Would that have happened simply with the passage of time? Would that have happened without all of you? I don’t think so. Sharing freed me from cancer’s hold. Discovering and connecting with an amazingly supportive and caring online community did that and more in ways I never thought possible.
—Excerpt from Kay’s blog, I’m A-Okay
Chapter 7
“Need a hand with your bag?”
Landry turns to see her handsome friend from the gate area standing right behind her in the narrow aisle of the plane, gesturing at her rolling bag.
“Oh . . . that’s okay, I . . .”
“Which seat are you in?”
“Right there, 12C. Aisle.”
He’s already picking up her bag, lifting it into the overhead bin above her seat.
“Thank you,” she says, sitting down.
“No problem.” He turns to lift his own bag into the bin just opposite, then settles into seat 12D, directly opposite. What a coincidence.
As the rest of the passengers board, obscuring her view across the aisle, she texts Rob to let him know that she’s on the plane at last. The flight delay was extended—twice—meaning they’re now going to land almost three hours late. She’ll be lucky if she has time to drop her bag at the hotel before the memorial service starts.
Okay, call me when you land. Love you, Rob texts back immediately, probably still out on the golf course.
She sends back a little sideways text heart the way Addison showed her, using the < and the 3 key. Then she texts Kay and Elena to let them know what time she lands.
She’d already texted them both earlier, after the second delay was announced. Neither has responded so far, but maybe—
“Ladies and gentlemen, the cockpit door is now closed,” the flight attendant announces. “Please turn off and put away all electronic devices.”
So much for hearing from her friends before she gets to Cincinnati.
The plane jerks as it begins to roll away from the gate. Landry puts her phone into her pocket and leans back. The two people beside her—a young couple occupying the window and middle seat—are whispering to each other.
Unfortunately, she already finished all the magazines Addison gave her, along with the newspaper she picked up back in the airport. Her only other reading material is digital—meaning she can’t access it until they’re in the air and the flight attendants green-light electronic devices again. She looks in the seat pocket for the airline magazine—does this airline even publish a magazine?—and finds just a barf bag and safety card.
Nothing to do but stare at the illuminated FASTEN SEAT BELT sign in the row in front of her.
Until her friend across the aisle asks, “So what’s in Cincinnati? Family? Friends?”
“Friends,” she says simply. “You have family there?”
He nods. “It’s my hometown. I lived there until I retired last year.”
“Retired? You’re retired?”
“I’m youthful for being in my late sixties, don’t you think?”
“I . . . um . . .” She could have sworn he was in his mid-forties or so.
He laughs. “I’m just kidding.”
“You’re not retired?”
“Oh, I’m retired. But I’m not in my sixties—or even my fifties. Yet. I retired at forty-eight. That’s the upside of being a cop.”
So he’s still older than he looks—but not that much older.
“How about you?” he asks.
“Me? I’m not a cop. Or retired. Or in my fifties. Yet.”
He grins at the quip and points a finger at her. “Quick. Very quick. I like that.”
She can’t help but smile. This isn’t flirting, though. Absolutely not.
“So what do you do?”
“I’m . . . a writer.”
Really? Where did that come from?
“What do you write?”
“A blog. I’m a blogger, really.”
“A blogger is a writer. So you’re a writer.”
Gratified, she smiles. “Right. And I’m a mom. Mostly a mom. And a wife,” she adds hastily.
“Wife . . . mom . . . blogger . . . writer. Got it.” He nods. “What do you blog about?”
She hesitates. “You know . . . my family . . . my husband, my kids, I have two kids . . .”
Cancer, I have cancer . . .
Had. Had cancer.
The intercom clicks on and the flight attendant launches into the safety demonstration.
Saved by the bell.
Thrusting her feet into a pair of black flats, Elena holds the bedpost with one hand to keep her balance, while fumbling through the clutter on the adjacent dresser top with the other hand. Her cell phone is here, thank God—imagine if she’d lost that? Although the battery is run way down. Ordinarily, she charges it overnight; clearly, last night she wasn’t in any condition to—
The toilet flushes in the bathroom.
Reminded that she’s not alone, Elena closes her eyes, bracing herself.
She hears the water run just long enough for hand-splashing, not hand-washing—and then the bathroom door opens and Tony reappears in her bedroom.
At least now he’s clothed from the waist down—unlike when he got out of her bed ten minutes ago. Rather, when she kicked him out.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
“My keys.”
“I have them.”
She looks up. Seeing him standing there, in her bedroom, half naked—there are so many things she wants to say. But she has a flight to catch, and there’s no time for anything other than a strained, “Why do you have them?”
“Did you really think I let you drive home last night?”
That gives her pause. Dammit.
