by Lacy Camey
The Last Page
Book 1 of
Living, Loving & Laughing Again
Lacy Camey
Copyright © 2011 by Lacy Camey. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author.
ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-935841-91-3
eBook published by
MC Writing
The Last Page
Book 1 of
Living, Loving & Laughing Again
LACY CAMEY
Norah Johnson is at a crossroads and is in desperate need to heal after a highly publicized breakup from her major league baseball player boyfriend. To escape, she moves to her summer home at the beach with her sister and best friend where she journals, attends therapy and works on her pending clothing line. When a gorgeous stranger finds her lost journal, he seeks to find the author and make her fall in love with him. But is Norah ready to love again?
Book 1 in the romantic comedy trilogy of living, loving, and laughing again; a Norah Johnson story.
To my gorgeous, loving, always supportive and best friend in the world, my husband, Joel. Thank you for making life so much fun! Every day you bring me laughter, joy and endless fun. You’re the perfect muse I could ever need! You’re also the perfect life coach and counselor. You always know just what to do or say. I love you more than words can express and I thank you for being the best husband in the world! I am truly blessed!
Prologue
My hands shook as I took a deep breath and exhaled. I studied myself in the elaborate, gold mirror hanging on the ivory Mediterranean stone. On any other night, I would have contemplated the stone, estimated the amount of square feet, and judged how nice it might look in the boutique that I was eagerly waiting to open. Or, how amazing the mirror, perhaps full-length, would look in the beautiful, totally chic dressing rooms I envisioned for my future customers.
But my mind was preoccupied.
I looked hot. My brown, silky hair hung in nice, loose waves past my shoulders. My jaw-dropping, black strapless dress—my design—with ruffled detailing at the chest and gathered seams over my tanned skin, and Christian Louboutin heels—I’ll own up to it—made me look like a ten. I’m not a conceited person; I’m just letting you know, I put every effort into ensuring that I looked my absolute best, like any woman would out there trying to win Miss U.S.A. or The Bachelor.
This was a life-changing, pivotal moment. Since I was dealing with a man, the man I loved, the man I wanted to win back, I had to lay all my cards on the table, and I had a royal flush!
Did I mention the dress was formfitting? More like the painted-on kind, yet it was chiffon. No one had a dress like mine. I could hear Jennifer Aniston calling me in the future, wanting the dress for her next movie premiere.
But this time, no matter how good I managed to look even in my own prize-winning design that had landed my current career lead, the biggest lead of my life, I couldn’t calm my nerves even by reminding myself of this amazing accomplishment, one that I definitely did not take lightly.
My nausea made me feel like I was about to perform or give a speech in front of the whole world. I felt like I would vomit any minute! Gross, but that’s my nerves for you. On cue, my mouth started watering, and I knew what that meant—the inevitable would soon follow.
But I couldn’t throw up! Not here. Not now. I took a deep breath and blew out. Closing my eyes, trying to pull it together, I imagined standing on the beaches of… somewhere, Tahiti maybe, although I’d never been there.
I needed to be confident. I am confident.
I needed to pull it together. I can pull it together.
“Pull it together, Norah. Pull it together,” I told myself. Thank goodness, no one else was in the ladies’ room to witness that.
Even with all the energy I could muster, and despite my self-affirming pep talk, I still felt wobbly. I leaned forward against the cold granite. It felt warm against my cool, sweaty palms.
I could do this. I had to do this.
As if a bell from Pavlov’s experiment had rung, I snapped back to reality and looked down into my black Prada clutch in search of my lipstick.
Shimmery? Or sultry red? If I wore shimmery, I’d look relaxed, tanned, and glamorous. If I wore sultry, I’d…
With the thought of sultry, my soul filled with indignant anger at the thought of his sultry seducer, and the fact that she was in the other room. It was all her fault. She was the reason it had ended, the reason I was here in the bathroom in freezing February.
Shimmery.
I’ll wear shimmery, I decided.
If this were a movie, you would hear the Ting Ting’s playing, Shut Up and Let Me Go, as I exited, confident, with the footsteps of a determined lioness on a mission. Except, I was thinking, ‘Please don’t let me go. Just shut up and listen and let her go.’
I rehearsed my lines.
“Truett, it’s me. Hi… I know.”
Lame. Of course, it would be me.
“Truett, don’t ask me why I’m here. I forgive you. We can be together.”
No…
I needed to hurry because, standing ten feet in front of me, was… him.
His tall, muscular build fit nicely in an Armani suit. I saw the back of his tanned neck. I felt like I might faint.
Yes, I saw friends trying to warn him of my approach.
Yes, I heard the few rehearsal dinner guests seated at their lavish tables whispering as they took notice of my appearance, along with a few clanks of forks against china plates. The bride, Alicia, was greeting an elderly couple, and luckily God answered my prayers; she didn’t see me. She was as fake as ever. Couldn’t anyone else see through her façade? The fact that she was clearly using Truett’s fame for her instant acting career stardom?
