Leaving to Stay Read online

  The sound of the truck’s horn shattered my self-pitying moment and I grabbed my wallet from the dressed to meet her.

  I’m gonna buy her some chili cheese fries and then I’m gonna dump her. Again.

  Buster’s was oddly busy for a weekday but I realized it was lunchtime. I hoped that we didn’t run into anyone we knew but the chances of that were slim to none. It was Oakdale after all. It was not known for a place to be incognito.

  As we collected our orders and sat at a picnic table near the stagnant pond, I gazed over Kristy’s shoulder at the swans floating through the glassy water as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

  Anything to avoid listening to Kristy’s incessant babbling about her classes at Louisiana Tech. She was so proud of her community college education, it embarrassed me.

  That’s the best anyone in this town can hope for. A community college degree and suckering some unsuspecting idiot into marriage.

  “Baby, you should think about taking some courses too,” she offered, directly on schedule. It was her goal to “better” me. She couldn’t fathom that I would want to work a menial job tending the lawns at Oakdale Cemetery while working on my music.

  “It’s a great hobby, baby, but what are y’all gonna to do with your life?” she would inevitably ask and each time she did, my hands would close into a fist and I’d dig my nails into my palms until they bled.

  Oh, God. Not Again. How could I expect her to understand? She didn’t have an artistic bone in her body. No one in that God forsaken town did.

  The best we could find for live entertainment was karaoke night at Sylvester Cat’s although I had been granted gigs in some of the smaller bars on occasion.

  The problem was, no one cared for listening to soulful rock tunes, especially not when the musician was a kid they’d known since he was stealing lollipops from the general store.

  Right. It’s impossible to be taken seriously in this one-horse town. I need to get the fuck outta here before those crow’s feet actually become more than figments of my imagination.

  “Baby!”

  I looked at her reluctantly, knowing I hadn’t heard a word she said.

  “What?”

  She sat back, her straw blonde hair falling over her bony shoulders as she folded her arms under her breasts.

  “I don’t understand y’all!” she complained. “Why do I even bother?”

  Lack of options? Glutton for punishment? Stupidity? Creature of habit?

  Of course, I didn’t volunteer any of my theories.

  “Why are you upset now?” I sighed. “If this is about going to school, I’ve already told you I’m not going back. I already have a degree in musical engineering and producing from Tulane in case you’ve forgotten.”

  Why did I feel the need to bring that up? It had to have been more for my own benefit than hers, a reminder that I had not wasted my life up to this point. I still had a degree which I did absolutely nothing with.

  It was as if she had read my mind.

  “And look whatcha y’all doin’ with your life!” she protested. “Y’all mowin’ graves for the love of God!”

  She was giving me the out I needed and I took it with glee. I needed to get it done. Right. Fucking. Now. This was going to be the easiest break up ever. She was going to be the asshole this time, and that always made things so much easier.

  But before I could play my “hurt” card, she leaned forward to clasp my hands in hers, catching me off guard.

  “I have a plan for us, babe, but y’all have to work with me.”

  “For us?” I echoed. “Kristy, you and I do not have a future. How many times have we had this conversation?”

  She smirked at me and the expression on her face unnerved me slightly.

  “Just hear me out, baby. I’ll be done my practical nursin’ degree at the end of next year,” Kristy explained. “I should have no problem getting a job right away. My grades are really good. I start workin’ and you can go back to school. I think y’all be great at IT stuff. Y’all like electronics and stuff, right?”

  I don’t know how I managed not to roll my eyes but I was impressed with my composure.

  “Then, after y’all graduate, we can get married and we can start a family right away!”

  I choked, spitting out a piece of my burger onto the table before her and she eyed it with disgust as I tried to catch my breath.

  “What the hell is that?” she snapped. “Ain’tcha sowed enough of your wild oats, Jude? I ain’t never said anythin’ when y’all fucked half the town. I understood that y’all needed to get it out of your system but enough is enough! When are y’all gonna settle down, be a man?”

