Pucker Up

by Seimas, Valerie

  “As good as can be expected I guess.”

  “Dusty, man, what’s going on?”

  She’d heard him sigh. “It’s been a crazy day.”

  “Talk to me.” Faith couldn’t see but she’d always imagined Peter clasping his brother on the shoulder like he always did, giving him a squeeze for comfort and a shake for being irritatingly taciturn.

  “We were having a baby.”

  “Were?” Peter had asked. Faith had started crying at his question, the quiet anguish in his voice too much for her to take.

  “Were,” Dustin had gulped. “Now we’re not. Kind of makes the wedding this morning unnecessary, right?”

  “Wait, what?! You got married! And didn’t tell me?”

  “We didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t even have any witnesses.” He’d paused for a moment before a curse burst out. “Hell, if nobody saw it, maybe it didn’t even happen. Maybe this whole day is just one big damn nightmare. Maybe none of it is true.”

  Faith’s insides had turned to ice. He thought all of it was a mistake. She’d sought comfort in his arms as she cried, grateful to have him by her side. But he wasn’t; he was miles away, mired in regret that any of it had happened. Less than twelve hours ago he’d slipped a ring onto her finger, placed a kiss behind her ear, and whispered she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. It had all been a lie, a mirage in the distance. He’d never been all in.

  “Don’t say that,” Peter had admonished. But it was too late – he had said it, Faith had heard it, and there was no coming back from that. “What are you going to do?” Peter asked.

  He was quiet for a long time, long enough for Faith to concoct hundreds of answers for him, each one more devastating than the last. “What do you think?” Dustin had answered. He had sounded resigned, sad.

  She’d flinched as if he’d slapped her, his words slicing her open. She couldn’t take any more of it, trying to turn away from the second devastating wave of heartbreak of the day. They heard her and had peeked in through the door – she couldn’t even look at him without crying, sobs racking her body again. Dustin and Peter were beside her in seconds, and she’d found herself cocooned between them, unable to do anything but shake with loss.

  She thought back to it now, wondering if she had misunderstood. It still seemed pretty clear to her; he’d wanted her to go but didn’t want to be the bad guy, didn’t want to be the one that said it, so she’d done it for him. But Dustin, Dustin hadn’t just been a man surprised to see her. He’d been angry, livid that she’d left, still after a decade. Was that the attitude of a man that regretted everything? A man that hadn’t wanted her there in the first place? No, it was the attitude of man that still had a lemon tree in his front yard. What was she supposed to think? How was this all supposed to go?!

  Faith’s eyes fell on the manila envelope beside her. She needed a distraction from her thoughts and picked it up, trying to forget Dustin was probably looking at the same thing right about now. She pulled out the papers and flipped through them until she got to the copy of the confidential marriage certificate Jackson obtained. She’d told Harmony that Ally was her alias. It was the truth, but how messed up must you be when your real name is the one you use to hide. Allison Faith West had signed the document in front of her; Dustin was the only person who’d known that was her legal name. Her real name. The person who didn’t have to be a persona. A tear ran down her cheek. Allison Andrews would have been a stupid name anyway.

  She looked out the window, realizing where they were, and called to the driver. “Take this exit,” she commanded. “I need to make a stop.”

  Melody’s laptop rang, the annoying bubble theme of an incoming video call. Her stomach grumbled and she decided it was a good time for a break. She pulled her computer and a bag of almonds into her lap and accepted the call. “Hey—”

  “You will not even—”

  Melody smiled at them trying to talk over each other, but it drained slowly off her face at the look on her sister’s. Harmony looked anxious and worried, two things she almost never was.

  “Harm, what’s wrong?”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Know what?”

  “Why he’s sad.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, Melody got even more concerned. “Are you going to tell me?” When she didn’t jump to answer, Melody continued, “Harm, what’s going on?”

  “Mel, this morning he was really good. Like really, really good. You saw that picture I sent you – he was smiling and talking. Uncle Dust said good morning – today, this morning. It was crazy. I thought maybe I had woken up in the wrong house or we were in the Twilight Zone or something but no, he was happy. He was really happy.”

  “Harm, you’re kind of scaring me…”

  “And then this cute lawyer came. And Faith left. But the lawyer, he stayed. And they tried to kick me out of the room, but I was not going to miss this, so I turned the voice recorder on my phone on and – ”

  “You recorded them?” Melody asked incredulously.

  “Of course I recorded them. I wanted to finally know what was going on.” Harmony’s face fell. “But it was so much sadder than I thought. I kinda wish I had never turned the recorder on…”

  “Harmony,” Melody said, trying to catch her sister’s attention. Her mind had drifted away, and she looked like she was about to cry. “Harmony! What happened – tell me what happened?”

  “I had left the room, and they were talking really quiet so I couldn’t hear, and then all of a sudden Uncle Dust just started laughing, like creepy Heath Ledger Joker laughing. He sounded weird, a little crazy and like he might start crying. And then the door slammed and his truck peeled away. Dad and the cute lawyer kept talking for like half an hour, so I just went and got the tape recorder, and Uncle Dust isn’t even back yet.”

  The color drained out of Melody’s face. “So you listened to it?”

