Flyer

by J. L. Wilson

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I frowned skeptically at him but climbed into the SUV and buckled up. “Won’t the photographers see your car at the motel?” I asked while he drove west on Gloucester Street.

  “I’ve got that covered. When they built it, I had them build a special section for me.” He glanced at me and grinned mischievously. “What’s the point of being the owner of a motel if you can’t make a few modifications?”

  “Owner? You said you were a shareholder.”

  “I under-exaggerated.”

  I laughed. “That’s not an expression.”

  “Sure it is. I just made it up.”

  I ran my hand over the dark brown leather seat. This was obviously a luxury edition given the leather trim on the dash, the plush seats, and the gadgetry displayed in the in-dash screen. “Nice car. Did you rent it?”

  “Nope. I leave it here.” He drove by St. Jude’s hospital, moving to one side to let an ambulance scream past us. “I like having wheels when I’m in town and the closest rental is Iowa City.”

  I nodded, not really tracking what he said. As we turned into the parking lot for the hotel, his words registered. “Well, how do you get from the airport in Iowa City to here, then?”

  “I don’t fly into Iowa City. I have a plane. I fly in to the airport outside of town.”

  “You own a plane?”

  “Just a small one. Four passenger.”

  “You fly it here? What airport? I thought the airport was just a concrete strip in the middle of a cornfield.”

  “It’s big enough for a Cessna. Here we are.” Bell pressed a button above the windshield.

  “We’re where?” He had the car idling in front of the rear door of the motel. The building was modular-appearing, with four windows per side per module, two up and two down. There were five modules, which I assumed meant forty rooms, eight per module. Bell was idling in front of the last four windows which—

  Holy crapola. The lower two windows were a facade. The one at the end of the building lifted up and back, revealing a one-car garage. Bell pulled the SUV forward and closed the door behind us. He smiled at my open-mouthed astonishment. “I like my privacy. This whole section is mine.” He shut off the SUV and hopped out.

  I followed, still stunned. I knew that Bell was wealthy, but it hadn’t really soaked in. Now I found out he had a luxury SUV that he kept here for a trip now and then, he had a plane, he owned a hotel specialized just for him, and—and Lord knows what else. I trailed behind him while we went through a door leading to an open area with stairs going up and a large TV, couches, and a pool table set against the far wall.

  At the top of the steps we came into what should have been four motel rooms. What I saw instead was a living room and a kitchen with an island that served as a dining space, all open and beautifully decorated with simple Mission-style furniture. On the far wall was a short hallway with two doors opening off it.

  “That’s regular bedrooms,” Bell said, gesturing to the hallway. “I took the other two rooms and made them living space. Have a seat. Do you want a drink? How about something to eat? I’ve got some cold chicken and pea salad.” He strode to the small kitchen. “It’s made according to your mom’s recipe, so you know it’s good.”

  “I can’t believe you did all this.” I followed him to the kitchen and took a seat at the large square island separating one space from another. “And you kept it all a secret.”

  “I like coming back here to visit.” Bell opened the fridge and pulled out tonic water then opened the freezer and pulled out gin. “I wanted someplace to stay when I come and the town needed a good motel. It made sense.” He got insulated tumblers out of a cupboard and began mixing drinks at the counter next to the fridge.

  He said it so casually, I knew that it wasn’t odd to him. Bell saw a need for the town and a need for himself, and he did the most efficient thing he could do to fill both needs. I guess the only real question I had was why he continued to visit Kensington, Iowa when he had homes in such exotic spots as the Keys or L.A. I knew if I asked him he’d tell me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer. Not yet, anyway.

  “How’s your mom doing? I lost track of her after she moved away.” His mother left town when Bell graduated from high school. Her leaving had gone almost unnoticed in the turmoil after Peter’s death.

  “She bounced around from here to there then ended up in Vegas with husband number four. She died about five years ago from cancer.”

  I started to say I’m sorry, but Bell and his mother had a problematic relationship because she spent most of his adolescence in an alcoholic haze, letting him raise himself. “I’ll bet she was proud of you. You’ve become such a success.”

  “I think it surprised her. She was happy to have me support her and her husband. He was a down-on-his-luck gambler. I kept him supplied with enough money to keep them both happy.” Bell had his back to me so I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the bitterness he hid under his light-hearted tone of voice. “The last I heard he was on wife number six and she was bankrolling him.” He turned and handed me a frosty glass. “Cheers.”

  “Thanks.” I sipped, watching him while he set out a cold roast chicken from the grocery store and a Tupperware container of salad. He looked the same as I remembered, with a slender, lean build. Bell was the runner who excelled at track and field. Peter was the football player, a running back with the high school’s Kensington Pirates. He was fast but not in the same league as Bell. “You haven’t changed, Bell.”

  “I’m just a bit creased, that’s all.” He came around the counter and sat next to me at the kitchen island on a tall chair. “You don’t look like you’ve aged except for your hair. It’s like your mother’s. Her hair was always gray, too.”

  “Hers turned gray when David died,” I said, taking one of the plates he set out and helping myself to chicken. “I think I take after Dad.”

