Butterfly Ginger

by Stephanie Fournet

  “Blythe?”

  The light turned green, and the driver behind him honked again. Nate shot forward, but instead of turning right as his blinker signaled, he made a left and then another hard left. Horns blasted and brakes screeched. His trailer caught the curb, everything in the rig rattling violently as he skidded into the Flowers, Etc. parking lot. He rolled down the window, and rain poured in.

  “Blythe!” he called, knowing it was her and unable to believe it at the same time. She stared at him with frightened eyes. Of course, she was frightened. He’d nearly jack-knifed his trailer and sent an industrial mower careening down University Avenue.

  “Blythe! It’s me… Nate,” he yelled, stupidly. “Let me give you a ride!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ONE MINUTE, SHE WAS SQUEEZING HERSELF under the bus stop shelter, fighting the wind with her umbrella and praying that the bus would arrive, and the next, she was staring at him.

  And he was staring back. Calling her name. Asking for her to come to him.

  Nate.

  The only man she’d ever loved. The one who’d broken her heart. The father of the life she’d taken.

  In a lightning flash, the guilt and heartache she’d tried to lock down for years broke open. How could she speak to him after what she’d done? How could she face him? How could she hide that losing him had almost destroyed her?

  Blythe watched in terror as Nate opened the door of his truck, still shouting. He stepped out into the rain, and in that moment, the Route 30 bus hissed to a stop in front of her.

  Without looking back, Blythe closed her umbrella, darted into the rain, and leapt aboard.

  In a daze, she paid her fare, but before she could make her way down the aisle to find a seat, she caught sight of Nate through the windows. He stood in the rain, one hand raised as though to stop her. As the bus pulled away, she could clearly make out the frown that marred his face.

  Trembling, she found a seat and tried to compose herself. Why did she have to see him today? Of all days? And why did she have to walk into The Cory Group soaked to the skin on her first day of work?

  Blythe pulled a hand mirror out of her purse and assessed the damage. Wearing her hair down had been a mistake. The wind had erased all effort she’d made that morning to look presentable, and in the warm fog of the bus, her rain-misted waves began to kink into unruly curls. She dug through her purse and came up with a clip, and she managed to wrest the mess into something professional.

  He looks different.

  The thought snuck in as she brushed beaded raindrops off her plum wool coat. Blythe tried to push the image from her mind. She should have been too nervous about her new job to think about anything else, but she couldn’t stay focused.

  He had looked different. If it were possible, Nate was… bigger than she remembered. He’d broadened across the chest and shoulders, and Blythe could have sworn he even looked taller.

  Was that possible?

  The tumble of curls that he’d kept just out of his eyes was gone. His dark hair was still just as thick, still likely to curl, but now it was shorter.

  It doesn’t matter if he looks different.

  Blythe wrenched her mind away from his image. Of course, he looked different. He was different. She wasn’t the same person she’d been when they were together, and after everything he’d been through, Nate couldn’t possibly be either. The people they had been — kids, really — were long gone.

  And good riddance, Blythe thought. The young people they once were had given up all of the wrong things. Their choices had damned them. They couldn’t be redeemed, and they couldn’t be forgiven.

  Blythe sighed and sat up straighter in her seat. The past was lost to her. But the present was offering her a chance to make a new life for herself. She had to make the best of what was ahead of her.

  It was her first day of work, and she couldn’t let things fall apart now. She hadn’t been able to find the cream-colored blouse she wanted to wear with her brown fluted skirt and boots, so she had settled for her deep orange sweater instead. It wasn’t the crisp professional look she’d envisioned, and now, half-drenched, she’d be lucky if they didn’t turn her away at the door.

  Trying to set aside her doubts, Blythe brought her mind back to The Cory Group and her first project with the firm. She hoped that Ian and Eliot Cory would like the mock-ups she’d done.

