Not To Us (26 page)
Authors: Katherine Owen
Unclaimed Baggage
W
e fly from Florence, Italy to London on his private plane, then on to New York. In New York, we wait to take a first class commercial flight to Seattle. I don’t even ask why the change again from private plane to commercial. My questioning look gets a three-word response from him. “Kimberley arranged it.”
He spends the majority of his time in between flights making phone calls on his cell and makes a point of being at least twenty feet away from me to make them. His thoughtfulness remains. He ensures I have Evian water and enough food to eat if there’s been any sort of delay.
The prisoner is well taken care of; the guard is very kind
go these errant thoughts in my head.
I watch Court as he takes another cell call just as they call for first class to board for the New York flight home.
“Eve,” he says in a tired voice. “Yeah, long trip. I’ll be home in about six hours. Pick me up?” There’s a long pause. He looks over at me. “Can’t wait,” he says into the phone.
It’s like having knives thrown at me, the way he says this. I’m the circus act, evading daggers when he does this to me. I turn away from him, dealing with the heartbreak of losing him in this private hell of my own. He doesn’t seem to even realize what he’s done to me by what he’s said and not said.
We’ve barely spoken during the flight back to Seattle. We’ve been traveling for more than twenty-four hours and the closer we get to Seattle, the more indifferent he becomes. I feel this chasm between us. Gone is the charming smile and debonair ways one Mr. Court Chandler. He seems to be back reliving a memory from ten years before. He’s nineteen again, reliving a history that I can only guess at. He will not talk about it with me. The only way that I know he’s thinking about his mother is in the way he looks at me now; I personify his mother’s ghost. He sees her, when he looks at me. I try not to show him my fear
—
the fear I carry, over dying, not dying, about all of it. But, I see the reflection of the ghost that he sees me as, every time I look into his eyes now.
His silence gives me time to think; something I haven’t allowed myself to do for weeks now. Me, myself and I have returned: pieces of the old Ellie: Ellie Shaw, even Ellie Bradford, and this new Ellie that I haven’t quite figured out yet.
I discover I still have and want my wish list. I still want these things, even though I haven’t been thinking of them very often in the last month. I want Emily and Mathew, this baby, me, and even Michael.
These five things, these are all I wish for. I’m saddened that Court didn’t make the list because he so soundly rejects me now. If I had another list, he would be the only thing on it besides me, myself and I. Us, together, is all I would ask for.
I try to thank him when we finally land at Sea-Tac. He gives me this contrived smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He leans over and kisses me. “I love you, Ellie,” he says. I glimpse his charming smile for the first time in two days, since we left Italy, but then it disappears when he gets up from his seat. He grabs his carry-on and without another word, he’s gone.
I’m stunned.
He’s gone.
His words mean nothing. His actions say it all. Dazed, I struggle out of my seat, retrieve my laptop bag and purse, and deplane. I walk up the jet-way, alone.
I’m undone, devastated, by the way he just said goodbye to me, as if I’m no more than a stranger. I guess that’s what twenty-nine-year-old successful CEOs do. They just leave and don’t look back.
I’m swallowed up into the crowd and trudge toward baggage claim at a listless pace. He’s up ahead; his dark brown hair being caressed by the air circulated overhead from the ceiling duct. We make our way, separately, toward the shared destination for luggage
—
baggage claim.
Court doesn’t even glance in my direction when a gorgeous brunette runs straight at him and puts her arms around his neck and kisses him. Eve Chandler is a rock star, too. She wears designer jeans on her endless long legs, a low-cut white silk blouse, and a black leather bomber jacket. Eve Chandler is fully aware that strappy sandals can be worn in any kind of weather. They are the beautiful couple. His final send-off to me: he has a life and I’m not in it.
“I’ve missed you, Court,” Eve says in this alluring voice. “I can’t believe Kimberley kept you an extra ten days.”
“I know. You know what a taskmaster she can be,” Court says back to her.
He half-smiles. Then, there’s this long silence between them.
“I took off work for this, big boy, you better make good on that.”
Eve traces his lips with an index finger and kisses him with obvious possession. I hold my breath as I watch this, unable to look away from the two of them, and then recoil from my covert position as if I’ve been physically struck in watching them interact this way together
“I’ll go get the car. See you out front.” Eve Chandler blows him a kiss as she leaves.
In extreme despair, I move over to the other side of the baggage carousel away from him. I’ve heard and seen enough.
I stare at the conveyor belt and watch a parade of endless bags go by, while all the other airline passengers move and jostle for position to retrieve their luggage. The crowd begins to disperse as the amount of bags to be claimed begins to diminish, while the unclaimed ones continue their endless journey around and around the conveyor belt. I just watch, helpless, forlorn, and abandoned.
Because
I have cancer, probably, most likely, because I didn’t get the chemo. But who cares?
I feel him behind, before he actually says anything. The potent bond between us is still there, still alive. Everything else is now dead, but this weird connection between us remains.
“I will…never…forget you.” Court speaks so softly and sounds so brokenhearted that tears spring to my eyes. I nod. He moves in front of me and picks up his lone suitcase and looks back at me, now. We’re in this very public place, two feet apart, and he reaches for me from where he stands. “I love you, Ellie.”
“Untenable, but real
enough,” I say. “I love you too, Courtney.” I give him my best, former-UW-cheerleader-yeah-team smile, but my eyes fills with tears. He nods and flashes me that crooked smile of his, but then it falters. Devastation crosses his face; it reflects my own. The connection fades with each step he takes away from me, until he is
really
gone.
