The Perfect Cast

by T. K. Chapin

  Chapter 42 ~ Levi

  Duffle bag packed, plane ticket bought; Levi was ready. He was heading back to Nashville; he had packed everything the night before, but wanted to give Jess one last shot before leaving town for the final time. He realized the memories he made with his friends in Chattaroy weren’t enough to hold him there. It was Jess who pulled him in the strongest, and his dreams of Nashville were put on hold for her. Jess was his first love, music his second, but since he couldn’t have her, he’d settle on music.

  Glancing back at his room one last time, he shut the door. His dad was waiting out in the truck for him. This is it. Leaving the front door of his house, he tossed his duffle bag in the bed of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. Leaning his head against the window to nap, Levi’s dad backed up and took off down the road towards Spokane International Airport.

  He hadn’t slept the night before, or the days leading up to this moment. He was worried sick he might have been making the wrong decision, but after seeing Jess today, he knew leaving would be the right thing to do. She was in a tough spot, and there wasn’t anything he could do to help her.

  Getting into the security line at the airport, Levi kept feeling like he was forgetting something back home. Pulling out his plane ticket, he checked the date and confirmed it was indeed, August 24th.

  “Sir,” an elderly woman said from behind him as she tapped him on his shoulder.

  Turning, he greeted her with a warm smile. “What is it ma’am?”

  “I think you dropped this,” she replied handing him the gold pocket watch that Roy had given him. Levi wondered if it was just a coincidence or a sign to stay.

  “Thank you.” Rubbing the surface of the watch with his thumb, he thought about Roy and the farm, and Jess. He missed it all, but Jess and her family was in need of some distance from what he could tell. Slipping the watch back into his pocket, he continued to inch his way forward in the line.

  Chapter 43 ~ Jess

  After learning of Levi’s plan to jet to Nashville again from his mother at his house, Jess darted down the road back towards the farm. Running quickly across the bridge, past the root cellar and up into the farmhouse, an out-of-breath Jess asked for her Grandpa’s car keys.

  “Here, just take my truck,” her dad said, handing her his keys. “Were you going to get lemon-lime soda for the punch?”

  Jess shook her head, “No, I’m not. I’m going to the airport.”

  “Why in tarnation would you do something like that?”

  Roy put his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “Love.”

  “Love? We have a wake for your mother to prepare for, Jess. You can’t go chasing after--”

  “Dad,” Jess said putting her hand on his shoulder as she caught her breath. Her dad looked down shaking his head. “Look at me, please?” Looking up into her eyes, he looked to be waiting for her to continue. “You’re an amazing dad, and I love you… But this decision is mine, and I know what I want. I want Levi.”

  “But your mom…”

  “Mom’s dead Dad…” Jess’s eyes welled up with tears. Wiping them away before they could fall, she continued, “But I’ll be back before the wake is over, I promise.”

  Her dad paused for a moment before nodding quickly and embracing her with a hug. “I don’t understand what you see in that boy, but I love you and I hope you find what you are looking for.”

  Jess kissed his cheek, and her grandpa’s before rushing out the door that led to the patio. Hurrying across the yard and through the trees, Jess made her way out to the truck and took off.

  On her way to the airport, time felt like it was crawling. If a cop would have spotted her, she would have gotten a ticket for reckless driving, as she was going over twenty miles an hour over the speed limit on her way to the airport.

  Praying on the way, she asked God to stop the plane in some dramatic fashion, to fix this all and make Levi not fly away. She played it out in her head a hundred different ways. One way she envisioned involved bursting through the gates into the airfield with her truck and chasing the plane down. She hoped Levi wasn’t gone forever; with how she had acted though, she feared he might never come home again.

  Chapter 44 ~ Roy

  Watching as Jess peeled out of the driveway and hauled butt over the bridge, Roy saw Brandon’s eyes widen. “She’s gone mad,” Brandon said turning to Roy. “She’s gone absolutely insane! I knew this death would be hard on her, but I had no clue…”

  “Brandon…” Roy said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you really this surprised?”

  “I am, Roy! That’s my daughter!” Brandon shouted, pointing to the bridge that led off the property. “She’s acting like a crazy person!”

  Roy crossed his arms and smiled. “I thought my daughter was pretty crazy, too.”

  “C’mon, this is not the same. I don’t know that boy at all…”

  “Oh yeah? Not the same? You were on business trips and super quiet about your work all the time. I didn’t know you a bit until you came up here this summer!”

  Brandon hung his head low at Roy’s words. He must have realized that Roy was right. “I’m just worried sick about my daughter, Roy.” Brandon looked him in the eyes. “I know you do… or did…” Brandon pushed tears from his eyes before they could fall.

  Roy hugged Brandon firmly and patted his back. While his own pains were nearly unbearable, he wanted to comfort Brandon in his. Loss is the single most painful experience a human can have. Physical pain can heal, dying is only for a moment, but losing someone is a pain that doesn’t go away or become healed. People learn how to live with a hole in their life; they learn to function without that person, but the pain of losing them doesn’t ever fully go away. With losing his own wife, Roy had to learn how to move on. He turned to God more than ever and embraced His endless love to get through it, and he knew Brandon needed to learn it too.

