Everybody Falls

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  Which I wasn't, but my mom definitely was.

  "Now, Miss Emerson," the woman said, easing herself out of the half-closed door at an angle. "How can we help you today?"

  "I, ah, I received this notice and was told to meet with the, ah, attorney named D. Howard Russell at two o'clock," I answered, shaking the sheet of paper towards the woman with the outrageous hair and wearing a pantsuit more suited to a formal gala than an office. I didn't know a whole lot about clothes yet a satin tux was just a wee bit over the top for Auburn daytime wear, even if your boss was in the legal field. Or, should that be, especially if your boss was in the legal field.

  The woman grasped the paper and tugged it out of my hand, her overly-caked, dark-red, lipsticked lips moving as she read.

  "Oh, yes. I remember now," the woman sat, dropping into her chair and affixing a cigarette at the end of a long holder. I watched as she flipped one knee over the other, showing off one of her silver sandals, festooned with a garish rhinestone-buckle. "The will."

  "I'm supposed to ascertain that you received the last will and testament of your grandmamma," the woman continued. She picked up a pair of glasses, perching them on her aristocratic nose before looking me over.

  "You look nothing like her," she announced.

  I didn't answer; actually, I had no answer since I'd never met any of my grandparents outside of Lilly. I didn't even know who my father was, for crap's sake. She was right. I definitely didn't look like Grandma Lil.

  However, I didn't know the woman in front of me, at all.

  "Er, excuse me? I don't know who you are," I said in the quiet of the office.

  "Me? Why, I'm Diana Russell. Diana Howard Russell, your granddame's attorney. You, however, can call me 'Fairy Godmother' if you prefer," the woman exclaimed. "Because, I'm the one that gets to tell you the details of your inheritance!"

  "You mean the bakery?" I asked.

  Ms. Russell just blinked in response as if I'd dropped an eff-bomb in the middle of a church service.

  "The bakery?" Diana's tone copied my flat-toned speech. "Oh, mon petite. You inherited so much more than simply…a bakery."

  "I know there's some money…" I began.

  "Yes, there's that. There's also the other six businesses in that too cute to be believed, mini-mall. There's an office building and some kind of gas station/restaurant things on the way to Reno, too," Ms. Russell explained.

  "I don't understand," I began quietly, my mind whirling. "I've inherited what?"

  Ms. Russell sighed. "Okay, here's how it breaks down. Do you want to take notes?"

  I reached for my notebook that I carried everywhere in my scuffed leather tote.

  "At the moment, you own five properties which includes the full line of buildings that your bar is in. The rents for them are on this piece of paper here. You own the office building which you are now sitting in, which includes the rents from the two different businesses that are operating out of this space," Ms. Russell raised her eyes to mine. "I just want to go on record as saying your rents are outrageously high."

  I nodded as I notated, but felt my eyebrows lift clean up to my hairline at the attorney's side note.

  "You own the Quickie Mart at Highway 20 and Interstate 80, also known as Blue Canyon, California plus the Quickie Mart just outside of Penryn, California located on Interstate 80 and six miles south of highway 193. You are collecting rents at the moment which total $8,910 per month with the option to sell or continue to lease any of said properties with a sixty-day notice of…"

  "Wait, what?" I interrupted the attorney, holding up a hand as I tried to absorb what the woman was saying.

  Ms. Russell had stopped speaking and waited, finally breaking the silence with her own question. "Can I continue now?"

  "Uhm, sure," I said and I could feel my eyes were glazed; looking yet not really seeing the attorney or even the attorney's office at all. The voice was a background noise, a drone, as I tried, desperately scrambling on the inside, to make sense of her earlier words.

  "There has been a motion contesting your Grandmere's will. It was made by a Belinda Emerson, who claims to be the sole and rightful heir."

  "She's my mother," I confessed, wondering how my mother had gotten wind of my boon. "Did my grandmother mention her in the will at all?"

  I watched Ms. Russell skim over the multi-page document before using a dragon nail to score across a couple of lines. She raised her head and simply replied, "Yes."

