You're Still The One

by Janet Dailey

  “Oh God,” he said. “I shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s okay,” Rebecca said. “I feel the same—”

  “I have a girlfriend,” he said.

  “I have a son,” Rebecca said. She lay on the couch and pulled the covers around her. She was suddenly furious, but she didn’t want to show it. Right. A ballerina girlfriend—how quickly she forgot. What was he doing kissing her then? Getting her all hot and bothered and then making her sleep a few feet from him? It was downright cruel. In the morning, either Grant would be gone or she would.

  Grant still hovered over her. “Married? Boyfriend?”

  “Not for a long time,” Rebecca finally said.

  “How is that possible?” Grant asked.

  Rebecca laughed. “I guess I’ve been cursed.” She had been joking, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she thought of the high priestess. If you kiss before midnight . . .

  “Do you believe in such things?” He sounded kind but cynical.

  “Don’t you?” she asked. Rebecca sat up. Grant slowly sat down on his sofa but leaned forward as if to bridge the gap between them. How could he forget that night? How could he forget everything that followed because they dared to flaunt—

  Oh. Because he didn’t realize everything that resulted from that night. Except that he lost her. Or did he just assume they would part ways?

  The love of your life, Mae Lin had teased. She had meant something to him—even if he tried to deny it, she knew it was the truth.

  “You named your club Rebecca,” she said softly.

  “Hold off on that for a second,” Grant said. “Do you mind explaining all this to me?”

  Rebecca fiddled with a loose thread on her blanket and cut off all eye contact. “Explain all what?”

  “Why are you here? Is it just some kind of crazy coincidence?”

  “You gave me Mae Lin’s number—”

  “I mean here in New Orleans. In my club opening night. Was it just coincidence?”

  Rebecca dropped the blanket and sat up straight. “Not exactly.”

  Grant came over to her couch and knelt beside it. “Go on.”

  “I’ve always wondered about you.”

  “Have you?” They were having it. They were having the conversation. But Rebecca wasn’t ready for the conversation. She hadn’t practiced it. She was exhausted. She was off guard. Mae Lin wasn’t supposed to be here, let alone Grant. She didn’t have to let him control this conversation. They could have it at her leisure when she looked refreshed and she knew what the hell was going to come out of her mouth.

  And she wasn’t going to flatter him, either. She wasn’t going to tell him that she thought of him practically every second of every day, especially when she looked at Miles.

  “I originally just came here for a weekend getaway—”

  “That almost got you killed.”

  “Until you and your bodyguards saved me.”

  “We aim to please.”

  “And then you gave me Mae Lin’s number, and next thing I knew I saw a ‘For Rent’ sign on a little shop—and even my son said—”

  “Your son said?”

  Hearing the word son out of his mouth was too much. Your son. Our son. Say it. Say it! Why couldn’t she just say it?

  “Are you okay?” Grant brought his hand up and wiped away a tear rolling down her cheek. Then he slowly began to caress her cheek. It felt as if it were on fire, and maybe he felt it, too, because he suddenly dropped his hand and shifted away from her. “Is something wrong? Is your son okay?”

  “Yes, yes, he’s fine. It’s just . . . I love him so much, you know?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Rebecca could hear the kitchen clock ticking, only it seemed as if it were an extension of her heartbeat, synched up with the hollow tick of the second hand.

  “How old is he? What’s his name?”

  “Miles. I never married his father—”

  “Miles,” Grant said. “Nice name.” They looked at each other for several seconds. “How old is—”

  An obnoxious cell phone song interrupted them. They both looked at Grant’s gym bag.

  “That’s my . . .” Grant said.

  “Ballerina?” Rebecca said.

  “Yeah,” Grant said.

  “You should get that.”

  “I probably should. If I don’t—she might escalate.”