  ****

  “THESE ARE SOME GREAT ideas,” Eliot Cory said, looking at her samples as the creative team shared a working lunch in the conference room. “I like what you’ve done here.”

  She’d taken the existing logo for Sammy’s Sandwich Shoppe — a muffaletta sandwich lettered with the restaurant name — and tweaked the design to say “Sammy’s South” for the new location. She’d also updated the menu design and made some suggestions for the shared website.

  Blythe let herself relax for the first time that day. She’d spent the morning doing HR stuff — filling out tax forms and benefits paperwork and reading over the company’s policy handbook. The Cory Group was small, ten employees in all, but she could see that Ian and Eliot maintained the same professional standards as any larger advertising firm. It was a far cry from her old job, which — Blythe hoped — meant that the company wasn’t in any danger of folding.

  She also learned that her two bosses were pretty wonderful when they ordered Chinese for lunch for the entire office.

  “Bad weather fuels creativity,” Ian had told her when he came around to get everyone’s order. “It drives you inside — into the mind. Why would I let you squander that trying to find ways to stay dry and get lunch at the same time?”

  And no one batted an eye when she’d ordered Kung Pao tofu. In fact, as the creative team sat around the conference table with their take-out boxes, she learned that Eliot Cory and Gretchen Primeaux, the creative manager and her immediate supervisor, were vegetarian.

  “For ten years,” Gretchen said, squirting a packet of soy sauce over vegetable fried rice.

  “That’s a relief,” Blythe muttered without meaning to.

  Gretchen gave her a surprised smile.

  “Why?”

  Abashed, Blythe shook her head.

  “Oh… I guess it’s just refreshing. I get a lot of grief about my diet from my family.”

  Gretchen laughed.

  “I know what you mean. My mother’s sixty-seven, and she doesn’t understand why I don’t want to eat her sausage jambalaya when I visit.”

  Gretchen looked to be about forty with a dark brown pixie cut and wide green eyes. Something about her manner reminded Blythe a little of Ellen Fairfax. Perhaps it was the clothes, loose fitting but chic, like she valued comfort and style in equal measure. Blythe liked her immediately.

  Of course, thinking of Ellen opened the door to thoughts of the past, and Nate overtook her mind. Again. He’d trampled through her head a dozen times as she’d filled out hours of paperwork. She hoped the afternoon would keep her busier so the picture of him standing in the rain would stop flashing before her eyes.

  Running away from him had been her only option, but in the hours since, she couldn’t keep herself from wondering about him. Was he married? Was he happy? Did he ever wonder about her?

  She had to think of something else.

  “Try living with a brother who torments you with cuts of meat,” she blurted, trying to return to the conversation.

  Gretchen turned her wide-eyed gaze on Blythe.

  What is wrong with me?

  “You live with your brother?” Gretchen asked, her expression curious but not unkind.

  Still, Blythe blushed. Moving back in with her parents was hardly a source of pride.

  “Actually… I’m living at home right now. When the magazine I worked for in New Orleans closed shop, I needed to regroup. But I’ll be looking for a place soon.”

  Across the table, Ian Cory looked up from his shrimp Lo Mein.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Now, all
eyes were on her.

  “Um… something small. Just for me,” she said, hearing and disliking how meek she sounded. “Close to downtown.”

  “Really?” Ian asked, leaning forward. “My boyfriend Robert owns a small complex on Lee. He’s got two empty units right now.”

  Blythe’s interest piqued, and she overcame her shyness.

  “On Lee? Where?”

  Ian’s gray eyes smiled. He and Eliot could have been twins, they looked so much alike, but Ian seemed to smile more. His salt and pepper hair was the only thing about him that gave his age away.

  “It’s on the corner of Lee and University. Across from the cemetery.”

  Blythe pictured the intersection — less than a mile from The Cory Group. The location would be ideal, even if downtown could get kind of sketchy at night. Still, if she’d survived New Orleans, she could survive anywhere.

