“I’m sorry, Mr. Bassey. But without identification, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do.”
Her dreaded words hushed everyone into silence. Burt glared hard at Nancy. Teddy gazed at Blue Hair. Everyone peered back at Gracie, who was barely holding herself together inside the false sense of security of Burt’s black business coat.
“Just tell the truth,” Tubby insisted with impatience, the whites of his eyes swimming like loose egg yokes. “It’s obvious your girl is suffering,” he said with a nod of his pancake chin. “So just tell Nancy the truth. Especially the part about the cheating husband.”
Blue Hair and Teddy stared at Tubby, slowly understanding his perspective.
“Trust me on this. Your girl isn’t the only woman in the world who has had a double-timing, slime bag husband. Although, it certainly wouldn’t hurt if your girl could cry on cue.”
Suddenly, there was a silent understanding between the three keepers—Blue Hair, Tubby, and Teddy—and it was one of those rare times when everyone pooled together for the sake of a common good in the lower dimensions.
Teddy was first to set things in motion. He turned to Gracie and whispered into her defeated soul.
Tell the truth, Gracie.
Gracie had been silent up until now. She had watched Burt—a complete stranger—fighting her fight, and he had done his best. But now, he was deflated and resigned to failure, and Gracie would have to be the one to dig deep and find the strength to fight.
Petition the ticket agent on your behalf, and just tell the truth.
Teddy wasn’t sure she’d respond, but then like magic, Gracie wiped away her tears and approached the ticket counter. Yes, Gracie. That’s my girl.
“Burt, it’s okay,” Gracie said, touching his arm with gentle persuasion.
“The truth is that I’m not really his wife,” Gracie confessed. “My real husband is back at the Grand Maui Resort. We were just married on Saturday, and we are…were on our honeymoon, a lovely wonderful honeymoon until I found out—” Gracie paused, closed her eyes, and shook her head with a smile that withered into a quivering frown, “—that he’s been cheating on me with my best friend. I found out tonight. On my honeymoon.” Gracie was ready to dissolve until Teddy reached out and held her hand.
“And I don’t know why, or what I did wrong... or how I could ever believe that someone like him could ever really love someone like me. You know?”
Nancy stared at Gracie, her tired blue eyes acknowledging that she did know.
“It all seems like a stupid fantasy now. And I’m the stupid girl who believed in the stupid fairy tale. So now…I don’t know what to believe anymore. The only thing I know is that I need to go home. So please…please. If there’s anything you can do—” Gracie’s throat tightened with a lump of stinging tears.
Gracie didn’t need to cry on cue because she was filling up with genuine tears. Tubby was right. The truth worked. There was a fissure in Nancy’s frozen corporate exterior, and she cracked like a sheet of Artic ice under the pressure of an early spring.
“I’m not even sure there are any seats left on the Chicago flight,” Nancy said, shaking her head and lowering her voice with empathy. That’s when Blue Hair set in on Nancy’s computer like a vicious turkey, zapping its hardware with a SCHAZAM! The electric shocked forced Teddy backwards; he didn’t know the old biddy had it in her.
Click, click, click… no response from Nancy’s keyboard.
“Well, now my computer just froze up,” Nancy sighed with frustration. She picked up the phone and dialed, but Blue Hair was on a roll. She zapped the phone line dead before Nancy could get a word out.
Reset. Reset. Reset. No dial tone.
It was late. Nancy was a single mom with three kids waiting at home for her, and the last thing she needed was to be dealing with a recalcitrant computer and temperamental phone service.
It was Tubby’s turn. He surveyed the terminal; it was completely empty. Nancy was the only airport clerk manning the counter, and Tubby used this to his advantage. He lumbered down to a vacant check-in stall and picked up the hand-held intercom. Then in the most banal, monotone airport voice that he could simulate, he let it rip: Final boarding call for Flight 177 to Chicago, final boarding call Flight 177 to Chicago.
