Country (28 page)

“Maybe you already are there. Sometimes we make life more complicated than it needs to be. Sometimes we already are the person we want to become, and we don't know it.”

“Then I have to find that out,” she said firmly, but she hated to leave him as much as he hated to see her go. She had never been as happy, but she also knew that something was missing in herself. She didn't know what piece, but there was a hole in the puzzle and she wanted to find the pieces to fill it. Otherwise she would feel incomplete and empty forever. And she wanted to be a whole person for herself, and for him. Chase was already satisfied and happy with what he had—he wasn't asking for more. But she was setting the bar high for herself and didn't want to let herself or him down.

“When are you thinking about going?” he asked her sadly, afraid of the answer. It was mid-October.

“I don't know. A couple of weeks maybe. Before Thanksgiving. The kids are coming home for the holiday anyway, so I have to go home by then.” She would have liked to invite him to come to San Francisco, but with Charlotte and Louise's hostile attitudes, she didn't want to expose him to that, so she couldn't invite him, although she knew that Michael had invited Sandy, which she thought was brave of him.

For the next two weeks, Stephanie could sense a kind of lingering sadness between them. Chase was unhappy that she was going back to San Francisco, and she didn't like it either. She was much happier in Nashville with him, but she thought it was important for the long haul, so they didn't run into trouble later, as she and Bill had. Jean pointed out in their regular conversations that he was a different person and thought she was crazy to leave him.

“What if you lose him?”

“Then it wasn't meant to be,” Stephanie said quietly. She believed in what she was doing and that she needed to leave for a while. His life was so all-consuming that she had to get away to get some perspective about him, herself, and their life.

“Stephanie, why are you doing this?” Jean challenged her. “Are you being self-destructive?” Anything was possible—maybe she thought she didn't deserve him.

“I don't think so. I just don't want to be Alyson or me the way I used to be, just a robot serving my master.” It was a hell of a thing to say about their friend, but Jean didn't disagree with her, although she thought Stephanie was being a little harsh.

“You were a hell of a good wife and mother—let's not get carried away here. But you never thought about yourself, and neither did anyone else. Bill certainly didn't. But Chase loves you, Steph. It's not going to turn out like your marriage to Bill.”

“Maybe the problem here is me, not them,” she said honestly. “I do it to myself. I do everything for everyone to make their lives easier and better and then I don't know who I am, and they don't care. I'm the full-service wife and mom, and now I'm the full-service girlfriend. Maybe that's okay, but I need to decide that, not just do it.” Listening to her, Jean hated that Stephanie was putting a good relationship at risk, with a man who genuinely loved her, after being unhappy with Bill for all those years.

“Don't doubt yourself so much, Steph,” she said gently. “The man loves you. He's not a fool. Maybe you should just trust his judgment and enjoy it.”

“Maybe I'll come to that conclusion too. But I'm not there yet.”

“Don't lose him. Be careful,” Jean said to her. “Guys like him come along once in a lifetime.” Stephanie knew it was true, but she felt like she had to earn him, and she hadn't. Not yet. And maybe never, she admitted to herself.

And Chase tried to talk her out of going before she left. “You're just going to sit in that depressing empty house, trying to figure out what? You don't need a fancy career to impress me, Steph. I don't care about that. I'm not asking you to only be in my life and give up who you are. I love you as a person. Hell, come back to Nashville and go to medical school if you want. Do whatever you want. But please, please know that I love you and need you just the way you are. You don't need to be more or less or different.” She could see in his eyes that it was true, and when they made love the night before she left, it was bittersweet and they both cried.

“Maybe I'm scared to be dependent on you,” she admitted as they lay in each other's arms and talked afterward. “What if you die, or leave me? Then what would I do? I'd be no one again and have lost my whole identity, if my identity is you.”

“So you're leaving me instead? Isn't that a little crazy?”

“Maybe I am a little crazy,” she said with a sad smile. But she wasn't, and he knew it. She was looking for something, and striving to be better, and above all to be herself. He respected that about her, but he didn't need it for himself. He loved her just as she was. He thought she was terrific and a lot more whole than she gave herself credit for. “Just give me some time to make some sense of all this,” she whispered as they drifted off to sleep.

“You can have all the time you want. Just come back to me, Stevie…that's all I want…come back…soon…” he said as he reached for her, and they both fell asleep.