  “Your father really did teach me a lot. I owe him and your family.” He sliced off a bit of chicken and put it on his plate along with a healthy dollop of pea salad, the yummy concoction my mother always made for him.

  I tried a sample of it and nodded appreciatively. “I think you’ve nailed it, Bell. It tastes just like Mom’s.”

  He looked pleased. “I asked her for the recipe one time when I came over to visit. I got it and a bunch of other ones, including the pizza crust recipe.”

  I stared at him in mock surprise. “She didn’t share her secret crust recipe, did she?”

  “She did. I’ll make you pizza tomorrow if you’d like. What are you doing? Are you busy?”

  “I have to go through photos and take some to the funeral home. They want to put together one of those photo montages to play during the service.” I thought of the photo albums stored in the upstairs closet and sighed. “I need to go visit Aunt Jane, too, and make sure to keep her in the loop about what’s going on. And I haven’t inventoried the safety deposit box yet. I need to get that done, too.”

  “I forgot about Aunt Jane. Where is she?”

  “She has an assisted living apartment, attached to St. Jude’s. She’s still pretty spry for somebody who’s seventy-seven with arthritis. Almost everything else is finalized. The cousins start to arrive on Thursday.”

  “It’ll be standing room only at her service.”

  “I know. I’m dreading it.”

  Bell covered my left hand with his right hand. He had long, blunt fingers, strong and capable. “I’ll be there with you if you’ll let me.”

  I leaned against him. “Thank you.”

  “I wasn’t kidding, you know. The press will be hounding you. They’ll want to know if you and I are a hot item.”

  I looked up at him. Our faces were just inches apart. “I’m not in the same league as those women I see you with in the tabloid.”

  “No, you aren’t.” He leaned closer. “You’re to the stars and back again better.”

&nbs
p; Chapter 3

  I started to lean forward then I stopped. “I’m not going to fall in love with you again.”

  He stopped, too. “Why not?”

  I hopped off the swivel bar seat. “Because I live in Des Moines and you live everywhere else. Because you’re rich and famous. Because I’m forty-six years old and happy to be an old maid. I don’t want to be a celebrity.”

  “You’re hardly a maid,” Bell said with a mischievous grin. “I don’t know what kind of love life you had with your husband, but I do remember our love life, and you’re no maid, Wendy Darling.” He used my old nickname tenderly, just the way I remembered.

  My face got hot and I went to the fridge, jerking open the door and peering inside so he wouldn’t see me. I pulled out a jar of pickles and turned to put them on the kitchen island. The mundane action helped me cool off and when I looked at him, I could hold his gaze without flinching. “I haven’t seen you in more than twenty years. A lot can happen in twenty years. I’ve changed and you have, too.”

  “How do you know?” His green eyes were mischievous, just as I remembered him when he would challenge me to an argument, knowing damn well he had an ace up his sleeve that would assure him of a victory.

  Well, it wasn’t going to work this time. “I know I’ve changed. I’m happy with the life I have.”

  “Really? Making eighty-thousand a year and writing documentation for a product that probably should have gone into maintenance mode a long time ago. That can’t be that fulfilling.”

  I glared at him, outraged. “You checked up on me.”

  “Yep. Your mother was worried about you. She said you seemed bored with your job and your life. Three weeks of vacation a year and most of that spent in visits to family or friends or going to the Ozarks.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the Ozarks,” I protested. “Besides, it’s none of your business how I spend my free time. I haven’t seen you for decades, and you show up and act like you want to pick up where we left off. It’s not that simple, Bell. For heaven’s sake, you’re a bazillionaire. You probably have designer houses and designer suits and designer parties that you go to. I’m not going to get tangled up in that.”

  Bell watched me, his face thoughtful. “Are you really worried about all the success crap? I never thought you’d be insecure about something like that.”

  His words stung but I wasn’t going to let him know. “I don’t think I’m insecure. It’s more like common sense. Let’s face it, Bell. I’m not the girl I used to be. You can have your pick of anybody. This is all just some nostalgic jag you’re on. You loved Mom, too, and you’re trying to hold on to the past or something.”

  He looked down at his plate then up at me through his long dark eyelashes. “I understand why you feel that way. And you might be right, at least a little bit. There’s one thing I want you to consider, though. What if you’re wrong? What if I tell you I’m retiring and I can live wherever I want and do whatever I want? And what I want is to find a quiet spot to settle down, build a nice house customized the way I want it, and fiddle around with my apps. Within two weeks the press will forget all about me except for once a year or so when they have a ‘Whatever happened to’ issue and somebody tracks us down.”

  “I don’t love you.” I said it with as much conviction as I could muster. I almost convinced myself. “Not that way, at least. You’re someone from my past who I used to love, and I do love the connection you have with my family. Now that I’m alone, I admit it. It’s nice to have someone here to share Mom’s funeral and to have someone to help me. But I don’t love you.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re just afraid to admit it.” He stated it as a fact, like saying look, the sun’s shining or I have a plane and I land at the airport here in town.

  “You always were an over-confident, arrogant s.o.b.,” I snapped.

