Million Dollar Road (41 page)

So, “Thanks,” Lireinne said. Everything she'd felt she needed to say, all of it, lay in that one heartfelt syllable.

Con's generous mouth quirked. “Thanks for what?” he asked.

Really? Lireinne's wave of insight broke and receded.

“For . . . everything, I guess.” This last conversation between them was over, Lireinne decided, stung and somehow insulted by his reaction. There was nothing left for her here. She turned away, heading for the room that used to be hers, planning to grab her things so she could get away from the disconcerting, strangely depressing exchange.

“You're welcome,” Con said to her retreating back.

Was she? Did he mean that? Lireinne wondered. And did she even care if he had? And when Lireinne had finished hurriedly packing her things and re-entered the sitting room five minutes later, Con wasn't there anymore. The door to his room was shut, but the sound of the shower running came from behind it.

So . . . this was how her old life ended. What the hell had she been expecting from him, anyway? Lireinne left her key on the gilt table and shut the door, leaving it unlocked, and waited for the elevator in the corridor.

But all at once, for no reason she could understand, her eyes filled with tears. Why should this feel like that day, over ten years ago, when her mother had left for the last time? Lireinne never allowed herself to think about that day,
never,
but that long-submerged memory owned her now. She was caught in its undertow, swept away in the tide.

 

“But where are you going?” Seven-year-old Lireinne begged, clinging to Mommy's hand. “Don't leave. Please, Mommy?”

Her mother yanked her hand free and grabbed the two garbage bags stuffed with her clothes. “Let
go,
Lireinne. You'll be fine. Look after your brother, 'kay?”

And then she ran down the steps to the trailer without looking back, without saying good-bye. Lireinne's mommy ran to the man with the white truck who had been waiting for her outside in the yard.

“Duane!”

The man threw Mommy's bags in the bed of the truck, they got in, and the truck disappeared down the drive, fast. Lireinne watched until it was gone, and without warning the trailer was empty-feeling, frightening. Before, it had felt like home. Her four-year-old brother, Larry, was crying, but he was too little to understand.

“Don't cry,” Lireinne said. “She'll come back.”

A veteran of many leave-takings, Lireinne had known better than to cry because it didn't do any good. It never stopped Mommy from leaving anyway. Besides, even though her mother had abandoned her before, she wasn't gone for forever. Sometimes it took a long time, days and days and days, more than Lireinne could count, but she always came back.

Only . . . this time Mommy's leaving didn't feel the same. Before, she'd
always
told Lireinne that she wouldn't be gone long, that she'd be back soon, even though more often than not that turned out to be untrue. This time she hadn't said anything but good-bye.

“Don't cry,” Lireinne said again. Unconsoled, Larry's fat little legs collapsed. He sat on the floor and howled louder. Lireinne patted his heaving shoulders before she wandered down the hall to the room Bud and her mother shared. She looked in the closet at the empty hangers, the spaces where shoes had been, breathing in the last faint traces of Mommy's perfume—a musky, heavy scent—lingering on the few clothes that remained. In the front room her little brother was still wailing, but Lireinne wasn't going to cry because it hurt too much, like getting hit with rocks. It hurt because nobody ever came when you cried. Nobody was here to come to her anyway, nobody but Larry.

Lireinne closed the closet door and left the bedroom. She was going to try to comfort her brother once more. Larry would have to learn not to cry, just like she had.

Crying, the seven-year-old girl knew within the fortress of her now-cold little heart, didn't do any good at all.

 

Lireinne wasn't going to cry this morning either. Carefully dabbing her eyes with a fingertip, she stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor.

She was
so
out of there.

 

Later that Saturday, after the Spada siblings had departed for Milan, a package was delivered to the shop on the Avenue Montaigne. It was addressed to Lireinne Hooten, care of Luigi Spada.

Taking the package from the shop assistant, Lireinne examined the mysterious courier parcel, full of excited curiosity. There wasn't a return address on the label. Who had sent it to her; what could the bulky plastic bag contain? Unable to wait, she ripped the package open.

Inside were two items: a small, rectangular orange carton and a much smaller, dark-blue leather box. There was an envelope as well.

Wanting privacy, Lireinne took the package and its contents and hurried up the winding stairs to the deserted atelier: Luigi and Luciana wouldn't be back in Paris until Monday. Throwing herself onto the white leather sofa, she opened the orange carton first and discovered it contained a small cell phone.

