Jilted Page 9

  Too anxious about the move and the drive, Carter barely ate before they left in the pre-dawn darkness. “Can I have a chip?” Carter reaches for the can. Paige moves it out of his reach and slaps his hand.

  “This can of Pringles is the last purchase I made with the last two dollars left in my account, Carter. These Pringles are the most important thing in my life now. I can’t believe you would try to take that from me.”

  Carter rolls his eyes so hard he accidentally drifts to the left lane. “Sorry I asked,” he says, as he settles back into the right lane at a reasonable four miles over the speed limit. He may be imagining it, but he swears Paige crunches her next chip extra loud to rub it in.

  The drive will take them through Arkansas, over briefly through the westernmost end of Tennessee, and then cover a very long stretch of Mississippi. Carter engages the cruise control and stretches his ankle a bit while the road is clear. Something bumps his arm.

  “Hey!” He flinches, then, “Oh.” Paige offers him the rest of the Pringles. There are only four left, but still. “Thanks,” he says, sincerely. They are the most important thing in the world to her, after all.

  After a long, quiet stretch of highway, Paige tosses her phone aside, groans, and announces, “God, this is so boring.” Before Carter can remind her, yet again, that she did not have to come along and is free to go away at any time, she demands, “So other than Matt, what are you running from?”

  Eighteen

  “I’m not running from anything,” Carter says after another long stretch of road. Though he did quite literally run away from Matthew at the condo, he’d like to think he’s running toward something.

  “It’s totally understandable,” Paige says, putting her feet back up on the dashboard. “I’d be too humiliated to stay in Aurora too.”

  “Gee, thanks, Paige.”

  She shrugs. “Just keeping it real.”

  Nobody ever asks you to, Carter thinks. He grits his teeth instead of saying it. In truth, he hasn’t thought a whole lot about why he’s moving and why so quickly. He needs a fresh start, sure, and he needs to sort out what to do with his life, but he’s typically not so hasty about, well, anything. He’s been stuck, and it took everything falling apart to propel him forward. New Orleans seems like as a good a place as any to get unstuck. Even now when he thinks of his time there, his chest warms and his mouth tips into a helpless smile. How much of that has to do with the city and how much with Link is a path he can’t travel right now.

  “I’m going because…” Though he doesn’t owe Paige an explanation and isn’t interested in her judgment, he also doesn’t want this new chapter of his life to be tied up with Matthew in any way, because it isn’t. “Back in Aurora, every direction I looked in felt like a dead end. In New Orleans, at least, I have possibilities. At least I’m excited about what might be.”

  Paige is looking at her phone, typing something and not even paying attention to what he said in response to her question. Carter shakes his head and focuses on the road. After a while, they enter Mississippi, where the highway stretches on and on, interminably.

  “That’s why I’m going too,” Paige says. At first, Carter isn’t sure it’s directed at him, as she’s still staring at her phone screen. “I hated that job, you know.” He didn’t know. He hasn’t exactly been paying close attention to Paige’s life. “And like,” she continues, “I was never gonna quit because the pay was awesome and the perks were even better but—ugh. You know?”

  He doesn’t. He nods anyway. “Sure.”

  “So even though I was way depressed at first, now I think it’s for the best.” She stretches her legs out on top of the dashboard until her toes reach the windshield and leave little toe marks. Ugh, indeed. “I like that: What might be. I forget that you’re smart sometimes, Carter.”

  “That’s very charitable of you, Paige.” Carter replies. “Now please get your disgusting feet off my windshield, or I am leaving you in Mississippi.”

  At a rest area in Kentwood, Louisiana, it’s warm enough for Carter to shed his cardigan. He takes a moment in the grass outside of the restroom to stretch his spine, shake the numbness from his legs, and turn his face to the sun. Running toward something. He’s been grudging about Paige’s intentions, perhaps, assuming she just wanted to bother him and get a free vacation, which she is. But he never would have expected that she’d been stuck, too, or that she’d been unhappy. It’s always been Paige who has the easier time; she’s popular, outgoing, likable, normal in ways Carter never managed to be. Yet being those things doesn’t preclude the sort of unhappiness that forces one to desperately pretend to be anything but. Matthew is living proof of that.

