-1-

 

“I think you’re burning my hair off,” I warned Aubrey, pushing her flat iron away.

Between the hour of blow drying and the last thirty minutes of flat ironing I'd be genuinely surprised if I still had any hair left.

“Oh, relax. Look. I just gotta do this this one itty bitty last piece.” Aubrey ran the flat iron over the piece of hair  twice before setting the iron down on the gorgeous marble vanity Wil  built for her bathroom last year.

“Hey, look what I found !” Noah Presley bounced into Aubrey’s bathroom with a small case. “Please can I put these on you, Aunt Juliana ? I just saw a video on YouTube.”

He pops open the case to reveal a pair of fluffy black false eyelashes.

“Um, excuse me, first of all those are mine,” Aubrey said, annoyed now. “And second Juliana doesn’t have time for that--”

“They’re always just sitting there Mama, you never wear them--”

“It doesn’t matter, what the hell have I told you about touching my things?,” she snapped, snatching the eyelash case. “Juliana and I are trying to have a private grown person conversation so please go and bother your father for once cause Lord knows he’s ain’t doing a god damn thing right now. I don’t want to see you anymore tonight.”

Noah Presley’s face fell and he bite his lower lip before turning around and sulking out of the bathroom. He’s gone for barely a second before Aubrey picks up the flat iron again. I ducked away from her and she threw the flat iron back on the counter.

“Ugghh. Was I too short with him ?,” she asked, her voice soft.

She’d never asked me that before. We’d both seen each other at our worst with our kids.

“I don’t think that was really about him.”

I think we both knew that.

In the mirror's reflection I see her bite her lip in almost the same distressed way Noah Presley had.

“I did the right thing, right ? With the salon ?”

“You did what was best for you. That’s all that matters.”

My mother-in-law’s death had been untimely and chaotic, but Jocelyn had been somewhat prepared, having updated her will each time she got a new grandchild. In the newest version of her  will she’d left her salon to Aubrey to do with whatever she saw fit.

Jocelyn had worked more than 70 hours a week for the last 16 years keeping the salon running and Aubrey just hadn’t signed up for that kind of responsibility. She and Wil had separated a few years ago and now they were back together again. They'd decided their relationship and family came first. Aubrey wanted to visit her children and infant grandchild without having to worry about managing a salon.

We’d been making plans to put the salon up for sale  when the owner of Glow!, a chain of Baton Rouge based blow dry bars, put in an offer to buy the salon, turn it into a franchise and take over management. They’d agreed to keep all the staff, including Aubrey, as long as they were all trained in how to do the signature $25 Glow Out Blow Out!

Earlier tonight we sat on her patio with her laptop, e-signing all of the final transition paperwork. It was our best bet financially, but I could tell she hated the idea of handing the only thing Jocelyn left her to some big city start up.

When it was all finished, she said she wanted to work on her Glow Out Blow Out! skills and I didn’t bother arguing. Aubrey blew dry when she was anxious and I was the closest head.

At the very least she was good at it.

 I admired myself, sitting in front of her lighted vanity mirror. She’d done an amazing job touching up my highlights and  the soft blonde barrel curls were perfectly shaped. When she spritzes on the Glow Up, Show Up Shimmer Bling Serum! it added a shine to every strand and smelled like dried roses.

“Aubrey…It’s  beautiful.” I'm too afraid to even touch her masterpiece.

She puts her forehead on my shoulder, her freshly dyed and slightly damp jet black spiral curls spilling over my chest.   

“God, I bet the girls at the salon hate me for selling out. I can only imagine what they’re saying behind my back--”

“None of them stepped up to the plate,” I remind her. “Selling the salon to Glow! means they don’t have to find new jobs…not to mention they have much better benefits now.”

She rolls her wrist to look at her Apple Watch.

“Oh, shit you need to get out of here, girl!”

I look at my  phone sitting on the table, it was almost 6 PM.

“I’ll just be late,” I decide under my breath. “What else is new ?”

I follow her out of her gorgeous bathroom and into the bedroom, my freshly blown hair moving and bouncing with every step. I quickly pull off Aubrey’s cheetah print bathrobe and slip on my  floral soft pink wrap dress, sparkling beige duster and nude heels before going down the stairs and out the front door.

Wil and Noah Presley are playing basketball at the end of the driveway, their  makeshift basketball court lit up by the outside lights. For all his rough past, Wil always had a soft spot for his youngest son. I pause  for a moment watching Wil teach Noah Presley how to hold the ball, steadily encouraging him.