Leaving her at the Nashville airport the next day was agony for them both. She had been there for two months, and his life in Nashville was part of her now, just as he was. She felt as though she were ripping out a piece of her heart when he kissed her and they said goodbye, and she could see that he was crying when he walked out of the airport. And tears were streaming down her cheeks when she went through security. She felt crazy and stupid now for what she was doing, but in calmer moments it seemed right. She needed to be away from him to find herself.

And as the plane took off on the runway, she watched Nashville shrink below her, and thought of him with Frank and George, and Sandy. She felt like she was leaving home, and had no idea when she'd be back again, if ever.

Stephanie was as miserable in San Francisco as Chase had predicted she would be. The weather was terrible—it rained for two weeks straight when she got back. The house was depressing and felt dead around her, in spite of the changes she had made. And there were still subtle signs of Bill everywhere. She couldn't exorcise him from the house, or her head. She spent hours walking on the beach, trying to understand what had gone wrong with their marriage. Was she at fault? Was he? Had they simply outgrown each other? She was staring out to sea in the fog one day, thinking about it, when a funny little dog walked up to her and sat down on the sand, staring at her. He had fluff on his head and a bushy tail, a long spotted hairless body that looked like polka dots, and a pointed face. He looked like a joke someone had assembled out of random parts. He was small, and appeared to be part miniature dachshund and part Chihuahua, with a dash of Yorkie, and sat looking at her as though he expected her to do something.

“Don't look at me,” she said finally. “I can't figure my own life out.” He cocked his head to one side, wagged his tail, and barked at her. His body was dark and spotted with no fur. She wondered if it was a skin problem from poor diet. His ears, the pouf on his head, and the one on his tail were blond and looked like a bad bleach job. “Has anyone ever told you how ridiculous you look?” she said to him, and he barked at her again and then followed her when she resumed her walk down the beach. She noticed that he had no collar and tags. He appeared to be a stray, but she didn't want to take him home in case he was lost and someone came back for him. And he gave her a heartbreaking stare as she got in her car. He was still sitting there, whining softly as she drove away, feeling guilty for leaving him at the beach.

She told Chase about him that night when he called her. They still spoke every day, and she hated how sad he sounded. She'd been home for two weeks and hadn't found any miraculous answers to her questions about her life.

“Maybe you should rescue him,” Chase suggested. “He sounds too small to just abandon out there at the beach, and a car could hit him.”

“I felt terrible when I left him, but I was afraid someone would come back for him and then they wouldn't find him. Maybe I'll look for him tomorrow.” She had been going for long walks every day, but she only got more and more depressed, and she felt lost now and missed Chase terribly. She was even avoiding Jean now, who kept telling her she was insane to have left Chase in Nashville, and that he loved her. She loved him too, but she wanted to be more to him than she currently had to offer.

Chase told her before he hung up that she could take the dog to the SPCA or keep him and put signs up that she had him, with her phone number, so someone could reach her. And then he told her again how much he loved her. And no matter what she did now, or said to herself, she felt unworthy. Bill had criticized her for years, and now her daughters did at every opportunity, and she was feeling worse about herself instead of better. Maybe they were right.

She went back to the beach again the next day, to follow Chase's suggestion about the stray, and she had brought some signs with her and a staple gun to put them up on lampposts. She walked for an hour in the rain and didn't find him, and she hoped nothing had happened to him, and felt guiltier than ever. Now she had abandoned a dog too, not just the man she loved in Nashville. “You are seriously messed up,” she said to herself as she walked back to her car in the parking lot. It was the only one there, other than an old wreck with no tires or windows, and as she opened her car door to leave, she saw a flash of movement behind her, as the same stray dog leaped out of the rusted old car and stood barking at her. His fur was plastered to his head in the rain, and she had never seen a dog look so pathetic, or so ugly. He was no beauty, but he was lively. And his blond matted hair that looked like a toupee made her laugh at him, and stoop to pet him.

“Well, hi, there. I've been looking for you.” He'd cleverly used the abandoned car for shelter. “You are a mess.” She could almost hear him saying she didn't look so great herself, and she stood there in the rain trying to decide what to do, and left her car door open. With one glance at her, he jumped into the car, sat on the front passenger seat, and barked at her, as though to tell her to get in and let's go home. She took the posters she'd made out of the car then, walked to three lampposts in the parking lot and attached them with the staple gun, and went back to where the dog was waiting on the front seat of her car. “Okay, you win,” she said to him, and with that he lay down on the front seat and went to sleep as she smiled at him.

