The Last Second Chance by Lucy Score

12

Jax had no idea what to wear to a movie club night, so he went for a step above farm wear with a clean pair of jeans, a white button down, and a lightweight forest green sweater. He couldn’t find his loafers, wasn’t even sure if they’d made the trip from L.A., so he went with the pair of suede lace-up boots he’d gotten from Willa, the owner of Blue Moon Boots.

He grabbed his dark wool coat out of the hall closet and yelled a goodbye to Carter and Summer in the kitchen.

“We’re not having sex this time,” his brother yelled back. “You’re allowed to come back.”

Jax made a show of stomping down the hall covering his eyes.

“I am entering the kitchen,” he shouted.

Carter beaned him with a dinner roll, and Summer muttered something about never living things down as she loaded plates into the dishwasher. Valentina’s ears were visible over the island as she helped with the clean up by licking the dishes before they went into the washer.

“Sorry, Summer,” Jax said, without a hint of contrition.

She shot him a frown.

“Is that your mom look? Because it’s pretty fierce.”

She brightened. “Really? Good. Because if these two monsters are anything like you and your brothers, I’m going to need all the weapons I can get.”

Carter stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, his hands resting on her belly. “Honey, the twins aren’t going to stand a chance against us.”

“Please. Have you seen your brother look at Aurora? He’s lucky she’s a sweetheart because she could set the house on fire and steal a car and run over some old ladies, and he’d be putty in her little hands. What if we have two adorable little girls, and you’re so busy being wrapped around their little evil fingers that I’m the one who has to be the bad guy?”

“You could have two boys who are idiots and decide they want to see how deep the hay has to be in order to survive a jump out of the loft in the barn,” Jax suggested.

“Oh my God. I hadn’t thought of that. What if we have two boys who run around trying to murder each other?” Summer asked, spinning around in Carter’s arms.

“We’ll make your parents move in with us. Five adults against two kids.”

Summer nodded as if actually considering it. “Okay. That’s a good option. Good thinking.” She leaned into her husband’s chest. “I love that you’re a problem solver.”

Carter met Jax’s gaze over Summer’s blonde hair, and he slowly shook his head. Jax grinned and winked.

He took his Nova just to be sure his mother wouldn’t insist on driving and he wouldn’t have to puke before they got to the theater. They’d yet to have their first big snowfall of the season, so his rear wheel drive was fine for the night, and the car’s beefy heater pushed out tropically warm air.

He wondered if Joey was going to the movie night. She hadn’t said anything about it at dinner last night.

It had felt like a date,he thought with a smile. It was clear that the heat between them wasn’t all just anger anymore. He had never had the patience that his father had. He was his mother’s son in that aspect. The fact that he’d been willing to chip away at Joey’s resistance for six months proved that she mattered. More than anything else that he’d wanted in this lifetime. He just hoped he wouldn’t still be chipping away in ten years. The woman had the resolve of a steel girder, unbending, never wielding. And he loved her for it.

He just needed to keep chipping away. And maybe pay Ellery a visit to find out what she said to put the shadows in Joey’s eyes last night.

Jax got to Phoebe’s townhouse a few minutes early and let himself in the front door. Mr. Snuffles peeked around a cardboard box near the front door. His corkscrew tail wiggled when he spotted Jax and he trotted over on his stumpy little legs. He made a grunt of approval when Jax bent to pick him up.

“I see the snot is clearing up nicely,” Jax said to the dog.

Mr. Snuffles grunted a happy reply.

There were half-packed boxes everywhere. Phoebe and Franklin had been in the process of moving in together for months now while their search for a house was ongoing. Now that they were building a place on the farm, it would take another six months or so. At this stage, he couldn’t tell if she was in the process of packing or unpacking and decided not to mention it in case she tried to enlist his help.

Jax had moved around enough in his time on the West Coast that he kept his personal belongings to a minimum. The house he’d bought furnished, and he’d sell it the same way. He had no attachment to anything in it. He had a small storage locker with clothes, personal items, and files that he’d have shipped home when he returned next month.

Maybe it was time to start looking for his own place to live, he considered. Carter and Summer deserved to have the house to themselves with the babies on the way. And he was going to need his own space at some point. A garage. An office. A king-sized bed. He’d have to think about it.

He heard a thumping noise upstairs.

“Mom? You ready to go?” he called up. Mr. Snuffles wiggled in his arms, so he set the dog down in the kitchen.

