The Perfect Stranger (15 page)

But then . . .

Why did I waste all those years trying to make her see past her resentment of me; trying to make her love me?

She had known damn well that it was futile from the time she was a kid. She should have walked out of that house the moment she turned eighteen and never looked back.

She thought of doing that. She did.

But where would she have gone? She had no plan, no college tuition, let alone money to live on campus. She’d always thought she might want to become a writer, but that was an impossible dream.

That’s what her high school English teacher told her.

A frustrated novelist himself, he said, “Don’t waste your time on anything frivolous when you have bills to pay. Get a real job and save your money, and when you’re rich, you can write all you want . . . or win the lottery. Those are your choices.”

On some level, Kay respected his blunt honesty.

On another, she hated him.

But she listened. And she stayed put.

Got a customer service job and worked her way through college at night, majoring in computer science. She was hired at the federal prison in Terre Haute right after she got her degree—hoping for an IT position, but offered one as a guard instead.

Her mother scoffed at that, scoffed at everything.

And still, Kay didn’t leave.

What was I waiting for?

Sometimes she wonders.

Other times she knows: she was waiting for her mother to have a change of heart. To apologize, maybe. To realize that the only person who’d ever been loyal to her and deserving of her love had been right there under her nose all along.

Kay stayed, and she waited, and she nursed her mother through every stage of a brutal terminal illness. But on her deathbed, as Kay moistened those cracked lips with ice chips, they still refused to utter the words she longed to hear.

Mother’s final words were for the man who had walked out on her when she found herself pregnant all those years ago.

It was his name she called with her very last breath; it was his face she saw, though Kay was right there in front of her.

She remembers the eerie sensation of her mother looking through her, as if at something—someone—over her shoulder.

“You’re here!” she said, squeezing Kay’s hand with more strength than she’d had in weeks.

“Yes, Mother, don’t worry . . .”

“You left me! Why did you leave me?”

“I didn’t leave you, Mother! I’ve been right here by your bed!”

“Why?” Tears were rolling down her mother’s cheeks now. “Why? I needed you so, and you left . . .”

“But I didn’t! I didn’t, and I won’t!” Kay was crying, too.

The hospice volunteer who had come to stand beside Kay rested a hand on her shoulder and whispered, “She’s not talking to you, dear. It’s all right.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s common. I’ve seen this happen many times. At the end . . . sometimes, they see . . . loved ones.”

“She’s hallucinating?”

The woman hesitated, then shrugged and said again, “It’s common.”

Kay nodded, lips pressed together to keep them from trembling. She felt her mother holding her hand, squeezing it. Stared at her mother, who was looking right at her, but not seeing her. Saw her mother’s eyes squint a little.

“You came back for me, Paul! I knew you would . . . yes, I’m ready. I’m ready. What is that light? . . . Oh . . . Oh, yes. Yes, let’s go.”

Those were her last words.

Kay held her hand until it grew cold.

“All right, here we are . . .” The waitress is back with her coffee and orange juice, plus biscuits.

With real butter.

Meredith would approve.

Kay’s phone buzzes in her pocket as she breaks open a biscuit.

She pulls it out and sees that there’s a text from Landry.

Boarding flight to Cincy now. Delayed. Will call when I get to hotel.

Kay quickly texts back,
OK, safe flight.

Replacing her phone in her pocket, she feels relieved. That just bought her a little more time before they have to meet. Maybe by the time Landry arrives, she’ll feel ready.

If she doesn’t . . .

There’s no turning back now.

Jaycee steps out of the elevator in the marble lobby of her building wearing a sleeveless black summer dress, large hat, and dark sunglasses, carrying the kind of oversized designer purse the women in this neighborhood use to carry as little as a cell phone and lipstick or as much as a change of clothes, a small dog, laptop, and umbrella.

Mike the doorman is at his post, leaning on the security desk with a newspaper open in front of him. Either it’s not the
Post,
or he hasn’t yet read his way to page eight, or he really doesn’t know her true identity after all. The apartment isn’t listed in her name—in any of her names. Discretion is the name of the game in a building like this. That’s why she lives here.

Whatever the case, Mike doesn’t bat an eye when he spots Jaycee.

“ ’Morning,” he says, going to open the door for her. “Need a cab?”

“No, thanks.” She steps out onto the sidewalk, noting that the sky is starting to cloud over.

But she leaves the hat and sunglasses on, as always.

“Have a nice day,” Mike calls after her, and she gives a little wave as she walks toward Fifth.

She turns a corner, another corner, and another, leaving her neighborhood behind. Despite the threat of rain, the streets are crowded as always: dog walkers, tourists headed for the Metropolitan museum, young families bound for the park with strollers, trikes, and training wheels. No one gives her a second glance.

