The Perfect Love Song (19 page)

T
he snow in New York City fell in clumps, hitting the limousine windshield and melting on impact. Jimmy glanced at his cell, saw the battery level was low, and dialed Milton’s number. His stomach dropped in dread; he knew this was not going to go well.

“Hey, man,” Milton answered. “Your luggage is only an hour away from the hotel. This snow is screwing everything up. I’m sorry. Your guitar and clothes will be there in time for the performance. No worries.”

Jimmy exhaled, closed his eyes. “I’m not worried, Milton, because I’m not there. I’m on my way to the airport. I should have never agreed to miss my brother’s wedding.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding. Please tell me you’re sitting in the hotel room fuming because you need your luggage and guitar. Please.”

“Sorry.” Jimmy cringed at the word.

“Turn around now. There is no way I am telling Radio City to take you off the schedule. No way. This is my reputation, James Sullivan.”

“And this is my family, Milton. The only family I have.”

Milton’s response can’t be repeated here, but I’ll just tell you that Jimmy ended up hanging up the phone and leaning his head against the window. The traffic on the Belt Parkway crawled at less than ten miles per hour, and Jimmy leaned forward to Roger. “We gonna make it?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

Jimmy leaned back in the seat. Time took on another dimension, one in which every minute meant a change in his destiny, in all that was important to Jimmy Sullivan, and there he sat without any control over the situation.

Slowly they inched toward JFK, until they arrived with just under an hour until takeoff. Jimmy thanked Roger and took his card so he could send him some money later. Roger smiled. “It was my pleasure. Better than sitting and waiting. I hope you make it.”

“Me too.” Jimmy ran toward the doors and to the airline counter. He stopped short when he entered the lobby. A line snaked through the makeshift lanes—hundreds of people. He quickly scanned the crowd and found an airline employee.

“Excuse me.” Jimmy stopped the employee, noticed the
name Joe on his name tag. “Excuse me, Joe, but I’m trying to make a flight that leaves in less than an hour, and the line looks at least twice that.”

Joe laughed. “Ain’t no way, buddy. Sorry.”

“Listen,” Jimmy said, “this is sort of an emergency.”

“It always is.” Joe began to walk away.

Jimmy closed his eyes to regain his composure, and his heart sent forth the most fervent wish, the most desperate hope to see Charlotte, to see Jack, to be in Ireland before the wedding. Then he ran after Joe. “Please. I am supposed to be in Ireland for my brother’s wedding and . . . ”

Joe looked at Jimmy and shook his head. “International travel requires you to be here at least two hours before departure.”

“I know. I know. But I also know that the flight I need to be on is sitting at the gate and I don’t have any luggage. Not even a carry-on. It’s Christmas Eve. Come on, can you help me out? What would you do if you were in my situation, needing to see your family?”

Joe stood still for a moment, looking over Jimmy’s head and then back at him. “I’d give anything to be with my family tonight. Guess I could at least help you do that.”

Jimmy’s smile could not have been more authentic.

“Come with me. I’m not sure we can do this, but we’ll try.”

“Thanks. Serious unbelievable thanks.” Jimmy followed the man to a counter.

“No promises.” Joe clicked on a computer, began to punch in numbers. “Your ticket?” He held his hand out.

Jimmy cringed. “Well, see, there’s a problem there too. I have a ticket for tomorrow, and I know there’s a huge change fee. But I have the cash.”

Joe looked up at him, shaking his head. “You just trying to make this as difficult as possible?” But he had a smile on his face, and Jimmy handed him the ticket and then the cash for the change fee. While Joe worked on the ticket, Jimmy counted his money. He had enough left to maybe get a rental car. He’d figure that part out when he got there.

After what seemed like an eternity of button punching, Joe looked up with this grin of satisfaction. “You just aren’t going to believe this. There is one more seat, and the plane is delayed due to weather. Deicing takes time. Planes are backed up.” Joe handed a ticket to Jimmy. “Crazy.”

The relief that spread through Jimmy made him dizzy. “Merry Christmas, Joe. I wish you the most merry Christmas you’ve ever had. Ever.”

“You too.” Joe’s smile proved, once again, that giving offers as much or more to the giver as the receiver. Always.

