Changing Lanes: A Novel (4 page)

Jessica blew out a sigh and made a snapping noise with her mouth. “Well, that’s certainly—”

“One hell of a day,” Destiny finished. She pushed the booty pack across the bar to me. “You’re going to need these more than I do.”

I shoved them back. “I’ll land another column. I just have to get some ideas together, that’s all.”

Destiny’s brows lifted. “What about Fred?”

I slugged down another swallow of wine. “I’m sure he’ll return my calls sooner or later.”

Destiny scowled. “You’re in denial. He hopped a plane and flew to France on the day you were supposed to start moving into your new house. He’s not calling you back.”

Jessica, ever the peacemaker, patted my shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll call you eventually. I just wish you knew whether or not he was okay.”

“Okay?” Destiny shook her head. “He’s ignoring her. He’s fine. The way I see it, she can either get on a plane and go after him, or she can wait it out here.”

Get on a plane
.

The words alone sent cold chills dancing down my spine.

“She can’t get on a plane,” Jessica said. “She’s terrified of flying.”

“I’m right here.” My voice was barely audible above the sounds of karaoke night.

Manny and Pete, apparently unwilling to surrender the stage to whoever else might be waiting to perform, swung into a new number, crooning the lyrics to “New York, New York” at a pitch that would have sent dogs screaming.

“Well?” Destiny asked. “Do you want a step-by-step guide for how to fix your life or are you going to get out your notebook and start making new plans?”

I squinted at her, rubbing at the sudden dull ache in my temples. “What did you do?” I asked. “Smash your thumb with a hammer today or something?”

True to the tough-as-nails exterior Destiny had perfected, she’d forged a career as a carpenter, slowly building her custom furniture and cabinetmaking business in one of my favorite Paris buildings—a rehabbed, two-story garage tucked away on Artisan Alley, the small street that ran from the center of town down toward the river.

Her lips quirked, and for a moment I thought she might smile.

I was wrong.

“So you had a shitty day,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Deal with it. Call Fred and tell him to get back here if that’s what you want.” She leaned a bit closer. “Personally, I’d tell him to stay there.” She took a long swallow of beer. “March down to the paper and give your boss an idea for a better column. Then march over to your house and figure out what you need to do to move in. You don’t need us to tell you this stuff.” She pointed her finger dangerously close to my nose. “And you don’t need Fred.”

“You never liked him,” I said, feeling as though Destiny’s words had sapped the last of my energy.

“Sure she did…
does
,” Jessica said. “We’re all just upset right now. You’ll fix this. You always do.”

Destiny took a long draw on her beer bottle and tipped her chin toward the far end of the bar. “Could be worse. You could be Mick.”

I followed her gaze to where Mick stood, talking to Jerry.

“I don’t think he’s gotten the warmest welcome home,” Jessica said.

“No wonder.” Destiny gave a quick shrug. “People tend to remember when you burn down a landmark.”

The old guilt flared to life inside me and I spoke a bit too loudly in an effort to change the subject. “Would you believe he was up on my parents’ roof today? Last I heard, he was an architect out west. What’s he doing replacing roof shingles in Paris?”

“He
was
an architect.” Destiny leaned close and dropped her voice low. “I heard he had a great career going before his wife died.”

Wife? Died?

“What are you talking about?” I tried to reconcile the happy man I’d seen today with the image of a widower.

“It just hit the grapevine this week,” Jessica said. “You know those O’Malleys. They—”

“—keep to themselves,” Destiny finished.

But once upon a time, Mick hadn’t kept to himself. He’d told me everything.

“Well,” I said, sitting back in my chair and raising my hands in the air, “the beauty of Paris is that sooner or later we’ll know everything about Mick O’Malley whether he wants us to or not.”

The volume inside the Pub had gone low as a new song started, and my words blasted from my lips far louder than I’d anticipated.

I glanced again at Mick, watching as he slid a bill across the bar and grabbed a six-pack to go. His gaze locked with mine in the split second it took him to turn and walk away.

Destiny slid the booty pack back in my direction. “I think there’s one in here that lets you extract your foot from your mouth for free.”

But I wasn’t laughing. Unless Mick had drastically changed in the past thirteen years, he valued his privacy above just about everything else.

Suddenly I needed to be alone.

I said good night, slid a few bills onto the bar to cover my drinks, and headed out into the Paris night.

I left my car in the municipal lot and took the long way home, letting the cool night air seep into my skin. I hoped to walk off the wine I drank far too quickly and the headache I had from my conversation with Destiny and Jessica.

I knew they meant well, but right now, I was having trouble wrapping my head around everything that had happened, let alone making plans for how to fix things.

What on earth would possess Fred to jet off across the ocean on a whim? Sensible people did not just take off for Europe, and Fred was the most sensible person I knew.

What if it hadn’t been a whim? What if there was someone else? What if he planned to never come back? What if he planned to never marry me? What if he planned to spend his life searching for nonboredom along the streets of Paris, France?

I studied the pattern of octagonal cobblestones beneath my feet as I headed for the center of town. In the town square, where Bridge Street, Race Street, and Artisan Alley came together, local merchants carried on the well-loved tradition of painting their storefronts as bright as possible. Celery-green paint trimmed purple. Mustard-edged fire-engine red. Some of the
oldest buildings in Paris, each had settled into angles that might make a geometry teacher proud.