She stopped at the supermarket on the way home, and bought some dog food, and a collar and leash in the pet section, and she called the SPCA from her car phone, and described him. They said they had no missing dogs listed with that description but the man she talked to listened carefully when she described him as a miniature Appaloosa, dachshund, Chihuahua, maybe Yorkie mix.

“I'm not so sure of that,” the man at the SPCA said after she'd described him. “He sounds more like a rare pedigree breed, they're called Hairless Chinese Crested. Their bodies are hairless and kind of brindle and spotted, with ears, head, and tail with what looks like a wig with a bad blond dye job. And they do look a little like a Chihuahua, only slightly bigger, right?”

“Exactly.”

“They're rare and expensive. Someone will call us,” he assured her. And in the meantime, she made a bed for him in the kitchen, he slept a lot, and he was happy to see her whenever she walked into the kitchen. She told Chase about him, and he said the dog sounded ridiculous.

“I thought he's a mutt,” she told Chase the first night. “But he isn't, he's some rare breed called Hairless Chinese Crested. He's the silliest thing I've ever seen, and he's really sweet.” She sent him a photo of the dog, with her cell phone, and Chase called her back laughing.

“Are you kidding? That's not a dog, he looks like he's wearing a wig. We should get him a job in Vegas.” They both laughed about it. But by the end of a week no one had claimed him. She'd even left a notice with Pets Unlimited, which had an adoption center, but no one called. She sat looking at him in the kitchen a week after she'd found him and shook her head. She had debated about giving him to the SPCA to find a home for, but he was so cute and funny, she didn't want to give him up.

“Looks like it's you and me, kid. But you've got to stop wearing that bad toupee. You just look silly.” He barked at her as though he thought so too, and his middle section looked naked and even more absurd with the spots. “I think you need a good haircut and a sweater.” She took him to a pet shop that morning and bought him a red sweater and red collar and leash, and the pet shop owner recognized the breed immediately and told her how rare they were.

“I've always wanted one, but they're too expensive and look kind of delicate to me.” He wasn't though, and had survived his homeless life on the beach, and when she took him to a vet, they told her he was about a year old, very healthy, and slightly small for the breed. They gave him his shots in case he'd never had them, and asked Stephanie his name. She stared at the dog blankly.

“I don't know. He didn't tell me.” The dog barked and looked more like a normal Chihuahua in the red sweater, and she couldn't think of any Chinese names. “Pedro. Pedro Gonzales,” she said with a straight face as though she'd just remembered, and they wrote it down and opened a file for him under Pedro Gonzales Adams. She had a dog. She called Chase as soon as they left the vet, and she sounded elated.

“I'm keeping him. No one called for him. His name is Pedro.”

“I wish you sounded that excited about keeping me. I can't wait to meet him,” Chase said with a loving tone.

“The vet says he's about a year old, very healthy, and a little small. And he is that Hairless Chinese Crested breed. He really looks weird.” He had seen that from the picture from her cell phone.

“My vet says I'm forty-eight, and very healthy too, and, listen, if you're into blond wigs like that, I'll wear one.” But he was happy she had company. She had been sounding so down and lonely, and he felt that way too. Sometimes he was frustrated by her search for herself, which was keeping them apart, but he tried to be patient about it, so as not to upset her further, and slow things down. He hoped she'd come to some positive conclusions for them soon. She had been doing volunteer work for the homeless shelter again when they needed her, and her kids were coming home for Thanksgiving in a few days. But she still had no answers and she was no closer to coming back to Nashville than she had been before she left. Chase was going to Memphis for Thanksgiving with his son, and Michael had invited Sandy to San Francisco for Thanksgiving, and she was coming. Her girls were in an uproar over it, but Stephanie supported Michael's decision to bring her.

“Mom, it's our first Thanksgiving without Dad. He can't bring her.” Charlotte had objected, and Louise was incensed.

“Yes, he can. It will be good for all of us to have someone new here.” She didn't want them crying all day. It was going to be hard enough as it was. And she saved Pedro as a surprise.

