Baumgartners Empty Nest (The Baumgartners) (8 page)

“Jody, I mean it.” Carrie shook her phone like she could reach out and shake her too. “This isn’t about you. I’m just... I’m a fucking coward. That’s what I am.”

“You don’t have to tell him,” Jody said softly, her southern accent softening her words. “You don’t ever have to tell him. I’m happy with this, you know. With us.”

“You don’t want more?” she asked. That broke her heart too. “I mean... if I tell him... when I tell him... it could open up all sorts of possibilities...”

Or close them off entirely. But she didn’t want to think about that.

“Like what, babygirl?” Jody’s mouth twitched with a smile. “You guys gonna adopt me?”

“That would make up for not being adopted as kids, huh?” Carrie laughed. When they’d become friends so long ago, both of them had been housed in at the Judd Center, with a bunch of other foster kids who had wanted to be adopted as much as they did. No one had ever adopted either of them, in the end. The “uncle” who had shown up to take Jody down south to his home in Georgia had turned out to want his then-nephew as slave labor on his farm. Carrie had drifted from placement to placement until she was done with high school.

“I have a life here with Jackie,” Jody reminded her. “And you’ve got a life with Doc.”

“But you’re not happy...” Carrie swallowed. She hated bringing it up, because it always made Jody look so sad when she did. “You’ve told me so.”

“What’s happy?” Jody shrugged one slim, brown shoulder, waving the word away with a hand tipped with long, pink, pearly nails. “I have everything I need here. You know, I loved Jackie… and I think he loved me. Once upon a time. But this isn’t a fairy tale, babygirl. Now… now I need him.”

“Why do you need him?” Carrie asked, leaning back against the headboard, her knees drawn up as she cradled the phone in her hands. “Honestly, why? You don’t sleep together. He’s gone all the time. And when he is around, all he has to say is jump, and you say how high...”

Jody sighed, that sad look back in her eyes. “It’s complicated.” 

But Carrie wasn’t willing to let it go, not this time. They had the opportunity to meet, to see each other, to touch each other, even if was just a brushing kiss on the cheek and long, lingering embrace. Carrie wanted that. Was it too much to ask?

“He wants you to transition,” Carrie went on, bringing up a topic that Jody had avoided since she first, tearfully, told her about it. “Do you really think he’s going to give up on that idea? You act like he’s going to forget about it or something. You keep putting him off, but you can’t put him off forever.”

Jody wouldn’t look at her. She just shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Carrie thought she saw tears gleaming in her eyes and knew she shouldn’t have brought it up. But she couldn’t understand how Jody could stay with a man who didn’t want to accept her choices.

“Jody…” Carrie swallowed, trying to find words to make it better.

“Look, I know.” Jody cleared her throat, shook her head, pulling her long, dark hair over one shoulder. “I know, okay?”

“Jody, you have to realize...” Was she really going to say this? But even the lump in Carrie’s throat didn’t hold the words back. “All the money he’s spent on your surgeries and everything else so far. He seems like the kind of guy who’s used to getting his way.”

“He is.” Jody pursed her lips, then her gaze shifted back to her phone screen, back to Carrie. “You think you don’t know how to tell Doc about us? Well, I don’t know how to tell Jackie that I’m happy the way I am—that I don’t want any more surgeries.”

That stopped her. Carrie hadn’t yet broached a difficult subject with her husband, but her issue paled in comparison. Jody was facing something far greater, and she didn’t blame her, not really, for being unable to speak up. Who was she to judge? She hadn’t even found a way to tell her open-minded, polyamorous husband that she was in love with a transgendered woman.

“You’ve made a bargain with the devil,” Carrie whispered, as if that devil might overhear.

“I know.” Jody’s voice was choked, barely audible. “But I can’t leave. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Well...” Carrie’s spine straightened. “Maybe you do.”

“No.” Jody looked away and Carrie saw a tear slip down her cheek. “No, I don’t.”

