Page 5 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

As we approached a tall woman with a blonde bob and sharp features, Braxton quietly conveyed, “Kelly, two kids. Boy, Parker. Just had a baby girl, Natasha. Husband Jack.”

“Miles Ford, how are you?” Kelly tilted the microphone toward me.

“Great. How are you doing, Kelly?”

“Good, thank you!”

“How’s Jack and the new baby girl?”

Her face brightened even more. A niggle of guilt tightened in my chest. This was the Hollywood game, but I hated the game. I wanted to have real, authentic, connected conversations with people or not have any at all.

The truth was, Ididcare about Kelly, Jack, their new baby Natasha and their son Parker. However, the fact that Braxton had to tell me all their names made this interaction insincere and transactional. It made me feel like a fraud. Like I was a fake. My entire life had been spent in front of cameras pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

I started acting at the age of five. It hadn’t been my choice. My manager scouted me in a shopping mall and sent me on a commercial audition the following day. I booked it. I’d been a working actor ever since.

My mom, a single mother, who came from an abusive childhood, relied solely on me for financial support from that day forward. I’d never minded the responsibility, but lately, Iwas starting to wonder if there was more to life than just the facade of make-believe. My life felt empty. I wanted something real. I had a feeling that the only way I was going to find what I was looking for was if I made this movie. And the only way I could make it was if I had the cooperation of Zoe James. She was the key to finding my peace.

3

ZOE

“How are you feeling today,Mrs. Beaumont?” I pulled back the curtain and flipped on the overhead light.

“Oh, I’m just fine.” Mrs. Beaumont squinted as she lifted her hand to block out the fluorescent beams shining down on her. Today, she wore a pink silk scarf covering her head with her favorite flower birds of paradise on it. Tiny white wisps of hair escaped from beneath it. Her nails were painted the exact color of her scarf. She maintained a sense of style and class that I admired and knew that I would never emulate. I barely had time to throw on mascara, much less paint my nails. “No need to fuss over me.”

I hated having to disturb my patients when they were resting, but unfortunately, that was part of the job. Thankfully, Mrs. Beaumont knew the drill and didn’t give me too much of a hard time. Some patients got pretty riled up, violent even, when you disturbed them, which I understood, but it didn’t make my job any easier.

“I heard you had a handsome visitor today.” Mrs. Beaumont’s grandchildren visited her every day. They were on a rotating schedule. Since she had nine total, it wasn’t a burden onany one grandchild. She’d been in and out of the hospital for the past few months, battling a pretty gnarly respiratory infection. She was on several waitlists for assisted living facilities in the area, but since COVID, most of the care homes were at full capacity.

“Oh, yes, my grandson Samuel. I told him he needed to wait to meet my favorite nurse, but he had to get to work. He left his number, though. I promised him that you would call him.” She motioned to the overbed table. I glanced over and saw there was a card sitting on it. “You take it, and you call him.”

“Thank you, but I’m not really…” I took a deep breath as I removed her empty IV fluid bag and replaced it as I tried to find a diplomatic way to turn her grandson down. “You know, I don’t really have time?—”

“Oh, pshh.” Mrs. Beaumont shook her head dismissively. “That’s just nonsense. When my Lawrence died, I told myself the same thing–that I didn’t have time—what with raising three children, but that was hogwash. It was just an excuse ’cause I was too scared to get hurt again. Now, how long has it been? Five years? Eight? What?”

In about three months, it will be ten years; well, in eighty-two days, to be exact, but who’s counting?

Oh, right, I was.

“It’s been a while,” I sighed, not wanting to say how long it had been. Mainly because every time I did, I got the same reaction. Even if people didn’t say the words, they gave me the same look—the one that said I should move on. Get over it.

Mrs. Beaumont extended her arms toward me, and I placed my hands in hers. Her palms were baby-soft from the Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion she kept by the side of her bed and applied several times throughout the day.

“Listen, I know that you might not feel ready, but honey, you let me tell ya a little secret; you’re never gonna feel ready.” Shepatted my hands between her own. “What you had was perfect, beautiful, and special. It was true love. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have more perfect, more beautiful, and more special and another true love in your life. You’re too young to give up on happily ever after, darlin’.”

I forced myself to smile and nod as the alarm sounded on my phone, indicating my shift was blessedly over. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow. Try and get some rest.” I switched off the light.

“Take the number,” she demanded.

I sighed. The woman was ninety-seven, but she did not miss a beat. I could sit there and argue with her that I wasn’t going to call it, but after a twelve-hour shift, I decided to go with the path of least resistance.

“Yes, ma’am.” I snatched the card off the table.

“You won’t regret it, sweetie. I promise.” She gave me a wink, indicating she knew what I was going through.

As far as widows went, I was definitely on the younger side of the members in the club. I was close to thirty now, but when I first joined, I was eighteen. I remembered how scared I was. Austin had been my rock. We were together from the time I was twelve and he was thirteen, about to turn fourteen. We were kids. We grew up together. Then we had a kid, and we got married. And then he left and never came back.

Of course, on some level, I knew the danger every time he deployed, but for some reason, he was invincible to me. Maybe it was because we were so young, and I was naive. Or maybe it was because he promised me, and he’d never gone back on any promise he’d ever made to me. Or maybe I thought that our love was actually strong enough to bring him back home to me.

---