Eight Goodbyes

by Christine Brae

  “What was that about?” Adrian asked.

  “A girl I met on the plane. Just wanted to ask if she needed any help with her luggage.”

  Adrian shot him a look that said he wasn’t buying it. “Simon Fremont making a pass at a woman—I never thought I’d live to see this day,” he teased. “You finally looked up from those science journals in time to notice a chick?”

  Simon pulled his luggage out from underneath Adrian’s nose. They were the last ones there, his bag just about to make another round of the airport. He wondered why he was so jittery. It was merely one encounter. A failed one, that is. He had much more important things to think about on this trip.

  Like the speech he was going to be giving in a few hours. Or how about the news he just received about his wellbeing.

  “Shut up and grab your bag. The hotel shuttle leaves in five minutes.”

  She wondered why the guy at the airport had asked her to check her purse. Not that she was alarmed or anything. After all, she was still trying to get used to the spotlight, strangers coming up to her, giving her letters and gifts. It was a day in the life, sadly. Mostly impersonal, but oddly comforting at times. To know she was making a difference with her words soothed her.

  She laughed when a silly thought crossed her mind. Was he trying to get an autograph for his mom or something?

  While standing in the taxi line, she was preoccupied with listening to phone messages and forgot all about meeting the stranger.

  Attempting to simplify her life, Tessa dated casually. It was a conscious decision, made to ensure she never tied herself down to one place. She often wondered about this, and asked Riley why settling down never appealed to her. Riley always told her it was because love hadn’t found her quite yet.

  After checking into the hotel, Tessa headed up 53rd street to 5th Avenue where she shopped at Saks Fifth for well over an hour. She walked back to the hotel thirty minutes after Riley texted that she had landed. Tessa was busily searching through her shopping bags when light footsteps on the carpet floor outside her door announced Riley’s arrival.

  “Hey!” Riley shrieked as Tessa held the door open. In she traipsed, her makeup bag bigger than her luggage. Riley dropped them both on the ground and ran into Tessa’s open arms. After giving Tessa a tight hug, she skipped toward the bed by the window.

  “Sorry, all they had was a king.”

  “No biggie,” Riley answered, climbing under the covers, coats, shoes and all. “You look great! Did you get your hair cut again?”

  “Rye, what are you doing?”

  “Ahh.” She exhaled loudly, burrowing her head deeper and deeper in between the pillows. “Give me a second. It’s the Heavenly Bed.”

  “Yup. New haircut.” An awkward silence briefly followed. They both knew that Tessa’s haircuts were controlled by her emotions. Whenever she felt stagnant, whenever she wanted a change, Tessa took it out on her hair.

  “It’s beautiful!” Riley said. “Short hair suits you so well. You’ve got that rare face that can do any hair. I’m more worried about why you did it. This book thing. Too much?”

  “I was just bored the other day and needed a new look.” Tessa climbed over the mound of bags strewn on the ground. She searched through the piles until she found the package that held her new purse.

  Riley sighed loudly. “Bored already, huh.”

  Tessa nodded. Riley knew how she was. There was no point in arguing. They’d been friends since high school, had their share of adventures and misadventures in college. Until her brother Jacob began seeing her friend in a different light. Riley and Jacob had been a couple for the last two years.

  Tessa untied the intricately wound ribbon around the silver box that held her new purse. “Look!” She pointed excitedly. “I think I’ll wear it tonight.” She held her new purse in the air.

  “Gorge.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “What about The Standard?” Riley kicked her shoes off the bed but remained buried under the comforter. “Hi-line Fling?” she asked.

  It would be good to have a night out. They’d both been in this city often enough to know their way around.

  “Sure,” she answered without looking up. Tessa turned the bag upside down and watched as each item fell on the bed. She gathered them with one hand and placed them into the new purse.

  Riley busily eyed the room service menu. Tessa didn’t know how Riley stayed so lean and fit when all she did was eat.

  She raised her head as Tessa sprang off the bed. “You forgot something,” she said, pointing at an object that fluttered to the floor.

  “Oh, the receipt,” Tessa guessed, bending down to pick it up.

  It wasn’t the receipt. Tessa giggled.

  “What?” Riley asked.

  “He must have slipped it in when he took it down for me on the plane,” Tessa mused, holding up a business card. “He asked me to check my purse when I saw him at baggage claim.”

  Simon Fremont, Research and Development

  Nanoproducts Licensing

  Gladtech Corporation

  Riley whooped. “Oh lord. Seriously? Some guy hit on you on the plane?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. He helped me with my bags. We hardly said a word to each other.” Tessa sat on the bed next to Riley. She slowly reclined and slid her legs under the covers.

  “What a weirdo. Slipping his card in your purse.” Riley moved over to give Tessa some room. “Looks like a nerd. A pretty desperate nerd.”

  “He didn’t look like a nerd. He was cute. Had an accent. Definitely not from here.” Now it was Tessa’s turn to bask in the softness of the mattress. “You’re right about this bed. It’s making me want to take a nap. Would you mind if I took one? I’m still so exhausted from the signing in Boston.”