W
aiting at the gate, Jimmy dialed Jack’s number, calculating that they were all in the middle of the rehearsal dinner. No one answered, and Jimmy settled back into the plastic seat, staring at the screen for updates on flight departure. He decided not to leave a message. What if the plane didn’t leave on time or at all? He held on to his ticket and wished for a hot shower, his luggage, and a shave. He’d roll into Ireland looking like a disheveled vagabond. But then again, better to show up as he was and always has been than not to show up at all.

He turned off his phone to preserve what little battery life it had left. He grabbed a piece of pizza. Time crept on as Jimmy thought of the events of the past several hours: leaving his luggage and guitar at a hotel in New York City, canceling a performance at Radio City, selling the ring he’d meant to use to propose. He was missing a performance where his dad would finally hear him sing. He didn’t have his suit or any clothing other than what he wore, and now it looked as if the flight might not even leave before nightfall.

He calculated the losses as an accountant would write numbers in the debit column. Then he moved his mind to where he was going—not what he was leaving. He calmed himself thinking that he was going toward all that mattered, and he let go of everything else.

—OLD IRISH PROVERB

 

 

 

 

C
harlotte awoke at midnight, the stars so close they seemed to fall from the sky and into her hotel room. She glanced at Kara sleeping in the next bed and thought of the line between married and single, between love and hate, between forgiveness and forgetting. Sometimes there isn’t a line; there is just the lifting of fog or the accumulation of time and knowing. But in getting married there is a moment, a definite
before
and firm
after
.

She searched her mind for a time before she loved Jimmy and after she loved Jimmy, but there was no line, and if there was she didn’t know she’d crossed it until it was behind her. Part of her wanted to go back to when she didn’t love him. But then again, love changed her and there was that.

She closed her eyes and wondered how his concert was going in New York. He’d be singing right now, or about to get onstage. She sent him the love that filled her heart and closed her eyes.

T
he plane from JFK took off for Shannon ten hours late. Passengers were irritable and hungry; children were whining and old women grumbling. The flight attendants handed out free drinks and consoled the passengers that it was better to be safe than on time.

Jimmy settled back into his window seat at the very rear of the plane, directly against the back wall of the toilets. “Lucky me,” he mumbled, and then remembered that, yes, he was lucky. This was the last seat.

The plane full and in flight, Jimmy settled back to try to sleep in a perfectly upright position with an older woman next to him, reading with her light on. He finally gave up
and looked through the in-flight magazine to see what the movie would be.

“Aye,” the woman next to him mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Jimmy asked.

She looked at him, and for the first time he noticed that her eyes were of the most brilliant green he’d ever seen. This made him smile.

“Did I speak out loud?” she asked in an Irish accent.

“Yes.”

“The movie. I’ve seen it. I was hoping for something new. This flight is so long, and after all that waiting in the airport, now I’ll barely make it home to spend any of Christmas with my husband.”

“Do you live in Ireland?” Jimmy asked, thankful now for the distraction of someone else’s life.

“I do. I was here visiting my son and grandchildren. But that’s what I get for trying to be two places at once for Christmas.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Why are you visiting our fair isle?”

“My brother, he’s getting married tomorrow.” Jimmy stared out the window. “For him I guess it’s today, because it’s morning there. It’s Christmas morning. His wedding morning.”

“Ah,” she said. “And here we are suspended in the sky.”

“Exactly.”

“Is your entire family already there?”

There was something in her eyes, in the lilt and fetch of her speech and smile that caused Jimmy to tell this old woman his
entire
story—to tell her about the song, the ring, the tour, the concert, his father, all of it, until the moment where he sat on that plane trying to get to his brother’s wedding, to the woman he loved. That’s how the long plane flight passed—in stories told and stories heard.

T
he morning arrived crisp and cold, the sky clear and the swans appearing to be dressed for the wedding, although Charlotte knew they dressed that way every morning. They were all ready, Kara’s hair pulled up with loose curls falling down her back, her mother’s veil in her hand.

The women gathered in Kara and Charlotte’s room, sipping champagne and laughing, wishing one another Merry Christmas, and taking turns using the mirror to get ready.

Kara tilted her head back to let Rosie attach the veil. “If as a child I ever imagined my wedding day, I don’t think I imagined us all cramped into a teeny hotel room sharing a single mirror and drinking champagne on Christmas Day.”