All That Jazz (Butler Cove #1)

by Natasha Boyd

  Apparently, I’d need another test in three to five days to determine if the hormone levels were indeed going down. My mom worked for a doctor in the hospital and our insurance wouldn’t pay for an ultrasound. Go figure.

  As we left the office and made our way back out to the main waiting area, my mother’s hand gripped mine so hard, I lost feeling. “There’s no point worrying yet,” she said firmly.

  “I know,” I said. I wished I could feel enough to worry.

  “Or telling him.”

  “Mom—”

  “No, listen. You’ll spook him and he’ll run. They’re all the same, Jazz. He’s in college. He has plans. Plans that don’t include you.”

  God, I knew that. There was no way I would be telling Joey unless there was something to actually tell him. But hearing my mom’s words was like a punch through my hard shell. “If he’s an asshole about it,” she went on, “it will break your heart. And if he’s the good guy, he’ll resent you forever.”

  I swallowed. Looking up, I saw Lizzie, our school valedictorian, frozen in the hallway ahead of me. Oh shit. So much for keeping a secret.

  She looked pale as a ghost.

  “Lizzie,” I croaked.

  She pushed past us. “We never saw each other,” she muttered and caught up with a nurse who was holding a chart.

  “Will she keep it to herself?” Mom asked.

  I nodded. “I think so.” I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard.

  I MADE IT twenty-four hours before I went over to the Butler house. Between Keri Ann’s work schedule and my own, somehow I’d managed not to have to be there at all. We’d seen each other at our respective jobs only. And I hadn’t asked about Joey once. I could tell Keri Ann wanted to ask me or talk to me about it. She knew something was up. And I’d tell her sometime. Of course I would. She was my best friend. But somehow the longer she didn’t know, the less real it felt that I’d so royally fucked up with her brother. So I shut it down whenever it got close. The future of the Butler family, and their home, depended on Joey’s success. Somehow I’d forgotten that fact.

  Bizarrely, through my self-imposed exile from the Butler home, the person I missed the most was Nana. Her quiet, no nonsense, steady kindness. It was the thought of her that finally made me decide to go see Keri Ann at home.

  Except Keri Ann was working at the Snapper Grill.

  “Oh Jazz, sweet girl,” Nana pulled me into a soft lavender hug as soon as I walked into her kitchen. “I’m so sorry about your dad.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t been by, Nana. Work, you know?”

  Nana released me and shuffled around the kitchen. “I’m baking. Come on in and sit for a while. I could use a little company.”

  “What are you making?”

  “Mini pecan pies for Canasta tomorrow. It’s my week to bring something. Something to drink?”

  “Sure, thank you.”

  Nana grabbed two glasses and the pitcher. Then she sat down opposite me at the kitchen table. “So what happened between you and Joseph?”

  I blinked, and immediately felt ill. “How—”

  “Honey. I don’t know what happened Memorial Day weekend, but he was just in such a state. He heard about your father, and your father’s boat, and he just stood right there,” she indicated a spot on the vinyl floor by the cooktop, “and just held his hand over his mouth for around twenty minutes. He was white as a sheet.”

  She took a sip of lemonade and patted me on the hand. “Then a few days later he fed me some cockamamie bullshit—”

  “Nana,” I choked.

  “What? I can’t curse?”

  “No, I mean, sure. Sorry, go on.”

  “At my age, I think I’ve earned the right to say bullshit, don’t you?”

  I nodded, a faint smile breaking through my lips. “Sure.”

  “Well,” she went on. “He fed me some long song and dance about not being able to work for Dr. Barrett anymore because he was having an affair. It put him in an awkward spot.”

  I winced but kept my mouth shut.

  “Then he said a spot had opened up at his original choice in Columbia, and it was early enough for him to take it and still get full credit.”

  My heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach.

  “Joey’s left?” I croaked.

  Why hadn’t Keri Ann told me? Why hadn’t Joey told me? I hadn’t heard one word out of him. Not even to say he was sorry about my dad.

