The Night I Got Lucky (21 page)

I left the bathroom and bought a few toiletries in a shop, feeling mildly comforted by the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner and moisturizer. In the next store, I bought two soft Tshirts, one in yel ow, one pink. Spring colors. I had no idea what the weather would be like in Tel uride—to be honest, I couldn’t have found Tel uride on a map if forced at gunpoint—but I knew it was mountainous, maybe cold, and so, channeling the woman with the massive suitcase, I bought a sweatshirt and a wind-breaker. Lastly, I found a tan golf visor for Chris and quickly told the clerk to add it to my bil . It seemed pathetic, that visor—a smal offering from a bad wife. But I felt driven to get him something. I wanted to carry something in my bag that showed me, in some way, that he was stil with me.

The plane to Tel uride was a tiny pop can of an aircraft. The whole thing rumbled and shook. About forty-five minutes into the flight, the pilot came over the intercom. “Those of you on the right can see the town of Tel uride. We’l be landing momentarily.”

I glanced out my window and saw the sun setting over a smal hamlet, which looked like a box of candy—a jumble of brightly colored, shingled houses. The plane swooped to the left, leaving only a russet-red sky in my plane window, then began to descend.

The Cover to Cover bookstore wasn’t closed. Instead, it glowed yel ow next to two businesses now dark for the day. A few blocks down, a hotel cal ed the New Sheridan seemed like a fairly hopping place—a few people pushing in and out of it, while shouts of laughter rang from the bar next door. I probably should have inquired earlier whether there were any rooms available. I probably should find lodging now since it was dark. But that bookstore shined too brightly.

I took a few halting steps toward it. I was as nervous as I’d ever been. I peered in the glass of the clothing store, right next to my father’s shop, trying to make out my reflection between stacks of jeans and a mannequin wearing a flowered skirt. My hair was unkempt from sleeping on the plane. I had little makeup left. This shouldn’t have mattered. A father shouldn’t care what his daughter looks like, particularly if he hasn’t seen her for over twenty years. But my father wasn’t the average dad. He was someone who scared easily. So I swiped some lipstick across my mouth, patted powder on my cheeks and drew a comb through my hair.

The door to the bookstore was old, arched and wooden. It opened with a creak. The melodic sounds of Mozart or some other classical music piped through the store. The place looked historical—the wal s at least fourteen feet high and lined with books, two library ladders on either side. In the center of the store were a few round tables piled high with books and little yel ow rectangular signs proclaiming,
New in Paperback!
or
Memoir!
or
Historical Fiction!
I wondered if the exclamation marks were my father’s idea or the influence of frizzy Lil ian. The fact that I had absolutely no idea—no clue whatsoever—about what kind of person my dad was made me sad and exhausted and impatient to see him now.

A man with blond dreadlocks stood behind the desk to the left. “Excuse me?” I said, but the words came out choked. I cleared my throat. “Sorry,” I said, wondering what I was apologizing for. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Sure,” he said, nice as can be, putting aside a paperback. “Who’s that?”

“Bran—” I managed to say. “Bran—” I tried again. Why couldn’t I say my father’s name? Why did I sound like I was in a diner asking for a muffin?

“Brandon Tremont?” the guy said, seeming a little less friendly now and a little wary of me, the strange woman with the speech impediment.

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” I said, suddenly mimicking Roslyn and her efficient style. “Is he here, please?”
This was it, this was the moment I’d imagined for years.

“No, I’m sorry. Gone for the day. Can I help you find something?”

My father,
I felt like saying.
You can find my father, my family, my husband, my life. If you could just locate that for me and ring that up, that would be great.
Instead, I swal owed hard and said, “When wil he be in?”

“He’s usual y here by 9:00 in the morning. Store opens at 10:00.”

“And Lil ian?” I’m not sure why I asked after her. Maybe I was thinking she was in the back and would take me home for a Walton-family-type reunion.

“You know Lil ian?” The blond guy leaned on the desk with a smile, his blond dreads sliding over his shoulders.

“Uh, no. No, I don’t.”

“Wel , I’m her son.”

