“Are you sure you don’t need directions?”
“I don’t think—”
“Next!”
“Go ahead,” Landry tells him, gesturing at the rental counter and grabbing the handle of her bag. “I’ll be fine, thanks. Nice meeting you.”
“You too,” he calls as he steps up to the counter.
It isn’t until Landry has stepped out of the shuttle at the rental lot that she realizes she left the paper containing her hotel reservation back on the counter. And she isn’t sure of the name of the hotel chain, let alone the address.
Dammit. She’ll have to go back.
Wait a minute. She received an e-mail confirmation when she made the reservations. She should be able to find that in her phone . . .
She turns toward the shuttle as the doors close, but at the last second the driver sees her and opens the door. Two minutes later she’s behind the wheel of a rental car, typing the hotel’s address into the GPS.
There. See that? I can take care of myself just fine, she silently tells herself. No reason to worry. Not at all.
A man raps gently on the driver’s side window, and Jaycee jumps.
She hadn’t even seen him approach the car. She’d been too busy watching BamaBelle drive off in her mid-sized rental, which had—as luck would have it—been parked in the spot adjacent to hers.
Then again, perhaps that’s not as big a coincidence as it seems. Bama had, after all, been standing directly behind her in the line back at the counter.
Jaycee was so caught up in her own problems that she wouldn’t have even noticed her there had she not overheard that distinct southern drawl talking on the cell phone. Even then, she wasn’t positive it was Bama—or rather, Landry, as she’d introduced herself a few days ago when Jaycee spoke to her from Los Angeles.
But when Landry mentioned Meredith’s name, Jaycee knew for certain.
Sure enough, she snuck a glance over her shoulder and recognized a slightly older, more worn-out-looking version of BamaBelle’s official blog site photo.
Bama didn’t even notice, caught up in whatever she was saying to her husband—it had to be her husband—on the phone. Mostly, she seemed to be trying to convince him not to worry about her.
Even if Landry had given her a second glance, she’d of course still have no clue who she was, because she doesn’t use a head shot on her blog.
From time to time she’s toyed with the idea of posting a photo—though not her own image, of course. It would be easy enough to steal a stranger’s digital snapshot and claim it as her own.
But there would be a certain level of risk involved with that, and why tempt fate?
After handing over the ID Cory had arranged for her years ago, the one that bears her real name and a drab, barely recognizable photo of her—Jaycee finished her own rental papers and headed out to the shuttle as Landry took her spot at the counter. The bus was almost full. Jaycee sat in one of two empty seats up front and willed the driver to pull away before Bama could get on.
It almost seemed like that was going to happen—he waited a few more minutes, then pulled the doors shut. But before he could pull away, he spotted Landry coming out of the terminal and opened the doors again.
Landry sat down right next to her, of course—it was the only empty spot on the bus. Jaycee held her breath on the ride over, but Landry didn’t give her a second glance; not then, when they were shoulder-to-shoulder, and not when they found their way off the bus to cars parked right next to each other.
“Excuse me? Ma’am?” The man knocks again on Jaycee’s window and gestures for her to roll it down.
She hesitates—courtesy of a decade’s worth of New York street smarts—then obliges. Clearly, he works here—he’s wearing a jacket and name tag emblazoned with the rental car company’s name. Besides, nothing terrible is going to happen to her in broad daylight in a public place, right?
“Yes?” She regards him from behind her sunglasses.
“I just wanted to ask . . . and you probably get this all the time . . .”
She sighs inwardly as he talks on, fighting the urge to roll up the window and drive away.
Few things irk her more than strangers without boundaries.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our initial descent into the Cincinnati area. Please turn off and put away any electronic devices you’ve been using. If you’d like to use your cell phone right after we land, please make sure you keep it handy, because you will not have access to the overhead bins until we reach the gate.”
Hearing the flight attendant’s advice, Elena remembers her cell phone. The battery was almost drained when she turned it off back at Logan. No need to turn it on now; she’ll charge it as soon as she gets to the hotel.
She forces her eyes open and lifts the shade covering the window beside her seat. Brilliant sunshine spills into the cabin. Leaning into the glass, she sees a network of roads, waterways, houses, and forests far below. Almost there.
After guzzling her beverage service Bloody Mary, she spent the duration of her flight either dozing or pretending to be asleep—anything to avoid conversation with the chatty elderly man in the aisle seat. He was perfectly friendly, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Not after what happened with Tony.
She couldn’t get out of his car fast enough back at the airport, still insisting that he needn’t meet her flight tomorrow night. She didn’t give him the correct information, but for all she knows, he saw it posted beneath a magnet on her refrigerator and will show up.
Of all the men she could have chosen for a one night stand . . .
She still can’t quite grasp that it really happened—and now, of all times, on the heels of the week from hell, leading into what promises to be one of the most heart-wrenching funerals ever?