  Rebecca laughed; she couldn’t help it. Was he doomed to be with feisty women? Grant gave her a sheepish look and took his phone call out on the balcony. Rebecca exhaled, lay down, and shut her eyes. So close. Maybe it was for the best. At least Grant knew that Miles existed. He caught on to the “jazz” name. He knew she never married the father of her son. And she had been just about to tell Grant how old her son was. Their son. It should have been the last piece he needed to complete the puzzle. All these years and nothing had changed. She was still a coward, still so afraid to face up to what she’d done. Next time, she told herself as she drifted off to sleep. There’s always next time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rebecca stood in her shop and tried to concentrate on her inventory list. It was a little difficult with Mae Lin bouncing around. She couldn’t believe three weeks had passed since Mae Lin burst onto the scene. But currently it wasn’t so much Mae Lin’s frenetic energy that was distracting her; instead it was that thing in her hand. Mae Lin had had Louis Armstrong stuffed.

  “I’m glad you killed him,” she had announced one day, whipping him out of her pocket and holding him up. “Now we’ll be together forever.” And every day Mae Lin made a point of displaying him in Rebecca’s presence.

  At first Rebecca wondered if Mae Lin was mentally disturbed; now she just concluded that Mae Lin lived to be outrageous and wore her eccentricity like a coat that was too big in the sleeves. Besides the mouse, Mae Lin was wound up about Mardi Gras. It was weeks before the big day, but the streets were already starting to crackle with anticipation. Every once in a while a partial float would go by, and on the sidewalks one would increasingly see bits of feathers, beads, and pieces of silk flapping in the warm breeze. Business picked up as tourists began arriving, filling the streets, the restaurants, and the shops, as one by one hotels and inns turned their signs to NO VACANCY.

  Some of those tourists found their way to Rebecca’s Renditions. Mae Lin, it turned out, in addition to rodents, was obsessed with jewelry, and she began recommending the shop to her friends. Grant wasn’t one of them. He left the apartment the day after his return with Mae Lin and he hadn’t been back since. Nor had he called.

  Rebecca couldn’t believe how much it stung. It brought back bad memories of waiting for his call. And this time there was no excuse: he knew exactly where to find her. After that kiss—how could he just cut her off like that? And although she didn’t know for sure, she assumed Grant simply went back to his girlfriend. And she wasn’t the only one who missed Grant. Mae Lin, too, began to pout about his absence. So one day, while painting her toenails with a Q-tip, Mae Lin announced that they were going to throw the Mardi Gras party of the century.

  It was only a few days after the announcement of the party when it happened. Rebecca and Mae Lin were eating takeout in the living room—breaded Creole crab cakes on a stick, which Mae Lin had taken to calling “crab dogs”—when Mae Lin glanced up at the fireplace mantel and screeched. Before Rebecca could even react, Mae Lin flew across the room and swiped up Miles’s portrait. Rebecca had placed it on the mantel within hours of moving in, and had completely forgotten to remove it after Mae Lin’s return to the nest. Hopefully, Mae Lin wouldn’t ask too many questions. Rebecca just had to play it cool. Rebecca waited for Mae Lin to say how handsome Miles was. Everyone did.

  “He looks so young here,” Mae Lin said. “Where did you get this?” Rebecca’s thoughts jammed. Had she even mentioned Miles to Mae Lin? No, she hadn’t. Mae Lin thrived on gossip and so Rebecca put off mentioning him.

  “He sent it to me,” Rebe
cca said.

  “What is this—high school?”

  “First year of college.”

  “I didn’t know Grant went to college.”

  “He didn’t—”

  “You just said he did.”

  “That’s not Grant.” Rebecca didn’t like Mae Lin’s fingers all over Miles’s face. She approached and held her hand out for the picture. Instead Mae Lin brought it so close to her face, Rebecca thought she was going to kiss it.

  “You are kidding me.”

  “I have a lot more pictures, from birth on, if you don’t believe me,” Rebecca said. She’d brought the best photos she had of Miles, partly because she knew how much she would miss him, but mostly because she wanted to share them with Grant. Mae Lin stopped studying the picture and started studying Rebecca instead. Rebecca swiped the picture out of her hands.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Miles.”

  “As in . . . Miles Davis?”

  Rebecca gave a small smile. Only musicians picked up on it. “As in.”

  “How old were you when he was born?”

  Rebecca sat in the easy chair next to the couch and curled up, still clutching the picture.

