Changing Lanes: A Novel (5 page)

I pretended I had no idea what he was talking about. “About what?”

He laughed. “You’re a horrible liar.”

“So I hear.” I studied my hands, folded in my lap.

“How much do you know?” he asked.

I moved to the side of the tree house and let my legs dangle over the edge. The cool night air brushed against my skin and
reminded me of how simple life had once been. “I know you were married.”

He moved beside me, leaving only a few inches of space between us. His jean-clad legs swung in a rhythm matching my own.

“I never knew that before tonight,” I said. “But then, you were never the let’s-send-out-an-announcement sort of guy.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “No.”

I studied the sharp line of his jaw, the tired set of his eyes, and the creases bracketing his features. “What was her name?”

“Mary.” He spoke the word softly, as if he’d gone far away inside his mind.

“What happened?”

“She drove drunk.”

My mind flew to another night. A single car accident. A beat-up sedan wrapped around a tree. The night Mick’s dad had died.

“We’d been arguing. I should have taken her keys,” he said.

“You let her drive drunk?” I hated myself as soon as I spoke the words.

Mick turned to face me, his expression pained. “She hadn’t been drinking the last time I saw her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should have known better.” He focused on a point in the sky above his mother’s house.

In a town as small as Paris, Ed O’Malley’s drinking hadn’t been a secret. Nor had it been a topic about which folks stayed quiet out of respect. No. Ed O’Malley’s drinking had been fair game. And as the Paris gossips dragged Ed through their mud, they’d dragged Mick and his mother, Detta, along behind him. Guilt by association.

Mick, true to form, had lived up to expectations, being something of a bad boy at school, spending more time in the principal’s office than he spent in class.

But I knew differently. I’d known Mick better than most anyone else in Paris.

Mick hated being the son of the town drunk, and once he’d had an excuse to leave, he’d done just that.

“He wasn’t drunk the night he died,” Mick said, his thoughts having apparently followed a path similar to mine.

My mind swirled with confusion. But I said nothing. I waited for Mick to talk.

He let go of a bitter laugh. “He did most everything else under the influence, but he never got the behind the wheel of that car if he’d had so much as a drop.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Mick reached for the six-pack and pulled the bottles close. “Hitting that tree was the only sober decision he ever made.” He twisted off the five remaining caps. “Sure you don’t want one?”

I nodded numbly, working to absorb what Mick had just said. I reached for his arm, letting my fingers brush against his jacket before pulling away.

Mick poured beer down onto the lawn, one bottle at a time, until the remaining five were empty. He lined them into a single row, then returned each to the carrier.

I frowned, my head beginning to pound. “Why did you do that?” I asked, even though I knew exactly why Mick had done what he did. He wanted to be nothing like his father, even though he’d tried to please the man for as long as I knew him.

Mick shrugged. “It’s just something I do.”

The moon cast a bluish glow, lighting Mick’s face and shadowing his eyes.

“How long ago did she die?” I asked.

“Two years last month.”

“Why didn’t you come home after it happened?”

“I was home.”

“In Seattle?”

Mick nodded.

“What about Paris?”

“I didn’t need Paris,” he answered.

“Didn’t need it, or didn’t want it?”

He turned to face me, and I spied the traces of the teenager I’d once known. Tough on the outside, scared to death on the inside. “Is there a difference?”

I fought the urge to lean against him, to close the gap of space and time the years had put between us. Instead, I looked up at the sky, amazed, as always, at the sheer number of stars visible in the night sky above my hometown.

“Do you remember how many nights we sat here trying to count the stars?” I asked.

I looked at Mick and he smiled, ever so slightly. “I never tried to count them.”

“But you sat here with me while I did.”

His smile fell. “That was a long time ago, Abby.”

I looked down at my dress and smoothed an invisible wrinkle.

“Do you still count them?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, suddenly wondering when it was that I’d stopped.

“That’s too bad,” Mick said.

Melancholy twisted inside me. I needed to get home before the wine and the night and the thought of Fred ditching me like yesterday’s news swallowed me whole.

I scrambled toward the ladder. “I need to go.” I hesitated as I backed toward the top rung. “Sorry again about tonight.”

Our gazes locked and something flashed in Mick’s eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was angry or sad. “Next time, come to me instead of the town gossips,” he said.

“Those gossips are my friends.”

He nodded. “I know.”

A few minutes later, I crawled beneath the covers in my old bedroom. Someone had fixed the slats on my bed and opened the curtains to let the moonlight spill through the glass panes.

I stared at the window for a long while, wondering what other secrets Mick’s life held. I reminded myself that Mick’s life was none of my business.

I shifted my gaze to the ceiling, where the stars shimmered as brilliantly as I remembered.

For a brief moment, I thought about counting them, but then my heartache and emotions and memories crashed into a tangled mess that knotted my gut and hurt my brain.

So, instead of gazing at the brilliance of the stars above me, I simply closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I floated down the Seine on a riverboat tour, a loaf of crusty bread and a dry pinot noir by my side. Suddenly, the riverboat shape-shifted into a gondola, steered by a single figure expertly wielding his oar as he guided us down a narrow canal.

I sat up and set down my bread. “I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Paris anymore.”

The gondolier turned toward me, his face nothing more than a featureless mask. He lifted his oar clear of the water’s current and stepped toward me, raising his oar menacingly.

When he gave me a swift thwack over the head, I scrambled toward the opposite end of the boat. He came at me a second time, and I fought to shake myself from the dream.

History showed me that my dreams were typically neither soothing nor geographically accurate. Yet, even for the French, I thought this particular dream a bit rude. Of course, most everyone in France, especially Fred, was not terribly high on my “like” list at the moment.

