Ring of Truth

by Ciji Ware

  “Great,” said Daniel. He plainly did not like looking up to Justin. “Do you two have plans?”

  “Well,” the stranger looked at Tara. “We have something to do when Tara gets off, and then we’re going...” Tara waited to hear what he would say. Daniel was paying close attention. Jack would not say that they were going to search for a lost homeless man. “... kayaking.”

  Tara could not have heard him right. She turned, and he put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up to his, smiling down at her, slightly amused, as if he had not just suggested that they were going to take to the bay’s treacherous waters in the equivalent of a nautical endive canapé, a vessel so small it would be no more than a floating emery board to passing tankers and cargo ships. The bay had bigger sharks and sea lions.

  Daniel frowned. “Just hang on a few minutes, will you? You’ve got to meet Nicola.”

  The stranger winked at Tara and looked at his watch. “Gotta run. We’ve got only about an hour of daylight left.”

  Daniel was thinking, hesitating. “Huh, kayaking. I don’t think that’s Nicola’s thing.”

  “It’s a two-man boat.” The stranger’s voice made the non-invitation plain.

  “Right. Let me just get Nicola.”

  Daniel dashed for the elevator, and Tara stepped out of the stranger’s hold, and immediately missed it. “Kayaking?”

  “You don’t want him to come with us, do you?”

  “Us?”

  “While we look for Eddie.” He seemed to feel that she understood the plan.

  Oh, they were not actually kayaking. “You’re Eddie’s Jack?”

  “Yes. Hello.” He shook her hand. “At the moment, I’m your Justin. You seemed to be in need of Justin. And he’s away, according to Eddie.”

  “Right, but...”

  “Any idea where Eddie is?”

  “None.” She was worried about him, but she was also worried that Jennifer or Hadley would show up any minute and recognize this man as the man she’d bumped into the night before.

  “He could be playing a game with us, but...”

  Another guest appeared at her desk, and Tara helped him with theater tickets and dinner reservations while Jack watched. Her brain kept thinking about Hadley with Nicola. If Daniel explained that he wanted Nicola to meet Justin in the lobby, Hadley would find a way to get downstairs.

  Tara could see the headline: Lovelorn Lady Concierge Creates Fake Boyfriend. Fraud Exposed.

  She heard the elevator doors open and turned to see Daniel and Nicola coming across the lobby. Nicola had changed into a sweet, pale yellow dress suitable for tea with British royalty, and Daniel had a possessive hand at the small of her back.

  Tara stole a glance at Jack as his gaze took in the pair. His expression suggested nothing more than polite curiosity. Daniel did the introductions, and Jack smiled and shook Nicola’s hand, as if his brain were still working. In fact, Nicola seemed more interested in Jack than he in her.

  “I think we must have met.” She plainly expected him to agree.

  Jack shook his head. “Unlikely. I’m a consultant. I travel a lot. It’s tough on Tara.” He squeezed her against his side again. He was taking advantage, but his hugs were dangerous. They woke up a slumbering tactile sense in Tara that craved more.

  Nicola frowned. She obviously had little experience with being contradicted. “No. You don’t have a fiancée,” she told him.

  “I beg your pardon.” Jack might be smiling, but she heard the steel in his voice. “Tara and I are engaged.”

  Tara held up her hand with the Claddagh ring to back him up. It looked like nothing, twisted to one side so the stone was hidden between her fingers.

  Nicola shook her head at Jack, ignoring Tara. “Never mind, I’ll remember you.”

  Daniel took over. “Congratulations, both of you. Good to meet you, Wright,” he said, putting a pointed end to the conversation. He drew Nicola toward the elevators and leaned to whisper in her ear.

  As soon as the other couple crossed the lobby, Tara stepped away from Jack. “You have to leave now. I don’t want anyone to see you.”

  His eyes turned cold and distant, as if she’d slapped him, and his mouth tightened into a grim line that made her take a step back. His face without the grin had a harsh knowing quality, not mocking exactly but penetrating and disapproving. She was letting him down.

