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His replacement.
He looked around the office that had been his for almost two years. He wasn’t a knickknack kind of guy. There were some awards on the wall, a picture of the Wainwrights from Lainey’s first birthday on his desk next to his Stan Musial–signed baseball.
It would take him ten minutes tops to erase himself from this office, and he didn’t know what that said about him, or his job, or his life; he only knew it felt like it meant something—something not particularly good.
* * *
MEG PACED THE SIDEWALK outside the church trying very hard to breathe through the sobs that racked her body.
She couldn’t hear what was happening inside, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She didn’t want the prayers or priest’s words telling her Grandma was in a better place. What better place was there than here—at Meg’s side?
Meg tried to mop up her face, but she’d neglected to bring tissues, so she had only the collar of her dress and the backs of her hands. And she just kept crying, so it was a completely useless exercise anyway.
She might not want to be in there, but she knew she should be. Grandma would want her in there, would consider it the right thing to do.
But she also wouldn’t want a scene, and if Meg tried to get in a second time...
The broken sob was impossible to swallow down. How could they turn her away from the funeral? How could they ban her? Grandma wouldn’t have wanted that. Grandma had always loved her.
No matter what.
Meg knew, in a way, this was her fault. She hadn’t planned well and the black sweater she figured she’d throw over her tattoos had boasted a giant hole in the armpit when she pulled it out of her closet.
Meg had spent ten frantic moments pawing through her closet trying to find something acceptable to her parents that would also cover her arms and match and be suitable grieving colors and she’d just...given up.
What was the point of scrambling through your closet when your grandmother was gone and your family was going to snub you anyway? To her parents, the tattoos were the visible slap in the face of all Meg had thrown away, all the shame she’d brought to their doorstep. In the world of her parents, appearances were everything.
So she’d accepted that Mom would sneer at the simple black dress that allowed some of her tattoos to be visible. She’d accepted that she’d probably have to sit alone, maybe even toward the back of the church.
But she’d never imagined it possible, not in a million years, that her parents would bar her from her own grandmother’s funeral.
The church bells tolled and Meg felt like she was eight again, alone outside this church, not understanding what was wrong with her—why her parents would rather pretend she didn’t exist than hug her.
She’d run out of church one Sunday, determined to just run. Because the priest could talk all he wanted about God’s love, but it hadn’t been infused into her parents. All they’d ever cared about was what their friends might have said behind their backs, or to their faces. The deals Dad might have lost if certain business partners found out he couldn’t control his daughter. The Carmichael name.
“I won’t go back there,” she muttered aloud, no doubt looking like an insane person. But surely this couldn’t be the worst behavior anyone had ever seen at a funeral.
The stately church doors opened with a groan, and everyone began processing out. Red eyes, tears, handkerchiefs. Some people didn’t look twice at her. A few of her distant relatives touched her arm briefly on their way to the cars that would take them to the cemetery.
But everyone knew not to stop and talk to Meg. Meg the addict. Meg the failure. Meg the giant black splotch on a proud and old-moneyed family.
When Mom approached, her eyes held more fury than grief, and all Meg wanted to do was leave to find a drink. Find oblivion. It had been a long time since she sincerely wished for something else to take her away, but that wish was so deep, so big, it was all she could think about as Mom bore down on her.
“You are not wanted,” Mom hissed.
“You made me miss the service, but you cannot bar me from the cemetery.”
“Yes, I can, because I care about how this family looks. Do you really think your grandmother would want you here reminding everyone how you’ve continually thrown your life away?”
Meg wanted to speak, wanted to yell, Yes, she would want me here. I know she would want me here. But she couldn’t form the words, not in the face of her mother’s righteous fury. Meg’s decisions as a teenager had been a betrayal to the Carmichael name that Mom would never forgive.
“You are not welcome, Margaret,” Mom said, before smiling at an elderly couple who walked by them.
Margaret. Meg’s hated given name. “All I want is to say goodbye. I will stay out of your way,” Meg said, trying to be strong.