  "And?" I asked realizing my tone was abrupt in my frustration at how closed-mouth Ms. Russell was now being.

  "Let's just say that Mrs. Berenson, your grandmother, didn't care much for Ms. Emerson, your mother. She was quite eloquent in expressing her dislike," Ms. Russell said. "You've received a copy of the will. I'll provide a copy of the motion before you leave so you can read and understand exactly what is going down."

  "As for the contest of the will, there should be no problem because your grandmother included an in terrorem clause, which basically means that anybody contesting the validity of the will forfeits their legacy. Since your mother was not left any assets in your Grandmere's estate, it kind of becomes a moot point, because I think Lilly wanted to doubly insure your mother got nothing. Tu me Comprends?" Ms. Russell seemed intent on helping me understand there really wasn't anything to worry about.

  I knew my mother and if my mother had paid to have documents filed in a court? You better damn well worry. Belinda hated courts and judges almost as much as she hated the police.

  But, not quite as much as she hated me.

  *.*.*.*.*

  "So I take it that you are finally getting your sex drive back," Boots said quietly as he and Jax stood next to the table that held the ever present coffee urn, a staple at the AA/NA meetings that were held nightly.

  "Yeah," Jax said, taking in the whole of the room at a glance. There really wasn't anything to see. In his mind it was just the same people, night after night, giving their different stories when called on to offer hope and redemption with their words.

  "That's a good thing, son," Boots offered. "Listen, and this is important, you can't get involved with anyone for a year after you become sober."

  "Why's that?" Jax asked, trying to sound casual though he realized his heels were dug in on the issue of him seeing Lacey.

  No one, but no one was going to tell him he couldn't pursue her.

  "Damage control," the older man finally replied. "You wouldn't want to, shouldn't want to, bring your shit into some unsuspecting fool's life now, would you?"

  Wait…what?

  Have Lacey damaged by the shit he was going through, the shit he'd already gone through? Oh, fuck, no.

  "You've been working your steps, right?" Boots had been there, done that and owned the rights to the t-shirt having been in a band in the eighties. A successful band that had fallen by the rock and roll wayside due to the members imploding in a way that wasn't pretty. "You've got to stick with the steps, son, or you ain't gonna make it."

  "I've been working it," Jax confirmed. He was on step eight, 'Making amends'.

  It was tough getting in touch with all the people he had on his list. Most of them he didn't know beyond whatever name they'd given themselves when they'd hitched along on the Wynter's Vicious roller coaster of fame ride. So finding them was hard.

  "I am working it, Boots," he said again. "I'm doing everything I can, meeting every goal that you and the other scorekeepers have asked me to do."

  "That's good," the older man shot back, still speaking low so other's couldn't overhear. "It takes time, Jax. You're still healing, both on the inside and the out. Give it time, son, the time all of us needed to take to get back to ourselves; to yourself."

  Jax raised his eyebrows. What the fuck? They'd gone through this again and again.

  His case was different.

  He hadn't been down the same road that Boots had travelled.

  There were no needles for one and no known substances had hooked them
selves on to Jax Wynter's train. He had simply taken anything and everything the Roadies had offered to keep the fuzz, the blur, on the edge of his consciousness. Pills, weed or coke were his tokens of choice to hold the corners of real life at bay.

  Okay so he'd been doing them since he was fifteen, but still.

  Plus Wynter's Vicious had been fifty times more successful than Boots' little 'Ten Gallons of Tears' which was an opening act no matter which way you looked at it.

  The goddamn codger still didn't get it and didn't seem to be able to work it out for himself.

  Well, fuck him.

  "I need to get going. Grams is expecting me," Jax finally said, trying to close the conversation.

  Boots just eyed him, sipping the tar these meetings called coffee. "See you tomorrow, son."

  "Yeah, tomorrow," Jax said before turning and making his way out of the church's basement.

  As he drove, he thought of Boots' words which he knew were well meant, yet misdirected, nonetheless.