  “He left a few days ago. You haven’t seen him?”

  What a complete jerk.

  But any real anger eluded me. I simply felt utterly crushed.

  Empty.

  My heart had already been pounded with grief, and now it just seemed to liquefy into my stomach cavity.

  “Oh,” said Nana softly. “Oh dear.” She laid her hand on top of mine.

  I shook my head. “I’m so stupid, Nana.”

  “No, dear. You’re young. You both are. Boys don’t know how to deal with tough situations.”

  I nodded but my throat closed up. There was no way I was going to tell her everything, anyway.

  “He’ll be back for a few weekends and also for my surgery late this summer.”

  I nodded.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I hope so, Nana.”

  “Good, because Keri Ann’s going to need you after I’m gone.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that.”

  She shrugged. “It’s a fact of life, sweet girl. As you know. I’ve lived a fairly long life, outlived my son, which I might add is simply unnatural. I’ve seen my youngest grandchild through high school. I feel complete. Any more time than this will be a bonus.”

  WHILE MAY HAD seemed to explode with colors, hopes, and dreams, the rest of that summer after I turned eighteen was long and lifeless. It was punctuated by only a few events that crowded to the forefront over the dull roar of everyday drudgery. One was confirmation that I had indeed miscarried. There was a hospital visit to see Nana after her successful surgery in July where I somehow managed to avoid running into Joey. And then, inexplicably, by a middle of the night phone call from Keri Ann saying that Nana Butler had passed away in her sleep.

  Keri Ann, coming home from a late shift, had seen Nana’s light still on and gone to check on her. Nana was sitting up in bed, her photo album of the children growing up in her lap.

  When I arrived there as fast as I could, I sat with Keri Ann as the EMT’s and then the coroner confirmed her death. Keri Ann showed me the last picture Nana had been looking at.

  It was taken back around the first couple of weeks I’d started coming over to the Butlers after school every day. Keri Ann and I were sitting on the front steps smiling. Fourteen-year-old Joey was stopped on his bike to the side. He was alone. He was staring at us. Actually he was staring at me.

  “Have you called him?” I asked.

  Keri Ann nodded. “He’s driving back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, and it seemed so lame.

  Right then, the coroner and two EMT’s carried a stretcher to the front door.

  Keri Ann folded her face into my neck and began to cry. I held her for what felt like hours. Long after the door closed and the house became silent again.

  We were still sitting there when Joey burst through the front door before dawn.

  Seeing Joey sucked the breath from my chest. The stark pain and fear etched across his face, his eyes hollow and bleak, broke my heart. His gaze caught mine and held, then slid to his sister. I let go of her and she lurched up toward her brother.

  He headed straight for her and gathered her up against his chest, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and her head.

  I quietly left the room before I added my grief to their brother-sister moment.

  When I heard a sob come from Joey, I walked out the front door, tears streaming down my face.

  Normally, I’d take my kayak out to my dad’s boat at times like this. This time, I went home. I woke m
y mom up early by crawling into her bed.

  “Jazz?” she asked, groggily.

  “Nana Butler died,” I managed, the words wheezing out of me.

  “Oh, baby. Oh no.” She cuddled my back against her and kissed my hair. Spooning herself around my frame, she held me tight until I stopped crying and fell asleep.

  JOSEPH BUTLER AND I didn’t have a proper conversation again for almost three years. Not until Keri Ann fell in love with a movie star and went through her own heart break.

  The sad truth was I had fallen in love with him. Completely. He was right about me falling in love with the first boy I slept with. I only wished I hadn’t lied to him about it. For three years my heart never fully recovered. And a secret part of me, a part I tried to expunge like it was a stubborn stain, believed we might still have a chance together one day. Maybe if I hadn’t lied to him, he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. Maybe I wouldn’t have kicked him out. We might still be together. Laughing, and kissing, and driving each other crazy. Pretending he didn’t want a girlfriend. And pretending I didn’t want to be one.