There was no answer from Phoebe, but there was another thump. She was probably in her closet. Jax took the stairs lightly two at a time. “Mom?”

Her bedroom door was ajar.

“Hey, Mom, are we going or—”

“You’re early!”

“Oh my God.” Jax turned to run out of the room and tripped over a box in the hallway. He almost went head first down the carpeted stairs but managed to catch himself on the railing only skidding down two stairs on his stomach.

“Jax, honey, are you okay?” his mom called.

“Don’t come out here! Not until you put some clothes on.”

“Sorry about that, Jax. Didn’t realize it was so late.” Franklin peeked out of the bedroom. His lack of wardrobe was blatantly evident.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Jax chanted his way down the stairs, carefully clutching the banister. He had rug burn on his forehead and probably his knees. But it was his eyes that burned with the image that would take more than therapy and drugs to erase.

“I’ll be in the car,” he yelled over his shoulder from the kitchen. As his stomach pitched, he decided he’d better settle it with a little snack. He found some cheese and lunch meat in the refrigerator and grabbed a few slices of both. Jax tossed a slice of ham to Mr. Snuffles, who looked thoroughly confused, before hightailing it to his car to eat and pretend what happened hadn’t happened and wonder if he was the only one in Blue Moon not having sex.

His mother hurried out of the house a few minutes later. Her cheeks were pinker than the fuchsia turtleneck she now wore.

Phoebe gave him a shameful look and a few moments of blessed silence when she got in the car and Jax headed toward downtown.

“Here,” she said finally. “I brought you this. I know you eat when you get upset.”

Jax glanced over at the beef stick his mother was brandishing. “Mom, that’s the least appropriate snack you could have found in this situation.”

“Jax, listen, what you saw is very natural,” Phoebe began.

He gagged.

“Oh, honey, are you car sick? I can drive if you want me to.”

* * *

Take Two’sparking lot had more than two-dozen cars in it by the time they pulled in. “How many people are in your movie group?” Jax asked his mother, still not able to look her in the eye… or in her general direction.

“Oh, just a few. Forty-six, I think? And the members can bring guests if they want. Shelby won’t be here because she’s working nights at the hospital this month.”

“I thought this was just a little thing,” Jax said, feeling the panic rise. “You said this was just a little thing.”

Phoebe patted his leg, and Jax bolted out his door. “I know where that hand’s been, Mom!”

“Pull it together, Jackson, and put your big boy underpants on. Your mother has a vibrant, exciting sex life. Get used to it.”

Jax bent from the waist and dry heaved. “I think I might die from this.”

Phoebe slapped the beef stick against his chest. “Eat this, and stop thinking about… what you’re thinking about.”

Jax straightened and took a deep breath of the frigid Blue Moon air. He ripped the plastic off the beef stick and took a bite.

“Better?”

“Nothing a case of beer or amnesia won’t cure,” Jax said weakly.

“That’s the spirit. Now get in there and let me show off my genius son.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t look at you, right?”

“Of course, sweetie.”

It was worse than he thought. Phoebe led him past the concession stand before he could order a full-moon sized bucket of popcorn to settle his stomach, and before he knew it, he was being dragged up on stage where a lone chair sat front and center.

“I’m not sitting on the stage, Mom,” he hissed.

“It’s only so everyone can see you,” she said, ignoring his resistance and marching him up the stairs onto the stage. “Clayton, do you have the mic?”

“Right here, Phoebe.” A man built like a retired linebacker lumbered toward Jax. His spectacular fro temporarily blocked the stage lights. Clayton’s wife, Lavender, a tiny daisy of a woman, waved at Jax from the front row.

“Hey, Clayton,” Jax greeted him and waved at the man’s wife. Clayton and Lavender Fullmer were the owners of Take Two and the parents of Grayson Moon, one of Jax’s lacrosse teammates.

“Hey, there Jax. Thanks for coming out tonight. The sooner Frieda Blevins gives up her niece’s selfie story, the better,” Clayton whispered.

“That’s what I hear.” Jax let Clayton hook the lavalier mic to the collar of his sweater. “How’s Grayson doing these days?”

Clayton’s face split into a wide grin. “Kid’s a literal rocket scientist. Can you believe that?”

“No shit?” Jax asked.

“No shit,” Clay shook his head with pride. “He works for one of those private companies on the West Coast that’s building private spacecraft. He loves it. He’s marrying a mountain-climbing ER doctor named Aimee this summer. I said to Lav the other day, ‘How did someone we created turn out so good?’”

