Heaven or Hell
All characters borrowed from the television series Nashville.
Chapter 4
She lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes. "Now, that is really a stupid question," she said. "Because I love you more than anything or anyone. You are my life".
"Why? I'm nowhere near good enough for you after what I did. You should hate me. I hate myself. I can never be forgiven for what I did. I don't deserve to be forgiven."
"Well, it just so happens in this case it's not you who gets to do the forgiving, it's me and you are forgiven for everything. I forgive you. I forgive you. You are now as pure as freshly fallen snow. Now that is going to cost you a kiss."
"You want a kiss…off me?"
"I certainly do Mr. Barkley and right on the lips."
He raised his head and she leaned forward and kissed him. She knew his kiss and this was only a gesture. Not even half hearted, no emotion, he still blamed himself and was full of grief. She had a theory on this entire conflict. Maybe it might help him if she explained her deductions…the essence of this incident. "Can we talk? There is something I have worked out and I think it would help us both if we shared it."
"Is it anything like that earlier discussion we had because I will tell you straight up, I can't handle another one of those?"
"No, in fact I think I will surprise you with this."
"I know you are the brains of this outfit," she said. "And I am very happy to let you have the job. But just this time I have come up with a piece of philosophy that I think fits us perfectly."
"Wow, philosophy, now, this is impressive. You have my undivided attention."
"Now I know you will think the source is funny but I really want you to pay attention because to me this is really important. You know how I've always been a huge fan of Oprah?"
He smiled broadly. "This is Oprah Winfrey philosophy?"
"No, now come on Avery, I need you to be serious here."
"OK, I'm sorry," he was still smiling. "Go ahead, I'm listening."
"Well I was watching this particular episode of Oprah. This was way back, before I knew you, back when I was confused…a little wild."
Avery nodded.
"Well they had this guy on, he was pretty famous, a professor or something I think and he was talking about love. Now he said something that I never forgot. You know how sometimes you can just see or hear something and you never forget it. It just gets stuck in your mind and you can't shake it loose?"
He said, "That there is no such thing as a perfect guy or a perfect girl but only a less than perfect guy and a less than perfect girl can make a perfect love."
"I have always said we have a perfect love. Sometimes you thought I was a little carried away, a little too romantic but I have never felt more comfortable with anyone than I have with you. I love you with the deepest part of me and I know for a fact you felt the same. Just now, I know all that has happened has you a little confused but stick with me, it will make sense."
"Ever since I saw that Oprah program I looked for that guy I could build that love with. I could never find him. I really wanted to find love. It was something I'd never had in my entire life. I used to think there was something wrong with me, that no one wanted me. Pretty much every guy I tried to love lied to me. Eventually I gave up. I didn't believe love existed."
"Then I met you at that award concert and we sat and talked on those stairs. I remember I was drunk and I propositioned you. I was nowhere near as drunk though as I was at that BMI party with Jeff. What did you do? You were the gentleman. You would not take advantage of me. To the best I can remember that had never happened to me before. I could not forget you. I knew you were special. I wanted to know you better so I invited you to song write with me. Then I found out how good you were and how compatible we were and I started to fall in love with you. That is the only time that has happened to me, I had someone I was in love with and we built that off a really solid friendship base and now what we have is a really solid love."
"But the thing that I didn't understand was that you and I who made that love neither of us are perfect. That's what we need to understand. We will both make mistakes. Me, because I knew nothing about love, but you as well, because all your relationships ended in pain. And we did make mistakes like the Wentworths. Like when I turned up at your apartment to tell you I loved you and you were with Scarlett. But those things were corrected and our love ultimately was the reason. You realized you loved me and not Scarlett, I realized I loved you and I didn't want to be involved with Wentworth. Our love just developed and became stronger from there. We need to understand that despite our mistakes our love is the true constant and together we can overcome anything."
"That's what went wrong with that BMI party business…We didn't believe in each other. If I wasn't weak I would have known you loved me and you'd come to me. You would have known I would not have been angry and you would have come to me. Then that incident would never have occurred
We both made mistakes and now they need to be resolved. One choice could be to break up. We already tried that for four weeks and it was too painful. How do you think it would be if it were for life? But should we each get a life sentence for this? You don't even get that much for murder. That seems a little severe for this. No I don't think that is the answer. I suppose we could be angry for the consequences of our mistakes but that misses the point. The consequences were not the problem, they were the result. No, we need to correct what caused the mistakes in the first place.
"Don't you see, what happened at the party doesn't matter. The arguments we had breaking up, don't matter. They were only the consequences. We lost faith in our love, that was the mistake. That is the lesson we need to understand. We need to be stronger, we need to trust and believe in each other. That is what we are supposed to do with this love we have. That's all it's for. The truth is, we are inevitable. We are meant to exist together and the proof of that is the pain we suffered when we were apart."
Something in the recesses occurred to Avery on the exact same subject. "Since you like quotes here's one by Gary Zukav for you as well, "You will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is." That says everything you have been saying. I can see what you mean. You have presented a jolting reality but it's all true. This is such a change from where we were a couple of hours ago. I'm going to need time to adjust to this, to take it in. I think I need to sleep on it."
"I hope by sleeping on it you intend to do that here."
"Is that an invitation?"
"Yes."
"OK but I do have a condition."
"What's that?" She raised an eyebrow and looked at him on an angle.
"That sleeping and cuddling idea, I really like the sound of that for
tonight.
"That's fine," Juliette said, "but I want you here tomorrow night as well. Then you are going to need all those bedroom skills you are so good at and I'm going to need those intense feelings you always give me when we both completely lose it all. We are going to have some major workouts.