  Riley turned to face her just as she yawned. “Who’d he look like? Describe.”

  “Stu.”

  “Stu who?”

  “The British model. The guy I showed you months ago, the one on every teaser and book cover on Facebook.”

  “Another one of your book boyfriends? He must not be too hot if I don’t remember him.”

  “No one but Jake looks hot to you,” Tessa teased.

  “Well then, look how lucky you are! You look just like your brother,” Riley shot back, laughing. “Same hair color, same eyes. Except his hair is a wee bit longer than yours!”

  “Funny,” Tessa answered.

  Riley and Jacob had the picture-perfect kind of love. The kind that Tessa couldn’t even write about because it was so simple and straight forward. He and Tessa came from an unconventional family, and Riley had all the love and support she would ever need. Riley had waited patiently while he drifted in and out of his rebellious years. And when he decided he’d had enough, he straightened up, went to med school, scooped her up and never let go. She was his family now, and he held on to her like he had finally found his home.

  Tessa and her brother had been orphaned at an early age, shuttled to and from uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. They lived in different houses, changed schools at least every two years. They had love, but it came and went with the tide. Relatives, friends, family members—it was like a game of hot potato. Whose turn, which house and for how long?

  “Don’t hold your breath for this one. I’m not calling him.”

  “You complain about being alone, yet you can have your pick of almost anyone,” Riley objected. “And all the guys you go out with—you leave them just as they’re beginning to grow on me—”

  “I’m still trying to figure myself out,” Tessa said with a yawn. “And we’ve talked about this so many times! I’m just starting out and can’t be tied down. These guys, they need a wife, someone to start having babies with, which definitely isn’t me.”

  Riley poked her shoulder as Tessa turned to face away, pulling the comforter up to her chin. “You can’t be Wonder Woman forever. At some point, she
gets Steve Trevor to sweep her off her feet.”

  “Nonsense. Now, leave me to my nap so I can get back some energy for our night on the town!”

  Simon surveyed the mass of people in the large glass enclosed ballroom. He scanned the thirty tables of ten, desperate to find a familiar face. Adrian was seated toward the front, next to strangers in ill-fitted suits and oversized name badges. There were other people around him—men and women who were here more for the fancy buffet than anything else. He never seemed to find comfort in such venues; crowds bothered him, and useless chatter annoyed him. But it was part and parcel of who he was and the career path that he had chosen.

  Simon was an academe, a mentor and a trainer. All the years of schooling, of research and learning made him an expert in his field. With the most recent economic recession and the unpredicted upswing of the pharmaceuticals market, everyone was interested in what Simon had to say. But Simon had no interest whatsoever in what people had to say to him. A few months after he had been awarded for his discovery, many of his older colleagues began distancing themselves. Some had hinted that his status as a young, ambitious upstart, a millennial with charismatic good looks to boot, and not his intellectual capabilities were responsible for this recognition. He was determined to prove them all wrong. If it took a lifetime, he wanted nothing more than to show them he had substance.

  He gazed through the glass doors that led to the hotel lobby. People bustled around and about, different types of people. Just off the side entrance, women holding books pushed carts filled with cardboard boxes and shuttled back and forth to the elevators. There must have been numerous conventions going on at the same time in this hotel.

  Glancing at his watch, he noted that the session was about to start in fifteen minutes. There was time to walk around the lobby, ease the nerves that plagued him before every public event. As he walked out of the ballroom, he noticed a commotion in the far corner of the corridor. There were shrieks and screams as a long line began to form. Simon moved along with the line, curiously looking over people’s heads to see who was waiting for them at the end of the thread. And, as luck would have it, there she was. A genuine smile pasted on her lovely face, the corners of her eyes lifting as high as the ends of her mouth. She moved her head slowly as she listened intently to a group of women vying for her attention. He angled for a better view, gently pushing through a couple and their three children, who stood surrounded by carts and boxes in the middle of the floor. Simon watched as she began to take the books handed to her and proceeded to sign them. She shared a level of intimacy with these strangers—a touch, an embrace, holding them close as they exchanged laughs and posed for pictures.

  Who was she? Was she famous?

  Once again, time wasn’t on his side. Simon had to take a piss before delivering that dreaded speech. He turned around and headed in the other direction.

  Simon made it back to the lobby in two minutes.

  “So, you really think I would have called you?”

  Simon heard the sweetest sound in the whole world. He snapped his head back; she must have found his card. Time stood still. He forgot where he was and what he was there to do.

  “No, not really,” Simon answered. It was then he noticed that she had two rings on each hand, none of them on the finger that mattered.

  She laughed. He could have sworn there were flecks of sunlight in her eyes.

  “Then why…” She pulled his card out of her purse. “The card?”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” A light chiming of a bell signified the start of the session.

  “Oh no. That’s my curtain call. I have to run.”

  She nodded and began to glide away. Her posture statuesque, juxtaposed by her torn up jeans and a sexy cropped sweater. How did she manage to look so poised in those high, high heels?

  There’s a term for those kinds of heels.

  Simon exerted great effort to pull his mind out of the gutter.