Oh my God, Lireinne thought. Her first cell phone! The
way
cute phone was the size of a deck of cards and came with a bunch of instructions in what was probably going to be too-hard-to-translate French. Lireinne laboriously figured out the basics, though, from the pictures in the manual. Slipping the battery into the back of the phone, to her happy satisfaction the screen winked into life. With a feeling of wonder, Lireinne debated: who'd send her a cell phone? After thinking the few possibilities over, she concluded that it had to have been either Luigi or Peter. They were almost always jabbering away on theirs, and with her new job she was definitely going to need one now, for sure.

But what had they put in the little blue box? It fit easily in the palm of her hand, the word
Chopard
printed across the top in gold script. She opened the box, and Lireinne's eyes widened, slowly turning to awed, shining green stars.

“Ooh,” she breathed. Her lips parted with delight. This was the most incredible pair of earrings, more beautiful than anything she'd ever seen in her whole life—even in
Vogue
. When she took them out of the box they lay cool and heavy in her hand, so they had to be real, right? Heavy had to mean real, and real meant expensive.
Very
expensive.

For her? Real earrings for Lireinne Hooten? Lireinne checked the courier parcel again. Like before, there was her name, typed on the label. The earrings were for her, all right.

Holding the miniature chandeliers up to the sunlight pouring through the long windows of the atelier, she gasped with pleasure at the shimmering cascades of diamonds and tourmalines. She had to put them on now, right this minute, Lireinne decided. She wanted to see how they'd look on her, the ex-hoser from Million Dollar Road.

Jumping up from the sofa, Lireinne ran to the mirrored wall. With shaking fingers, she fastened the earrings to her lobes and the drops of cool green stones matched her eyes, the diamonds blazed like tiny bonfires.

What were Peter and Luigi thinking? All this, for
her
? These must be a kind of welcome-to-the-world-of-modeling present or something, she thought. Maybe everybody got a gift like this when they were starting out. Lireinne hugged herself with a shivering elation and shook her head gently. The earrings kissed her flushed cheeks, ringing like tiny chimes at her ears, ringing a promise just for her. This present was crazy generous, even for the olive oil–rich Spadas.

Damn,
she was a lucky girl. Lireinne spun in the middle of the white floor with her arms outstretched, laughing.

Only the envelope remained. Her curiosity fevered by now, Lireinne ripped it open to find a folded letter inside. With a last, ecstatic glance at her new earrings in the mirror, she took the single heavy, cream-colored page over to the window to examine it in the light. Resting her dark head on the pane, she read the letter with a dawning amazement.

A
n owl hooted in the dusk this Monday evening.

Since dawn it had been a day of softly falling rain, the constant, misting scrim of silver washing over the earth, horizon to horizon. The old live oak's evergreen leaves were almost black with the cold water dripping onto the soaked ground, but the rest of the trees surrounding Emma's farm were a sodden brown-and-dull-gold cloud against the gray sky.

After having shed her raincoat, wet socks, rubber boots, and hat, Emma sat in the rocking chair on the front porch, damp and tired, but satisfied that her fall garden was off to an exceptional start. The showers had come at just the right time and all the winter greens were lifting their leafy heads out of the rich brown soil, the arugula, kales, and collards lush as a dappled velvet carpet. The chickens were cooped and fed, and Sheba lay at Emma's bare feet, the hound's nose on her paws, sleeping.

The rain-washed air was cool, verging on cold, but Emma was warm from her labors and enjoying the end of October. It would be Halloween in a week, and soon it would be Thanksgiving. Emma reflected that she had so much to be thankful for, she would hardly need to cultivate gratitude at all when that holiday rolled around. Why, these mornings she woke up feeling at peace with herself, eager to start her day.

The rain fell on. Emma raised her arms over her head, stretching. Her shoulder muscles were tight from weeding the rows and wearing the wet, heavy slicker all day. It was always easier to pull weeds when the ground was soaked, though, and it had been a kind of exhilaration, being outside and wrapped in this gentle, constant weather. The farm seemed to be resurrecting itself from the long, dusty summer, sections of it coming to new life as others died: the season had turned once more and was headed for true autumn.

Soon it would be time to head inside and finish putting together the dinner she'd made for Bud and Wolf, started before she'd gone out to work in the garden. A cassoulet of creamy white beans, duck thighs, and garlic sausage was already in the oven, embarked on the slow, almost alchemic process of becoming a comforting, delicious meal for a rainy October night. She'd need to wash and shred the savory turnip greens later and make an apple tart, too, because men liked dessert and there would be two of them at her table in a few hours.

Emma smiled, thinking of Bud.

Without making too much of it, they'd begun to see each other every day. Bud would come by after working on the loading dock most evenings, but last night she'd made the trip out to Million Dollar Road, having finally been invited inside the trailer. While their time together was mostly spent around each other's tables, Emma was aware that with every hour she spent with Bud, she found she wanted to know him better. He was nothing like Con, but then, nobody was. She wasn't sure how Bud's fondness for country music, chewing tobacco, and the lack of conversation about books, films, or even current events was going to play out as yet, but for now her heart and life were warmed by Bud's goodness, his honest and open regard for her.

