Had the pressure to remain perfect gotten to be too much?
The address book in the back of the day planner contained a string of names with complete contact information for each—snail and e-mail addresses, accompanied by home, work, and cell phone numbers. Apparently, I was Miss Popular.
I flipped to the back of the address book. Muscle memory directed me to the V tab. I slid my finger down the lined page. Under the entry for Vacation House was an address on United Street in Key West, Florida.
Aside from a tube of ChapStick and an unopened pack of Trident, my pockets were empty. I searched the backpack for a set of keys. I found them stowed in a side pocket next to the one that held the cell phone. I slipped the keys into the front pocket of my jeans. I felt more secure having them near me.
I had figured out my destination, thanks to some Sherlock Holmes–style deduction, but the reason for my trip still eluded me. Not quite as elementary, my dear Watson.
I turned back to the entry for January 9. The one for dinner with Jack at Ambria. The “talk to him” concerned me, as did the deeply etched lines under the word. Had I talked to him and the conversation had ended badly? If that were the case, why hadn’t I scratched out the June entry for anniversary in Paris? And why had I waited three days to leave or chase after him, or whatever I was doing?
Every time I answered one question, I seemed to come up with ten more. Instead of alleviating my frustration, I was multiplying it.
My passport was tucked into the back cover of the day planner. I pulled it out and flipped it open.
The passport photo was marginally better than the one on my driver’s license. The passport itself had been through the wringer. It was stamped by customs officials in at least seven countries. I had taken four trips to Mexico, three to Canada, two to England, and one each to Jamaica, Spain, Kenya, and the Bahamas. Based on the dates on the stamps, my most recent trips out of the country had been the year before to Kenya and the jaunt to Jamaica the year before that. That trip had probably been for my honeymoon.
The most important two weeks of my life and I couldn’t remember a single detail about them.
I returned the passport to its hiding place, zipped up the day planner, and shoved it back into the pack. Three items remained in the main compartment: a portable DVD player, a DVD of The Usual Suspects, and a dog-eared copy of the collected short stories of Ernest Hemingway.
I flipped the DVD box over to read the description of the movie. The plot sounded serpentine, one I wouldn’t be able to follow with one eye on the screen and the other in the backpack. I decided to save the movie for later—when I could watch it on a larger screen and with a clearer head. I put it away, along with the portable player.
I turned to the book. A business card was stuck between the end of “In Another Country” and the beginning of “Hills Like White Elephants.” I seized the card, thinking (hoping?) it might offer me another clue to my identity.
“Larry’s Lube” the card read. “Keeping You Wet Since 1936.”
Not much help there.
I replaced the makeshift bookmark and flipped through the pages. I—or someone else—had highlighted vast sections of the collection and made copious notes in the margins as if the stories were something to be analyzed and deconstructed and not merely enjoyed.
“A writer should be a person on whom nothing is lost.”
The voice was my own; the words felt like someone else’s. Like something that had been drummed into me in high school English class.
Like the day planner, the back cover of the book contained its own hidden treasure. A piece of cream-colored stationery was folded in half and tucked behind the last page. I unfolded the note. The paper was plain, devoid of logos or personalization—depriving me of any obvious clues to its origin.
The body of the note was brief, written in a scrawling, hurried script that was barely legible. A doctor’s handwriting. Cryptic but shattering, the note said simply, “I won’t be the lie you tell.” It was signed not with a name but an initial—J.
J for Jack.
I didn’t have any samples of his handwriting, but I didn’t need physical proof to support what my heart knew to be true: Jack had written the note. The evidence leading me to that conclusion was overwhelming. The single ticket. His absence. The tentative “anniversary in June?” The desperate “talk to him!!”
We were having problems and the stress had…The stress had…
Turning my face toward the window, I fought to regain control. If I cried now, I might not stop.
I told myself not to jump to conclusions. There were a hundred possible explanations for the note—and probably as many suspects. The correct one might not be the most obvious.
Cloud cover obstructed my view of the ground. Somewhere below me, people were living their lives while I was trying to pick up the shattered pieces of mine.
“Take your own advice,” I told myself. “Talk to him.”
Chapter Two
I stood in front of the luggage carousel watching the baggage go around in circles. According to the claim ticket affixed to the back of my boarding pass, I had checked two pieces of luggage. Without examining every bag, how would I know which two were mine? I would have to wait it out. If I let the other passengers go first, whatever they left behind would most likely be mine.
I stepped away from the carousel, allowing the people who knew what they were looking for to grab their bags and head outside to find ground transportation. I moved to a bench a few feet away and waited for the crowd to thin out.
I tried to figure out how the high-tech cell phone worked. Fortunately, the Powerand Menu buttons were clearly marked. Otherwise, I might have spent all afternoon watching music videos on an endless loop.
I called the number listed for the vacation house but got the answering machine. “Hello,” a computer-generated voice intoned, “we’re unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message and—”
I ended the call and dialed the next number on my list. The one saved in the phone’s directory as “Home.” No answer there, either.