  A stab of anger flooded through me and not for the first time, I felt like throwing something at her head. Not to cause damage, of course, but just to knock some sense into her ditzy brain, see if there was actually anything working in there.

  “You really don’t know a damn thing about me, do you?” I growled, rising from the bench. I tossed my napkin on my half-eaten meal, my appetite gone. “I’m not going back to school, and I sure as hell am not marrying you!”

  “Y’all change your mind,” she said confidently. “Maybe we’ll try for a baby first.”

  I gaped at her, the desire to laugh at the ludicrousness of her words overwhelming.

  “Fuck. Kristy, I’m going now,” I told her firmly. “And you need to stay away from me now. I’m sorry if you have truly believed that we’re going to be together but you’ve never been more wrong about anything in your life.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to respond, spinning to leave her at the table alone but I heard her last words to me as I stalked away, my mind spinning dubiously.

  “You’ll be back,” she called. “You always come back.”

  Not this time, I thought grimly. This time she’s finally hit my crazy threshold. Babies! Has she lost her damned mind? I’ll never have kids with her or anyone else. There is not a woman alive who could ever change my mind.

  Chapter 2

  Geneva

  I wiped the sweat from my brow and plopped heavily against the side of the U-Haul, shaking my dark waves so that they fluttered over my eyes.

  “Holy hell,” I gasped, looking in disbelief at my belongings. “When did I become a materialist?”

  Elsa laughed her tinkling chuckle.

  “Honey, if you think you’ve got a lot of stuff, you’ve never been to my place,” she replied, grabbing a box off the curb.

  “Well, moving a two-bedroom condo into a sixteen by sixteen trailer makes me feel like I’m the princess of Monaco right now. What the hell was I thinking? I should have rented a storage unit.”

  “You were thinking that you needed to get out of Nashville before you got swallowed up by the industry,” my best friend reminded me. “This is just the break you need, sweetie. So, what if you’re downsizing a little? It’s only temporary, remember?”

  I remembered what I had told her and myself but I didn’t know if that was the truth. Leaving Nashville was one of the hardest decisions I’d ever had to make and I was still reeling from the abruptness of my choice.

  “Come on, Gen. We’ve only got a few more things to bring inside and then I’ll bring you back to my place,” Else urged. “You can stay with us tonight and deal with this mess tomorrow.”

  I looked at her gratefully and reached for one of the last cartons on the dirt, following her toward my new home.

  It wasn’t anything special, certainly not in comparison to the two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite I’d left behind but I certainly couldn’t complain about the updated trailer on the outskirts of Elizabeth.

  Honestly, I was surprised by brother had maintained it as well as he had, given the rocky relationship he’d had with my dad before our old man had passed.

  Marc had been thrilled when I told him I was moving back to Louisiana and he almost screamed with joy when I told him I was going to take the trailer for a little while.
<
br />   “Hallelujah!” he cried. “I’m so damned sick of going up there to make sure the rednecks haven’t torched it.”

  “Not a ringing endorsement from a safety perspective, Marc,” I said dryly. “Why don’t you move it closer to Lafayette?”

  “And have a constant reminder of that bastard in my backyard? No thank you. If you want, I can make the arrangements though. It really ain’t that safe a place.”

  “I’ll see how it goes,” I replied. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Nashville wasn’t exactly Hollywood, no matter how much they tried to portray it as such in the media. I could throw down with the worst of them if need be. A bunch of old hicks in a rundown trailer park were hardly at the top of my list of danger.

  The truth was, I was happy to be away from people. Nashville had sucked the life out of me entirely, crushing the optimistic spirit I’d gone with and turned me bitter.

  Or at least I felt bitter inwardly. Elsa didn’t seem to notice any change in me but the fact I had stepped up my wardrobe with knock-off Louboutin’s and a fake Chanel purse.