Fellow New Yorkers rarely do; too caught up in the daily tribulations of maneuvering through their own daily lives in this challenging city. Naturally, she stays away from tourist haunts where gawkers might be more prevalent; stays away from public places in general. For years she rarely even left her apartment. But that’s become harder and harder to do lately, thanks to Cory.

He insists that he has her best interests in mind, and she supposes that’s true. She can’t stay hidden away forever. It’s why, for the past eighteen months or so, she’s been laying the groundwork for—

In her bag, her phone buzzes, vibrates. She ignores it.

Probably Cory. He left half an hour ago, on his way to the gym.

“Just lay low. I’ll check in this afternoon,” he told her.

“No need. I’ll be fine.”

“You,” he said, “are never really fine when it comes to this stuff. And I know you well enough to know that is especially true today.”

She didn’t argue with that. It is true, but even if it wasn’t . . .

It’s just easier, she’s discovered, to let Cory think he knows her better than anyone.

“Better than you know yourself,” he once had the audacity to claim.

Not true at all.

If he really knew her, he’d realized she wasn’t about to lay low, trapped in her high rise for a day, a weekend, or God knows how long until the latest storm blows over.

If he really knew her, he’d expect her to escape.

Yes. When the going gets tough, the tough get going . . . literally. She’s been doing it all her life.

On Lexington Avenue in the Sixties, Jaycee steps to the curb, turns to face oncoming traffic, and raises her arm to hail a cab.

A yellow taxi promptly pulls over.

She opens the door and climbs in.

“Where to?” the cabbie asks as he starts the meter.

“JFK.” She leans back in the seat, clutching her bag on her lap.

Reaching Out

The first time my blog went live, I remember feeling totally alone, envisioning the void beyond my laptop. I was writing extremely personal stuff, things I might never mention to anyone in real life, face-to-face, yet there it was, heading out to . . . where?

Somewhere.

I guess deep down I was hoping someone might find it. But I doubted it, and knowing no one was reading made it easier to keep going. It was very liberating, writing about the day cancer changed my life or how exposed I felt at the hands (literally) of my surgeons or the difficulties keeping my job at the prison a priority.

Then one day it happened: a stranger—a reader—commented on my blog. And then another one did. And another. Each comment that said I was understood, justified, and among friends lifted my load bit by bit until somewhere along the way I got my brain back. It was no longer jam-packed with thoughts of cancer, but slowly, the real things that make up my life filtered back in.

Would that have happened simply with the passage of time? Would that have happened without all of you? I don’t think so. Sharing freed me from cancer’s hold. Discovering and connecting with an amazingly supportive and caring online community did that and more in ways I never thought possible.

—Excerpt from Kay’s blog,
I’m A-Okay

Chapter 7

“Need a hand with your bag?”

Landry turns to see her handsome friend from the gate area standing right behind her in the narrow aisle of the plane, gesturing at her rolling bag.

“Oh . . . that’s okay, I . . .”

“Which seat are you in?”

“Right there, 12C. Aisle.”

He’s already picking up her bag, lifting it into the overhead bin above her seat.

“Thank you,” she says, sitting down.

“No problem.” He turns to lift his own bag into the bin just opposite, then settles into seat 12D, directly opposite. What a coincidence.

As the rest of the passengers board, obscuring her view across the aisle, she texts Rob to let him know that she’s on the plane at last. The flight delay was extended—twice—meaning they’re now going to land almost three hours late. She’ll be lucky if she has time to drop her bag at the hotel before the memorial service starts.

Okay, call me when you land. Love you,
Rob texts back immediately, probably still out on the golf course.

She sends back a little sideways text heart the way Addison showed her, using the < and the 3 key. Then she texts Kay and Elena to let them know what time she lands.

She’d already texted them both earlier, after the second delay was announced. Neither has responded so far, but maybe—

“Ladies and gentlemen, the cockpit door is now closed,” the flight attendant announces. “Please turn off and put away all electronic devices.”

So much for hearing from her friends before she gets to Cincinnati.

The plane jerks as it begins to roll away from the gate. Landry puts her phone into her pocket and leans back. The two people beside her—a young couple occupying the window and middle seat—are whispering to each other.

Unfortunately, she already finished all the magazines Addison gave her, along with the newspaper she picked up back in the airport. Her only other reading material is digital—meaning she can’t access it until they’re in the air and the flight attendants green-light electronic devices again. She looks in the seat pocket for the airline magazine—does this airline even publish a magazine?—and finds just a barf bag and safety card.

Nothing to do but stare at the illuminated
FASTEN SEAT BELT
sign in the row in front of her.

Until her friend across the aisle asks, “So what’s in Cincinnati? Family? Friends?”

“Friends,” she says simply. “You have family there?”

He nods. “It’s my hometown. I lived there until I retired last year.”

“
Retired?
You’re
retired
?”

“I’m youthful for being in my late sixties, don’t you think?”