  Carter approaches the car where Paige is sitting on the hood, on her phone. He’s so excited, he doesn’t even care that she’s scuffing the paint. “All right, next stop: New Orleans!”

  Paige snaps her fingers. “Let me drive. At your grandpa pace we’ll never get there.” She looks up, hand held out expectantly for the keys, and gives him a look of disdain. “Have you been wearing that shirt this whole time? Carter.”

  He plucks at his red, blue, and green gingham oxford. “What’s wrong with my shirt?”

  “I don’t even have time to start with that.” She snaps her fingers again. “Keys.”

  Carter tosses her the keys, rolling his eyes at her as he does so. On second thought, he’s probably been too charitable toward Paige. With any luck, she’ll hate New Orleans and go home soon, and finally, finally Carter can start over.

  Onward.

  It’s dark again by the time they arrive in the city and Carter gets everything signed and approved and has his house keys in hand.

  “Well, this place is a dump,” Paige announces as they walk up the cracked driveway.

  “Takes one to know one,” Carter quips, and walks up the porch steps to his brand-new home without waiting for a response. The house’s windows are boarded up. The doorknob nearly comes off in his hand, and he’s immediately met with the smell of moldy carpet and the sight of peeling wallpaper and flaking, stained popcorn ceilings. It’s perfect. “This is known as a ‘camelback’ style,” Carter says, taking in the high ceilings of the living room. “It’s a variation of the popular shotgun style—which some believe is so-named because you could shoot a single shot from the front of the house and it would go straight through to the end without touching a single wall.” He pretends to shoot a gun. “The camelback has a small second floor that would have been attached to the rear at a later date, adding more living space to homes at a time when taxation was based on lot frontage.”

  “Wow,” Paige says from behind him. “That is super boring.”

  “It’s simple, sturdy, and lends itself to any number of architectural styles,” Carter continues, heedless of Paige’s disinterest. “This one is Italianate, my personal favorite. Note the decorative entablature and parapet over the front porch that are supported by Doric columns and decorative quoins.”

  “Boy, did I,” Paige says, probably sarcastically.

  “This one was built in 1909, probably one of the last of its style, and still completely un-refurbished.” It’s even better than the pictures he’s been poring over. He’d been worried about buying it sight unseen, but it’s exactly as he’d hoped.

  “It looks like the carpet hasn’t been cleaned since 1909,” Paige says, kicking at a huge stain with the toe of her shoe. It’s all coming out; it doesn’t matter how dirty it is. The wallpaper and popcorn ceilings are going too. Paige looks around with clear distaste. “So this is where we’re staying.”

  Carter laughs. “Uh, no, we are not staying anywhere. I am staying here, in my house, which is mine.”

  Paige swings around to face him so fast that her monogrammed duffel bag swings out and collides with his hip. “Like I want to stay in your gross house anyway.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you on t
he way out, then.” Carter walks into the kitchen to take stock of what will need to be torn out. “Or, actually: Do let the door hit you.”

  Due to the style and size of the house, Paige can stand at the front door while Carter is in the very back room, and, locked in a tense standoff, they can glare at each other through the kitchen in between. Paige relents first, crosses her arms petulantly, and asks, “How many bedrooms upstairs?”

  “Two,” Carter says, peering up the narrow staircase. “Pick whichever one you want; they’re the same size.”

  The house has been stripped of appliances, the cabinets are in rough shape, and he’s brought no furniture. Everything will be a project. They have no beds to sleep in. He’s so excited. Paige creaks up the steps and, from the sounds of the groaning floorboards, seems to settle in the bedroom on the left. Carter hefts his suitcase onto the kitchen counter and pulls out a carefully wrapped package.