But then again, is it any surprise? She’s never dealt very well with this kind of pressure. Her response to stress has always been to run away or self-medicate—preferably both, simultaneously. Which is why she ordered a double Bloody Mary as soon as the plane took off, much to the amusement of the man in the aisle seat.
“Nervous flier?” he asked.
“No—tough day,” she said, only to be met with one of those You think you’ve got problems? Listen to mine spiels.
She tuned him out while pretending to listen, inserting comments in all the right places. You get very good at that, being a first grade teacher. Her students like nothing better than to give her blow-by-blow recaps of their favorite cartoons, and self-editing is hardly their forte.
Right now she keeps her forehead fastened to the window, not wanting to engage in another round of Good Listener. Her head is still pounding and she might be tempted, this time, to tell the old guy to keep his problems to himself. She’s got enough of her own—Tony being the most recent, but hardly the least troubling.
Again, she thinks back to last night. Her skin crawls when she thinks of it.
So don’t think of it!
That’s what Meredith would say—and famously did, in the blog post where she asked, Why dwell on the past when you can focus on the future?
Some followers slammed her for being insensitive.
Not Elena. She couldn’t agree more. Her own past was no picnic.
The plane banks and she loses sight of the ground. They’re getting ready to land.
Forcing her thoughts to what lies ahead, she feels her pulse quicken.
I can’t believe we’re really going to meet each other in person at this time tomorrow, Landry had e-mailed yesterday afternoon. I just wish it were under better circumstances.
Meredith would be glad we’re going to do this, Elena responded, and Kay wrote,
I know she’ll be there in spirit.
Elena didn’t respond to that particular comment.
What could she do—argue?
She’s done it before, against her better judgment, both with online friends and in real life. That never ends well.
It’s surprising how many people out there disagree with her personal belief that when you’re dead, you’re gone. Period.
None of this afterlife mumbo jumbo for her.
Her argument: if that were possible, then her own mother—who had loved her dearly—would have been with her in spirit for all these years, instead of abandoning her to a miserable, lonely childhood and a life-threatening disease.
Believers have all kinds of responses to that theory. Usually, spirituality comes into it. They’re never particularly pleased to learn that she is almost as fond of religion—of God, really—as she is of cancer.
“Ma’am?” Someone touches her shoulder, and she turns to see the flight attendant, reaching past the man in the aisle seat, who is now wide-awake. “Please return your seat to its upright and locked position.”
She does.
“Did you have a nice nap?” asks the chatty passenger, then proceeds to tell her about all his health problems that make it impossible for him to get a good night’s sleep anymore.
As he talks, Elena tries once again to push her thoughts to what lies ahead, but this time she can only think of what happened earlier, right before she got out of the car at the airport.
First, Tony asked her again whether she wanted him to come to Cincinnati with her.
“Thanks,” she said, “but no thanks.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Then, his last words to her, right before she slammed the car door, were chilling: “Have it your way. And listen, don’t worry, Elena—your secret is safe with me.”
He waved and pulled away, leaving her to wonder just what he meant by that.
The turtle that started it all had meandered—as turtles have a way of doing—out of a pond on a hot summer’s day.
It looked like a scum-slicked rock, lying there in the sun in the mucky high grass at the edge of the green water. Like a rock that just begged a romping kid to pick it up and throw it into the water, providing a welcome disruption to the late afternoon torpor and making a nice big splash that would cool things off.
That was the plan, anyway.
When you’re five or maybe six years old and you pick up a rock, and a reptile head pokes out at you, hissing like a snake and gnashing teeth strong enough to sever bone and tendon . . .
The power wielded by that snapping turtle was somehow simultaneously terrible and wonderful.
I thought it was some kind of monster.
In a way, it was. The most frightening monsters of childhood imagination lurk in places you’d never expect: beneath the bed, behind the door, inside the closet . . .
It was an important lesson learned, early on: monsters really can cross the threshold of your safe haven and jump out at you when you least expect it, so you’d better keep your guard up and develop some coping mechanisms.
I was lucky that day.
Lucky I didn’t lose a finger . . .
Lucky for a lot of reasons.
Turtles, as it turned out, are viewed in many cultures as harbingers of good fortune.
The incident spurred a lifelong fascination with the fabled creatures, which led, eventually, to Terrapin Times.
That was the name of the first blog, the one launched years ago, before many people even knew what a blog was.
Terrapin Terry was the perfect screen name to use for that one. Terry—or T2, as online followers like to say—is an expert on all things turtle-related, comfortably ensconced in a world populated by people who are equally fascinated by the creatures, some to the point of being addicts.
It was positively intoxicating to find so many kindred spirits. But the best was yet to come.
Other blogs.
Other screen names.
Other identities, really, if one chooses to look at it that way. Each a fully formed character with a separate circle of friends.
Online, you can be anyone you want to be.
I have been so many different people . . .
