With her cheeks deep crimson, Alexa felt the hard stares during her long walk of shame to the back of the plane. She found her seat, disrupted the other two passengers in her row, and sank down for the flight home. As the plane taxied into the lineup and the jet engines revved, the coffee and Baileys hit her bladder hard. Nothing to do now but hang on as the jumbo jet taxied down the runway and lifted off, sliding weightlessly into the white clouds. Buck’s words rang in her ears.
“You can’t control who you’ll fall in love with. It just happens.”
As soon as the seat belt sign went off, Alexa scooted out of her seat to closest restroom and when she returned, she sat thoughtfully wondering why Buck and Amy would want to emulate her and Rick. People in Portland were definitely weird. Was it nuts or was it completely normal to feel envious of the lives other people led or the books they wrote? Envy often bubbled up in her brain—Cara’s winning the contest, Helen Parry’s gorgeous house and Bentley, the power Lana wielded in the office. She didn’t want to be a jealous person, but it was part of her nature. As long as she could harness the negative energy to move forward and not let it keep her from her goal she’d be okay. That was the trick, like a sorcerer’s sleight of hand, turning the negative into a positive.
As the plane banked to the left, she dug into her purse for her smartphone and began tapping the keys.
A fireball lit up the night sky, engulfing the black Dodge Ram and the driver—a rugged lumberjack named Brad Stone.
CHAPTER 56
THE RAIN gods blessed Sari and Rob with perfect weather for their two-day visit to Portland where they visited the Grotto and a few out-of-the-way attractions known only to the locals. After a pit stop at Mojo Doughnuts, they drove their sugar headaches north along US 5 toward Seattle in a rented Lincoln sedan. Traffic on the scenic highway flowed smoothly as they passed vineyards, farms, and cypress groves, arriving in Tacoma at dinnertime. They stayed overnight and left for Seattle after a hearty breakfast.
The world-famous Pike Place Market was their first stop. The epicenter of fresh produce and specialty foods swarmed with tourists. After watching the zany fish-tossing spectacle and dining on exotic delicacies, they checked into the Klondike Hotel for a quickie and a nap. As the sun set they lay on the hotel bed fully clothed.
“Every stupid thing I’ve ever done is playing like a loop in my head,” said Rob. “I feel as though I have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
Sari patted his chest. “It’s going to be okay. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Let’s go eat.”
“Just like that?”
“Don’t over think it.”
“I was a regular badass.”
“Stop bragging.” She put on her shoes. “I’m starving.”
They bought tickets for ride up to the Space Needle’s observation deck. The perimeter rotated, without seeming to move at all, as they enjoyed dinner and avoided any discussion of the future. Remaining in the present was tricky since they were clearing the past to move into their future.
Back on the road the following morning, the familiar landscape whizzed past the tinted windows opening the floodgates of repressed and long-forgotten memories. Neither spoke. Sari felt her agitation intensify as she went inside herself. She had played it safe for so many years, she hadn’t known any other way. But now she wondered if a life that was challenging and uncertain—maybe even a bit risky—wasn’t the better choice. She’d feel alive and not dead inside. The air between them hummed with dual currents of apprehension and anticipation.
Rob had many ghosts to vanquish, atonements to make, and apologies to offer. Until he made amends, it would be impossible to forge ahead. He’d be weighed down forever by the anchors of youthful follies and transgressions. If it meant begging forgiveness from offspring he’d never met, and who were unaware of his very existence, then he would.
They were chasing trouble. It was frightening and exhilarating.
Sari and her old pal, Trudi Bittman, had compiled a list of names whose lives would change irretrievably, but only a few for the better. The others would look back and wish this day had never dawned. The list was folded in quarters, tucked deep in her purse.
The small community on the shores of Bellingham Bay held a slew of unpleasant memories. They fully expected a few doors to slam in their faces as they braced for the inevitable. Sari had left in a hurry, spirited out of town by her mother, and burdened with an infant that was hers and yet wasn’t. Rob had left under a cloud of contempt and never expected to return.
