Chapter 34
One Year Later
I’ve got to get back to Greener Valley for the memorial ceremony. Right now I’m in Seattle, waiting for my agent to pick me up at my hotel. I just finished a week long gallery show here - a very successful one - and my agent called to say she booked another showing in Denver for next month. I’ve got two other shows between then, plus some commissioned work I need to get started on. But first there’s this thing I have to do.
I press record.
It’s been almost a year. I’m going back home for the memorial ceremony, which will be held in the town square, instead of having the Winter Festival. It just didn’t seem right to have the festival this year, with people still mourning, still rebuilding their lives. Still trying to understand what went on. Like with most small towns, we stick together and we all tried to help each other make sense of what happened and get through it. And we swore to each other that we’d keep what we saw secret. Not only would the majority of people not believe it, but those who did believe would descend on our town with cameras pointed in our faces, nosing into our business and generally making a spectacle of us. So we all stuck with the story the Grass is Greener Corporation went with; a gas leak and a couple of explosions. That seemed to shut people up. It was a tragic story, but not a story worthy of keeping in the papers or on tv for any length of time. Three days after it happened some Senator found himself in a compromising position. Well, a member of the media found him in a compromising position. And that was all it took for the tragedy of Greener Valley to be knocked out of the news. And we were grateful for that.
Terri and Mrs. Beasley walked away from the whole thing with few emotional scars. I think they were just meant to play the roles they did, much like I was, and they knew that and accepted that. They came to terms with everything they saw and while I think Terri might have some lingering anxiety problems, she seems to be doing ok. She’ll graduate from high school in June and she already hinted to me that she may eschew the typical Greener Valley route of staying local for college. She’s thinking California. I told her to stay away from L.A. Stu just disappeared and I’m pretty sure I know what became of him. He mentioned something about chariots and Tony Orlando and Dawn and while that all would have been declared as the gibberish of a drunken man at some point, I now know better. Stu’s finally resting.
I tried to call Cherilynn after it was all over. I needed to ground myself, to connect with someone who wasn’t a part of it all. And maybe I wanted to tell her she was right about the town inasmuch as she was wrong about it. Something insidious lurked within Greener Valley, that much is true. But she was wrong about the town itself being evil. The way we stuck together after is testament to the fact that we’re good people. We may not be perfect people, but we’re good. It didn’t matter. She never answered when I called. I left two voicemails for her and gave up. I eventually threw out the sweater she left in my closet. Got tired of looking at it with some kind of ridiculous hope.
I’ve made my way back into the art world. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to make and sell art when you’re not constantly hyped up on booze and pills. Yea, I’m clean and sober. All it took was a little supernatural episode to set me straight. I’m telling you, you live through something like that and you want to embrace life for all it’s worth. At least that’s what happened with me.
The first thing I sold after life settled down was the painting I did of Mrs. B and Terri during the early hours of the clusterfuck. I don’t even want to tell you what I sold it for. It’s kind of ludicrous. I did a couple more paintings depicting what went on that day and while I felt weird for being lauded for having a great imagination and “taking the tragedy of a gas explosion and turning it into surreal masterpieces” when I was just telling the truth that no one but the people of Greener Valley knew about, I was glad to be making art that people wanted to own.
I found an agent. Rather, she found me. She’d never been an agent before but that didn’t stop her from flinging herself into her job, procuring for me show after show, gallery space after gallery space and commissions. I don’t know how she does it and I don’t ask. I learned that there are some things you just don’t question because the answers might reveal more than you really wanted to know. I just go with it. Not even just for the glow of success, but for the stability of it all. I have a certainty about my life now. I know from one day to the next what I’m doing, where I’m going. And most important, I know that the people of Greener Valley are safe.
How do I know that?
I look at the clock, turn the voice recorder off. I’ve got to head outside.
There’s a red PT Cruiser waiting for me, a well manicured hand beckoning from the window. I hesitate as always. Take a deep breath. Remember to exhale. A year later, this still isn’t easy to do or understand. But you gotta do what you gotta do and I’m not going to lie, it benefits me greatly to do it. But it benefits Greener Valley even more, and that’s what keeps me going. I’ve already made enough money in the past year - and a name for myself - that I could free myself of her and still make it. But I don’t want to know what would become of my town if I did that.
I slide into the passenger seat, look over at Her. She’s as radiant as ever, her rainbow of a dress standing out against the black interior, her white hair contrasting her youthful face. She’s beautiful, there’s no doubt about that. And she holds my life in her hands.
I strap in and she puts her hand on my thigh. I laugh a little bit. "Give it up," I say.
She laughs back at me. "This can only end one way, Grant."
"When hell freezes over."
She smiles. That smile. "I have all the time in the world.”
I wonder where we are off to now, what little town she’s going to build from the ground up just to attempt to knock it down again.
She puts the car in drive, turns on the radio.
Heartbeat, it’s a lovebeat.