Live and Let Die (3 page)

“You know she called me a few days before… I was right in the middle of something and I told her I’d call her back and then I forgot… ” Sondra said, her voice trailing off.

“Don’t blame yourself, Sondra. It’s not worth it.”

Sondra sighed, shaking her head and they both fell silent again.

“Was she happy?” Sondra asked to break the silence.

“What?”

“I mean… was she happy? The last few months… ” Sondra was unable to keep her eyes dry.

Phillip sighed. “Yeah, I mean… she loved her job, her friends, we were talking about starting a family in a year or so… she… God… that last time we talked, she told me how much she loved me… ”

Phillip cried as he remembered his last conversation with his wife. “We just didn’t have enough time. We were supposed to have our whole lives together.” Phillip stopped and looked down at his hands, rolled together like balls of yarn.

“At least she was happy,” Sondra murmured, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “That’s something at least… ”

“Without her, I just… ” Phillip’s voice cracked as another tidal wave of tears washed over him. Sondra reached out her arms and drew him into them and they sobbed together.

P
hillip closed the door and walked over to the picture window to watch the cab ferry Sondra to the airport and back to India to finish work on her documentary. He stood rooted in his spot for at least five minutes, wanting to be sure she didn’t come back for some forgotten book or blow dryer. It had been brutal to have them all there, fawning all over him, offering their condolences and memories. He’d wanted to run screaming from the house and counted the minutes until he was free of all well-wishers, grieving friends, and in-laws.

Satisfied, he turned and went in search of his phone, dialing the number from memory.

“I’m on my way. Be ready for me when I get there.”

He clicked the phone off and walked over to a picture of Tracy and him on their wedding day. He let his finger trail down her cheek before he picked it up and kissed the image.

“Sometimes, we do what we have to do.”

He lingered over the picture for a few more minutes before he grabbed his coat and keys and left.

S
ondra stood in front of the bakery window, captivated by the display of enormous yellow cupcakes obscured beneath fluffy white frosting, rainbow sprinkles nestled in the crevices. Sondra stubbed out her cigarette, went into the bakery and bought one of the cupcakes along with a cup of coffee.

They even gave her a candle.

She found an empty table along the back wall and gingerly set the cupcake down in front of her, swirling her finger along the edge, catching a glob of frosting on the tip. She licked it and groaned, savoring the gritty sweetness. She lit the candle and closed her eyes for a moment before blowing it out. Sighing, she leaned back in her chair, watching passersby outside as she ran a hand through her wavy black hair.

About a year and a half had passed since Tracy’s brutal death and today was her sister’s birthday. Sondra continued to pick at the cupcake and after eating barely half of it, tossed it and her empty coffee cup in the trash. As she headed back to her hotel, she fumbled around the bottom of her large bag for her cigarettes. Locating them, she rapped the box in the palm of her hand, making several definitive
thwack, thwack, thwacks
. As she went to light up, her phone jangled from somewhere in her bag.

“Damn,” she muttered when she saw who it was and dropped the cigarettes back in her bag. Sondra knew even through the phone, Mimi would be able to tell she was puffing away.

“Hi, Mommy.”

“I’m sorry I missed you earlier. I was coming back from Sacramento. You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Sondra said as she navigated the throngs of people on Broadway. “I’m on my way back from the doctor now. He ran every test known to man, and he expects I’ll have a clean bill of health.”

“Well, you know I worry. I just don’t want… ”

Sondra looked up to see the Times Square Jumbotron telling her to watch ABC Thursday nights at nine, and mentally completed her mother’s unspoken words.

I just don’t want to lose another daughter.

“Mommy, I promise, I’m fine. I would tell you if I weren’t.”

From California, Sondra swore she could hear her mother close her eyes and send a silent ‘thank you’ to God.

“I know; I’m just overreacting… ” Mimi’s faint German accent halted a bit before trailing off. There was a quiet moment between mother and daughter.

“I stopped at a bakery a few minutes ago and had a cupcake. You know the yellow ones with all the frosting? They even gave me a candle.”