Eventually, it became too exhausting, too complicated, to keep up with them all. Now, the only blogs that are still active are the turtle one and the breast cancer one . . .
And never the twain shall meet.
It’s safe to imagine that the circle of breast cancer bloggers have never heard of Terrapin Terry, and that the turtle fans have never heard of—
Then again, you never know.
Maybe somewhere out there a fellow cancer blogger is following the turtle blog, posting comments under another screen name, with no idea that Terrapin Terry is really—
Probably not. But anything is possible on the Internet. That’s the beauty of it.
The beauty . . . and the danger.
I Get By with a Little Help . . .
After I was diagnosed, my oncologist’s nurse told me that it wasn’t a good idea to keep my feelings bottled up inside. She said it might help to talk to others who were going through the same thing, and that she could put me in touch with a local network through the cancer center.
I said thanks, but no thanks. I was sure I’d be just fine dealing with it on my own.
But I wasn’t. As my treatment progressed—surgery, radiation, medication, reconstruction—I felt more and more isolated.
My family was there for me, of course. They were willing to listen, and I tried, in the beginning, to express my fears and frustrations. But I couldn’t bear seeing uncertainty and dread reflected back at me on their faces.
My father was still alive then. I’m an only child, and I was always Daddy’s girl. Now he was so worried about me that I usually wound up trying to reassure him instead of the other way around. The same was true with my mother, and with my husband. It was hard enough to be strong enough for myself, let alone for everyone else.
Plus, I felt guilty dwelling on my cancer as a constant and depressing conversational topic—not that I had the heart or the energy to discuss anything else.
Finally, I gave in and attended a support group meeting up in Mobile. The other women in the room were in various stages of breast cancer treatment—some, it was obvious, in the final stages. At the first meeting, I listened in silence as the others talked about their own situations, and ranted, and cried.
At last I was surrounded by people who understood what I was going through because they had dealt with—or were dealing with—the same thing. Or worse.
For some, much worse.
At the third meeting, a particularly vocal woman I’d met at the first group session and noticed was conspicuously missing at the second announced that she’d just been given months, maybe just weeks, to live. She was a perfect stranger, but there I was sobbing along with her and the group members who took turns comforting her and each other.
I decided I was never going back there. It was too sad. I couldn’t take it. It made me feel worse, not better.
And so I returned to shouldering the burden in solitary silence. I told myself that I could get through on inner strength, a positive attitude, and faith alone, as my grandmother had forty years ago. Again, I thought I was going to be just fine on my own.
Again, I was wrong. I needed someone. I needed all of you. This is my virtual support group, blessedly free of eye contact and tears. I can show up on my own time and I don’t have to speak if I’m not in the mood, or make excuses if I feel like fleeing abruptly. This is my haven, my home. I thank God every day that I eventually found my way here, and I thank you for being my friends.
—Excerpt from Landry’s blog, The Breast Cancer Diaries
Chapter 9
Riding the elevator down two floors to the hotel lobby, Landry sm
ooths the skirt of her black dress. It wrinkled pretty badly in her suitcase, and she didn’t dare use the iron in the room. As soon as she plugged it in, she smelled something burning and noticed scorched fabric stuck to the bottom.
She called down for another iron, but it didn’t arrive by the time she had to leave for the funeral, so here she is, rumpled and running a few minutes late to meet Kay and Elena. She feels better, though, every time she looks down at the onyx bracelet Addison made for her. And no matter what happens today—this weekend—she’ll be back home tomorrow night, and everything will be back to blessed normal.
With a ding, the elevator arrives in the lobby and she takes a deep breath as the doors slide open. She’s jittery—in a good way—about the prospect of coming face-to-face at last with friends who’ve been lifesavers in the most literal sense of the word, if positive energy really does have healing powers, as Meredith believed.
Stepping into the lobby, she glances around. It’s not a true budget hotel, but not fancy, either. This is the kind of place frequented by traveling salespeople, families with kids, senior citizens . . .
Bloggers coming face-to-face for the first time . . .
Landry passes the front desk, manned by a young woman reading a paperback romance, and the computer station occupied by a teenage boy, and the darkened dining alcove blocked off by a sign advertising the hours for the free breakfast. Just beyond is a large seating area where she, Elena, and Kay agreed to find each other.
Well, she and Kay agreed, anyway, in text messages exchanged after she checked into the hotel. Elena hasn’t been in touch since before she left Boston, saying her phone battery was almost dead but she would check in with them when she got to the hotel and could plug it into her charger.
The seating area is empty, other than a frazzled-looking young mom sitting on a couch. She’s trying to feed a fussy baby a bottle and scolding a toddler for noisily pushing a luggage cart across the tile floor. In the far corner, a man—probably her husband—has a cell phone clasped against one ear and a palm covering the other ear, as if to tune out the commotion behind him.
The Perfect Stranger Page 18