“Hey, catch !” Wil shouted, suddenly throwing the basketball at his wife.

Aubrey yelps but manages to catch the ball before it knocks her out. Noah Presley and Wil both scream with laughter at her shocked face.

“Alright, well I hope you two know this ball is mine now,” she called over their laughter and tucked the basketball under her arm.

“Aw, come on. That was a good catch,” Wil grinned as he walks over to her. He tries to take the ball but she throws it towards the hoop and by some miracle manages to get it in the net

“Shiiiiit,” Wil laughed, running for the ball.

“Swish!,” Aubrey shouted and starts doing one of the Fortnite video game dances Peyton liked to watch on YouTube. “Nothin’ but net! In your face! Mama’s got game—“

“You’re so embarrassing!,” Noah Presley smiled at his mom. “Nobody talks like that.”

“Let me see you do that again, babe.” Wil called out, dribbling the ball around her.

I wave to all of them before heading across their large front yard to my SUV.

“Um,  Aunt Juliana, can Mason spend the night tonight ?,” Noah Presley asked, running  after me. “I tried to text him but he didn’t respond.”

“Mason’s on punishment right now for his grades so not tonight,” I told him. “Maybe next time.”

Noah Presley adorably freckled face looks crestfallen.

“That sucks,” he said. “Tell Mason I said he needs to stop getting in trouble.”

“I will,” I promise, before getting in the car.

On instinct I look in the back mirror to check on the kids in the backseat but then I remember the back of the car is empty tonight.

 

***

-2-

I could drive to Armstrong Airport blindfolded I’d done it so much. It was all muscle memory as I got out the car and wandered over to the gate. I’d normally wait in the car, but he was coming back from his first trip since Jocelyn passed and today was special.

I spot him coming out of the gate in dress blues, he’s walking with his cane and he’s got his duffel bag strapped to his back. I still loved watching him the moment before he saw me, the first few seconds before his face lights up. Rhett always had a strong commanding presence but especially in his uniform. When he eyes meet mine he cuts through the crowd with practiced efficiency.

“Your hair looks pretty, baby.” He kisses me and runs a hand through my hair. “Is this that glow out blow job or whatever the fuck--”

“Glow Out Blow Out! with the Glow Up Show Up Bling Shimmer Coat!” I managed to say with a straight face, shaking my hair out.

 “You better not let Spence see this or she’ll be begging to get hers done too,” he said, taking my hand as we walk towards the exit.

“Too late. Aubrey practiced on her yesterday.”

We are probably too old to still be holding hands in public but I love the feeling of his hand in mine, he still walked faster than I did, even with his bad hip.

On the walk back to the car he listens quietly while I go through my mental checklist, giving him updates on the kids. When we’re both in the car, he leans over to kiss me again, this kiss is less sweet—it’s deeper and  hungrier.

“Is the house really empty right now ?,” he moaned against my lips.

“Yeah--”

“Let’s blow off tonight and just go back to the house for a few hours.”

 I’m tempted. I’m so tempted.

“We can’t,” I reminded him. “You know how much this means to Amber and besides...it’s your special night.”

He rolled his eyes, kissed me one more time and we drove a little ways down the highway in silence before pulling into the parking lot of the New Orleans Airport Marriott. 

The woman manning the table at the entrance to the ballroom claps her hands enthusiastically when she sees us.

“I think I know who you are !,” she trilled and pinned a name tag to Rhett’s lapel. The name tag has his name and this time they put his high school senior picture in the corner.

“Aww, look at Mason,” I teased, pointing to his senior picture. “This is so cute.”

“You’re so lucky I can’t torture you with bullshit like this,” he said as the woman hands me a Mrs. Rhett Clark name tag and we walk into the Freeport High School 20 Year High School Reunion.

 

-3-

 

The modest hotel ballroom is crowded with elegantly decorated round tables, the gold chairs tied with Freeport High  gray and blue ribbons. A  group is on the dance floor doing a country line dance being called by class yearbook editor Willow Schafer, who was now a math teacher at Freeport.

“That better be an open bar,” Rhett whispered in my ear.

He  pointed over at what looked like a elaborate tradeshow booth  where three men wearing tight fitting jeans with vests and bowties were passing out beer bottles. “Two drinks tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, rolling his eyes

Amber is sitting at a table closest to the small podium and stage set up. When she catches my eye her face breaks into a smile and she waves us over to sit next to her.