  “God’s going to help you get through this, Brandon.”

  “God took her; He can’t and won’t do anything!”

  “That’s not true. Sin entered the world and we all die a physical death because of it. Tiffany was born again, and that means she lives on in Heaven with God. Her body is gone, yes, but her spirit is not dead.”

  Brandon looked angrily at Roy as tears fell from his red hot eyes. “God did this! He could have saved her, Roy! Why do you stand by and say ‘God, God, God’ when He’s done nothing but take from you?”

  Roy shook his head. “God hasn’t taken from me, he’s given to me. First of all, He gave me salvation and peace to know my spirit lives on after this life with Him, along with those who have gone before me. Secondly, I’ve had a long life, a loving family, and a wonderful woman who I spent most my years with. My life has been full and rich with experience. Death, Brandon, is certain in this life and it’s the one thing we can count on. So I stand by God, on His promises and His hope.”

  Appearing to calm down as Roy finished speaking, Brandon looked him in the eyes. “You are an inspiration Roy, Pastor Johnny said it right.”

  “Nah… I’m just a man of God.”

  Brandon put his hand on Roy’s shoulder as he shook his head. “No Roy, you aren’t just a man of God. You try to see this painful and sad world we live in from an eternal and Godly perspective. Thank you so much for being who you are, regardless of how people feel about you sometimes.” Brandon hugged Roy and patted him on the back as tears fell onto Roy’s shoulder.

  Chapter 45 ~ Jess

  After an hour of searching the airport, checking with the front desks of all the airlines with flights to Nashville, Jess left defeated. Fate wasn’t on her side that day. Walking back out to her truck she had parked up sideways on a curb, she found a cop writing her a ticket.

  “Oh great…” she said approaching the officer.

  “This your truck?” the officer asked. Jess nodded with a tight lip. Looking over the officer’s shoulder, she saw a plane taking off and it made her think about her plan to bust throug
h the gate. She laughed. “Did I say something funny Miss?” the officer asked angered.

  “No… I’m sorry.”

  Ripping the paper from the book in his hand, he handed her a slip with her ticket written on it. “If you didn’t laugh, I might have let you off on this.” The officer turned and left, leaving Jess alone at the curbside of the airport. Just the type of day I’m having, I guess?

  Climbing into her truck, she pulled off the curb and cut a taxi off. She didn’t care; her sadness had already turned to anger as she fought through traffic trying to get back out to Chattaroy in time to not miss the entire wake. Sitting in a long line of cars at the Division Street light, she rested her head against her hand. I can’t ever go back to Seattle! I’d flip out dealing with this amount of traffic, and probably even more! The light turned green, and she began going, but it was red before she made it through. “Ugh!” she screamed and slammed the steering wheel.

  Getting back to the farm, Jess’s heart was feeling heavy as she came over the bridge. Rows of cars lined the driveway up along the sides and in front of the trees, barn and garage. She wasn’t looking forward to the seas of people offering condolences once she got back inside the farmhouse.

  Where’s that fast forward remote? She thought as she looked up through the windshield towards the farmhouse.

  Getting out of the truck, she took a deep breath and began walking up the sidewalk to the farmhouse. People in black littered the lawn on both sides, and over near the spigot, Henry called out to her through the crowd of people. “Jess!”

  “What, Henry…” Jess replied.

  “Come here! I’m playing Pogs!”

  Jess shook her head as she questioned how her brother could be so happy at his own mom’s wake. Pogs? What’s his obsession with trying to play that? Ugh, I’m so not in the mood. Weaving through the crowd, Jess came to Henry. When the last person stepped out of the way, she saw Levi. She suddenly wasn’t able to breathe; she wasn’t able to process the world around her. It was if time stood still.

  He stood up, and smiled at her. “Levi?” She said surprised as a tear streamed down her cheek. “You came back?” She knew right at that moment, that he was the one. He wasn’t like every other guy in the world; he loved her, he cared about her, and she was his queen.

  Levi took her by the arm and led her out from the crowd to the side of the house. “I couldn’t step on that plane. I’d rather spend my entire life being your friend and being near you, than chasing some other dream where you aren’t in it.”

  Jess’s heart melted at his words. He hadn’t known about Clint and her splitting, he hadn’t a clue to what happened, and he was willing to just be there for her. Wrapping her arms around him tightly, tears began falling onto his shoulder from her face. She was out of breath, and her throat was clenched, but she managed to squeeze out the three little words that didn’t do the justice of explaining just how much she felt for him. “I love you,” she said clasping onto his shirt as she hugged him.

  “I love you too,” Levi said, kissing the side of her head.

  Pulling back, she wiped her tears and looked back at the crowd for a moment. “I had no idea you wrote me… I found the letters and-”

  “My mom told me that someone gave them to you…” Levi said.

