Hello, I'm Carolyn Nobody

By Diana Lee Johnson

When a widow with a grown daughter decides to further her education, she's thrown into a world of unexpected possibilities. Pursued by a younger professor, and an egocentric doctor, she is torn by the striking opposites who disrupt her life.

 

One seems too good to be true; the other is too closed to be understood. It seems easier to forget them both, but it isn't that simple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781590883822

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Hello, I’m Carolyn Nobody

Diana Lee Johnson

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Encore L’Amour Contemporary Romance Novel

Edited by: Leslie Hodges

Copy Edited by: Lorraine Stephens

Senior Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Christine Poe

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright © 2005 by Diana Lee Johnson

ISBN:  978-1-59088-382-2

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

In Memory of my uncles

Robert Earl Shepherd,

and

Richard Lee Shepherd

Acknowledgement

The lovely necklace on the cover is an original design by artist Lauren Dunty, Whispering Stones, created especially for this novel.

One

1988

Carolyn Sue Tarlton stared into the mirror. The eyes that stared back at her were unfamiliar in some unexplainable way. Who are you anyway? You were David Tarlton’s wife, then Teresa Tarlton’s mother. Then finally you were David’s widow and now? Now you’ve decided you want to be whom? Or what? A student? That’s ridiculous! Terry is a student. What are you trying to do, prove you’re not old, that you can still learn?

She turned away from the mirror, inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly. With the exhaled breath her shoulders drooped, and her heart sank. Maybe I should re-think this education thing. Maybe I’ll just embarrass myself, or worse yet, embarrass Terry. Maybe I should have discussed it with her before I enrolled.

Oh, that’s great, Carolyn. She spoke out loud and threw up her hands. Now you’re going to ask your twenty-year-old daughter for advice—or worse yet—permission!

She closed her eyes, swallowed the lump in her throat, squared her shoulders and set her chin. Stop this damn hedging! You paid your money, get your rear in gear and get to class!

She knew she had to put forth the effort or be doomed to the same humdrum she’d faced for the past two years, except now she would really be facing it alone.

She forced herself into the car, and made her way to the college campus. All around her she saw bright, young faces... the operative word being young. She imagined they were looking at her as she drove by, figuring she was a teacher, or maybe just some college student’s mother, which, of course, she was. Thankfully, Terry wasn’t attending this college.

An imaginary chill crept up her spine as she imagined how ridiculous she’d feel if she happened to be walking to class, book in her arms, and ran into one of Terry’s friends. The only saving grace was that Terry had decided to go away to college now, after her first two years spent locally, so her mother wouldn’t be alone.

Carolyn looked for a parking space on the street, but found none. She sighed as she realized she’d be relegated to the student parking lot. I look about as much like a student as I feel like one. Guess I don’t really fit in anywhere.

Carolyn looked in her mirror, looked ahead and to both sides before she opened the car door and took a tentative step outside.

Get off it! Just what are the chances you might run into one of Terry’s friends here? Can you even think of one of Terry’s friends that is going to school here? No! So just get a move on and take that plunge into a more productive, more enlightened life!

Gathering all her courage, she straightened to her full height, and hit the sidewalk in the direction of her class. She hadn’t gone twenty feet when she heard a voice.

Hello, Mrs. Tarlton, a young man whose face she could not distinguish under the red fuzz of an attempt to grow a beard, approached her rapidly. Haven’t seen you since Terry left for school.

Oh, hello... No name came to her, and she wanted to slink back to the car and pull off as if this were just some big mistake.

Max, ma’am. You remember me, don’t you? I took Terry to the homecoming dance in our junior year in high school.

Oh, yes, Max, of course. She tried to be convincing, when in truth, Terry had so many dates she couldn’t keep them straight.

Say, she didn’t transfer back here or anything did she? His tone was a bit anxious, as if he thought he and Terry had had something special.