Sondra could hear Mimi sniffle. “She always loved white frosting on her cupcakes. She never wanted anything on her birthday but yellow cupcakes with white frosting, even when she was little.”

“I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

“She would have been thirty-five. So young.”

“I know, Mommy.”

“I catch myself thinking about her at the strangest times. Like yesterday, I was getting in the car and was remembering when I was teaching her how to drive. I sat in the driveway crying for twenty minutes.”

“I know, Mommy. It’s hard.”

“Then Mrs. Pinkus came over knocking on the window, yammering on about her dog being hit by a car last year. Like you can compare the two.”

“In her mind, you can.”

“Sonny, I don’t think it’ll ever stop hurting.”

Sondra shook her head, tears now welling in her eyes. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

“I sent a box of her things over to your apartment. Mindy said she would keep it for you until you got back. I thought you would want them. I just… I tried to go through it, but… I just couldn’t… ”

“Yeah, Mindy told me. I won’t be back in the apartment for a few weeks, so I’ll go through everything… at some point.” She paused. “How’s Daddy?”

“He’s good, good. Working on a new book, so he’s down in L.A. for a few days doing some research.”

“Oh yeah? What’s this one about?”

“He mumbled something about the movies. You know how he gets when he’s in the zone.”

Sondra chuckled and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “That I do.”

“Oh, oh, speaking of, that’s daddy on the other line. I’ve got to go.”

“Tell him I said hey.”

“Okay, sweetie.” Mimi paused. “I’m so glad you’re home. Safe and sound.”

Sondra closed her eyes and sighed at the sadness in her mother’s voice. “I know. Bye, Mommy.”

Sondra hung up and continued down Broadway towards The W where she was staying for a few weeks. She retrieved her cigarettes once more and lit up, sighing with satisfaction as the nicotine flooded through her. As Sondra took drags off her cigarette, she found herself lost in thoughts about Tracy.

It was a warm April day in Manhattan, but the image of her sister lying alone and bloody beneath the blowing and drifting snow of a vicious Chicago winter made Sondra shiver, just like she had that day in India when her mother had called to tell her Tracy was missing. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, much to the ire of New Yorkers trying to steer around her. Sondra trembled again and wrapped her arms around her waist.

Her cigarette had burned down to a nub and she jumped as the ash stung her finger. She dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and resumed walking, Tracy’s face spinning in her head.

S
ondra put on her sunglasses as she glided through the lobby of her apartment building on her way outside. The burly new doorman swung the revolving door for her.

“Good morning, Ms. Ellis. Need a cab?”

Sondra smiled. “Please, call me Sondra and no, it’s such a nice day out, I’m going to walk. Besides, I need the fresh air,” she said, winking at him as she waved her newly extracted cigarette in his direction.

“Have a good day,” he laughed.

After a year and a half of criss-crossing the globe for her latest documentary on women’s beauty rituals, Sondra had moved back into her apartment a few weeks earlier and had been working nonstop on post-production ever since. Yesterday had been a seventeen-hour day and today promised to be yet another marathon session. She lit up and had just taken her first inhale when she saw a tall, handsome black guy in an obviously expensive suit walking towards her, talking on his cell phone. She stopped dead in her tracks, not believing it was him. He saw her and did a double-take as well.

“Hey, I gotta go,” he said just before he hung up. He smiled and swallowed her into a bear hug.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped and laughed as she returned Jack’s fierce embrace.

“I’m in town for a few days on business. How are you?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She put her hand on her forehead. “Man, how long’s it been?”

“I think the last time I saw you was when we came out for the premiere of ‘The Deepest Cut’ about four years ago.”

“Wow, that’s right, that’s right.” Sondra stepped back to take a good look at her sister’s ex-boyfriend.

Tracy had met Jack Turner about a month after she’d moved to Chicago. He owned two popular restaurant/bars in Chicago called Dive and Flow, respectively. Tracy was having drinks at Dive with one of the producers from her station when Jack spotted her and introduced himself. They became inseparable within a matter of days. Jack was rich, successful, good-looking, and easygoing, possessing the same energy and wit as Tracy. Everyone had loved Jack and all signs pointed to a walk down the aisle. However, after four years together, they’d suddenly broken up, much to everyone’s surprise and, as Sondra joked, devastation.

