Second Chance in Paradise Read online

  No more. I exited the site. This was the last time. I meant it this time.

  I sat in my chair and closed my eyes. What a life I had made for myself. Checking in on an old boyfriend before the crack of dawn. I sighed. For the first time in a long time I felt like maybe I needed something more in my life than memories.

  Chapter Two

  I trudged up the stairs to my tiny one-bedroom apartment several blocks from campus. I was so exhausted I wasn’t sure how I found the energy to make it up each step. But I wasn’t going to question it, mainly because I was too tired. Another fourteen-hour day in the lab. In a couple weeks, it would be spring break, so I would get a small reprieve since the grad students I mentored would be gone. Not that I wouldn’t go in over break, but I would make myself take off Easter day. Right? Yes. Yes. No working on Easter. I would sleep. That sounded like heaven right about now.

  I shifted my backpack and made the rest of the climb up the dark, dingy stairwell. University stipends weren’t that much and I was tired of roommates, so my accommodations were on the questionable side. Rent wasn’t cheap in Mobile. But at least my apartment was always clean, and I didn’t have to worry about the weird men my roommates would bring home. So maybe I always had my pepper spray ready to go and I was now a world champion bug killer. It was worth it. Most days.

  I fizzled into my overstuffed chair, the green one, not the red one. I didn’t have to decorate last Christmas. It was the only time of year I felt good about my mismatched furniture. I got them cheap—we are talking deep, deep discount. And it’s not like I ever had company. There wasn’t a lot of room for it. My life fit in five hundred square feet of tiled floor, whitewashed walls, and low lighting. I called it mood lighting, you know, for researching and sleeping because that’s all this apartment ever saw. Heavy on the research. My thesis was going to be a masterpiece. The committee that held my life in their hands was going to cry in a couple of years when they got that baby. For now, I would be the one in tears as I dedicated my life to it.

  I didn’t even have the energy to take off my jacket. It was probably a good call. I kept the furnace down to semi-arctic levels to save on heating bills. Mobile could get cold even in March. My stomach and mind were at war. My body was begging for rest and food. Fifteen minutes, my mind implored. I closed my eyes. Yes, all I needed was fifteen minutes. I kicked off my shoes in a semi-coma and curled up on the chair.

  I don’t remember anything after that. I fell into a deep sleep for fifteen minutes . . . times twelve. It was midnight. My stomach wasn’t happy, making noises that sounded like a koala barking, a disturbing sound to be sure. I only knew this because watching National Geographic videos online was my prime source of entertainment when I had the time, which was almost never. I pushed myself up and headed for the kitchen, or what I liked to call my play kitchen. I think I could have bought a bigger one at a children’s toy store. I didn’t even know they made refrigerators so slender. No creepy men though, I reminded myself, or slob roommates who were noisy and interrupted my studies.

  I reached in the refrigerator and grabbed one of my premade meals—steel-cut oatmeal in a jar. I normally ate them for breakfast, but cooking was out of the question and it was healthy, full of fruit, nuts, and almond milk. In my line of study, you learned eating right was the first step in disease prevention. I wasn’t perfect at it, but I made a conscious effort. So maybe there was a package of peanut butter cups lurking somewhere in a cupboard. Somedays a girl needed a fix. Not today though.

  I devoured the oatmeal and stumbled into my cubicle of a bedroom. I didn’t even bother undressing. I fell on my twin size bed, jacket and all still on, threw my comforter over me, slept, woke up at the crack of dawn, and started the process all over.

  The only difference was I reminded myself I could be a woman too. I threw on some mascara and lip gloss for the fun of it. I looked in the small mirror above the ancient sink that had rust lining the faucet. Once upon a time someone called me beautiful. I couldn’t say his name or think it, especially after that picture he posted, clearly by mistake. Instead, I looked harder. All I could see were the red lines in my eyes reminding me I was still tired and hair that begged to be styled again. Sorry. I threw it up in a messy bun. At least my legs were still smooth, not that you could tell underneath the layer of tights and jeans. It was cold at home and the lab.