“Okay, three drinks,” I amend and Rhett laughs, securing his arm tighter around my waist as we head to the table.

Amber’s sitting with her husband and Rhett’s maternal cousin Wes,  her high school best friend and my co-worker at the salon Brooke and Brooke’s boyfriend of the past 10 years and their other best friend Carleigh.

I thought I knew everyone Rhett went to high school with by now but as we make our way to the table there are still some unfamiliar faces that run up to us to pat him on his back or tease him about something.

When we get to the table Amber leaps out of her seat and hugs Rhett’s neck. “Good to see you back! We were wondering what was keeping ya’ll.”

She wore a dark blue sheath dress with a gold belt at her tiny waist and platform sandals, that made her already unfairly long legs looks even longer. Amber only got her hair done at an organic salon in New Orleans, and  today they’d styled her usual gelled back pixie into soft layers.

“Traffic was a bitch,” Rhett lied as I take a seat. The truth was I’d been late to the airport.  He goes around the table, shaking hands before sitting down. “That an open bar I saw back there, Amber ?”

“No,” Amber trilled excitedly. “That’s actually a pop up stand for Saints and Sinners Craft Brewery. They have lines out the door at their beer garden in the city but since they work with Wes so much for foundation events they’re giving us all discounts on beer tonight. Isn’t that great ?”

“They have an impressive list,” Wes says tilting up his beer stein. “The have a great bohemian style pilsner--”

“I just got off a 24 hour flight. I need a bourbon,” Rhett interrupted.

“The open bar is in the hall,” Amber concedes.

Rhett stands, gives Amber a mocking prayer hands gesture and then flashes me his crooked smile.

I mouth “three” and he nods his head, looking slightly annoyed before leaving. I hated being that wife but  the last thing I need was for him to get sloppy tonight.

Amber smacks her manicured hand on the table in front of me to get my attention.

“I checked in with Laci right before you got here,” she said loudly. “She said everyone is on their best behavior, although it sounded pretty noisy. I  think the kids are probably having a little too much fun since they aren’t used to having a big house to run around and play in.”

I just smiled at her. It was the best thing I’d learned to do around Amber.

She’d said Laci wanted some babysitting experience and offered to have all my kids at her house while we were at the reunion. Laci hadn’t seemed all that interested in babysitting when I’d dropped the girls off but she had Mason and Spencer to help.

Rhett’s gone for longer than seems necessary to get a bourbon  and when Amber sprints off to make sure the bartenders are using the right glasses, I’m stuck with West---who’d spent most of the night  stealing glances at his phone.

West and I have the same exact conversation we’ve been having for the last 15 years; he tells me the latest about his parents and grandmother, and then apologizes for being on his phone before explaining to me all the thing most people don’t understand about his job. He raised money for different organizations and he was usually managing his schedule of parties and professional dinners. 

He asks me nothing.

I’m thankful when Amber rings a bell announcing the start of the buffet dinner. I quickly break the diet I’d been trying to put myself on at the pasta bar. When I get my plate I make a point of taking Rhett’s empty seat so I can be next to Brooke, and we talk about the salon and kids. I’m surprised when Rhett even comes back to sit with us for dinner, but he doesn’t have much of a choice tonight.

He and West were notorious for making big scenes at every single family dinner because they couldn't avoid bringing up money, politics or religion but I can hear them sticking to their neutral topic of baseball. I can tell Rhett’s had more then two drinks already but he seems relaxed until Amber stands and walks up the small podium, the DJ fading out Smash Mouth’s All Star.

“Woo! Go Gators ! Let’s see if I still it…G-A-T- O-R.S. Come on gators let’s stop the haters !,” Amber cheered, makes a stop sign with her hand and then raises her Pilates sculpted arms in a V.

The audience laughs softly, a few women in the back repeating the cheer with similar hand motions and more giggles.

“Woo, okay ya’ll !,” Amber smiled, gripping the podium to steady herself. “As the president our classes alumni association and the Director of Community Relations for Freeport Parish Schools I want  thank you all for coming out tonight!”

She tells jokes about their classmates, some of which I get, most of them I don’t and a few she doesn’t seem to get. She then briefly gives her podium to another alumnus who made a slide show of embarrassing year book photos, the class superlative awards and prom pictures.

