Before You

by Marni Mann

  * * *

  To help make your decision, I’ve attached the demographics of each of my channels and a detailed report of my engagement and click rate. If this is something you’re interested in, I’m happy to discuss it in greater length or send a revised contract. If you would like to cancel the contract completely, please let me know, and I’ll send you that form.

  * * *

  Please know, this wasn’t an easy decision to make. I’ve dedicated my life to this job, and I want nothing more than to return to it, eating my way across the globe. One day soon, I hope that comes true.

  * * *

  Noodles and Toodles,

  Billie Paige

  “Here’s a warm one,” my assistant said.

  I dragged my eyes away from the screen to see her putting a new coffee on my desk before she walked back out of my office.

  I didn’t want it.

  Nothing in that mug was going to make the situation on my screen look any better. Billie was struggling, and I saw it in every word but her sign-off and signature, and those had been auto-generated. She was apologizing when she didn’t have to. Justifying when she didn’t need to do that either. The weight of the plane was on her back. Her entire world felt like it was falling apart, and she was barely hanging on.

  That was the reason I could help her.

  I knew what that felt like … better than anyone.

  But it meant reaching out and spending time with her when I’d purposefully been staying away.

  “I’m afraid my healing has just begun.”

  That line kept catching my attention.

  I read it again.

  And again.

  Knowing this was going to be one of the most challenging things I’d ever done—and probably something I’d regret—I took out my phone, pulled up a new text box, and typed in the number at the bottom of her email.

  Me: Let’s meet for coffee.

  I set my cell beside my desk and returned to my computer, working my way through my inbox. I was penning my first reply when her message came through.

  Billie: Who is this?

  Me: Jared.

  Billie: Wow.

  Billie: Hi!

  Billie: How did you get my number?

  Me: Are you free this afternoon?

  Billie: Yes.

  Me: I’m going to text you an address. Meet me there at 3.

  Billie: Okay.

  Billie: See you soon, Jared.

  Thirty-Two

  Honey

  Spring 1985

  Honey was set to marry Andrew on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of March, three months after he proposed. She chose to have the ceremony outside in front of a lighthouse despite it being a little chilly. The scenery was one they both loved, and it felt like the perfect place to exchange vows.

  The morning of the wedding, Honey put on a simple, non-descript, long-sleeved white dress, which she had found in a secondhand shop in Boston a few weekends before. Andrew wore a dark suit. And because she wanted to experience the entire day with her husband, they left their condo together, and they got in the back of the limo Andrew had rented.

  When they arrived at the park, their immediate family, Valentine, and Andrew’s best friend were all waiting. Since they were the only guests, they walked as a new family to the lighthouse, and the officiant stood before the couple and began his speech.

  Once it came time to exchange rings, Honey didn’t want to put Andrew’s band on the finger he had shared with his ex-wife. She wanted a new hand, a new placement, a new memory. That was why Andrew’s wedding band went on his right.

  When it was Andrew’s turn, he held Honey’s hand, slipping the traditional one on first, followed by her engagement ring. He didn’t let go, producing one more that he held at the tip of her nail, slowly sliding it on, stopping when it hugged the other side of her diamond.

  “If this is what I’m wearing on my left hand,” he said, “I want you to have one that matches.”

  It was smaller, thinner, more delicate than his father’s band, but there was no mistaking the gold braid-like weaving across the front.

  When she looked up at her husband, she had tears in her eyes. “I love it.”

  “I love you.”

  Honey felt herself blush as she stared at the man she was in the middle of marrying. The man who had fixed her when she was in an immense amount of pain. The man who had been loyal to her since he came into her life. The man who had put not one, but three rings on her finger.

  “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the officiant said. “You may kiss the bride.”

  “Forever,” Andrew whispered to her.

  Honey smiled, feeling it reach all the way to her eyes. “Forever.”

  Thirty-Three

  Billie

  My hands shook the entire four blocks to the coffee shop. That was what they had been doing since I received Jared’s text this morning. His message had come out of nowhere, and I still wasn’t sure what to think of it. But the thought of spending time with him in an environment that wasn’t related to the crash had created this anxious energy that had been pulsing through me all day.

  When I got through the door of the shop, I spotted him immediately. He was sitting in the corner at a small table, facing the entrance with his back to the wall.

  Our eyes connected.

  The flutter in my chest was there, but what joined it was a calm I didn’t feel when I was with Ally or my family. It was something I only felt when I was with him.

  With his stare on me, I made my way to the table. He stood as I got closer and stepped forward, meeting me at my chair. We reached for each other at the same time.

  “Hi,” I said softly, my arms wrapping around his neck.

  This hug was different than the one we’d had in the hallway. It was shorter, and he didn’t grip me as tightly. Just as I was feeling comfortable in his arms, he pulled away.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said as I sat in the seat across from his.

