The Storm (Fairhope) (2 page)

“When did he ask you? Why?” The questions spurted from my mouth in between hurried chugs of hot cocoa, burning my tongue but not minding the sting. Fidgeting anxiously, I was wrought with restlessness
,
jumping out of my skin with an intense mixture of excitement and fear. I crossed and uncrossed my legs, impatiently awaiting Andrew’s answer as he carefully ignored me and continued typing on his computer. Click. Click. “Well?”

Andrew looked up at me, his rugged and tan face blank, closing his laptop. “He mentioned it about a month ago.”

“A
month
ago?” My irritation reverberated from one hollow wall to another. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you would have our bags packed … and I am not sure I am ready for that.” His patient reply was honest—honestly irritating—as his brilliant eyes lifted reluctantly to meet my expectant glare.

My fiery emotions shifted from irritated shock to boiling anger. “But you still should have told me!” Glaring at the man who promised to never keep secrets from me, I leapt from my comfortable perch on the couch and pointedly turned off the television. “How
could
you?” I started to tear up.

Andrew would have been perfectly happy to stay in Birmingham. He had crafted friendships with the guys at our new church and within the community—thank goodness, friends who did not frequent bars and eye women like slices of meat, which is how his crew back home in Orange Beach lived. His new set of pals shared his love of golf, and he never went a weekend without a buddy to play with. I was thankful to retire from my position of sitting on the golf cart, miserable in the heat, stuffing down a Snickers and a watered-down Coke. His developing career consumed the time he did not spend on the golf course, or, as he liked to affectionately claim, under Jana’s wing.

Magnetic and popular with a never-ending supply of class clown antics, Andrew lived in the moment. He was the coolest accountant anyone ever met. Only those who laid eyes on his gigantic Dave Ramsey/Suze Orman/Robert Kiyosaki collection could nod in understanding at his career choice. Part of my attraction to him was the pleasant surprise that someone so left-brained came packaged with such charm.

In contrast, underneath my salesperson smile was a reserved thinker who was determined to outdo expectations with unwavering persistence. A lover of painting, Andrew described me as “creative,” but in reality, my creativity stopped at my fingertips.

I loved him for his contagious charm; he loved me for my determined spirit.

That spirit he loved so much was about to unleash its madness.

Our eyes—his reflecting a minute speck of guilt, mine hurt—locked in a fierce stare until he raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes, and focused his attention back on his coffee. Furious at his refusal to speak, my anger rushed to the surface, and I fought to keep words I would regret from spewing. “That is a decision we should make together!” I realized I was nearly shouting as I clenched my fists as the feelings of betrayal churned in my gut. “Love how you waited to tell me until after you got yours.”

“Whatever, Jana. Let me finish.” He kept calm, which increased my irritation. “I know this is not the right time for us to move back. Our life could not be any more terrific, and what would you do? Quit Covington? We should take our time making a decision.”

I rolled my eyes sarcastically. “Of course we should.” My sense of urgency, and his lack thereof, had caused arguments on more occasions than I could count.

He ignored me. “I do agree that it would be better for us to live near our families when we have kids. But that’s not in the cards right now.” He paused. “I needed some time to process this before telling you. I knew you would flip out.”

I pursed my lips together furiously. Dramatically, I snatched my company car keys, slamming the door loudly behind me, tossing an emotional “I can’t talk to you right now” in my wake. I nearly wrecked as I pulled out of the parking lot, the thought that at least it was not really
my
car crossing my mind.

Grace, my drama queen best friend, was used to the typical unloading of frustration that was thrust upon her after I experienced a stressful situation. I waited, impatiently, for her scatterbrained self to find her cell phone, hopefully before the fifth ring. On the fifth ring, the call ended, and I would have to wait, wallowing in my frustration alone, for her to find her missing phone and call me back.

More like sisters than friends, Grace and I grew up on the same street, crashing the playground together daily as children. When she moved during our tenth grade year, we remained best friends, blowing up each other’s gigantic cell phones (they were
so
cool at the time) and grounded frequently for exceeding our minutes. When she moved back our senior year, it was as if she never left. Our friendship held steady through her broken relationship with my older brother, Daniel, my forbidden date with her crush who never returned her affections, and my animosity toward her snobby cheerleader pal, the one we called Kinky Katie, who liked to make snide remarks about how tall and skinny I was. (I would love for her to see me filling out a dress. “They” might be bought and paid for, but they were freaking perfect—36C and then some.) Grace and I chose different hobbies and made different friends, but things would be as they always were. Best friends.

“What’s going on, my Jana?” Grace was chewing something and laughing. “You’re not going to believe what happened to me today. I’m the luckiest girl in the world!”

She sounded overly animated. “Grace, have you been drinking?”

“No, Gavin said we needed to cut back, so I’m going along with it.”

Grace could walk in any room and instantly claim the role of life of the party. Like Andrew, she was truly amiable. Maybe all of five feet four inches, she had curves to kill for. With her blond waves, deep dimples, and full figure, I thought she resembled royalty in children’s fairy tales. Her clothes were authentic and glamorous; she grabbed everyone’s attention with her trendsetting. Laughter was her favorite sentence, and she
always
got what she wanted. When she turned twenty-one, she decided what she wanted was sexy-as-hell future police officer Gavin Milton, who was in a long-term relationship with the college beauty queen. After Grace Thomas “accidentally” tripped over him at a football game, he skipped the unsuspecting girlfriend’s Miss Congeniality pageant and accepted flashy Grace’s dinner invitation. Three months later, he proposed.

“So, what happened to you today?” I was impatient.