But I knew everyone would soon find out. After, of course, she delivered their baby and joined Tracy Anderson Method workouts.
I saw Truett’s parents and made eye contact with his father; he looked white as a ghost and dropped his wine glass. The swing band and commotion of the excited guests were graciously loud enough, however; no one heard or thought twice about the breaking of the crystal.
Kind of like the way Truett couldn’t care less about the breaking of my heart.
But alas, there he was. There was my goal, the back of a man in a black suit. My bullseye.
One of his genius friends coughed under his breath, “Johnson at six o‘clock.”
Another stretched, as he pointed and whispered, “Dude, you won’t believe who’s behind you.”
Then, as if in slow motion, he turned around. I had dreamt of this moment, of him seeing me, saying how fabulous I looked, of me sweeping him off his feet. But that wasn’t the reaction I received.
He cursed. And cursed loudly.
“What are you doing here, Norah?” Before a giant scene could be made, he grabbed me by the arm. Of course, not in a gentlemanly gesture, but more like a reproach of a mother grabbing her seven-year-old by the ear for back talking—and led me to the side of the white tent. Away from the heaters. Away from the few guests who had begun to take notice of Truett’s sudden change in demeanor.
His groomsmen, thank God, had some common sense and tried to block us from the nosy audience. But honestly, I really didn’t care who else saw me there. They all kne
w the story. If they’d experienced what I had, they would be there, too. Maybe.
“Are you trying to sabotage my rehearsal dinner? I’m getting married tomorrow.” He crossed his arms and let out an irritable, “Geez, you have some nerve.”
Then he began to pace, unable to stand still. He always did that when he didn’t want to think about the problem at hand.
I reached out to stop him and, as my hand touched his arm, he flinched. He closed his eyes and sighed annoyingly. “Well, what do you want, Norah?”
What do I want? I want you! I want us together again.
But standing there, staring into his cold, hardened eyes, I felt like an alien had abducted the man who used to love me, an alien from the used-to-be planet of Pluto, because it was the coldest one. His heart was clearly frozen, iced over. Feeling nothing. Looking at me as if I were the antichrist or something.
He was so different from the Truett I knew. He loved me. He was enamored with me. In the four years we dated, he never acted as if I annoyed him. He was clearly under a witch’s spell.
Everything in me wanted to rip him to shreds and claw his eyes out. The fire in my chest felt like heartburn, as if I was about to have an anxiety attack. But practice and rehearsing paid off. So my rehearsed speech, which my best friend in the world, Chloe, who was waiting in the car for me had heard me say over and over, went to good use.
Be calm, collected, my subconscious reminded me.
I will appear calm and collected. He will remember what he loved about me, that I had class, and I was always collected. I would appear as if nothing fazed me. It was me, not her, who would be the perfect, overly-exposed wife of a mega-athlete superstar.
And on that note, I was ready to say it. I lifted my chin with perfection.
“Truett, I forgive you,” I said ever so tenderly, yet matter-of-factly.
“What?” he asked, irritated. “You forgive me?” He laughed an utterly horrific, patronizing laugh. As I stood there, my insides screamed for me to stay composed.
I felt as if I was in a presidential debate and the ugliest jab had been thrown, yet I remained unfazed. So I continued with my mission.
“Look, please don’t marry her. You’ll make the biggest mistake of your life.”
He put up his hands in protest. I could tell I was running out of time, so I quickly got to the most important part.
“I forgive you. We can work on us. We can make us work. You don’t have to marry her just because she’s pregnant.”
Now this was the part where the beautiful music was supposed to start playing, like in the movies. Perhaps Coldplay’s Fix You, where his eyes were supposed to fill with tears, and he would open his arms and embrace and kiss me, telling me I was right. That he was glad I came. That he had been praying to God all day for a sign because of his own apprehensions, showing he was supposed to be with me.
Then we would leave together as the entire wedding party and guests watched in aghast bewilderment.
If only life were like the movies. Let me be the screenwriter.
Before I could even get to the good part and tell him, “Listen, she’s using you. Don’t you know anything about her? Don’t you know this, don’t you know that?”
He bluntly said, “No, Norah.” He said it sharply like someone would say if they were a prime candidate for anger management counseling. “You made the mistake by walking out on me when I needed you most to go to Milan.”
“But I didn’t walk—“
He didn’t want to hear it. It was too late.
“Get her out of here,” he said to Lewis, the Yankee’s second basemen. He turned back to me. “Get out of here, because if you don’t leave—“
Suddenly, that little piece of me that lurked deep inside in that little corner crevice of my heart, that piece that so wanted to give him a piece of my mind, suddenly came unfolded.
“If I don’t leave, then what?” Okay, my plan of remaining calm and cool went out the window. Suddenly, everyone in the room, as if they were all a part of a rehearsed, synchronized swimming team, placed their forks and drinks down and looked my way. I felt as if I were in the Twilight Zone. And for crying out loud, the band even stopped playing!
You could have heard a cricket.