“Don’t say that.” Carrie pleaded with her. “You don’t know…”

“Neither do you. You haven’t even told your husband,” Jody reminded her softly. “You can’t expect him to open his arms to me, just because you want him to.”

Carrie’s voice was small. “I think he’d get used to the idea...”

“I want someone who wants me, not someone who has to get used to me.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She sighed, wishing she could put her arms around Jody and just hold her. If she could only do that, just that. “And... I want you.”

“I want you too, babygirl.” Jody sniffed, swiping tears off her cheek.

“So let’s meet for lunch,” Carrie urged, trying hard to persuade her. “It’s just lunch.”

“Hm, like our first phone call was just going to be a quick call...?” Jody teased, her eyes glittering with the memory. Carrie flushed, remembering. They’d spent four hours on the phone that first time, reminiscing, talking about the directions their lives had taken since.

And then there was the phone sex. The attraction had been so strong. Instant. It hadn’t taken Carrie long to assimilate the fact that the Jody she’d known as a boy was now, in fact, a woman. Although, it had been several weeks before Jody confessed that she hadn’t fully transitioned. And a month or more before she’d confessed that, in fact, she didn’t want to transition any further at all.

“If I tell Doc, will you meet us for lunch?”

“Just lunch, huh?” Jody’s smile widened, that familiar, mischievous look back in her eyes. Carrie was glad and grateful to see it.

“I swear.” Carrie held up two fingers. “Girl Scouts honor.”

She laughed. “You were never a Girl Scout.”

“No, but I love their cookies.” Carrie grinned back.

“Justine!”

The loud voice startled them both. Jody actually looked scared for a moment, and it made Carrie’s heart leap to her throat.

“I’ve got to go,” Jody whispered, holding the phone so close, all Carrie could see was her perfect, lipsticked mouth.

“He calls you ‘Justine’?” Carrie asked, but Jody was already getting up from her lounge chair, heading toward the house. She saw flashes of Jody’s red bikini, her navel ring, as she walked, carrying the phone. “Jody? Are you okay?”

“We’ll talk later,” Jody whispered, and ended the call.

* * * *

They stopped in Chattanooga to spend the night in a hotel. Florida was a twenty-four hour drive from their Michigan suburb. They might have done it all in one day back in their college days, but not anymore. Instead, they checked into a Holiday Inn. Nothing fancy, just something with a bed and a shower in a neighborhood that seemed safe enough to park Betty Blue.

Carrie didn’t like sleeping in a strange bed. You never knew what you were going to get in a hotel, but the king-sized mattress was nice and firm and she actually slept pretty soundly, once she actually got to sleep.

Doc nodded right off, snoring gently, one arm thrown over his eyes in the dark, but he’d been driving for almost ten straight hours. Carrie was the navigator and D.J.—which wasn’t nearly as taxing—with her iPhone plugged into Betty Blue’s GPS and sound system.

Not that she wasn’t tired. She was. But her last conversation with Jody kept her awake, tossing and turning, looking for a cool spot on the pillow.

We’ll talk later.

That was the last Carrie had heard from her.

No response to texts, emails, Facebook messages, FaceTime, or Skype. Nothing. And Carrie had tried. She’d texted Jody so much over the past ten hours, Doc had finally demanded to know just what in the hell was going on. Carrie had confessed, a little hesitantly, that she was worried. She didn’t say why exactly—just that Jody was having boyfriend troubles, and hadn’t been responding to her various attempts at communication.

“Should we go by there?” Doc had asked, looking concerned. There was nothing like a damsel in distress to bring out the best in him.

“I don’t have her address,” Carrie had confessed. She could have kicked herself for not getting it before they left. It had been Doc who originally broached the subject of seeing Jody on their way through Georgia. His suggestion, his idea. Of course, she still hadn’t told him her secret. Jody’s secret.

“Well, keep trying,” Doc had told her, handing her phone back. “Maybe she’s listed?”

But she wasn’t. And there was no Jack or Jackie Benton listed in the Atlanta area. Carrie had checked.

So they went to bed without having heard from her, and the moment Carrie opened her eyes in the morning, still disoriented, not quite even knowing where she was yet, she reached for her phone to check for a message from her.