  There’s a mantel in the living room, but no fireplace, just drywall-patched spots on the wall beneath and the ceiling above where a woodstove must have been. Carter unwraps the birdhouse Link gave him and places it gently on the mantel. Now he really does have the historic New Orleans home he’s always wanted. Now he can finally move on, baggage-free. Paige yells for him from upstairs, and Carter sighs. Almost baggage-free.

  Nineteen

  One night on a leaky air mattress that was hastily procured from a nearby drugstore after Paige won rock-paper-scissors for the nice one he brought was one night too many, so early the next morning Carter tells Paige to be useful and sends her off to a camping store for a sleeping bag and floor pad. He doesn’t want to get furniture or appliances or anything permanent until he’s pulled up the carpet and seen what he’s working with underneath. Carter takes his laptop and goes to a nearby city park to work on digital floor plan renderings.

  The house is right in the heart of the city, on the outskirts of a neighborhood filled with classic, historic New Orleans homes. Some have been overhauled and updated with shiny new finishes and spotless landscaping, and some—like his—are in various states of decay and disrepair. His walk takes him past a block of restaurants and bars that are lively with music and conversation, on to a worn-out baseball field behind a rusted fence, then past a mural painted across a cement wall and an empty lot overgrown with weeds.

  Beautifully refurbished houses sit right next to others that are crumbling on their foundations, which sit next to modestly maintained family homes. He passes an old church, a new gas station, the trolley line, and a busy four-lane intersection. One of those creepy city-of-the-dead cemeteries comes into view on his right; a modern art museum is on his left. It’s less shiny than the New Orleans he experienced with Link, now that he’s in a part of town where people live and work: no street parties, no glitz, no tour guides, no room service breakfast and daily fresh beignets.

  At the park, Carter settles on a bench that looks out over a small lake. The faint sounds of traffic are behind him. The farthest he’d lived away from Aurora was the small private college he attended in Naperville, roughly twenty miles from the house he grew up in. The house he shared with roommates during grad school was twelve miles away from his childhood home. The condo he shared with Matthew was ten. Perhaps, then, this feeling of being out of place, unanchored, and filled with increasing, panicked regret is normal, and he’s just never experienced it before.

  Carter opens his laptop to work on a modern, traditional two-story home with an open floor plan and a mix of farmhouse and Greco-Roman design: rustic and homey, yet stately and ornate, a series of contradictions he’s long since grown used to. Carter can create this sort of plan in his sleep, but today he can’t seem to focus.

  He opens a second tab with a blank blueprint draft for his own home. It sits there, untouched, waiting for his decisions. But aside from pulling out the carpet and the wall coverings that are hiding the original elements of the home, he doesn’t know what he wants to do with it. He has spent so long making plans for other people, he doesn’t know how to move forward for himself. Panic bubbles up, catching in his chest. What if this is all a terrible mistake? He’s uprooted his entire life, bought a derelict home in a city he’s only spent one week in—a week entirely removed from reality at that—and all on the sketchy advice of a stoned security guard.

  This is all a terrible mistake.

  And Matthew, Matthew offered him a chance to talk. What if he’s also made a terrible mistake? This whole thing could have been a bump in the road, cold feet about getting married. His parent’s marriage is riddled with bumps, and they’re still hanging in there. Not happily, but he can’t expect a relationship to be easy all the time. He and Matthew have their problems, but doesn’t everyone? Is he no worse than Matthew for leaving as he did?

  Carter closes his eyes and groans. Paige is right; he is going to go crawling back. He is that weak. A small flock of mallards drifts by. Carter watches them until they’re all the way across the lake, then opens his laptop again and clicks a third tab. He’s never social media-stalked anyone before, but it’s easy enough: From his own profile page he finds his list of “friends” and clicks on Paige’s name. He’s immediately assaulted with photo after photo of Paige and her girls, and Paige and her shopping, and Paige and her girls shopping. He goes to Paige’s friend list and discovers Matthew’s name listed first. Right under it is Link’s. Link Boudreaux, whose profile picture is a close-up of the left side of their face. Their full lips are quirked just a little, hazel-gold eyes downcast. Barely visible in the background is a quote, spray-painted in purple on a white wall: “Art is anything you can get away with.”