I scrolled down to “Jack Work,” but the phone rang before I could dial the number. The display panel read “Jack Cell.” He was calling me.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I asked tentatively, only to have the phone ring again. The ringer was set to a samba beat, which could have been fun in other circumstances, but was profoundly annoying in my present one.
I pressed buttons at random, hoping one would let the incoming call through without cutting it off.
“Hello?” I said again.
Jack’s voice was deep and soothing—as if he should be churning out audiotapes to help insomniacs fall asleep instead of practicing medicine. “So you have landed. You said you were going to call me the minute you touched down.”
His palpable relief at hearing from me threw me even further off balance. He didn’t sound like the author of a Dear Jane letter speaking to its recipient.
If he hadn’t written the note, who had?
“I—I was about to call you,” I stammered, “but you beat me to it.”
“It’s about time I beat you at something. Do you have any idea how emasculating it is for me to have my wife be a better athlete than I am?” he asked with a chuckle. “At least I’m better with my hands. I do have that going for me. How’s the weather down there?” He answered before I could. “To die for, I bet.” He sighed. “I wish you had let me come with you.”
So traveling alone had been my idea. But why? If things were normal between us, wouldn’t I have wanted him with me?
“Are we happy?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. When he did respond, his jovial, self-effacing tone was nowhere to be found. He sounded concerned. More than that, he sounded scared.
“You are my best friend, my lover, and my wife. I have loved you from the moment I saw you. I love you more than anything else in the world,” he said. “When you told me you wan
ted to spend some time on your own, you said you needed to get your head together but it had nothing to do with us. Has something happened to change that?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know who I am,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on with me and I need time to figure it out.”
“I knew this would happen. It was noble of you to quit the firm the way you did—you’ll always be a hero to a lot of people for taking a stand when no one else would—but how are you going to replace the thrill you get when you’re trying a case no one except you thinks you can win?”
Speaking in a rush as if he were afraid he might forget something if I interrupted him, he didn’t give me time to answer his question.
“You agreed to chair the fund-raising committee this year, and I’m sure you’ll twist as many arms as it takes to reach the administration’s stated goal, but, my little adrenaline junkie, hospital politics won’t provide adequate excitement for you. You’re too independent to be a housewife so don’t even think about giving that a try. Before you say it, I know staying at home all day was good enough for our mothers, but you aren’t your mother—or mine, thank God. Our legal department might be contacting you to see if you’d like to join our team of in-house counsels, but don’t feel obligated to say yes if you don’t want to. You are allowed to have a life that’s separate from mine.”
“I just want a life,” I said. “At the moment, any will do.”
Either he couldn’t hear or he chose to ignore the desperation in my voice.
“A cynic would say you’re too young to be having a mid-life crisis,” he said. “Speaking as a cockeyed optimist—one that’s hopelessly in love with you, I might add—I’m telling you to take all the time you need. But when you find the answers you’re looking for, make sure they lead you back here.” He paused, then surged forward. “All I want is to make you happy, Sydney. I told you that when we were dating. I told you that when I asked you to marry me, and I’m telling you again now. Forget what my mother said. We don’t have to have a baby right now. She’s waited this long to be a grandmother. What difference would a few more years make?”
I hadn’t thought of children until he mentioned them. I was grateful to hear that we didn’t have any. I didn’t think I could bear the thought of not knowing anything about them. Of not remembering the day they were born. The day they spoke their first words. The day they took their first steps. It would have been too much.
“If you want to go back to work, that’s fine with me,” Jack continued. “Whatever you decide to do, I will support you one hundred percent. You know that, don’t you?”
Even though I’d essentially just met him, he had me convinced. He was a man with my best interests at heart. And he loved me so much I could feel it through the phone.
“Yes, I know.” His support seemed to be limitless and unconditional. I thought I could trust him, but nagging doubts prevented me from letting him in on my secret. “I feel so lost, Jack,” I said, my resolve weakening. “Help me.”
“I wish you would let me help you with this.” He sounded as frustrated as I did. “But I know you’re only asking now to humor me. Your stubborn streak is the stuff of legend. Just know that I’m here for you.”
“I do.”
“And don’t think too hard. Sometimes we can go around our elbows to get to the truth when the truth is staring us right in the face. We just have to open our eyes and see it. Or find the courage to admit that we’ve known it all along. I hope you find your truth. And that it still involves me. I love you, Syd.”
“I love you, too” didn’t feel right and “Thank you” didn’t feel appropriate so I said nothing.
The amount of information he had given me was dizzying. I would have to sort through a dozen possible reasons in order to find the one that had sent me over the edge.
After I ended the call, I scrolled through the directory again. I highlighted the entry saved as “Jen Home.” It was time to put that best friends for life theory to the test.
The phone was picked up on the second ring.
“This is Marcus,” the voice on the other end said.
