When she looked at him, she saw a hero. The kind of man his father had been, the kind of man he wanted to be. But time hadn’t been on their side. She had been taken from him while he was still very much a work in progress.
At least Suzanne never saw him stumble and fall. She never saw him flat on his face on their front porch, stinking of cheap whiskey and pain. She hadn’t been there to see him try to outrun the memories of their past. The lost days, those dark nights, belonged to him alone, and for that he was glad.
She never found out her hero was only a man.
Coburn, New Jersey—around 10:30 a.m.
Kate was stopped in traffic near the Bedminster exit on Route 287 when a wave of something uncomfortably close to nausea swept over her. Jet lag on an empty stomach was bad enough, but for sheer misery she would put her money on the thong.
Traffic eased up as she neared Bridgewater Commons Mall, but the cell phone calls kept coming. Her assistant, Sonia, called twice. Clive phoned from England to tell her she had left a pair of sunglasses behind. Armitage’s secretary wanted to make sure she was on schedule. Jackie the furniture refinisher had another one of her minor emergencies designed to boost her going rate another ten percent.
They all called for different reasons, but every call ended the same way. You sound exhausted . . . You need a vacation, not a buying trip . . . I’m worried about you . . .
Bless call waiting, the greatest exit strategy ever invented. What was wrong with everyone? Sure, she had noticed the dark circles under her eyes, but that was genetic. Maeve had them and Maeve’s mother before her. And unless she missed her guess, Gwynn had something to look forward to. Kate wasn’t twenty any longer. Not even Estée Lauder could turn back the clock.
She shifted around in the driver’s seat, tugging at the elastic band pinching her hip bone. Her mother had promised her that the thong would release her inner goddess and turn her into a siren capable of luring men away from ESPN and repeats of Baywatch, but so far her inner goddess was missing in action.
Her cell burst into the William Tell Overture as she neared the Route 1 exit. Her mother’s theme song.
“What did you say to Gwynn? She called me, sobbing.”
“Hello to you too, Mom. I thought you were in New Mexico.”
“I am and our girl woke me up with her tale of woe. What is going on back there?” Maeve was on the other side of the country, touring for her latest self-help tome, but family drama transcended geography.
“It was Gwynn being Gwynn,” Kate said. “She wanted to talk, I needed to finish dressing and get on the road.”
“You hurt her feelings. She had some news she wanted to share with you.”
“I cut her short once in twenty-three years and it’s a major incident?” She took a series of deep breaths and tried to calm herself. “I haven’t slept in almost thirty-six hours, Maeve, and my body thinks it’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“You don’t sound like yourself,” Maeve observed. “What’s going on, sweetie? We’re worried about you.”
“Is Mercury in retrograde again or something? There’s nothing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep won’t take care of. Why is everyone suddenly asking if I’m okay?” Jet lag was hardly a new concept.
“Maybe because it’s clear you’re not yourself. You’ve seemed a little depressed, forgetful—”
“Ma!” Kate practically shouted into the tiny cell phone. “I think your imagination is running away with you.”
“You might be entering perimenopause,” Maeve volunteered.
The morning was actually deteriorating. She wouldn’t have believed it possible.
“So how did things go in London with Liam? Any sparks?” Her mother was nothing if not resilient.
“We had tea together my first day. That was it.”
“Sharon said he would be perfect for you. She’ll be so disappointed.”
“Next time why doesn’t Sharon fix you up with the Liams and Nigels of this world. I keep telling you I’m not looking for a man and I mean it.”
“You might not be looking but you wouldn’t turn down a good one if he popped up.”
“I’m not sure there are any good ones,” she said, “at least none that I’d be interested in.”
“That’s not normal, honey. You sound like you’ve given up.”
“Mom, this is old news. I’m perfectly happy being on my own, even if that seems to bug the living daylights out of everyone else in the world except me. Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“Sara Whittaker’s son is back in town. He’s been working in Tokyo the last few years, a graphic artist. I think you two might hit it off.”
“Mom, I have another call. We’ll have to pick this up later.”
“You don’t have to use the call-waiting excuse with me, sweetie. I know when you’ve had enough.”
Kate had to laugh. “It’s a real call this time,” she said as her irritability lifted. “I’ll call you tonight. I promise.”
Paul Grantham, old friend and confidant, was next in the queue.
“Took you long enough, French.”
“Thank God it’s you,” she said, adjusting the headset. “This thing hasn’t stopped ringing since I got off the plane.”
“So how was the big buying trip? Is there anything left on the other side of the pond?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “I may have struck gold.” She told him about the stack of Revolutionary War-era letters she’d found in a tiny shop near Lincolnshire written to a colonel’s wife in New Jersey.
“When will you know if you found the mother lode?”
A truck, horn blaring, appeared out of nowhere in her blind spot. “Oh, damn! Sorry!” She veered back into her lane, heart pounding wildly. “What were you saying?”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound a little out of breath.”
“I’m not out of breath. It must be the connection.” That and her surging adrenaline.