“So you drove my car?”
“You don’t remember?”
Clenched, she shakes her head. Dammit, dammit dammit . . .
In a way, she’s grateful to have forgotten pretty much everything that happened last night after the toasts. That’s probably a blessing.
On the other hand, it’s dangerous, she knows, in more ways than she can count, to have drunk herself into oblivion—again.
“I didn’t drive your car,” Tony tells her, sounding almost smug. “I drove my car. With you in it. You honestly don’t remem—”
“Where’s my car, Tony?”
“At the restaurant, where you left it. Where do you think it would—”
“At the restaurant? Are you kidding me?”
“Relax. I can drive you to—”
“I don’t have time for this! I have to get to the airport!”
“Well, whose fault is that?”
She closes her eyes, seething.
Mine. It’s my fault.
But I hate him even more than I hate myself.
Elbow on the arm of her seat, chin in hand, Landry focuses on the flight attendant standing in the aisle. She listens—well, pretends to listen, because it would be impolite not to—as though she’s never heard the safety spiel before in her life.
“ . . . keep in mind the nearest exit may be behind you . . . in the event of a water landing . . . loss of cabin pressure . . .”
She remembers the first flight she took after her cancer diagnosis, to Saint Thomas for her sister-in-law Mary Leigh’s Christmas wedding in the Virgin Islands. She recalls thinking, as the crew was going through the safety drill, that at least when you’re on a plane and a life-threatening situation pops up, you’ve been told exactly what to do.
But if you have the misfortune, as you’re going about your daily business, to be struck out of the clear blue sky with a life-threatening illness . . .
Well, then you’re completely on your own. There is no plan. N
o escape chute, no flotation device.
She blogged about that later; wrote about cancer as if it were an airline journey, with mock in-case-of-emergency instructions. It was a clever post, one of her first that generated lots of appreciative comments.
The safety presentation concludes, and the flight attendants go back to preparing for takeoff as the plane joins the endless line of other delayed aircraft inching toward the runway. The worst weather has passed—for now—but a stormy day is forecast here.
Actually, there was unsettled weather along the entire East Coast. She overheard other passengers talking back in the gate area. One was trying to connect to Philadelphia, another to Hartford.
Wondering whether Elena will be able to fly out as planned, Landry gazes past her row mates, noting the still-gray sky beyond the portal. Then the man in the window seat abruptly pulls the shutter down, obliterating her view.
She looks around for another portal and once again makes eye contact with the man across the aisle.
“So where do you live in Alabama?” he asks.
She keeps the answer vague: “Baldwin County.”
“Me too. Gulf Shores. Right on the beach.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Alabama is the best place in the world to retire, did you know that?”
“Is that a statistic?”
“No. Opinion. Mine. My wife wanted to go to Florida, but I won that battle. I don’t win many, believe me. But that was the important one.”
Wife—so he has a wife. She relaxes at last. He’s just a nice, friendly guy making conversation to pass the time. Nothing more.
“You’re not that far from Florida,” she points out. “The panhandle, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, my wife was thinking Boca. She has family there. Too fancy for my blood. Hers too—but she wouldn’t admit it.”
“How does she like Alabama?”
“Loves it. What’s not to love? Can’t beat the weather, or the friendly people, or the tax breaks.”
“So you’re both retired?”
“Not exactly. The wife’s in real estate, so she got licensed down there, and I’m licensed down there, too.”
“To do what?”
“Pack a pistol,” he says with a grin. “What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just kidding around. Well, not about the gun license. But it’s just for my job.” He reaches into his pocket, takes out his wallet, passes her a white business card. “Here. In case you ever need me. You never know.”
She looks down.
BRUCE MANGIONE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR AND PERSONAL SECURITY
“No, you never know,” she agrees, and tucks the card into her bag.
“I can’t believe you’re spending all this time and money to go to a funeral for a perfect stranger,” Tony tells Elena as they barrel along interstate 93 toward Logan Airport.
“She’s not a stranger. She’s a friend. One of the closest friends I—”
“You never even met her!”
“So? I have plenty of friends I’ve never met.”
“Yeah, well, that’s just . . .”
He doesn’t bother to complete the comment, and Elena isn’t about to ask him to.
Jaw set, she keeps her head turned toward the passenger’s window, eyes fixated on the suburban landscape flashing past against an overcast sky.
Anything is better than looking at Tony.
Whenever she thinks about last night, she cringes. Of all the one night stands she’s ever had—and there have been plenty, more than she remembers—this is by far the worst. She doesn’t even like the man. How the hell did she end up bringing him home?
Oh, come on. You can guess, can’t you?
After a few too many glasses of wine, the usual loneliness and bad judgment set in . . .