“I . . . um . . .” She could have sworn he was in his mid-forties or so.

He laughs. “I’m just kidding.”

“You’re not retired?”

“Oh, I’m retired. But I’m not in my sixties—or even my fifties. Yet. I retired at forty-eight. That’s the upside of being a cop.”

So he’s still older than he looks—but not that much older.

“How about you?” he asks.

“Me? I’m not a cop. Or retired. Or in my fifties. Yet.”

He grins at the quip and points a finger at her. “Quick. Very quick. I like that.”

She can’t help but smile. This isn’t flirting, though. Absolutely not.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m . . . a writer.”

Really? Where did that come from?

“What do you write?”

“A blog. I’m a blogger, really.”

“A blogger is a writer. So you’re a writer.”

Gratified, she smiles. “Right. And I’m a mom. Mostly a mom. And a wife,” she adds hastily.

“Wife . . . mom . . . blogger . . . writer. Got it.” He nods. “What do you blog about?”

She hesitates. “You know . . . my family . . . my husband, my kids, I have two kids . . .”

Cancer, I have cancer . . .

Had. Had cancer.

The intercom clicks on and the flight attendant launches into the safety demonstration.

Saved by the bell.

Thrusting her feet into a pair of black flats, Elena holds the bedpost with one hand to keep her balance, while fumbling through the clutter on the adjacent dresser top with the other hand. Her cell phone is here, thank God—imagine if she’d lost that? Although the battery is run way down. Ordinarily, she charges it overnight; clearly, last night she wasn’t in any condition to—

The toilet flushes in the bathroom.

Reminded that she’s not alone, Elena closes her eyes, bracing herself.

She hears the water run just long enough for hand-splashing, not hand-washing—and then the bathroom door opens and Tony reappears in her bedroom.

At least now he’s clothed from the waist down—unlike when he got out of her bed ten minutes ago. Rather, when she kicked him out.

“What are you looking for?” he asks.

“My keys.”

“I have them.”

She looks up. Seeing him standing there, in her bedroom, half naked—there are so many things she wants to say. But she has a flight to catch, and there’s no time for anything other than a strained, “Why do you have them?”

“Did you really think I let you drive home last night?”

That gives her pause. Dammit.

“So you drove my car?”

“You don’t remember?”

Clenched, she shakes her head.
Dammit, dammit dammit . . .

In a way, she’s grateful to have forgotten pretty much everything that happened last night after the toasts. That’s probably a blessing.

On the other hand, it’s dangerous, she knows, in more ways than she can count, to have drunk herself into oblivion—again.

“I didn’t drive your car,” Tony tells her, sounding almost smug. “I drove
my
car. With you in it. You honestly don’t remem—”

“Where’s my car, Tony?”

“At the restaurant, where you left it. Where do you think it would—”

“At the
restaurant
? Are you kidding me?”

“Relax. I can drive you to—”

“I don’t have time for this! I have to get to the airport!”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

She closes her eyes, seething.

Mine. It’s my fault.

But I hate him even more than I hate myself.

Elbow on the arm of her seat, chin in hand, Landry focuses on the flight attendant standing in the aisle. She listens—well, pretends to listen, because it would be impolite not to—as though she’s never heard the safety spiel before in her life.

“ . . . keep in mind the nearest exit may be behind you . . . in the event of a water landing . . . loss of cabin pressure . . .”

She remembers the first flight she took after her cancer diagnosis, to Saint Thomas for her sister-in-law Mary Leigh’s Christmas wedding in the Virgin Islands. She recalls thinking, as the crew was going through the safety drill, that at least when you’re on a plane and a life-threatening situation pops up, you’ve been told exactly what to do.

But if you have the misfortune, as you’re going about your daily business, to be struck out of the clear blue sky with a life-threatening illness . . .

Well, then you’re completely on your own. There is no plan. No escape chute, no flotation device.

She blogged about that later; wrote about cancer as if it were an airline journey, with mock in-case-of-emergency instructions. It was a clever post, one of her first that generated lots of appreciative comments.

The safety presentation concludes, and the flight attendants go back to preparing for takeoff as the plane joins the endless line of other delayed aircraft inching toward the runway. The worst weather has passed—for now—but a stormy day is forecast here.

Actually, there was unsettled weather along the entire East Coast. She overheard other passengers talking back in the gate area. One was trying to connect to Philadelphia, another to Hartford.

Wondering whether Elena will be able to fly out as planned, Landry gazes past her row mates, noting the still-gray sky beyond the portal. Then the man in the window seat abruptly pulls the shutter down, obliterating her view.

She looks around for another portal and once again makes eye contact with the man across the aisle.

“So where do you live in Alabama?” he asks.

She keeps the answer vague: “Baldwin County.”

“Me too. Gulf Shores. Right on the beach.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. Alabama is the best place in the world to retire, did you know that?”