  Mae Lin sat across from her on the couch and began to nibble on another crab dog, all the while staring at Rebecca. “Very handsome boy,” she said when Rebecca didn’t answer her question.

  “Thank you,” Rebecca said. “He’s a good kid, too.”

  “Musical?”

  “Plays the trumpet.”

  “Hmmm. And you literally crashed Grant’s opening.”

  “Didn’t quite plan it that way.”

  “His club is named Rebecca.”

  A tiny thrill ran through Rebecca. Just picturing her name on the sign, with a strand of her hair and a swipe of the color blue she’d worn that night, made her swell with passion. Shoot. The crab dogs were gone. Now Mae Lin would have nothing to keep her mouth occupied.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me he has a son!”

  “Mae Lin—”

  “I tell him everything. How dare you both play me! Mae Lin is nobody’s fool! I’m going to let him have it. I could’ve been Auntie Mae. I would’ve sent the kid Christmas cards—” Mae Lin swiped up her cell phone.

  “Please,” Rebecca said. “Put it down.”

  “Grant and I are like this!” Mae Lin crossed her index and middle fingers together and thrust them out. “He can’t get away with this doozy of a secret. I even told him about giving that scumbag producer a blow job in the back of the Korean deli.” Mae Lin furiously began to dial.

  “End it,” Rebecca said. “Now.”

  “Grant,” Mae Lin said. It didn’t sound like she had reached a recording. “My old buddy. You are my buddy, aren’t you?”

  “He doesn’t know.” Rebecca had to shout it, but there was no other choice. It worked. Mae Lin’s eyes tripled in size and her jaw dropped open in her typical dramatic fashion.

  “I’m just calling to see if you’re coming to my Mardi Gras party, darling. If you don’t, I’m going to hunt you down and strangle you, then have my way with your dead body.” She winked at Rebecca. Rebecca couldn’t believe she was actually going to give that comment a thumbs-up, but she did anyway. “Great,” Mae Lin finished. “Bring the ballerina if you want.” At this Mae Lin looked at Rebecca and shrugged. “See you then.” She clicked off and then tossed the phone on the couch like it was infected. “Oh my God,” she said, putting her hands on her heart. “I just lied to Grant Dodge. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  “I’m going to tell him. That’s why I came. It’s just . . . every time I try, something gets in the way.”

  “He’s my friend. I can’t keep something like this from him. And I won’t.”

  “It’s not your secret to tell.”

  “It’s not yours to keep! That man would’ve been there for him. In every way.”

  Rebecca couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take Mae Lin of all people hitting her over the head with what she already knew, what she’d been torturing herself about for the past two decades.

  “Don’t you think I know that? You have no idea what it’s been like. What a secret like this does to a person. I came here to tell him. So just back off and give me a chance. All right?”

  Mae Lin took a few steps back. “Whoa,” she said, holding up her hands.

  “I was sixteen,” Rebecca said, still explaining. “My father was on a rampage. If he had tracked Grant down, it wouldn’t have been pretty.”

  “You’ve been out of your father’s house for a long time,” Mae Lin pointed out.

  Rebecca didn’t like how hard Mae Lin stressed long. She drew it out like it was one of her songs. “His phone number was smudged. I couldn’t read it. I didn’t have Facebook.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “He didn’t call me, either. Not once. I gave him my name, my number—maybe he lost it, too, I don’t know. Maybe the high priestess really did curse us.”

  “The high priestess?”

  “Yes. She’s a psychic. She lives and works out of—”

  “The Voodoo House.”

  “You’ve heard of her.” Rebecca wasn’t surprised. There didn’t seem to be a soul in town who didn’t know the old witch.

  “She’s a total nutter,” Mae Lin said, whipping the mouse out of her pocket. “Isn’t she, Louis?” She brought the mouse up to her nose and went cross-eyed staring at him.

  “I saw her again when I came to town. Tried to make things right. But she just cursed me all over again. I’m afraid if I tell Grant about Miles, it’s going to set something awful in motion—”

  “God, take a chill pill. You’re hyperventilating all over my easy chair.”