Terry? No, she didn’t transfer back, but I’ll tell her you asked about her. She tried to make a graceful retreat, but he wasn’t allowing it.

So, ya lost or somethin’?

Uh, no, I’m not lost. Carolyn started walking slowly in the direction she needed to travel, hoping against hope Max would take the hint.

He just started walking backwards in front of her.

Max, don’t you need to get to class or something?

He laughed. You sound like my mom.

Carolyn’s heart sank. Everyone looked at them, at her, or was it at him walking backwards in front of her.

I’ve got plenty of time before my next class. Wanna have a Coke or a cup of coffee or something? Ya know, catch up? You can tell me what Terry’s been up to.

I can’t, Max. Not today. I have... an appointment.

Ya lookin’ for a job or something? I know somebody in admissions that could help.

Fighting to maintain control and not lose her nerve, Carolyn stopped, looked him squarely in the eyes and said, No Max, I’m not looking for a job. I’m here to attend a class.

You, Mrs. Tarlton? Really?

The incredulous look on his face said all there was to say.

Yes, Max, me. Teresa Tarlton’s mother is attending a class. Do you think I’m too old to learn something? Maybe you kids should realize some adults really don’t think they know everything there is to know. Her words were delivered quietly and calmly, but she was feeling anything but calm inside.

She stepped around him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, please, Max. I’m going to be late for class.

He didn’t say a word. He just stopped dead in his tracks and followed her with his eyes as she hurried off.

Hey, Mrs. Tarlton, Max called after her. I didn’t mean anything.

PEEKING INTO THE ROOM, Carolyn sought out a seat as inconspicuously as she could. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and the chattering sound was overwhelming. She slipped into a seat, bit her lip, and tried desperately to recover from Max’s amusement. She tried to remember the breathing exercises some consultant had taught the hospital employees in an almost forgotten session on controlling stress.

Slowly, her heart stopped pounding and began beating normally again, and the warmth in her cheeks began to subside. She just knew she had been red as a beet. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly as she tried to think about her reasons for making this decision to improve herself. She vaguely realized the chatter was calming down, and a single voice somewhere in front of her said something, but by the time she realized it, the voice stopped, and she had no idea what had been said.

Carolyn sat in the college lecture hall which was shaped like an indoor amphitheater, on this early autumn day, knowing she was supposed to be listening intently. The incident with Terry’s friend, and the arguments with herself to get here combined with the nip of an early fall in the air and she just couldn’t bring her thoughts into focus. The colors of those first leaves she saw drifting by the window made her pensive, made her wonder how she had arrived at this point in her life. Am I just fooling myself?

FORTY-TWO AND TOTALLY alone for the first time ever. Her daughter now away at college, her husband dead for over two years, and there she sat in a college classroom full of strangers, most younger—much younger, some older, a few perhaps her own age. In a sort of mental fog, as if she were watching a movie, she noted that from the dais a professor looked down his nose over his half-framed reading glasses at the rows of faces below him. He said nothing as he looked around the room, one row at a time.

Carolyn stole a quick look around the room as unobtrusively as she could. On every one of the faces she saw a level of comfort she could only dream about achieving. Every female body appeared skinny to her eye. She squirmed and slid down a bit in her seat as she could tell the professor’s gaze was turning to the row in which she sank lower and lower in her seat until her legs were so angled she could never have gotten out of her seat. Her head was now lower than her shoulders should have been.

Oh, why did I come? How could I slip out unnoticed? What am I doing here? Fat, frightened, alone. What ever possessed me to think I could blend in? I don’t fit here. I don’t fit anywhere, except in my office, or the safety of our home—my home now, just me—alone. If I slip out now, everyone will look. But then, if I never come back, no one will know who I was, unless there’s someone here I know, but haven’t noticed. Maybe they’ll just think I realized I was in the wrong class. She chewed her bottom lip, afraid to move, afraid not to move.

