His Melody

by Nicole Green

  “So you could let them know you’ve jumped to the other side, decided to be a manager,” Austin said. “You could let those artists you mentioned having in mind know that you could help them with their careers. Instead of looking for a job, you can create your own. Why not go for it?”

  “I don’t have enough money saved.” She said it more defensively than she meant to, but he’d touched on a question she asked herself constantly. A question Jen also kept putting to her. “After this little fiasco, I don’t know when I’ll have enough. It seems like every time I get close to having enough saved, something bad happens.”

  “Something bad is always happening.” He said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “You can’t control that. What you can control is whether you hand out updated resumes to jaded record execs or brand new business cards to hopeful artists when you get back to…Atlanta.” He looked away from her when he said the last word.

  “Guess it’s something to think about.”

  He laughed.

  “What?”

  “Oh. Nothing. It’s just that I say that same thing when I’m not fixin’ to take the advice someone has given me.”

  She grinned. He had her there. She looked up at him and was lost in his gaze. What was she doing? She was only here for a few days. She shouldn’t—couldn’t—be getting wrapped up in this person she would never see again.

  Grayson Meadows, Austin Holt, whatever name he wanted to use didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was getting under her skin in a very disconcerting way. Warning bells should have been going off. Instead, all she could think of was how good it felt to be close to him, talk to him, hear his voice.

  And the only thing she wanted, sitting in that basement with him, was for him to wrap those big strong arms around her. Even if her car got fixed within a week, she had the feeling she wouldn’t make it out of Sweet Neck without falling for Austin. The scariest part of that was the thought of falling—and leaving—alone.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day, Melody went for a walk to try and get her head on straight. She needed to figure out what to do about the car. Should she stay until it was fixed? Should she get it fixed at all? Austin had said it would be in pretty good shape with a new engine. And why should she be in a hurry to get back to Atlanta? It wasn’t like she had a job waiting for her there. She needed to start looking for one, though. She didn’t have enough money saved to strike out on her own yet.

  She really didn’t Especially now with a huge car repair bill hanging over her head. It wasn’t just some lame excuse to avoid taking the scary step of striking out on her own. She didn’t care what anyone said.

  Shuffling along on the shoulder of the road, she looked around her at the cypress, beach, and oak trees and acres of farmland that expanded on both sides of her. It was so quiet and peaceful out there. So many acres of nothing noisy or impatient. Just green and brown and blue everywhere.

  There was another reason besides looking for work that she needed to go home. Austin. She was becoming attached to this man who would never be in her life again after she left Sweet Neck. Not only was he attractive, but there was so much else about him she adored. He was funny. Smart. Sexy.

  There was just enough of an air of mystery about him to draw her in and make her want to know more—want to know about the few things he wouldn’t mention. Like Grayson. The smart thing to do would be to go back to Atlanta the next day whether or not she had him fix the car. Now, about having him fix the car…

  Melody was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice the old woman with a white scarf wrapped around her head and tied under her chin until she’d almost run into her.

  “Oh. Excuse me. I’m sorry,” Melody said.

  The woman smiled and held out a papery, gnarled, pale hand. “Such a pretty girl.” The woman touched her hand to Melody’s cheek. The hand was oddly cool on the sweltering summer day. “Hot out here,” the woman said with a thick accent. “Would you like a nice cool glass of lemonade? You come with me.” The woman pointed down a dirt path that branched off from the main road. Tall pines grew on either side of the lane. The old woman looked harmless—after all, nobody she’d seen in Sweet Neck looked harmful—but why in the world was she inviting a stranger in for lemonade?

  “I’m sorry, you are?...” Melody said.

  “I am called Blanche Leroux,” she said. “You’re new here. I seen you with that Holt boy. Ha, I can tell you things about that brood.” Blanche threw a sharp look over her shoulder. “Plenty o’ things.”

  “Leroux? Is that Cajun?” Melody asked. They were quite a ways from Louisiana, but upon listening closer, she realized the woman had a Cajun lilt to her voice.

  “Yes, chère.” The woman wrapped her shawl closer around her shoulders. Melody briefly wondered how she could stand wearing one when it had to be at least eighty degrees out. Then she remembered how cold the woman’s hand had felt and gave an involuntary shiver. “You coming or not?” Blanche asked.

  “Why do you want to tell me about Austin?” Melody asked. She was wary even though curiosity was killing her.

  The woman just smiled and started walking down the dirt path she’d pointed to earlier, the long skirt of her emerald dress dragging on the ground as she moved. She waved over her shoulder, gesturing that Melody should start moving, but she never stopped walking or turned around. She seemed certain Melody would follow her.

  Curiosity won out over caution, especially after what the woman had said about “that Holt boy,” and Melody followed. After all, she should be able to outrun this old woman if anything crazy happened.

  At the end of the path, they came upon a wood cabin with kudzu creeping over it. The warped gray planks making up the siding could have used a good layer of primer and some paint. Maybe they needed replacing instead. Really, someone should have torn the whole thing down and started over.

  The woman walked up onto the sagging porch and opened the door. She beckoned to Melody with a crooked finger but didn’t wait for Melody to enter before she walked into the house.