  I threw a few protein bars, apples, and bananas in my backpack before I headed out into the cool morning. I walked wherever I could. My old Honda Accord had seen better days, like two decades ago, but it was still running. I saved Lola for special occasions. I thought naming her would help us be friends more than adversaries.

  I stopped by the mailboxes on my way out. I hadn’t had the energy last night to check for mail. It was usually only bills anyway. I turned the small key and opened the tiny metal door, surprised to see some color in there. A shiny gold envelope consumed the space, that and the electric bill. Curious, I grabbed the card. I realized then how truly lonely my life had become. I shouldn’t have been so happy by the prospect that maybe someone other than the utility company cared to send me anything. I had no one to blame but myself. School, work, and research had become my life. I did help people, I reminded myself, but I didn’t let them in. Life experience taught me not to trust easily. But I had anyway a long time ago. It hadn’t worked out so well.

  The beautiful script on the envelope was printed. My name never looked so fancy. There was no return address. My hopes of being remembered faded. It was probably my insurance agent thanking me for my small contribution to his Maui vacation or perhaps begging me to buy life insurance, like I had any beneficiaries or money to spend on a premium. The only reason I insured Lola was because it was the law. I opened the envelope anyway.

  It contained a card and a letter. Not just any card, but an announcement. I stood in the drafty hall and stared at beautiful Jaycee and her fiancé, George Buchanan. I grinned. What a proper name for the obviously Southern boy in a black Stetson. Jaycee looked like perfection. Her long blonde hair was swept to one side. It was longer than it used to be. Her smile was older, but it said how happy she was in the arms of the handsome cowboy. Her violet eyes with a hint more of wisdom in them sparkled. Love jumped off the page.

  How did she know where I lived?

  I unfolded the hand-written note in pink. She loved pink.

  Dear Holland,

  I hope this announcement finds you and you’re not upset to be found. I’m not sure what happened. Was it something I did? If so, I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you. Those two summers working together and hanging out on the weekends during the school year were the best. You were the best. I miss our late-night girl talks, especially your fancy science terms. You probably have that PhD by now and are out curing cancer. But I hope you can take some time and come to my wedding. We promised we would be at each other’s weddings. So if you’re already married, you have some explaining to do. But I forgive you. Bring your husband if you have one. I would love to meet the lucky guy.

  Please, Holland. It won’t be the same without you.

  Love,

  Jaycee

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I cried. Tears won’t help you, my aunt Dina used to say. She was probably wrong about that, just like she was wrong about me. Tears meant I could feel. That I was more than the robot that researched, studied, worked, slept, and ate on occasion, and did everything she could to avoid real connections. I had more meaningful relationships with the test tubes and pipettes in my lab than I did with people nowadays.

  I stared at the announcement and note. My past had seemed to catch up to me the last couple of days. But how could I go? The wedding and reception were in Paradise. I promised myself I would never return. I was never meant to have paradise. I didn’t have anything to wear. My wardrobe in the winter consisted of jeans and oversized sweatshirts. In the summer, I swapped them for shorts and t-shirts if I was ever outside the lab, which was a rare oc
casion.

  But I thought about the girl who worked because her wealthy parents thought it would be good for her. The girl who wore designer clothes and drove a convertible. The one who never judged me for being poor or having to work just so I could buy some decent clothes and have some spending money. She’d made it possible for me to see Porter and to have contact with him while he was away at school attending Ole Miss. I didn’t have a cell phone and he could have never called me where I lived. My aunt and uncle would have been furious. My aunt had two rules. Stay out of the way and don’t get pregnant. Those were easy enough to follow. Except a boyfriend to her would have meant I was bound to get pregnant, just like my mother had when she was seventeen. And I wanted my aunt and uncle to notice me for the right reasons. For a long time, I thought if I could show them how good I was, they would want me around. I was wrong.

