So, yay, I was finally able to finish slugging through this chapter which was giving me troubles. The next few are going to be the same way, but I will push through.
Anyway, now we get to see a bit of how the crew is taking this turn of events. Just to be clear, it's in Louise Nash's POV.
The old crew, which consisted of Junior, River, Smokey and her, had all gather at The Cotter Pin to discuss the article that had been released. It was something they looked forward to every year, with the discussion that it would bring about.
It was supposed to be a recap of the past year in Piston, and give a little bit of an overview for the year to come. Normally, it was given by Edward Piston, and was a great source for keeping up with Piston Cup, now that none of them were participating in the sport. It would usually lead into fun conversations on how the sport was changing.
At least, it had been in the past.
This year though, was underwhelming to say the least. It didn't go into any details for either the past year, or the upcoming one. Making it miss a bulk of what typically made up the interview.
It was all due to who gave the interview this year, and it wasn't the elder Piston.
"You read that interview Alex gave in place of his father, right?" River asked once they were all seated at their usual table.
"If you call that an interview." She scoffed back at him, as the others just rolled their eyes.
"There was hardly anything mentioned about the past season. Not a single word about who won the Cup, and nothing really about the upcoming season." Junior joined their complaining while Smokey remained silent.
"This better be the only interview like this we get from him. I'd rather someone like Joe Moore take over doing that. He's at least always had respect for the sport. He'd probably do a better job though he's never been out on a track like Alex has." She said.
"The way he mentioned Hud's crash, you would have thought he was talking about a stubbed toe." Junior said bringing up another issue with the article.
"Those hurt you know." River quipped.
"Not very serious though, not like Hud's crash was." She countered.
"There was something off about the way he talked about his brother-in-law and how he called him Jesse like that." River said.
"With the way he was talking about his brother-in-law, reminds me of the way of how he would talk about our Jesse." She said now that they were sort of on the topic.
"It does seem like it." Junior agreed.
"And then just what does he mean by there being hype about those past events? That didn't sound like it was necessarily a good thing. Who needs to bring up the past like that again?" River spat out.
"I don't like how he was saying that, that Hud's crash wasn't all that tragic, Hud almost died." She said darkly.
"Yeah, just because it meant he got the cup that year, doesn't mean it was any less tragic, only makes it more so." Junior growled.
"It's all just got to be some weird coincidence, right? We're all thinking it, aren't we? That there's no way that Hud would marry anyone remotely like Alex. Would he?" River asked, voicing their doubts.
"What do you think Smokey? You've been rather quiet all this time." She asked him, actually watching him now. He wasn't looking up at the rest of them, and the way he was brooding reminded her of Jesse before he left.
"Aaron, Hudson, Jesse; I don't know what to think. Emily Piston might not be like her brother. Ruth had met her once, and she thought that Jesse should meet her. Claimed he'd like her. He scoffed at the idea at the time, while Ruth remained insistent that they'd like each other." He paused a moment before continuing on.
"If I find out that he's been going by his middle name, I'm gunna kill him."
She believed if Jesse were to somehow show up right now, that Smokey would rip him a new one, no matter who was around and watching. She quickly changed the topic after a moment of silence.
"So, a doctor. We can't be certain that he is our Jesse Hudson, now can we? Marrying Emily Piston, becoming a doctor, that don't sound much like Hud. Not the Hud we knew."
"I don't know about that either. He used to snatch Ruth's charts to look at them, and was better at taking her pulse than the candy striper was. I just don't know right now." Smokey said, obviously thinking way back.
She hadn't seen him like this since Jesse first disappeared on them. It hurt to see him like this. She and the other two shared a look, if that Aaron Hudson married to Emily Piston was their Jesse Hudson, well he better beware.
To Smokey, she knew it had been like he had lost both of his younger siblings within two years.
If that Aaron Hudson, was truly their Jesse; alive, well, and more than capable of contacting them, there was going to be hell to pay. It wasn't fair what they had been put through with Jesse's disappearance, and if he was married to Emily Piston, then the answer to where he was all these years, had been so close, and yet so far.
She went home that night thinking about Smokey and how Jesse had left.
She had, with Scott and Moon, watched Smokey slowly lose hope over the years about ever hearing from or about Jesse. While he never let it directly effect his daily life, marrying Joan and having their two kids, a daughter and son; he never spoke about it with them. The three of them could; however, tell how much Jesse's disappearance had hurt him.
