by Joy Fielding
“You think I’ll find her?” Marcy was suddenly very much in need of his assurance.
“I know you will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
“But you don’t know me. Not really.”
“I know how determined you are, that you won’t give up until you find her.”
“I will find her,” Marcy said forcefully.
“Absolutely, you will. No question about it. And if at any point you change your mind about wanting me to join you, if you need some help, or if you just want someone to hold your hand or scratch your back …”
She smiled as his fingers moved up her arm to the base of her neck, disappearing into her mop of wayward curls. “Oh, God. I must look awful. My hair—”
“Is fabulous.”
She shook her head, the curls bouncing lazily across her forehead.
“Is it really possible you don’t know how beautiful you are?” Vic asked.
“My mother always used to say I had way too much hair,” Marcy told him.
“My mother used to say I’d be six feet tall if only I’d stand up straight.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your posture.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hair.”
Marcy laughed. “Mothers,” she said.
“You said yours died when she was forty-six? That must have been very hard for you.”
“Actually,” Marcy admitted, “in some ways it was a relief.”
“Had she been sick for long?”
“As long as I can remember.”
Vic tilted his head to one side, his eyes asking her to continue.
“She threw herself off the roof of a ten-story building when I was fifteen years old,” Marcy said.
“My God, I’m so sorry.”
“Can you do me a favor?” Marcy asked, crawling back into bed and drawing the covers up to her chin.
“Anything.”
“Can you just hold me?”
She felt his arms immediately surround her, his breath warm on the back of her neck as she pressed her backside into the concave curve of his stomach. They lay that way until eventually she felt his grip on her loosen and his breathing drift into the slower rhythms of sleep. She lay there in the dark, absorbing the reassurance of his gentle snores, then she gently extricated herself from his arms, slipped quietly out of bed, got dressed, and tiptoed from the room.
SIX
FIRST THING THE NEXT morning, Marcy checked out of her hotel.
“I notice you have a number of messages you haven’t retrieved,” the clerk behind the reception desk told her as she was settling up her account.
“You can just erase them.”
“As you wish. If there’s anything else I can help you with …”
“You can get me a taxi, please.” Some time after she’d returned to her own room, Marcy had decided against renting a car—Lynette was right: She was unfamiliar with the roads; she wasn’t used to driving on the left side of the street; she really wouldn’t need a car once she arrived. Hadn’t her former tour guide expressly stated that Cork was a city best experienced on foot?
“You’ll be able to find one right outside the main entrance. Do you need help with your suitcase?”
“No. I can manage. Thank you.”
A line of taxis waited just outside the front door. Marcy approached several before she found one willing to make the drive all the way to Cork, and even then the driver insisted on being compensated for gas and a round-trip fare. “Fine,” Marcy said, climbing into the backseat. “Just get me there as fast as you can.” And in one piece, she added silently as the man threw the cab into gear and the small car all but bounced away from the curb.
Luckily the driver was possibly the only man in Ireland who showed absolutely no interest in carrying on a conversation. Nor did he feel any need to show off his knowledge of Irish history and folklore. Guess he never kissed the Blarney Stone, Marcy found herself thinking as she tried to get comfortable in the cramped backseat.
It took a long time to get out of the city. For a while the taxi was stuck behind two huge dump trucks—“the new national symbol of Dublin,” her guide had grunted yesterday when the bus found itself similarly trapped—each toting tons of sand and gravel. Construction was everywhere: New roads were being built, old ones widened; new apartment complexes, many of them tall, gray concrete boxes devoid of charm or character, were springing up all over the place; monstrous new homes were replacing charming old cottages. Marcy rolled down her window, then quickly rolled it back up again, the constant banging of jackhammers giving her an instant headache.
Things improved once they reached the main motorway, although only barely. Heavy traffic competed with a rapidly descending fog and patches of occasionally heavy rain to make driving conditions less than ideal. Marcy recalled having read somewhere that Ireland was ranked the second-most dangerous country in Europe in which to drive. She couldn’t remember the first. “Are we almost there?” she asked after almost two hours had elapsed.
Are we there yet? she heard Devon’s voice say, echoing her own.
“About another hour,” the driver replied from the front seat. “People always forget how to drive in the rain.”
“But it rains almost every day.”
“There you go,” he said, as if that answered everything. And maybe it did, Marcy thought, leaning her head back against the top of the seat and closing her eyes. “Where do you want me to drop you?” he asked in what seemed like the next breath.
“What?” Marcy snapped to attention, checking her watch to discover an hour had passed and she must have fallen asleep. She looked out the raindrop-splattered window to find the city of Cork.
“What hotel are you stayin’ in?” the cab driver asked, navigating his way slowly through the severe congestion into the flat of the city.
It suddenly occurred to Marcy that she had forgotten to make hotel reservations. She pictured Lynette shaking her head, silently berating her again for failing to think in advance. “I actually don’t have a room. Do you happen to know somewhere nice you could recommend?”
“Well, it’s not going to be easy to find a place. It’s the height of the tourist season after all, and Cork doesn’t have that many grand hotels.”