  Harmony nodded. “They got married because they were having a baby. And then they weren’t having a baby. And I guess then they thought they weren’t married anymore. But that turned out not to be true…”

  “What?!” Melody gasped, the almonds in her lap spilling over her bed. “They’re married?! Like still married? You gotta be kidding me?”

  Harmony’s brow creased. “Don’t sound so excited. That’s horrible.”

  “Why is it horrible?”

  “Oh, you think something happy causes Uncle Dust to go off his rocker?”

  “Hey,” Melody said, “aren’t you the one that’s been trying to orchestrate a happy ending? Right now they’re halfway there.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.” Harmony crossed her arms and gave her sister her best stubborn glare. “I like Faith – I do – but she doesn’t deserve him. She broke his heart too many times.”

  Melody rolled her eyes. “You don’t know anything about what happened between them, Harm. You just know the facts a lawyer said. Uncle Dust has to learn to move past the sadness. I did – he has to, too.”

  “Oh, of course you would take the pop star’s side. Of course!”

  “Hey, that’s so not fair. And what the hell has happened to us – why are we fighting about who’s right?”

  The girls both shrugged and looked away from their screens. “Did you listen to the rest?” Melody asked.

  Confusion clouded Harmony’s face. “The rest?”

  “The rest of the recording. You recorded Dad and cute lawyer talking, right?” Harmony nodded. “You texted me that cute lawyer was Faith’s manager, looked like they knew each other pretty well, right? Well, maybe those two talked about some stuff after Uncle Dust left that could give us some perspective. Something to help us figure out if Faith could still be his happily ever after.”

  “I didn’t think about that,” Harmony said as she picked up her phone. She stared at it for a moment. “There’s no going back after this, you know.”

  “I think we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole as it is. Context could only
help, right?”

  “I don’t know if I want to hear anything else bad,” Harmony whispered.

  “Dad knows everything and he wanted to get them back together,” Melody murmured, trying to be reassuring. “Let’s listen and see if we can help.”

  Harmony pushed the button and the recording played, giving them the closest they were ever going to get to the truth.

  Chapter 18

  Faith stood on top of the hill, staring down at Sorrento Ranch, in exactly the same spot she’d stood ten years earlier. They’d watched the sun rise, pledged to stay together forever, and were married… for eighteen hours. Or that’s what she’d thought all these years – that she’d been able to box up the worst day of her life and shove it to the back of her mind. It hadn’t always wanted to stay there. She’d check up on it every once and a while, tap into the anger and devastation and heartache every time she sat to write a new song.

  She’d try to reassure herself. They were so young how could they even think it would last? It never really helped – forgetting was the only thing that ever did. It’s why she wrote songs, sold them, and avoided them. It was getting harder and harder to do so – when you write multiple top tens every year, people start to fan girl. Especially when you’re elusive and don’t ever show up to accept your accolades and awards. She didn’t want any of those things – she just wanted to stop hurting, to have no sad songs in the first place.

  Not that all of the songs were sad. Pucker Up wasn’t – couldn’t have been a girl group anthem if it was. She’d written Magpie for Jackson, for helping her become Andy Peters, for accepting her for the crazy, irrational singer that she was. Damn man had to make that her first hit song and then name his company after it. And the first song she ever wrote, that melody had predated marriages and miscarriages. No matter how hard she tried, Ranch Hand just wouldn’t be anything less than a love song.

  Looking out across the landscape, she wondered how much longer she could keep trying to be two people, never fully settling into either. She thought of Peter’s comment, about her sounding like an Andy Peters song, and rolled her eyes. Of course he would know who that was. He couldn’t carry a tune, but he loved music, the music business, everything about it. One of the things they’d bonded over when they first met.

  Peter had recognized her and Maya from the moment he saw them sitting poolside. He’d seen past their camouflage and yet never said a word. He’d kept their secret then. Was he keeping them now? Had her attempt at hiding her true feelings behind a ridiculous nom de plume been completely useless? Because Peter had looked at her like he knew what she was hiding. That her feelings hadn’t been washed away by time. As if he had been expecting her to show up again one day and take it all back. Was her secret identity really just a farce?

  Faith didn’t know where to go from here. Ten years ago she’d gotten into a pickup truck, drove away, and hadn’t stepped foot on the property since. Bea had asked her to perform benefit concerts here a handful of times, but she’d never had the courage to say yes. This time she had a town car waiting for her, a driver who would take her anywhere she wanted to go. Where did she want to go?

  “Somewhere different,” she murmured to herself before trudging down the trail, impractical boots and clothes ten years old.

  Dustin hated to drive, but it had been the quickest way to escape. He’d ended up just on the edge of their property, truck bottomed out in a ditch. But the cruelest part was that ditch ran right by the plot of land he’d once planned on building them a house. Far enough from the main homestead that they’d still have privacy but close enough that they could pop over. There was a pasture perfect to keep horses, and the soil was just right for an orchard, dozens of trees to provide shade and a lovely little hideaway where they could have pretended the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  He’d been such a fool, he thought as he stalked away from the property towards the house, not sparing it more than a glace. He thought Faith had come to see him, reconnect with him, but she’d just come to dump him again. Once hadn’t been official enough.