“Now, before we get back to partying like it’s 1999,” Amber quipped once she has her microphone back. “We are giving out our Alumni Excellence Award to a very special alumni. Many of you know that he left Freeport to attend the Coast Guard Academy, where he graduated with honors and became a member of the elite Coast Guards Rescue Swimmers. This Freeport Gator has been critical in saving lives around the world and even in our backyard during Katrina. Despite an injury, he’s still active duty and serving our country. But I think above all the things he did that surprised me is he was be one of the first of our class to get married…yes, even before me, ya’ll.”

She smiled and paused for laughter.

“You all know him. My friend. My family, a true American hero Mr. Rhett Clark.”

Rhett walks up towards the podium without his cane, and he’s trying really hard not to look stiff. He takes the award from Amber, posing for West to take the picture with his iPad. Then Rhett takes her microphone even though I don’t think she wanted him to give a speech

“Who’d thought they’d give this to the little fuck up that never even made it to graduation, huh ?,” he said and there is polite laughter. “My life’s taken some crazy paths ya’ll…most of ya’ll know that. I gotta say Amber,  I don’t know if I’m the most excellent, I just do my job and what’s asked of me. Like all of us. The only thing I had to do was leave this damn school. I’m kiddin’. Anyway, I couldn’t have done it without my wife Juliana Clark, who has always, always been with me. I love you, J….You’re always ready for anything.”

He said the last part to himself and Amber must sense he might go off book soon and starts clapping him off stage.

Rhett doesn’t make it back to the table. Different people pull him away to talk to him and he ends up on the other side of the room. I’m barely listening to what anyone is saying at the table.  Amber made us all leave our phones at the door for nostalgia and I'm  anxious to get back to mine.

 

-4-

 

After another hour the room starts to clear, people say goodbyes and make drunken promises to keep in touch from now on, just like I’d watched them do at the 10 year reunion.

“We should get out of here. Go get the kids,” Rhett said, coming out of nowhere. I stand up from the table and he presses his body against mine, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Noooo, you can’t leave !,” Amber whined. “The alumni committee needs your help cleaning up”

She’d been barefoot for the last half hour since she, Brooke and a few other former cheerleaders took over the dance floor during a Shania Twain remix.

Turns out the Freeport High School 20 Year Reunion Committee wasn’t so much a committee as it was just Amber, Brooke and somehow West even though he hadn’t even gone to Freeport High. Rhett helps for a while but then he  does his disappearing act  and West looks like his phone is holding him hostage. Brooke, Amber and I manage to get all of Amber’s decorations cleaned up in under an hour so she doesn’t have to pay an overtime fee.

By the time it’s all done, Amber is still barefoot and carrying an empty champagne bottle under her arm  like it’s her purse while West carries her shoes and Rebecca Minkoff bag.  As we walk out to the hotel  parking lot I spot Rhett with Brooke’s boyfriend. They're drinking beers on the hotel’s front  patio.

“Aw, shit Amber,” Rhett called out. “You’re gonna kill me, girl--”

“Wha?” Amber slurred pointing the empty champagne bottle at him “Whadid you do nooow, Rhett...Clark ?”

“I can’t….I can’t find your damn award,” he admitted through laughs.

Amber snorted into her hand.

“The award is in my purse,” I remind them.

“Good, cause…cause…I was ‘bout to kick your ass-,” Amber said.

“Mmmmm…This why I love you, baby,” Rhett calls to me as he gets up.

He hugs me again but this time he grabs my ass.

“Guess I’m driving.”

He doesn’t fight me for the keys as we follow Amber’s minivan (driven by West) to her Victorian style house in the historic neighborhood that sat right on the edge of Freeport.

I barely have the truck in park when Rhett ambles out the passenger seat. I’m calculating the odds of him throwing up on  Amber’s manicured yard when the front door of Amber’s house bursts open and the girls--in their pajamas and barefeet,--come spilling out, their outlines lit up by the by the big vintage lamppost Amber had in her front yard. She’d found it at an antique shop in Dallas and talked about it nonstop for a month after it was delivered.

“Daddydaddydaddy!,” 6-year-old Peyton shouts and then practically launches herself into his arms. Rhett catches her in a hug and then he dramatically falls to the ground like she tackled him, which makes her shriek in joy.

“When did you get so strong ?,” he asks her. “Let me up!”

“No!,” Peyton giggles, pinning his arms down.

Tennessee is at Peyton’s heels as usual, she joins Peyton on top of Rhett, pinning his legs down so he can’t stand. 3-year-old Carter joins them too, she toddles over and crawls up Rhett’s stomach. He laughs and starts gently rough housing with the girls in the grass. It was making them too hyper and normally I would say something but he’d been gone two weeks overseas on a training mission in Hong Kong.