  “Clint had been using your words to swoon me all summer…” Jess said looking down. “I never loved him Levi… Everything I loved about him was you. I fell in love with the way you felt about us, the way you felt about me and the way you saw the world.”

  Levi smiled and pulled her in close to him. She never wanted him to let her go. They had come so close to missing out on this love of a lifetime, they wouldn’t ever let anything happen to it again. The love rushed through them like a waterfall, as they looked into each other’s eyes and saw each into one another’s souls. They were soul mates, from the first spark to the next kiss, they were meant to be. An unwanted summer resulted in a love that many people spend their entire lives searching for and never finding. Jess had found the man she’d love forever and always.

  Epilogue

  Jess, Henry and Brandon all stayed out at the farm with Roy. They sold the house back in Seattle and helped Roy with the medical bills to get a pacemaker for his heart. That helped Roy make it another ten years, and at the ripe age of eighty-three he passed away in his sleep in the comfort of his own bed at the farm.

  Before Roy’s passing on, Brandon and Levi went and bought sheep, pigs, goats and even more cows for the farm. They began going to auctions across the state and had a fully operational farm before Roy had passed, making his dream come to life.

  Jess and Levi married a year after the accident that took Jess’s mom. They now have twins, a boy and a girl that are both six years old. Roy left the farm to them in his will, and they still live there to this day. Jess uses the root cellar to pray and reflect on the summer her life changed forever.

  Sneak Peek

  Prologue

  Some people spend a lifetime searching for true love. Some never find it, while others are lucky enough to discover it earlier in life. I was one of those people who took a while to find it, and it almost passed me by.

  After I turned thirty, and was still a single lady in a city with over a quarter million people, I became increasingly worried I’d never find someone. I would think certain things like, How could a woman be so old and have no children or previous marriage? What’s wrong with me? Then I would wonder what others thought of me. There wasn’t anything wrong with me, well, actually there was a lot wrong with me at the time, but figured out this thing called life.

  Life isn’t about finding a knight in shining armor who has a perfect smile, says all the right things, and always makes you happy. Life is about finding someone who can love you for who you are, and you for who they are. It’s about finding someone who can make your day better just by being around.

  CHAPTER 1 ~ Rebecca

  Staring into the bathroom mirror in her one bedroom apartment, Rebecca was hoping that the date that night would go differently, as she applied her mascara. She held onto the glimmer of the hope of “the one” still being out there for her, even though she knew every year she grew older, it decreased her odds significantly.

  Three years ago last month, she and Hank had broken up after a four-year relationship because he needed to focus on his career. Rebecca found that hard to believe, when a week after their split, she saw him with a younger gal and they were out to dinner.

  After discovering Hank had moved on, she decided to try her hand again at dating and began signing up for dating websites and meeting all types of interesting men across Spokane. Some were socially awkward; others were still married and going through divorces, and a big percent were only interested in sex.

  As she finished her makeup that evening, the doorbell rang. It was her date. Glancing at her phone she saw he had arrived five minutes early. That was a nice change from some of her past experiences. Most dates either cancelled the date entirely, or ran late.

  Shutting off the bathroom light, she grabbed her little black purse and baby blue scarf from her bed before heading out into the main living area of her apartment. Walking up to the door, Rebecca took a deep breath.

  Please let this guy be different…

  Opening the door, she was pleasantly surprised to find her date actually had a close resemblance to the profile picture on the dating website. Rebecca learned early on that people on those sites were often using profile pictures that were either an entirely different person or some manipulated photo that made them look way better than they actually were. She wasn’t superficial by any means, but she liked it when the person actually looked like their picture. After all, the profile picture is the first thing you learn about a person, so what’s it say when it’s fake or manipulated?

  “Rebecca?” her date asked.

  “West?” she asked smiling.

  “Oh thank goodness, I knocked on your neighbor’s door by accident. She was pro
bably about seventy years old and I was a little alarmed thinking it might be you…” West was beet red in the face, and looked to be extremely nervous.

  “You don’t date often, do you?” Rebecca asked.

  “No. I’m kind of an introvert… And I don’t like talking to people.”

  “That makes dating hard.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “Well I’m ready if you are.” Rebecca smiled as she stepped out and shut the door. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her apartment key and locked up.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  West and Rebecca took the elevator down to the bottom floor of the ten-story apartment complex, and went out to his car that was parked alongside the curb.

  Breaking the awkward silence in the car ride, Rebecca asked, “What do you do for a living again?”

  “I’m a Pharmacist,” he replied quickly.

  That’s a little strange to not say anything else… she thought to herself.

  “Well that’s cool…” Rebecca glanced out her window as they pulled up to the restaurant. She noticed a little boy wandering along the street alone. Jumping out of the car as it stopped, she looked both ways as she ran across the street.

  Bending a knee, she inspected the boy and asked, “Where’s your mother or father?”

  “I don’t know… They were with me one second and then vanished.” The boy couldn’t have been more than six years of age. Looking around as she stood up, she glanced down the sidewalks in both directions.