She held on while Paul answered an assistant’s question.
“Sorry,” he said. “Crazy morning. We’re still on for the Hospital Gala this week, aren’t we?”
“I take it Lisa’s no longer on the scene.”
“Lisa is looking for somebody who’s willing to go the distance,” he said, “and we both know I’m saving myself for you.”
It was an old joke between them, but lately she had the feeling there was more behind her old friend’s words than either one of them cared to acknowledge.
Paul was a partner in a prestigious Manhattan law firm, another one of the Coburn High School Class of 1982 who made good. He had been in her life for as long as she could remember, part of their crowd from kindergarten through high school. He had hung out with them at Rutgers, where Kate had struggled unsuccessfully to combine marriage, motherhood, and college, and he had stayed a good friend even after their respective marriages fell to the divorce statistics. They had tried dating once early on but the absurdity of dressing up and staring at each other over candlelight and a bottle of Tattinger had pushed them both into helpless laughter, which was pretty much where they had stayed.
Or so she had thought until recently.
“Oh my God,” she said through clenched teeth. “I almost rear-ended a cop.”
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “Maybe you should take the day off and catch up on your sleep.”
“That’s something you say to your aging aunt,” she snapped. “I’m not ready for the nursing home yet, Paul.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “How about if we’re not both hooked up by the time we hit retirement, we pool our Social Security checks and move in together.”
“Sweet talker.” She rolled to a stop. “No wonder Lisa’s not going to the gala with you this weekend.”
“She’s twenty-eight. I don’t have time to wait for her check.”
She tried to think of something suitably witty to say in response, but her mind was filled with nothing but air.
“Kate?
” Paul’s voice poked through the fog. “Are you still there?”
“Sorry,” she said yet again. “I don’t know what my problem is today.”
“Did you eat anything? You’re probably hungry.”
“I grabbed a brownie and a Frappuccino at the airport while I was waiting for my bags to get through customs.”
“And now you’re crashing. Pull into a McDonald’s and get an Egg McMuffin.”
He sounded uncharacteristically solicitous, which made her wonder how bad she sounded.
“I don’t have time. Armitage expects me there in twenty.”
“Screw Armitage. Get something to eat. You’re running on fumes.”
Another wave of nausea gripped her. Maybe he was right. “I’m coming up on Princeton Promenade,” she said, easing over into the right lane. “They have a great food court.” She could grab some protein and a bottle of water and be on her way again with time to spare.
“Good thinking.”
“Oh, wait! I don’t have to stop. I have some nuts in the glove box.” She leaned across the passenger seat and popped open the glove box in search of smoked almonds, survivors of her last trip down the shore for the semiannual Atlantique City extravaganza. The Atlantique City trade show was a must for New Jersey antique shop owners, and Kate was no exception. French Kiss maintained a prominent spot twice a year. She sifted through her insurance card, registration, and owner’s manual and pushed aside a small flashlight and an open packet of tissues. Where were the almonds?
She veered toward the fender of a white Escalade and quickly steered back into her own lane to a chorus of angry horns.
“What the hell is going on?” Paul asked. “It sounds like you’re at the roller derby.”
She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror, and the odd feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified. A single bead of sweat was making its way down her forehead toward her right eye. It was barely seventy degrees outside. Nobody broke into a sweat in seventy-degree weather, least of all her.
“You’re right,” she said. Everybody was right. “I’m a menace. I should get off the road.”
“Want me to drive down there and get you?”
She turned on her blinker and made the right into the parking lot of Princeton Promenade. “Don’t be silly. You’re in Manhattan. I’ll be fine after I get something to eat.”
“I’ll send a car for you. We use services all over the tristate area.”
She zeroed in on a spot two lanes over and headed for it. “I’ll stop. I’ll eat. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m gonna hold you to it.”
She whipped around the head of the third lane from the entrance and zipped into the spot as a dented blue Honda angled itself behind her. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
“Some guy in an old blue car is glaring at me. He seems to think I stole his spot.”
“Did you?”
“He didn’t have a turn signal on.” She hesitated, replaying the scene in her head. “I might have.”
“Where is he?”
“Stopped right behind me.”
“Blocking you in?”
She slunk down low in her seat. “I never do things like this. I’m the most polite driver on the planet.”
“Is he still there?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to call mall security? I can use another line.”
She hesitated. “Maybe you—oh, thank God! He’s driving away.” She watched through the rearview mirror. Good-looking men in her own age demographic had no business wearing Grateful Dead T-shirts.
Paul wanted to talk her into the mall and out again but her cell battery was running down. The only way he would let her go was if she promised to phone him after she saw Professor Armitage.
Normally she would have told him to back off, but so far nothing about the morning had been even remotely normal. It wasn’t like him to be so solicitous. The last time he had sounded that worried was when one of his daughters said she wanted to become a model.
A vague sense of dread wrapped itself around her chest and it wouldn’t let go.
“Okay,” she said out loud. “Don’t go getting crazy.”