  Melody wandered inside, but stood just inside the door. Inside, it was cool and dark. Zydeco music played on low volume from another room.

  “In here,” a voice called from Melody’s left.

  She inched into the house and peeped around the corner into the room from which the voice had come. Thick pieces of velvet—not curtains, just long rectangles of velvet fabric—covered the windows. A few chairs were scattered around the room. In the center of the room sat a small metal table. It reminded Melody of a card table. On one side of it was an armchair, and on the other side was a stool. In fact, the few pieces of furniture in the room were all mis-matched.

  The Zydeco music she’d heard upon entering the house came from this room. A phonograph sat in one corner of the room, and a record was rotating around on it.

  Melody caught sight of a one-eyed alligator and muffled a scream.

  The woman laughed. “Relax, chère. It’s stuffed. Ain’t gonna hurt you.” Blanche had pulled the scarf back from her face. Melody walked into the room, and as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she could see that the woman’s watery eyes were pale blue. Her gray-blonde hair hung in unkempt tangles around her neck.

  “So…” Melody started, but she was unsure of what to say after that.

  “Have a seat.” The woman pointed to the armchair on one side of the card table.

  “I could take the stool—”

  “Sit.”

  Surprised by the woman’s commanding tone, Melody went to the armchair and sat.

  Blanche scuttled over to the stool and had a seat. She clasped her gnarled, arthritic-looking hands together and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she sat rigid on the stool. There was complete silence except for the Zydeco music for a moment. Then she opened her eyes and smiled. “Just reading your aura, making sure I was right about you. Yeah, you the right one. I’ll be right back with that lemonade, chère. The woman bustled off to the
kitchen, which was room two out of three rooms in the cabin. Melody could see a small bedroom off the opposite end of the living room.

  At least Melody could watch what this strange little woman was doing as there was no wall between the kitchen and the living room. If the woman didn’t pour two glasses of lemonade from that same pitcher and take a sip before Melody drank hers, Melody would leave her glass on the table untouched.

  The woman laughed and set a glass in front of Melody. “You think I’m crazy, chère. I see that in your eyes.” Blanche took a sip of lemonade from the glass she’d poured for herself. “You’re not the only one. Talk to anybody in Sweet Neck, and they’ll be right in league with you. But I’ve been on this earth a very long time. I see things other people don’t see because they can’t see past their own noses. I take in more than they do.”

  “Oh.” Melody took a sip from her own glass.

  “I think something special brought you into that boy’s life.” Blanche shrugged. “The universe? Fate? Whatever it is, it’s ‘bout time. He needs you. I can tell you be good for him.”

  Did the universe have to screw me over so severely in the process? she asked herself. “How can you know that?” she addressed those words to Blanche.

  “I tell you things, and you don’t listen,” Blanche said with a reproving shake of her head. “But I like you chère, so I’m gon’ try to help you see.” She tapped the side of her head. “I know things.”

  Know things? What things? Melody thought. Maybe Blanche was just a busybody. Regardless, she seemed harmless. “Were you born here?” she asked, trying to gauge how well the woman might know the Holts.

  “Louisiana, chère, but you already knew that.” Blanche winked at her. “Cajun country.”

  “How’d you end up in Sweet Neck?”

  “I got to travel, chère. I got to see this world. But you don’t want to know about old Blanche Leroux. You want to know about that Holt boy.” Blanche seemed sure of this fact.

  “I do?”

  Blanche nodded, continuing to treat their conversation like a perfectly normal and logical one. “Oh yes. Of course you do. That’s why you followed me on down that lane even though you half-thought I was half-crazy. You shouldn’t be asking me how I ended up in Sweet Neck. You should be asking yourself how you ended up here.”

  “My car—”

  “Hush now, chère. Do you want me to tell you ‘bout this here or not?”

  Melody nodded. “Please do.”

  Blanche settled back onto the stool across from Melody.

  “Them two brothers, they don’t act like brothers now. I’m sure you seen that.”

  Melody nodded. She had. The two of them seemed to avoid each other whenever possible. And her first night at the house, when the electricity had gone out, Donnie kept making smart remarks about Grayson after Melody had unwittingly brought him up.

  “There’s a lot of pain and anger between those boys. Because of it, they both hurt that dear sweet mother they both love. Them boys don’t mean her no harm, they love her. They just so angry they don’t know how to do any better than they do.” Blanche looked up at her solemnly. “That’s where you come in.”

  “Me? I—”

  “Hush now, chère, hush now. I ain’t tell you it was time for you to do the talkin’ yet, now did I?”

  Melody shook her head.

  Blanche shifted on her stool and folded her hands together. “Now then. Like I was saying. That sister, Avery, she angry at Austin, too, but she do her best to keep the peace between those two. But getting Donnie and Austin back to acting like brothers, that’s the key to the healing that family needs.” Blanche closed her eyes and began humming.

  Melody sat up in her chair. “That’s nice, but I should probably be going now.”

  Blanche’s eyes popped open. “That boy come from a cold place. A cold and dark place, and I ain’t just talking about winter in New York City. He don’t think nobody understand, but I think you just might do.”

