“Is it your first time?” she asked. “In Pittsburgh?” She indicated the guidebook in his hand.
“Yes,” he answered. “It is. But I’ll be seeing a lot of it in the future so –” he flipped the cover upright for her viewing perspective, “– I bought the most recommended guide to getting lost in the city that was available in the airport gift shop.”
His voice was warm, a baritone. His smile was warm also, she noticed, in rather crooked lines that seemed open and slightly embarrassed at the same time. An apologetic duck of his head followed as he flipped the book closed before him.
They had lapsed into silence. That of shyness or hesitation, but not entirely awkward. She waited a moment before she spoke again.
“Elliot Hills,” she said. “If you’re looking for an apartment, I would start there. It’s in a decent part of the city and less expensive than most people realize.”
She had no idea if he was moving here and the boldness of making this suggestion surprised even herself. He, however, seemed genuinely interested.
“Elliot Hills,” he repeated. “I’ll remember that. I was thinking of a hotel until I could find a place to rent. Holiday Inn has its limitations for a home, I think.”
Her smile stretched wider, although she attempted to suppress this movement. It wasn’t terribly funny, his statement; it was really something in his voice, the way he said it more than anything else which struck her as humorous.
He coughed slightly. “What about coffee?” he asked. She glanced at him.
“Coffee?” she repeated. Her mind had drawn a blank in a rush of emotions, apprehensive and strangely thrilling between the thought of an invitation of some sort or an undefined query.
“Where do you get it? Besides Starbucks, I mean, for a good cup, I mean. If you’re one of Pittsburgh’s morning commuters.”
“East side or west?”
“East, I think,” he answered, after considering this for a moment. Eleanor was from the east side. She heard this mention distinctly, with an unusual tingle of anticipation foreign to her nature.
“Bitty’s. On Fourth,” she said. “Go there for your coffee – but never The Beanery, just so you know in advance. Unless you want to be taken for a tourist, that is.” Her coffee choice was always Bitty’s, where the smell of spices and steam lulled one into momentary nirvana in the rush hour.
“Good danishes?” he queried.
“Do you put all your stock in the quality of a danish?” she countered.
Was she – flirting with him? She was. She was distinctly doing so. An exhilaration with this notion – no blush, only an awareness that her cheeks were flush with heat.
“I do,” he answered, pretending to be grave. “It’s possibly the most important question I’ve asked yet.”
“Then they’re excellent,” she answered. She looked into his eyes, a clear, grey pair which met hers with equal interest and frankness, and she wondered vaguely what he saw. In her own eyes, for instance. Or in general, at this moment.
No speaking. They were merely looking now. A fraction of a second longer than necessary for a post-exchange glance.
“Anything else I should know?” he asked.
She hesitated. “For dry cleaning – use Sullivan’s on Central. They never lose buttons and leave them without replacement. Ever, to my knowledge.”
“I really don’t know why I bothered to buy this,” he said, waving the guide book lightly before he tucked it in his coat pocket. “You’ve provided all the answers I needed in five minutes of conversation.”
“Perhaps the shop will give you a refund,” she suggested.
“Not likely,” he answered, with a grimace. “Too late for that since I chucked the receipt. Still, it'll come in handy since I can’t carry you around with me, can I?”
Eleanor’s gaze flickered away momentarily until the heat passed from her cheeks. A slight toss of her head, almost, this motion: a curl drifting across her face in its sideways grace.
“You don’t come in a pocket-sized edition that would tuck into my bag, do you?” he said.
“Afraid not,” she answered. Something else clever came to mind, but she didn’t say it aloud. There were still some limitations which she held within herself.
The first bag tumbled down from the luggage chute. Others followed, including Eleanor’s suitcase. She craned for it on its high slope.
“Allow me.” The stranger leaned past her, several inches of additional height giving him the advantage in snaring its handle. He drew it downwards and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said. She had taken hold of it. His hand was now extended before her, sideways. She took hold of it.
“Edward,” he said.
“Eleanor,” she answered. “Welcome to Pittsburgh, Edward.” There was a brief pause of interlinked hands before he released her and took hold of another piece of luggage, a leather bag which had rolled along the edge of the carousel.
“I'll be seeing you around, I hope,” he said. “In this city of yours – ours, now, I should say.”
“Perhaps so,” she answered. “Good luck. Until then.”
She could give him the rest of her name – a card, in fact, from the business stack in her bag’s pocket – but something about that seemed too formal to her. Would Marianne say it was foolish of her to leave without securing an acquaintance or applaud its impulse?
He was looking at her when she glanced over her shoulder. Watching her with interest, which might well be what he saw in her own face in that brief moment before she turned away.
He did not move towards the doors, but in the direction of the car rental zone. As for Eleanor, she continued on towards the airport exit, keeping her shoulders upright and her form as graceful as possible while carrying two pieces of luggage.
There had been no hope of Marianne picking her up at the airport, since she had still not heard from her. She had phoned her twice from Boston and found that Marianne’s cell went straight to its message box at this moment. Tannis hadn’t seen her, except to say that someone had apparently read the note and taken the key from the bedside table.