The problem was so obvious that it was almost laughable: she needed food and water and she needed them right now. The food court was located near the multiplex at the south end of the Promenade. A huge round clock mounted to the left of the Sushi Palace sign offered up a reality check she didn’t need. Armitage expected her at his front door in exactly thirteen and one-half minutes. Even if she ditched the search for protein she would never make it on time.
Why hadn’t she just cancelled out earlier this morning when she was trapped at the airport waiting for her boxes and bags? Why had she been so hell-bent on squeezing as much from the day as was inhumanly possible?
She swallowed hard against a sudden, acrid burst of nausea at the back of her throat. The air was soft and sweet with spring promise and she swept huge gulps of it into her lungs in an attempt to clear away the discomfort, but that didn’t help either.
She flipped open her phone and said, “Call Armitage,” then waited while it attempted the connection.
“Call Armitage,” she said again.
No luck this time either.
She would have to find a pay phone in the food court and—
And what?
Professor Armitage. That was it. Concentrate! The thought of facing the professor’s wrath wasn’t half as unnerving as this weird, disconnected feeling that seemed to be growing more intense. Unless Armitage wanted to assess the documents in the emergency room of the nearest hospital, he would simply have to understand.
Understand what? She went blank for a second as scattered images flooded her brain. Professor Armitage’s woolly gray beard. His fierce little eyes. The cold, slick feel of the metal box in her hands. The way that stupid thong pinched exactly where no sane person wanted to be pinched. The whooshing sound inside her head . . .
Don’t faint! she warned herself. She would die of embarrassment if the EMTs saw what she was wearing under her peach cotton twinset and pearls.
A shiver ran up her spine and she pushed the thought as far from her mind as she could. Clearly her imagination was as jet-lagged and out of whack as the rest of her, hopping without warning from one bizarre thought to the next.
She didn’t know the first thing about being sick. Her last hospital stay had been twenty-three years ago when she gave birth to Gwynn. She was the one who visited patients and brought them flowers and candy and trashy magazines to while away the hours. She was always the one who got to go home when visiting hours were over.
The thong pinched when she took a step, then pinched harder when she stopped. What she wanted to do was duck between the parked cars and make a swift adjustment, but wouldn’t you know it: the man she’d beat out for the parking spot was two aisles over and looking right at her.
Bad enough she was wearing underwear ten years too young and two sizes too small for her. Imagine being caught fiddling with it in public by an angry man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. They locked eyes for a second and she looked away. His look was disconcertingly direct but it wasn’t angry, and that unnerved her. She had expected anger or irritation, but she saw neither. His look wasn’t flirtatious, but there was something there, something she couldn’t put her finger on. She couldn’t remember the last time a man’s gaze had unsettled her this way. The stupid thong was even affecting her judgment.
She shot him another quick glance. Tall, lean. Thick dark hair that caught the sunlight and held it. A deeply intelligent face alive with open curiosity aimed in her direction and a smile that—
Okay. Enough of that. The smile was for whoever was on the other end of his cell phone connection. Besides, the guy was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt. What more was there to say?
A woman with three small children in tow raced past her in a cloud of baby powder and soap. Her stomach lurched at the sweet s
mell and for a second she thought she was about to faint. She tried to steady herself with another deep breath of spring-fresh air but suddenly her chest felt tight, as if some unseen force were wrapping a band around her rib cage and pulling tighter and tighter, and she knew she was going down.
Or was she down already? She wasn’t sure. The world had gone all soft-focus on her except for the sickening smells of pickled ginger, old Juicy Fruit, and motor oil.
I’m asleep, she thought. What other explanation could there be? This had nothing to do with real life. Open your eyes, Kate. You really don’t want to be having this dream.
The room smelled like a Dumpster. The mattress was hard as a rock and the covers were all tangled up around her legs and she felt as if she were being—
She opened her eyes and screamed. Actually she tried to scream, but she couldn’t draw down enough oxygen to manage more than a loud whisper.
The guy in the Grateful Dead T-shirt, the same guy she had beat out for the parking spot, was bent over her, tugging at the hem of her skirt.
“Glad you’re back with us,” he said, as if they were chatting over cocktails at T.G.I. Friday’s. “I was starting to worry.”
He tugged again and she tried to strike out at him, but her arms seemed weighted with lead.
“Whoa!” He pretended to duck. “Take it easy. I’m on your side.”
She thought of a half-dozen remarks she could make, but none of them found their way to her lips. What was wrong with her? Usually she could deal out a smart remark at the speed of light. “Get your hands off me,” she managed. That’s the best you can do? Pathetic.
“You don’t want all of Princeton to see that red lace, do you?”
Oh God . . . the thong . . . just leave me here so I can die of embarrassment . . .
“So what happened? Did you trip? One second you were walking toward the Promenade and the next—” He made a falling gesture with his hand.
Couldn’t he see she wanted to roll under a car and disappear? Why was he trying to make conversation?
It wasn’t a hard question, but she couldn’t seem to figure out the answer.
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?”
Just Like Heaven Page 2