  Melody nodded and stood. “I don’t know about all that, but thank you for the lemonade. It was very good.”

  “He needs you, Melody James,” Blanche said, using her name for the first time and giving her a stare that made her think the woman could see clear through to her soul. Melody tried to remember whether she’d given the woman her name. She couldn’t remember giving it to her, but maybe she had. Blanche couldn’t have known it otherwise. Right? “He needs you,” Blanche said again.

  Melody nodded and stumbled backward in the direction of the door.

  “You afraid of me, I know it, but I’m afraid of you failing those brothers. Such a nice good family. I hate to see it fall apart and them good folk lose each other. You could stop it from happening.” Blanche stood and folded her arms into the wide sleeves of her dress. “You got a good heart. You’ll see your purpose and fulfill it.” Blanche looked satisfied with herself as she said these last lines. Confident even.

  “Okay, well, bye now.” Melody wrapped her hand around the doorknob.

  Blanche waved her off, but was singing along with the music coming from the phonograph and seemed to have forgotten Melody was there. Anybody just walking in the door would’ve had no clue about the creepy and intense nature of the conversation they’d just had. Melody stepped out of the door and into the heat. The warmth was welcome against her skin after the chill that pervaded Blanche’s house. She hurried up the dirt path and back to the main road.

  Chapter Eleven

  For some nagging reason, Melody couldn’t dismiss the woman’s words no matter how much she wanted to. After she left Blanche’s, she went back to the Holts’ and called her mother to tell her she wasn’t coming home right away.

  Melody told herself she needed a break from Atlanta anyway and she wasn’t giving any credence to the old lady’s ramblings. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe the woman wasn’t crazy. Blanche had somehow seemed more wise than crazy.

  She hadn’t looked forward to the battle with her mom, but she was able to eventually convince Mom that everything was fine and not to worry. That Melody would be home soon. In a couple weeks at the most. Her mom would express mail Melody’s cards to her when they arrived from the credit card companies and the bank.

  The replacement cards Melody had ordered online for her personal accounts were supposed to arrive some time that week. Mom had insisted on wiring some money to Melody that Monday, but Melody had convinced her that she’d be fine without it. She didn’t want Mom straining her budget like that. Melody had just lost her job, but she at least had her savings to rely on for a while. And a severance package once she worked out the details with Saeed.

  And she could always sell off more jewelry. Oh, what a painful thought, but she usually sacrificed a piece or two when things got really rough money-wise. In addition to the Range Rover and condo in the Poconos she’d already sold to get her new life set up in Atlanta and start saving up money for breaking out on her own, she’d taken the small things with her in the divorce like her jewelry and clothes. She didn’t want alimony or any of that. Luckily, though, her ex had paid off her student loans when they got married as a wedding present to her. After the divorce, she left with the bare minimum—the things her lawyer had convinced her to take basically. She didn’t want to admit she needed that fool for anything.

  One thing about her ex. He hadn’t been a cheap man. He liked for his woman to look good because she was an extension of him. At least that was the way he saw it. Melody had sold most of the things he’d given her right after the divorce, but she tried to save back her favorite pieces. That meant she had thousands of dollars worth of platinum and diamond jewelry as well as her remaining designer clothes and shoes stashed away at her place in Midtown and at her mom’s house in Marietta. Occasionally, she’d sell things on eBay—or sometimes take the jewelry to a local pawn shop—to add to the fund when she had no other choice. Maybe this was one of those times she had no other choice.

  The money c
ould come in handy. It would’ve been nice to get a room at the one motel in Sweet Neck so she didn’t feel like she was imposing on Leigh Anne and the rest of the Holts. But she knew enough about Leigh Anne already to know the woman would have taken her leaving as a personal insult, so she let it go.

  After the long, somewhat painful conversation with her mom, Melody hadn’t been able to stand the thought of telling another person about her decision to stay in Sweet Neck. She decided to call Jen the next day. For the moment, what she really needed was a bath.

  She sank gratefully into the tub and pressed a damp washcloth to her face, letting thoughts of the past few days’ craziness flit around in her head.

  Austin needed her. For what? He seemed perfectly happy and normal and well-adjusted to her. Blanched seemed so sure of it, though. So he wouldn’t talk about his past. Maybe he didn’t feel like telling his whole life story to someone he barely knew. And even if he never wanted to talk about it, he still didn’t seem to need saving. Her life was more of a mess than his was.

  Why was she even worrying about anything Blanche had said? She would get Austin to fix her car, she would go back to Atlanta, and she would deal with Saeed and then find a new job. Those were the things to worry about—not some enigmatic bayou woman’s ramblings.

  Still. Family was important. She thought about how difficult it was to lose someone you loved. She’d lost a father, too, even though the circumstances had been different. Her dad died of cirrhosis of the liver when she was a senior in high school. He’d only lasted a few years after the divorce; he drank himself to death. Austin didn’t have to lose a brother as well as a father. Donnie was right there. It didn’t seem like either of them was interested in reaching out to the other, though.

  She dozed for a while and realized with a start someone was pounding at the door. She sat up, shivering as her wet body made contact with the air. “Yeah?”