  She knew a little bit about why I had come back home, or at least home-ish, but she didn’t know all the gory details. And I wasn’t ready to spill them all either.

  Luckily for me, Elsa was not one to pry and she was happy to have me home. And I had to admit, it felt good to be missed. I hadn’t been the best at upkeeping our relationship but Elsa had opened her heart as she always had since we were kids, welcoming me home with her usual kind spirit.

  I placed the last of my goods onto the little bit of space I could find in the kitchen and looked around, sighing aloud.

  “It’s not that bad!” Elsa insisted. “Jake and I are just down the road and it has everything you need!”

  She didn’t need to sell me on its merits. I already knew them.

  “I am not complaining,” I insisted. “But I’m disgusting and I need a shower. Let me see if I can dig up some fresh clothes and – ”

  “Never mind all that,” Elsa interrupted. “You and I are still more or less the same size. I have everything you need, including a jacuzzi tub. You have to be exhausted after all that travel and Jake promised ribs you won’t soon forget.”

  I smiled sheepishly at the blonde, my heart welling with affection for her as I studied her doll-like profile.

  She really was the quintessential southern belle, born and raised in New Orleans like me but to blue blood parents who had ensured she attended the finest schools and had the best of everything.

  Jake Henderson had not been their daughter’s first or even tenth choice for Elsa but she had bravely risked disinheritance to marry the contractor and live her version of happily ever after in Oakdale.

  Of course, I mused, I wasn’t exactly Mr.and Mrs. Sawhill’s first choice for Elsa’s best friend either, was I?

  Not that I could blame Elsa’s parents. The fact they didn’t like me probably had less to do with the fact my family wasn’t rich than it did that I was a rebel without a cause and constantly being rescued by their angelic daughter.

  I think I still owed Elsa some bail money from one of my shoplifting endeavors from ’07.

  That was a long time ago, I told myself firmly. I’m an independent woman now. I’ve seen the world learned what’s out there. I don’t need anyone to take care of me anymore. I can take care of myself.

  “Ready?” she asked, catching my gaze and I nodded.

  “For southern homestyle ribs? You bet your sweet little ass I am!” I laughed.

  I locked the trailer, casting one last look around the trailer park.

  I was home. For now.

  Why did that fill me with a familiar sense of dread?

  I hadn’t been to Henderson’s house in years, not since I’d first left for Nashville and I was stunned at what they had done to the property.

  “Holy hell!” I choked as Elsa’s SUV pulled through the quaint archway gate of their sprawling ranch-style home. “It’s twice the size it was!”

  “I keep forgetting you haven’t been here in five years,” she laughed. “Jake, God bless him, is convinced that we’re going to be living here with our grandchildren one day and he just keeps adding to it.”

  I felt a strange pang in my chest when she said that and I cast her a sidelong look.

  How do people still believe in love like that in this day and age? Elsa always did love those fairy tale themed parties. And I always dressed like the wicked step-mother in black, gothic.

  But I could see that Elsa had just as much faith in their union as her husband and it warmed me, even though the cynic in me wondered a bunch of terrible things.

  I had been convinced that their marriage would fall apart after the birth of their daughter. Kids always ruined marriages, after all. That’s always the tipping point.

  But Cath was two now and Elsa and Jake seemed to still be going strong.

  Maybe after baby number two, I mused. I wondered if there was something psychologically wrong with me to think in such a way. There had to be.

  I shushed the voices in my head and focused on the picturesque entranceway, barely noting that there were at least six vehicles in the circle drive until Elsa mentioned it.

  “I can sneak you in the front since everyone is gonna be in the yard by the pool,” she volunteered. “I’ll get you all set up and you can make a grand entrance.”

  I blinked, suddenly understanding that it was not going to be a quiet dinner at home as I had expected.

  There were going to be people there. Lots of them.

  “Oh, Else, what did you do?” I groaned. If I’d known that it was a party, I would have opted out that night but I suspected that was why Elsa hadn’t mentioned it in the first place.