“It doesn’t have to be grand. In fact, I’d prefer somewhere simpler.” Simpler meant less chance of anyone finding her. She didn’t want Judith or Peter being able to track her down as easily as they had in Dublin. Nor did she want Vic Sorvino riding in on his white horse to rescue her, appealing as that thought might be. Experience had taught her that she couldn’t depend on a man to save her. Nor should she. It wasn’t fair to either of them.
Marcy opened her side window, careful not to let the rain inside the car. The bells of St. Anne’s Shandon Church were sending the first eight notes of “Danny Boy” rippling down the hill and throughout the city. She smiled, a feeling of excitement filling her lungs. It didn’t matter where she stayed, she thought. As long as Devon was nearby, she’d sleep on the sidewalk if she had to.
“There’s Tynan’s over on Western,” the driver was saying. “It’s a bed and breakfast, and I hear it’s okay, although it might be pretty basic.”
“Basic is good.”
It was also fully booked. As were the next half-dozen B&Bs that sat cheek by jowl along Western Road. Good thing the rain finally stopped, Marcy thought as she dragged her suitcase up the front steps of the Doyle Cork Inn, one of the few B&Bs on the street she’d yet to try.
“Can I give you a hand with that?” a young man asked, appearing at her side to grab her suitcase. He was in his late teens, and his fair skin was scarred with the leftover remnants of a case of childhood chicken pox. There was one particularly large pockmark that sat right between his wide-set hazel eyes, like a bullet hole. A stray lock of reddish-blond hair curled into the center of his large forehead, and his mouth was filled to bursting with Chiclet-sized teeth.
A
proper pair of braces would have fixed that, she heard Peter say.
“Thank you, yes.” Marcy followed the young man inside to the check-in counter of the tiny lobby. “Do you have a room?”
“I believe we do, yes.”
“Thank God. I was beginning to give up hope.”
“Oh, you must never do that.”
Marcy smiled. “I won’t. Thank you. That’s good advice.”
“The name’s Colin Doyle. My mum’ll be right with you. You from America?”
“Canada,” Marcy told him.
“Really? We had a guest here from Canada not too long ago. Name of Randy Sullivan, I believe it was. Do you know him?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” She refrained from telling him that there were more than thirty-three million people in Canada. Although you never knew. It wasn’t totally outside the realm of possibility that she might know this person. It was certainly no stranger than her taking off for Ireland on her erstwhile second honeymoon and finding the daughter she’d given up for dead. “Do you know this girl?” Marcy asked, pulling the latest picture of Devon out of her purse and showing it to Colin.
He took it from her hand and studied it for several seconds, his bushy eyebrows collapsing toward the bridge of his nose. “Can’t say that I do,” he said at last.
“You’re sure? It’s possible she’s a student at the university. I understand it’s very close to here.”
“Just up the next block a bit,” he concurred. Then, “No. Don’t know her.” He handed back the photograph. “She looks very sad, doesn’t she?”
Marcy’s eyes immediately filled with tears. It was her fault her daughter looked so sad.
“Sorry to have kept you,” a high-pitched voice trilled as a heavy-set woman with gray-flecked, reddish-blond hair entered the small foyer. Her eyes were the same shade of hazel as her son’s, although they twinkled more mischievously, as if she’d just come from something she probably shouldn’t have been doing. “Name’s Sadie Doyle, owner of this proud establishment.” Large, surprisingly expressive hands fluttered in front of her, sweeping together the foyer, the living room to her left, and the narrow staircase to her right, the walls of which were all covered with the same garish, purple-flowered wallpaper. Marcy couldn’t tell whether or not the woman was being facetious. “Mind if I have a look at that?” Sadie Doyle asked, indicating the picture of Devon. “Pretty girl. Looks a little sad though, don’t she?”
Marcy felt her heart sink.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes. Do you know her, by any chance?”
“No chance at all, I’m afraid. She’s here in Cork, is she?”
“Yes, she is. I’m trying to find her.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
Marcy felt the question sting her skin. “We’ve kind of lost touch.”
Sadie Doyle smiled wistfully, as if she understood, although her eyes retained a hint of rebuke. “Wish I could be of help.” She walked behind the counter and opened the guest register. “It’s one hundred and fifty euros a night for a single room.”
“That’s fine.” Marcy couldn’t remember the exchange rate between dollars and euros but decided she’d worry about it later.
“Just how long will you be staying with us, Mrs …?”
“Taggart. Marcy Taggart. And I’ll be staying a few days. Maybe a week. I’m not sure exactly how long.” As long as it takes, Marcy thought. “Is that a problem?”
“No problem at all. If you could just fill this out.” Sadie pushed a sheet of paper across the reception desk. “And I’ll need your passport, of course. Colin here will bring it up to you in a few hours. What credit card will you be using?”
Marcy handed over her American Express card.
“You’ll be in room seven, top of the stairs to your left.” Sadie Doyle handed Marcy a large, elaborately carved brass key. “It’s one of our nicer rooms. I think you’ll be very comfortable there.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck with finding your daughter.”
“Thank you,” Marcy said again, returning Devon’s picture to her purse as she followed Colin up the stairs.