Dad stepped between them, easily clamping a hand over her mother’s elbow. “That’s enough.”
For a brief, blinding moment Meg actually thought her father was standing up for her. All the grief and confusion, for just one second, felt bearable. Like she could handle it if one of them stood up for her.
But then his icy blue gaze landed on her face, and his mouth went into a firm, disapproving line. “You’ve done enough to upset your mother. You ought to be ashamed of yourself making a scene like this.”
“I...” But she couldn’t finish the denial. She didn’t want a scene. She didn’t want to feel like she was fifteen and emotionally bleeding all over the place in front of them while they sneered and pushed her away again, but here they were, making it happen anyway.
Blaming her. Looking down their noses at her. When she was theirs.
“She’d want me here. You know she would,” Meg managed, trying to firm her chin enough to lift it, trying to find strength somewhere deep, deep, deep down. Grandma’s strength.
“Well, we do not,” Dad returned, pulling Mom with him as they walked toward the sleek black car that would follow the procession to the cemetery where nearly a century of Carmichaels were buried.
In the end, Meg couldn’t force herself to go. She didn’t know how to fight them. She never had. She might be an adult, but they could still make her feel as though she was nothing—or worse.
There’d only ever been one way to get rid of that feeling, and she wasn’t certain she could fight it anymore.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU’LL LAND ON your feet.” Mom pulled Charlie into a firm hug at the front door of the aging farmhouse he’d grown up in.
How the hell had this happened? This whole day was a warped nightmare. First having to hear the words he’d been let go, having to go through the day with the knowledge he’d poured so many years into that company. Outselling every junior salesman, climbing the ranks by sheer force of will and determination to succeed.
“It’s a good severance package, son. And I’m sure you’ll have a new job lined up in no time.”
Charlie tried to force a smile. He appreciated his parents’ support. More than he could fully feel in the numb aftermath of today. But he’d been lucky to grow up here, to have this family, even for all their problems.
Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood for support and hugs. He wanted to yell. He wanted to punch something.
“Thank you for dinner,” Charlie managed to say with some semblance of a normal voice. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
He knew he didn’t fool his mother at all, but she let him walk out into the night, knowing as she always did exactly what he needed. Which wasn’t support or coddling.
With stiff, heavy limbs he climbed into his car. At least it was paid off. Money really wasn’t an immediate concern. While he splurged on occasion, growing up the son of a struggling farmer, he’d been too practical to waste money. A nice car, a nice watch, a nice place, but he wasn’t like his friends, getting an expensive car every few years, eating at expensive restaurants every night, filling every inch of their lives with stuff.
Money and even finding a new job weren’t the issues. He’d have headhunters calling him next week. It was his pride that lay bruised and bloody on the ground, not to mention the sneaking suspicion he’d somehow failed before he’d even lost his job.
What good was success if it could be unfairly ripped out from under your feet?
Christ, he needed a drink.
Normally that would mean heading back to the city, meeting friends. But heading back to the bustle and lights and his still-employed friends sounded a lot more painful than heading to an old New Benton townie bar.
Maybe he’d be able to remember how good he had it surrounded by people way worse off than him. He drove away from his parents’ house, past Dell’s warmly lit cabin, dissatisfaction uncomfortably digging deeper and deeper.
By the time he got to the Shack, an aptly named dilapidated building with neon lights that only half still worked, he was ready to get so drunk he wouldn’t even know his own name. Something he’d never done, not even in his college days.
Because he was Charlie Wainwright. He followed the rules. Did what he was supposed to. All so he could succeed.
And for what?
Those words kept haunting him. All day. Over and over. For what?
He walked through the smoky bar, low strains of old-time country music twanging in the air. The room was mainly filled with old men in overalls, older women in ill-advised leather and a few people who probably looked a lot older than they’d ever actually be.
He strode up to the bar, ordered two doubles of their best bourbon, which was not very good at all, then situated himself on a barstool.
It might not be the practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing with a problem, but what did it matter? The practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing had gotten him here—with nothing to show.
You’re pathetic, Wainwright.
