Good Nights

by Heather Grace Stewart

  That night, my dreams are vivid. I’m running for Maggie in the dark underground, trying to save her. I have no control. She’s standing on the platform when a bright white explosion lights up the train beside her, the tracks, her beautiful face. And then she’s gone. All that’s left of our life together is one brown leather briefcase. Miraculously, they recovered her bloody leather briefcase. Everything else is gone in a flash of light. Brown eyes. Bright smile. Maggie. I can’t save her.

  “Mags, I love you!” I call out her name several times. In a sleepy fog, I hear someone screaming. Or is that me?

  Twenty-nine

  Hannah

  I’ve been up since five a.m. No wonder, with Tripp’s restlessness and nightmares. When he started screaming and breaking out into a sweat, I wanted to cry. It was painful to watch. I held him closer instead of running to the nearest exit like my instincts told me to. When he called out Maggie’s name, I held his head close to my chest, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “It’s okay, Tripp. I’m here.” He finally stopped the screaming after a half hour, rolled out of my arms, and fell back into what looked like a peaceful slumber. I didn’t sleep after that.

  Now it’s dawn, and sitting alone on the couch, tea in hand, Jughead resting in his cage and Coffee at my feet, things look different by morning light. Quite different.

  He called out her name with me by his side. Maggie. He’s still in love with her.

  Everything feels wrong. Upside down. I gaze at the front page of the newspaper on the coffee table, its bold headline announcing the final day and night of the Cannes Film Festival. I used to attend that Festival with Doug every year. Whether he’d been in a film or not, he said it was crucial for him as an aspiring producer, to “make an appearance,” and he always bought me a top of the line gown and diamond earrings for the VIP closing ceremony and after-party. I used to love being on his arm on that red carpet, knowing I had an exclusive ticket to one of the most talked about parties of the year. This was before I had my own TV series, and I remember feeling that, just by being on his arm, I was making all the right connections for my future.

  I can’t believe how being seen as “important” in social circles used to matter to me. One week here with Tripp, and I could not care less about attending some fancy film soirée. I’d rather spend the cost of a gown and ticket on fixing up Béa’s place and helping to save the other run-down cottages along the shore. It took meeting someone who hasn’t had anything handed to her on a silver platter to learn how simple it is for me to make a small difference in someone’s life.

  Tripp has taught me so much, and I love him. But am I seeing things clearly in this couple-bubble we’ve created? Yesterday, I was so happy here, playing with Tripp and our pets, ignoring the outside world. But the way Tripp just ignored my suggestion about becoming adoptive parents really threw me. It hurt. And yet, he definitely wants to foster the bird. Not Béa. I don’t understand. I thought he loved her?

  I swallow the last few drops of my tea and go over our conversation in my mind one more time. Oh, no. My realization makes me feel sick to my stomach.

  It’s not about Béa. It’s about me. He doesn’t want to be a parent with me because he doesn’t see a future with me. This is just a fling. He’s using me to get over Maggie. He never wanted this to be anything past the summer!

  Could it really be that? No. I know this is more than a fling. We need to talk. I stand up, about to go wake Tripp and get this whole thing cleared up, when my phone buzzes. I grab it from the foyer table. I hope that it’s Mom. She hasn’t texted in days.

  It’s a text from Doug. I haven’t heard from him since I asked if he could take care of Jughead while I was in France.

 

  I almost text back: but stop myself when I realize Mom could be in serious trouble.

 

 

 

  He doesn’t answer, and I realize that my battery has died. I’ve been forgetting to check it, let alone plug it in, for days. I get up and open the front door. Just as Doug said, there’s a man in a black suit in the driveway, standing beside a black limousine. He takes off his cap, holds it in both hands, and nods. I stare at the limo and am almost instantly transported back in time to my luxurious red-carpet days. It’s bizarre to have that world waiting for me again, here on the doorstep of my island hideaway. I guess Jill isn’t the best keeper of secrets after all.

