Life Without You (3 page)

Even when Bette had come to her own decision as an adult to find and become active in a church, her parents had refused each and every invitation she had given them to join her for a service. But that was hardly the issue at hand.

I smiled at Bette, raising my hands in surrender.

“God forbid I
ever
do that,” I said, shaking my head. “I love your granny. And I know she’d sooner give up her prized collection of bake-off trophies than ever stoop so low as actually letting a store-bought pie pass through her doorway. Much less a
Sara Lee
.” I felt the smile slip a bit. “But you and I both know that you’re angling for a spot, and having a tea or mixer or whatever-the-heck y’all Junior League ladies do would help you along.” I shrugged. “You can admit it. I just don’t know that having it at my place would really be the best idea, in the end. It might actually
hurt
your chances.” I paused, looking for the best way to frame my argument without slamming my own living conditions or making her feel like I was judging her for whatever was happening between her and Steve.

“I’ve never had any issues with the neighbors on either side of me; but there’s a guy in the next building who likes to give everyone in the complex an eyeful, and the couple in the unit below mine has loud disagreements all the time. Much slamming of doors and hurling of Spanish expletives happening,” I said, deciding to lay it all out on the table and hoping it would be an effective deterrent.

“You speak about as much Spanish as an English bulldog, Dellie,” Bette replied, looking dubious. “How would you know what they’re saying, expletive or otherwise?”

I shrugged. “Educated guess.”

“Uh-huh. You’re just trying to talk me out of what you think I’m going to be doing while you’re gone. Which, for your information, my dear, is completely mistaken. I’m trying to be a good friend here, and you’re pooh-poohing it.” She clucked sadly.

Obviously, I wasn’t hiding my skepticism very well. “No, I’m just trying to help you see the bigger picture. My apartment isn’t exactly…Junior League material?”

“Honey, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Bette replied simply. Clearly, she had this all thought out. “I have no intention of letting my chances at the committee slip through my fingers just because Steve’s got his head up his rear and is thinking more with his weenie than with his brain.” She shook her head emphatically, looking smug. “He’s got some kind of corporate thing at work that day, so the man will be tied up and sadly unavailable to come in and ruin things. Or let the cat out of the bag that we’re having issues.” Bette’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s the last thing I need: one of the other women getting wind of the fact that Steve’s having trouble keeping his eyes on his own paper.”

“But what does that have to do with you being able to run for office?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Nothing,” she huffed, which sent her ample bosom heaving. Bette was nothing if not blessed with cleavage, and she knew how to work it. “But they like to gossip, and any inkling of scandal sets them off.” Her eyes rolled at the absurdity of it all. “Doesn’t matter that half of them have an entirely too intimate relationship with the wine bottle or that their own husbands are banging boots with the secretary. They look for any excuse to gossip.”

I snorted. “What year is this? And really, ‘banging boots?’ Since when do
you
say, ‘banging boots?’?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You want me to say something a little less ladylike?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No, no. I get the picture. Just call me curious. I’m a writer, remember? Comes with the territory.”

“Uh-huh. Back to the subject.”

“I think I’ve lost track of the subject,” I said honestly, wracking my brain to remember how we’d even gotten to this particular point.

Bette picked up the last French fry on her plate and pointed it at me. “You. Vacation. Your need for a break,” she enumerated.

How the woman remembered in the midst of all the verbal chaos was beyond me. In fact, I’d been holding on to a small sliver of hope that she really would forget this particular topic in favor of her own problems, but she was like a dog with a bone.

“But,” I started in protest.

“You’re not getting off that easy, lady.” Bette shot me a steely gaze. “I’ve known you way too long not to know your little tricks. You’d do well to remember that,” she warned.

I sighed. “I know. I guess I’m still afraid. You know how much I worry. And I can’t seem to stop doing it, either.”

Bette grinned. “My shrink would love you. Maybe she’d start to think I was normal!”

“
Hey
,” I said in mock insult. “I’m
normal
,” I insisted, trying—and failing—to convince both of us.

“Honey, you know I love you; but you’re far from normal.” Bette giggled. “That’s part of your charm.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re not winning any awards for normalcy, either.”