Not something he was particularly proud of, but he’d give himself this weekend to wallow. Indulge in a few un-Charlie-like things. Monday he’d nip all this self-loathing, self-pitying in the bud.
But for tonight...tonight he was going to wallow. He knocked back the first drink, and then the second, before gesturing to the bartender that he wanted another. Once that third drink was comfortably downed, he looked around the dimly lit barroom.
The blonde in the corner caught his attention, first because her hair was a kind of honeyed blond, not the near white of the cougars in leather. Second because her arm, just barely visible, was streaked with color.
Hey, he knew that tattoo. Yes. He got off the barstool and made his way over to her, plopping himself down at her table.
“I know you,” he said, pointing at her. “Goat Girl.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t call her that. That wasn’t very charming.
Fuck charming. He didn’t feel like being much of anything.
“I prefer Capra Crusader for my superhero goat name,” she replied, unsmiling, though he was pretty sure it was a joke.
She was wearing a black dress, which made the colorful arm all that more bright and noticeable. Her forearm was the oddest antithesis to this bar. A sunny blue with white puffy clouds. He couldn’t make out what was above her elbow because the sleeve of her dress cut it off.
In the past he would have made a joke about the tattoos. Maybe not to her face, but at least in his head. I-don’t-want-a-job tattoos.
But her job didn’t require the level of respectability that his did. Oh, wait, he didn’t have a job. “Buy you another?” he said, gesturing to her glass.
She stared hard at the remnants of whatever her first drink had been. Then stared equally as hard at the bar behind him. “You’ve bought my soap, might as well buy me a drink,” she said eventually. “Can’t go back anyway,” she muttered.
He didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He meandered back to the bar, got two drinks, belatedly realizing he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. So he ordered four different drinks. Couldn’t hurt.
He carefully carried the four glasses back to her table, only sloshing a little over his fingers.
“I bring variety,” he announced, the heat of the liquor quickly spreading from gut to his extremities.
A nice feeling all in all. Kind of numb and tingly. No heavy failure constricting everything. He felt light and fluid. Very nice indeed.
“So, what on earth are you doing here?” she asked, pulling one of the glasses close to her. “Don’t tell me you actually live in New Benton?”
“No. I don’t.” He sipped his bourbon, studying her. Her eyes were almost the same blue as the sky of her tattoo. Wisps of blond hair framed her round face. She didn’t look like she wore makeup except for the slight smudge of black under her eyes.
“Let me guess.” She linked her fingers around the glass. Long, elegant, but with blunt nails painted black. She was quite the contrast. “Central West End?”
“No. Downtown.”
She snorted, taking a big, long gulp of her drink. “Yeah, you’re that type.”
“Type?”
“Mr. Super Yuppie. That’s your superhero name.”
Perhaps sober, practical Charlie would be offended, but relaxed, inebriated Charlie found it funny. And true. It was like this day had separated him from his life and he saw what a joke it all was.
So he laughed and polished off that fourth drink no matter how irresponsible it was. How would he get home? How would Goat Girl, er, Capra Crusader, get home? Eh, he’d figure it out. Later. “Super Yuppie. Well, at least I’m super at something.”
She waved a hand at him. “Oh, please, I’m sure you’re super at everything. Like I said, I know your type. Silver spoon, right? Private school. Mommy and Daddy paid for college. Oh, I know all about your type.”
“If I’m all those things, how did I end up solo at a New Benton townie bar on a Thursday night?” Because for as much of a yuppie as he might have turned into, nothing was handed to him on a silver platter.
She finished off the drink in a quick gulp, put the glass down with a thud and then leaned forward. Her dress was modest, but still, the leaning and the way her arms were crossed under her breasts meant he had a decent view. Meant he wondered if she had tattoos in other places. Meant he wondered...
“My eyes are up here, sir.”
He closed his for a second. “Sorry. Can I blame booze for my lack of manners?” When he opened his eyes, training them on her face, she was smiling.