"I love the idea you are into indoor sports," he smiled.
"In fact now that I think about it I want you here for a lot of nights like…all of them," Juliette smiled
Next morning he was on his back with an arm under Juliette's neck. Her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. He lay there, absently twirling her hair through his fingers while he thought about her theory on their love. He'd been doing that for a couple of hours. He had come to the conclusion that she was right. They were inevitable she said, that was a good way to describe them. They were meant to be together, it hurt too much to be apart. He remembered how he suffered those few weeks they were broken up. Then the relief he felt from just talking to her on the phone even though he still had demons haunting him over Fordham. Yes! She was right but how to consolidate what they have so they never have those doubts again?
She awoke with a long "Hmmm. What a fantastic night." She turned her head and kissed him full on the lips. He returned her kiss with equal tenderness. Yes! She said to herself. He is back, we are back."
She was about to take the bit between her teeth and tell her news. This seemed a perfect time to tell him about the baby, but he started talking first.
"What do you think about hyphenated names," he asked her.
"What?"
"Hyphenated names. You know like the actor Daniel Day-Lewis. I've always thought they sounded classy. Like Camilla Parker-Bowles that woman who married Prince Charles of England. Or you can have American ones like Hilary Rodham-Clinton there's another one. Of course there are super classy ones like Juliette Barnes-Barkley"
She was thinking about how she would tell him she's pregnant. "Yes, Yes," she said absently," I suppose if you like that kind of thin…What did you say?" She sat bolt upright.
"I said I particularly like Juliette Barnes-Barkley. I thought that was really good."
"Avery, is that some kind of a proposal?"
"Yes it was but I wanted to just test the water so to speak. So I had an out if the response was negative."
"Oh, I can assure you most emphatically…the response is definitely not negative. But I need to tell you something really important. I couldn't tell you earlier because we weren't talking but now you need to know.
"OK," he said, "I'm all ears."
"I'm pregnant. Avery, you're going to be a daddy."
"A daddy, wow, I've got to let that sink in"
Juliette suddenly felt nauseous and headed for the bathroom.
When she returned he said, "You've got the whole lot haven't you? Even morning sickness. So…a daddy huh? Yep, I can do this. I reckon we will be great parents. How do you feel about the mommy idea?"
"I feel fantastic about it now. I was worried what you might say but now I am so happy."
"That's great, so this marriage idea, you are still in favor of it?"
"Oh am I?" She showered him with kisses
"Alright sleepy," he kissed her tenderly, "time to rise and shine. We need to go shopping for an engagement ring."
"Yes. Avery, I know you haven't worked for a month. I want you to know I really don't mind buying my own ring."
"Oh really, do you have anything in mind?"
"Nothing gaudy. They just look like a brick on your hand. No I'm pretty small and I have small hands so I would something that balances that out maybe a really nice solitaire seems like a good place to start."
"You got a budget in mind?"
"I don't want you to get offended because I am really happy to buy my own. I'm guessing between ten and fifteen thousand. I know you don't have that but I'm good. Just knowing we are getting married is enough for me."
"Alright, now first you don't have to buy your own ring. I'll take care of that. The only stipulation is a budget limit of thirty thousand. How does that suit you?"
"Avery, we both know you don't have thirty thousand dollars, let me buy it."
"Everything is under control. You might as well know. I'm going to bill Rayna for a commission on that three million dollar increase I arranged. It's all perfectly legit. That is going to buy your ring."
"What if she says no."
"I just saved her Company. Saying no would not be the best way to get me to continue my input. She won't say no."
Avery drove them to the largest jewelry store in Nashville. "Now you make a start. I need some fresh clothes and do a couple of other things. I'll be back in an hour."
Avery changed into his fresh clothes and went direct to Highway 65.
Mike had the reports ready when he arrived. He went though what Mike needed to action for the day.
"Rayna, got a minute?" He poked his head into Rayna's office.
"Avery," she had a huge smile on her face. "How did you do that? You were right, that loan was killing us. We needed over a hundred thousand dollars a month just to make the payments on it. I have Bucky setting up auditions and demos. Now that we have some cash flow I have a number of artists we need to check out to expand the label."
"Talking about cash flow Rayna. I'm going to have to bill you for an agent's commission for that new three million dollar increase from yesterday."
"Commission?"
"Yes, its standard practice but I'm going to give you bargain basement rates. Usually this could run you around five percent. But I have a project I'm working on so one percent will be enough. That's thirty thousand. You happy with that?
"Yes I am. Irrespective of anything you have just saved this company. That's a small price to pay."
"Well at least you can take comfort that unless I have a special requirement like today you will not need to pay me very much at all until the cash flow can stand it. Right now though, you have made someone very happy. I'll see you early tomorrow. I'll be sticking my nose in on a pretty much daily basis before working on that album with Juliette."
Back at the jewelry store Avery saw Juliette surrounded with about six trays of rings. "Getting any closer to a choice?"
"I've got it down to three but I need help. Let me try them on, you tell me what you like."
"The first one," he said. "That's perfect, just the right size for your hand and it's a beautiful diamond."
"That's my favorite as well but I was a little worried about the price for you. It's twenty seven and a half thousand."
"Fine, we'll take it," Avery said and handed the saleswoman the Highway 65 card.
"Just a minute," he said taking the ring from the saleswoman. He dropped to one knee, took Juliette's hand and said, "Juliette Barnes, I love you beyond anything. Would you make me sublimely happy and agree to be my wife?"
With a small laugh, she dropped to his level and kissed him all over his face.