She looked around in a vain attempt to give everyone the impression she had just discovered her surroundings, to lend support to the urge to flee that was gathering within her.

For an instant, a glimmer of hope assailed her as a rather shy-looking older man slipped into a seat in the rear of the room, near the door. He looks as out of place as I do. But no one is staring at him. Why do I feel they’re all staring at me?

Suddenly, she imagined David saying, Now Carolyn, you’re one of the brightest women I know. You can do this.

She wanted to scream, No I can’t. I can’t do anything without you! So she thought it and looked toward the ceiling, praying the floor would open up and her seat would fall into it. Then at the thought, a nervous titter escaped her, as she realized the seats were all hooked together like in a movie theater. She wouldn’t be going anywhere, even if the floor did open up.

Maybe this will be good for me. Maybe I can do this... No maybe about it. I can do this, for me! She set her jaw.

It’s a first step, minor, a bit like a recovering accident victim—of course she would equate it with something from her work at the hospital. That’s all she had now, her work. She must learn to walk all over again, one step at a time; learn to live one moment at a time. On her own, relying on herself, for herself, for the first time in her life.

Somehow, it was easier to be, well, act, independent when I knew someone else was relying on me to be strong, to be mother, and of course, wife.

Somehow, those conditions lent an identity. Now she must find a new identity—herself, Carolyn, person, individual, woman. Woman... she had to decide what that meant to her. All the women’s lib talk had passed her by when she was younger. She had been busy with her family and her job. There was never time to think about those bra-burning feminists of her youth.

What did it all mean? Was she like one of those leaves she saw outside the window? Was the living part of her life done now? Was it her turn to fall by the wayside and decay so that new lives could start in the spring? She hoped not, and yet she felt so empty, her life—a void.

She still had her job; she had always had her job. She had always worked, at least part-time, and in the past few years, full-time. Carolyn had never been afforded what she considered the luxury of trying to be simply a housewife and mother. At least putting David’s limited life insurance away would pay for the rest of Terry’s education. She could be whatever she wanted.

All of her married friends tried to fix her up with absolutely any single male they could find. She didn’t fit in with couples anymore, and, though some tried to include her in their activities, she could tell they were uncomfortable. If they had an odd man they invited, she was always seated with him, or introduced to him immediately and expected to be happy with his company, no matter what.

She really didn’t know any single women, not her age anyway. The only friend she knew who had been widowed was married again within a year. Now I know what my divorced friends went through, with all the couples they knew either taking sides, or just drifting away. With me, they just keep trying to find me a new husband. What makes them think I want one? What makes them think any man worth having isn’t already had.

At any rate, she shrugged, I must close off my thoughts and open my ears.

As she turned her eyes toward the front of the classroom, Carolyn studied the professor—young, well, he was younger than she. He was mildly handsome, in a scholarly sort of way, receding hairline before his time and a neatly trimmed beard. She guessed his age at about thirty and was willing to bet he had devoted every one of those years to education.

She glanced around the room again, as best she could unobserved, and found herself wondering if she could possibly have anything in common with this vastly diverse cross-section of humanity that led them all to this place and point in time. She studied faces, until one turned toward her and she snapped her attention toward the profession again. Oh, how that urge to flee kept assailing her. Then she caught herself again.

Grab hold of yourself and shape up! She admonished. Your mind is wandering again! You paid good money for this class, now get your money’s worth out of it. It crossed her mind to tell herself to butt out, realizing her inner self was the only one left with whom to argue.

David, why did you have to die and leave me alone to face all this? I even had to face Terry’s high school graduation alone. And now...what am I doing here? I want to go back to being your wife, Teresa’s mother. She stifled the sob that hung in her throat like a whole hard-boiled egg.