  Jaycee and her family became my saviors on the weekends and in the summer. Not only could I talk to Porter when I was there, sometimes he even visited on the weekends. They never questioned why a girl from Cokeville, the pit of despair, spent most of her free time with them. Or maybe they knew. They would send me home with bags of used clothing on occasion. Nicest clothes I’d ever had. Was it embarrassing? Yes. But it made me more determined to live a life free of charity and hand-me-downs. I would make my own way.

  And I had done that ever since I left for college. If you could call it leaving. I was only an hour or so away from my heaven and hell. But when you get a full ride to a private college, you take it. And when they ask you to stay on and offer to pay for your doctorate in exchange for your life, at least several years of it, it’s hard to pass up. And I knew what it was worth. I’d had lucrative offers come my way already, with only a master’s. Scraping by would be a distant memory someday.

  I stared at Jaycee again. I had made her a memory.

  I let out a heavy sigh. I would send a card and a small, inexpensive gift.

  Somberly, I walked the almost mile to campus. Cold humidity hung in the air, in the early morning hours. Once the sun was fully up it would be warmer, but more humid. I held the card in my hand. I should have put it in my backpack, but it was like holding a reminder that I mattered outside the world of academia and the lab.

  I couldn’t go, I kept repeating to myself. The wedding was at the ritzy country club in Paradise and it was this weekend. And I was behind. The donor bank had sent me the wrong tissue samples a few days ago, so I had to start over yesterday. I’d asked for males with heart disease, instead I was given females with rheumatoid arthritis. Not to mention spring break was coming up and all my grad students would be leaving, so I needed to utilize the time I had with them now to get back on track. After spring break they would be useless for at least a week while the alcohol slowly seeped out of their brains.

  Spring break meant summer break was around the corner and my pool of grad students would significantly decrease. My joint project with Auburn researching and testing different cardiovascular medications and their effects based on genetics would slow to a crawl. So taking a weekend off before spring break was out of the question. This was important.

  And would Jaycee really miss me? I was an awful friend. After I saw Porter kiss Demi, it was like midnight came for Cinderella. I was back to a pumpkin, old ratty dress, and one shoe. The gut wrenching moment played in my head. It hadn’t for a long time. But there I was, running to our spot, ready to tell Porter how much I loved him. It was the last night of the summer. We would part once again, but this time I would be free of my family in name only and Porter would be off to finish his final year of college.

  But instead of me confessing my love, I was struck with a terrible sight. The prince had found a real princess. Her manicured hands on his bare chest and how perfect they fit together slapped me with cold, hard reality. A large gasp escaped me, alerting them to my presence. Porter jumped back and turned my way. He never spoke. Not even a peep escaped him. For a moment, his eyes pierced my own. Regret, then freedom filled his before he walked away. Demi wiped her mouth and gave me the smile of a victor before chasing after him.

  I didn’t cry or move. Out of all the ridiculous things to do, I recited the periodic table of elements out loud, beginning with the smallest atomic number, Hydrogen. It’s what I’d done since I was a young girl to cope with the nightmare that was my life. Porter and Demi weren’t my worst nightmare, but they were the most painful. My parents and aunt and uncle never loved me, so their neglect didn’t have the stinging bite of Porter’s betrayal. At least my family never lied to me or gave me false hope that they would be anything but indifferent toward me.

  Once I reached the largest atomic number on the chart, Ununoctium, I took a deep breath and decided to sever all ties with Paradise. I couldn’t bear to be let down by one more person. Better to end any relationship before they could. And just like that, I let Jaycee go. More like pushed her out and ignored her. It was a rotten thing to do.

  I wouldn’t be missed.

  But she had tracked me down.

  No. No. I couldn’t go. My emergency fund wasn’t meant to go toward party dresses.

