The Fable of Us

  “Fuck me.” Boone whistled as we rolled to a stop in front of the house.

  “What?” I asked, getting jettisoned from the past into the present. I preferred the other option.

  “How many people are staying the week with your parents?” He craned his head out the window, focusing on something off in the distance.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Both of my sisters obviously, probably my mom’s parents, and maybe Aunt May, but there shouldn’t be that many. That’s what hotels are for.” I was wringing the hell out of my purse straps, wishing I’d drained another shot or two, because from the feel of it, the adrenaline and nerves had burned it all up in the drive here.

  “You better do a recount, Miss Abbott, because from the looks of the cars I can see parked around the carriage house, your place has become the Hotel Grand Charleston.” Boone pointed out the window, but I couldn’t see. Or maybe didn’t want to see.

  The thought of dozens of family members and strangers ambling around the estate made this trip even more intolerable. The house lacked no number of rooms, but it lacked in other things. Notions like privacy, which I would need if this plan with Boone was going to fly. With dozens of people wandering the estate, that meant Boone and I would have to act the part of the loving couple around the clock, no slip-ups.

  Even when we’d been together, for real together, we hadn’t been capable of that. How in the hell were we going to manage it now?

  “You sure you want to do this?” Boone’s hand dropped to the door handle, looking just as ready to open it as keep it sealed shut.

  I made myself look at the house. The one I’d grown up in for eighteen years until fleeing it like the devil was chasing me. I’d been back three times since, always fleeing in much the same way. Why did I keep coming back? Why did I continue to put myself through this? Oh yeah . . .

  “I don’t have a choice, Boone. You of all people should remember that.”

  His knuckles went white as his grip tightened on the door handle. “You’ve always got a choice. You have a choice now, and you certainly had a choice then. Don’t blame them for the choices you made.”

  Here we went, mucking through the past again. This wouldn’t work. I should have sent Boone away right then. I should have paid him the ten grand just to leave, because showing up with Boone Cavanaugh as my date was going to drip a few more drops of nitroglycerin into the pot. My family wasn’t even on curt-greeting-while-passing-on-the-sidewalk status with the Cavanaughs. Boone should have been the last person I’d picked to pay to be my date this week.

  But then flashes of my sister’s picture went through my head. Avalee was engaged. Charlotte was about to be married. Everyone was expecting me to show up with a date. Everyone had expected me to be the first to get married.

  If I showed up alone . . . God, I didn’t want to think of the comments I’d get, or imagine the potential “suitors” my mom would line up for me. No, this was a good plan.

  At least better than showing up alone.

  “I’m not blaming anyone,” I said as the driver unloaded the luggage from the trunk. “I’m not blaming my parents, my sisters, you, Ford, or anyone else for anything. I’m just trying to get through this right now, so would you mind cutting me a little slack?”

  His expression stayed frozen. “Does that mean we’re doing this? We’re going, willingly into a pit of vipers?”

  I reached for the handle on my side. “We’re doing this.”

  He sucked in a quick breath through his nose, then threw the door open. “Then let’s get started so we can finish already.”

  His hand wove free of mine as he stepped outside to help the driver with the luggage. The luggage . . . there were only two pieces of it—my matching set. We had nothing to show for Boone, not even a small overnight bag.

  This might have been the most ill-fated plan ever conceived.

  “Boone!” I threw my door open and ejected from the backseat. “You have to hustle up to my room without being seen. We didn’t think to pick up a suitcase for you. My family won’t miss it. They’ll ask questions right from the start, and I’d prefer to delay them until at least day three or four.”

  I threw my purse strap around my neck and shoulder, fishing around for my wallet to pay the driver. The fare had been steep, as in a couple hundred dollars steep, but I guessed that was what one could expect when they spent forty-five minutes camped out in some bar, drinking cheap tequila and bickering with an old flame.

  The driver gave another low whistle after I handed him the bills. “Mighty generous tip, ma’am. Thank you much.”

