by Scott, Lisa
“Like I said, I’m leaving.” Lucy searched for her keys in her purse.
“Hiding just makes it worse. The press is dying to know why you won’t come out of seclusion.”
“Oh, well. Maybe sales of my old records will shoot up the charts with all the publicity,” Lucy said, wondering why her keys always did a vanishing act when she needed them most.
“A new album at this point would sell like gangbusters. I know a thing or two about publicity.” He crossed his arms in his expensive button-down shirt.
She jutted her chin at him. “That’s right. You’re Tripp McCall’s lackey. You’re riding your best friend’s coattails.”
He pressed his eyes closed and forced a smile. “I’m his executive advisor.”
“Lackey,” Lucy repeated.
Joe ignored her. “He’s done incredible things with his company. And I know enough about publicity to say you’re missing a golden opportunity.”
“I’ve got enough money. Right now I want privacy and time alone.”
He held up his hands. “Working with Tripp, I deal with some big problems. I’m good at telling people what they need to hear.”
“I don’t want to hear anything from you.” Her fingers grazed the cold metal of the keys at the bottom of her purse. She fished them out.
“I’m also good at telling people what they don’t want to hear.”
“Joe, you don’t owe me anything. What you did to me senior year didn’t scar me for life. So throw aside the guilt and go back to the party. As you can see, I’ve endured far worse than being voted Homecoming Queen as a joke.”
Joe reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. “Just in case you ever change your mind about that advice you think you don’t want. We’re staying on Tripp’s yacht at Rowe’s Wharf for a few more days. The Second Chance.”
She smirked. “Not everyone gets one of those.” She climbed in her car, shoved her cane in the back seat, and pulled out of the lot. She tossed Joe’s card out the window.
Lucy had planned to head back to her home in Nashville, hopefully without having to spend the night anywhere—it was never fun to wake up from a nightmare in a strange room. Considering it was an eighteen-hour drive, she’d probably have to take a nap in a rest area at least. But instead of heading home, she found herself driving to Leah’s old house in Braintree. Leah’s mother still lived there, and Lucy wanted to see how she was doing.
Lucy pulled in front of the old Cape-style house and hobbled up to the front door. The paint was peeling and the shrubs were overgrown. It looked like no one lived here anymore, but there was a car in the driveway. But to be honest, Leah’s mother had stopped living after Leah died. Lucy rang the doorbell. She heard some shuffling and the door opened. Mrs. Carr’s eyes widened with alarm at first. Then Lucy remembered her scarf. She pulled it down off her mouth. “Hi, Mrs. Carr. It’s Lucy Jordan. I was in town for Leah’s memorial at the class reunion. I thought I’d stop in and say hi.”
Mrs. Carr opened the door, eyed Lucy’s scar, and reached out her withered hand. Lucy knew she was only in her late fifties, but she looked at least a decade older. “How are you, dear? I didn’t recognize you. Come in. I’ll make tea.”
Lucy followed her in and sat down in the living room, the walls still lined with pictures of Leah. Her stomach clenched. Seeing a picture of Leah a hundred yards away was one thing. Seeing them up close like this left her reeling. She expected Leah to come bounding down the stairs any minute.
When Mrs. Carr came back with her tea, they chatted about the old days and even laughed few times. She was kind enough not to ask Lucy about the accident. After two hours passed, Lucy pulled out her phone to check the time. “I need to start heading home now.”
Mrs. Carr pressed her lips together. “There’s something I must tell you before you go. A secret I swore I’d keep for Leah, but I think you should know.”
Lucy’s stomach turned. “Nothing’s going to shock me now, Mrs. Carr. She and I both had some rough years.”
Mrs. Carr stared at the window, kneading her hands in her lap. A few moments passed before she said anything. “Not long before she died, Leah came over, real upset. It was October, homecoming weekend at Jefferson High. She’d gone to some of the alumni events.” Mrs. Carr looked like she was going to cry, but regained her composure.. “Anyway, she said she’d done something horrible to you years back and was wondering if she should tell you.”
“Something horrible to me? What?”
Mrs. Carr looked at the floor. “The homecoming queen thing. She’s the one who stuffed the ballot box as a joke.”
Lucy’s empty teacup slipped from her grip and bounced on the carpet. She shook her head. “No. Leah didn’t do it. Her boyfriend, Joe, did.”
Mrs. Carr tightened her mouth. “See, that was part of the reason she was so upset. Joe took the blame for her and a lot of heat, too. He wanted to protect her. But she’s the one who did it.”
Lucy’s heart was racing. “Why? Why would she do that? I don’t understand. She comforted me. I tried to act like it was no big deal, but I cried the next day. And she was there for me.” Her eyes darted around the room as if she were looking for something to help it all make sense. The pictures of Leah now looked like she was smirking, not smiling.
“I know, dear. I think that’s why it was weighing so heavy on her heart that she had to tell me. She wondered if she should tell you.” She sighed. “I told her no. What good would it do? You were a successful singer, you seemed to be doing fine. Why stir up so many old hurts? Why tarnish the memory of your relationship?”
“So why are you telling me now?”