  He was getting his life back. His body was coming back to life, if the numerous hard-ons today had been any example. His emotions were leveling and his body was in great shape, the latest road-rash notwithstanding.

  But, the last bit with Lacey?

  Just a small speed-bump.

  He'd find his voice and be able to talk with her. He'd figure out a way to dazzle her as much as he'd done with the others before.

  Wait.

  Those others?

  Shit.

  He didn't want Lacey like he'd been with the others. He wanted her…for him. He wanted her body, her sweetness for only him. Those soft looks that he'd caught as she'd cleaned and worked on his scrapes meant for only him. Her delicious voice as the sound she reserved for only him.

  God.

  Where'd that come from?

  One girl for just him?

  Denny would be laughing his ass off.

  You can't get possessive, bro', he heard his brother say in his head. The bitches here on planet Earth are all here to be enjoyed. So just enjoy!

  No, Denny. She's special, his brain argued as he realized that he'd just disagreed with Denny for the first time, even if it was only the Denny of his memory. I want her for myself.

  Fuck.

  Arguing with someone long since gone wasn't a sign of recovery, was it?

  Shit.

  Enough of that goddamn stuff.

  Jax began to recreate the playlist he'd heard in Lacey's place that morning.

  Great music. Maybe not music he would've put together, but enough so that he had a good sense of her. The essence of Lacey which is what he considered other people's playlists; their choice in tunes that they placed in their players was almost a movie score of their lives.

  Better than Ezra, Augustana, Collective Soul. Great tunes. Heavy lyrics.

  The side-roads with Lady Antebellum, Five for Fighting and Toad the Wet Sprocket.

  Damn.

  What kind of girl played 'December' for God's sake?

  His girl was deep. A thinking girl, then.

  Much like Grams.

  A girl that would keep him on his toes.

  Oh, fuck. Maybe he'd bitten off more than he could chew. Perhaps with his new found confidence and with his road rash, maybe it wouldn't be more than he could swallow.

  Man, he wanted that girl.

  Chapter 5

  My first thought of the morning was a question. A question before I'd even opened my eyes.

  Had he said his name was 'Jack' or was it plural like he'd pronounced it when he came with his grandma when they'd come after hours with the flowers?

  The flowers.

  How charming was that?

  I'd never received flowers before. Other than the ones for Grandma Lilly's funeral which weren't for me, really.

  God, he'd looked so good and so familiar there in the remaining sunlight of the bakery when he and his grandmother had shown up. It wasn't unusual to have visitors at the store that didn't know to use the back door after the bakery closed, so I had originally made my way down the stairs and into the store without thinking. As soon as I spied his tall form on the other side of the glass that prevented entrance without invitation, my heart had gone into overdrive.

  I almost didn't notice the diminutive woman in front of him.

  Him.

  Holy white chocolate covered pretzels, he was one gorgeous hunk with awesome eyes.

  His eyes.

  Those lickable, chocolate, freakingly sinful eyes that talked a language so deep it was almost, yet not quite, understandable.

  His eyes that had remained glued on me each time I'd been in his presence.

  Eyes that made me feel special; that created feelings in other places, those secret places within me. Causing the soft places on me to harden and the other places within me to moisten and swell with just the thoughts of him.

  I allowed my eyes to rest on the small stalk of freesia from his bouquet that I'd stuck in a bud vase and placed on the nightstand.

  I love freesia.

  And I loved that it'd been a part of the flowers he'd given me.

  Gosh.

  What a teenager, right?

  Getting all excited over some guy that was good-looking, who had given me flowers for helping him after he fell.

  Shit.

  I was doing what I'd accused my friends of doing for years. Mooning over a guy that you'd looked at twice.

  Geez, girl. Let it go.

  I pushed back the covers and started towards the shower.

  Reality check, I assured myself. I just needed a reality check.

  But that argument went right out the window when I saw him sitting on the wooden steps when I came downstairs.

