Preview Second Chances at Love

            Of all the words that described Paige Davis, patience wasn’t one of them. If this mover didn’t do as she asked, he was going to find out the word firecracker was her middle name. She wanted to strangle the six-foot-six-inch man standing in front of her, though his greasy skin and beige teeth made her stomach lurch at the thought of touching him. But if she had to hurl her five-foot-six inch self at him to knock some sense into that dense skull of his, then so be it.

Paige snatched her sunglasses off her golden eyes and looked up at the man. “It’s a simple request,” she said as she ran her hand over her short curly afro. “Just open the back door and let me get the directions so that we can leave.”

            The man’s face with its scraggly beard and bushy unibrow reminded her of a grizzly bear. His sunburnt complexion indicated he spent a lot of time in the Memphis sun. Clearly, Paige said to herself, all that time in the sun had damaged his brain.

            “Lady,” the man growled, “we’re already two hours late and I don’t have all day to pack and repack this truck.”

            Paige’s face grew hot. He talked to her as if she were a child needing to be scolded.

 “Look, you jackass, I’m paying you--not the other way around. Now open this damn door or we won’t get anywhere.”

            The man threw the truck keys at Paige, nearly hitting her in the face. “I don’t have to take this. Drive yourself!” He started off down the street.

            Paige was furious. “Get back here! How am I supposed to drive this truck and my car, you idiot?”

            The man flipped his middle finger up and unleashed a string of profanities over his shoulder. Paige dropped her head in defeat once the man disappeared down the street. Why did things like this always happen to her? She walked up the steps of the condo that she was going to leave and knocked on the door. Her soon to be former roommate, Patrick, opened the door.

            “You decided not to leave, huh?” he said with a smile.

            Paige walked in and plopped down on the sofa. “You know that son of a--”

She stopped abruptly when she saw the directions she had printed to her new house in Bennettsville were sitting on the edge of the coffee table. “Patrick! Why didn’t you tell me I left these in here?”

            He shrugged his shoulders. “How was I supposed to know they were important?”

            Paige leapt to her feet. “Sometimes you can be so thick in the head,” she said, then slapped him on the shoulder.

            Patrick rolled his eyes at her. “Why aren’t you and the mover on the road?”

            “Grizzly Adams left and now I’m stuck with a truck that I can’t drive, all because you didn’t tell me I left the directions in the house,” she snapped.

            Patrick held up his meaty arm as if he were about to testify in church. “Am I the person moving? Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you,” he said.

            Patrick and Paige had been best friends since graduate school at the University of Memphis. They had run into each other, literally, in the library. Patrick had spilled a cup of coffee over her notes as he tripped over her backpack, which was in the middle of the floor. It seemed as if it were only yesterday.

* * *

            “You big oaf! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” Paige snapped.

Patrick looked at her, shaking his head.

            “Excuse me?” he replied. “This big bag was in the middle of the floor.” Patrick picked up the bag and threw it into the chair beside her.

            “Oh,” Paige said, slightly embarrassed. He reached into his bag and handed her a napkin.

            “I swear, you women are more trouble than you’re worth,” he mumbled.

Paige looked up from trying to dry her notes. “What was that?” she asked.

            Patrick sat down and looked at her, then began to tell her about his sister and how she had kept him up all night talking about how badly her boyfriend was treating her. “Then she turns around and moves in with him. Family members have been calling me all night. They don’t care that I have exams to study for and papers to write.”

            Paige smiled at him and covered his big hand with her smaller one. “That really sounds like a lot of drama. I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I have to get this paper written and your coffee really messed up my notes.”

* * *

            They’d shared a laugh and become fast friends, despite Paige’s quick temper. Patrick was the ying to her yang. He tried to make her see that her angry outbursts only got her in trouble. Like the trouble that had gotten her fired from her job as an elementary school counselor.

Paige loved kids; it was their parents and the administration she had a problem with.

When a fifth grader had asked Paige a question about sex, she’d answered it by giving her an educational book on reproductive health. The girl’s parents, who were devoutly religious, had been livid when they saw what their child was reading. The next morning, they had gone to the school demanding that Paige be fired for giving their child such filth. She’d tried to explain to the parents that when children that age ask about sex it’s important to answer those questions honestly. That had started another argument and the couple had called Paige a heathen.

That was the last straw. Paige blew up, calling those parents every name in the book. Her principal had been so shocked by her language that he fired her on the spot.

            Since Paige’s name was mud in the local school system, she needed a fresh start. When she’d seen a job listing for a high school counselor in South Carolina, she’d jumped at the chance. Now here she was, still in Memphis because of the argument with that stupid driver.