  “And you were always hesitant unless you were pushed. And I was usually the one doing the pushing.” He smiled then, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Think about it, Wendy. We could have some fun. That’s all I’m asking. We have a lot of shared history together. Let’s at least see if we don’t have the chance for a shared future.”

  I started to snap a sharp retort but his warm, laughing eyes made me hesitate. He was right, damn it. I was always the cautious one, the one who hung back and peered over the edge before jumping. Bell was the one who never looked before he leaped, although he almost always landed on his feet. If he didn’t, I was there to pick up the pieces, just like he picked up the pieces for me.

  “I’ll consider it, Bell. That’s all I’ll say for now.” I sought a topic to divert his attention from me. “What kinds of apps are you going to do? More reality apps? Or are you going to branch off into more games?”

  “Reality apps are going strong right now. Have you tried Wendy Darling’s Day?” he asked. “It’s a huge seller. All the retro stuff is very fashionable right now.”

  WDD was one of his ‘reality’ apps, which allowed users to set up profiles, create characters, and act out different scenarios. Wendy Darling was a teenage girl whose avatar looked suspiciously like me when I was in high school, complete with long brown hair in a tumbling, Farah Fawcett style. She could get into all kinds of scrapes, depending on what the users of the app made her do.

  “I should get royalties for that,” I pointed out. “You modeled it after everything I did in high school. Who the heck buys that app?”

  “Teenage girls and their mothers. They love it. Mothers have written me and told me how it’s brought them so much closer to their girls.” He regarded me thoughtfully. “You know, you’re right. You should get royalties. I’ll talk to my legal team about that.”

  “I was kidding, Bell.”

  “I’m not.” He pulled out a smart phone and tapped something on it. “I’ll give them a call tomorrow. They’re East Coast time, so they’re out of the office now.”

  “I was kidding.” I reached for his phone but he tucked it back in his shirt pocket before I could grab it.

  “Let’s talk about Peter instead of your royalties.”

  His words stopped my racing brain in its tracks. “What about Peter?”

  “Let’s sit in the living room. Get comfortable.” Bell came around the kitchen island and helped me put away the food then he picked up our drinks and led the way to a beautiful Mission style couch upholstered in dark green fabric. Two half-round oak end tables with inlaid wood designs flanked it.

  Bell set his glass on one end table and handed me my drink before he sat. Two matching chairs faced us with a burnished oak coffee table with the same inlaid design between us. A large picture of a lake with a boat in the distance hung on the opposite wall.

  “I always wondered what happened afterward.” Bell regarded me steadily. “It was like Peter died and life just went on.”

  I sipped my drink then set the glass on the coffee table, centering it on a cloth coaster that was a replica of one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous prairie-style stained glass windows. “What do you mean? You graduated from high school and went to college. I spent most of the summer recovering from a broken leg. I had one more year of high school then I graduated and went to college.” I had skipped a grade in elementary school, so although I was two years younger than Bell, I was only one year behind him in school. “Then my father got sick and you and I broke up and life got really busy. I was trying to be a grown-up and got my first real job and first apartment.”

  “We should never have broken up.” Bell said it almost belligerently, like an accusation. “You and I always got along so good together.”

  “Of course we had to break up. You were itching to travel around the world and see what there was to see. I wanted to stay home. It would never have worked. I was always a home-and-hearth kind of person, and you were always a go-out-and-explore kind of person.”

  “We complemented each other. You kept me grounded and I gave you wings.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re looking at
this through a fog of memory.” I decided to ignore his supposed fascination with me and returned to the subject at hand. “What did you mean about what happened afterward? You were around. You know.”

  “Not really. I was in college. What happened to Jamie Lim?” Bell asked. He put his arm along the back of the couch, almost touching me.

  “Lim? The guidance counselor?” I shivered, remembering the suave, hip young counselor who tried so hard to blend in with the students. He was just a few years older than us, in his twenties when he worked at our high school. He often had parties at the farm he and his friend Johnny Smead rented. Smead worked in Iowa City as a bartender and was a wine connoisseur, or so he said. “I never liked him. He had too much hair.”

  Bell laughed. “Said the woman who had more hair than a supermodel back then.” He ruffled my short, shaggy hair. “I like this better, I think, although I have to admit, you had a nice head of hair back then. Anyway, what happened to Lim and Smead?”

  I tried to remember my senior year in high school. Bell and I were dating and I spent a lot of time in Iowa City, where Bell was a college student living off-campus in a tiny studio apartment not much bigger than a closet. “I think he was gone during my senior year.”

  Bell nodded. “Once I had real money, I started doing some checking. I hired detectives to go back and dig through records. Lim was fired after that party where Peter was hurt. The school hushed it up and the police cooperated with the school. Nobody wanted a scandal. Imagine what would happen today if that happened—kids attending a party at an adult’s house, someone who works for the school, and drugs and alcohol being served. Lim would probably have ended up in prison. But the school officials covered it up.”

  He took a sip of his drink then continued. “Lim and Smead were gone before they even found Peter’s body ten days later. It took a lot of digging, but I found out they went to Laguna Beach, where they lived on Smead’s salary. I don’t think Lim ever worked again. Like I said, he’s lucky he wasn’t prosecuted. They were gay, you know.”