  “She said I’d find the love I’ve been seeking, but I would cause the death of someone else!”

  Mae Lin gasped and looked at Louis. Then she fixed her eyes on Rebecca. “Mardi Gras party. You’ll tell him then.”

  “No, it has to be somewhere private—”

  “You’ll tell him then, or we will,” Mae Lin said, moving Louis up and down so that it appeared he was nodding emphatically. She kept it up until Rebecca slowly nodded in agreement. Then, like a drug addict in need of a fix, Mae Lin began scouring the coffee table. “Shit,” she said. “We’re out of crab dogs.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was indeed a party. The place pulsed with musicians who were so lively and animated—even before the impromptu jam sessions began—that for a few blissful seconds Rebecca simply leaned against the wall in the living room and took it all in. Miles would have loved this. His picture was gone from the mantel, tucked safely under Rebecca’s pillow, but Mae Lin’s ultimatum stalked Rebecca like a deranged shadow.

  As Mae Lin had instructed—i.e., ordered—everyone was dressed as outlandishly as possible. Guests were highly feathered and sequined, and in some cases glowing neon. Women—and a few men—bared cleavage and displayed pierced belly buttons above shiny belt buckles. They wrapped themselves in leather and wore lots of war paint. One man was dressed as a walking float. The noise from the thrilling mob and colorful parade outside filtered in, as if it were one and the same. Outside, as in, people were drinking and flashing their breasts in exchange for beads—again, the men as well as the women. They were having an all-around juvenile good time.

  Grant had yet to arrive. But just as Rebecca was thinking what a bullet she had dodged, the front door opened and in he walked. He was dressed like a normal human being in jeans and a dark blue shirt that set off his eyes, topped with a leather jacket that instantly made Rebecca want to make love to him on a motorcycle. God, he was a beautiful man. Rebecca immediately regretted dressing like a peacock. Her dark hair, piled loosely on top of her head, sprouted feathers. Her eyes were rimmed with black and topped off with shimmering purple and green eye shadow. She wore a skintight blue-and-green dress that showed so much cleavage she was getting beads by the bucketful. And, last but not least, she wore the peacock
’s proud tail. A bit of a lie, she supposed, when in reality it was the male peacock who flashed prettily. Mating rituals. In animal, as in human, nothing said mount me like flashing a little tail.

  Not to be outdone, Mae Lin was dressed in a ruffled red dress with thigh-high white boots and silver sparkly eyelashes. Within seconds of his coming through the door, Mae Lin jumped on Grant, wrapping her hands around his neck and her pretty legs around his waist, forcing him to hold her. Yet, even as he did, it was Rebecca he stared at. She felt the familiar jolt of electricity thrum through her. It took forever for her to even notice the woman next to him. Tall and pretty and blond, she was dressed simply: high heels, blue jeans, and a red T-shirt that read SAXOPHONE PLAYERS BLOW. She beat Rebecca’s peacock by a million Miles. Rebecca wanted to run from the room, perhaps toss herself off the balcony, but with the streets so jammed, escape was nearly impossible. Although being crushed by a drunken mob was starting to sound pretty darn good to Rebecca.

  The second Mae Lin jumped off of Grant, she grabbed the blond goddess by the hand and began pulling her away. When she passed by Rebecca, she leaned in and said in a loud whisper, “Tell him.” And then they were gone. Rebecca looked up to find that Grant, too, was being taken away, onto the balcony by a group of guys. Rebecca took a deep breath and followed.

  Grant was with a group of four other men. They made room for her, and immediately teased her about her peacock feathers. Rebecca flirted with all of them, all the while aware of Grant’s eyes on her.

  “What do you think?” one of the men said with a nod to the street festivities below.

  “It’s amazing,” Rebecca said. It truly was. Below, revelers sported greenish-yellow glow-sticks. Some had wrapped them around their necks or wrists; others held them aloft like batons. As the night sky began to make its entrance, people’s features disappeared and the glow-sticks took on a life of their own, bobbing up and down the street like ghostly conductors at a night symphony. Laughter and cheers and music filled the smoky, dusky air.