  “The apartments are really small,” Ian added, wrinkling his nose. “And they’re nothing fancy. Mostly full of UL students, but—”

  “But in my current situation, it sounds awesome,” she said. Six months down the road, maybe she could afford something nicer, but Blythe knew she’d have to economize for a little while.

  Ian smiled openly.

  “Should I have Robert give you a call?”

  “That would be great. Thank you so much.” The hopeful feeling she’d carried since Friday seemed to grow by the minute.

  An apartment. Maybe. She only had a few hundred dollars left to her name, but she would get a paycheck in two weeks. Blythe wondered what first and last month’s rent would be on the place — if it would still be available once she had some income.

  She decided she’d ask her mom to borrow the car and at least drive by the apartment building after work. It would be a better way to spend her evening than thinking about her encounter with Nate Bradley.

  Who are you kidding? You’ll think about him anyway.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “THIS IS FUCKING CRAZY.”

  Nate cursed behind the wheel of his truck — where he’d sat for the last four hours — and no one but the rain answered back.

  He’d watched her lay eyes on him — recognize him — and then turn and run. And when the bus pulled away, despite every sane impulse in his head telling him not to, Nate followed.

  He followed as the bus rolled down University Avenue. He followed when it turned left on Lee. When it stopped at Vermilion Street across from Don’s Seafood, he watched her descend, duck under her umbrella, and dash toward Jefferson Street.

  Nate had held himself back then. Surely, she would freak out if she saw him tailing her like a stalker. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he didn’t want to scare her.

  But Blythe was here. It was really her. And even though Nate knew he should drive away from her, the act seemed impossible.

  So he’d waited until she reached the end of the block before he idled closer. When she turned right on Jefferson, Nate made himself count to ten before he rounded the corner. And he only just saw her slip into an office building in the middle of the block.

  It hadn’t been easy to find the parallel parking spot big enough for his truck and trailer. He’d circled the block a good four times before one opened across from the building. Nate knew he couldn’t go in and ask for her, so he’d just sat there. He’d gone out into the rain twice to feed quarters into two parking meters so he wouldn’t have to answer any questions from a city cop.

  “This is fucking crazy,” he’d muttered both times.

  But crazy or not, he couldn’t leave. He didn’t have a job site to get to in this downpour, but even if he had, Nate knew that he probably wouldn’t be able to move. Seeing her had left him undone.

  Who knew that six years could evaporate with one look?

  Nate wanted Blythe Barnes as much as he had the day he let her go. He’d never wanted to let her go in the first place. As he saw it, the years had erased every obstacle, leaving her standing in front of him at a wet bus stop.

  The fact that she had seen him and run didn’t seem to matter all that much. He wasn’t going to rest until he could talk to her again.

  So he’d waited.

  He spent hours sketching out plans for two of his upcoming jobs, and when that got old, he thumbed through emails on his phone. Nate had hoped that she would come out for lunch, but when noon rolled around and a delivery car from Dynasty parked in front of her building, disappointment settled over him. He waited for another half hour just to be sure, but no one emerged from the office.

  With his own stomach growling and the need to stretch his legs, Nate left his truck and splashed through the rain the short distance to Subway. As he ate his club on whole wheat and called himself all manner of names, he reasoned that Blythe would not be out before five o’clock.

  And he knew she didn’t have a ride home.

  He could afford to at least take the rig back home and clean up before trying to intercept her after work.

  With that thought, a memory stirred.

  I’ve got a surprise for you.

  They were already lovers. Richland was still alive, and she’d texted him just as they loaded up the trailer at the end of the day. He’d brushed sweat from his eyes and prepared to text her back when a horn honked behind him, and he’d turned to find her there.

  Even now, sitting with his half-eaten sandwich and wondering if he was crazy, he could still remember the sight of her giggling in the driver’s seat of her little Toyota, wearing a bikini and a sheer cover-up. She’d kidnapped him that afternoon and taken him swimming at a friend’s three-acre pond. He remembered lying with her on the wooden planks of a floating dock. And the feeling of joy that just looking at her gave him.