  God. Please let my mom be okay. If my ex is concerned about her, my ex who never worried about her in the past, what the hell is going on? My hands start to shake. I swallow back tears. Is that why she hasn’t texted? Jill said Mom was concerned about me, but with everything going on here, I forgot to call her. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach and try not to pay any attention to it. I have to get out of here!

  I search for the tote bag I was using yesterday. It’s Tripp’s, but he is happy to let me have it, for obvious reasons: It’s bright red with bold white letters stating KEEP CALM AND LOVE PARROTS. I find it with my keys and credit cards, hanging beside the door, grab it and my dead phone, and begin to leave. Then I remember that Tripp is still asleep, and has no idea where I’m going, and I’m still in bare feet and my I NEED MY BEAUTY SLEEP nightshirt.

  Oh, whatever! I can pull it off with a high ponytail and these black heels. I slip on the heels and look around to see if I’m forgetting anything else. The blue slicker. That would be helpful if it rains. I shove it inside the tote bag. There’s no time to change or explain to Tripp why I’ve left. If I run upstairs and speak to him now, we’ll have that whole awful-nightmare-he-was-screaming-he-loves-Maggie-doesn’t-want-to-adopt-Béa conversation hanging over us like a heavyweight bag, and I just can’t do that difficult talk right now. I’ll text him. No, bad idea, he never checks messages!

  I quickly scrawl, Needed to see Doug at Cannes festival. He says it’s about my mom. Concerned. Will call soon. Love Hannah, on a piece of notepad paper and place it… where? I look around. Where will Tripp be sure to see it? He’ll see it on Jughead’s cage. I quickly place the note so it’s jutting out from under the container of crackers. I can charge my phone at Doug’s hotel and text or call Tripp with more details later.

  As I close the door, fighting a gust of wind, I simultaneously pull my hair into a ponytail with the holder I had in my tote and pull down my I NEED MY BEAUTY SLEEP shirt as far as I can over my panties, so it looks like I meant to wear it as a dress. It falls just below my butt cheeks.

  The limo driver puts his cap on and opens the door for me, but he gives me a funny look, and I know then and there that I can’t pull this look off for the people at the Cannes Film Festival.

  “Did you want to change? I can wait.” The driver looks at me in the rear-view mirror.

  I shake my head no, and he pulls the car out of the driveway. Who cares what they think? I’m doing this for Mom. They’re all wannabe wankpuffins anyway.

  The limo pulls up to a small red and black plane that’s docked right beside where the ferry came in. I’m not a Wiki expert on seaplanes, but this looks sleek, sexy, and expensive. The limo driver is prattling on in broken English about how he’s never seen anything like it.

  “I saw it fly in like elegant bird with water skis. Two-seater. You have ride of lifetime!”

  “Uh, okay,” I say as I get out, and he quickly ushers me into the passenger seat of the plane. I’m feeling lightheaded and thinking how fast everything is moving and how I didn’t ask for any of this.

  I’ve never been in a small plane before. I buckle in, inhale dee
ply, and turn to the pilot for support, but I can’t find his face. He’s got blue mirror aviator sunglasses on, a large black headset and a microphone over his mouth. He gives me a nod.

  Okay then. This is great. If this plane goes down, my final words ever will have been, “You bet, bud!” to a Hahn’s mini macaw, who asked me first thing this morning, “Do you like piña coladas? Do you have half a brain?”

  As the plane begins its ascent above the beautiful, lush island I’ve come to think of as home, I stare down at the dead phone in my hand, itching to get it charged almost as much as I’m itching to put on pants. I look down at the now-tiny island below us, searching for The Lighthouse, but I can’t make anything out except a blur of coniferous green and ocean blue.

  I try to sit back and enjoy my first ever seaplane flight, but my stomach is in knots. Am I doing the right thing? I had to find out what’s going on with Mom and our house. There was no other way, with Doug being as controlling as ever. Tripp is probably reading my note right now. He’ll find it, and he’ll understand, and forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye.