            “You know, I could drive the truck for you,” Patrick said.

            Paige’s face softened. “Will you? Oh, Patrick, thank you.” She hugged him tightly. “Now get your butt in gear so we can go.”

            “That’s some way to show your appreciation,” Patrick said as he stood and headed upstairs.

            “You know I love you,” she called out after him.

            A few moments later, Patrick and Paige were heading for the highway. It was a 16-hour drive from Tennessee to South Carolina. By the time they reached Charlotte, North Carolina, both Patrick and Paige were too tired to drive any further and pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express off the interstate. Paige emerged from her car yawning and stretching. Patrick parked the truck near the front door and got out rubbing his knees. “That was a long drive,” he said through a yawn. “Are you sure you want to move this far away from Memphis?”

            Paige shrugged her shoulders. “I have to do something,” she said. “The doors are shut and locked in Memphis. Lights out, good night.”

            Patrick put his hand on her shoulder. “I say again, Paige, your attitude is holding you back. How smart was it to call the school superintendent a ‘class A idiot’ and expect to keep your job? How did you become a counselor anyway?”

            Paige rolled her eyes. “I love children, you know that. It isn’t their fault that they have idiots for parents,” she said. “Children don’t know any better, but adults do, at least they should, and I just tell them what they should know.”

            “And,” Patrick said, “if you take that attitude to South Carolina you’ll be unemployed again. Paige, promise me that you’ll try to think before you speak.”

            She smiled faintly. Paige, like her mother Vivian, had a quick temper.

Vivian Davis was not one to hold her tongue and she’d passed that trait on to her daughter. A former Kentucky police officer, Vivian had had to stand up for herself as a member of the Louisville Police Department. Paige had watched her mother make hardened criminals cry with her silver tongue. She’d also been on the receiving end of her mother’s tirades. As a child, Paige had welcomed a spanking rather than a talking to from Vivian. She wished her mother were alive so that she could advise her on what to do. Paige had lost her mother to breast cancer two years after she graduated from the University of Memphis.

But courtesy of her mother, Paige had learned that sometimes you had to tell people off in order to make them take you seriously. And when she was really passionate about something, there was no way she could keep her emotions under control.

            But Paige vowed to change that about herself. This new job and a new city were the elixir that she needed. This was her chance to reinvent herself. But without Patrick in her ear telling her to calm down, Paige knew she was in for a struggle.

            “Patrick, I’m going to make a serious effort not to repeat past mistakes,” Paige said sincerely.

            He smirked at her as if he didn’t believe what she’d said. Paige smiled and said, “Really,” as they walked into the hotel lobby to get a room for the night.

Paige fingered her hair absentmindedly as Patrick talked to the front desk clerk. What was waiting for her in South Carolina? She’d never heard of this place, so it must be a small town, she surmised. She was going to be the freshman counselor at Marlboro County High School. Paige laughed silently. I wonder if it’s a place full of cigarette smoking cowboys?

            “Earth to Paige,” Patrick said as he snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Here’s your key.”

            “How much do I owe you for the room?” she asked.

            Patrick smiled and patted her shoulder in a brotherly fashion. “Think of it as a going-away present. I’m going to miss you.”

            Paige hugged Patrick tightly. “You know I’m going to call you every day,” she whispered.

* * *

            The next morning, Paige and Patrick didn’t check out of the hotel until about ten. Both of them had slept through their wake up calls. Paige asked the clerk the distance to Bennettsville and to her surprise they were only about an hour away. She hopped into her Mustang and pulled out her cell phone to call Mrs. Anderson, her new landlady, to let her know when she would arrive.

            “Good mornin’, sugar,” the older woman said. “I was wonderin’ what happened to you. I thought you were goin’ to be heah yesterday.”

            “I had a slight problem with the mover, but I should be there in an hour or so.”

            The woman sighed into the phone. “Well, I’ll probably be in church when you git heah, but today is a short service. Pastor has an engagement at Cedar Falls. You are a Christian, aren’t you?”

            “What?” Paige mumbled. This old bat is annoying me already.

            “Hello, are you there?” Mrs. Anderson said.

“We must have a bad connection,” Paige said, quickly rolling her window down so that the wind could blow into the phone. “I’ll see you shortly.” Paige snapped the silver phone shut and threw it on the passenger seat. She wondered if everyone in Bennettsville was like Mrs. Anderson. Paige wasn’t used to being around people who wanted to know your every move, belief and innermost thoughts. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.

WANT MORE? Order Second Chances At Love

http://www.genesis-press.com/

http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Send Me E-Mail
cheris87@bellsouth.net