“And what did Lavender say?”

“Dumb luck.”

Jax laughed. “I don’t know about that. From my recollection, you two were pretty good at the whole parenting thing.”

“We did okay. And so did yours judging by how you three turned out,” Clayton said, handing Jax the body pack.

Jax hooked it on his belt in the back. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve got a ways to go to catch up to Carter and Beckett.”

Clayton clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder. “Son, your mom’s busting with pride tonight, and half of Blue Moon showed up here for you. It’s okay to bask a little.”

Jax shrugged it off. He told stories for a living. When you measured that against rocket science or family law or organic farming, it seemed a silly, useless profession. And it made him feel foolish for being on stage in front of all these people to show off something that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Sometimes he wished he wasn’t so compelled to tell these stories. Wished that the characters weren’t alive and busy in his head. Maybe someday, after he told enough of their stories, they’d leave him alone, and he could find work he could be proud of.

Rainbow Berkowicz, in her boxy bank president suit, took the stage with Ernest Washington. Ernest, sporting his trademark bandana, threw Jax a peace sign. “That Nova still working out for you?”

Jax nodded and grinned. While Ernest was at heart a true VW aficionado, he usually had a classic project car squirreled away on his car lot somewhere. Jax had bought his ’68 Nova from Ernest his first week back home when he and Summer had gone on a Blue Moon-style shopping spree.

“Cool,” Ernest said, rolling on the balls of his feet.

“Ready to get started, Jax?” Rainbow asked.

Ready for what, exactly?“Sure,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Rainbow turned on the mic she held and addressed the crowd. “Excuse me. If I could have your attention please.” The crowd slowly quieted, and Jax took his first good look around the theater.

It felt like a sea of faces the size of Beckett’s wedding audience, but this time they were all looking at him. He picked out a few friendly faces here and there. Jules from the juice place was there with her husband, Rob. Gia, Evan, and Ellery were splitting a box of candy a few rows back from the front. His mother was cozied up between Fitz, who was sporting a pair of glasses that made him look like an academic burnout, and Elvira Eustace. Mrs. McCafferty from McCafferty’s Farm Supply on the square was looking chipper in overalls and a purple turtleneck in the front row.

“Thank you all for coming tonight. As most of you know, we’ll be viewing Awake in the Night, which was written by our very own Jackson Pierce.”

The applause was overzealous and a little embarrassing in his opinion, but Jax waved politely. It would all be over soon, wouldn’t it?

“Jax, would you like to give us a synopsis of the film and maybe take a few questions before we start?” Rainbow suggested.

“Uh, sure,” Jax said, his amplified voice bounced around the theater. He stood up, more comfortable on the move than sitting under the scrutiny. “I wrote Awake in the Night on spec while I was working as a production assistant after moving to L.A. I think I was a little homesick for Blue Moon, which is why I wanted to write about a small town.

“It’s about a woman who married her high school sweetheart right out of school, started a family, bought a house. And she just wakes up in the middle of the night one night and starts wondering if she made the right choice. Her whole life is routine. She works Monday through Friday in a job she doesn’t care about. Wednesdays are laundry. Thursdays are groceries. Kids have swim team and soccer practice. She and her husband haven’t had a conversation about anything but the school pickups or the lawn mower in weeks. And every night, she wakes up and lays there, regretting and wondering.”

Jax paused. “Am I going to ruin this for anyone if I keep going?”

People in the audience were shaking their heads.

“Really? You’ve all seen this? Raise your hand if you’ve seen Awake in the Night.”

He froze as nearly every person in the audience raised their hands. “You’ve all watched it?” He watched the audience nod enthusiastically as one.

“We had a viewing party when it came out,” Lavender called from the front row. “Even had a red carpet rolled out!”

It sounded vaguely familiar to him. His mother had probably mentioned it, probably hoped he’d come home for it. He hadn’t, though. Jax had been too busy writing the next project, chasing the next paycheck. Hoping to come home when he was finally worthy.

“Wow. Well, thank you for watching. Anyway, I guess, for the four people who didn’t raise their hands, the main character Jenny decides she’s going to do something when she wakes up in the middle of the night instead of just lie there and think. So that night she goes up into the attic and digs out her old painting supplies, and she starts painting. Every night she paints these huge, abstract canvases. She’d painted in high school, the same crazy, vibrant scenes, but her art teacher told her no one would buy them, that she would never make it as an artist if she couldn’t make art that the world understood. So she gave it up. She got married, trained to be a bookkeeper, and tried to be someone that the world understood. And now she lies awake every night and wonders why she feels so empty.”