  His eyes narrowed. I felt him see all the way to the pit of my stomach, and I wondered if he saw the crash—the blood that had covered us, the screams that had come from my mouth, the feeling of my hands clinging to him.

  Or maybe when he looked at me, he just saw me.

  Without breaking eye contact, he raised his hand and called out, “Sue?” Within a few seconds, a woman came to the table. “Do you mind grabbing my friend Billie some coffee?”

  “What can I get you?” she asked me.

  Every coffee order I’d ever made was a jumble of words in my head. “I’ll take anything, just not too sweet.”

  He waited until she left before he said, “It’s been a couple of days since I saw you. How have you been?”

  It was almost overwhelming to be in his presence again, especially after thinking it wouldn’t happen for a long time, if ever.

  I didn’t have an answer, so I looked out the window. People were passing. All of them moving so quickly.

  And I … still wasn’t.

  “I’m supposed to be in Vegas tonight.” I swallowed and looked back at him. “I canceled the flight and the contract.” There was a tightness in my throat that was growing as fast as my mouth was watering. “I canceled a lot of contracts today.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged, the movement causing a drip to fall down my cheek. I wiped it away, not even sure when it had formed. “I gave my clients an option. Some took it; others didn’t.”

  He didn’t respond immediately. “Because you can’t fly to them.”

  I nodded. “I know it’s controlling me. I know I’m letting it win, but … I just can’t.”

  I’d talked about it with my therapist and my family and Ally.

  Talking helped.

  But it didn’t take it away.

  The waitress returned to our table, setting a coffee in front of me. I thanked her and wrapped my hands around it.

  “How are you doing?” I asked him once
she was gone.

  “I have a hard time sleeping, but I’m all right.”

  He didn’t look thinner than when I’d met him. He wasn’t drunk or disheveled. All I could see were bags under his eyes. He was handling it, and that was inspiring.

  “What part keeps you awake?”

  His fingers went to his beard, combing through the hairs. “The silence.”

  I searched his eyes. “When did that happen?”

  Loud was all I remembered. A mix of painful sounds that still made me want to cover my ears.

  “The moment after the crash, when the plane stopped moving.” He leaned forward, his hands crossing on the table. “The moment right before I knew you were alive.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I was literally speechless.

  If my mind really went there, I didn’t know what would happen to my heart, so I avoided it and asked, “How are you flying? Because I can’t wrap my head around that.”

  “I told you, you have to return to your life and your job and stay busy. That’s the only way it’ll get better.”

  I was trying to do all of it.

  But flying was out of the question.

  He stayed in the same position, halfway across the short table, his fingers brushing against his mug when he asked, “What’s the part that scares you?”

  I’d been thinking about that a lot, and I’d discussed it in therapy.

  At least once a day, I tried to picture myself at JFK, a bag of Twizzlers in my purse, a coffee in my hand. I envisioned myself stepping onto the plane and getting comfortable in my seat.

  The second I sat down was when the panic would set in, and I would quit the exercise.

  Every time.

  “That it will happen again,” I admitted.

  “Not surviving it a second time …”

  I shook my head harder than I needed to. “I don’t want to find out.”

  “I’m going to get you in the air.”

  A fluttering moved into my chest. Not the kind I got when I saw him. This was the kind that squeezed my heart and wouldn’t let go.

  “We’ll go somewhere close. Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Seaside Heights—one of those. We’ll grab dinner and fly back to the city.”

  “There’s a Peruvian restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard called Selva,” I told him. “One of the best I’ve ever been to. Their ceviche is …” I waited for my stomach to grumble, to feel a shooting pain of hunger. But there was nothing. “It’s quite incredible.”

  “That’s where we’ll go.”

  I wanted nothing more.

  But I said, “I can’t,” instead.

  “Not now, but you will soon.”

  I wondered if today was the start of a countdown or if Flight 88 was the last plane I’d ever be on.

  Thirty-Four

  Jared

  As I sat across from Billie at the coffee shop, I watched her struggle with her emotions. Since she’d arrived, there had been tears and silence, even a moment when I had seen her fight a smile that never ended up coming out. Through it all, she’d been so honest. She didn’t sugarcoat her feelings or try to hide them.

  Her candor would help her get through this; she just needed more time to heal.

  “I worry we’ll get in the air,” she said, “and I’ll completely lose it, making a scene so the pilot turns around.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  I leaned in further, as close as I could get to the table without moving my chair. “Because you’ll be with me.”

  I watched that hit her, and then I saw her try to shove it away.

  Jesus Christ.

  Even if it was the truth, I needed to be more careful with my responses.