Nothing. Still nothing.

They were an hour out of Atlanta, The Eagles playing on Carrie’s iPod, both of them singing along to Life in the Fast Lane, when her phone rang. The Bluetooth picked it up and the song faded. Jody didn’t even wait for Carrie to say anything.

“I’m in trouble, babygirl.” Her lilting, southern drawl came through the sound system.

“Jody?” Carrie grabbed her phone out of the stand, pressing the button so she could take the call of Betty Blue’s speakers. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what to do.” She sounded stunned.

“What happened?”

“He flew off the handle.” Jody’s voice was low, like she was trying to keep someone from hearing her. “I told him. I told him everything. And he just went insane. He’s off his nut. I don’t know what to do.”

“Where are you?” Carrie asked, her heart beating hard. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well I’m not daft,” Jody said, snorting. Carrie could almost see her rolling those big, dark eyes. “I packed my bag before I told him. And I high-tailed it out of there when he started throwing stuff at my head.”

“Oh Jody...” Carrie glanced over at her husband when Doc put a hand on her bare knee. He squeezed, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” Jody let out a long sigh. Her voice was shaky. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. He’s going to find me. Carrie, if he finds me...”

“He’s not going to find you. Hang on one sec.” Carrie hit mute and looked at Doc. She put her hand over his on her leg. “Can we stop? We’re going right through Atlanta.”

“Sure.” He agreed instantly. “What’s going on?”

“The boyfriend. He got mean.” Carrie didn’t like to think about just how mean. She was almost afraid to ask. “Jody’s left him but he may come after her. Can we take her with us?”

“To Florida?” Doc’s eyebrows went up.

Carrie bit her lip, nodding.

“Are you asking if we can keep her?” He grinned, squeezing her knee.

“We’ll cross that bridge later.” She smiled knowingly back at him. “For now, we’ve got to get her away from him.”

“Get an address,” he said with a nod.

Carrie unmuted her phone. “Jody, where are you?”

“I don’t have a car,” she said. “I walked down the street and called a cab. I had him drop me downtown at the Westin.”

“Is that a hotel?”

“Yes, babygirl.” Jody chuckled. “The Westin Peachtree. But I was sitting here, thinking about what I was going to do, and I realized… I can’t use my card to rent a room. And I paid the cab driver with the last of my cash.”

“It’s okay, we’re on our way,” Carrie assured her. “We’re about an hour from Atlanta. Can you wait there for an hour?”

“There’s a bar and I’ve got a pretty face,” Jody told her. “I’ll be fine for an hour.” 

“Okay.” Carrie laughed. “We’ll pick you up in the lobby of the Westin Peachtree in downtown Atlanta.”

Jody hesitated and then asked, “Are you sure?”

“Are you kidding me?” Carried exclaimed. “Yes, I’m sure!”

“What about Doc?”

“He knows you’re in trouble.” Carrie met her husband’s dark, concerned gaze. “He wants to help.”

Jody’s voice lowered. “But he still doesn’t know...”

“Uhhh.” Carrie looked out the window at the cars passing by, biting her lip. “...no.”

Jody just sighed.

“Is she sure she’s going to be safe there?” Doc asked, shaking Carrie’s knee, jolting her attention back.

“Jody, are you sure you’re going to be safe there?” she repeated. Her stomach was doing slow flips and she actually felt a little nauseous, thinking about Jody being in danger.

“I imagine it’s going to take Jackie a little while to get out of the handcuffs, so yes, I think I’ll be all right until you get here,” Jody drawled casually.

“Handcuffs?” Carrie exclaimed. Doc’s eyes widened.

“Did you think I was going to tell him without a plan?” Jody scoffed. “I might be crazy, babygirl, but I’m not stupid.”

“You handcuffed him?”

Doc chuckled, muttering under his breath, “Good girl.”

“Well, yes,” Jody admitted. “But that was before I told him. Jackie likes to be restrained and roughed up a little bit. It’s a thing with him.”