It’s my own fault I’m alone. I encouraged Terry to go ahead and finish at the school she’d intended, out of state. She stayed here with me for two years, going to community college, just so she wouldn’t have to leave me alone. Now she has to take extra classes to catch up. She has a right to her own life. If I don’t take hold now and learn how to make my own way, I never will. I’d be failing Terry, and myself. In all those months, I never tried to change my outlook, I just changed my focus from Terry and David, to just Terry. Lord, I must have nearly smothered her.

Carolyn thought of what her friends had said, how it should have been easier for her to keep going than others, she had always worked.

Angela McCall had said, At least you go out in the world every day. You have something to keep you going. If I lost my husband, I wouldn’t have any life at all.

Bertha Griffith had chimed in with, Well, at least you only have one child, and she’s grown enough to take care of herself. I’ve got three still at home. I just don’t know what I’d do. I couldn’t get a job like you. I don’t know how to do anything except take care of my family and my home. You’re lucky.

Lucky. If this is lucky, spare me from unlucky!

Two

Carolyn thought about her daughter. She saw the look of disbelief on Terry’s face as she left her mother standing in the doorway, holding back tears and smiling a pasted-on smile.

I’m telling you, honey, I’ll be fine, Carolyn had told her. I’m looking forward to some time to myself. I want to take some classes, maybe improve my job. It’ll be good not having to worry about putting dinner on the table, wondering where you are, staying awake until I hear you come in. Now I can really get some sleep.

That’s a wonderful lie, Mom. But thank you. Terry kissed her mother’s cheek and started down the walk.

And it was a lie. When she talked to Terry on the phone she kept her voice and demeanor completely upbeat and it was a struggle that left her exhausted after every conversation. She’d never tell her daughter how she now heard every creak in the house, double and triple-checked the locked doors and windows. She still lay awake at night listening, a mother’s listening for her child, a wife’s listening for an unwell husband.

For the first month after Terry left, she hardly slept at all, and she realized that was not as easy at forty-two as it had been at twenty-two, when Terry was a baby. She’d learned to fall asleep with the television on so she didn’t listen so intently to the empty house.

Terry’s strong like I always was. She doesn’t look back. What happened to us? How did Terry and I change places? I’m the mother. I should be strong. I can be strong!

She inhaled slowly through her nose, straightened up in her seat and thought about her daughter. Surely she could be as strong as her twenty-year-old daughter, couldn’t she?

Carolyn was hoping that now she and Terry would become friends. They had never been friends, just mother and daughter, and she realized there was an ocean of difference between the two. Maybe taking a few courses over the next couple of years would give them something in common, something to talk about when Terry came home to visit. She hoped so.

She pictured Terry in her mind. So young, so full of hope and ambition, so beautiful with all the confidence a mother could impart. Now Carolyn had to find her own confidence, and she was, gradually.

Carolyn Tarlton was totally unaware of what others saw when they looked at her. A male friend of David’s had once described her to another man at a cocktail party, not realizing Carolyn and David were standing not far behind him.

Sure, you know David’s wife. About five-feet-five, voluptuous build which she carries very well, if you get my drift, Alan had said, and everyone got his drift as he gestured, putting both hands in front of his own chest, his glass of scotch still in one of them.

Short ash brown hair, every hair in place, with no sign of gray. She always looks like she just left the beauty shop. Alan finished and Carolyn and David backed away so as not to embarrass any of them.

David tightened his hold on her hand as they walked. And she’s all mine, he whispered in Carolyn’s ear, and she clung to his arm appreciatively.

What David saw, even what Alan saw, of course, was not what Carolyn saw when she looked into the mirror. Carolyn saw a half-person. Someone missing an integral appendage, yet with more flesh than needed, much more than fashionable. David had loved her exactly as she was, every ounce he used to say. I like to know I’m holding a woman, not a bunch of bones in a dress, she could hear his voice as clearly as if he were standing behind her looking in the mirror with her. But David was gone and there was no one to look at her through his appreciative eyes anymore.

A voice crept into her consciousness again and she knew she had to cut off all these wandering thoughts.

"Let