Chapter 12
Carrington Office
Searcy, Arkansas
November 24, 2023
“Umm…” Harvey seemed to be struggling with the right question to ask. “What I um…” he tried again, “I don’t know any other way to ask this than just to ask it. Did you break your wedding vows in a one-night stand with Greer Stone? I mean, that is just in such contrast to the goody two shoes image you always had.”
“I hate to say so, but yes. I made a terrible decision that luckily worked out well for me, but one of the reasons I was hesitant to do this interview was knowing that my daughter, along with the rest of the world, would now know all my dirty little secrets,” said Taylor. Her voice cracked as she spoke.
“Okay, let’s get one thing straight. I do need you to be honest with me and tell me exactly what happened, but I am not like a newspaper reporter. I am a hired writer. The article I am writing is a marketing piece. I will not put anything in it that will embarrass anyone if I can help it. My job is to write an article that shows that love is complicated and messy in real life, but it is still just love. You, Greer, Poppy, and Bennett rose above all that happened back then and rebuilt your lives, richer and fuller than they were before fromwhere I am standing. Even if Bennett were not running for governor, it would be a story worth telling.” Harvey was so earnest as he spoke that, for the first time all day, Taylor was glad she had decided to do the interview.
“Thank you for saying that. Remember that when you start writing all the nitty, gritty details,” replied Taylor.
“Promise,” said Harvey. “Okay, let’s get back to the grindstone. What happened next?”
Sighing deeply, she said, “All hell broke loose.”
Greer Stone’s Houseboat
Gulf Shores, Alabama
March 2012
“Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang!”
Taylor clung to sleep as pain exploded in her head. She could feel herself rolling back and forth from one side of the bed to the other. And with each roll, she heard a loud bang, followed by an even louder clang. How long this had been going on, she had no idea. She just wanted silence. Silence and sleep. She needed sleep. There was no pain in the blissful world of the silent unconscious.
“Ohhhh!” she moaned as the noise began again. Her head was going to split wide open. Each new sound felt like someone was hitting her head with a sledgehammer. Make it stop, she thought. Please, somebody, make it stop. But it didn’t stop, and that was when she became conscious enough to know something was wrong because she had no idea where she was or where all that rolling and noise was coming from.
Lying perfectly still and holding her head with her hands, Taylor was able to stop her head from banging against whatever it hadbeen hitting for a second, but the pain didn’t go away. Slowly, she forced herself to allow consciousness to filter into her brain.
Refusing to open her eyes, she relied on her sense of touch to tell her where she was. Running her hands over the sheet covering her, she was able to deduce that she was not in her soft, lovely bed with the pristine white sheets made from 1200-count Egyptian cotton. Oh no! Most definitely not. These sheets were definitely not cotton. Opening her eyes a fraction, she saw herself swimming in a sea of black silk. Oh God! She was in a bed with black silk sheets. This was worse than she thought. Where in the world was she? For the life of her, she could not remember.
Closing her eyes tightly and trying to force her brain to work, Taylor tried to conjure up details from the night before. She remembered spending most of the day on the beach and doing some painful soul-searching. But that was where her mind went blank. Where was she? And how had she gotten here? She had no idea.
Her sense of touch wasn’t giving her any answers either. So, she pulled up her big girl panties, metaphorically, of course, since she was not currently wearing any underwear, and forced her eyes open once again.
“Oh, God!” She moaned again as the light attacked her from all directions. At that moment, she was sure she was going to die. She lay in the black silk sea and waited for the end. When she didn’t die, she forced herself to open her eyes and focus.
From her vantage point in the bed, she could only see the most unusual pair of cowboy boots she had ever seen. They were directly above her. It took a moment for her to deduce precisely what was strange about them. They were being worn on the wrong feet. She wondered who in the world would wear cowboy boots on the wrong feet.
Before she could answer that question, a major dilemma presented itself. Nausea rose in her throat and threatened to spew everywhere. She was going to be sick, and it was not going to be pretty. She had to get out of bed and find a bathroom immediately. Moving faster than she believed possible, Taylor tried to hurl herself out of the bed. It was then she realized that she was the one wearing the boots on the wrong feet because when she tried to walk, she tumbled over the side of the bed in a heap of covers and boots. Time being of the essence, Taylor kicked her feet as hard as she could, and the boots went flying across the room. They came off quite easily as they were several sizes too big for her. With the boots gone, she pushed the cover to the floor and raced to find a bathroom. As she went, she realized that she was completely naked except for her mother’s pearls.This just keeps getting better and better,she thought. Taylor spied the bathroom behind a half-open door in the corner and made a run for it. She just made it without a second to spare.
Lying on the small bathroom floor with her head draped across the toilet seat, Taylor realized she had hit rock bottom. Thank goodness Edna Stone and her crew weren’t here to witness this.
That’s when little flashes of the night before began to come to her,the fight with Bennett, her decision to go to the River Rat, Greer, sweet, delicious Greer.From there, she thought of all the wine she had drunk.Yuck, all that wine.Oh, no, thinking about the wine almost made her sick again.
Next, she remembered the dancing. She had loved dancing with Greer. Thinking about how bold and daring some of her dance moves were made her groan and cover her eyes. However, that paled in comparison to the next set of memories that washed through her mind.
With her eyes closed and her head still in her hands, she allowed scenes from the night before to replay themselves in her head. Itwould have been a triple xxx-rated movie for sure, given the array of trapeze tricks that had transpired once they had made it back to the boat.
Who am I? Taylor thought. What have I done? I have committed adultery and am now naked, puking my guts up in a strange man’s houseboat. The anger that had sent her out the night before looking for revenge was gone. In its place was a boatload of guilt and self-recrimination.
Her shame was palatable. Each time she was sick, it was almost as if her body was as disgusted with her as she was with herself. All she could think about was finding her clothes and getting out of there as quickly as possible. She had no idea where Greer was. He wasn’t in the bedroom or bathroom, and she didn’t hear him moving around in the front of the boat. Taylor was praying she could escape without facing him as she had no idea what she would say to him if she did.
It took several minutes before she could move, but once she was sure she would not be sick again, Taylor reached out and grabbed a washcloth to clean herself up. The sight that greeted her in the mirror was not a pretty one. Remnants of last night’s makeup could be seen in streaks and black marks smeared across her face. She lathered up the washcloth and washed her face as quickly as possible. Next, she finger brushed her nasty teeth and helped herself to a healthy portion of mouthwash sitting on the counter. Even with that, she worried she would never get the leftover liquor taste out of her mouth. She could still taste the after-effects of being sick. Spying some lotion on the counter, she squirted a dab into her hand and used it as moisturizer.