That’s how it usually happens—more and more often, it seems.
You try to fill the gaping void left by your mother’s death, or your father’s neglect, or your own illness, or . . .
Who knows what really lies at the root of her problems? The only thing that’s certain is that she feels empty inside; has felt empty for a long time now. Most of her life, but the real problem started when she got sick.
So she tries to fill the emptiness with booze, and empty talk, and meaningless sex . . .
Tony Kerwin. For God’s sake.
When are you going to learn?
Sometimes, the morning-after haze is frustrating, and she struggles to piece together the events of the evening before. But in this case, she realizes, amnesia might actually be a blessing.
“So you said this woman is someone you got to know online?” Tony asks.
“Did I?”
“Last night.”
“Oh.”
Maybe amnesia isn’t a blessing.
What else did I say to him last night? she wonders nervously. How much does he know about Meredith—and the others? About me?
“Did you ever even talk to her on the phone?” Tony asks.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t get it.”
She shrugs and gestures at the car in front of them. “You might want to back off that guy’s bumper.”
“I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I’d like to get there alive. Back off, okay? Please?”
He ignores her.
Damn him.
Thank goodness the school year is almost over. Another few weeks and she won’t have to see him again until fall. By then this will have blown over.
That she was forced to accept a ride to the airport from him is beyond maddening, but what choice did she have? There wasn’t time to collect her own car from the restaurant parking lot, nor even time to arrange for a car service. Her only option was to let Tony drive her—or miss the flight.
Even now that might happen. She steals a quick glance at the dashboard clock. They’re cutting it really close. Maybe the tailgating is okay after all.
“What time does your flight get back into Logan tomorrow?” he asks.
“Why?”
“So that I can pick you up.”
Pick her up? Does he think . . . does he think this is—that they are . . . a thing?
“Oh—that’s okay. I’ll get a cab.”
“To Northmeadow? I don’t think so.”
“I meant a car service. I’ll get a car service.”
“That’ll cost a fortune. I’ll pick you up.”
“I don’t get back until late.” She’s trying to remember what time the flight is. Six? Seven? She can always pull the reservation out of her bag and check it, but . . .
It doesn’t matter. He’s not picking her up.
“I think . . . not until eleven, maybe midnight,” she tells Tony. “Too late.”
“That’s fine. I don’t mind.”
“No, don’t pick me up. Really. Please.”
“Please?” he echoes. “I’m trying to do you a favor and you’re begging me not to? Okay. Whatever.”
Great. Now he’s hurt. Or pissed off. Both, apparently.
Do you really care how he feels?
“Listen,” he says after a long pause, “about this Cincinnati thing—”
“Did I tell you it was Cincinnati?” She could have sworn she’d just said Ohio earlier, when she was rushing around trying to get ready to leave.
“Yeah. You did. You don’t remember?”
She sighs inwardly.
“Anyway . . .” he goes on after realizing she’s chosen to ignore the question, “do you want me to come along?”
“Come along? To a funeral in Cincinnati?”
“Why not? I got nothing better to do this weekend.”
That, she believes.
He goes on, uncharacteristically earnest, “You might need a friend there to support you.”
You’re not my friend, Tony.
“No, thanks,” she says.
“Okay. Just thought I’d offer.”
“That’s very sweet, but I’ll be fine.”
“Is someone picking you up there when you land?”
“Yes. A friend.”
The word spills from her tongue with deliberate emphasis.
So what if it’s a lie?
“Who? Another ‘friend’ you’ve never met?”
She doesn’t bother to answer that.
“You know, you should be more careful, Elena,” Tony tells her. “All these strangers . . . it’s not a good idea to be so trusting. I mean . . . you said your friend was murdered . . .”
Oh, crap. Did I tell him that, too?
“How do you know that whoever killed Meredith isn’t going to come after you next?”
Meredith. She apparently even told him the name. What else did she tell him? Next thing she knows, he’ll be rattling off her e-mail password and bank account PIN number.
“Hey, look—“ Tony flips on the turn signal. “We made it.”
She looks up. They’ve reached the airport exit at last.
This has been the most horrific week of Beck’s entire life. But as she stands in front of the mirror in her cheerful blue and yellow childhood bedroom wearing a somber black dress, she knows the worst is yet to come.
She hasn’t been to many funerals—she barely remembers her paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother’s. Her maternal grandfather died just a few years ago, though that was hardly a heart-wrenching tragedy, as he was in his nineties.
But this . . . today . . . Mom . . .
This is going to be brutal.
How is she going to make it through the next several hours? How is she going to stand up and read a poem at the service?
One thing is for damned certain: it won’t be by leaning on Keith.
The Perfect Stranger Page 15