Although they didn’t hope to gain much more information than they’d learned in her letter, Maggie Starr was the first name on their list. She was the appropriate beginning for their respective journeys of self-discovery and healing. If another golden nugget fell from her treasure trove of memories, they’d consider themselves blessed.
For the next few days they knocked on doors, warded off threats, made apologies, and lifted off blankets of disbelief. Rob felt little pieces of himself break off and float away in the cool, salty air as he introduced himself to his children who’d never heard his name. He felt their anger, confusion, and melancholy. He understood their pain. Making peace with his estranged parents was unchartered territory. Although his father had remained steadfast in his anger, refusing to shake his son’s hand, his mother cried out, “I can finally die in peace.”
With the worst behind them, Rob Porterfield held Sari’s hand as the powerful turbines of the Delta Boeing 747 revved into high gear. The jumbo jet lifted them up through the clouds for the non-stop flight from Seattle back to Phoenix. Rob wondered if he’d been foolhardy to barge into the quiet, private lives of perfect strangers. Without doubt it was self-serving.
Here, now it’s your problem. Deal with it.
He’d turned their lives inside out before sneaking away like a thief in the night with a sliver of their souls tucked into his pocket.
High above the Rockies, he wondered what was right and what was wrong in matters of the heart. The answer was somewhere. But his journey of pain and enlightenment was not yet over.
CHAPTER 57
“It was hysterical,” Hannah told Alexa as they drove to Pelican Middle School on Monday morning in the leased Ford Escape. “We walked into the ice cream place and saw an old geezer, bald as a billiard ball, polishing off a banana split. So Zelda goes over and says, ‘Excuse me, are you Abe Vigoda?’ And he looks up and says, ‘That’s me.’”
“Abe Vigoda from the old TV show Barney Miller?”
“Who knows? But Luke seemed to remember him. Anyway, they chatted away about Hollywood while I looked him up on my phone. And guess what?”
“What?”
“Vigoda died in 2016. So I’m not sure who she was flirting with, but she was acting crunk.”
“Crazy drunk?”
“Lucky guess.” Alexa smiled for the first time since the frantic call from Teena more than a week ago.
At work she kept a low profile, jotting notes for her new book while plowing through a stack of manuscripts, which had doubled in size over the weekend.
Zev sent an email: Ready for another basketball tutorial?
Thanks, starting over. NO ball players.
The intercom buzzed. He asked her to step into his office.
“I’m glad,” said Zev, picking the foam pellets. “That premise didn’t sound very promising. So now what?”
“I’m writing about a guy, a lumberjack, who’s almost killed in a terrible accident. The question is: Will he live or die?”
“What’s the verdict?”
“It’s strange having the power of life and death.”
“Writers are the masters of playing God.”
“But if it’s a romance he has to live, doesn’t he?”
“Remember Love Story?” asked Zev. “It was a blockbuster book and a hit movie. Actually, it was a screenplay first, but they released the book with the movie. The rest is history.”
“What’s histo
ry?”
“The book. It was the top-selling book of 1970, on the bestseller lists for nearly a year and translated into twenty languages.”
“Jeepers. Why?”
“The heroine, played by Ali McGraw in the movie, dies at the end. It was the tearjerker of all tearjerkers.”
“Why would people like that? I wouldn’t.”
He shrugged. “Not every story has a happy ending. But that’s where the line ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ comes from.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I’m not even sure what that means. I’m always apologizing. But that’s not the way I pictured it.”
“You saw your character being nursed back to health and living happily ever after with their two adorable kids and rescue mutt.”
“Close enough.”
“What’s the title?”
“The Aftermath.”
“The title is compelling. But why settle for the predictable ending? What if something infinitely worse happens?”
“Worse than nearly dying?”
“What if he gets better, ditches the girl, and kidnaps the dog showing his true selfish nature. Or survives but gets killed when someone T-bones him.” He shifted in his seat. “Over a million Americans are killed in traffic accidents each year. My sister was hit by a drunk driver.”
“I’m sorry, Zev.”
“Make the tension unbearable. Keeps the reader guessing until the end.”
