Train Bound to Forty, page 1
Train Bound to Forty
A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Romance Novella
Stephanie Berchiolly
Author’s Note
A big shout out to the many people who’ve supported me throughout this insane journey:
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Mandy Roth, Michelle Pillows, Rick, Racheal, Kathy, and Vince Migliore, Cami Thompson, Robert Flowers, Everly Rivers, Louise Michelle, Deb Carroll, my OGs on the ARC Team, and all the other wonderful individuals who’ve been so encouraging and kind along the way.
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I’m eternally grateful to you all!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
About Stephanie Berchiolly
Train Bound to Forty—Copyright © 2021, Stephanie Berchiolly
All rights reserved. No part of this collection may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner(s).
This novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. The books are fictional and not a how-to. As always, in real life practice good judgment in all situations. Novel intended for adults only. Must be 18 years or older to read.
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Editing by Linda Ingmanson
Cover Design by Mandy Roth
Description
Train Bound to Forty
A force of nature unto herself, Florebelle Fairfield must face a magical destiny she was never prepared for.
Turning forty isn’t for the faint of heart!
My name’s Florebelle Fairfield.
I thought when you hit this age, your life’s supposed to be sorted out?
Nope! Mine fell apart!
I’ve heard of midlife crises, but a whole magical destiny no one prepared me for?
That requires reinforcements!
Luckily, I have my childhood besties, Star and Amira, a couple of kick-ass witches, who’ve always got my back.
If anyone can help me through this mounting magical mess, it’s them.
Hopefully, they can save my sanity, too.
This isn’t what I signed up for... Can I just skip to forty-one?
Chapter One
Florebelle
Hurricane Florebelle blew through and destroyed everything in her path.
My name is Florebelle Fairfield, and unfortunately, I am the hurricane in question.
“Stephen. Have you seen my ring? I know for a stone-cold fact I set it right here on the counter.”
The ring was from my bio-mom. My adoptive mother, Marsha, gave it to me when I was eight. Man, those halcyon days of yore seemed pretty far away with my fortieth birthday fast approaching.
My finger almost literally ached for the ring. I’d worn it every single day of my life since. Hell, I couldn’t have taken it off if I tried. The last time I’d managed to remove it was the day of my tonsillectomy.
No jewelry in the operating room!
I bawled like a baby, but they got their way in the end, prying it from my chubby lil kid fingers. My prepubescent death grip was nothing when pitted against their evil thieving ways.
The darned thing had pretty much perma-welded itself to the ring finger of my left hand the moment I slipped it on. Any attempts to remove it since that time, outside of the tonsil operation, had been an effort in futility. Stephen even joked about all the money he wouldn’t have to spend on a wedding ring. Unbeknownst to me, today was the day I not only took it off, but I set it on the counter and lost it.
Idiot! Or maybe I was getting senile. Did one’s memory go after forty? I was only a week away. Perhaps crazy hormone issues were doing a number on my memory banks.
A cool puff of air blew the herbaceous scent of body wash and lotion back toward me as Stephen opened the door.
He shrugged. “I just got back from the gym.”
Decked out in gray joggers and a tight-fitting black T-shirt, he looked absolutely scrumdidleeumptuous. He was the only man I’d ever met who didn’t sweat no matter how hot it got or how hard he worked. Stephen always smelled like a laundry day at the botanical garden at the height of spring.
Fresh, floral, fierce, and fantastic.
Stephen looked good enough to eat. If I weren’t in the midst of a wild panic, and running egregiously late for work, we might have spent a bit of “quality time” together.
But, alas, the hunt was on. This girl had priorities.
Squeak. Click. Thud!
The contents of the upended drawer I held in my hands crashed to the counter. I sensed Stephen’s eyes scanning the room, taking in the chaotic mess I caused in zero-point-five minutes.
“I don’t have time for this. Gonna be hella late. Can you?” I swept my hands in the general direction of the mess. Innocent bystander though he was, he immediately picked up on what I was throwing down.
“Sure, I’ll take care of it.” He stepped the rest of the way into the room. His shoulders dropped when he saw the full extent of what I’d done.
“Uh. Sorry?” With a quick kiss on the cheek, I moved through the house like a whirling dervish, snatching up my purse, keys, and insulated mug on the way to the front door.
“I’ll text you if I find it.” His voice was far away and barely registered right before my oddly naked, ringless hand turned the knob.
“Thanks, babe.”
Little did I know losing my mother’s ring was the first in a series of craptacular events that comprised both the worst and best week of my life. The highs left me on cloud nine, but the lows? Those would leave me wondering about my sanity and questioning everything I’d ever known.
Monday, I lost my most precious family heirloom and botched an important meeting in front of six super important upper-level muckety-muck executives. This all occurred before lunchtime. But the clincher? The coup de grâce was some rather unexpected news I was ill-prepared to receive from my gynecologist that same afternoon.