  It was only five in the morning and the man I was crushing on was sitting on the steps waiting for me.

  I must be seeing things.

  "Hey," I called, opening the door to the store with the hand not holding my coffee.

  He turned and, honest to God, he was as stunning as I remembered. And just as tall, as he unfolded his full length when he stood up.

  Were there heart problems in my history that I wasn't aware of, because my heartbeats were so fast, rabbit fast, that I was starting to breathe funny and I couldn't hear things clearly. But, I heard him.

  At least, I thought I did when his deep velvet voice replied, "Morning, Lacey."

  "What are you doing here?" I blurted out. "I mean, so early. Uhm, not running."

  I watched as a blush bloomed across his face.

  "I decided to walk today instead of run. Give my body a chance to heal, you know?" he answered.

  Okay. That made sense I guess. He hadn't really answered my question, the original question of why he was sitting on the steps waiting for me.

  "Can I get you a coffee?" I asked.

  "That'd be great. The weak stuff my Grams calls coffee just doesn't cut it," he replied.

  Not knowing what else to do, I turned and made my way over to Bertha, firing her up. I glanced over my shoulder and saw he was still standing in the open door. Or should I say filling the open doorway.

  He moved back when I approached the door and handed him the cup.

  "Want to sit on the steps with me?" I asked quietly. I liked that he wasn't filling the air, the easy quiet of the morning with a lot of chit-chat.

  I watched him nod a he seated himself. His moves were almost graceful for being such a tall drink of water.

  Grabbing the remote from just inside the window ledge, I scrolled to the playlist marked 'Morning' and adjusted the volume to low.

  He'd sat himself in the middle of the step, facing the trees whose tops were just starting to become dappled with sunlight. I took my usual place and realized that he'd deliberately left that space open.

  "Do you…ah," he started, then took a sip from his cup.

  I waited, only glancing at him when he stopped speaking.

  "I was wondering if you do this every day? Sit out here," he asked, look
ing at the trees. There was a light breeze, that held a little chill, but it caused the tall trees to sway and the sunlight on them to now shimmer.

  "Yeah, I do. I have to get up early to get the stuff ready for the shop. So I have about a gallon of coffee and sit out here while they bake," I replied, probably saying more words in that little bit than I'd ever said before seven a.m.

  "I'm not keeping you from anything am I?" he asked quietly.

  "I've still got a few more minutes," I assured him, my voice just as quiet as his. "How're you feeling today?"

  "Sore. Bruised. Stupid." I didn't even realize I was looking at him until he glanced at me and our eyes did that crazy catch-and-hold thingie.

  "Why stupid?" I asked, almost on a whisper.

  "For not looking where I was going," he answered.

  I broke our connection and turned my eyes back to the trees. "Anybody can fall."

  "Yeah," he said with a sigh.

  There were a few beats of silence, a good kind of quiet. The stillness of camaraderie and maybe of new friendship.

  "So is your name 'Jack' or 'Jacks'?" I asked after a bit.

  "My legal name is Jackson but almost everybody knows me as Jax," he replied. "You can call me either one. It's a family name. What about yours?"

  "Me? You mean Lacey?" I asked and saw him nod out of the corner of my eye. "Gosh. I couldn't tell you. Something my mother came up with, although Grandma liked it enough that she named the shop after me."

  The quiet descended again and it was just as still and good as it was before.

  I turned and glanced at the huge antique clock that hung on the back wall of the store.

  "I've got to get started on some of the batters. Can I get you more coffee?" I asked, rising to my feet.

  "Yeah, ah, sure," he said, standing too. "Could you, uhm, use some help?"

  I could feel my eyebrows raise at his question. "Do you bake?"

  He shot his eyes to mine as his cheeks colored again.

  "No. I don't even know if I can boil water, to tell you the truth," he admitted with a self-conscious smile. "Grams says I'm getting to where I can follow directions pretty good, though."

  I couldn't help the giggle that escaped. What kind of man, especially a man that looked like him, told people that his grandma told him he could follow directions?