Outside the window, the familiar landscape of Tennessee soothed my soul. I’d seen a lot of the country now, end to end. I could appreciate my hometown in a way I hadn’t before. It had a character all its own.
I wondered if Jenny liked it. Not that it mattered. LA suited me just fine, or San Diego, I guess, since she said she lived there.
Crazy, making any sort of plans on a girl I knew maybe three hours.
Another song started forming in my head. It’d been there a while, since the beach, but I’d ignored it, playing it off. I let it come along, though, now that I knew she was looking for me and maybe some song was playing in her head too.
When you look a mess
How your eyes confess
How you see the best in me
Just a bead of sweat
Sliding down your neck
Things I don't know yet about you
It's a list that never ends
At last the bus pulled into the Chattanooga station. Charlie must've looked at the schedule and figured out when I’d be arriving, because she was there, still in her work scrubs even though she must have been off a while. It was dinnertime.
She came up to me and didn’t even bother with hellos, but said, “That girl has been all over town with your mother.”
I shrugged. “So they’ll get to know each other.” A couple guys unloaded the bottom of the bus, and I watched for my guitar. I felt anxious to see Jenny, but maybe I wanted to get to the house and shower and things first. I’d given up my room to Pete, but I still had clothes and random things boxed up in the garage.
“Where do you want to go?” Charlie asked. “Redmond said she’s staying at the Fairfield near the mall.”
“Take me to the house first. I want to unpack some things.”
We got in her car. “So you’re staying, then?” she asked.
“For a spell,” I said.
She started the car and pulled out of the bus station lot. Her jaw was set sort of hard, like she was angry.
“You pissed that I’m going to see this girl who flew all the way to Chattanooga just to see me?” I asked.
She concentrated on the road. Evening was setting in and some of the streetlights were coming on. I settled back, used to Charlie being mad. This was her natural state. Didn’t bother me none.
“Doesn’t it seem a little suspicious?” she asked, pulling up to a red light. “This girl finds you at a party, gets you caught up in some scandal, and then shows up at your door?”
She turned to me, her face all screwed up with anger. “Aren’t you worried about who she is? What she’s doing?”
I looked out my window at the businesses lined up along the road. Truth was, I wasn’t worried in the least. For all I knew, we were both caught up in something that could have happened to anybody at that party. So many people were there looking for attention.
“We found each other at the same time at that party,” I said. “And it was clear to me all along that she didn’t really belong there. I don’t know a lot about Hollywood and how it works on the inside, but these photographers and celebrity mags work whatever angles they can get.”
“You were naked, Chance. And there were pictures of you with all these other actresses. It was like it was planned to be as salacious as possible.” The light turned green, and Charlie jumped on the gas a little hard, sending us screeching into the intersection.
I wasn’t sure what she meant by the other actresses. “What are you talking about? There was just the picture of me kissing her. And her boss looking annoyed, a shot from some other day since that wasn’t what he was wearing that night.”
Charlie slammed on the brakes and turned hard into the parking lot of a gas station. When we were stopped, she said, “Are you serious? Do you have no clue what all happened?”
My hackles started to rise. “What else is there?”
She jerked her phone out of the center console and tapped a while. Then she turned the screen to me.
I recognized the beach straight off. “Oh, shit,” I said. Jenny was running naked, black bars on her. “She had to be mortified.”
“Keep watching,” Charlie said.
The news guy talked about the director, same as the article. It showed a picture of them together before Jenny got the dreadlocks. He certainly seemed like he was into her, but a picture could be like that. It didn’t mean anything.
I sat up a little when they showed the pictures of me with those actresses. “Nothing happened with either of them,” I said. Two people behind desks made some jokes about sand and then the video ended.
“You can’t tell me this wasn’t some publicity stunt,” Charlie said. “It’s too perfect. Is your girl an actress or a model or something? Is she trying to get press?”
“I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have wanted them following us to the beach,” I said, sticking her phone back in the cup holder. “I just need to talk to her about it. Maybe there’s been some fallout and she needs me to back up her story or something.”
I didn’t like that idea. I liked it a lot better when I thought she’d come for me. But now I knew to hold back my expectations. Truth be told, I had no idea what the next few hours were going to bring at all.
Chapter 40: Jenny