Back at her desk, she sent herself an email: To Love & Die or To Live & Leave?
After dinner, she brought Zelda a plate of chicken and rice, and took out the garbage. A large terra cotta floor vase sat dolefully alongside the Dumpster. Lugging it upstairs, she rinsed off the dirt in the shower and stuck it near the bureau. A dozen bamboo sticks or peacock feathers would give it some pizzazz. But that had to wait as the words gathered like rain clouds in her head, ready to burst open in a torrent.
As he lay helpless in the hospital bed, he reached for her hand. Willingly she gave it to him, thankful that he was still alive after the devastating wreck. Their fingers entwined. He turned her palm up; pressing it to his lips, flicking it with his tongue. How could something so simple feel so indescribable?
Although this was the book she was meant to write, she feared jinxing Rick’s recovery if Brad Stone didn’t make a complete recovery. She could leave him with a limp, but he had to live. He couldn’t die. No way. Well, maybe.
But even as the fictional Brad Stone and the real Rick Harlow struggled to heal, her relationship with Luke was in a death spiral. He’d been squirrelly since her return. Actually, since before she left. Her gut reaction was to say, Get over it. But she said nothing. She didn’t want Hannah accusing her of “blowing it” again. Perhaps Luke felt slighted or ignored. Maybe he considered Rick a rival, or felt he was taking a back seat to her writing. Or both. Or something else. He was inscrutable.
It was absurd, of course. Rick was in the ICU on the West Coast with the top of his skull in a jar. Luke was here. She wanted her life to return to the morning of their weekend getaway—when their romance was unfolding like a glorious hibiscus bloom.
On Saturday, she wrote in the morning, fixed a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and sent Luke a text offering to get movie tickets for the seven o’clock show.
She also sent one to Hannah who was with her friends: Just checking in.
The SUV was still stolen and time was running out. In a week the rental would be returned and she’d have to lease or buy a vehicle. Another financial burden. Trolling the net, she was disheartened to see that any decent used car would set her back fifteen grand, which meant car payments of three-hundred a month. Luke had generously offered to lend her a thousand for a deposit, to be repaid from her advance royalty—assuming there was one. He was sweet that way. Why couldn’t he be as generous with his heart?
Since she didn’t know if she could repay the loan, she demurred. And although Sari’s Portland home had been sold, she’d cut off her pinkie before asking for any money.
Shortly after four, Luke canceled the movie date by text, making up a bullshit excuse about work. She knew he was going to the sports bar, but she wasn’t chasing after him. Zelda said don’t beg. She wasn’t that needy. Hannah called asking if she could hang with her friends a little longer. She said okay.
Instead of using the time to write, she went for a long walk, took a shower, and settled down on the couch to watch a Lifetime movie. The hours rolled by as one show ended and another began and Alexa began to lose heart. The premise of every movie seemed so clichéd: City girl goes back to the country, meets old flame, they rekindle a romance, some glitch gets in the way of their happiness, but the misunderstandings are magically resolved. They kiss and stroll hand-in-hand down the beach, or through the meadow, or into the snow-covered pine forest as the credits roll. The formula was so simple, so straightforward.
Nobody ever dies. Ever!
The book Zev had mentioned, Love Story, was an aberration, a product of the seventies. Times had changed. Everyone wanted happy, sappy, syrupy endings. Life was a pressure cooker. Nobody wanted a downer although they were fine with zombies, and fire-breathing dragons, and clowns that ate kids for breakfast. What happened to good honest writing about people with real problems? Everyone wanted to escape. She did too. That’s why the weekend with Luke was so exhilarating. All cares and worries were left behind and she’d been a princess for a day. Too bad it ended with a sickening dose of reality.
The bottom line was that being a single mom was harder than she had ever imagined with the responsibility on her shoulders, the constant pressure-cooker of raging hormones and pushback against parental authority, the never-ending worries about money, and the desperation of trying to balance a loving relationship with a man that understood and accepted her shortcomings and needs and was willing to step up to the plate. She felt like a circus juggler and could not imagine how moms with multiple kids coped with the nerve-wracking stress. She’d had a small taste with Gretel. It wasn’t a barrel fun; quite the opposite in fact.