  As I think about it, I’m only five percent convinced, but my thoughts are suddenly interrupted by the realization that we’ve already landed, and the shocking sight of a large, excited crowd of people standing on the dock beside the plane.

  Not just any people. Paparazzi.

  Thirty

  Tripp

  “Han? You in the kitchen? You’re not cooking for me, are you? Leave the spoiling to me. I like it.”

  I turn the living room corner and let my sentence trail off as I realize Hannah isn’t anywhere in the house. I’m definitely alone. She must have gone for a walk, although, she usually needs a cup of tea or two before she’s fully functional. I look around the room.

  Oh. She’s had tea. Empty cup right there on the coffee table. Newspaper, headline about the Cannes Film Festival, pencil and blank notepad… I look over to the door. Her shoes, the KEEP CALM AND LOVE PARROTS tote I gave her, and her blue slicker are gone. Her phone isn’t on the foyer table, either. Right then. Where’s the note?

  As I scan the bright, sunny room, Coffee strolls up to me, practically sits on my feet, and whimpers. She’s clearly asking for food. “What’s up sweets? Where’d Hannah go?” She whimpers again. I grab a couple of treats from the bag in the oak cabinet and feed them to Coffee.

  “Yummy. Yummy for the tummy,” Jughead squawks. He’s moving his beak back and forth and spitting. Coffee runs to just below the cage and sniffs the floor.

  “Coffee, stop licking the floor. C’mere girl.” I grab her collar and make her lie at my feet as I sit down in my recliner. If she went for a walk, why didn’t she leave me a note?

  I try to remember our last words, but all I can recall is… oh bugger! I’ve scared her off. Oh, no. The nightmare about Maggie. I called out Maggie’s name, I remember now. Hannah heard, in fact, she consoled me, held me, and when morning came, she decided she didn’t want to put up with British Wussboy anymore.

  Surely that’s not it. She’d understand. We’d talk it out. We don’t leave things unsaid. Especially not Hannah. I get up, grab my phone off the oak cabinet, slide it on, and start pacing by the window, hoping something will come to me, an idea, or a text.

  A minute passes. I check the screen again. Come on Han, you didn’t even text me? I check it once more.

  “I realize I’m a bumbling naff of a Brit, and I don’t have the phone attached to the palm of my hand like trending people do, but I do like to know where the bloody hell you are, because I love you. You have my heart, and now you have me all buggered, checking my bloody phone messages every five minutes!”

  “Squawk!” Jughead bounces up and down on his perch, then throws up in his cage.

  I stop pacing and glance at the cage. There’s a white foamy mess below Jughead’s perch. Ew. That’s gross. Poor boy must have a little virus. Maybe ate some bad mango. But mango isn’t white. I look a little closer. It’s not just gross, it’s Hannah’s writing on white notepaper.

  She did write me a note! And Jughead bloody ate it, the dim-witted numpty.

  There are a couple pieces of paper left below the cage, where Coffee was sniffing earlier. I pick them up and try to make sense of them. They’re just letters on tiny pieces of regurgitated paper. It’s no use. I bend down so I’m at eye level with the macaw. “Alright, bird buddy, what did the bloody note say?” He just stares back at me, not even blinking. I grasp the rungs of the cage. “What did it bloody say?”

  After another minute-long staring contest between man and green-eyed bird ensues from between the cage bars, I laugh out loud, realizing how ridiculous I must look and sound. I stand up and let my eyes scan the room. That blank pad on the coffee table. Right then! I could be like one of those old school detectives! She won’t have to know about how panicked and pathetic I am that she’s buggered off without leaving me a note, because I can decipher what she wrote. I grab the pencil, rip the last piece of paper out of the pad, and put it over the piece that was below her note. Alright, this should work just like a check book right? Carbon copy, here we come. I start scribbling over the paper.

  I’d better keep my day job. It works nothing like I had anticipated, but I do make out a few words: Need see. Doug. festival.

  Doug. She chose Doug.

  “She went to the film festival with Doug, because she needed to? Couldn’t we have gone together? Or, not at all, because those formal snobfests are for wankpuffins?”