It wasn't even that Jesse had just simply disappeared, but that he had picked up and left. His Piston Cups were gone, along with some photos, his clothes, and some of the newspapers that the brothers had saved over the years. To her, that seemed like more than a short term thing, particularly with some of those items he had taken, like his cups.
She could remember the first time Smokey had voiced his thoughts about him figuring that his brother was likely dead, in the mid 60's early 70's. Concluding that it was the only logical reason that Jesse hadn't contacted them in some way.
She had speculated before, with Junior and River about the same thing, but had brushed it off, hopeful that wasn't the case. But once Smokey had mentioned it to them, that idea that Jesse might be dead, seemed like a much more real prospect and that it could be the more likely case.
Except for the nagging feeling that wouldn't leave her alone, that surely if Jesse was dead, he would have been found and his death would have made the news as more than just speculation on the anniversary of Jesse's crash. Like the papers and magazines had lightly done on the 25th anniversary of his crash.
It was less than a week after Alex's mockery of an interview came out, that there was an article released expressing similar thoughts about Alex's to their own. As more articles came out, the more likely it seemed like he was their Jesse, or at least they were coming to the same conclusion as them.
Right until an article came out, with a picture of Jesse at medical school.
There was no denying it after that. Their Jesse Hudson had become a doctor and was married to Emily Piston. After that article, Alex confirmed what they now knew. His brother-in-law was their Jesse Hudson, The Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
It left Smokey steamed and it was possibly the angriest she had ever seen him. He only seemed to grow grumpier as more articles came out and they hadn't heard anything from him.
Certainly Jesse had to know they were furious with him. Though their fury had only settled in after, their disbelief and denial passed, that their Jesse Hudson had married Emily Piston.
It had left her dumbfounded and baffled before it sunk in. It didn't mean that her feeling of it being wrong on so many different levels, dissipated at all.
How in the world could their Jesse Hudson end up with little miss high society, Emily Piston. They all knew what Smokey had said about Ruth having met Emily, that Ruth had liked her and had said that Jesse would like her. But it was still EMILY PISTON, and if she was like her brother in the slightest, she couldn't see the two getting married.
Not to mention the hurt they all felt at knowing that the answer of where Jesse went, wasn't even that far from them. To be so close and yet so far; Alex had known the entire time where Jesse was.
She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around it all, and probably would until he contacted them.
It would have surprised her how long it had taken Smokey to go and confront Jesse, if it weren't for the fact that his oldest; Rebecca, had been pregnant and due sometime in April. Smokey wasn't going to miss the birth of his first grandchild.
It had been a whole month before he left after they had learned where Jesse was.
There had been some embarrassment about them not having realized that he had left to confront Jesse until a few days after he left.
The three of them had gone to Joan to confirm their speculations of where Smokey had gone. Joan confirmed what they figured, he had gone to confront his brother and they hadn't been told because it was something that he had to do by himself.
She knew they would have wait until Smokey got back, to ask him any questions, he wouldn't be phoning them.
What none of them had expected, were the letters that came from Jesse, dated from March.
The three of them had each received one, they weren't overly long, but they each had their differences that told a little bit more about Jesse's disappearance. The three of them had met up and read each others letters, all of which had the same post script at the end. Each one had said something similar about his running, ending up where he was, and stressing the point that his wife, Emily, was not to be blamed.
The letters told nothing of how he was handling the media storm that had been kicked up, only that he knew he was guilty of not getting in contact with them. After all three of them had read the other's letters did they discuss them a little.
"Well, that sure tells us a fat load of nothing, other than he does feel guilty and knows we're mad at him."
"I'm not sure I'd put him at par with Piston though."
"Maybe Piston should have done that earlier though, maybe we would have heard from Jesse before this."
It was maybe a couple of days later that Smokey contacted them, to say he was back. When they all met up with him they brought their letters to show him.
"So, how was your trip?" She asked.
"Interesting."
"Well, we got something interesting in the mail a couple days ago, before you got back." She said.
"Don't know what you did when you got there, but he sent us letters." River said as they handed Smokey the letters they got.
"They don't say much, even after reading all three of them." Junior said.
"Here's one more if you want to get a little more rounded view." Smokey said tapping his finger on the folded page he placed on the table.
"He handed this to me before I left, claiming it didn't hold anything we didn't talk about, but it does have his phone number and address." The three of them read Smokey's letter at the same time as he read through theirs.
Well, that gave them a bit more insight to how Jesse was, but not much. They waited for Smokey to place down their letters before drilling him on his trip.
"Well, since you've seen him how is he really?" She asked him.