And perhaps, one day, it would be more than regard? Emma had begun to hope it would be.

Life had changed for him, too. For those long four days when he hadn't heard from Lireinne, Bud had been too quiet, wrapped up in concern for his girl. But Lireinne had called last Saturday afternoon, telling him of her decision to stay in France, and had phoned many times since then. With each conversation, Bud had come to a greater degree of acceptance, his spirits had seemed to lift, and now, to everyone's astonishment, it seemed that Lireinne was launched into a new life. She had set sail on a high-stakes adventure all on her own.

“
Modeling
. Do you think she's makin' the right choice?” Bud had asked, hanging up after the latest call from Paris. It was a coincidence, being there when Lireinne had phoned last night. Emma had gone out to the trailer, ostensibly to deliver a hearty meal of lasagna and salad from her garden, but in reality she'd come over to see Bud. The lasagna was an excuse to be with him and by now she didn't care if he knew it.

“She's so dang
young
.” His voice was worried as he gazed out the window into the moonless night.

Not too young to seize her chance, Emma thought.

Her hands were full with the casserole dish and the salad bowl, and she'd just escaped tripping over the puppy. Lunchmeat danced on his little hind legs, begging at the aroma of the food. Emma set everything down on the table, debating whether she should tell Bud what she really thought, that Lireinne wasn't too young to take advantage of whatever unlikely circumstances had transpired to give her a shot at being a supermodel. Paris was going to have its hands full with Lireinne Hooten, in Emma's opinion.

But in the end she smiled and said only, “Well, it's an opportunity of a lifetime for her. Besides, she can always come home if she wants to. Down, Lunchmeat.”

Still gazing out the window, Bud scratched his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, that's so. If she'd a stayed in school, she'd be away at college anyhow. Guess this ain't that different.”

Busy gathering the silverware to set the table, Emma refrained from saying that modeling in Paris was a far cry from a freshman year at LSU. Lireinne was going to be on a steep learning curve indeed, but somehow Emma couldn't envision that tide of ambition contained in a dorm room, hitting the books, working on term papers, and making popcorn.

“True,” she said. “No matter what, she'd have found a way out of here eventually.”

“She asked after you, you know,” Bud said. He turned from the window and put an arm around Emma's waist, kissing the top of her head.

“Really?”

“Sure did, right after she grilled me about the Saints game today and asked how Mose and Lunchmeat was doing. Wanted me to tell you thanks again for the dress. Said it turned out lucky.”

The green dress. Emma had forgotten buying it for Lireinne on that trip to the mall. Returning Bud's hug, she said, “I'm sure she looked fantastic in it.” Her heart gave a tiny lurch, though, thinking about Lireinne in that dress, about Con and Lireinne together in Paris. She'd never know what had happened between them, but now she understood that was for the best.

So Emma didn't ask any pointed questions about Con's possible influence in Lireinne's sudden rise to fortune either, but she wondered how he'd taken the news that the unworldly girl he'd sought to seduce had slipped the leash, bolted, and was gone. Too, since the night before Lireinne had left for Paris, Bud hadn't asked any more about Con. It seemed he'd made whatever peace he could with the situation and was once again stoically on the side of Lireinne's independent judgment.

Let the past lie quiet, Emma thought. Con would always be Con. She got out the plates for the lasagna, merely asking, “When's Wolf going to be home? We can always reheat this.”

This rainy evening on the porch, thinking of Bud Hooten and Con, their many differences, Emma was reminded of other days, other meals she'd cooked that had gone to waste when her husband hadn't come home in time to eat them before they went cold and tasteless. It was always business, according to Con, but now Emma knew better. Con's business was then, as it probably always would be, another woman.

What would it be like, feeding two hungry men every night, two men who could be counted on to come to the table, happy to be in her company? What would it be like, being loved by someone who wanted her and only her?

Now she was ready to find out, Emma realized with a shiver of contentment. She was ready to raise her own sails, catch the wind, and explore the sometimes perilous sea of her life. Whoever said only Con could be a pirate, daring to venture for the curve of the earth?

But then Sheba raised her head from her paws and growled a low warning: a car was making its way along the gravel road to the farmhouse. On the porch, Emma got up from the rocking chair and peered through the misting rain, trying to make out whose car it could be.

Somehow, though, she already knew. Like a lost, wandering spirit, her thoughts of him had summoned him here tonight. Emma's heart beat a solid, quick rhythm as the car drew closer, her cold hands unconsciously clasped into fists.