  I nodded in his direction before zeroing in on Boone, who had a piece of luggage in each hand and was starting for the stairs. “Did you hear me, Boone? They can’t see you. Not tonight.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Because I don’t have any luggage.” He paused with his foot on the bottom step. He didn’t look even a fraction hesitant about climbing the stairs to the house that had been just as responsible for eating away at him as it had me. I yearned for that kind of strength. “But who are you kidding, Clara? Your family has always lived under the impression I never had anything more to offer than the clothes on my back, so me showing up with no luggage shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.” He continued up the stairs, his boots stomping against each one like he was trying to drive his heel through them.

  I rushed up beside him, grabbing his elbow when he’d stomped his way to the top stair. “Boone, please,” I said, panic sharpening my voice.

  He stopped long enough to glare at the large double doors in front of us before his gaze moved my way.

  “Please?”

  He tried holding his glare while looking at me, but it didn’t last. A moment later, he sighed. “I won’t be your dirty little secret this time, Clara. Not again.”

  My hand curved around the bend of his arm. “I know. You won’t. I’m not going to keep sneaking you in through windows or lying about who I’m out with. I promise. I just need tonight to gather my thoughts and collect my wits before they start firing questions our way.” I glanced at the doors, half expecting them to fly open before a stream of family came crashing around us. No one came though. “Okay?”

  Boone stepped away from me until my hand fell from his arm. “I’ve never been able to say no to you. Why would that have changed now?”

  He wasn’t looking at me like I was guilty, nor did anything in his voice hint at the same, but there had been few times in my life when I’d felt more guilt. Boone was right—I’d hidden him from my family, keeping him a secret for months. Boone had it in his head that I did that because I was ashamed of him, but the truth was I’d been ashamed of them. Ashamed because I knew they wouldn’t accept him. Ashamed because I knew they were the type of people who judged a man first by the size of his wallet and second by the size of his heart.

  Ashamed because I knew they’d arrive at the conclusion that their daughter was too good for that nothing of a boy with a dead-end future, and I knew the truth—Boone Cavanaugh was too good for the likes of me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered before I made my way up to the door.

  My parents had around-the-clock staff manning all areas of the estate, and even though I knew proper protocol was to ring the doorbell and wait for the butler to open the door and welcome us inside, we were going incognito tonight.

  When I tried the door handle, I found it unlocked. It was past ten o’clock, which meant my dad was just about to doze off from his third brandy of the night, and my mom was probably layering her fifth night cream onto her face before downing a sleeping pill and passing out.

  So why did I feel like I was about to be pounced on?

  “You remember where my room’s at?” I whispered to Boone as I opened the door as slowly and noiselessly as I could.

  “Hard to forget the room of the girl I lost my—”

  “Shhhh.” I lifted my finger to my lips and fired a warning look back at him.

  “Yes, I reme
mber where it is,” he said, his voice quiet once again.

  “As soon as I open this door, I want you to run up those stairs and don’t stop until you’re closing my bedroom door behind you. Okay?”

  His nostrils flared ever so slightly. “Whatever you say.”

  Once the door was all the way open, I waved him inside, rushed in behind him, and closed the door. The foyer was empty, and other than the clocks I heard ticking in the library and living room, I didn’t hear a sound. Maybe everyone was already asleep.

  “Hurry,” I whispered, motioning toward the stairs Boone was staring at like they were insurmountable.

  All he did was give me a look. That look said more than any words could have. Then he lunged up the stairs, taking them two at a time like my suitcases were empty.

  Once Boone had reached the top and disappeared down the hall, I rolled my neck a few times before wandering toward the kitchen. Someone was awake and around. The gate hadn’t opened itself.