My question sat in the thick, quiet air waiting to be answered. Angrily, he turned and walked away. He snapped his fingers, and the band began to play again. People whispered. Picture phones snapped. Paparazzi hiding in the bushes flashed their hot bulbs at me.
And with that, I was escorted from the premises. As I walked away, my heart pounded with adrenaline. The man I loved with my whole heart, the man I was supposed to marry, the man I was supposed to build a fairy-tale life with—we were supposed to be the next Posh and David Beckham!—had left me for another woman, a pregnant woman.
I was left to pick up the broken pieces of my seemingly never-ending broken heart, as the rest of the country had the lovely privilege of reliving my awful breakdown on TMZ, E!, US Weekly, and every other media outlet. And I felt like I had nowhere to hide.
Chapter One
Then, I woke up.
But it wasn’t all a dream. I awakened with my head pounding and spinning. Where was I? It all felt blurred. As I continued to lie there in the comfort of my Tempur-Pedic cloud, I knew I was either in Dubai again, or in my bedroom. My familiar alarm clock, which read 9:30 a.m. in red letters, reminded me I was home.
I was home.
I sat up slowly. I could smell the sizzling bacon I guessed my mother was making. Suddenly, I didn’t feel very well. I quickly ran to my bathroom and threw up. I wallowed my way to the sink and, as I splashed my face with cool water, Chloe entered and sat down on the toilet. Good thing she didn’t know I had just thrown up.
In her perfectly trained nurse-like way, she asked, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good. Pepto? Sprite helps. So does ginger beer. Pregnant women drink that a lot. Of course, the non-alcoholic kind. But it’s not like that matters or anything, because you’re not pregnant. So… ” I watched her come to the sudden realization of saying the extremely sensitive word, pregnant. As in, Truett was marrying a pregnant woman!
“Oh, sorry. Oops.” She bit her nails, obviously wishing she could retract her words.
For a second, I felt like saying something in regards to the pregnant women drinking beer, but I just didn’t have the energy. Not only did I feel like I had been hit by a train, with my entire body aching, I felt like one must feel after competing in a triathlon—unable to move.
My mouth was parched. I opened my mouth to speak the first words of the morning, but she beat me to it.
“Your mom is bringing you a tray. We heard you get up.”
I slowly turned, leaning against the counter. Am I really awake? Did this really happen?
“It was like an elephant was stomping across the room.” As soon as she said the words, like a woman in a crazed daze, I walked back to my bed and fell facedown on the bed like a ton of bricks, sinking into the duvet.
Then, I spoke my first words of the day, or rather, screamed them in pure agony.
“He’s getting married today!” My muffled, scratchy, desperate declaration was the most pitiful thing imaginable. And then my elephant tears poured.
“Aw, Nor, I’m so sorry.” She came over and sat down to pat my back. Just then, my mom and dad walked in with a tray holding breakfast, coffee, and orange juice.
The embarrassment! Forget the day when your training bra was found, or your first box of tampons. I was crying like a second grader with a tantrum, and I was a grown woman. I did not feel like being on display!
My mom sat opposite me and ran her fingers through my hair as I continued sob. Dad set the tray on my nightstand and cleared his throat nervously. He didn’t do well with tears and hated to see any of his girls cry. He muttered under his breath about what a jerk that Truett Mason is.
“He is a jerk,” I muttered, as I rolled over and sat up. “He’s a jerk!”
�
�Yes,” Mom agreed. “He’s a horrible person, Norah. But we love you very much, and that man doesn’t deserve your beautiful heart.”
I looked around at the pitiful scene, Mom on one side, bestie on the other, Dad in the doorway, and for the first time, I noticed what I was wearing and how I looked-tank top and undies. Oh, no. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the robe draped over the chair next to my bed.
“We just wish you would have told us you were going, honey,” Mom said, unfazed by my lack of clothes.
I tied my robe and sat in the chair. Too dazed to even form a thought, I laid my head back and closed my eyes.
The next few months looked like this:
Wake up at, well, one or two.
Shuffle in my slippers to the coffee pot and grab a pop tart if my stomach could handle it. If not, I simply ate toast and drank Sprite. I was a ball of nerves.
Shuffle my way to couch. Cry. Moan. Watch TV.
Mom or Dad, or my sister Maycee try and make conversation with me. Say something about how pretty the day is, and maybe we should go out. Or how fabulous this new shampoo is, and maybe I should give it a try. Yeah, not washing your hair for seven days straight might attract some of those comments.
All the while, I looked like Adam Sandler in the movie, Click. I was there, but not really there. But, instead of time flying by in an instant, like it did for Adam, time dragged for me.
Chloe had to fly back home, naturally. My ten pieces for my line were due in eight more weeks, and I had nothing to show for it. I was beginning to see the need for great robes, however.
Then, my parents stepped in.
It all happened like this.
I was perfectly miserably-happy watching a Basketball Wives rerun. I think I had seen that particular episode um, maybe three times, after, of course, seeing every episode, every season, as well as every other reality show available on Bravo. As I lay there curled up in my fleece blanket, Dad took a seat in the chair next the couch.