  “Right. So much for thank you. You were with Eddie at midnight. Just tell me where you last saw him.”

  “I’ll draw you a map.” She drew a quick street map on a hotel note pad and handed it to him.

  He glanced at it and tossed it back on the desk. She felt the buzz of her phone receiving another text. Hadley could show up any minute. She needed him to leave now, but she hated the look in his eyes. He had just done her a favor, and she’d let him down. She stuck out her hand. “Good luck finding Eddie.”

  He ignored her hand, turned without another word, and was gone before she could understand his parting look. It felt like that wild moment of driving down the hill with the fire chasing them when everything was about to be lost.

  She pressed her hands together to stop the crazy feeling. The stone heart bit into her finger. She twisted the ring back into place. What are you doing? The emerald was the color of cactus. She would be crazy to listen to the thing, but she was in motion before she finished the thought.

  ***

  Jack felt like a prize idiot. When he’d seen his beautiful bag lady in trouble, being harassed by the guy with the super-sized ego, he’d stepped right into the fray. The softly rounded face, with the slightly flustered look of a woman who’d misplaced some vital possession, had already caught his attention twice. Each time he saw her, some protective instinct kicked in, and if he were totally honest, a possessive one. He’d tried to be a hero and instead he’d fallen for an Eddie game.

  It was clear the girl wasn’t in on it. She was in the middle of her job, satisfying the whims of the rich and the beautiful. But she had made things worse by accepting Jack’s help one minute and then turning on him the next. Against his side she had felt so right, an armful of sweetness. He had expected Daniel to produce a beautiful, shallow girlfriend. Five minutes with the guy made that clear, but he hadn’t expected his sweet bag lady to turn on him. When she stepped back, her expression told him plainly that she was in command, dealing with the city’s elite, and that he was in the way. He would bet that whoever her absent fiancé was, he was not a farm boy who’d worked his way from overalls to scrubs.

  Jack wasn’t usually so wrong about people, but apparently Eddie’s disappearance had clouded his judgment. He realized he was wandering hopelessly in the fog. He needed to bring some method to his search. Even if Eddie was messing with him, his gut said that Eddie needed help.

  ***

  Outside the fog lay so low the tops of buildings disappeared. Tara caught up with Jack on the steps of the big white church of Saints Peter and Paul on Washington Square in the heart of North Beach. He was looking out across the square of lawn and trees in front of the church. A class of elderly people moved in the slow motion of Tai Chi to the mournful strums and plinks of ancient instruments. Dog walkers gathered in companionable groups, and a few huddled figures claimed the benches. There was no sign of Eddie.

  “Hello.” She halted at the base of the steps, looking up.

  He frowned down at her.

  “Can we start over? I want to help.”

  “Why?” He came down a step. “A concierge at a fancy hotel is the last person to care about Eddie.”

  “He’s my friend, or at least, I’m his friend.” Cold air swirled around them while she waited for his reply.

  “I tried all the places I usually find him.” It was a confession of frustration.

  “Did you try the libraries? There’s a branch in North Beach and one in Chinatown.”

  He was down the steps in a flash, taking her arm and asking her the way. They headed down Columbus, the main thorou
ghfare of the city’s Italian neighborhood.

  He cast her a measuring glance. “It’s not easy to be Eddie’s friend.”

  “Actually, Eddie has been a friend to me. Most days he makes me feel like I can take on the world. I met him after my grandmother’s death. He sort of took her place as wise older person.”

  “You do know that’s a bit ironic.”

  “Because he doesn’t have his own life together?”

  “Something like that.”

  A librarian at the North Beach branch library knew Eddie, but had not seen him for several days. “He comes in to read the Times,” she told them.

  Outside again, it was already dark. A crowded cable car made the turn from Columbus onto Mason. They reversed their steps and headed back up into the heart of North Beach. Jack’s furrowed brow and hurried stride told her how concerned he was for their missing friend.