  “Wait!” Simon yelled, a bit too loudly. “What’s your name?”

  “Tessa. Tessa Talman,” she yelled back, while taking even strides away from him.

  “Tessa Talman!” Simon cried. “Meet me tomorrow at 10 a.m. Hayden Planetarium!”

  The lecture lasted longer than expected. There ensued a lively discussion with many questions and comments. The reception dragged on like there was no end in sight. Simon and Adrian booted it to the bar as soon as they had the chance to escape.

  An Irish Pub called Three Brothers situated right across from the hotel was the closest bar they could find. March Madness and a few beers were all they had on the agenda. It was a jewel of a dive in the middle of 54th Street, loud music, TV screens and a solid oak bar that extended from one end of the room to the other. They sat facing the bartender and were surrounded by women who just happened to be there.

  “No way, you’re not brothers!” exclaimed the woman with dark hair holding a shot of tequila.

  “Way,” Adrian answered smugly.

  “You have the same hair color, but your eyes,” she said.

  “Our mum always said his eyes were like the sea and the sky,” Adrian answered.

  “And his were like the rich earth and the barks of trees!” Simon added with a laugh.

  As if reminded by something, Simon saw a shift in his brother’s facial expression. He turned to face away from the women and looked directly at him.

  “Hey, before anything else, Mum wants to know if you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. It’s not like I haven’t known all my life,” Simon answered, saddened by the worry in Adrian’s face. “I just have to hurry things up a bit. I only have one year before I turn thirty after all.”

  “Oh, I think you’re going fast enough,” Adrian said, eyes wide, tone reprimanding.

  “I’m extremely annoyed by the fact that I’m wasting all this time traveling when I can be working to get closer to my goal. I know I keep repeating myself, but…”

  Adrian shrugged. “The company has asked for another year, right?”

  “Yeah, and it’s getting old. I signed up to discover things, foster imaginative thinking and new theories, not travel the world and give speeches,” he complained. “There are days when I ask myself whether this is all worth it.”

  Adrian sighed.

  Simon sensed his brother’s exasperation with his “thirty years old” obsession. Ever since secondary school, he’d mapped out a plan, let his family know what he planned to accomplish before turning thirty. And to everyone else, he’d done just that. Simon had been promoted three times in the last three years. For someone who’d chosen a career that was systematic and predictable, he was uncharacteristically restless. His career was on the upswing—a young trailblazer who had a patent pending on a groundbreaking invention. And yet, he was always in a hurry. Like he had a limited amount of time and limitless untapped opportunities.

  “Actually, you should be embracing this new life of yours! Look at yourself, man. The only one in the family who has left Essex, widening your horizons and seeing the world!”

  Adrian was getting his goat. Simon just wanted to get back to his apartment in Chelmsford—some peace and quiet was what he really needed. Life had been going full speed lately.

  And no, Simon wasn’t getting engaged anytime soon. Sure, he went out on dates, had started seeing a woman named Maxine quite regularly. But he wasn’t ready to settle down. Thank god Adrian had fulfilled his parents’ longing for a grandchild.

  He’d been in love once, during his brief internship at a firm in New Zealand. But like all young relationships, it had ended once he returned to Europe. He’d begged her to come home with him, willing to marry her right there and then, but she’d refused to leave her family and her life. It had hurt immensely—the fact that she professed to love him despite her refusal to move home with him. When you love someone, isn’t it an all or nothing deal? He had been willing to take the all; why had she been wil
ling to risk the nothing?

  After that, he seemed to float in and out of relationships in slow motion. There was never a shortage of women in his life, only an abundance of caution and cynicism.

  His parents had been married for over thirty-three years and Simon, being the youngest at twenty-nine, was used to permanence and stability. While he pursued his career with great flexibility, he demanded everything else in his life to stay static.

  “My world”—Simon made an air quote with an exaggerated twitch of his fingers—”is staying in one place, thank you very much.”

  He stared into his glass of Old Fashioned, stirring the plastic sword around and around, stabbing the ice. “Turns out that woman is well known for something. She has fans, like legit fans,” he said.

  “Which woman?”

  “The one at the airport. I saw her again here at the hotel. Tessa Talman.”

  “Dude, Tessa Talman? That was her at the airport? I thought Tessa Talman was an old chunk who only did radio appearances!” Adrian exclaimed.

  Simon looked at him with his eyes crossed. The unmanly shriek that had escaped Adrian’s lips somewhat freaked him out.

  “Why? Is she a huge deal?”

  “Dude, are you blind? Did you not notice how hot she was?”

  “I know that, you duffer. Why is she a huge deal, is what I meant!” Simon laughed.

  “Apparently, she’s some sort of a breakout author. Ashleigh’s mom was talking about her once—they’re nuts about her. They’re making plans to see her at some book signing event.”

  It was then that Simon decided this girl might not be someone he wanted to get to know after all. Being in all that limelight and shit. He just wasn’t into those things. Besides, he should be focusing on looking for a new job, one that wouldn’t have him traveling as much.

  “I kind of invited her to meet me tomorrow morning,” he admitted.