Mrs. Carr’s shoulders slumped. “It’s weighing on me that it wasn’t the right decision. And I wasn’t sure if you had any suspicions that she was the one. If you did, I just wanted you to know how very sorry she was. How horrible she felt about it and about letting your relationship wither away.” She shrugged. “Who knows if I’ll ever see you again? This might be my only chance to clear things up.”
Lucy kept her mouth tight and her eyes dry. Leah’s mother didn’t need more heartache now. She just nodded and said, “Thanks for telling me.”
“And thank you so much, dear, for stopping by. I do hope you’re able to get back on your feet after that terrible crash.” She stood up and walked over to Lucy, reaching out for a hug.
Lucy rose from the chair and hugged her. “I’m hanging in there.”
Lucy left the house and got in her car in a daze. Leah had been behind one of the most humiliating moments of her life. Sure, Lucy had always tried to play it off. She’d even joked about it when she won her first Country Music Award. “Up until now, the only thing I ever won was Homecoming Queen back in Boston. And that had been a joke.” The audience had quieted for a moment until they heard her laugh, then they laughed too.
“She’s No Joke Now,” one of the headlines had read the next day. But really, she hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Not until she got the invitation to her reunion.
Anger was burning in her belly as she drove toward the interstate. She swore to herself and headed downtown instead. She owed Joe an apology. And he owed her an explanation.
***
Joe walked along Rowe’s Wharf toward the yacht his best friend, Tripp McCall, had bought to host their high school’s ten-year reunion. Tripp was spending one more night out with friends before they flew back to Dallas and the crew took the boat to its new home in Galveston. Joe had a bit of business to catch up on. Like what to do with this new yacht.
Certainly he and Tripp would find a way to use it with Tripp’s company, McCall Me Inc., the global Internet calling service that had made Tripp a multimillionaire and made Joe his right-hand man. Executive Advisor was his official title. What it really meant was offering advice, wanted and unwanted, and keeping his fun-loving boss in line.
He boarded the ship, the Second Chance, and the first mate came right over to him. “Mr. Latham, you have a guest waitin
g for you in the lounge.”
“Who?”
“A Miss Led. I suspect that isn’t her name, but I told her she could wait. I hope that was okay.”
Joe raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Yes, that was fine. Thank you very much.” Joe walked toward the lounge and pushed his way through the swinging door. Lucy Jordan was sitting on a couch, looking out over the water, her cane resting against the side of the couch, her scarf around her neck but still revealing the top of her scar. Her curly burgundy hair shone in the sun coming through the window.
Joe blinked a few times. “You’re the last person I would’ve expected to find in here.”
She turned to him. “Well, I had an interesting conversation with Leah’s mother.”
“Oh?” There was only one conversation he could imagine would bring Lucy Jordan back to see him.
“She told me you weren’t behind the homecoming joke. Leah was.”
“Does it matter now?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, it does. And you’re going to tell me exactly what happened. Because I saw you coming out of the lobby that night carrying the ballot box. Then you handed it to the gym teacher who was supposed to be supervising the damned thing but spent the whole night trying to stick his tongue down the health teacher’s throat. Leah was nowhere near the box.”
Joe scratched his head. “I took the box away from her after I saw her pulling some of the ballots out and stuffing it with new ones.” He sighed. “I lost track of her for a bit, and after looking for her for fifteen minutes, I spotted her in the lobby. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was putting you in the spotlight where you wanted to be. I tried to stop her, but she said it would be funny and then Mr. Gunderman came looking for the ballot box. I told him I thought it had been tampered with. But as you pointed out, he wasn’t that interested in anything but Miss Healy that night.”
“Why would she do that?” Lucy asked. “Why did she think I wanted to be in the spotlight?”
“You always stood out, Lucy.” Joe turned up his hands. “And she was really pissed about what you wore to the dance. She thought you were just doing it for attention.”
“She was mad about my stupid dress?”
“Yeah. You made it out of garbage bags and duct tape. Frankly, I thought it was hot. It looked like snakeskin. But Leah was… embarrassed. She was trying to move away from her alternative self.”
Lucy scoffed. “Because of you. She changed to be part of your crowd.”
“Maybe. Looking back, I don’t think she knew who she wanted to be. But that night, she didn’t want people associating her with the girl wearing Glad Bags. And she’d been drinking….”
“But she called me the next day to make sure I was okay. She came over. She cried over this with me.” Lucy’s normally deep, velvety voice was quiet and small.
“I do think she felt bad.” He never imagined he’d be telling her the truth like this. Ten years later, he thought it was behind them. The guilt and regret was pressing against his chest like an angry fist.
Lucy sat there with her eyebrows knitted together. “But why did you take the blame? Why did you let Mr. Gunderman think you did it?”
Good question. “I didn’t want to cause a huge rift between you and Leah. I knew she’d regret it. And you didn’t like me anyway. What did I have to lose?”
Lucy grabbed her cane and got up and walked across the room to the windows overlooking the wharf. She said nothing and that worried him.
“You didn’t seem too upset that night. You made a joke out of it, even. Wouldn’t it have made it worse to know it was Leah?”
