Page 52 of The Last Second Chance
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 sawAwakeand 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 he 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.”
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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 seeingAwakehe’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. Madethedifference. 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.
13
Jax spentthe morning riding Calpyso and then Apollo and generally getting in Joey’s way. When he was completely satisfied in his investment of ridiculously perfect horses, Jax decided to pay a little visit to Ellery at Beckett’s office and see what scheme she was up to.
