I wheeled around, compelling myself to once more stare down the beast.
Max’s bulbous, pathetic face was red, his expression livid.
“You,”
I hissed, jamming my finger right in his face, “are fired!”
The elevator doors opened, and I backed inside.
He stared at me, mouth ajar.
“And . . .” I tilted my head, lifting a sticky-sweet smile, “this is my studio, and I’m calling security.”
Right before the elevator doors closed, I displayed a single finger.
My descent to the ground floor began. The only sounds I heard were the mechanics of the elevator, paired against my pounding heart. “By the way, Mister Salinger,” I said, feeling true relief for the first time in years, “the name is
Abby
.” I nodded to my reflection in the mirrored doors, feeling like I weighed as much as a feather.
Right on the heels of relief, however, my stomach made a little squeeze, knowing what I had to do next.
By the time the elevator hit the lobby floor, I’d already taken out my long To-Do list, checked off another item, and drew a thick circle around item number three. It was the only one left.
{chapter 33}
“THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD”
“I
hope I didn’t wake you,” I said, slightly winded.
Not even an hour had passed since I’d left the studio, straight down the elevator, straight to my car, and straight to the freeway. I hadn’t even bothered to stop at home. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“You fired him.”
I blinked. “What?” I asked after I passed through airport security, hopping on one foot while I slid my shoes back on.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. “Silly, duchess, I thought—”
“No, Hal, you’re right.”
Silence. “You fired him.” He sounded disbelieving. “In, like,
person
?”
I laughed. “Right to his face. Then I flipped him off.”
A girls’ softball team was running past on its way down to Baggage Claim, too busy to notice me.
“Woo-hoo, duchess! You’re one badass rock star. Where are you, anyway?” he asked, probably hearing my labored breathing.
“LAX,” I said, looking down at my boarding pass and then up at the screen of gate postings. I might have to make a run for it.
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” Hal said after a beat. “So then, what’s the new plan?” he asked, but his quiet voice answered his own question: “You’re leaving the group.” There was another pause. “Aren’t you, duchess?”
“Hal . . .”
“Uh-uh, Abby.” He cut me off. “No tears. This is a celebration. Rhapsody! Don’t worry; we’ll be okay without you.”
“But
I
won’t,” I said, looking down the long terminal at the gate numbers. Mine was the last on the end, so I picked up the pace. “The four of us, we’re one big dysfunctional family, Hal. We’ll figure out what to do next. Together. We’re a team.”
“Badass rock star,” Hal repeated with a grin in his voice.
I laughed, hooking my purse strap over my head and shoulder. I was running now, toward my gate before the last boarding call. “Now that that’s settled,” I said, “who’s there with you?”
“Just some of the guys. Shugg’s playing Guitar Hero. Molly’s around here, too, somewhere . . .” He trailed off, intentionally. “With
Jord
.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, agog, switching my phone to the other ear. “
My
Molly? And
Jordon
? Hooking up? Since when?”
“Ahh, that’s been in the works for a while.”
“Wow, I did not see that coming,” I admitted with a laugh, drawing closer to my gate.
“You’ve had a lot on your mind.” Hal’s voice was comforting through the phone.
“Put her on. We have to talk.”
“She’s a little
busy
, Abby.” He snickered. “I’ll tell her to give you a shout tomorrow, ’k?”
“Okay.” I skidded to a stop, nearly losing a shoe in the process. “Hal, I have to go. I’m at the gate. They’re boarding.”
I handed my boarding pass to the woman at the gate. “No carry-on?” she inquired. I shook my head. She smiled, examining the paper and my ID a little more closely. “Have a nice flight, Ms. Kelly.”
I returned her smile and passed through the gray doors onto the ramp.
“I won’t be at work tomorrow, or the next day, if . . . you know . . .”
“Well,
obviously
,” Hal shot back, sarcastically.
“Would you call Nate, please?” I asked, lowering my voice as I approached the line of other passengers queuing on the Jetway, eager to take their seats. “And Jillian and—”
“It’s done, duchess. You did a great thing tonight. The guys are gonna be so effin’ proud. Now go. Go do what you gotta do. Don’t worry about anything else right now, okay?”
“Okay.” I exhaled, resting my cell against my mouth. “Thanks, Hal. I love you.”
He chuckled away from the phone. “Dude,
now
she gets around to saying it.” His voice dropped a notch. “Yeah, I love you, too, Abby. Good luck.”
{chapter 34}
“OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA”
T
he sky was pouring down rain, which seemed fitting. Barricades were up, caution tape was strung from end to end, blocking all entrances.
I had never seen Seaside Town Square under construction. To me, it had become something out of a book—a fantasy place where wishes dwelled and dreams came to life. At least, that was how I’d been painting it lately.
My eyes scanned the setting through sheets of December rain. It was still too dark, too early in the morning to make out any details.
“Will you pull over here, please?” I asked the cab driver after paying him the hefty fare from Pensacola to Seaside. “Thanks for letting me talk.” I gave him an extra big tip.
After splashing my way through the circular lawn in the middle of the Square, I dashed to the sidewalk and under the protection of the roof extensions that covered the shops. I passed by Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe, McGaraghan’s Gardens, Scenic City Toffee Company, Modica Market, and Sundog Bookstore.
What I came to next made my stomach drop. Closed for Construction read a sign on the inside of the window. I cupped my hands around my eyes, peering in. It was a mess. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the walls. All the racks and tables were shoved to one side and covered with sheets; heaps of plaster and piles of broken sheetrock cluttered the middle of the floor; naked wires hung loose from the ceiling.