  It was stupid.

  Completely stupid.

  But eighteen year olds tended to be stupid about things like love.

  I WALK INTO the Gateway campus of USCB in Bluffton. It’s hard to believe I won’t be back here after this. I’ve finished college!

  There’s hardly a soul around. Picking up my photography portfolio that my art teacher has left for me in the administrative office, I head to the boards to check for our hotel management placements. Running my finger down the names and looking for the F’s, I find my name then run my finger sideways to the geographical posting. Holy shit! My stomach lurches.

  “Yes!” I scream loudly. It reverberates around the empty halls. The sound of something dropping and a muffled expletive emanates from the office I was just in. “Sorry,” I call.

  I’ve gotten the posting I wanted. I’m leaving Butler Cove. My heart is pounding. But I can’t freaking wait. I’ve grown up here. I love South Carolina. I love the Lowcountry. I’ll be back, I know, but right now there’s nothing tying me to it. Joseph flits briefly through my thoughts. Thank God, I’ll finally be somewhere different so I don’t have to be “that girl.” You know, the one who’s always waiting at home for him. My heart squeezes with nostalgia, but mostly it’s filled with hope and excitement.

  My phone buzzes.

  KA: So … I have news.

  Yeah, well, so do I. I’m not ready to share it, though. I need to tell Mom first for one thing. I put my phone away without texting back. I’m relieved Keri Ann’s starting college this year. Typical that she would finally start the same year I graduated. But at least I don’t have to worry I’m leaving her behind or something. And I need to deal with Brandon. I head over to the upperclassmen dorms in Palmetto Village, hoping he’s back from Florida so we can talk. Alas, he’s not. I scribble a note and push it under the door. I guess I’ll have to do it over the phone.

  MY NEWS FEELS like a land mine inside my chest, one stumble and it will explode out of me and I’ll blab to everyone who’ll listen. As soon as I get home, I call the placement liaison about booking my flights. She gives me a link to download the relocation brochure and my flight options.

  In less than an hour my life has taken on an entirely new direction.

  The rest of the day is a whirlwind of telling Mom who’s excited, but nervous for me, telling Faith at the boutique and swearing her to secrecy, and making lists. Lots and lots of color coded lists. What to pack, what has to happen before I leave, what I want to do there, shots I might need. Research about climate. Who am I kidding? I already researched the shit out of my potential location options. I fall into bed that night, exhausted again, and it’s only as I’m drifting off I realize I forgot to text Keri Ann back about her news. Though I’m pretty sure it’s about Jack Eversea. It’s still hard to believe the Hollywood actor I “fangirled” over for years came to Butler Cove last fall and had an affair with my best friend. The fact he’s back means my girl’s life is about to change.

  I guess this is where our lives begin.

  MY PHONE BUZZES at seven-thirty and I check it, bleary-eyed. It’s Keri Ann. Inviting me out on a boat with Jack and Devon. Color me there.

  I shower and shave my legs, wash my hair, letting it air dry into its natural wave and pull on a white eyelet maxi dress over my bikini. Skimming my eyes with the least amount of makeup possible, I find my oversized sunglasses so I can ogle men’s bodies without getting caught and stuff my oversized beach towel and sunblock in my bag. Boat ready.

  I slip out the sliding door of the bedroom and head to the marina office to wait for Keri Ann. There’s a cool morning breeze, but the sun is bright and sparkling across the water. Today’s going to be a scorcher. I’m almost to the jetty when I hear Keri Ann’s excited shout from the parking lot. I turn around, and she comes jogging along the wooden decking toward me dressed in short white jean cut offs and a pale blue halter top. She’s radiating happiness. I open my arms, and we hug madly. “So it’s on?” I whisper into her hair looking behind me to see Jack Eversea in loose jeans and a tight white t-shirt, a ball cap, and aviators striding toward us. “Jesus, he’s hot. Bitch.” I laugh. It’s still crazy to see him in real life. Jack’s friend and producer, Devon is walking down the dock too.