Not expecting anyone else to answer, I nearly hung up. “Is Jen there?” I asked cautiously.
“Oh, hi, Syd,” Marcus replied, recognizing my voice. “No, she’s off saving the world again.”
“I thought she just got home.” According to the notation in the day planner, I’d thrown a party to mark that occasion just four days before.
“She did. She was supposed to be home for a month, but she decided not to stay that long. As she put it, she wanted to be someplace she could do some good. Everyone needs a purpose in life. I think it’s safe to say that Jen has found hers. I suppose I should be grateful—her organization does wonderful things over there—but all I do is worry about her, not the people she’s trying to save. I have a hard time believing she didn’t tell you she was leaving. You two tell each other everything.”
He sounded skeptical. As if I were testing him and he didn’t know why.
“She might have mentioned it to me,” I said, trying to cover, “but I have so much going on right now that I don’t know which end is up.”
“I hear you. She probably thought you would have tried to talk her out of it, anyway.”
“I’d love to talk to her.”
“To beg her to come to her senses and come home to a nice, cushy private practice? I’ve already tried that. It didn’t work.”
“Even so, is there a number where I can reach her?” In the address book, her cell phone number had been crossed out. Had she changed it and not given me her new one? That didn’t sound like something a best friend would do.
“In the middle of the desert?” he scoffed. “I don’t think so. E-mail’s your best bet. Considering she doesn’t check it every day, even that takes a while. If she gets her hands on a sat phone, though, and deigns to check in with me, I’ll tell her to give you a call. But you two are as thick as thieves. You always have been. It still amazes me that Jack was able to pry you apart long enough for your father to walk you down the aisle. If you think she’s going to call me before she calls you, you’re dreaming.”
“But she might not know where to reach me.”
“The vacation house, right?”
I started. How much had I told him? How well did I know him? If he were my best friend’s husband, very. He would have had to meet with my approval—just as Jack would have had to meet with Jennifer’s.
“Are you okay, Syd?” Marcus asked. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
That was the understatement of the year.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just wish I’d had more time with her, that’s all.”
“You and me both. I assume you heard about the verdict. Ten years, huh?”
Ten years? What was he talking about? Then I remembered the headline I had seen during the flight from Chicago. Something about the Subway Slasher. Had I been involved with the case in some way? How was that possible when Jack said I had quit the firm I worked for?
“Looks like the powers-that-be should have listened to you. When they call begging you to come back to the fold—and you know they will—I hope you hold out for a six-figure raise. You deserve it after what they put you through. I’d better go. I have to plug a hole in a client’s firewall before a hacker tries to walk through it. Take care, Syd.”
He hung up and I wandered back over to the luggage carousel. The number of bags to choose from had dwindled to a more manageable sum. I found mine with little effort. As I headed outside to hail a cab, I reflected on my conversation with Marcus—and what it meant.
J for Jennifer?
It was theoretically possible, but it made no sense. Not if we were as close as Marcus said we were. Then again, I had no way of knowing if she’d told me about her sudden departure or if she’d kept me in the dark. If we’d had a rift, she could have written the note.
Cars, taxis, and shuttle buses fought for space in the tiny parking lot. From the outside, the squat one-story airport looked more like a strip mall—minus the hair salons and nail shops. I headed for the cab at the head of the line. The driver leaned against his car, a bright yellow Chevrolet Caprice with advertisements for traveling road shows painted on both of its rear doors. Dressed in sandals, a garish Hawaiian shirt, and knee-length shorts, the cabbie looked readier for vacation than I did.
As he stowed my luggage in the generous trunk, I slid into the roomy backseat. I pulled forty dollars out of my wallet to pay for the cab ride so I wouldn’t have to flash my money in front of him later.
He climbed into the front seat and slammed the door. “Where are you headed?” he asked, turning on the meter as he pulled away from the curb.
I gave him the address of the house on United Street.
“Sure thing.” He flipped through several radio stations before settling on one that was playing upbeat reggae. “Is this all right?”
“It’s fine.”
I pulled out the note and took another look at it. The message was unchanged.
I won’t be the lie you tell.
Jack said I was searching for the truth. I thought I might be better served trying to uncover a lie.
Chapter Three
The cab driver dropped me off in front of the house on United Street but didn’t see me in. He deposited my bags on the porch and left to pick up another fare. It was just as well. I didn’t want him to see me fumbling with the keys as I tried to find the one that fit the front door. He might have had a few questions for me. Questions I wouldn’t be able to answer.
The front door sported two locks, the ring in my hand four keys. I tried each key in succession until I found the right combination that fit the locks. The tedious process tested what little patience I had left.
A four-digit number was taped to the back of the key that turned the deadbolt. I quickly found out why. The security alarm screeched to life when I opened the door. The alarm code had probably been ingrained in my memory less than twelve hours before. It, like everything else, was lost in the fog that had enveloped my brain.
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