  “It’s just a few friends,” she promised. “People you’re gonna meet anyway. Nothing fancy and no reason to be nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous,” I grumbled. “I’m tired and I don’t feel like being on my best behavior.”

  Elsa laughed, bringing the brand-new Ford Edge to a stop and turning to me.

  “Baby, I’ve never seen you on your best behavior in my life. Don’t pretend that a couple small town folks are gonna make you uncomfortable.”

  I forced a smile and nodded. She wasn’t wrong; tact was not my strong suit but she was entirely missing the point.

  She meant well and she didn’t understand that I’d spent the last five years of my life smiling and nodding, bending over backward to accommodate others to the point of self-detriment. The last thing I wanted was to plaster a fake grin on my face and do it all over again, not even for a few hours.

  I kept my reservations to myself.

  “Come on,” Elsa urged. “Before someone sees us sitting out here. Those Louboutin’s aren’t going to distract from your dirt-streaked face for long.”

  “You know they’re fake, right?”

  “Of course I do, sugar. Same as that purse.”

  She was teasing me but I knew she was right; I desperately needed a shower. I felt bad that she’d been stuck sitting so close to me in the fifteen-minute drive from Elizabeth.

  We snuck in the foyer quietly and I barely had time to take in the workmanship of the double banisters leading up to a mezzanine balcony level through marble stairs. Elsa whisked me away through one of the twin corridors leading to the east side of the house.

  “Is Cath here?” I asked when she threw open the double doors to a beautiful, white carpeted suite.

  “She’s probably in bed but you’ll meet her tomorrow,” Elsa promised as I gawked at the bedroom. “Don’t you worry. There will be plenty of time to get to see her now that you’re home.”

  A large canopy, embraced in filmy curtains stole the center of the room on a pedestal, facing a stone fireplace.

  Of course, it was far too hot a day to light it but I could only imagine what a glow it cast when night fell and the lights were out.

  “The bathroom is through that door,” Elsa pointed. “I’ll run upstairs
and find you a bikini and something to wear while you bathe. Use the jets.”

  I grinned at her and shook my head.

  “If I jump into a bath with jacuzzi jets right now, there are no guarantees I’m coming out,” I warned her.

  She eyed me speculatively for a silent moment and I instantly was filled with shame.

  “I’m just kidding!” I laughed. “I’ll be there with bells on!”

  I hurried toward the bathroom, again wondering what was wrong with me.

  She’s been amazing to you and you’re acting like a spoiled brat. Get it together and be grateful you have her when everyone else has crawled back into the woodwork.

  I shut off all my misgivings and tried to appreciate the opulence of the six-piece bathroom.

  A bidet? Really?

  I had to grin at the touch, knowing it was probably never used.

  I will bet my life’s savings that Jake doesn’t even know how to use that thing, I chuckled silently.

  There was no way I was going to soak in a tub when I knew I was being waited on and I jumped into the steam shower, permitting the hot water to wipe away the grime of the past few days.

  I was afraid to look down as if there would be a trail of dark evidence spilling down the drain. I hoped it wouldn’t stain the virginal tiles at my feet but I knew I was being ridiculous. Showers were meant to withstand grime.

  Even without the tub, the steam shower was proving to be hypnotic, the endless supply of hot water washing over my aching muscles lulling me into a near hypnosis until it suddenly became too warm to bear.

  Reluctantly, I stepped from the spacious glass box and enveloped myself in a fluffy, white towel, cringing when I saw the color of the linen.

  I really hoped I had scrubbed sufficiently. I felt like Elsa had brought home a stray dog to her dollhouse.

  Inside the bedroom, Elsa had laid out three different outfits for me to choose from and I had to giggle.

  Same old Elsa, I thought, my previously dismal mood evaporating as I selected a simple white bikini and red sundress.

  I couldn’t believe that childbirth had not altered her figure in the least, the sizes of the clothes exactly the same as they had been in high school.