Blue Hair and Teddy were speechless. It was one thing for keepers to use the power of technology—radios, walkie-talkies, telephones, tape recordings, stereo speakers, intercoms—to channel their energy through mechanical devices in the lower dimensions. But it was another thing entirely to fabricate the tone and cadence of mortal speech in a way that sounded like Burt Bacharach reciting the weather.
“One of the more useful tricks I picked up after twenty-one years of hanging out in airports,” Tubby explained with a jello shrug before retiring back on the ledge of the conveyer belt.
“Is that our red-eye?” Burt said with excessive concern.
Nancy looked stunned. “I thought the computer said, ‘departing at 12:30AM?’” Nancy wondered aloud.
Click, click, click on her keyboard. No response. Reset. Rest. Reset. No dial tone.
“Look, can you please help us out, here?” Burt passed his credit card off to her. “She really needs to catch that flight.”
Nancy glanced at Gracie, whose eyes were shining with trembling tears as she surveyed the industrial terminal, fearing the looming certainty of having to spend the night in the airport—alone. Everyone settled to silence, waiting for Nancy’s response.
“You said the Grand Maui Resort had a fire?” Nancy finally asked.
“Yeah,” Burt nodded with encouragement; every good insurance salesman recognizes the moment when his sales pitch made a dent.
“What’s your full name?” Nancy asked Gracie.
“Gracie Elling—” she started before correcting herself. “I mean, Harris. Gracie Harris.”
“Okay, wait here,” Nancy directed them. “I’ll see what I can do.” She took Burt’s credit card and rushed through an employees only doorway at the far end of the check-in counter.
Five minutes later, she returned with a boarding pass for Flight 177 to Chicago.
“Your fire story at the Grand Maui Resort checked out, so I’ve been given permission to let you board without an I.D. But I’ll have to escort you through security,” Nancy said, signaling Gracie to follow her. “And we’ll have to hurry.”
Gracie and Burt looked at each other with relief and began their awkward good-byes. Burt withdrew his wallet and passed her sixty dollars in cash. “You’ll need it for the taxi, or the bus, or however you guys get around in Chicago.”
Gracie knew she needed the money, so she didn’t protest. “I’ll pay you back. Just give me your address and I’ll send you a check—“
“Nahhhh, forget about it. Just look me up if you’re ever in Detroit.”
They both knew it was unlikely that she ever would be. Instead, they awkwardly shook hands, knowing it was more likely they would never meet again.
Nancy started towards security, unhooking one of the black elastic aisle runners to let Gracie pass directly to the X-ray machines. Without any luggage or belongings of her own, Gracie quickly passed through security and turned to wave goodbye to Burt from the other side. Gracie suddenly looked down, realizing she was still wearing Burt’s coat and flip-flops.
“Your coat and shoes?”
“Forget about ’em,” Burt flagged her on. “They look better on you, anyhow.”
It was true. The oversized black business coat and silly turquoise blue flip-flops did look better on her, like an endearing child playing dress up in her uncle’s closet.
When Gracie was safely through security, Nancy returned back to the ticket counter and back to Burt.
“Mr. Bassey, I’ve got your bags checked, so you’re all set.”
“You’re one decent lady, ya know that, Nancy?” Burt said. “So, you married? Got kids?”
“Divorced. And three,” Nancy replied.
“Re
ally?” Burt sang out with interest. “Ya don’t say? Hey, looks like I’ve still got some time to kill. When does your shift end?”
Burt heeled alongside Nancy like a playful puppy. And although Teddy was certain he probably would never see Burt Bassey again, he was just as certain that Burt was going to be just fine.
Chapter Twelve
A keeper may offer comfort and solace to his assignment
Bundled up in Burt’s business coat, Gracie stared out the window during the plane ride home as she reflected on everything and nothing in intervals. When she returned to Chicago, she decided to take the train home. Without her wallet and credit cards, she knew she needed to conserve Burt’s cash. She had closed all her checking accounts, following Luke’s advice that they would setup joint accounts after their honeymoon, and she had maxed out her credit card to buy her antique wedding dress. And there was no one she could call for help. Then, she thought about O’Connell’s. Although Pete, Stella, and Bebe would be the first ones—after her mother—to come to her aid when she needed them, Gracie’s pride couldn’t bear the thought of calling any of them.