Jax took a few steps to the other side of the stage, uneasy with the audience’s rapt attention.

“Soon, she’s waking up with paint-splattered skin and a smile. She stops trying to be early for school drop off, stops worrying about her job, she even stops seeing her husband as a schmuck.”

The audience chuckled.

“By painting, Jenny starts to see the beauty in her world, and she slowly comes back to life. And that’s, well, that’s basically it.” Jax ran a nervous hand through his hair and wondered when he’d had his last haircut.

A slim hand rose slowly from the middle section of seats.

“Uh, yes? You in the red.” The woman in her forties came to her feet and smiled shyly. She wore her hair cut short with a sweep of bangs that fell at an angle across her forehead. Her cheery tunic matched the glow of her cheeks.

Rainbow marched the microphone over to her, and the woman bobbled it before recovering. “Um, hello.”

“Hi,” Jax said with a smile. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only nervous one in the theater.

“I’m Cynthia, and I’m not from Blue Moon, but when I heard you’d be here tonight, I was so excited to come. I wanted you to know that your movie changed my life.”

Jax blinked.

Cynthia smiled even brighter. “I was Jenny. My husband and I dated in high school, and the week after we graduated college, we got married. Kids happened right away, and it wasn’t long before I stopped thinking my life was about me. It was about everyone else but me. And I could feel little pieces of myself slipping away. There was no time to do the things I’d always loved to do, the things that made me feel alive. I was too busy working or coaching basketball or cooking dinner or buying eight thousand kid birthday presents.”

She took a breath and looked at him dead in the eye. “And then I went to the movies with a couple of girlfriends on a Mom’s Night. We saw Awake, and I woke up.

“I stopped on my way home and bought a bottle of champagne, and that night, after the kids went to bed, I dragged my husband out on the deck, and we drank the entire bottle and talked. Really talked.”

Her smile blossomed across her face. “The next day, I quit my job and cashed out my 401k. I bought the campground my grandparents used to take me to when I was a little girl, and now I spend every day outside in nature. And I don’t feel lost or sad or tired anymore. Because you wrote that story. Because I realized I didn’t have to change everyone else in my life to make me happy. I just had to remember who I was.”

There was a moment of complete silence when Jax felt like it was just him and Cynthia in the room. The connection was so strong. Then someone started clapping, and he couldn’t hear anything but applause. But he did see Cynthia mouth the words “thank you,” her eyes shining brightly with tears.

He did the only thing he could think of. He got off the stage and met her in the aisle. Her hug calmed his troubled mind. Her long, strong arms squeezed him gently.

“Thank you,” she whispered again, in his ear.

He shook his head. “No. Thank you.” She had no idea what it meant to him to hear those words, and he had no way to tell her.

Rainbow confiscated the microphone again. “Does anyone else have any questions for Jax before we show the film?”

Hands shot up around the theater, and Jax laughed. “Okay, we’ll start over here.”

* * *

That night,Jax lay in bed staring at his ceiling. His thoughts swirling in his head. There’d been questions and confessions after Cynthia’s. Julia’s husband Rob announced that after seeing Awake, he’d made a point to start talking to Julia about more than juice and babies. Mrs. Nordemann said the movie had inspired her to start writing and publishing erotic short stories.

And then there were the questions.

“Was Jenny based on Joey?”

He’d answered as vaguely as he could. Of course Jenny was Joey and that screenplay was him working through his feelings of leaving her. He’d started it with the intention of convincing himself that Joey would have been full of regret had she tied herself to him so young. But something had changed as Jenny had blossomed in his head. And the deeper he went, the more he realized that Jenny’s problem wasn’t her situation, it was her priorities.

He couldn’t imagine Joey ever losing herself in a marriage or a job or parenthood. Joey was a woman who understood what was important to her. She was so much stronger than he realized when they were together. He’d nearly killed her and then abandoned her without a goodbye—which seemed to be the part that she wasn’t willing to forgive—and Joey had picked herself up and built herself a life without him.

He thought about Cynthia’s confession. A story he’d told had made a difference to someone. Made the difference. Something he created had resonated so deeply with a stranger that she’d changed her life because of it. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it?

Mattering. Connecting. Resonating.