As I sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for the doctor to arrive, it occurred to me when medical professionals request patients come in for a tête-à-tête regarding test results, it was usually bad news. They gave you good news over the phone. They usually did bad news face-to-face in case they needed to put you on a twenty-four-hour psychiatric hold.
Dr. Kline stepped into the room at that precise moment. Judging from the melancholy look on her face, I figured out right quick this was no regular appointment. My blood ran cold, and I wished I hadn’t spent fifteen minutes googling my symptoms three months ago. All roads lead to cancer when one uses WebMD to self-diagnose, and no amount of telling yourself It’s probably just perimenopause can cut through the fear of ovarian cancer.
She sat beside me, smoothing down the fabric of her blindingly white lab coat before clearing her throat and looking me dead in the eye. Uh-oh. I’d been seeing her since I first moved here, and not once had she ever sat anywhere but behind her desk. The doctor/patient boundary was breached. This was a little too personal for comfort.
“Flora, the Ultrasound and MRI results have come back.” She paused for gravitas as if we were in some crappy B movie “by women, for women.” “You have endometriosis. Unfortunately, the scarring and tissue overgrowth on your ovaries and fallopian tubes is extensive.”
The rest of her words melded together like so much background noise, though I distinctly remember the words “infertile’” and “hysterectomy” being bandied about.
My face had a rictus painted on it as my senses narrowed down to focus on the buzz of the florescent light directly overhead. Otherwise innocuous, it became a pervasive, somehow comforting sound. It was all I could take in besides the acrid smell of disinfectant as I forced myself to take measured breaths through my nose. My mind might be blank, but I was pretty sure passing out in the doctor’s office wouldn’t do much to improve my day.
I nodded, laughed nervously, and uttered, “Mmm-hmm” at random intervals, while pretty much entering a fugue state. My right hand moved to indulge in the nervous habit I’ve had since childhood—fiddling with my ring—but my fingertips pressed into cool, bare skin. Of all the days to lose my crutch, my safety blanket. Of course, it was the day I had the most humiliating meeting of my career. And, oh yeah—being told I was barren.
I cried in the parking lot for fifteen minutes straight.
It was a good old ugly cry. Complete with dripping snot, heaving breaths, and histrionic, agony-filled sobs. My face wrinkled up like a shar-pei puppy. I crumpled into a boneless heap, head braced by the steering wheel. Okay, maybe the puppy reference was a tad melodramatic, but I knew I was a hot mess and there was absolutely no way I could go back to work like this, and I’d be damned if I would disturb Stephen at work. Not after what he put up with this morning.
I attempted to get myself under control and started the car, but another crying jag ensued. I turned the car off and repeated the pattern. After the third or fourth try, I finally gained control of my breathing enough to convince myself I could drive home without careening into oncoming traffic.
I pulled the visor down to check my face in the mirror before heading off. Not smart. I resembled a cosmetic-eating raccoon dou
Thank God the glove box had a dusty pack of generic tissues inside. I used every single one to sop up the moist bits and wipe away the worst of my ruined makeup before peeling out of the parking garage and making a beeline for the apartment.
This day was a complete and utter clusterbleep. I made an executive decision to drown my sorrows in the tub of Cherry Garcia I kept stashed in the back of the freezer. I had more than earned it.
Stephen was a gem as always, a real trooper.
“I don’t know what’s going on, babe. But you can tell me when you’re ready. Let me take care of you tonight, okay?”
All I could do was nod and curl up in a ball on the sofa.
He cuddled me, bought another pint of ice cream, picked up egg foo yung from our favorite restaurant, and cuddled me again. Before I fell asleep safe and warm in his arms, Stephen didn’t press me on what was going on, not once. He was patient and supportive, knowing I needed time to process and accept whatever had caused me to act like this. As I drifted off to sleep, the last thought I had was that tomorrow would be better.
Ah, the things we tell ourselves.
The alarm went off, and Stephen gently shook me to wake me up for work.
“Babe, babe.” He leaned over and covered my face with kisses.
I wasn’t asleep. Just lying there waiting for him to leave. We were getting married in two months. A wedding that had been delayed again and again because of various reasons. We realized it was now or never because, despite not being where we wanted to be savings wise, we agreed starting a family sooner rather than later would be well advised. My eggs weren’t getting any younger.
The irony of the situation was priceless: my ovaries weren’t shooting blanks, the incubator wasn’t busted beyond repair, but they were cutting out my future and throwing it away. There would be no children. No family.
A swell of anger rose like a tsunami. I swatted away his hand in a sudden burst of irritation.
“I’m sick. You should just go to work.”
Stephen didn’t move. He stood there in silence for a full thirty seconds, then snuck out. He was so quiet, I second-guessed if he’d even left the room at all. A melancholy yet relieved sigh escaped when I heard the lock of the front door click. I drew the covers over my head. Cradled by darkness, in my comfy cocoon, I gave myself permission to cry.