"Grumpy, just like Ruth predicted he'd become in old age."
"I'd be pretty grumpy too if Alex was my brother-in-law." River piped in.
"He stopped by while I was there, that was quite a run in. Nobody cares much for him there, not after the way he's treated Jesse and Emily. Talking about the town, you should see the place. You wouldn't believe what it looks like unless you saw it yourself."
"Why's that?" Junior asked.
"The entire town is vehicle themed in one way or another. I stayed at a motel called The Cozy Cone Motel. Each room was a giant caution cone. There's a tire place that's got a leaning tower of tires and the main restaurant there is called the V8 Cafe, and that's just some of the biggest businesses in town."
She, Moon, and Scott, had been starting to chuckle a little at the thought before Smokey cut them off.
"Emily lent me their Polaroid camera so I could take some pictures to bring back with me. He ran from here, only to land in a town like that, which happened to have a big connection to the Piston family."
They looked at the pictures that Smokey brought out.
He hadn't been kidding about the vehicle theme of the town. He had even gotten a picture of Jesse and Emily together, it looked like Smokey had managed to catch them unaware, Jesse's hand over Emily's while they were sitting across from each other in a booth. He was looking well in the picture and so far he had aged nicely.
"Other than grumpy how is he really? He didn't say anything in those letters about how he's holding up. Just that he thinks we might hold him on par with Piston for this and to not hold anything against his wife. What's she like anyway?" she asked him.
"Yeah, how is Hud feeling about being new news again?" River asked.
"He still got his Hornet?" Junior asked.
"Course he's still got his Hornet, do you really think he'd ever give that car up?" Smokey just rolled his eyes at him.
"No, but you never know. Especially with how many years have gone by."
"Now that that's cleared up, how's Jesse and what's his wife like?" She asked again.
Smokey took in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
"Well, Emily is nothing like her brother; that's for sure. She reminds me of Ruth in some ways. She's good for him, they complement each other. I think, from the one time Ruth met her, she could tell. She had really wanted Jesse and Emily to meet, like she knew he'd like her. It looks like she was right because I haven't seen him so affectionate since Ruth passed, though that's not saying much. The two of them are run down from all this, and he's stressed to the gills with the negative attention. I never did give him the what for."
"Why not?"
"With all these articles coming out, it's got an entire town on edge. They would have run me out of town without hesitation if they so much as thought I could have been a reporter." He paused.
"Heck, if they had known my original intentions they probably would have anyway, they're so protective over them. They ran Alex out of town when he showed up."
"Really? I think I might like this town."
"They're good people from what I could tell. They've all taken to calling him Doc."
"Well I doubt they'd be calling him Hud."
"Make sure you yell at him in any letters you write him, he's expecting it. Or don't and hold out for a couple before doing so and throw him."
They had spent the rest of the night wringing Smokey for everything that happened on the trip and what he had learned. One of the most interesting things to her was that Jesse and Emily never had kids of their own, but from what she was understanding had practically adopted Alex's youngest and oldest kids.
Minus Smokey, she was the first to give in and send a letter, she hadn't held anything back. She had to laugh at the first line that Jesse had put in the letter in response to her tirade.
'It's good to hear from you too, Lou.' It was just so Jesse and she could still hear the tone of voice it would have been said in.
After she sent a few more letters back and forth, with both Jesse and Emily, did they finally have a phone call. It wasn't long, but it was a start.
She knew that River and Junior didn't hold out much longer than she did and within the year, the three of them had tried to make plans to visit Jesse, which always seemed to fall through.
It wasn't until nearly two years after the first article came out did they see them in person and that was because they come to Thomasville.
I also may have been distracted by an AU that may never see the light of day, but here's a snippet of it just because I like the way it turned out. Also because it might take me just as long to get out the next chapter as this one did. I've got a few hard chapters to write and then I'll be into some easier ones. Also, if you're interested in seeing the letters that Jesse sent them, let me know, because I do have them written, but I didn't like the flow. Enjoy or not the snippet below.
"You're home early." Joan told him as he sat down at the kitchen table. He didn't really acknowledge her statement, in his numb state.
"Jesse's dead."
"I know you've been starting to think that, but you can't be sure."
"I can though, I just got a phone call from his widow at the garage, saying he was killed by a drunk driver while walking home. Her father's going to make arrangements to fly us out for the funeral."
"Who is she? Nobody we'd know, is she?"
"Know of her, but hadn't talked to her before today. He married Emily Piston."