This shocked me into momentary silence. Lil ian’s son got to work with her, live in the same town as her—as her husband,
my dad
—while Brandon Tremont’s kids had no idea what he was like, what he was doing. Until a moment ago, I hadn’t even known for certain if he was even alive. The unfairness of it squeezed my stomach, leaving me with a nauseous, resentful feeling that made my mouth suddenly taste like tin (although I suppose it could have been the eight thimbles of Chardonnay).

“You’re her son,” I said, only managing to repeat his words.

And then it hit me. He might be Brandon’s son, too. He might be my brother. He looked a little younger than me. It could easily be the case.

He held out his hand and smiled wide. His teeth were crooked but white. “I’m Kenny.”

I shook it. “Bil y Rendal ,” I said. “And your last name?”

“Gilchrist.”

I let out a huge breath I hadn’t realized was stuck in my chest. “So you’re not…”

Kenny tilted his head to the side, not understanding me.

“You’re not Brandon’s son?” I said.

“No, no. He’s my stepdad.”

Which makes you my stepbrother
. For some reason, I wanted to vault over the desk and hug him. I thought about tel ing him who I was and what I was doing there, but my father might run for the hil s if he knew I was in town. I wanted to meet him now, no matter what his story, no matter what an asshole he was. I wanted to see him and to tel him what he’d done to our family by leaving. I wanted to ask him why. And then I wanted to leave Tel uride.

I missed Chris right then. I wished I had my husband next to me.

“Do you want to leave a message for Brandon?” Kenny asked.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’l stop back tomorrow.”

As I approached the New Sheridan Hotel, two women walked past me, both pushing jogging strol ers with sleeping toddlers inside. They were talking quietly and laughing.

I opened the hotel door and watched them disappear down the street, their heads inclined together. It made me think of Tess and how, before she’d had the kids, we’d done nearly everything together. We had lived only three blocks apart in Lakeview. We talked on the phone before work, we met up for lunch, we worked out together afterward, and we usual y went carousing at night. But now we had such different lives and so little time for each other.

The desk clerk greeted me and announced that he had only a few rooms available. “You’re lucky,” he said. “If you’d come in next week, we would have been booked for the rest of the summer.”

“I thought this was a ski town.”

“Oh, it is, but summer is even better. We’ve got film festivals and jazz fests. What are you in town for? Just visiting?”

“That’s right.”
Visiting my father.

When I got up to the room, I dropped my bags and immediately cal ed Tess from my cel phone. Seeing those women had made me want to reconnect with her, even if it meant confessing my indiscretion with Evan.

“’Lo?” her son, Sammy answered. In the background, there was a clatter, then a shriek that sounded like it came from Joy, Tess’s youngest.

“Sammy, it’s Aunt Bil y. Is Mommy home?”

The phone was dropped on the floor, and I could hear Tess’s exasperated voice saying something to Sammy.

“Hel o?” she said, in a tired voice.

“It’s Bil y.”

“Hi, hon, what’s up?” She didn’t sound too interested but I could hardly blame her.

“Bath time?”

“Yep. Sammy wants to wear his red pants in the tub, so I can’t get him in and Joy doesn’t want to get out, even though the water is about as cold as Lake Michigan.”

“Oh, sweetie.”

“Don’t feel bad. This is par for the course. What’s up with you?”

Oh, not much. Just left my husband and got on a plane to find my father.

“Wel , this is kind of out of the blue,” I said, “but—”

“Sammy!” Tess screamed. “Put that down! Bil y, he’s going for my curling iron. I forgot to unplug it. I gotta go. Cal you later.”

I sat in the silence of my hotel room, praying that the gods of electrocution would spare Sammy. I thought about cal ing Chris. I wanted to hear his kind voice and tel him where I was and what I was doing, but he’d made it very clear that he would cal me when he was ready. I got out my PalmPilot and found Hadley’s number in London. I dialed but there was no answer, just a message and the voice of her husband, Nigel, in his clipped, British accent, asking me to “kindly” leave a message. I tried Dustin in San Francisco. No one home there, either. I tried her cel phone. It went immediately to voice mail.