The man’s face faded before my eyes, and I blinked against the cruel glare of morning light. A horrific banging, however, persisted. Even though I knew the noise originated from somewhere
outside my bedroom, the ensuing pain was no less intense than if the hammering were inside my brain.

I shielded my eyes against the brightness of daylight, threw a robe over my T-shirt and shorts, and shoved up the window sash.

I peered outside my opened window and frowned.

Rat tat tat.
Mick bent over the roof, all good-morning focus and masculine brawn.
Rat tat tat.

He effortlessly hammered nails into the black roof wrap, sending shockwaves of pain through my gray matter.

“Mick—” My voice sounded more like a two-hundred-year-old frog than a thirty-year-old female. I cleared my throat to try again “Mick! Are you kidding me?”

He lifted his gaze just high enough to meet mine. Amusement played beneath his Seattle Mariners cap, and my insides twisted.

Our conversation from the night before ran through my mind, and my heart hurt for all he’d endured.

“Seriously, what are you doing?” I asked.

He grinned. “Good morning. How did you sleep? Beautiful day, isn’t it? Nice work. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Rat tat tat.

“Social skills, Halladay. Or did your manners skip to Paris along with your fiancé?”

So he knew. Not that I was surprised.

“No secrets in this town,” I said, working to ignore the pain in my head and my heart.

“None.”
Rat tat tat.
“Maybe I’m just jealous your stunning beauty’s been wasted on someone else.”

I reached my hands up to my hair, doing my best to smooth the snarled strands. “Maybe I wouldn’t look so scary if I’d gotten more sleep.”

He arched his dark brows and laughed. “Not likely.”
Rat tat tat.
“I waited until nine thirty. Some of us have jobs to finish.”

Nine thirty?

I pushed away from the window and pressed a button on my cell phone. Nine thirty.

I groaned.

I’d wanted to be on-site when Frank Turner and his crew started work at nine o’clock. So much for my ability to keep myself on track.

I stuck my head back out the window, already fantasizing about an afternoon nap. “You’ll be gone later, right?”

Rat tat tat.
“Social skills, Halladay.”
Rat tat tat.
“Social skills.”

I shut the window, drew the curtains, and tossed my suitcase on the bed. I traded my shorts for a pair of jeans, tossed my robe on a chair, and pulled a rumpled sweater over my T-shirt. I glanced in the mirror, smoothed the front of my sweater, and thought about brushing my hair. I chose my Trenton Thunder ball cap instead and tucked my tangled mess up under the navy rim.

I raced downstairs, reaching the hallway credenza in record time. When I reached for the clover-shaped dish where I typically left my keys whenever I visited my parents’ house, I remembered one crucial detail.

I’d left my car in the municipal lot and walked home from the inn.

“Mom?” I called out. “Can I borrow the car?”

My mother insisted on owning one nontaxi vehicle in case of emergency.

This
was an emergency.

“Nan took it to Clippers, honey.”

Apparently
that
had been a bigger emergency. Nan, who refused to drive at night, had been known to motor about town all day long. She’d once tried to hijack Bessie, my dad’s cab. He’d made it clear the classic car was off-limits.

Along with my mother’s voice, a heavenly smell wafted down the hall from the kitchen. Madeline Halladay might be incapable of making an edible dinner, but she was an amazing baker, a bit like those prodigies who failed miserably in math but played professional violin by age four.

Drawn to the potent combination of yeast, cinnamon, and nutmeg, I headed for the kitchen, forcing myself to remain focused on getting to my meeting.

If Nan had taken the car to the Clippers, I’d have to walk…quickly. My head pounded at the thought. Then I thought of the more obvious solution.

At the kitchen counter, my mother gingerly lifted muffins from a baking pan while Missy sat at the kitchen table, a rainbow of crayons spread before her as she created a masterpiece on construction paper.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning, sweetheart,” my mom answered.

“Morning,” Missy mumbled without looking up, deep in concentration. I couldn’t help but notice the Southern accent had gone missing.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“He took your bike out for a ride.”

I frowned. There were several words in my mother’s sentence that didn’t add up. Bike. Out. Ride.

“My bike?” I asked.

Mom nodded.

“My pink bike?”

She nodded again.

“Do you know where he went?” I asked.

“No,” my mother answered without looking up.

“He goes every day,” Missy volunteered, adding a splash of orange to the sunburst in the upper right corner of her drawing.

My mother pretended to concentrate on arranging muffins on her china platter.

“You don’t know where he goes?” I repeated.

My mother pursed her lips and shook her head. “No.”

“Don’t you care?”

She gave a slight shrug of her slender shoulders. “If your father wants to get in shape, Abigail, that’s his business.” The woman was either in denial or the best actress I’d ever seen.

I, for one, didn’t believe a word. My mother had made an annoyed facial expression
and
shrugged, all in the span of ten seconds. She might be poised on the outside, but on the inside, she was dying to know where Dad went.

“Why didn’t you ask him?” I asked.

“He’s partially retired, dear. He’s allowed to ride a bike.” Then she pivoted toward me. “Muffin?”

The woman always had known how to throw a distraction.

“Your father left you Bessie,” she said, reaching for a napkin to wrap around my breakfast. “He wants you to drive by the café when the Clippers let out. You might get lucky and pick up a few fares, depending on how anxious everyone is to get shopping.”

“I’m a writer, Mom. I am not driving that cab.” I jerked my thumb toward the kitchen window, through which the cab was visible, sitting out back on a custom asphalt pad beneath a custom-made UV-protective tent.

“You’d better get a move on. There’s no way Frank Turner is going to wait more than forty-five minutes for you.”