“Is that a statistic?”

“No. Opinion. Mine. My wife wanted to go to Florida, but I won that battle. I don’t win many, believe me. But that was the important one.”

Wife—so he has a wife. She relaxes at last. He’s just a nice, friendly guy making conversation to pass the time. Nothing more.

“You’re not that far from Florida,” she points out. “The panhandle, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, my wife was thinking Boca. She has family there. Too fancy for my blood. Hers too—but she wouldn’t admit it.”

“How does she like Alabama?”

“Loves it. What’s not to love? Can’t beat the weather, or the friendly people, or the tax breaks.”

“So you’re both retired?”

“Not exactly. The wife’s in real estate, so she got licensed down there, and I’m licensed down there, too.”

“To do what?”

“Pack a pistol,” he says with a grin. “What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just kidding around. Well, not about the gun license. But it’s just for my job.” He reaches into his pocket, takes out his wallet, passes her a white business card. “Here. In case you ever need me. You never know.”

She looks down.

BRUCE
MANGIONE, PRIVATE IN
VESTIGATOR AND PERSO
NAL SECURITY

“No, you never know,” she agrees, and tucks the card into her bag.

“I can’t believe you’re spending all this time and money to go to a funeral for a perfect stranger,” Tony tells Elena as they barrel along interstate 93 toward Logan Airport.

“She’s not a stranger. She’s a friend. One of the closest friends I—”

“You never even met her!”

“So? I have plenty of friends I’ve never met.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just . . .”

He doesn’t bother to complete the comment, and Elena isn’t about to ask him to.

Jaw set, she keeps her head turned toward the passenger’s window, eyes fixated on the suburban landscape flashing past against an overcast sky.

Anything is better than looking at Tony.

Whenever she thinks about last night, she cringes. Of all the one night stands she’s ever had—and there have been plenty, more than she remembers—this is by far the worst. She doesn’t even like the man. How the hell did she end up bringing him home?

Oh, come on. You can guess, can’t you?

After a few too many glasses of wine, the usual loneliness and bad judgment set in . . .

That’s how it usually happens—more and more often, it seems.

You try to fill the gaping void left by your mother’s death, or your father’s neglect, or your own illness, or . . .

Who knows what really lies at the root of her problems? The only thing that’s certain is that she feels empty inside; has felt empty for a long time now. Most of her life, but the real problem started when she got sick.

So she tries to fill the emptiness with booze, and empty talk, and meaningless sex . . .

Tony Kerwin. For God’s sake.

When are you going to learn?

Sometimes, the morning-after haze is frustrating, and she struggles to piece together the events of the evening before. But in this case, she realizes, amnesia might actually be a blessing.

“So you said this woman is someone you got to know online?” Tony asks.

“Did I?”

“Last night.”

“Oh.”

Maybe amnesia isn’t a blessing.

What else did I say to him last night?
she wonders nervously.
How much does he know about Meredith—and the others? About me?

“Did you ever even talk to her on the phone?” Tony asks.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t get it.”

She shrugs and gestures at the car in front of them. “You might want to back off that guy’s bumper.”

“I thought you were in a hurry.”

“I’d like to get there alive. Back off, okay? Please?”

He ignores her.

Damn him.

Thank goodness the school year is almost over. Another few weeks and she won’t have to see him again until fall. By then this will have blown over.

That she was forced to accept a ride to the airport from him is beyond maddening, but what choice did she have? There wasn’t time to collect her own car from the restaurant parking lot, nor even time to arrange for a car service. Her only option was to let Tony drive her—or miss the flight.

Even now that might happen. She steals a quick glance at the dashboard clock. They’re cutting it really close. Maybe the tailgating is okay after all.

“What time does your flight get back into Logan tomorrow?” he asks.

“Why?”

“So that I can pick you up.”

Pick her up? Does he think . . . does he think this is—that they are . . . a
thing
?

“Oh—that’s okay. I’ll get a cab.”

“To Northmeadow? I don’t think so.”

“I meant a car service. I’ll get a car service.”

“That’ll cost a fortune. I’ll pick you up.”

“I don’t get back until late.” She’s trying to remember what time the flight is. Six? Seven? She can always pull the reservation out of her bag and check it, but . . .

It doesn’t matter. He’s not picking her up.

“I think . . . not until eleven, maybe midnight,” she tells Tony. “Too late.”

“That’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“No, don’t pick me up. Really. Please.”

“Please?” he echoes. “I’m trying to do you a favor and you’re begging me not to? Okay. Whatever.”

Great. Now he’s hurt. Or pissed off. Both, apparently.

Do you really care how he feels?

“Listen,” he says after a long pause, “about this Cincinnati thing—”

“Did I tell you it was Cincinnati?” She could have sworn she’d just said Ohio earlier, when she was rushing around trying to get ready to leave.