“Well! I got a call from the vice president of our company. He reviewed the regional marketing plan that I did and said that it was the very best one he had
ever
seen! He wants to fly me to New York City and let me sit on a special project team. I get to take Gavin, too. All expenses paid!” She continued rambling until finally, she paused. “So what’s up with you?”

I winced at how quickly she was talking. A little hypomania never hurt anyone, but when Grace dove into her endless chatter, it would only be a matter of days before the inevitable crash.

Underneath Grace’s incessant prattle and dimpled smile was a darkness hidden to most. Her first bout of textbook bipolar disorder surfaced after her parents separated when she was sixteen, and she fought the sadness that smothered her with an overdose of Valium. To the outside world, it appeared the separation was affecting her very little, shadowed behind her role as class president and captain of the cheerleading squad. Determined to remain “normal,” Grace internalized the emotions that tortured her. No one knew but me and her family. Finally, after meeting Gavin, and the right antipsychotic, she embarked on a rewarding career and seemed to land in a place of healing.

I missed Grace terribly after we moved to Birmingham only three months after she and Gavin settled in Fairhope. “You keep me grounded,” she said so often. I was the perfect complement to her mood swings; I could calm her with my boring rationalities, and I could count on her to listen with a dynamic ear. Naturally, she was the person I would turn to when I needed to process the fact that Andrew withheld information that could, after all, change our lives.

“Well, something really awesome could have happened to me, too, but Andrew is resisting fate." I shoved the episode into a sixty-second synopsis.

“Patience, Jana.” She sighed in response to my explosion. “Let a little time pass, and you will both see the right road. Don’t rush it, honey, or you’ll miss the scenery. Live in the moment.” Her voice was still too chirpy, even for her. Her medicine must have been working well that day.

Live in the moment? Not my forte. I had read and re-read Eckhart Tolle, but my ability to live in the present was definitely lacking. Patience was a virtue I had not quite mastered; the item that never got crossed off my New Year’s resolution list.

MONTHS LATER, AFTER my fury at Andrew subsided into slight aggravation, I was flying high on adrenaline, enjoying every challenge in my flourishing career. One of my top surgeons and another customer’s surgery nurse lived in my apartment complex, both females, and we socialized after work, building my business over hot fudge brownies and margaritas. I still think about those lazy nights under the star-streaked sky, laughing over husband annoyances as we drowned the day in whipped cream.

The prospect of moving back to Fairhope was never far from my thoughts, but the time flew as our activities multiplied, life a whirlwind of lots of work and little play. In the blink of an eye, fall arrived and settled in with its cool breezes, colorful leaves, and shorter days.

I left my house early on the day Chris told me about the sales force expansion. The October day was flawlessly clear and beautiful, abounding with chirping birds and absent of the muggy humidity that clouded fall days in Alabama. I rolled my windows down to feel the cool, whispering wind as I drove. I smiled, musing over my life … finally one to envy.

As I drove, my mind lazily floated away to my conversation with Andrew the night before…

“So, are you ready to start making babies yet?” Andrew grinned. An only child, he wanted a houseful of barefoot monsters. I was not so sure.

“Um, you get enough practice. More than your friends.”
I raised my eyebrows suggestively.
Since Andrew and I started dating, his friends accepted me as one of them, which meant being privy to dozens of inappropriate conversations over beers, boneless wings, and football games. No one held back when I was around, so consequently, I knew way more than I wanted to about his friends’ sex lives, or lack thereof, and they knew
way
too much about ours. All that was sacred elsewhere was public in my house.

Secretly, I was pumped Andrew bragged to his friends, saying I was a sex goddess. I thought he was the sexiest man I ever met, the only one who stole the breath out of my chest. Well, that is, except for that one night he shared way too much information after six mixed drinks. It took more than margaritas to erase the images of his previous conquests from my mind. I shouldn’t have asked.

“We can
make
a baby when you
make
it happen for me to go home.” Privately, I hoped it would take at least a year. Andrew’s overly Catholic mother seemed to think so, since her once-heathen son and OCD daughter-in-law were using birth control pills. “Your mother thinks we are going to hell for me being on the pill anyway. If I don’t get knocked up quickly, she’s going to say we are being punished.” I refrained from voicing the thought that crossed my mind—that I might be okay with that. Being a parent scared me to death.

I could have mimicked his unruly laugh that followed. “Yes, babe, I can see that coming. My mother’s fanatical.”

My heart ached to go home, even if it meant participating in somewhat agonizing religious discussions with my forceful but well-meaning mother-in-law. “Evangelistic” was how my father-in-law described her. Andrew and I considered ourselves “Metholic”—he Catholic, me Methodist. We attended a Methodist church because Andrew was fairly apathetic about where to go as long as they preached Jesus. I passed a Catholic church on the way to my meeting and frowned as I thought of my mother-in-law.

I rolled in to our meeting venue ten minutes early and decided to go inside and grab a table while I waited on Chris, who was hands down the best territory manager I could have asked to work with. Sadie, the endearing hostess who was finishing graduate school, had become a special friend over my years of visits. Dazzling in a light blue strapless stress and stylish open-toed camel heels, she opened the door for me.

“Hi, Jana!” she exclaimed with a bright smile, sweeping a lock of gleaming red hair out of her ravishing, sculpted face. I envied her pearly white teeth, which had probably never been abused by whitening strips like mine. “We’re just opening up. Coke?”

I giggled. “You know me too well.” I laid my computer and messy stack of reports on a nearby table, quickly scanning the wall for a plug. “Yes, Coke.”

“What does Chris want?” Sadie called out as she walked toward the counter.

“He said to get him a Diet Coke if I beat him. I have tried to convince him he’s dumping cancer into his bloodstream, but he won’t listen.” I flipped open my computer, anxiously checking to see if my latest numbers had come through.