Lucy stared out the window and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I tell people the things they don’t want to hear. That’s my job.”
“Well you should’ve done that back in high school. You should’ve told me the truth when it happened.” She sighed and looked at the ceiling. “She was probably pushing away my face with those needles, too.”
Joe didn’t answer. “Leah changed quite a bit over the years, as you know. She wasn’t happy with who she became.”
“I’m not sure what to say to you,” Lucy said.
“Well, I know what to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it happened.”
Lucy nodded and stood up to leave. “Thanks for your time. And your honesty.”
The first mate stuck his head in the door. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but there are a few members of the paparazzi hanging around by the boarding ramp. You might want to alert Mr. McCall.”
“Thank you,” Joe said.
Lucy froze. “Why would the paparazzi be waiting for Tripp?”
“They’re interested in his reunion romance with Chelsea, getting back together with his high school girlfriend. They usually follow him wherever he goes.”
She leaned on her cane with both hands. “I can’t leave with them standing out there. They might recognize me.”
“You’re hiding from them because of the scar?” His finger traced a line from his ear to his chin following the path her scar had left.
“And the limp. Don’t forget that.” She looked up at the ceiling. “And I’m not hiding. I’m just… not ready to talk about what happened.”
“But once you talk about it, they’re going to move on to the next story of the day. Trust me, Tripp has gotten himself into some predicaments. There were these belly dancers…”
She held up a hand. “My damn life has turned into a country song. And my drunk boyfriend crashing my car is just one more thing to paint me into a corner I don’t want to be in. I want my life to be different than it is.”
“You sound like Leah.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want anyone dictating what that will be. And that’s what the press will do with this story. They’ll make me into something I don’t want to be.”
He nodded. “Let me see if I can get rid of the photographers and then you can head home if that’s what you want.” Joe ducked out of the room.
***
Lucy sat back down, her head spinning. What a long drive she had ahead of her. But what did she even have waiting for her at home? She didn’t have another reconstructive surgery scheduled for a month. Her label had dropped her when she wasn’t going to be able to meet her release deadline. She hadn’t even replaced the car Dirk had totaled.
The accident six months earlier had ruined every aspect of her life—her looks, her career, her faith, her love. She hadn’t even wanted to go to that damn party, but her boyfriend Dirk had said he wouldn’t be able to get in without her. And hey, he’d even drive. Her instincts had told her not to go, but she went anyway; then spent the next six months wondering why.
Joe walked back into the room with a tense look on his face.
“Are they leaving?”
He pressed his lips together. “No. They’re waiting for you.”
She dropped her head back. “They’ve been itching to get a picture of me for six months. They’re not going to leave any time soon.”
Joe paused for just a moment. “Maybe they won’t leave, but we can. We’re scheduled to fly out tomorrow, but we can just cruise down the coast for a few days and you could leave from some other city.”
“But I can’t just leave my rental car here. I’m parked on a ramp nearby. My luggage is in there.”
Joe waved her off. “I’ll have someone take care of that and get your luggage for you before we leave.”
She opened her mouth, ready to protest, but what other option was there? “That’s a lot to ask.”
“Well, I owe you, don’t I?”
“Don’t you need to talk this over with Tripp?”
“Once he knows what’s going on, he’ll agree.”
She sighed. “I hate counting on other people. And I’m supposed to let you take me out to sea?”
“Or toss you out to the sharks waiting on the pier.”
“Still hilarious after all these years.”
“I’ll grow on you.”
�
��Doubt it.” But Lucy had to admit there was a pulse thumping through her veins that was hard to ignore.
***
Joe went to flag down an assistant to get Lucy’s things but the truth was, he needed a moment to cool off. That woman had more fire and allure than anyone he’d ever met. He hadn’t felt this way in high school. Back then, Lucy Jordan just came across as the girl angry at life and angry at him for taking away her best friend. He’d been intrigued over the years and followed her career, always a bit embarrassed by what she thought he’d done to her. Sadly, her rise seemed to be the start of Leah’s fall. Leah even accused him of liking her.
“How could I like her? I don’t even know her! I just think it’s amazing that she’s achieved all this success.” That was before his buddy Tripp launched his company. Things between him and Leah had frayed so badly that when Tripp asked Joe to join his fledgling venture, Joe was more than happy to end things with Leah and leave town. And when she called and begged to get back together so many times, he was too busy with his new career to know she was hurting. Hurting enough to start putting poison in her body to make the pain go away.
Joe finished arrangements to take care of Lucy’s things and informed the crew they were leaving earlier than expected. He called Tripp to let him know about the plans.
“You’ve got Lucy Jordan on the boat? I’d love to come and talk with her,” Tripp said.
“Not a good idea. She needs her space right now. I told her the truth about the whole homecoming queen thing.”
“Man, I told you that night you should’ve cleared it up right away.”
Joe gripped the phone. “It seemed like the best thing at the time.”
“All right. I’ll send for my things and get a room here in Boston until we leave. I might stay a few more days. Chance Carrington had a few great ideas at the reunion for software development and I really think we’re onto something. He and I need a few more days to chat. I’ll think he’ll be joining us at McCall Me in concept development.”