“You look great,” she said in all sincerity. “What are you up to these days?”

“Still in the restaurant business. I’m looking to open up a spot in Harlem.”

“Wow. Will this be anything like the other two?”

“Naw, this is going to be more of a fusion thing.”

Sondra nodded her head in appreciation. “That’s great news. Does that mean you’re moving up here?”

“Come on now. You know better than that. I hate New York.”

“Watch it,” Sondra said with the practiced growl of a New Yorker who despised anyone ragging on her city.

Jack laughed. “I’ve got a partner I’m going in with. He’ll be the man on the street here.”

“Ah, okay. Very cool.”

“How are you? Really?”

Sondra let out a long, anguished breath. “Do you want the polite answer or the truth?”

Jack stole a quick glance around. “Hey, let’s grab a quick cup of coffee. I mean if you have time.”

Sondra looked at her watch and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, let me just make a phone call.”

Sondra let her production team know she’d be in a little late and she and Jack ducked into a small diner a few feet away where he got them cups of black coffee.

“Thanks,” she said as she dumped six packets of sugar and two vials of cream into her mug and stirred.

Jack looked down into his cup. “How are your parents?”

“Um, okay. Mimi’s still teaching swimming a few days a week; Daddy’s working on a new book.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Sondra looked at the mother and little girl at the next table engaged in a game of pattycake. Her heart skipped as she thought about the children Tracy had longed for and would never have.

Sondra took a deep breath. “Taking each day as it comes. I’ve actually been hopping all over the world for the past year working on my next documentary. I did come back for a little while, after… ” Sondra’s voice went whisper soft and she took a sip of her coffee.

Jack hunched over his cup, lost in thought. “Yeah...”

“So you married, kids, what?”

Jack shook his head and ran his hands across the green Formica tabletop. “Nope. I mean I’m dating a couple of people, but not getting married anytime soon or anything.”

Sondra frowned, turning over in her mind the words she wanted to say. “So what’s your side of the story?” Sondra cocked one eyebrow and waited for Jack to pick up the thread of her inquiry.

Jack slurped on his coffee. “I was stupid.”

Sondra took another sip of coffee, watching him.

He ran his lean, massive hands across his face several times before he gave her a wry smile. “Tracy was the love of my life. I’ll never love another woman the way I loved her. She wanted to get married, start a family and I was too scared. Typical stupid bullshit. She basically said propose or she was leaving. I didn’t, so she did.”

Sondra drummed her index finger on the table and pinched her lips together. “Do you regret it?”

Jack gave Sondra a sad smile. “Every day. Honestly, I thought we’d work it out, you know, like she needed time to cool down. I realized too late she wasn’t coming back.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Losing my so-called independence. Stupidest thing I ever did was let that woman get away. Next thing I know, she’s married to someone else.”

Sondra sighed and looked out the window. “Regret is a terrible thing to have to live with.”

“If I had it to do over again, I would do it so differently.”

“Can’t un-ring a bell.”

“Did you get to see her before… ?”

Sondra sipped her coffee. “I was her maid of honor. I left for India two days later, so that was the last time I saw her.”

“Ah. Right. Of course. What was that, about six months or so before she died?”

Sondra nodded. “Yeah. They didn’t have much time.”

“I saw her before she… disappeared,” he said.

Sondra’s head jerked back to face Jack. “What? When?”

“That Friday.”

Sondra straightened up, confused. “Did you tell the police?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t know what good it would have done. It wasn’t like I was the last person to see her. And it wasn’t for long. Besides, I didn’t want her husband to hear about it, you know, get the wrong idea...”

“How, where?”

Jack ran his tongue across his teeth. “Downtown. She was out running some errands, and kind of like you and I today, we just ran into each other.”

“How was she? I mean how did she seem?”

Jack hesitated for a moment. “Unhappy.”