Waking Charley Vaughan (22 page)

What was Charley’s deal?
I wondered. I couldn’t figure out why she left, or what the hell she was doing there. I was used to her tendency to withdraw when she was dealing with something tough. She’d never withdrawn to another state though.

Frustrated, I picked my phone back up and dialed Charley’s number. It rang a couple of times before I heard noise cut in. At first, I thought Charley had answered, but after only a couple of seconds, I could tell she hadn’t done it on purpose. The phone must have been in her pocket or her purse because I could hear muffled voices. It sounded like arguing.

“You don’t get to run our lives anymore, Mother,” I heard a voice that sounded like Charley’s say. It was hard to tell because she and Codey had sounded a lot alike in person.

Next, I heard Rebecca’s shrill cry. Her voice was the most recognizable “How dare you talk to me that way, young lady. I am your mother.” She was clearly outraged.

“We don’t want to argue,” I heard someone say.

“Codey has decided she wants to come back with me. We can get a bigger place, and we’ll be ready when Case graduates.”

“Absolutely not!” I heard Rebecca cry, “Over my dead body are you taking my baby out of my house and into your little whore house.”

“Whore house?!” came an outraged cry. That must have been Codey because it sounded slightly different from the earlier voice. “How dare
you
!” she yelled. “Just because you don’t like something, Momma, doesn’t make it dirty or wrong! Charley didn’t come here to ask your permission, and neither did I. We are giving you a chance to fix your mistake, and give us what Grandma Lylah left us!”

“You aren’t getting one red cent from me, young lady. You’ve got more than another thing coming if you think I’m just going to hand over my money to you because you come in and demand it.” That was Rebecca again.

“Your money?!” came the outraged cry of what sounded like all three of the sisters.

“…bullshit,” I heard one of them grumble.

“You watch your mouth in my house! And you, Codey! You’ve got about 20 minutes to get your uppity little butt out of my house. Casey, you’re grounded…and Charley, you’re no longer welcome here if you’re going to speak to me like that.”

I couldn’t hear much for a few minutes, then I heard Charley speak up. It was definitely Charley. She was using her “I’m not sure about this, but I’m going to speak up anyway,” tone.

“You know, what?” she said “We expected this from, mom. The most disappointing thing about tonight is not having our own father stick up for us…”

There was more, but I couldn’t make it out, then I heard, “…how could we expect you to stand up for us when you won’t even do it for yourself?” I quickly hung up the phone, feeling guilty for having listened so long.

Maybe Charley really was waking up. I’d never heard her be so blunt to anyone before. I wondered if I should call Brennan and tell him what I heard, but I thought, for the first time since I’d met Charley, that maybe I should let her handle this one on her own. The Charley that I heard over the phone just then didn’t need my help to tell someone how she felt.

I felt sad that I hadn’t been there to witness it in person, but so proud of my little Midge.

I’d forgotten that Adam was in the room with me. He was looking at me expectantly, probably waiting on me to tell him what I’d just heard. I was smiling like an idiot, and all I said was, “She’ll be home soon.”

Charley was coming home, and she was going to be better than ever. In some strange way, had Matt’s selfishness actually helped something good to happen? I didn’t want to give him credit, but it made me feel better to think that maybe his stupid actions had done more than just ruin things.

For some strange reason it was this realization that allowed me to stop hiding out feeling sorry for myself inside. I thought, maybe I could be there to
support
Matt: not to condone his idiotic actions, but to be his sister. Tell him he was an idiot, but that I loved him anyway. Because, ultimately, the reason I had hated him so much didn’t exist anymore. Charley was OK. She was better than OK. Maybe now I could forgive him.

I gave Adam a long kiss on the lips and told him I needed to go. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I told him as I gathered my things.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Was it something I said?”

“No!” I said. “Nothing’s wrong. You’re great, Sweets. I just need to go see my parents for a little while. And I need to talk to my brother.”

We said goodbye and made a date for later in the week. I was glad he hadn’t gotten all clingy on me. I could really see myself liking this guy. He really got me.

***

My timing could not have been better. I walked into my parents’ house as the phone was ringing. I hoped silently that it would be Matt, and the telephone gods were smiling on me that day.

“It’s your brother,” my mom said, putting her hand over the receiver. “Will you please—”

“I want to talk to him,” I said cutting her off. She smiled a proud smile.

“Thank you, honey,” she whispered, and to Matt she said, “Matthew, your sister would like to talk to you. Hang on.” She handed me the phone.

“I’m going to start by saying I think you’re a dumbass,” I said to him by way of a greeting.

He gave a dry laugh, “I know. If it helps, I think the same thing right about now.”

“How are you holding up?” I asked him.

“Not great, but what should I have expected?”

“Don’t start, Matt,” I warned him, “I’m not going to jump into a pity party for you. What you did was wrong,” I paused for a second. When he said nothing, I added, “I’m always going to love you, but I’m not going to pretend like what you did was OK. You could have killed—”

He cut me off, “I know, Sara. I know!” He went silent for a minute, then said, “I had no idea it was her. Kelly wouldn’t stop talking. I wouldn’t look at her, she got in my face, and I got distracted. Two seconds later, it was over. I knew I’d hit something, but I had no idea it was her. I thought maybe it was a---a drunk or something. I don’t know…I panicked. I never would have hit her on purpose though. I was out
looking
for her to try to talk to her.”

“It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know. Even if you thought it was some bum off the street, or an old lady’s cat, you should have stopped!” I was raising my voice.