“Manners are kind of a turnoff for me, so you’re absolved.” She pulled another drink toward her like one might hold a treasured object. “So, how did you get to a New Benton townie bar alone on a Thursday night? Decide to slum it a bit?”
“I grew up here.”
Her eyebrows drew together, her nose wrinkled. “Oh.”
“On a farm.”
Then her eyes went wide. “I...can’t picture you on a farm.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can.”
“So, you hated it?”
He shrugged. “Hate is a strong word. I didn’t love it. My father, the farmer, really didn’t love it. So I worked my butt off to do something better with my life.”
“My farm is the best thing that ever happened to my life,” she said vehemently, reminding him much too much of Dell.
“Yeah, well, different strokes and all that.” How had they gotten to talking about farms of all damn things? He didn’t want to talk about farms. “Why are you here? What sorrows are you drowning?”
“My grandmother’s funeral.” She pointed to her modest black dress. “I got kicked out.”
“Oh. Well, you win.”
“Don’t I just?” She downed the shot, exposing the slim column of her throat, a blue light casting an eerie glow to her pale skin. “What are you drowning?”
“Hold on. How...how does someone get kicked out of her grandmother’s funeral?”
* * *
MEG KNEW THIS was all wrong. Grandma would not approve. She wasn’t popping pills or snorting anything, but alcohol had led to drugs on more than one occasion. Not that someone like Mr. Super Yuppie would have any idea how to get his hands on illegal substances.
So, really, what did getting drunk matter? It was the lesser of two evils, and if she didn’t have something loosening the tightness in her chest, she was afraid she would just...stop breathing. Drown on land.
How had she gotten kicked out of Grandma’s funeral?
“Apparently daring to show my tattoos was grounds enough to be told I couldn’t be in the church. Then I was informed I was deeply upsetting my mother, you know, by existing. So I couldn’t go to the burial site. At least not without causing a scene and...that wouldn’t be right. They aren’t right, but neither would that be.” It wasn’t anywhere close to the full story of her parents’ disdain for her, but she didn’t have years, and this man wasn’t her therapist.
She stared at the drink. Three in. She didn’t feel numb or light or any of the things getting high used to do for her. She just felt heavy and sad and she couldn’t erase the look on her mother’s face, the hurtful words from her father.
Their little failure. She meant nothing to them. A stain to the Carmichael name, the worst thing two proud, conceited, powerful people could produce.
At thirty-two she should be over it, and on the day-to-day she was, but the fact they couldn’t take a break from protecting their precious image for her grandmother’s funeral...
It made her feel like nothing and, considering that was what had shoved her into the drug scene in the first place, considering she was sitting here getting trashed, was just pathetic.
“So, what’s your story?” she demanded of the man in front of her.
“Not as bad as yours.”
“Good. I want to hear all about it. So I can feel less pathetic. Spill. Every lame detail.” Even though it was wrong, she finished off the second drink and pulled the third one toward herself.
“I got fired. Sort of.”
“You? You look like a guy who spends Saturday night responding to work emails.” Just as her father would have been doing twenty-some years ago.
“Something I would do, yes. It wasn’t... I mean, I shouldn’t have been let go. But the company I worked for was bought out and I was axed to make room for their staff. Since I’m high up on the food chain so to speak, there wasn’t really room for me anywhere else.”
“Yeah, I definitely win.”
“If it helps, I’m having kind of a premidlife crisis over it.”
“That does help, actually. Tell me, Super Yuppie, what’s so terrible about losing your job? If you’re so great, don’t you just get another one?” Anytime Dad had bought out some mom-and-pop, he waved away the damage. Oh, those people will find jobs if they’re any good.
“Well, jobs at that level don’t just sit around. But you’re right, I’m not too worried about unemployment.”
“So why the crisis?”
He took one of her empty glasses, clinked the melting ice around before crunching a piece in his mouth.
She watched his throat move. He was dressed up in his yuppie best from the waist up. Striped polo short-sleeved shirt. Though his hair looked less perfectly mussed tonight, and the five o’clock shadow looked a little more accidental.
“Let me get one more. You want?”