  I pull back. “You forgiven Jack already?” I ask.

  She nods. “It’s a long story, but yeah. And we’re taking it slow.”

  “I bet Joey’s pleased,” I say, meaning the complete opposite.

  “Right?” She rolls her eyes. “I need your help with him today.”

  “Wait, he’s coming?” Shit. Shit. Double shit. Thank God I brought the big sunglasses.

  Jack Eversea reaches us.

  “Jack, you remember my friend, Jazz,” Keri Ann introduces us again. “And this is Devon.”

  Devon has blond tips in his shaggy hair and large friendly brown eyes. I shake both their hands, a little star struck. But they’re, like, regular people who say good morning and shit. It’s weird. I immediately relax in their company. They head into the marina office.

  I slide my glasses back over my face. “How do you not just say holy shit, it’s Jack Eversea every time you see him?” I smile.

  “I do.” She laughs and I believe her.

  Joseph is approaching, and I decide it’s a good time to look around at the boats and work out which one we’re going on. I can feel his approach, and I refuse to look his way. Mature, I know. I just need a few minutes to pull myself together. I feel like if I look at him, I’ll look at his hands and remember what they did a few nights ago. “Hey,” says Joey and I don’t know if he’s talking to me. “Let’s go inside and buy food,” he says.

  I traipse behind them, giving myself a mental shake. Food, I can do.

  In the marina shop, we peruse the offerings. I idly spin the postcard rack around, thinking of all the postcards I bought here to send my father over the years. I wonder where all those postcards ended up. The story of my childhood is scattered all over the world for anyone to read. After buying more snacks than it would take ten of us to consume over four days lost at sea, we head down to the boat.

  “Wow,” exclaims Keri Ann when we see the yacht we’re approaching. “This one?”

  “Dang,” I echo. “This sure beats tooling around in Cooper’s dirty old Carolina Skiff dropping crab traps.” I stop and step back. “This has to be, like, forty feet.”

  I meet Keri Ann’s eyes over the top of both our sunglasses. Jack smiles like he’s happy he impressed us in our own backyard.

  Devon hops aboard and speaks to the captain. Jack climbs on and reaches back for Keri Ann. Joseph does the same for me. I swallow, trying not to hesitate, and put my hand in his. His hand. The hand. Shit. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, and today feels like it will last forever in awkwardness. I muster a smile and decide I will not even think about Joey right now.
It doesn’t matter what he was up to the other night. Why he did what he did. Why the hell I did what I did. It just was. It’s over.

  “Dan,” the captain says to me once I’m aboard as he has to each of us.

  “Jazz,” I answer, shaking his salty paw. He shows us around. There are two cabins off the galley below deck, and Keri Ann and I put our stuff in one and head back up topside. Devon offers us a soda and we decide to go sit on the front sundeck. Jack and Joey are already up there. I pick a spot away from them, pointing my face up to the sun.

  Dan slowly glides the boat along Broad Creek heading for open water. I tie my hair back from where it’s whipping my face, but strands still fly across my sunglasses. I ignore the spot in the water where my dad’s boat used to be.

  “I wish Monica was here,” says Devon, referring to his wife I know about because they are like Hollywood’s power couple. “She loves the water. Loves being on a boat.”

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “She’ll be here next week, we had a couple of projects we were finishing up.” If I remember rightly, Devon and Monica own a production company.

  “So, what are we doing?” I ask him. “I’m happy to just lounge around on the boat, but are we doing something specific?”

  “I wanted to get down here myself and check out the spots our locations department had listed,” he replies.

  They’re going to film here? I’ll have to get the update from Keri Ann. “So, you’re approving them or something,” I guess.

  “Well, normally we go with the locations people, but Jack thought we could make a day of it and check a few other places out ourselves.” Devon glances at Jack and they exchange a look.