It was ten before I scraped my tear-sodden butt out of bed and made my way to the Cherry Garcia. The next half hour was spent watching bad television and scooping ice cream into my facehole. It slides down nice and easy when you use a big old serving spoon. Work faster, not harder, that’s my motto.
When the ice cream ran out, I moved on to frozen blueberry waffles, then margaritas—without the mix. Okay, I might have been drinking tequila straight from the bottle. Don’t judge me.
Stephen came home at lunch to check in. I’d gone from sad sack to full on mean drunk. It didn’t take long for things to escalate. I don’t know who said what. I just know it ramped up fast. Pockets of lost memory were becoming a disturbing, yet common trend. I remember having a strange feeling—an out-of-body experience. Then bam:
“Maybe we should just end this now. It’s not like we have a future together anymore,” I screamed.
His soft brown eyes were full of patience and love. I closed my eyes for just a moment and felt something shift. When I replayed his look via the projector of my mind, I didn’t see patience and love. Instead, I saw apathy and disgust.
“We’re done. I’m done.”
Not sure which of us said those words. In the end, such trivialities proved to be moot. Stephen scooped up his keys and headed out the door. I laughed wryly when I realized he wouldn’t even be late getting back to work from lunch.
My phone buzzed. The text notification from him said: Will get my things this weekend.
There went three years down the drain. Gone in an instant.
I was disturbingly numb over the whole thing. Ever since losing my ring, I had been on an emotional roller coaster. Maybe it was just too much bad news, sadness, and anger all in one fell swoop? I was strong. I could keep my emotions locked down and focus on the only thing left right now: my job. Had to have something to focus on now that I was single.
With the tequila gone, I sank into a bottle of cinnamon-flavored whiskey—sucking on it like a starving babe at its mother’s teat. The numb feeling got deeper and deeper, and my head grew foggier and foggier from the alcohol, but I knew one thing for sure: I was relieved of the burden of false hope because my happily ever after was ripped away.
We had always planned on having a family and buying a house on a corner lot in the suburbs with a white picket fence. It relieved me to realize we were done, because I knew every time I saw his face, I’d be reminded of my womb’s failure and the regret of waiting too long.
“Maybe I should get some cats,” I slurred at my reflection in the black TV screen, giving myself a jaunty cheers before lifting the bottle to my lips, winking, tipping back, and taking a swig of brownish liquor.
Chapter Two
Florebelle
They fired me.
I wasn’t in the office for ten minutes before HR called me in and let me go. The corporate drones wouldn’t even let me pack up my personal items before booting me out the door. The security guard escorted me to what was previously known as my desk and allowed me to grab my purse and cell phone. Pretty sure he would have tackled me to the ground if I’d so much as reached toward the drawer that held my lip balm and container of breath strips, the latter a necessity for when I ordered delivery from the Italian place with the delicious shrimp scampi. You show up in a meeting after eating that one time, and trust me, you’ll never hear the end of it from your coworkers.
“Your security card please, ma’am.”
Ma’am? The jerk had the audacity to call me ma’am. His words solidified my rank in the world of dried-up elderly spinsters. I was outcast and rejected. Newly single, jobless, and trapped in a part of the country where I’d never made so much as a single friend.
I was too shocked to show any emotions. All I could do was go back home and wait for the next life-shattering event to occur. At least this would give me plenty of time to tear the apartment apart to look for my frigging ring. Something I’d neglected to do last night because I was a tad too inebriated to function.
So, I may have stopped at the 7-Eleven to pick up around six pints of ice cream before I got home.
Ice cream in the freezer, I parked my butt at a kitchen chair and stared at nothing until it was time for my weekly call with the girls.
“So, when are you moving back?” Amira’s voice was bursting with excitement as I set my now-empty glass down a bit too close to the laptop. I fumbled for the obviously empty wine bottle.
Her Wi-Fi issues were legendary. Amira was a lawyer who lived in an amazing converted factory loft. It had character, but it also had thick brick walls. Once again, I was talking to a static image because she had to turn her video off.
“I can’t afford to. If I break my lease, I’ll be broker than broke. This move was not one of my better decisions.” My eyes welled up with tears. This was no time for a pity party, too much wine or not.
“Well, I have a ton of vacation saved up. Maybe I can come out for a vis—”
The empty bottle in my hand slammed against the cheap particleboard table way too hard, cutting her off. “No. Right now isn’t a good time.”
Star flinched at the thud of glass on fake wood and tried to change the topic. Ever the middle child, she was always trying to bring peace to the family. “Are you still going on your trip? I mean, it’s already paid for, right?” She tugged at a braid, making one of the golden hair ornaments woven into it wriggle and dance. “Would be a shame for you to waste all that money.” She paused and stared straight into the camera with solemn brown eyes. “Plus, it seems to me like you could use a little ‘me’ time.”
