there onstage, his hair as black as the guitar strap around his shoulder with these dark, piercing eyes. I’d never been the kind to get worked up over tall, dark and handsome. But, suddenly, I got the appeal. I sat down within his view, spellbound by his voice, suddenly self-conscious and wishing I looked more like rocker Barbie than bubblegum Barbie. He was so effortlessly cool, so sexy . . . But I wiped the thought away like a dry-erase doodle. I looked down at my left hand. I was engaged, after all, to hedge fund Ken.
At first I thought I was imagining it, but then Cameron whispered to me, “Your attire has so deeply offended my boyfriend that he keeps looking at you in disgust.”
I didn’t get disgust from his gaze. “Well, then maybe I should move out of his line of sight.”
But when I got up, the strangest thing happened. Ben stopped singing, stopped playing and said, “Where are you going?”
I looked around, confused, and, as I was the only person standing, pointed to myself and said, “Um, me?”
He nodded. “Sit back down.”
I sat back down obligingly, my heart racing in my chest. “I didn’t know this was the freaking opera,” I whispered to Cameron, mortified that I had been scolded.
“Excuse me, everyone,” Ben said into the microphone, looking straight at me like a sniper on his target, like no one else existed, “I’m going to have to take five because I believe I just met my wife.”
It was like jumping in the ocean. The noise all around me was suddenly muffled, and my lungs felt like they were filling with water.
Cameron whispered, “What the hell, Annabelle? How could you have stolen my boyfriend like this? We were meant to be together.”
All I could muster was, “Apparently not.”
He jumped down off the stage a few minutes later, took my hands in his and kissed my cheek.
“She’s engaged,” Cameron said indignantly, her hand on her hip.
He rubbed his fingers over the diamond on my left hand, never taking his gaze off of my face, and said, “Not anymore.”
Maybe it was because I was twenty-two and unsure, or maybe it was because I was twenty-two and totally sure, but I followed Ben out of the bar a few hours later. I had to know more about him, I had to understand why I felt so immediately drawn to him. Under the flood of the streetlight that, instead of a dingy, moth-ridden fluorescent stream, seemed like an enchanted glow under the spell of Ben, I started to come to my senses, even through the tequila haze I was in.
“Wait,” I said, suddenly feeling the two shots and two liquor drinks I’d had, “you could totally be a serial killer. I mean, this is nuts.”
Ben walked toward me, a smile playing on his lips. I felt my back touch against the vintage CJ7 Jeep that my dad would have flipped for, my heart beating so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. He stepped closer, took my hand, and put it on his heart. “Would one sweet, beautiful girl make a serial killer this nervous?”
I leaned my head back against the window. “No . . . no. I guess not.”
I’d never felt so totally out of control. I’d never done something so unplanned. And it felt so good I didn’t want it to ever stop. I felt Ben’s hand on my face, sweeping my hair behind my ear. I looked up at him and smiled, his sparkling eyes boring right through me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, totally overcome with wanting to be closer to him, to know him more. He leaned in and kissed me, my legs giving way. If it hadn’t been for the car behind me, I probably would have fallen onto the asphalt. As I reached my hand up to run it through his hair, I heard, “Quit kissing my boyfriend, you slut,” quickly followed by Cameron’s loudest, drunkest cackle.
I laughed too as she made her way toward the Jeep, sort of sideways and peering. The combination of the drinks and the kisses had made me a little sideways too. “You,” she said, falling into me, her mouth right on my ear, “have totally impressed me tonight.”
She leaned away, looked at Ben, swallowed with intention and said, “I mean, this girl, she always does the right thing. I mean, seriously, you have no idea. She’s like per-fect.” She made a hand gesture to punctuate the last syllable.
Ben laughed, and Cameron squinted at him. “And you,” she said, slurring, pointing her finger right in the middle of his chest. “I was in love with you until you pulled that sappy shit up onstage.”
Ben put his arm around my shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint.” He kissed my hair and opened the car door for me.
Cameron slid in right beside me, so I was in the middle of the front seat. I looked at her. “Whatcha doing there, sweetie?”
“Do I look like I can drive myself?” Cameron asked.
We both burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” she said. “I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. I mean, seriously, I love you.”
She hiccupped, and I leaned my head on her shoulder, smirking. “I love you too.” Then I whispered, “Do we know he isn’t a serial killer?”
Cameron shrugged. “He’s so freaking hot.”
I laughed.
“All right, girls,” Ben said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s going to be home with me,” Cameron said.
Ben interlaced his fingers with mine. “Doesn’t look like it. I think I’ve found the last girl I ever want to go home with.”
I closed my eyes, feeling myself smile, and took a deep breath, wanting to memorize the moment. My best friend, the new love of my life. And then I groaned.
“What?” Ben asked. “Was that too much?”
“For me,” Cameron said. “In fact, I’m probably going to barf on the floorboard. But I would assume she just remembered she has a fiancé that is busting up her plans to shack up with you tonight.”
I slapped her leg. “That is so tacky, Cameron. I am not going to do that,” I hissed.
“Rip off the Band-Aid, baby,” Cameron said, producing two beers from her purse and handing me one.
We clinked the bottles, and I looked at Ben, feeling my heart melt. What was it about him?
“Hey,” he said. “If you aren�
�t sure, I can just take you home. You can sleep on it.” He stopped at a stoplight, put his lips softly on mine and said, “But I promise you that I wouldn’t let you dump your fiancé if I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be together.”
Cameron laughed. “God, you’re really too much for me. We never would have made it. But Ann, she loves all that sappy horseshit.”
I called Holden, feeling stone-cold sober. “The wedding is off,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.”
And do you know what he said back? “Is this about the cruise control?”
“Yeah, Holden,” I said. “It’s totally about the cruise control.”
Then I hung up, Cameron cranked up the radio and the three of us sang “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of our lungs. We dropped Cameron off, and, before she half fell out of the truck, she drunk whispered, “Listen. Holden schmolden. Ben Hampton is a foooxxxx. And you just know he’s crazy awesome in bed. Text me later.”
Then she slammed the door. “Will she be all right?” Ben asked.
I laughed. “Oh yeah. This is basically sober for her.”
He put the truck into gear and said, “She’s right, you know.”
“How’s that?”
“I am awesome in bed.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? You sure about that?”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
It disturbed me how much I wanted to know. But I also got those nervous butterflies in my stomach because I hoped he knew I wasn’t going to sleep with some guy I just met, no matter how taken with him I was. Which is why I was so relieved when Ben pulled into the parking lot under the bright yellow sign of Waffle House. “I’m in more of a sleep mood than a waffle mood,” I said.
But Ben took my hand and pulled me out through the driver’s seat anyway. And I realized that I would have followed that man anywhere.
We walked into the brightly lit restaurant and Ben called, “Hey, Hilda,” to the aproned woman standing behind the counter with her pad in her hand. She had to have been in her seventies, and wouldn’t have weighed eighty-nine pounds soaking wet. But she lit up like a schoolgirl when she saw Ben.
Lies and Other Acts of Love Page 7