It was a slow, shameful walk up to her apartment building—a run-down brownstone in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. It was all she could afford her senior year of college, when she decided it was time to move out of her mother’s Buffalo Grove rental house and into her own place. And once Gracie draped some new curtains to hide the rotting wooden trim along the windows and repainted the stained walls an inviting buttery yellow, it almost felt like a decent place to make a life. Luke, on the other hand, rarely spent the night there. He couldn’t stand the stench of garbage that wafted up from the Mexican taquería next door, and he hated parking his red Porsche in the street where all the homeless people eyed it on their way to the homeless shelter at night. Luke tried talking Gracie into giving up the place after graduation. Luke had wanted to pay-off the lease and move all of her garage sale furniture, used books, and thrift store clothes into storage. But in the end, Gracie’s inner voice inside told her to wait until after she returned from Maui. That inner voice was Teddy’s voice, and there was nothing that made him happier than knowing Gracie had held onto a piece of herself that she could come home to.
Gracie’s relief soon faded as she stopped in the middle of the stairs and realized her apartment keys were three thousand miles away. As a reflex, she wondered where the nearest pay phone was so she could call Misty, who had an extra set of keys in case of an emergency. The thought was fleeting. She had focused so much on Luke in her private moments of unraveling that she barely contemplated Misty’s role in the betrayal. Gracie trudged up the stairs, carefully considering who else might have keys to her apartment. The cracked light fixtures barely illuminated the grey stairwell. Inky shadows slinked along the carpet. And a sinister silence foretold more imminent heartbreak soon threatened to devastate her fragile, tattered world.
Gracie slowly registered the fact that her door was splintered open. She passed into her shambled apartment, as if she was surveying the damage done by a cyclone. Her books were scattered across the floor of her entryway. She peered into her bedroom, the drawers of her dressers were torn out, her clothes strewn about her bed. The thieves ransacked her closets and discarded everything without monetary value. Teddy noticed that they even ransacked her medicine cabinet, pilfering generic brands of aspirin and ibuprofen, and bottles of cough syrup and Peptobismal. Apparently, the thieves had massive headaches and upset stomaches. They even stole a jar filled with loose change that Gracie had been collecting since she was in college; she hoped someday it would be enough to buy herself something frivolous, like a massage or French manicure. They didn’t touch her music CDs or anything in her kitchen. There was virtually nothing of value to steal in her apartment, except a few pieces of costume jewelry and the antique sapphire ring that her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday—a month before his accident. The ring, Gracie whispered to herself, rushing into her bedroom and opening her jewelry box. But her intuition had already told her what she feared most. It was gone.
Maybe it was the disappearance of her favorite memento from her dead father. Maybe it was the loss of her husband and best friend in a single night. Maybe it was the feeling of being utterly alone and helpless in a cruel unforgiving world. Or maybe it was simply the culmination of everything at once. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Gracie was home and she had finally granted herself permission to crack into a thousand different pieces and dissolve under a wave of internal tears. She melted onto the floor, clenching the bedspread with one hand and holding her chest with the other, her entire body shuttering and heaving with exhaustive inexorable grief.
And there was nothing Teddy could do about any of it, except hold her in his arms and fill her with a sense of security to allow herself to fall apart.