She would be worried – she ought to be – but it seemed pointless now. Hopeless to fret and fear for someone who was doing this deliberately and without any concern equal to Eleanor’s own. Marianne wouldn’t understand why a lack of courtesy communication offended, not in the way she would regret the failure to communicate a monumental event or a momentary epiphany, for instance.
It irked Eleanor. She had once collected Marianne from an airport at two a.m. Upon request, she had also once driven in haste to a gallery in Harrisburg on a rainy Sunday afternoon to collect a painting which Marianne had accidentally left in the possession of a closing art exhibit.
There was no cab pulled up to the curb outside. Another woman was waiting near the doors, her little suitcase on wheels momentarily halted. She was gazing expectantly through the glass at the world outside, offering Eleanor a polite smile of greeting. After a moment, she looked at Eleanor again – a sideways, sneaking glance which was trying to decide something, it seemed.
“Aren’t you Eleanor Darbish – the columnist who writes that advice column?” she ventured.
Inwardly, Eleanor cringed. “Yes, actually, I am.” She was seldom recognized, of course, but now and then it happened. She dreaded such moments, which forced pat replies and a seeming polite agreement which was contrary to her sense of modesty in the face of compliments.
The woman’s smile became earnest. “I just can’t believe this is real. I’m such a fan of your column and I read it almost every day.”
“Thank you,” Eleanor answered, with a polite smile. A standard reply of discomfort. “I’m glad you enjoy it.”
“Well, I do. Your column saved my life.”
“Saved your life?” Eleanor repeated. The bluntness of this remark in its off-hand tone rendered her slightly shocked. The woman across from her seemed not to notice.
“Yes – you answ
ered my letter. I wrote you about my elderly mother who refused to go to her doctor’s appointment because she said she hated them. And you said she was probably afraid – that she was feeling mortality and all that – and that I should make both of us appointments for the same time and be kind of an inadvertent moral support.”
“And?” said Eleanor.
“And the doctor found my cancer.” The woman’s eyes had grown slightly teary with these words. A brief well of water wavering beneath her gaze. “But I wouldn’t have made the appointment otherwise. And my mom became my support the whole time and she kept her appointments, too.”
This story had taken Eleanor’s power of speech momentarily. She gazed at the woman before her, whose face and eyes had become placid again, as if this were a story about buying a loaf of bread and milk at the store.
“Oh,” said Eleanor, softly. “Oh, well ... I’m glad. I’m glad that it helped you. Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you,” said the woman. “Well, I see my son outside – it’s been an honor to meet you.” She shook Eleanor’s hand, her grip firm in comparison to Eleanor’s numb fingers. “I’ll be reading you.” With a humorous little smile, she lifted her bag and exited the airport through the sliding doors, where a middle-aged man could be seen opening a passenger car door for her at the curb.
Eleanor was alone on the other side of the doors. The sound of the airport around her had become a momentary buzz. Her mind had pictured these circumstances in a brief flurry of images, which dissolved again in the reality of the airport.
She had not truly saved that woman’s life, of course. No, not at all; yet, the story had been strangely comforting from a personal perspective. Perhaps it was something to do with the tide of suggestions from the intern Lucy Deane and the cloud of Haldon Media’s vagaries.
She could claim no credit in this case, of course. Yet, she felt a warm glow at the thought of this particular reader believing her words had such profound influence and power. The lull of flattery, she supposed, was this feeling.
She might have thought of the woman’s story all the way back to her apartment in the cab. But in the warmth of the sunset and the sleepiness of travel, she found herself dozing off with the notion of coffee and donuts and Pittsburgh as a maze of streets in which one might get entirely lost.
Chapter Eight
At six in the morning, the phone rang, awakening Eleanor from a groggy state on the fringes of sleep. Beside her bed, the white cordless phone trilled electronically with a gentle urgency that had heralded emergencies in the past. A relative’s sudden death, a bomb threat at the Herald, a doctor’s office with the test results from a suspicious mole on Eleanor’s arm.
She snapped it up with more force than necessary. On the other end, the sound of Marianne’s voice.
“Hello?” Eleanor interrupted, despite the fact that a conversation already seemed to be in progress without her. Marianne had begun talking the moment the dialing ceased.
“Elly, who do you think it is? It’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t get to your messages, only I’ve been busy –”
“Do you realize what time it is, Marianne?” Eleanor attempted to withhold the irritation edging her voice. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“I was with Will,” answered Marianne.
Will. That was a new name to Eleanor’s ears.
“Who is he?” Eleanor sat up now. She slid the covers off her pajama-clad legs and slid her legs off the bed. Her half-open closet door revealed a glimpse of today’s outfit, a charcoal pinstripe pants suit, a cream-colored blouse.
“He is ... I don’t know how to describe him, honestly. He’s beyond words, El. He’s everything I could possibly imagine in a single person to make them divine. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. There’s truly no one like him.”
“I’m sure,” said Eleanor, who was shrugging on her blouse over a plain camisole. “I assume he is the reason you couldn’t be troubled to phone me? I was worried about you, you know.”