  I walked into the lab and, before I flipped on the lights, I admired the blinking lights of the diagnostic equipment. I was the first one there, as usual. I took a moment to try and cleanse my thoughts of the past. There wouldn’t be a repeat of yesterday. No more looking at Porter’s profile page. Even though I kept thinking about that picture of us. Had he taken it down? Why did it matter?

  I headed to my own corner of the lab—my office, before settling in at my desk covered with piles of organized notes. My screen held a dozen sticky notes reminding me of appointments and conference calls, like the one with Auburn later this morning to discuss with my collaborators there my results from last week’s sequencing run. An email would have sufficed, but for some reason people loved meetings, even if they were the virtual kind. That meant I needed to get the data in a spreadsheet and create corresponding graphs. And make yet another PowerPoint. I had closed my door, hoping people would take the hint that I wasn’t to be bothered. If it was any other project, I would have given this task to a grad student. But my thesis and grant money were tied up in this. I wouldn’t take the chance. My future hinged on it.

  The closed door worked for all of fifteen minutes after people began to arrive. My office was basically a glass box; even the door was made of glass. It was good when I needed to keep an eye on people. Not all grad students are meant to work in a lab. Thank goodness for fire extinguishers. But most of the time it made me feel like I was in a fishbowl. It was an invitation to always be interrupted. This interruption, however, could not be turned away. I ran the lab, but I wasn’t in charge of it. That honor belonged to Dr. Sharon Ainsley, my principal investigator. She owned my life. Good thing she was a more-than-good human and probably the closest thing I had to a friend, even though she was twenty years older than me.

  Sharon didn’t bother knocking, she came right in, holding her usual morning latte and looking like she had gotten a good eight hours of sleep. Her bobbed, dishwater hair bounced when she walked. It added to her perkiness.

  “Good morning. Or is it good night for you? Please tell me you went home.”

  I was embarrassed to admit how many times I had spent the night in the lab. “Of course I did.”

  “Uh-huh.” She studied me to see if I was lying. Her eyes landed on the announcement lying on my desk. “What do you have here?” She obviously didn’t believe in personal space or privacy. Without asking, she picked up the announcement and note.

  I was so shocked I didn’t react quick enough to grab it first.

  She read the note and stared at the announcement before giving me a mischievous smile that made her look much younger than she was. “I hope you’re going.”

  I waved her off and focused back on my screen. “Don’t have time.”

  “Did you read this note?”

  “Yes.” I kept focusing on my screen. My call was in two
hours and I didn’t have time for this conversation.

  “Holland.”

  Not that I would know, but she sounded like a mother. I turned toward her as if in trouble.

  She held the announcement up. “You have to go.”

  “I won’t be missed and I’m behind.”

  She shook her head. “Holland, let me give you some advice.”

  I sighed, knowing this could take a while.

  Sharon didn’t care about my unenthusiastic response. “You have more potential than any other grad or doctoral student that has graced the inside of these walls. Your intelligence and dedication are a rare gem, but if you want to succeed outside of this lab, you are going to have to start getting out of it more often.”

  My eyes narrowed. “How does that make sense?”

  She leaned against my desk, eyes boring in on me. “Listen, I know you think once you hit the corporate world of research and development, you’ll be able to hole up in some other lab, but that’s not the way it works. Especially not for you. The fact that you’re a woman in this field—and I hate to say that this still makes a difference—but being beautiful will make you the poster child for wherever you land. Not only will they expect you to present, but they’ll want you to mingle and attend more parties and meetings with investors than you ever imagined.” She kept the derision out of her voice. She, like many in academia, believed that going corporate was selling out.

  My brows hit my bangs. She had my utmost attention.

  She nodded. “You’ll be wining and dining as much as you’ll be in a lab.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t going to do. Maybe I would try for a post-doctoral position at another university, but even then I would be expected to be out presenting at conferences and other universities.

  She gave me a pressed-lipped smile that said I was naïve. “Holland, you’ve got to get a life outside this lab. And more than helping my daughter with her science project. Though you have my heartfelt thanks for the first-place ribbon and getting my daughter interested in science.”