  “Why do you care about Eddie?” So much. He was not at all what she had expected in a friend of Eddie’s. Eddie made no secret of his blue-collar roots, while his friend was perfectly at ease in a suit and tie.

  They worked their way through a group of tourists before he answered. When he did, his easy manner of speaking had changed, become clipped, the humor gone. “We lived together for awhile when he came back from the army in Iraq.”

  Tara guessed the arrangement had not worked well. The confident professional beside her seemed to come from an entirely different world from the one Eddie inhabited. She could not conceive how they met, or rather she could conceive of Eddie initiating a conversation, but not Jack, the employed one, inviting Eddie to live with him. “Was he injured in Iraq?”

  “He had been concussed a lot, like those pro football players you hear about, and he saw stuff that’s hard to forget.”

  “It didn’t work out, your living together?”

  “Ended badly.”

  “So he went on the streets?”

  “Yes, and he got beat up.” His pace seemed to pick up as they spoke.

  She was probing, but instinct told her he needed to be pushed on this. “And you blame yourself?”

  “I do.”

  Tara swung around in front of him and put a hand to his chest, stopping him. She needed to catch her breath from their charge up Columbus. Their gazes collided, and she read the depth of self-blame in his. “I know Eddie would take his share of the blame.”

  “Maybe, but I’m supposed to be the...”

  “The what?” Her question came out through chattering teeth.

  “Never mind. There’s another place I want to try, but first, you’re freezing.”

  “I’m okay.” Her whole body shuddered.

  “Come on.”

  He stopped at a known tourist trap restaurant and stuck her under an outdoor heat stand by a cluster of tables. “Stay.” He disappeared into the shop and came out minutes later with a black hooded sweatshirt, a red restaurant logo emblazoned across the front. He made her put her bag down.

  “Lift your arms.”

  She complied, and he pulled the sweatshirt down over her head. The thing came down to her knees and it felt blissful, soft and warm. She looked up to thank him, and he looked down at her with a look that acknowledged a new togetherness between them. He pulled the hood up over her hair, tucking in a few loose strands, his fingers warm against her cold cheeks. His hands cupped her face and lingered there.

  Then he let them fall. “Onward?”

  She nodded.

  They checked the famous Beat bookstore and then the café where so many waves of San Francisco’s Bohemian writers and poets had lingered over espressos. Jack’s suit and tie looked professional, but his easy way of disarming people and entering into conversation with them was something else. It made her believe that he and Eddie could have been roommates after all. Jack had the same affable manner that had drawn her to Eddie. She supposed she shouldn’t wonder at their friendship. Eddie seemed capable of making friends with anyone, except, of course, George or Arturo.

  “A few of these guys know Eddie, but no one’s seen him today.” Jack thrust his hands into his slacks pockets, out of ideas. “He’s a mechanic, you know. He can fix anything with moving parts. When his hands aren’t shaking.”

  They stood looking into the deepening gloom with the bright glow of the café behind them. Eddie was out there somewhere. Coughing.

  Tara pictured him as she’d last seen him with his worn coat and his wool cap, his backpack on his back. “Eddie always makes me think of a backpacker headed for the mountains. He could be up in the trees around Coit Tower. We haven’t tried there.”

  That grin she was coming to know flashed on Jack’s face. “You’re on.” He grabbed her hand, and they headed back through North Beach up Telegraph Hill. He was in a hurry again, and she struggled to keep up, stumbling as their quick pace kept jolting her bag off her shoulder, down her arm.

  He stopped abruptly at the base of a steep block and glared at her bag.

  She clutched it to her chest.

  “You’re carrying Santa’s pack there. You’ll never make it to the tower.”

  She shook her head. “We’re almost there. I’ve got it.”

  “Come on,” he said, reaching for the bag. “Think you can lighten the load?”

  Tara closed her arms tighter around the bag. She shook her head. “What if something happens?”

  He let his hands fall to his sides, studying her. “Anything irreplaceable in there?”

  “I don’t like to lose things.”

  “Lost a lot, have you?”

  She swallowed. “My house in a fire.”