“I know. You’re always worried. But that’s not what’s important. El, I’ve found the one. The one, the one I’ve waited for. I’ve spent the past three days in a daze, Elly. I haven’t eaten or slept or done anything except be with him...”
Be? Eleanor’s mind rankled at the possible connotations of this phrase. “Marianne, dearest,” she began, “I don’t think I need to hear this –”
“El, please. Don‘t be so prudish.” Marianne’s mind was shrewdly perceptive of her sister’s underlying meaning. “I just mean that we’ve been together, just ... just living. Just breathing. Just knowing everything there is to know about each other.”
Inside and out, Eleanor thought to herself. But said: “And how long have you known each other? Three days?”
“Five days – and who knows how many minutes, ever since he saved my life,” Marianne answered.
There was a clatter as Eleanor almost dropped the phone – not because she was shrugging on her jacket, but because of the sudden impact of this statement. “Tell me you’re exaggerating,” she said. She pictured Marianne distracted, stepping in front of a car at a busy intersection, or wandering beneath a window washer’s platform and never hearing the shout of concern, seeing the tumbling chunk of a crumbling ledge –
“Well, maybe a little. But it’s still true that he did save me on the train.”
“Marianne –”
“It’s a long story and I’ll tell you it later.” Marianne sounded only vaguely interested in the details of this subject in comparison to the broader topic of the love of her life. “Oh, Elly, you have to meet him. Please. Right away. You’ll love him. I swear it – I can’t wait for you to see him.”
Never before had Marianne expressed interest in Eleanor meeting any of her paramours. There had been meetings by chance or by coincidence, but never by design. For a moment she ceased to force her foot into a black pump and forgot the notion of the train and the looming story of accident or mugging.
“Meet him?” she repeated.
“Of course. I want you to. And he wants to meet you. I told him all about you – well, I told him nearly everything about me, actually. But you’ll see. You can’t possibly imagine how I feel, Eleanor. It’s everything – poetry, art, music, life. He truly is everything.”
It was the ache in her voice which held Eleanor’s heart still for this moment, as if all of Marianne’s passion had forced itself into her voice, twining itself around the sum total of her existence in a few choice words about this stranger. That, and the fact that Marianne had not used any of the pet names for her sister, seemed cause for alarm to her.
“I see.” Eleanor’s voice was slightly cautious.
“I have to go. I have a painting class – but I’ll call you again. And tell you where and when to meet us, but please, you have to promise to like him. Please, please promise me.”
“I’ll try,” said Eleanor. “I will.” She heard the click on the other end of the line and was left in silence after this promise.
*****
“I know without my being here to tell you, you’ve all marked your calendars. October fifteenth, the penthouse on the top floor, a celebration of The Pittsburgh Herald’s unique contribution to TriCom and the world of journalism.” Mark Fueller spoke with seeming passion on this subject from his place at the head of the room.
They had dimmed the lights slightly to allow a projector to broadcast Haldon Media’s logo on the wall behind him. Before him, the rest of the staff of the Herald was crowded as an attentive and eager, if anxious, audience. Eleanor caught a glimpse of Lucy’s face on the foremost edge of the crowd. Her smile was wide, her eyes alight with an almost-fervent gleam.
“So, here we are,” continued Fueller, “weeks away from champagne, a jazz ensemble, catering from one of the finest restaurants in town – and what are we here to talk about? Not just the paper’s record for a cutting-edge news staff, but what the future of this publication looks like with Haldon Media as a
part of it.”
Cue the applause, Eleanor thought, but not with the sardonic flavor which she observed in Brandon’s features a few seats away in Norlend Tower’s media room. His brow lowered, mouth turning down with an unpleasant look of distaste for Fueller’s remarks.
“We have changes in mind for Pittsburgh. Big changes, bold changes. Changes that will carry this publication into the twenty-second century of journalism and global thinking. Changes that begin with a completely new website that makes reading the news being part of the news...”
The scenes on the wall behind Fueller became screen shots of a new webpage. Eleanor saw the paper sections listed with tabs against a background designed like newsprint. A constant stream of data ever-changing at the top: the Dow’s numbers, the commodities exchange, the New York Times’ Bestseller lists, fiction and nonfiction. A video feed in between the main headlines, featuring the easy, confident smile of Mark Fueller himself, talking about the correlation between news and media.
“We make readers feel that they contribute to the news – their feedback helps shape local headlines and drives polls and content. We integrate social media into our columns and local special features, let readers’ profiles drive the nature of advertising for us. Do they want videos? Do they want food and entertainment featured? Do they want smarter, better, more interactive ads that reflect what they need or want most in business and products? We know they do...”
Fueller’s hands had grown more expressive with this line of speech, coming unglued from their easy, slightly shifting position along the sides of his informal podium and moving like a demonstration was in progress.
“...and we know they want new features and new faces among those they’ve trusted to help shape their world,” he continued. “Over the next few months, as TriCom and the Pittsburgh Herald begun restructuring their organizations, you’ll be meeting some of the new staff members who will bring a hip, vibrant perspective to this new version of the publication...”
Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending) Page 7