The Storm (Fairhope) (14 page)

I could still see doubt flickering in her glassy eyes. “All right, Jana. I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”

We sat in silence until we got to Starbucks. I watched her staring apprehensively out the window, knowing she was still picturing Gavin doing who knows what with the mystery woman.

She sniffled, more tears gliding down her cheeks. “Work has been stressful, too. I haven’t received commission in two months.”

“I know how you feel.” Work and stress were synonyms in my internal thesaurus.

“No, you don’t, Jana. Andrew probably makes three, four times what Gavin is bringing home. You could survive without your entire job. When I don’t get commission, we have to count every penny before something as miniscule as renting a movie. Maybe you won’t have a huge savings account, but nobody’s going without in your house.” Bitterness snarled its way through her words.

The shock must have been written all over my face.

Once again, Grace covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, Jana. I take it back.”

“It’s okay. I wish I could make everything better for both of us.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Forgive me?”

I touched her shoulder comfortingly, rolling down my window. “Of course, Grace. What’s wrong with you is called pregnancy.”

Pregnancy without your bipolar medication, which is not very smart.
Voicing my opinion would do no good.

She slumped down in the seat, and I noticed splotches of yesterday’s mascara dripping down her cheek. “Thanks for being here for me, even though I’m a bitch sometimes. Caffeine helps.” A feeble smile crept across her gorgeous-yet-messy face as we waited to order.

Guiltily, I felt like a second rate best friend. Channeled deeply in my own problems, I recollected her number flashing on my cell phone at least three times that week, but her calls went unreturned.

I handed her a few tissues, the good kind soaked with lotion and Vicks.

“Okay, enough of that crap.” Grace sat up straight in her seat as I rolled down my window. “Let’s talk about something more lighthearted.”

The attendant came over the speaker. “Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get for you today?”

“Amen to that,” I said to Grace.

“Ummmm … I want a tall iced mocha, definitely with whipped cream….” I looked at Grace, and she mouthed,
mocha frappe, grande.
“And a grande mocha frappe without caffeine.”

She set a gift card in the palm of my hand. “This is my treat, a peace offering for my bitchiness.”

Obligingly, I accepted. “Love you, girl.”

“I know.” Her mood shifting rapidly, as I was accustomed to, she yanked her large Kate Spade bag from its temporary home on my backseat. The mischief in her eyes was unmistakable. “Okay, this will take our minds off my insane theories. So … I was packing up bags in our guest room, which as you know is my junk room, and look what I ran across…”

She whipped out a four-by-six frame and shoved it in my face. “Ha! You remember this?”

I burst out laughing as I stared at Grace’s signed True Love Waits pledge. She was nearly crying. “How … could … I forget?” I thanked the attendant, who was looking at us, understandably, like we were nuts. I hurriedly grabbed our drinks.

We were fifteen, and the Southern Baptists forged a True Love Waits campaign in our public school system, back before anything that even hinted at religion was cause for a lawsuit. Young, awkward, and boyfriend-less, I was determined to keep my legs closed until I got married. Grace and I had shared many conversations over Nacho Doritos, Chips Ahoy cookies, and chilled Dr. Pepper about how special it would be to save that gift for our husbands.

“How far do you think we can go, and it be, well, you know, still pure or whatever?” I think we were fourteen when she asked me that. It was a good question. I remember how embarrassed I felt at the wetness that pooled between my legs during my first kisses. Was a kiss supposed to make me feel like that? Maybe I was a freak.

I’d thought about it a lot after letting some boy go up my shirt. “I think as long as we don’t go all the way, we’re going to be doing better than ninety-nine percent of the world.” I’m sure that was not the opinion Daddy would have liked to hear.

However, as we sat in the crowded school gymnasium that day with all the other happy virgins, Grace was strangely quiet. I watched her curiously as she dutifully signed her red and white pledge, placing her hands neatly in her lap like a prayerful nun. I, Grace Thomas, pledge to remain a virgin until my wedding night.

Grace’s head hugged the ground as we walked to her car after school that day. She was not speaking, which was disturbingly rare. Her wild hair hung in her face, keeping her eyes hidden.

“Grace, are you sick?” She unlocked the doors, and I plopped in my designated passenger seat.

“No…” She glanced at me shamefully. “I can’t do this anymore. I have to tell you something.”

“Oh, God. What?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head. “You’re going to die.”

“Okay, WHAT?” I was dying to know her secret. Had she cheated on our algebra test? I knew it! She never got better scores than me. Or, did she really call Katie Klein’s boyfriend like Katie had accused her of? I wanted to believe Grace, but I knew how much she hated Katie that year…

“I just CAN’T. Never mind. I can NOT tell you.”

“Say it, Grace. We are best friends. No secrets, remember? I’m not getting out of your car until you say it.” I folded my arms and stared at her defiantly.

Approximately sixty seconds of silence later, she slowly pulled out her True Love Waits card and set it on the dash. “I’m a liar, Jana.”

Confused, I cocked my head. “Huh?”

She fidgeted in her seat nervously, playing with the air conditioner. She made a face and nudged awkwardly toward the pledge. “I’m a liar.”

And then it dawned on me. My mouth gaping open, I struggled to find the words. “Oh. My. God. Grace. You’ve freaking had sex?!” I was shrieking.

She would not look at me. “That’s not the worst part.”

Suddenly, I knew. “Dear God. Don’t tell me.” I thought I was going to be sick. I closed my eyes and saw Grace and Daniel’s Homecoming dance picture from the year before, which still sat on my nightstand. I didn’t even think it was that serious. Maybe a kiss or two, but not…

Cowering away from me with a fearful expression on her face, she finally said, “I slept with Daniel. Like, six times.”