The muted orange of the sunrise breaking through the clouds reflected off the window. Water from the ends of my hair trickled down my neck, soaking into my shirt. I spun around, wiping my rain-drenched eyes with the back of a hand.
Then I took off running.
Through the rain I splashed, dodging puddles, leaping over sidewalk streams, losing my shoes in the mud somewhere along the way. It was the kind of running you see at the end of romantic comedies. There was always running—running toward something or someone. I was running toward both.
A woman under a red umbrella was walking her dog. A nondescript jogger in a yellow poncho trotted by. Both eyed me skeptically as I loped past them, drenched to the skin. A car honked as I crossed the street outside the designated crosswalk. I waved to it from behind me and kept running, torpedoing toward my goal.
Other than pure adrenaline, I felt something extra, like a cosmic, magnetic gravitational pull helping me along my way.
Faster now, I ran past Wandering Thoughts,
A Summer Place, and all those other sugar-cookie homes that sat behind their white picket fences along the north side of the Gulf. Glimpses of wintery-gray water flashed in between the summer cottages.
Half a block away now. Finally, there it was.
But I stopped, considering—almost for the first time—what it was I was about to do.
I had been traveling for hours. I was finally there, yet I still didn’t have a plan. After the Fasten Seatbelts sign went out, Hal and I e-mailed the entire time I was in the air, strategizing about Mustang Sally’s next move. Should we totally retool the group immediately? Should we go in a brand-new direction and then burst onto the scene with a bang? Or should we regroup in a few months, giving each of us time to decompress properly? Hal and I had decided on the latter, pending what the others thought.
We’d probably have to release an independent album, because without Max—let’s face it—we might be dropped from our label. Hal and I thought the guys would be thrilled about that, though; we’d all become rather disenchanted by the massive bureaucracy that came with being high-profile artists on a major label. Five years earlier, I’d willingly signed my life away to a group of businessmen in dark suits and slick smiles to live the dream of every American girl. But what if your dream came true and it was nothing like you dreamed?
After I’d landed in Pensacola, I told Hal that I’d be in touch with him either in a couple of hours or in a couple of days, depending on how this whole thing turned out.
Still a few houses away, I stood in place, breathing hard from my run, rain beating down. I bent in half, bracing myself, hands on my knees. I still couldn’t catch my breath, and my insides were twisted in knots.
Foolishly, I was stalling the inevitable, fighting a gravitational pull, delaying the very reason I was there. It took effort, but slowly I straightened. I took one step forward and then another. From my angle of approach, the sun was rising directly behind the house, illuminating its silhouette in a halo of muted yellow and orange through the rain.
I was standing right before it—the place I’d been mentally re-conjuring for weeks. My chest sagged with heaviness when I noticed there was no shiny black Ranger Rover in the driveway, no blue-and-white-striped tent in the backyard. All the inside lights were off. The dim lamp above the porch flickered morosely in the breaking dawn. I allowed my dripping hand to reach out and touch the gate that swung open in the wind.
It hadn’t occurred to me—nothing had occurred to me. In all my rushing and running, I hadn’t thought about what to do if he wasn’t there. Had I expected him to be waiting for me, lying fetal positioned on the floor, listening to “Don’t Get around Much Anymore” over and over until I decided to show up?
I pressed my lips together and clenched my eyelids, my whole face scrunching—not that tears mattered much as I stood in the downpour. I lifted my chin, allowing the torrents to hit me dead on. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew I was crying.
That’s when I heard something.
Sniffling, I turned toward the sound. A mixture of raindrops and teardrops clung to my lashes, blurring my vision. Through the blur, I saw a figure standing stock-still in the driveway. I had to squint because I was staring directly into the hazy orange sunrise. The figure remained frozen, probably wondering why this loony, barefooted woman was loitering around the front yard at seven a.m. in the rain.
He took one step forward, then two more, almost at a rush. But then he stopped. Thinking better of it, maybe.
“What are you doing here?” the figure queried.
“I was in the neighborhood?”
“You’re all wet,” he observed.
“So are you.”
He was beautiful standing in the morning rain, his dark hair slick and sopping. His green eyes were the same as I had been painting in my dreams. His black T-shirt clung to his body like a wetsuit.
“I think there’s a storm.” He held a hand out to the side like he was testing the air for rain. A moment later, he looked at me, dropped his hand, and frowned. “You’re shivering.”
My teeth chattered in response. “Because I think there’s a storm, and they’re usually accompanied by colder temperatures.”
His lips twitched—an almost-smile. “Weather? How tedious. Can we skip the small talk?” His motions were cautious, his hands hid deep in his pockets. Raindrops bounced off his shoulders and the top of his head. “What happened, Abby?” Todd asked.
I sniffed a few times then looked down at my bare feet, suddenly feeling awkward, wondering where my shoes had gone. Somewhere back there in the mud.
“I flew all night,” I finally said.
“Are you . . . okay?” His tone sounded anxious. Even through the rain, I noted the worry on his face. His brows were pulled together, causing a notch between his eyes. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while.
I sniffed again and nodded, wrapping my arms around myself, feeling shivers of leftover adrenaline. “I found out what Max did in London, about Christian.” Uselessly, I wiped at my eyes with the back of a hand. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were put in the middle like that. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply right away, making me wonder if he was even interested in an apology. Or was I three hours, three days, and three months too late?