Charlotte and Louise flew home from New York together and arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and Michael and Sandy landed two hours later. By Wednesday evening, Stephanie had her whole family at the house, and was facing the weekend with trepidation. The girls knew she had left Nashville three weeks before, and they were hoping that her romance with Chase was on the rocks, but no one asked. And she didn't know the answer to that herself. She and Chase still spoke to each other, sometimes several times a day, and were in love, but Stephanie couldn't figure out how to be part of his life without feeling she had given up her life and everything she was. And she felt that there was no way to do it by half measures. She was either in or out, as far as she was concerned, and for now she didn't know which. And Chase was so miserable he was writing songs about her every night. He said it was one of those extreme times when the only outlet for his sadness was in the creative process, which made her feel even more guilty. She was still in some kind of downward spiral, and the only thing that cheered her up was Pedro, and the calls from Chase.

The girls were the first to arrive, and Charlotte went out to the kitchen to get a drink, and Pedro was standing in the middle of the room in his red sweater, staring at her, and she screamed as her mother and sister walked into the kitchen.

“Oh my God, what is that?” Charlotte said, laughing at him. “He looks like a rat in a wig.”

“Don't listen to her,” Stephanie instructed him. “His name is Pedro, and he happens to be a very fancy breed called a Hairless Chinese Crested.”

“Where did you get him?” Louise asked with interest, and even she looked amused. He was so funny looking, even in his fancy red sweater. And his name seemed to suit him.

“We met on the beach.” She picked him up as she said it, and he licked her face. He was affectionate and very well behaved, and rarely left her side. She couldn't imagine how his previous owners had lost him. And she had sent away for his dog license and ordered ID tags. She'd even had a chip put in his shoulder with her name, address, and phone number on it in case he got lost again. She had fallen in love with the funny-looking dog, and both girls liked him.

Charlotte and Louise were more pleasant to her than they'd been in a while, and Louise was the first to ask her, with a hopeful look, “So is it over with your rock star?”

“No, it isn't. We're trying to work things out, or I am.”

“It must be a pretty uncivilized life in that business. He looks a little rough around the edges on YouTube.” Stephanie didn't like the remark.

“He's not,” Stephanie said quietly, “other than long hair and tattoos. He's a gentleman, and a lovely person. I'm the problem, he's not.” She hadn't liked the tone of what her daughter had said. Louise was all too willing to think and say bad things about him, and about her mother too. And even Sandy, whom she'd never met.

“I hope you're going to be nice to Sandy,” she said to both of them, but she considered it unlikely, and she thought Michael was courageous to bring her, but he wanted to be with her for Thanksgiving. And Stephanie could only imagine what it would have been like if she had tried to include Chase. They would have been extremely rude, and she didn't want him subjected to their abuse. He was a good man, and she loved him, and he deserved a lot better than that.

The girls went to their rooms, and Stephanie came downstairs the moment she heard Michael and Sandy arrive, and Stephanie gave her a big hug. Sandy looked thrilled to see her. And as they were hugging, Pedro came out of the kitchen to check them out. Michael burst out laughing as soon as he saw him.

“What on earth is that?”

“His name is Pedro, and he lives here,” she said with a broad grin, as Sandy hugged her again, and Michael picked the dog up.

“I've never seen a sillier dog in my life. Or is he some kind of hamster?” She told him about the breed, and they both laughed as Michael set him down and Pedro began dancing around in circles and barking. He looked like a wind-up dog on the sidewalk, the kind street vendors try to sell to children. It seemed to be some kind of trick he had been taught, and Stephanie had never seen him do it.

“How's Chase?” she asked Sandy softly as they walked upstairs to Michael's room with her bags, and her face grew serious immediately.

“He's very sad, and he looks awful. All he does is stay up all night and write songs about you.” What she said and her expression when she said it nearly tore Stephanie's heart out.

“I really miss him,” she said to Sandy as they walked into Michael's room and she set her bags down. Sandy was wearing jeans, a white V-neck sweater, and a leather jacket with her blond hair loose down her back. She seemed like any other girl her age, and she was wearing very little makeup. She only wore heavy makeup and sexy clothes when she was on stage. A moment later Charlotte walked into her brother's room, and the two girls looked each other over. Stephanie couldn't help thinking they were like two dogs circling each other. Charlotte was curious and cool, and Sandy seemed nervous and held Michael's hand. Stephanie was letting them share the room. There was no point pretending they weren't sleeping with each other. She would have done the same for the girls, although Bill would never have allowed it for any of them. Things had changed. They were Stephanie's rules now, and Michael had thanked her for it, and added that he would never have brought Sandy home if his father were alive. Stephanie had always been more practical and more relaxed, and Bill more puritanical for their children.