“YOU SCREWED MY BROTHER?” I tried to get out of the car, but she locked me in. Defeated, I got up in her face with my mouth wide open. “So you lost your virginity to … Daniel?” I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.

She was nearly hyperventilating. “Oh my God, I did it. I can’t believe I told you! I thought I was in love with him! It’s been horrible to keep it from you this long. That’s why I always wanted you to come to my house after Christmas last year. I was so hurt when he broke up with me.” She paused. “Seriously, Jana, you know your brother’s hot. And he’s definitely not lacking in the parts department.”

My hands flew to my ears. This was too far—she was enjoying watching me squirm. “Stop right now. I do not want to hear another word.”

Grace cowered near the door. “There’s one more thing.”

I glared at her, but against my better judgment, I wanted to know. “What?”

“You remember that night me and you ‘camped out’ in our sleeping bags after Halloween? You know, when we went trick-or-treating as ghosts even though we were way too old?” One of our neighbors had called us out on our advanced age and told us we should be ashamed of ourselves. At least I got two fun-sized snickers out of the deal. Poor Grace was allergic to peanuts.

“Yes…”

“We snuck inside, and we did it in your … bed. We would have had to go past your parents to get to Daniel’s room.” She cringed and looked at me with a strange sort of hilarity.

I punched her on the arm, hard. “That. Is. Disgusting. Why would you tell me that?” I felt nauseated, so I took off my sweater and fanned myself with my English binder. The thought of my best friend screwing my older brother was gross. Pointedly, I turned the radio up loudly to 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” How fitting.

She grinned at me. “We promised to keep no secrets from one another, and now I have none from you.” She stretched her arms over her head and feigned a dramatic sigh of relief. “I feel so much better now.”

Now, we roared so hard we were crying as we remembered her confession. My throat dry from laughter, I slurped down half of my drink in one sip. “Oh, Grace. I was so mad at you. I never told Jessica that you and Daniel dated in high school.” My brother married Miss Alabama … literally. Skeptical at first, it did not take me long to see that she was as pure and beautiful at heart as she was in body.

“Ah, we were kids.”

“Yeah, but she’s
Jessica.
I bet she’d never even given a man a hand job before. She’s never even had a sip of wine.”

“I love sweet Jessica. I couldn’t stand for her to look at me and think about how I know what her man’s got…”

“And you KEPT the pledge!” I was convulsing in laughter again.

“Well, I had good intentions, you know? I can’t help it my best friend has a completely irresistible older brother. Hey, you didn’t make it, either, whore!”

“No…” My voice trailed off as I remembered
my
first heartbreak. It was a
Strawberry Wine
love story; we met the summer after I turned seventeen, and I gave myself away to the whirlwind romance. “I didn’t make it.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize how much I liked having sex. What I
didn’t
realize was that I sold a piece of my heart with every burst of pleasure, and there was no return policy. I’d rolled my eyes when Mama said that the man who touches your body touches your heart, especially the first one.

But she was right. When college called and he fell for Liz from Kappa Delta, I was left behind in Fairhope with a shattered heart and wishing with every fiber of my being that I had kept that pledge. When he rang my doorbell the next summer with a bouquet of red roses, I mustered the strength to flip him off and slam the door in his beautiful face before I soaked my pillow with sobs.

Closing my eyes, I tucked the memory back where it should be, buried deep and replaced with the forever love of Andrew that I would never trade.

“Not many do keep the pledge,” Grace said resignedly.

Breaking me out of my deep thought, she popped my arm and grinned. “Hey, I have an idea. If you end up jobless and I catch Gavin with his pants down, I will be your model and you can paint me. Just paint me twenty pounds lighter and with no breakouts.” She posed for me, throwing one hand on her hip and roughing up her waves with both hands. She tightened up her bra straps, cleavage spilling over the top of her loose tee. “How’s that?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” She never failed to draw a smile out of me.

My thoughts floated back to Gavin and this woman as Grace chattered all the way back to her house. Still convinced it was not an illicit affair, something was still
off
about it if he was so defensive. What was in that envelope that was so important that he sought her on his day off? Who was she, and how had they met? Come to think of it, he had not been his normal cheerful self lately.

He didn’t even speak to anyone last Sunday after church, ignoring Andrew’s obvious gesturing to get his attention. His gun hanging from his hip, he couldn’t escape fast enough after the preacher’s last fiery words on redemption.

He stood Grace up on our last double date … claiming a work-related emergency had arisen. Grace didn’t even know he was on duty that night.

Hmmm. I decided against regurgitating the subject with Grace, who needed no reason to worry.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I sensed something strange brewed in Grace and Gavin’s world.

“Jana, you are the best. Thank you for showing up last minute. This is why you have become my favorite rep.” Dr. Tynes gave me an appropriate side hug. We had just finished up an emergency case and were stopping to get a quick bite to eat in the hospital cafeteria. “How much longer until that little girl gets here?”

His adorable, four-foot-eleven redheaded surgery nurse, Layla, clasped her hands together and cooed. “I can’t wait, honey! She will be drop dead gorgeous if she is a mix of you and Andrew.” She smiled warmly as she showed the cashier her grilled chicken salad and Diet Coke.

My selection screamed clogged arteries, but I could not have cared less. I was having a chili dog, French fries, and a double chocolate brownie. “Eight weeks, guys. I don’t think I’m ready!”

“You’re so tall and thin, you can still hardly tell that you are expecting.” Layla’s compliment was met with a blush on my part.

Amazingly, I positioned myself favorably with Dr. Tynes despite Collin’s best efforts to pin me as the weak link. Since I became his rep, our sales numbers exceeded our goals. It helped that his Boston Scientific representative, who he most certainly was
not
sleeping with (she was his
niece
, for goodness sake—Collin obviously had his slander wrong), quit.