Bette grinned again. “Normal is overrated. What can I say?”

“Well, still,” I said, dropping my gaze to my hands in my lap. “Sometimes I think normal would be refreshing.”

Bette reached across the table to tap a finger lightly on my nose. “Hey, you. You’re tough, you’re beautiful, and you’re smarter than anyone knows what to do with.” Her eyes sparkled with emotion. “You’ve just had one hard run of it lately. But maybe this is just what you need. Like pressing ‘Control-Alt-Delete,’ if you want to geek out,” she concluded, echoing the words Charlie had spoken in our last conversation.

“Maybe you’re right,” I conceded. “Maybe you’re
all
right.” My nose burned with tears. “I’m just chickenshit sometimes.”

“Honey,” Bette laughed. “You’re the farthest thing from chickenshit. Don’t sell yourself short. You just gotta go out there and remember who you are,” she said simply, looking pleased with herself for offering such sage advice. “You’re a strong Southern woman who takes no nonsense,” she insisted. “Make this an adventure, Dellie. Don’t hide behind your computer.”

Chapter Three

I stared up at the ceiling, wondering, not for the first time, when I’d let my life get so out of balance. When I’d stopped seeking new adventures and started hiding from them.

Bette was right. I’d been allowing myself to hide behind my computer, and it was time to stop.

Could I afford a vacation, though?

Airfare, a place to stay, food…all of that would be hugely expensive, especially if I was to take everyone’s suggestion and go somewhere for a month.

And besides that, where would I go? After all, I lived in Florida, in a part of the state that people regularly flocked to for vacation, shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars to lie on the sugary white sand of our famous beaches. We walked the fine line of still being part of the Deep South, with some very traditional Southern ways of thinking and living, even while so many people heard the word
Florida
and immediately envisioned places like Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, where the glitterati ruled and the air of sophisticated living was tempered only by the high population of the retirement communities. Here, we had Southern culture, lived a more slow-paced life, ate the food steeped in the traditions of the South. We said
Ma’am
and
Sir
and respected our elders. We welcomed visitors with open arms, still very much accustomed to showing people Southern hospitality.

In short, I was trying to plan a vacation
away from
the very place that many people vacationed
to
.

As I lay there in the dark, my mind was devoid of ideas. Sure, there were all kinds of places I’d always dreamed of going, but I couldn’t afford any of them—not for a weekend, let alone a whole month.

I closed my eyes and shifted under the covers, savoring the feeling of being snuggled up in bed. With the odd hours I kept, I didn’t spend much time between the sheets, but when I was there, it was like heaven.

Think, Dellie
, I ordered my brain. If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?

To the bathroom
.

The thought came so suddenly it almost made me giggle, which, given my current circumstances, would probably test my bladder far beyond its limits.

I tossed aside the bedsheet and blanket and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, fighting back a grumble of frustration that was forming over my forced departure from the comfort of my bed, even if it was only a momentary one.

I flicked the light switch and blinked rapidly as my eyes tried to adjust to the harsh brightness. I tripped over my own feet as I blindly made my way further into the bathroom and somehow managed to knock over a small bottle of perfume I’d had resting on a narrow shelf above the towel bar. The stopper fell out; and perfume began to pour onto the shelf before I could set it upright again, releasing the heady scent of a fragrance that I’d never worn, one that my grandmother had loved while she was alive.

“No!” I howled, reaching for the upended bottle and trying to stop the spill before every drop was lost. I’d been foolish to place such a top-heavy bottle in such a precarious position on such a narrow shelf, but it was so pretty that I’d wanted to put it somewhere that I could see it and be reminded of my grandmother. My cramped little bathroom needed all the decorative help it could get, and the elegant, sparkling bottle had seemed the perfect way to spruce things up just a bit.

“No, no, no!” I moaned, seeing that there was only the smallest amount left. The liquid that had pooled onto the shelf began dripping onto the floor.

I was about to let out another whimper when a thought shot through my mind.

Grammie’s
.

I wanted to go to Grammie’s.