I look up to see Annabelle Grace, my baby, standing in the doorway uncertain. When she sees me she lights up and toddles right into my arms excitedly. I’d just gotten her on a sleep schedule and I wonder if we would ever get any of them back to bed. 

Amber's got her restrained smile on. Both her hands on her nonexistent hips, surveying the scene taking place on her front yard.

“It’s late, we’re waking Amber’s neighbors,” I whispered to Rhett, who was still rolling around on the ground.

“Mommy!,” Peyton shouts, seeming to notice me for the first time.

“Shh,” I shushed her. “Go and get your things so we can go home. It’s late.”

I ushered her into the house where Mason is sitting at Amber’s massive dining room table. He’d covered the table in newspaper as he quietly painted one of his dragon figurines. I didn’t understand his little hobby but I liked that he wasn’t one of those teenagers that was constantly on his phone. Although he’d decided to go all in on being a sulking teenager.

“Mason, clean this up. It’s time to go,” I tell him.

He looks annoyed but starts to pack up.

Rhett steps into the house behind me, carrying Carter  and Tennessee over his shoulders  like they were sacks of flour---which they found delightful. He probably shouldn’t be doing that but I don’t have time to tell him that.

I go upstairs to Amber’s media room / playroom where Spencer and Laci are crowded around Laci’s Mac book. I grab anything that looks like it belongs to one of my children and stuff it into Peyton’s My Little Pony tote bag.

“Come on, Spencer it’s time to go. Dad’s downstairs.”

“We’re working on something. Can I stay the night--”

“No, let’s go,” I snap. I don’t mean to snap but I was ready to go home.

“We’re writing a fic and  we couldn’t do anything earlier because the little girls-,”

“Later Spencer. It’s past everyone’s bed time. Including mine.”

“I’m 14,” she whines. It was something she reminded me of constantly like the pain from  the day she was born wasn’t etched into my memory. Her birth wasn’t my most traumatic anymore, but it’d been the first time we’d done it on our own and I thought of it every time we went to Florida.

“Lemme tell you…you…you kids did a great job babysitting, and I think you all deserve something,” Amber announced when I bring Spencer downstairs. She pulls a stack of  movie passes out of her purse and gives them each four.

“Thank you,  Aunt Amber,” Spencer says without me prompting. Mason echoes her.

“Well, we’ll get out of your way,” I say.

Mason takes Spencer and the six-year-olds back home in his car while I get Annabelle Grace and Carter in the car seats in the SUV. Mason lost his driving privileges for failing two classes and hiding his report card from me so we only allowed him to drive when necessary.

 He’d driven to Amber’s house and I’d told him I would check the mileage to see if he went anywhere while we were gone but I’d forgotten what the mileage on his car was even supposed to be.

On the way home Rhett starts singing along to the Cardi B song on the radio even though he doesn’t know the words and the girls think his singing is hilarious. It’s close to 2AM before I get everyone settled and back in bed, Rhett passing out fully dressed the second he hits the bed.

When the house quiets down I take his Most Excellent Freeport High Alumni award out of my purse. It’s a flat glass diamond on a wooden plaque and I put it on the floating trophy shelf in the living room. It sat  next to his service medal for Katrina, his 15 years of service award, his award for valiance that was really just an award for us not suing the Coast Guard when he got hurt. I only had one; from a local women’s survivors organization that asked me to come when they read Rocket’s book about United Light.

Our awards didn’t have a happy past and I’d been more than happy to add every trophy Spencer got in basketball or the ones Peyton and Carter got from the single pageant we’d been talked into entering them in. The nurses in the NICU put  superlative ribbons on all the incubators in the NICU and had given Annabelle Grace a Loveliest  Baby in the Ward award that I kept. Mason hadn't quite gotten awards but I knew he’d have the first high school diploma.

Their trophies told a happier story, one I’d always be proud of.

A/N

I wish I had more insight on this part of the story but I really can't remember how I came up with this or where it started. I could probably stop here but part II is the real meat of what I was trying to do.

You: Wait, why did you use the Prince song 1999 and other songs from 1999 ?

SHV: Because for the last two years I've been incorrectly calculating the year Rhett graduated high school. I totally screwed up the math in a way I can't even explain. In the world of UL it's 2021 (because Mason was born the year of Hurricane Katrina and he's 16), which means Rhett graduated from the Academy in 2004 and high school in 2000. So, it's not technically his 20th high school reunion but we're going to go with it.