  Coffee stares up at me, cocks her head to the side, and whimpers. I toss the pencil across the room, throw the notepad down, stand up, and look around for something to kick. There’s that copper basket full of wood at the corner of the hearth. I kick it as hard as I can.

  Bloody hell! That hurt! I need to jump it out. I jump around, rubbing my left ankle with my hand, but I instantly fall over, landing like an elephant arse first.

  “What the fuck!” Jughead’s back to swearing again. He tilts his head and blinks at me. He looks pleased with himself.

  Coffee comes right up to me and licks my forehead. I remain lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling. Good job with the British fury there, Wilson. That was real productive.

  I sit up and look at Coffee. “Right, then. So, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m not gonna chase after her. She can be bloody well stay in Cannes for the rest of her life.”

  Coffee gives me her paw, and I shake it and slowly stand up. “Come on, girl, let’s go for a ride in the truck. We have things to do.”

  Thirty-one

  Hannah

  The seaplane door opens, and I’m met with a giant gust of wind and saltwater mist spraying my face and hair. I take a strange man’s hand and step gingerly, in three-inch black heels, from the plane to the dock. I almost lose my footing because I’m using my other hand to hold my KEEP CALM AND LOVE PARROTS tote against my hip in a miserable attempt to keep my nightshirt from flying up and over my ass.

  I aced Film 404, but I fail one-hundred-percent in Don’t Flash Your Ass At The Paparazzi. I wish I could recall what thong I wore today. I think it’s the bright green one that says LUCKY ME, LUCKY YOU on it. This day just gets better and better.

  Squawk! Squawk! Squawk! A flock of hungry sea gulls swarms overhead. I duck.

  Click! Click! Click!

  “Hannah, over here!”

  And now, a swarm of prying eyes. I hear a scattering of words shouted my way.

  “Neflix?” and “Pregnant?” and “Remarry?” Most of it is muffled by the wind, and I can’t understand any of it, and besides, I’ve been trained not to answer.

  The man who helped me off the plane has disappeared. I can’t move forward, because I’m encircled by people holding cell phones or fancy wide lens cameras. No one is saying much anymore, they’re just taking image after image of me in a flurry of excitement. I’m not sure where to turn,
so I just put my hands on my hips like Doug taught me a decade ago, and force a wide, white smile for the cameras. I even give them a little wave, owning my odd appearance as best I can. My knee is aching already, and I’ve hardly walked anywhere. I’m so uncomfortable in these heels, and I already feel lost in this place. I’m someone else entirely now—a woman in patent leather heels, masquerading as the old me.

  I continue posing for about a minute, but I’m quite sure they already got the money shot when I flashed them my LUCKY butt cheeks. I’m dying of embarrassment and wonder what shade of red my other cheeks are right now. I survey the crowd once more before moving forward. The seaplane has already started to drift away and is turning in the other direction. Back to the island? I feel a pang in my heart, and my left knee buckles a little beneath me. I’d almost forgotten that it’s still bandaged. I overhear some paparazzi desperate for a story adding hearsay about that into the mix of words being shouted my way.

  “Accident?”

  “Beaten!”

  “Marital abuse!”

  Suddenly, I realize I don’t have any allies here. Not one. And zero security.

  Someone should be greeting me, protecting me from this mob. Why isn’t Doug here, or Jill, or at the very least one of his security people? And why is this crowd even interested in me? I haven’t been the talk in television for six months now.

  I try to regain my balance and look to the right, and the paparazzi turn and start photographing what I’m looking at. If they think photos of cabs and that little electric bus will excite their readers, more power to them. I’m trying to decide which way to walk. I know from the Google maps walking trips I tried on the plane that I’m looking over at the oldest part of town, Le Suquet, an area with narrow streets, a medieval church, and a twelfth century castle. I’ve always wanted to go see that church and castle, and I’m tempted to do exactly that and never bother with meeting Doug, but I desperately need to talk to Mom. I need to charge this phone!