Not that she was there anymore, but that was the way I would always think of the house in Hampton that she had shared for more than fifty years with my grandfather. I hadn’t been there in so long.
Far too long
. I’d missed the funeral earlier that year, explaining that I couldn’t take time away from work, that I didn’t have the money for the plane ticket.

Would Grandpa be welcome to the idea of me coming there to stay with him for a whole month?

But even if he was, there was still the issue of a plane ticket. And a car to use while I was there. And…

I shook my head, trying to shake away all the questions and quiet my mind. They would have to wait until tomorrow, when I could do some research and find out what plane tickets cost and I could call Grandpa to pose the question for myself. All the wondering in the world would get me nowhere if I never did that.

I finished in the bathroom, cleaning up the mess from the spill and doing what I’d come in to do in the first place, then toddled back to bed, trying to hush my overactive brain enough to let sleep come. Tomorrow was Saturday, one of the two days I allowed myself get the amount of sleep that a normal human being needed to function properly, and I savored those extra hours.

Once I was up, I’d start the quest for information.

And make a phone call that I should have made long ago…

My fate, it would seem, was literally in my hands as I stared at the flight itinerary that had been so thoughtfully sent to me by US Airways.

I was all booked on a flight out of Pensacola to Newport News, with a three-hour layover in Charlotte. It was real, set in stone—or whatever the Internet equivalent of stone might be. The flights were set and paid for, the seats that would anchor my overanxious ass preassigned and awaiting the arrival of my rump. The plane might have been ready, but I was not.

At least, not mentally.

My bags were hungrily awaiting their sartorial satisfaction, and every other bit of pre-trip preparation that needed to be taken care of had been thoroughly executed. Bette was happily counting down the minutes until she could take over her
pied-à-terre
, and my family was all quietly celebrating the victory of finally having convinced me that I really and truly did need some time away.

And so, less than a week after the initial proposition was made, cyberspace served up a bit of adventure and notified me that I could no longer keep the idea of a trip in that someday-maybe-I-should realm of unrealized musings.

Best to bite the bullet.

I clicked around awhile on my laptop, idly wondering what might be going on up in Virginia’s swingin’ city of Hampton during my month there, hoping I would find something to mitigate the overwhelming nervousness I felt.

I shook my head, wishing I could find that almost explosive sense of glee that I had always had as a child getting ready to go to my grandparents’ house. True, I wasn’t a child anymore, but Hampton was still Hampton. What had changed more than anything, I realized as I sightlessly wandered around the world in Wi-Fi, was the fact that Grammie was no longer there. The magic she had so unwittingly brought to her surroundings was now gone—residual, perhaps, in the memories—but no longer to be captured.

So was that what I was so afraid of? Facing that feeling of…loss?

Or was it that I was afraid to face
myself
, to push myself out of the hole I had created for myself and so deeply burrowed into?

It was safe there. It was secure.

It was controllable.

Nothing about this trip, if I was honest, was comfortable or truly controllable.

Which scared the absolute you-know-what out of me.

I picked up my phone and started punching out a text to Bette.

Wondering what to wear on flight to Virginia…and how many in-flight cocktails are allowed.

I plinked the words out, then hit Send.

I stared at the message of carefree bravado on the screen.

It sounded so
que-sera-sera
. So easy breezy.

So far removed from the roil of emotions that was actually running through me.

So very, very much braver than I felt. So very, very much the brave woman I wanted to be.

Fake it ’til you make it.

And I was determined to make it. Part of a new project I’d begun since booking my tickets was to make a bucket list of things I wanted to do: some were things that were completely new for me. Some were things that I’d once enjoyed but that had been cut from my life, once I’d let my fear start running the show. One of those bucket-list items was to take a trip, which I hadn’t done since before I’d gotten married, even. Once upon a time, I’d felt bold and adventurous and audacious in hitting the road or booking a flight all on my own. Anxiety had shut me off from that, had robbed me of the excitement I used to feel and replaced it with a sense of dread at being out of control, away from the zone of safety to which I’d confined myself. Taking this trip to Hampton was one way to combat that, to try to reclaim even the smallest sense of adventurousness that I used to have. I’d felt a thick mixture of fear and triumph as I’d crossed that one off my list, determined to go, even if I was in a cold sweat when departure time came.