“Look, I get it,” he said. “I hurt your friend, and I’m sorry. I cared about her, too, you know?”

“You really don’t get it, Matt,” I told him. “This isn’t just about Charley.” I was realizing the truth of this as I said it. “Part of the reason I’m so mad at you is because of what you did to yourself—to my
brother
. First, you made an ass of yourself by cheating on a great girl. I could have dealt with that. You and I could have worked past that eventually. But this,” I was starting to cry, “this is serious, Matt.” I could lose you for a lot longer than it takes to get over a fight. Mom and Dad lose you, too.” I paused to take a breath and wipe my eyes. “Dammit, Matt! I’m disappointed in you!” I said, realizing what had been wrong all this time, and finally saying it to my brother made me feel better. It didn’t fix things, but it gave me hope that one day things could be fixed.

After a few more minutes of conversation, I handed the phone over to my mother. She kept it light and reminded him that we all loved him. She talked about how the deal his lawyer had gotten him was better than fair. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I looked at my Dad who was at his place on the bar stool. “What deal?” I asked him.

“He got a year behind bars, which is the low end of what he could have gotten for a hit and run with bodily injury. He could have gotten up to eighteen months if he’d gone to trial. With this, he can probably get out sooner than a year if he behaves himself.”

I sat down next to my dad. “Do you think it will be good for him, Dad?” I asked him, trying to sound hopeful.

“I think so,” he said soberly. “But we’ll have to see.”

Mom hung up with Matt and the three of us sat down to dinner. There was a slight optimism in the air that I hadn’t felt at my parent’s house since Charley’s accident. We were able to talk about everyday things over dinner. I also had to tell them what I’d found out about Charley. My parents were proud of her, too.

“Good for her,” my dad said. “About time she stuck up for herself. She might just turn into quite the little spitfire.”

My mom just smiled proudly. Before I left, I decided there was one more thing I should tell them. I knew for my mom at least that it would brighten her day.

“I think there is someone I’d like you to meet,” I told them while we were cleaning up dinner dishes. “His name is Adam. He’s Brennan’s little brother.”

My dad, of course, looked concerned, and my mother’s face lit up. “Before you get too excited,” I told her, “We’ve only been on a few dates. But I really like him,” I couldn’t help but smile.

CHAPTER 17 – CHARLEY

As Codey and I boarded the plane, we were both quiet. The night before had been long and exhausting. We’d fought with our parents, lectured our dad, consoled our baby sister, and prepared ourselves mentally for our new life.

We decided the night before over coffee that we weren’t going to let our mother stand in the way of what we wanted. The more I talked to Codey, the more I’d realized that she had wanted to be a part of Lylah’s just as much as I had wanted her to be before things went badly. We had talked until early in the morning about how we’d make it work with no capital and little collateral.

“Can we just lease the building?” she’d asked. “That will help.”

“It will be cheaper, but not free. And we’re still going to need money for startup,” I told her.

“True,” she’d said, biting her lip. “I don’t know, Chuck,” she said. I was starting to get used to the nickname again. As long as she was using it happily, I thought I could handle it. “I just think this is going to work! We’ll
make
it work,” she said, doing her best Tim Gunn impression. She had always loved
America’s Next Top Model
. I was happy to see that some things never changed.

We ended the night having no more of a clue how our plan was going to work, but both of us sure that it was going to.

We had spent my second day back in Mississippi at our favorite beach. I had forgotten how much warmer the coast was than Colorado this time of year. We were all still bundled in sweatshirts and hats, but there was no snow in sight. I warned them both that winters were nothing like this in Colorado. They still seemed glad to join me.

It wasn’t just us at the beach. We’d invited a huge group of friends for a bonfire. It had been years since I’d seen everyone. It was nice to laugh and joke with my sisters and my friends. It became obvious that night though that this was all part of my past. It was nice to revisit, but there wasn’t any part of me that wanted to come back to this.

Eventually everyone but the Vaughan sisters had cleared the beach. We stayed huddled together—Casey in the middle as both Codey and I hugged her close. She was sad that we were leaving, but for the first time in a while, she had something to look forward to.

As we said goodbye to Casey the following morning, the only benefit she could see to our leaving was that she was going to have the car to herself for the next three months. “It’s small consolation,” she’d said, “and I’d better have a job waiting when I get out there.”

We did our tearful goodbyes, all of us hoping Casey could stand the next three months. I think Codey and I were both holding out hope that our dad would get it together and start sticking up for her like he should have been for all of us all along.

***

“I have a couple of places in mind,” I told Codey as we brought our suitcases into the apartment, “I wanted to wait for you to get here to pick one for sure though.” She smiled at me.

“You weren’t making that up,” she said sounding surprised. “I kind of thought you just came up with the whole me moving out here thing on the spur of the moment.”

“It was the spur of the moment,” I told her honestly. “It was just the spur of a moment a few moments before I got to Mississippi.” She laughed at me.

“That was really convoluted,” she told me, laughing.

“I know. It’s been a long couple of days. I stared at her for a minute. “Thanks for coming with me. I’m glad you’re my sister again.”

“Cheeseball,” she laughed. “I was always your sister.”

True enough, but it hadn’t felt that way for the years that we didn’t speak to one another. I walked her around the apartment—a short tour—showing her where things were, and helping her get settled into the office. I had offered to stay in there and let her have my room, but she wasn’t having it. We’ll find a place soon enough, she told me. I can always crash on the couch if the futon isn’t comfortable.