  She might hate him now. Nate figured that expecting anything else was wishful thinking at best, but that couldn’t stop him. All that mattered was she was here — which meant he could see her again. He could go from there.

  He’d have to start by apologizing. And he needed to get it right. At least he had hours to plan.

  ****

  FOUR-THIRTY FOUND HIM BACK on Jefferson Street — showered, clean-shaven, and more nervous than he’d felt in years.

  Nate had gone home, unhitched the rig, and made sure that Lila had tomato soup on hand for her dinner. And he’d worded and reworded what he wanted to say to Blythe more than a dozen times.

  Through it all, the rain fell. A band of heavy showers hit as he waited, parked — this time — directly in front of the building. But the storm eased just before five o’clock. The lettering on the door, he now saw, clearly stated The Cory Group. When Nate read the sign for the advertising firm, he’d felt certain for the first time that Blythe really had moved back to Lafayette.

  Had she come back for the job? Had half a dozen years in New Orleans turned her off? Whatever the reason, he hoped that she was back to stay.

  Nate replayed the moment he’d seen her at the bus stop that morning. Even at the mercy of the wind and rain, she’d looked beautiful, but also professional, sophisticated. He had no doubt that she had become exactly what she’d wanted to become — a graphic designer who could adapt her art to industry and business.

  Nate frowned at the contradiction.

  If she was as successful as he imagined her to be, why had she been waiting at a city bus stop in a storm? Lafayette was hardly a commuter’s town. Bus service stopped at 6:30 p.m., and the transit system only offered a few lines across the city.

  Where was her car?

  Nate’s confusion halted when the door of The Cory Group opened at 5:17 p.m. and two people emerged. He saw immediately that neither was Blythe. An attractive woman in her forties with short hair stood under the building’s awning, talking to a man with salt and pepper curls. They spoke for a moment before walking away in opposite directions. He held his breath and watched the door, but no one emerged.

  A truck pulled into a parking spot across the street, and Nate watched a couple dash out into the driz
zle, their black lab bounding out of the cab with them. They seemed to be laughing as they pulled a tarp-covered rectangle from the back seat and carried it across the sidewalk. The woman unlocked the storefront’s green door, and all three disappeared inside.

  Nate found himself smiling at the happy scene when the door to The Cory Group opened, and there was Blythe.

  She’d pulled back her hair since the morning. Now her locks were gathered into a loose knot at the base of her head, and shining tendrils framed her beautiful face. Foolishly, he’d expected her to know he was there, to come out and lock eyes with him, but she stood fussing with her umbrella, ready, no doubt to make her way back to the bus stop.

  As she started to walk away, Nate shook himself from his stupor and rushed from his truck.

  “Blythe… wait!”

  She turned then, and when her eyes found his, they widened in alarm. Nate watched her check the distance between him and the door of her office as if she were calculating the chances of him grabbing her before she could retreat inside.

  Shit.

  Nate stopped in his tracks and took two measured steps away from her. His heart hammered in his chest. She was afraid of him. How could she be afraid of him?

  “Wait… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he began in a rush, sure that she would bolt at any minute — and probably call the police. Frozen, she watched him, but she said nothing. The look in her eyes still held panic.

  “I-I just want to talk to you,” he stammered. “I know it’s crazy — I followed your bus this morning to see where you worked, but I just had to talk to you.”

  He wasn’t about to tell her he’d spent hours parked outside of the building. Even in his head, this sounded totally insane. But she wasn’t running away now, so he kept talking.

  “I wanted to offer you a ride home so we could just… just talk for a minute.” He was begging. He could hear it in his voice, and it sounded pathetic, but what else could he do? The woman across from him was staring at him like he was a stranger. That thought hit like a blow. Clearly, she had not spent the last six years praying his name and wishing that things were different.