  The panic in Carter’s chest dissipates, replaced by a buzzing warmth. He wishes that he and Link had had more than a week, yet right now he’s grateful they had anything at all. Deciding to quit while he’s ahead, Carter closes the tab and finally gets some work done. He’ll leave the digital stalking to Paige.

  As soon as he gets home, Paige accosts him with a Price is Right style showcase of everything she bought. “So I got two sleeping pads, two sleeping bags, two solar-powered lamps and two high-end camping chairs.”

  Carter surveys the pile of camping gear in his living room. “One sleeping bag and one mat, Paige. That’s all I asked you to get.” He should have known better; Paige takes shopping more seriously than she took her job. “How did you even afford all of this with what I gave you to spend?”

  Paige claps, bouncing up and down. “That’s the best part! It was all on sale and part of a bundle. Plus!” She scurries into the room that may become a formal dining room and comes back with even more stuff. “Plus, I joined their VIP program and got forty percent off my next purchase, so I went back and got this camping stove and cook set.” She sets them both on the counter. “And then I signed up for a store credit card and got this cool knife.” She pulls a knife from her pocket and flicks it open.

  Carter instinctively cowers away and covers his heart, horrified.

  Paige flicks the utility knife closed again. “Relax. If I wanted to kill you I would have smothered you last night when you were snoring. Stabbing you would be too messy.”

  Carter relaxes from his protective stance. “Paige, this is…” He considers the stuff, and how much he did need all of it. “Actually, it’s pretty great.”

  “Really?” She looks up at him with a surprised smile.

  “Yeah, I—I’m…” He can’t believe he’s saying this. “Glad that you’re here.”

  “Aw,” Paige says. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t smother you in your sleep, then.”

  It’s as close to a bonding moment as they’re going to get, so Carter nods and turns to choose a sleeping bag and foam pad. He wants to tear out the wood paneling in the upstairs rooms today, and they should have time to get some shelf-stable groceries before dinnertime. It will be really nice to cook something at home and not eat out for the first time in weeks. She did it in her usu
al bullheaded way—disregarding his wishes and doing whatever the hell she wants—but, thanks to Paige, he does feel a bit more settled.

  Carter arranges his little bed in a corner of the right hand room upstairs, then scans the walls for the loosest corner to start yanking out the wood panels. Usually he’d need a pry bar, but the paneling is so old and warped that it pulls right off.

  “Hey, Carter.” Paige pops in and watches, but does not offer to help.

  “Yeah?” Carter says impatiently, distracted by the splinters he keeps getting. Tomorrow he’s finding a hardware store and getting tools and gloves.

  “Just to make sure: You two haven’t been in contact, right?”

  Carter winces, pulling another splinter from his palm. “Like I said, Link made it pretty clear that we were only temporary. I’m being respectful of that.” It’s why he didn’t click that friend-request button or keep trying to find more information on Link and how they’re doing, no matter how much he may want to.

  Paige hums. “I was actually talking about Matthew. Curious.”

  “Why is that curious?” he calls to Paige’s retreating back. She says nothing. “Paige!” Carter sets his hands on his hips and stares at the empty door, then shrugs it off. She’s clearly just trying to get to him. After a few more splinters and some cursing, Carter finally pulls a panel free, then immediately wishes he hadn’t.

  Twenty

  “I’m going shopping,” Carter says, first thing when Paige gets out of bed. After a night bunking in her room due to the spider colony he unearthed behind the wood paneling in his bedroom, Carter makes fresh coffee on the little camping stove and decides he won’t shake Paige off and go by himself. He’s feeling generous toward her this morning. “We can take the trolley up to the French Quarter; there’s a café with these pastries you have to try. And then we’ll walk to the Saturday Art Market.”