The Lexus rolled slowly up the drive, splashing through the puddles in the graveled ruts. Something was missing, something she couldn't put her finger on right away, but then Emma realized that the usual muffled thud of music, turned up so loud as to be almost a physical presence, was absent. The car's progress seemed almost somber without it. As it rolled to a stop, the Lexus's engine shut off and then there was only the quiet dusk, the murmur of the rain.

Con got out of the car. He wasn't dressed for the weather. The shoulders of his leather jacket were dark and water-stained, his jeans wet to the ankles. Without approaching the porch, he stood beside the car in the rain, looking as though he'd been walking in it for hours. Con raised his head, his face glistening with beads of water, and gazed at her nakedly.

“Em.” It was all he said, but there was a world of need in his voice.

Emma's heart pounded harder. She hadn't seen him since that terrible night, that last rainy evening from what seemed like decades ago. She shuddered. Who was that woman who'd so loved Con that she'd tried to kill herself when he left her? Where had she gone?

Why, she wasn't gone. That woman had
changed
.

With a kind of wonder, Emma understood that about herself now. Her heart slowed, her clenched fists uncurled. She knew what she felt for Con now was a tender affection, mixed with concern. Even at a distance his left hand looked every bit as bad as she'd feared it would. How he must hate that! She remembered Con's quick hands, their cleverness, the knowing intimacy of them touching her body, and Emma mourned for him then.

“Con,” she said softly. There was no need to say anything more.

For a long moment they were locked together in silence. The rain continued to fall.

Can you?
his sea-blue eyes pleaded.
Can you love me again?

I never stopped,
her gold-flecked gray ones answered.

Emma left the porch, running barefooted down the water-slick front steps, and without a moment's hesitation she took him into her embrace. Con caught her up in his arms and rested his forehead on her shoulder, a deep groan that was almost a sob escaping his throat.

“Dear God, Con,” she murmured, stroking his red hair, wet under her fingers. “What have they done to you?” His arms tightened around her, so tight that she almost couldn't draw a breath before he let her go. Con rubbed his eyes with his right hand, the left hanging by his side.

“Mind if we get out of the rain?” he asked. “I just got in from Paris this morning and I, I really need to talk to you.”

Emma realized that the rain had picked up and was falling harder. She'd be soaked in seconds. “Yes, of course. Come on inside. I'll get you a towel.”

Inside the kitchen the light was yellow and warm, the air rich with the mouthwatering aroma of the cassoulet. Emma handed Con a thick, dry towel and he took it from her wordlessly, removing his soaked leather jacket. He was wearing a white T-shirt underneath, but that was almost wet through as well.

“Thanks.” Con dried his hair and face with the towel, rubbing the strong arms and shoulders she remembered so well. He didn't say anything else. Emma went to the stove and put the kettle on for tea, and Con collapsed into one of the ladder-back chairs at her table, looking as exhausted as though he'd walked all the way from France to her farm.

“Tired?”

Con nodded but didn't elaborate. Waiting on the water to boil, Emma was aware of his eyes on her, hungry and searching, and for an instant she wished she was wearing something more flattering than her shapeless old wool sweater and worn jeans. Her bare feet were dirty and her silver hair was damp, limp with rain. She'd sometimes imagined that the next time she saw him she'd be at her best, but now that he was here she looked like a ditch digger after a long day of shoveling mud. What must he be thinking?

Stop it, Emma told herself with sudden impatience. She got two mugs down from the cabinet for the tea. Her self-consciousness was becoming something like an old acquaintance, one she'd recognized on the street but didn't want to acknowledge anymore. Dismissing it with a small shake of her head, she poured the boiling water into the mugs.

“It's been a while,” Emma said, trying to make conversation. She busied herself with making the tea for them—one sugar for Con, skim milk for her. She smiled, thinking that there were some things you never forgot. “So what brings you out here on a rainy Monday?”

“You. Just you.”

Emma nearly dropped the steaming mugs she was carrying, but somehow her hands stayed steady as she set the tea down on the table. Stunned and yet strangely not surprised at all, she eased into the chair across from Con, regarding his pleading, weary eyes with a guarded caution.

“Oh,” she said.

At one time this would've been more than she dared allow herself to hope for. That hope had passed, however, in an incremental, almost impossible-to-measure progress. It had filtered through her heart and mind in the days and weeks since her near-suicide. “Oh” was the only response she could muster, for Emma hadn't truly known until this moment that her desperate yearning for Con had gradually grown into acceptance and a lingering regret, a deep process she'd not been aware of, not until tonight. This, Emma realized, was both a death, one she had to acknowledge, and at the same time a kind of rebirth. This was a second chance.