  “My job requires me to fly every week,” she said. “I can’t put you in my pocket and take you out every time I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.”

  There was no sarcasm in her tone. This was what real fear looked like.

  “I want to tell you something …” I glanced past her to the counter where Sue was standing and then back at the girl whose haunted eyes were so much like mine. “The woman who delivered your coffee had lost her son two years ago to leukemia. He was four.” There was a shift in her expression, and that was what I had been after. “The woman who works in the kitchen is Sue’s sister. About a year ago, her husband beat her to an inch of her life. She stays in the back because she needs several more surgeries on her face, and she doesn’t want anyone to see it.”

  “My God.”

  “The reason I’m telling you this is because they survived when they’d thought they wouldn’t. I know it’s something you question every single day, whether you’re going to get through this, and I promise you, you will. You’re going to survive this, Billie.”

  She turned her cup in a circle like it was a glass of wine. “Why do you want to help me, Jared?”

  I held her eyes while I said, “Because I can,” and then I pushed back my chair, knowing if I checked my watch, it would tell me it was time to go. “I’m sorry, but I have a flight to catch.”

  I watched her tense at the mention of it.

  I took a final drink of the coffee, set it on the table, and stood. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “You will?”

  I moved next to her chair, and my hand went to her shoulder, the faint bruises somewhere under there. “How else will I be able to get you on a plane?” I waited for a smile. There wasn’t one. “Stay, finish your drink. I’ll have Sue send over a pumpkin muffin; she makes the best.”

  “I just ate,” she whispered, “but thank you.”

  I left the coffee shop, knowing that was the first time Billie had lied to me.

  Thirty-Five

  Honey

  Summer 1985

  On their three-month anniversary, Andrew took Honey out to dinner.

  It wasn’t an occasion they had planned to celebrate. Honey hadn’t even been sure he would be back from the hospital before the restaurants closed. But when he’d walked through their front door around eight that night and pulled his wife into his arms, they’d both suggested going to supper at the same time.

  They’d picked an Italian restaurant that was a block from their condo, and just as they finished dessert, Andrew reached across the table and placed his hand on hers.

  “I want to talk to you about something.”

  Honey had sensed this was coming. It was a feeling she had gotten the moment he hugged her after work. She wondered if he had been able to feel the same thing from her since there was something she also wanted to discuss with him.

  “You can tell me anything,” she said, swiping her thumb over his wrist. “You know that.”

  He didn’t come right out with it. Instead, he stared at her for several seconds, making her face warm and her body tingle. And as the anticipation was building within her, he dropped, “Honey, I’m ready to be a father.”

  The warmth from her cheeks trickled down her neck and went into her belly, a spot she’d been watching since they got married. Not because there was a baby in it, but because she wished there were.

  “Andrew,” she whispered, feeling the tickling move to the back of her mouth, “I want nothing more than to be a mother.” The emotion in her throat stopped her from speaking any louder.

  Coming off her birth control was the conversation she’d wanted to have with her husband, so she was in shock that he had brought it up. At the same time, hearing they were both ready and wanting to be parents made her so pleased.

  Honey always knew Andrew wanted children. When they had discussed having them in the past, they never mentioned a timeline, just their desire for wanting more than one. Now that they were married, Honey began to feel differently, and obviously, Andrew did, too.

  Honey squeezed his hand and whispered, “Baby,” across the table. She let the word simmer between them, the moment unfolding more perfectly than she could have imagined. “You hav
e made me so incredibly happy.”

  He smiled that mischievous grin. “Come here.”

  Honey got up from her chair and walked to Andrew’s side of the table. And as though they were the only people in the restaurant, she climbed onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “I love you so much,” she said in his ear, and she smiled when he said it back. As she was holding him, she felt the pounding of his heart and his desire hardening beneath her, heating her skin that was already so hot. “Andrew …” she breathed, her grip tightening. “It’s time to go home.”

  Thirty-Six

  Billie

  I was in the middle of editing a video for a new client when the sound of a text came from my phone. Pulling my eyes away from my computer, I checked my cell and saw Jared’s name on the screen.

  Jared: Dinner tomorrow night?

  At the coffee shop, he’d told me he would reach out when he got back from his trip.

  I was certainly glad he had, and my body responded, filling with a nervous energy.

  Me: I’d love to.

  Jared: Plan for 8. I’ll text you the address tomorrow.

  Me: How was your trip?

  A picture appeared of a cast iron skillet with a perfect piece of Dover sole in the middle, accompanied by shaved, multicolored fingerling potatoes and an assortment of root vegetables.

  He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who snapped pictures of his food. From what I could tell, he didn’t even have any personal social media accounts. That was why I got the feeling he had taken the picture just for me.

  I went into my emojis and chose the face with the heart eyes, sending that first before I typed a message.