  Once again Jack studied her, and she had the sensation of being seen and understood.

  “All right then. Give me the bag.”

  She found herself letting go, passing it over to him, trusting him.

  He thrust his arm through the straps and headed up the street. Tara started after him, feeling remarkably light footed.

  From the top of Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower shone eerily in the fog like some Star Wars special effect. A few tourists still lingered to look at the murals and peer into the mist at distant lights across the bay. Tara took back her bag and extracted her flashlight, handing it to Jack. They walked the perimeter of the grounds peering into and under the foliage.

  Tower security approached to question them, and Jack said, “We’re looking for a lost cat. A calico.”

  Once they had gone completely around the area, Tara admitted to feeling discouraged. The tourists were gone; the place closed up. She was cold from the inside out. “We aren’t going to find him, are we?”

  “Not tonight. I think that’s what he wants.”

  “He wants us to wander around worried to death that he’s ill or injured or freezing?”

  Jack took her cold hands in his warm ones and held them. He rubbed his thumb over the ring on her finger. “That’s not quite how I would put it. He wanted us to meet, to work together, to get to know each other.” He laughed. “I don’t know why he wanted that. He told me you had a boyfriend.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That he had the girl for me.” He straightened the ring on her finger. “I guess he didn’t know your guy had proposed.”

  “Actually, I showed him the ring. Last night.” And he sent the text because of the ring. He sent the text to stop my engagement.

  “I’m glad that guy’s out of town. I’m glad I got to be your fake fiancé for a day, Tara Keegan.”

  Fake fiancé. The ring felt warm, almost hot, under Jack’s thumb. She looked up into those eyes of his. She could not see the blue of them, but she did not need light to see the warmth in them.

  Tell him. He’s the one.

  It was her moment, her chance to confess. She leaned toward him. Actually, there is no Justin. I made him up. I’m free. We could start something. But she couldn’t do it. He looked so confident and competent and honest and good, and she felt like such a fraud, and so unworthy of him with her made-up fiancé
and her bag of hedges against disaster.

  He didn’t seem to realize how foolish she was. He seemed to take her leaning toward him as an invitation.

  “Hell,” he said, “Sorry, Justin. This one’s for me.” His hands slid up her arms and closed around her shoulders. And he kissed her. His kiss consumed the cold and disappointment of the moment before. It erased worry and doubt. It claimed the time they’d spent together for them and no one else, forever.

  It was her first kiss in years. Tara told herself not to lose her head, not let her brain melt and dribble out her ears. It was a goodbye kiss after all, even if it felt like a hello.

  He released her. She wasn’t cold anymore; she was burning up, her face aflame with embarrassment. She ducked her chin into the sweatshirt hood. At least it was dark. He couldn’t see her flushed cheeks. Making up Justin, lying to everyone seemed like the dumbest thing she had ever done. If he knew, he would look at her with mocking contempt.

  “Listen,” he said. “Let’s get you home. Do you have to work tomorrow?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll text you when I find him.”

  “Yes, please. And may I text you if I see him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good.” Her bag felt heavy on her shoulder.

  Hours later Tara sat in her window seat, holding her bear, trying to figure out how she had gone so wrong in her search for happiness. Before now it had never seemed wrong or harmful to pretend she had a boyfriend. Justin had been her strategy for deflecting her friends’ sympathy and concern. He had been her way of entering conversations about men or relationships, and avoiding having her hopes dashed at the end of a promising evening. She had met no one who made her regret inventing him. Now the pretense came with a price.

  Daniel was going to have his “magic” moment. She had settled for illusion. The green stone looked like a dead leaf, a withered green. She ought to put it back in its box and get on with her life. She pinched it between her thumb and forefinger and pulled, but the thing stuck on her knuckle.

  Well, she could wear it two more days, until they found Eddie, and until she saw her last Belmont guests out the door, and then she would dump Justin and start over. If she had missed her chance with Jack, that was the price she had to pay for her deception. She looked at the ring to see whether it had brightened at her new plan.