She nodded, watching him head back up to the bar. She had no idea why she was attracted to him. The square jaw? The brown eyes with flecks of lighter brown and maybe gold? Or maybe the way he smiled without showing any teeth, like he was always holding back, which made her want to make him not hold back.
Or maybe she was just lonely and any guy would do. With alcohol thickening in her limbs, she didn’t care about the answer.
He returned with two drinks instead of four this time, which was good. She was going to need to call a cab to get home regardless, but anything beyond one more drink might lead to passing out.
Or other really bad choices.
“All right, you have your drink, tell me your sob story,” she demanded. Maybe whatever his lame crisis was would make her feel better about hers.
“That company, that job, it was everything I’d worked for. One more promotion and I would have been exactly where I wanted to be to start focusing on my personal life. You know, the wife-and-kids thing. Now I have to start all over, and I’m thirty-five. I’ve worked my whole life...for nothing.”
Even though it wasn’t as bad as losing her grandmother and being kicked out of her last chance to say goodbye, Meg did feel sorry for him. Because for all the ways he surprised her by not falling into type, he’d obviously wrapped his identity in his job, and he’d lost it.
She understood that. She’d wrapped her identity in being a screwup. She’d never lived up to her parents’ exacting standards, so why not thumb her nose at said standards at every turn? That had been the hardest part of getting clean, finding her real self, not how other people viewed her. “We’re pathetic.”
“So. Much.”
She looked around the smoky bar. It was getting late and a lot of the sturdier crew had disappeared a while ago. “You got money for cab fare?”
“Um. Sure. If we can catch New Benton’s one and only cabdriver.”
“I’m sure we can flag Dan down. Eventually. Let’s go,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I want to show you my goats.”
And that was only a little bit of euphemism.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHARLIE WOKE UP praying to every available god that he would not throw up. Or maybe he was praying that his head wasn’t going to roll off his shoulders and then throw up.
Why did it smell like...he didn’t know, but not his apartment, not the farm, not any smell he was familiar with? Kind of flowery, but not quite floral.
What had he done last night?
Gearing up for the onslaught of pain, he slowly squinted his eyes in a semiopen position. Then, despite the headache slicing through his skull, he opened his eyes completely, because he had no idea where he was.
Something moved next to him. He jerked, cursed at the sloshing of his stomach, eyes involuntarily closing again. He took a deep breath and let it out, willing the nausea away. And then opened his eyes to the woman next to him. In what he assumed to be her bed...
Goat Girl. That colorful arm of hers a shock of memory. The bar. The cab. They’d...
He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to remember, but everything was so blurry.
Goats. He remembered goats. Feeding them?
Christ.
He took another deep breath and tried to focus. The important thing, the most important thing, was that he still had pants on. And Goat Girl still wore the black dress she’d been wearing at the bar.
So, hopefully, whatever idiocy their drunken selves had been up to, it wasn’t sex. Because surely if they’d had a drunk hookup, he’d (a) remember, and (b) not have pants on. Surely.
“Damn.”
He dropped his hands, glanced sheepishly at... God, he didn’t even know her name, did he? Had he asked and forgotten? Surely they’d at least exchanged names?
But you didn’t have sex, so it’s fine. It’s totally fine.
Tell that to all the panic hanging out with all the ill-advised liquor in his bloodstream.
Her blue eyes met his gaze tentatively. She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, repeating the F-word approximately ten times.
“Please tell me you’re not swearing because you remember something I don’t.”
She peeked at him through her fingers. “What do you remember?”
“The bar. The cab ride. Goats. I remember goats.”
“I remember kissing.”
“In the cab?”
She nodded.
Yeah, he kind of remembered that. Kissing and laughing in the back of old Dan Riley’s cab. He really hoped that didn’t get back to his mother. Making out with some tattooed goat farmer in a cab.
Actually Mom would probably get a kick out of it. Dad, not so much. And Dell or, possibly worse, his little sister? He’d never hear the end of it.
“There was some...bra removal on my couch and subsequent...touching,” she added, her face all wrinkled up.