She tried to recall what Buck had told her back at the bar in Portland. He’d said, “You need to be with someone who loves you when you hate yourself. A man who saves you when you’re sinking.”
Who was that man? Was he in her life already or had they not met?
Point taken. Score one for Buck.
He’d also said, “The magic happens when you don’t give up.” She assumed he meant about the book. Certainly she could figure out the plot and the ending.
Alexa worked hard to convince herself she could finish a novel. But her self-doubts were so deeply entrenched—first by her mother and then by her former husband—that she found it impossible to visualize. Both Bryan and Luke made her question herself constantly. Nobody except Buck and Rick thought she could finish a novel. Even she was beginning to doubt it
She pulled up a search for Love Story on her phone. They called it tragic and funny. Wasn’t that an oxymoron? Two college students, a Harvard jock and the daughter of a Rhode Island banker, fall in love. They marry against his father’s wishes and he’s cut off financially so they squeak by. She could relate. But they’re happy and they want to start a family. That’s when he gets the devastating news: she has leukemia. She’s dying. Alexa sighed in the quiet apartment. How was this considered funny? So the jock has to keep it a secret from his lady love. But at the very end she learns the truth and dies in his arms. Everyone cries. There’s not a dry eye in the house.
So if Rick dies at the end, would everyone love it? Would it be optioned for a movie and called the NEW Love Story? Or would they accuse her of plagiarizing? Isn’t that what she did with Lana? No. She wasn’t going there, but then again, she couldn’t play it safe. Screw the critics, screw Bryan. Screw Hallmark and Lifetime. They’d change the ending to something happy and sappy. But she had to be true to herself. Zev was right. Go for the gut.
She smiled as she cast the movie in her head: perhaps o
ne of the Hemsworth brothers, either Chris or Liam would be the ill-fated Brad Stone. Sarah Rafferty or Rachel McAdams would be his love interest.
At nine-thirty the phone rang. She didn’t want to answer. She simply could not handle one more piece of bad news from Oregon or any more rejection from Luke. Nevertheless, she swiped the green icon praying nothing was wrong. The voice at the other end was unfamiliar. Her anxiety ticked up as she fought to remain in control.
“Who’s this?”
“Lieutenant Heffernan, Oviedo Police Department.”
“OMG is Hannah okay? Don’t tell me she’s hurt?” Her agitation grew and multiplied. “Please God, let her be okay.”
“I’m not sure who Hannah is, but your car’s in our impound lot.”
“My car?” Her voice shot up an octave. “My car!”
“A midnight blue Honda SUV.” He read off the tag number. “Come get it anytime.”
“Where’s Oviedo?”
“Know where Disney World is? We’re twenty minutes northeast.”
Alexa felt weak with relief. “Are you open Sunday?”
“Twenty-four-seven,” said the lieutenant. “Have a valid ID and registration. Don’t be shocked, it’s been through a lot.” Her intestines groaned as she pictured a pile of scrap metal.
She texted Luke and he called immediately. He must have stepped out of the bar, but she could hear cheering, more of a roar, as some goal was scored or game won.
“I’ll drive you up,” he said cheerfully, as though he hadn’t blown off their date a few hours ago. It no longer mattered.
They left early Sunday morning, drove three hours north and found the Oviedo PD impound lot. Luke held her hand as they approached the dinged, scraped, and dented SUV sitting like a sad wreck behind the chain-link fence. The rear bumper was missing. Inside, the headliner and sun visors had been ripped out for no apparent reason. The console was riddled with cigarette burns, her CDs were gone, and the Sun Pass transponder had been taken. No surprise there. The car reeked of pot, but the tires were intact and the engine purred. After filling out the paperwork and showing her ID, Alexa drove it back to Deerfield Beach while Luke followed in his Tesla. They parked at Oceanview complex and stepped out. He pulled her close for a warm embrace as they surveyed the damage again.
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