  And he’d been the idiot who gave her his heart – again. How stupid was he to think that this time had been different? She’d just succeeded in making him look like an idiot, groveling for her again. The first time he’d run after her into a fucking thunderstorm and ended up flattened, literally and figuratively. He might not live through chasing after her again.

  Not that he wanted to. He didn’t want to spend his life chasing her, pulling her back to his side against her will. Last time she’d been emotionally devastated; he’d always believed she wasn’t in her right mind. But this time? This time she knew exactly what she was doing. She knew she was destroying him; she’d apologized for it. Why did he let her toy with him? She was his kryptonite, and she damn well fucking knew it. Was it all just a game to her?

  Wifey wanted to play it that way? Fine, he’d let her. What the hell did he care? He wasn’t going to pine over that girl anymore; he’d had enough of that. It was time he forgot the hell about her. All reminders. He had his daughter’s name on a porch swing – one he was going to finish and install so his family could finally get some use out of it. The family that was there for him every single damn day, not the one on a forgotten piece of paper that had cropped back up again. The porch swing was the only thing he needed. The only thing…

  Faith stepped off the trail onto the edge of the ranch. She wanted to talk to Bea, to someone that knew there had been a wedding, to someone who would give her a hug and whisper that everything would be okay even though she highly doubted it would be. She’d survived once before – she needed someone to remind her of that too.

  She skirted around the buildings, not even having to think of the path she was taking. Not much had changed in eleven years, and that gave her a strange kind of solace.

  Bea’s office had a view of the barn because she liked to keep an eye on the ornery ones. Most of the time that meant horses, but not always. Dustin had been in charge of the horses and riding lessons when she’d met him; he could definitely fit in the ornery category when he wanted to.

  Faith’s mind was somewhere else and when she stepped around the pasture, for a moment she thought she was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time on this day, though the first time since she stopped drowning herself in gin. But then reality caught up with her. This wasn’t young Maya with the hair out to there and toothy grin. This Maya was wearing a stethoscope and work boots and looked about as shocked as Faith did.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The universe really did hate her. When she said she wanted to see someone that knew, she didn’t mean one of the ones that broke her heart.

  “Wonderful to see you too, Faith,” Maya said.

  “I don’t want to see you. Not today.” The words came out harsher than she meant, but they always did now.

  Maya scoffed and just continued leading the horse around the yard. “You don’t think I know that?”

  “What are you even doing here?”

  Maya tied the reins off and turned, hands moving to brush the mane on autopilot. “Working. I’m a large animal vet, and I take care of Bea’s animals. This girl right here, Sandy, is getting ready to have her first foal, and I’m checking up on her. Everyone needs a little support when they do that, don’t you think?”

  Faith brought her hands up to her face, attempting to massage away the tension at her temples. It wasn’t at all successful. “I just can’t deal with this, with you, right now. I just can’t,” she murmured, turning to walk away.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I have to apologize for my job now, too. Nice to see you, Faith.”

  “Too?” Faith asked, whipping back around. “Too? Please tell me when you’ve apologized for anything.”

  Maya let out a bark of laughter that was anything but amused. “Cut the crap, Faith. You’ve been punishing me for so long it’s practically a common law by now. Somehow I’ve managed to soldier on.”

 
; Faith took a deep breath and blew it out through her teeth, frustration evident in the sound. “You betrayed me – not that an apology would change that – but what’s the statute of limitation on that?”

  The horse whinnied in displeasure. Maya let go of her and stepped back, signaling for a stable hand. “And therein, Faith, lies the problem.”

  “What? I’m not supposed to feel violated that you sold the rights to my life to an entertainment company.”

  Maya grabbed a toolbox and stalked out of the pasture, forcing Faith to follow if she wanted an answer. “First off, I wrote a screenplay that no one has ever even suggested was about you. Second, I am sorry that you couldn’t make room for more than one dream in our friendship. You don’t hear me bitching about how you stole my words, do you? And third…” Maya hesitated, the first glimmer of sadness entering her eyes. “Damn it, if you still don’t get it… I don’t know why the hell I even still care. Why do I keep expecting more? I am such an idiot.”

  “What don’t I get?” Faith followed her into the lobby. “Maya, what don’t I get?”

  She turned, hand clenched around the back of a chair, and sighed. “That I didn’t write it about you. I wrote it for you.”

  “And the distinction is…”

  Maya sighed in frustration. “I was trying to open your eyes. To remind you what you had so you’d know what was missing. You didn’t cope with anything; you buried it. So damn far that you had to invent a different person to deal with it all. I thought that’s how I could help.”

  Faith was too stunned at that revelation to do anything but stutter. “How do you… what… I don’t…”

  Maya’s voice was gentle, but the gaze refused to let her escape. “You hummed that tune for half our lives. You think I wouldn’t notice it just because someone else sang it? You think any of us girls wouldn’t?”

  Her secret identity, not so secret…

  Dustin entered the yard and knew exactly what he had to do.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Peter yelled, running over to him. He grabbed the axe from his hands and threw it out of the way, clear of both of them and the tree.