* * * *
After endless hours of indulgent tears, Gracie finally crawled into bed where she hid from the world until twilight receded into darkness, obscuring the objects in her room into unrecognizable shapes and shadows. She couldn’t cope with the honesty of daylight, so she lay huddled under her blankets, waiting for the neighborhood church bells to toll midnight. In the safety of moonlight, she dragged herself from bed and undressed, pulling off her distasteful tango dress and slipping on her favorite pair of worn-out pajamas. She hung Burt’s business coat in her closet and snagged her monstrous five-carat diamond wedding ring on its silk lining. Gracie gazed down at its vibrant luster before twisting off the heavy burden from her finger. She moved into the bathroom and tossed the ring into the toilet. The diamond plunked against the porcelain bowl and Gracie flushed it out of her life forever, casually discarding its value the way Luke had discarded her. She navigated through the dark clutter on the living room floor of her apartment—pretending they were the belongings of someone else whose apartment had been pillaged and trashed—and made her way into the kitchen to stuff her black tango dress into the garbage. Then, she perched herself on the broad wooden sills of the old-fashioned bay style windows and gazed up at the urban night sky, a misty smear of navy haze with orange phosphorous highlights.
Shrouded in the bleak darkness of her apartment, acutely aware she was truly alone, Gracie tilted up her head to the celestial night and spoke her inner confession.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered with earnest conviction.
Teddy barely moved.
“Not afraid of my apartment being broken into, or anything like that,” Gracie explained with a dismissive shake of her head. “But I’m just afraid that I’ll never get a chance to be happy, you know? That no matter what, no matter what good happens to me, there will always be something bad, waiting around the corner. I’m afraid it will always be like this. That my life will always hurt in some way, no matter how happy I try to be.”
Gracie suddenly grew self-conscious, dropped her knees from her chest, and stood up from the window sill. “Anyway, if there is something better out there for me, just give me a sign, even a little sign.”
Her voice dropped to an inaudible tone, and she yawned and started back to her bedroom. It had been a long, long life and all she wanted to do was sleep away her fears. Gracie slipped back into bed and nestled under the covers, then hesitated for a moment, as if she knew speaking the words aloud was an unbearable act. Instead, she only allowed the thought to drift through her drowsy mind:
If you can hear me – I know that everything will be okay.
Chapter Thirteen
A keeper may not pass into the lower dimensions
without consent from the Dimension Council
Gracie fell into a slumbering cocoon within ten minutes of crawling into bed. When Teddy felt certain she was sound asleep, he went to the bathroom and peered into the toilet. Gracie’s ring was still there, settled deep in its throat like a stubborn reminder. Determined to find her stolen sapphire ring and return it to her by morning, Teddy removed the diamond ring and set out to fulfill Gracie’s request for a si
gn. When she awoke, he wanted her father’s ring to be the first thing she saw—physical proof that Teddy was there for her and he would always be there no matter what.
Teddy left that night and headed off to see Infinity. She was his only hope to find Gracie’s ring. He went downstairs to the shut-up, abandoned café on a corner near Gracie’s apartment. It used to be run by an old French couple, who greeted Gracie every morning with a cup of hot chocolate and a tasty buttery croissant. They didn’t speak English very well, but they always enjoyed it when Gracie visited them because she reminded them of their American granddaughter who was studying music at Northwestern University. Unfortunately, too many city inspectors cited the building with too many code violations, which the slum landlord considered too expensive to fix. So he simply bought back the commercial lease from the old French couple and boarded up the one-story corner building. That was the end of Gracie’s happy routine and the beginning of the building’s abandonment.
None of the old café charm remained. The glass panel windows of the dilapidated storefront were glazed thick with coats of circular wax to keep homeless squatters from easily surveying the interior of their next midnight shelter. Sheets of wallpaper, ruined by watery rusty splatters from roof leaks, peeled down from the ceiling. It was simply a barren building, and yet, it was exactly what Teddy was looking for—the perfect mortal portal. Teddy knew keepers used mortal portals to pass out of the higher dimensions into the third dimensional world. In fact, seeing keepers slipping through doors of desolate convenience stores or gas stations was an everyday occurrence. When ordered by the Dimension Council, keepers would often pass out of the higher dimensions and into the lower dimensions to intervene within the spatial world. But passing through dimensions without the Dimension Council’s consent—and breaching the manifolds of space and time on your own volition—was the kind of thing that you risked doing and never finding your way back.
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