The room was small and crowded with inexpensive furniture: a double bed with an old brass headboard, a shabby-looking armoire and matching nightstand, an even shabbier-looking dresser that was missing the knobs on two of its three drawers, a high-backed chair upholstered in heavy purple brocade that was fraying along its seams, and a battered mahogany table beneath a window that looked through a slightly worn lace curtain directly into one of the upstairs windows of the B&B next door. The purple-flowered wallpaper was only slightly more muted than the wallpaper in the common areas and the carpet was a tired-looking mix of mauve and brown. No more tired-looking than I am, Marcy thought, plopping down on the bed’s too-soft mattress and staring at her reflection in the frameless rectangular mirror on the opposite wall.
You’re beautiful, she heard Vic whisper in her ear.
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed, pushing at her hair.
“Sorry, did you say something?” Colin asked.
“What? No. Did I?” She hadn’t realized the boy was still there. Probably waiting for a tip, she realized, fishing in her purse for some change.
“Is everything all right?” he asked nervously, his weight shifting from one foot to the other.
“Yes. Everything’s just fine.”
“Enjoy your stay,” he said, his shins knocking against her suitcase as he turned toward the door.
“Oh, well. It’s not so bad,” Marcy exclaimed after he’d left the room, hoping to be reassured by the sound of her own voice. After all, she was used to convincing herself that things were other than the way they really were. So if she told herself enough times that the room was beautiful and that everything was fine, she would no doubt eventually come to believe it. “You pretend, therefore you are,” she whispered, walking over to the window and parting the dusty lace curtains, staring into the upstairs window of the B&B next door.
It took her several seconds to realize that someone was staring back. A young woman, Marcy realized. A young woman about Devon’s height with the same long brown hair. “Devon?” Marcy whispered as the woman smiled and offered a self-conscious little wave. Suddenly a man appeared at her side, holding a squirming toddler. The toddler’s hands strained toward the woman, his fingers reaching for her neck as she welcomed him into her arms and smothered his face with kisses.
Not Devon, Marcy knew instantly. Devon had never been particularly fond of children. “I’m with Judith on that one,” she’d said more than once.
“You have to stop imagining every girl you see is Devon,” Marcy told herself, backing away from the window and retrieving her suitcase from the floor, then tossing it on the bed. Not every girl who was the same height as Devon—A pretty girl with long dark hair and high cheekbones, who maybe walked the way Devon walked and held her cigarette the same way, Peter had said—was her daughter. She had to stop thinking that way or she’d make herself crazy.
Too late, she thought as she unpacked her suitcase, hanging as many clothes as she could on the four hangers she found in the tiny armoire and stuffing the rest into the Salvation Army-style chest of drawers under the mirror. The bathroom was so small that when she opened the door, it hit the tub, and there was no medicine cabinet or counter for her toiletries, so she had to spread the various creams her sister had insisted she buy around the edge of the decidedly utilitarian white sink. Not that any of them did any good, she thought, unable to avoid the small mirror over the sink and staring at the fine lines that were gathering around her mouth and eyes like an unwelcome storm. “Who invited you to this party?” she wondered aloud, splashing some cold water on her face, then patting her face dry with the thin white towel hanging on a nearby hook.
Time for a little lift, she heard Judith say.
“No, thank you.” Marcy backed away from the mirror, promptly hitting the bathroom door and feelin
g the doorknob jam into the small of her back like a fist.
Judith had had her face “done” about six years ago. “Just a little pick-me-up,” she’d insisted. “So I won’t look so tired.”
“You wouldn’t look so tired if you’d stop exercising all the time.”
“I have to stay in shape.”
“You’re in great shape.”
“Only because I exercise. You really should come with me to spin class. It would do you a world of good. And it’ll do wonders for your sex life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my sex life.”
“Good for you. But you should come anyway. So should Devon. She’s looking a little soft around the edges.”
“What do you mean? Devon looks great.”
“She’s looking soft around the edges.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How’s she doing these days?”
“She’s doing great. What are you getting at?”
“You’re not letting her eat a lot of junk food, are you?”
“She’s a teenager, Judith. I really have very limited control over what she eats.”
“You know the importance of a proper diet.”
“There’s more to life than raw fish.”
“Nobody says there isn’t.”
“Just what are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Devon’s fine.”
“Of course she is.”
“Of course she is,” Marcy repeated now, returning to the bedroom and tucking her suitcase underneath the bed, the only available space she could find. Then she changed into jeans and a fresh blouse, grabbed her purse, took a deep breath, then another, and left the room.
SHE WENT DIRECTLY back to the pub where she’d first spotted Devon. “Grogan’s House,” she muttered aloud as she crossed over St. Patrick’s Bridge and turned left, relieved when the bright yellow sign with the bold black lettering came into view. The pub occupied the ground floor of a two-story white stucco building with a black slate roof. A couple of round, old-fashioned, ornamental lights hung amid a bunch of small, brightly colored flags that decorated the facade. Advertisements for Guinness and Beamish were etched into the glass of the large front windows. Marcy remembered none of these details from the previous afternoon. Was it possible she was mistaken about which pub she’d been in? There were so many in the area.