I flopped back on the bed, wanting desperately to talk to someone, to tel someone I was here. I thought of my mom. Until recently, she was often the person I turned to when I needed a chat. But what would she think if she knew I was looking for
him?
The note I’d left at her house simply said I’d cal her soon. But I couldn’t do that now; I felt like I was cheating on her. Yet I knew being here was right. Finding my father was something I needed to do.

Then I found myself sitting up, picking up the phone again and dialing a number I barely knew, finding the digits from somewhere in the haze of my brain.

“Hola,”
someone answered.

“Is Alexa there?”

“Un momento.”

I stood and walked across the room, unsure what I was going to say to her, unsure why I was even cal ing except that I felt like talking to a friend, and she had appeared in my mind.

Alexa answered.

“Hi, it’s Bil y.”

“Hey, Bil y,” she said, and she actual y sounded pleased to hear from me. “I’m glad you cal ed. You won’t believe what I did today.”

“What?”

“I started working on a business plan for the PR firm I want to start.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, wel , we’l see. After the last time I saw you, I decided to ask for help, and I found this woman here in my community who started her own law firm, so she’s walking me through what needs to be done.”

“Wow. I am so impressed.” I held myself back from saying that I was proud, too. Proud of Alexa and the way she was turning her firing into something better for her life. It was exactly was I was trying to do. Take what the frog had brought into my life and make the best of it.

Alexa and I talked for twenty minutes about her business plan and ideas, her fear that she would never find capital to start the thing, but how she was happier working on this than she’d ever been.

“There’s just so much that has to happen if this is going to work,” she said.

“You’l do it.”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try. Enough about me. What’s up with you?”

“I’m actual y in Colorado.”

I gave Alexa an abbreviated version of my decision to look for my dad, leaving out the fact that Chris had tossed me out of the house.

“My God,” Alexa said. “This is huge for you. Shit, I’ve never even met my father.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nah, he was some white guy my mom dated many moons ago. When he found out she was pregnant, he took off.”

“Have you ever wanted to look for him?”

“No. He’s not my father—not in any true sense. My mother and my aunt and these kids over here are my family. But you grew up with your dad, right?”

“For seven years.” Seven very short years. Years that were decades ago now. Suddenly, this seemed a very rash, bad idea to be in this town.

“Bil y, you’ve got to give it a shot,” Alexa said, as if sensing my doubts. “You’ve obviously been wondering for a very long time, and now you’re there. It’s what you’ve got to do.”

Her words reminded me of Odette’s. And they were both right. It was time for me to take some action.

T
he next morning, I cal ed work and asked for Lizbeth. “I won’t be in again today,” I said. “And I’m not sure about tomorrow either.” I was supposed to fly home the next morning, and wasn’t sure what time I could make it to work.

“Stil sick?” Lizbeth asked.

“Mmm,” I murmured.

“Wel , Roslyn wants to talk to you.”

I coughed. “Lizbeth, I can’t right now. Can you just let her know I’l try to be in there by tomorrow afternoon? Thanks.”

I hung up before she could say much else, and looked at my watch—9:50 a.m. My father should be at the store now, and Cover to Cover would be open in ten minutes.

At five minutes after ten, I pushed open the door of Cover to Cover with shaking hands. Just like last night, the door creaked and then a lilting strain of classical music washed over me.

But this time, Kenny wasn’t standing at the desk to the left. This time, it was my father.

He looked even older than he had in the picture on his Web site. His hair was thinner and more gray. His chest looked slightly sunken, and he was shorter than I’d remembered. But his clothes were youthful—jeans and a brown T-shirt. His skin was tan.

He was studying something at the countertop computer, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. “Morning,” he said, stil looking at the screen. Then he looked up, directly at me.

“Good morning,” I said. I felt ridiculous, wishing my own father a formal good day.

“Can I…” But his words died away. He took off the reading glasses.

The classical music came to the end of the song, and silence fil ed the store. It was the loudest silence I’d ever heard. I struggled to find words to speak. My father seemed to be having the same problem.

“Bil y?” He said my name quietly, with a question mark at the end, but there it was. I felt jolted. How did the asshole who’d taken off recognize his youngest, the girl he hadn’t seen since she was seven?