  The journey to the kitchen took longer than I remembered. The house had been built two hundred years ago, during a time when excess and extravagance was the thing to do for those Southern families with money and a good name. Over eight thousand square feet and with so many rooms I couldn’t recall half of them, this place might have seemed like a palace for a young girl to grow up in. For me, it had been a prison keeping me jailed from the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to be with.

  “The Abbotts had all been cut from the same cloth” was the way people around here phrased it . . . save for one soul. Me. I’d never been one of them, though I might have shared their last name. Even from the time I was a child, I’d known that. Their goals weren’t mine. Their ambitions weren’t mine. Their outlooks on the world and views of people deviated drastically from my own.

  I hadn’t just been the black sheep of my family—I’d been the wolf. The very thing that threatened their existence.

  At first I put up a fight when they tried to mold me into something that more closely resembled my mother and younger sisters, but after exhausting myself, I got sneakier. I played the role they wanted me to act when they were around, and I picked up the person I really was when they weren’t looking.

  I’d played their game for so long though, parts of me started to become like them. It had taken me a while to recognize that, but when I did, it became a big part of why I crossed the country to get away.

  A big part, though not the only one.

  When I reached the kitchen, I found it just as quiet as the rest of the house. I was about to slip back into the foyer and escape up the stairs to my bedroom when I heard it. That sound had been a staple in my childhood, responsible for making me want to run in the opposite direction. Given it was my mother’s voice, I should have wanted to run toward her.

  “Where is she? Where is that beautiful firstborn daughter of mine?”

  The hair on the back of my neck rose on end. From the sounds of her heels echoing, she was just crossing the foyer, successfully cutting off my escape route. I was considering turning and running . . . somewhere, when my opportunity disappeared. My mom had noticed me and come to a stop in the middle of the foyer, holding that all-too-familiar smile in place like it was all that kept her anchored to the world.

  Past most people’s bedtimes, my mother was still dressed in a stylish light blue skirt suit and ivory heels, her makeup looking as if it had just been applied and her jewelry sparkling as if it had just been polished. She was pristine. That was my mother in one word. Pristine . . . but that only applied to the surface layer. What resided below that wasn’t quite so flawless

  “Clara Belle,” she said in that voice that held both a gentle and a sharp edge to it, making a person unable to decide whether they were being insulted or complimented. “It has been too long since we’ve seen that gorgeous face of yours around here. Get over here and give your mother a hug.” She outstretched her arms, waving her hands inward, waiting for me to come to her.

  That was the way it was with my mom and me—I went to her when she wanted, how she wanted. Never the other way around. This time included.

  “Hey, Mom.” I headed her way and put on the face that said this was no big deal, coming home with years of bad history in my room right now. “Sorry I’m so late. Delays at the airport.”

  Giving the cinnamon mint a hard suck right before I stepped into her arms, I lifted mine and wrapped them around her. The motion was stiff, forced. Hugging my mother came as unnaturally as breathing under water.

  “But I checked your flight status all night. Not a single delay to be found.” She patted my back a few times, honey in her voice, vinegar behind her words.

  My shoulders tensed, but they relaxed a moment later. I might have been out of practice, but stretching, manipulating, and all-around evading the truth came right back to me. “Baggage claim hold-ups. They thought they lost my bag in Phoenix only to find out another passenger had mistakenly taken it. Thank goodness they realized it before too long and ran it back to the airport for me.” I was talking too much, explaining more than needed. So maybe I was a little out of practice.

  “What an unfortunate inconvenience,” Mom said, winding out of the embrace and stepping back. Distance was as important to her as it was to me.

  We stood like that for a minute, quiet and watching each other, waiting. Waiting for what, I didn’t know, but something we’d been waiting for for years. Mom gave me a careful investigation, the one I was used to getting every time she saw me for the first time after a long stretch, and though she kept her thoughts to herself, her expression laid them all out to be read.

  Sometimes I wondered if part of the reason I’d resisted my mom so much was because we looked alike. So similar in our features that when childhood pictures of her and me were put side by side, it was impossible to tell who was who. Where my sisters had taken on my father’s darker features—honey brown hair and hazel eyes—I’d gotten my chunk of DNA from our mother.