My bag takes another turn around the conveyor belt; and then another. I let the tears fall. I can only think of my other wish list with him and me, myself and I as the only wishes I have, the only ones I want.
≈≈
Curb side
.
My suitcase rests against my thigh, while my laptop bag and purse straps cut into my shoulder; I welcome this pain. The desolation in losing Court Chandler, once and for all, weighs me down just in standing here, saturated in fresh grief with the loss of another, piling on to all the loss and heartbreak I already carry.
In a haze, I power up my cell phone. The voice mail count is ten. I’m surprised at the number. Surely, everyone who knows me must realize by now I won’t play them or call them back. I
do
play them in this determined kind of way, secretly hoping that my former life will somehow pull me back in.
There are a few from my mother. Apparently, she has not been brought into the loop. She’s busy planning her summer trip to the beach house, our beach house. She wants to come up and be with me. She wants to know when she can come.
What?
What is going on with my mother? Then, she launches into an I-know-life-can-be-so-hard-Ellen-Kay speech. She is cut-off after two minutes in the middle of this soliloquy and I actually smile. There is a part of me cheered up by her nagging voice alone.
There are five messages from Michael. He’s shortened his messages considerably. “Ellen Kay, please come home. I love you; I can’t live without you. What should I tell the kids? God, Ellie, I love you, please come home.”
The last message is from this morning, which is surprising, until I play it.“It’s Lisa. Okay, so I get a call from Court Chandler and if I’m putting this together right…Holy shit!
Court Chandler?
He promises me that he’s bringing you home. So, when you get in,
call me
. Just me. No one else. I’m not even going to tell Michael of this possibility so just
call me
when you get in. Oh, by the way, your car is at home, not the Park-N-Fly where you left it. I’ll give you a ride. Call me, Ellie.”
My hands tremble, just hearing Lisa utter Court’s name upsets me further. I can feel something breaking inside of me.
What should I do?
The answer is there, of course. Lisa can be a neutral party like no one else. There must be some sort of Hippocratic Oath for secrecy that any conversation we have must fall under.
She is one of my doctors. I’m her patient.
Aren’t I?
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still standing here, still debating on who to call. It’s a fairly warm day for late April in Seattle. It’s raining, but it isn’t all that cold, so I just continue to stand there. I check my watch, but I can’t figure out what time it is. I’ve made too many time changes in the last twenty-four hours, in the last month.
I turn to this twenty-something guy waiting curb side about five feet away from me. “Do you know what time it is, here in Seattle?” The guy’s wearing an old Nirvana t-shirt, a dark leather jacket and blue jeans. I give him my most winsome smile.
“It’s two in the afternoon,” Mr. twenty-something says, checking his watch and returning my smile.
“Oh, okay, thank you.” He turns away from me with a shrug. My former-UW-cheerleader-yeah-team smile does not have the desired effect on him. I’m a little disconcerted by this for no reason at all.
I should call Lisa. That is what I should do. But then, that just prolongs this other thing
—
this thing with Michael. It’s two in the afternoon. It April 30
th
; isn’t it? I set my phone to Pacific Time.
I turn back to the twenty-something guy. “It’s April 30
th
; right? It’s Thursday?”
“It’s May 1
st
actually. It’s Friday.” He grins at me. “Where have you been?”
“Italy,” I say.
“Nice.”
“It was paradise on earth.”
My answer triggers an instant memory of Court Chandler by the pool and I experience this fresh heartache. I think the bleakness must show on my face because he looks at me more closely.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say with a defiant lift of my head. “Just deciding what to do. I’ve really fucked up my life, so just trying to think things through. I…can’t afford any more mistakes.”
“Everybody feels that way, sometimes,” he says to me now. The reassurance in his voice reminds me of Court and I hesitate. I can feel the tears coming. I try to give him another winning smile, but it is not quite as good as the last one.
“Untenable,” I say to myself. “Thanks for the time and date info.”
“Untenable…baseless, without sound judgment, weak, questionable, without grounds… untenable,” the stranger says to me. His words cut across me and I feel the fissure in my heart break wide open, as he emulates Mr. Court Chandler in this weird déjà vu way.
“But, real enough.” I wipe the tears from my face in this distracted, I’m-just-flipping-my-hair-kind-of-way, but the stranger is not fooled.
“Are you
okay
?”
“I’m okay.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No, I can get a taxi. I’m just going down to the ferry for Bainbridge.”
“Look, my girlfriend will be here soon. We can give you a ride wherever you need to go. I’m Danny, by the way.”
“Ellie Shaw.” I shake his hand. “I knew a Danny once, in New York, best bartender there ever was.”
“Hey! I’m a bartender at the Triple Door. Come on by sometime. I’ll make you a drink.”
I watch the next line of cars slink by, picking up or dropping off passengers. Danny’s going on about his job at the Triple Door and I’m just nodding and smiling. A vaguely familiar silver Jaguar comes racing up the parkway, driving a little too fast with all these people around. The car stops right in front of me. The electric window is already about halfway down.
I hear Lisa’s familiar don’t-fuck-with-me voice say, “Get in.”
The passenger door swings open in my direction and I’m too surprised to refuse. I say a swift goodbye to Danny, my newly-made friend, and promise to stop by the Triple Door some time soon. “I guess I have a ride,” I say with a half-smile.
Lisa gives me a questioning look as she unceremoniously drops my luggage in the trunk, relieves me of my laptop bag, and even my purse. We’re moving out of the airport drive inside of two minutes from when she first pulled up.