I turned down Artisan Alley, halfheartedly glancing at the eclectic mix of goods lurking in the shop windows as I backtracked toward Front Street and the parking lot.

Hand-loomed rugs. Stained-glass ornaments. Antiques. Rare books.

Thanks to its quirky yet charming personality, Paris had become something of a tourist attraction in central Jersey, a location viewed by many as the perfect spot for a weekend getaway or a full-day shopping trip. It was the place where I had thought I’d spend the rest of my life. With Fred.

When I reached my car, I hesitated, but then continued to walk. The night air was doing me good, and I’d downed my two glasses of wine quickly enough that I’d rather walk the few blocks home.

At the end of Front Street, I scooted around the sign that marked the start of the bike and hike trail that ran alongside the river, and headed for Third Avenue.

The expanse of green lawn that marked the property line for the Bainbridge Estate loomed before me. Years earlier, the mansion had fallen into disrepair, becoming something of a magnet for local teens as a place to hang out and explore.

During one such “exploration,” the Paris Oak, a two-hundred-year-old tree, had been burned to the ground on a cold October night. The town leaders, devastated by the loss, had placed a memorial boulder on the spot where the tree once stood.

I stared at the words “destroyed by vandals” and cringed. It could have been worse. The town council could have named names when it commissioned the rock.

I’d stood here with Fred on the day we’d toured the Bainbridge Estate in preparation for our wedding.

“Haven’t you ever done anything crazy?” he’d asked, staring down at the inscription.

For a fleeting moment, I’d feared he knew the truth. But Fred had been raised in a world in which everything was black and white, profit and loss, asset and liability. He was an accountant who’d been raised by accountants who’d been raised by accountants.

In Fred’s world, I was an asset. Who knew what would happen if he ever saw me as a liability?

But then he’d taken me by surprise.

“Sometimes I wish I’d studied to be a clown,” he said. “Or a mime.”

I’d laughed. I felt horrible as soon as I did because Fred’s usually controlled features looked crushed for a fleeting instant, as if my reaction had hurt him terribly.

But then he’d laughed with me, and I realized he’d been joking.

He’d put his arm around me. “The thing I love about you is your predictability.”

I had smiled on the outside, but on the inside I’d thought about a time in my life when I hadn’t been predictable at all.

I pulled myself out of the past and into the present, letting Fred’s words bounce through my brain.

The thing I love about you is your predictability.

At the time, I thought he’d been paying me a compliment. Now I understood that somewhere along the way, my predictability had become synonymous with “boring.”

On either side of Third Avenue, carefully painted Victorians lined up one after the other, sheltered beneath a canopy of stately oaks and maples. I cut across my parents’ front yard in blatant disregard of my mother’s don’t-walk-on-the-grass rule. I stumbled at the edge of her massive tulip garden, nicking several tulips and sending pale-pink petals fluttering to the ground.

I dropped to my knees and gathered the petals, trying fruitlessly to stick them back onto the flowers. My mother was obsessive about the garden, and the annual Paris garden competition was coming up in a few weeks.

“I have half a mind to report you to the garden club.” The deep rumble of Mick’s voice sent me scrambling backward, falling over my heels.

I followed the sound to the tree house he’d inherited when his family moved in next door. My throat tightened, but I forced myself to speak, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. “Mick, I’m—”

“Save it.” He held up a hand from where he sat near the top of the ladder.

I walked over to the old maple tree and looked up. I craned my neck, trying to see Mick’s face. I was rewarded with only a clear view of the soles of his work boots.

“I shouldn’t have been talking about you.”

“Why not?” He leaned over the edge of the ladder, his expression kind even after what I’d said. “Because you were doing it in front of half the town? Or because my life is none of your business?”

Nerves fisted in my chest. Since when did Mick O’Malley make me nervous? “Both, actually.” I rubbed at the base of my neck. “Can I come up there?”

Silence beat for a moment before Mick answered. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever asked permission.”

I laughed a little and nodded. He was right. I climbed onto the first rung, but my heels slipped precariously.

“Maybe you should leave the big-girl shoes down there.”

At least my lack of coordination could still make Mick smile.

I pulled off my boots and climbed barefoot, wrapping my toes around each rung, concentrating on moving slowly, hand over hand, foot over foot. When Mick’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, relief washed through me.

I climbed up onto the rough wood floor and sank to my knees, a bit breathless from the climb and from being face-to-face with Mick in the place where so much of our youth had played out.

Ancient handwritten signs and posters clung to the walls, their corners peeling, faded memories of the bond we’d shared long ago.

Mick took a long draw on a beer, then slid the six-pack toward me. I shook my head. It had been a long time since I’d had a good, cold beer, but the last thing I needed was one more thing to mess with my senses.

We’d sat in the spot countless times before, yet this time the atmosphere between us felt anything but comfortable. We were strangers now. Adults. Neither of us knew much of anything about the other or the type of person we’d each become.

Mick slid his empty bottle into the sleeve of the six-pack and leaned back on his elbows. “Aren’t you going to ask?”