  Though she’d been dyeing hers for years, our hair was the same cornflower blond, a stark contrast to our deep blue eyes. We were built the same—petite with curvy figures—and I’d even been told we moved in the same way. After growing up in her shadow, being mistaken as her by old relatives nearing senility, and earning praises for my looks—which I knew my mom cared about more than my being praised for my intelligence or personality—I rebelled with what I could.

  I couldn’t change the way I looked, not much at least, but I could change the way I thought. I could change what I was made up of on the inside . . . and I had. Maybe a bit too late to make a difference when I’d still lived in Charleston, but enough to have made a difference in my life since.

  “Look at you, already cozy in your jammies for the night.” Mom pinched the hem of my T-shirt, her gaze skimming the frayed cuffs of my shorts.

  In California, this was the way most of the population dressed. In the South, within the boundaries of Abbott Manor, one didn’t dress like this unless they wanted the cops called on them after being mistaken as a vagrant.

  “And what happened to that long, thick hair of yours?” Her hands moved to the ends of my hair, her fingers combing through it like she was hoping it would grow back to its former splendor right before her eyes. “Don’t you worry though, Clara Belle. Hair grows back, and when it does, don’t you dare see the butcher of a beautician who did this to you”—she gave a chunk of my hair a tug, shaking her head—“ever again. I’ll have Janine do a little asking around and find out who out there in California knows a darn about women’s hair.”

  “It’s a big state, Mom. Might want to specify to Janine that I live in the Santa Barbara area, because I’m not driving to San Diego for a shampoo and style.” I held my smile and took a couple steps back, far enough away that my Mom couldn’t keep ripping through my just-above shoulder-length hair. The last time she’d seen me, my hair had still been long, halfway down my back, and so thick I could barely get a ponytail holder around it once. Ev
eryone had loved my hair, touching it and claiming just how far they’d go to have the same kind. Everyone loved my hair . . . except for me.

  That was why I’d walked into the beauty salon a couple years ago, had her hack off a foot to donate to Wigs for Kids, then thin out what remained attached to my head. I’d lost what felt like ten pounds of hair that day, and a thousand pounds of weight off my shoulders. I was my own person, no longer subject to the Abbotts.

  “I’m sure we can find someone who will fit the bill,” she said. “A new hire at SuperTrims would be an improvement.” Her voice trailed off in that familiar way it had for years whenever she’d delivered an insult. She always masked it with a shrug and a just-barely audible tone, but it never tempered the intent of her message.

  I made my smile stretch. Kill them with kindness—it was the Southern way. When in Charleston, do as the Charlestonians. “I’ve missed you so much, Mom. I’m glad to be back.”

  She covered her chest with her hand. “I’ve missed you so much too, baby. You’d better not stay away so long again or else I might just have to lock you away the next time you come visit.”

  I was considering replying with something along the lines of visiting family being a two-way street, then I reminded myself that I did not want my family visiting my home in California. I didn’t want them to be a part of the life I’d made for myself. They belonged here, not out there.

  “Girls!” my mom shouted over her shoulder. “Your sister’s here at long last. You won’t believe what she’s gone and done to her hair.” She shot me a wink and waved. “It’s just hair though. It’ll grow back before you know it. Don’t worry a bit, Clara Belle.”

  “I didn’t plan on it,” I replied, bracing myself as I heard a duo of heel strikes heading this way. From their pace, I could tell they weren’t in a particular hurry to reach me, though that might have had more to do with the height of their heels than their actual excitement, or lack thereof, to see me.

  Avalee was the first to make her way into the foyer, a fairy in every way save for the pixie wings—small in size, wide and curious eyes, graceful in motion. Because of the decent enough age gap between us growing up, I’d always felt closer to Charlotte, though Avalee and I were more alike.