The Perfect Stranger (16 page)

“Yeah. You did. You don’t remember?”

She sighs inwardly.

“Anyway . . .” he goes on after realizing she’s chosen to ignore the question, “do you want me to come along?”

“Come
along
? To a
funeral
in
Cincinnati
?”

“Why not? I got nothing better to do this weekend.”

That, she believes.

He goes on, uncharacteristically earnest, “You might need a friend there to support you.”

You’re not my friend, Tony.

“No, thanks,” she says.

“Okay. Just thought I’d offer.”

“That’s very sweet, but I’ll be fine.”

“Is someone picking you up there when you land?”

“Yes. A
friend
.”

The word spills from her tongue with deliberate emphasis.

So what if it’s a lie?

“Who? Another ‘friend’ you’ve never met?”

She doesn’t bother to answer that.

“You know, you should be more careful, Elena,” Tony tells her. “All these strangers . . . it’s not a good idea to be so trusting. I mean . . . you said your friend was murdered . . .”

Oh, crap. Did I tell him
that,
too?

“How do you know that whoever killed Meredith isn’t going to come after you next?”

Meredith. She apparently even told him the name. What else did she tell him? Next thing she knows, he’ll be rattling off her e-mail password and bank account PIN number.

“Hey, look—“ Tony flips on the turn signal. “We made it.”

She looks up. They’ve reached the airport exit at last.

This has been the most horrific week of Beck’s entire life. But as she stands in front of the mirror in her cheerful blue and yellow childhood bedroom wearing a somber black dress, she knows the worst is yet to come.

She hasn’t been to many funerals—she barely remembers her paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother’s. Her maternal grandfather died just a few years ago, though that was hardly a heart-wrenching tragedy, as he was in his nineties.

But this . . . today . . . Mom . . .

This is going to be brutal.

How is she going to make it through the next several hours? How is she going to stand up and read a poem at the service?

One thing is for damned certain: it won’t be by leaning on Keith.

Yes, he’s been dutifully at her side these past few days. Physically, anyway.

But emotionally? He’s completely checked out. Not just checked out of the situation, but out of their marriage. If she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of it last week at this time, it’s since become abundantly clear.

And not just to her.

Her brother Neal pulled her aside last night to ask if everything is okay between her and Keith.

“What do you mean?”

He looked her in the eye. “You know what I mean, Beck.”

She shrugged. It was no wonder Neal had noticed.

Ever since Keith drove back here to talk to the cops the other day, he’s been quieter than usual, almost standoffish with visitors—and there have been many. Everyone loved Mom. The house has been full of people.

For Beck, that’s meant an endless round of hostess duties. That, in and of itself, has been a challenge.

This is her mother’s house, not hers. Mom’s kitchen, Mom’s friends. Mom was always the one who decided what to serve, which platters to use, whether to make coffee or serve cold drinks, which glassware went into the dishwasher and which had to be washed by hand . . .

Beck and her sisters-in-law always helped, of course. But Mom called the shots.

Now it’s just her. Her brothers’ wives have had their hands full looking after their little ones, who are overwhelmed just being in the house with all these people—and without Grandma.

Both Teddy and Neal have been busy talking to people, tending to details. Teddy, the numbers guy, has been handling the bills and the paperwork; hands-on Neal dealt with the logistics of cars clogging the driveway and the street, the funeral service arrangements, where to seat all the visitors . . .

Poor Dad is too shell-shocked to do anything but sit and stare as people pat him on the shoulder.

But Keith . . .

Keith has spent the last few days either hiding away upstairs or on his phone incessantly checking his e-mail or texts. That didn’t escape Neal, the more intuitive of Beck’s brothers.

Touched by the concern in his eyes when he asked her about it, Beck said, “Now isn’t a great time to get into what’s going on with me and Keith.”

“I know it isn’t,” he agreed, putting an arm around her. “But when you need to talk . . . I’m here. Okay?”

She nodded her thanks, unable to speak.

Her brother—both her brothers—have solid marriages. Teddy rekindled the flame with his high school prom date a few years after graduation and walked down the aisle with her at twenty-three; Neil wed his college sweetheart. They’ve both always made it look so easy.

Maybe that’s why she said yes when Keith proposed, though he seemed halfhearted about it and she had her reservations even then, mostly based on his mercurial moods.

She didn’t share that with anyone, though, not even her friends, or her mother. She figured everyone must have doubts but also assumed it was normal for relationships to run hot and cold. Anyway, that was the logical sequence of events, right?
Graduate high school, graduate college, get a job, get married, buy a house . . .

Have babies
is supposed to be the next step, but it looks like for her it will be
Hammer Out Separation Agreement
.

“Rebecca?” Keith pokes his head into the room as she reaches up to fasten a string of pearls around her neck. “Your father wants to know if you’re ready to go.”

“Almost.”

The funeral director asked the family to be there a couple of hours ahead of everyone else. That was the case when her grandfather died, too—but it was so they could have a private viewing of the body.

Today, with Mom, that’s not going to happen. Her body was cremated. That was Dad’s decision. He said it was what she would have wanted.

Beck isn’t so sure about that, but she wasn’t about to argue.

Her hands tremble; she struggles with the clasp on her necklace.

Keith, still standing behind her in the doorway of her room, doesn’t move to help her. Not surprising.

She wonders if he remembers that she wore these pearls on their wedding day. Mom gave them to her. Beck stumbled across them last night in a velvet case in a dresser drawer here in her bedroom, still right where she stowed them before she and Keith left on their honeymoon.

Whoever broke into the house—whoever murdered her mother—didn’t find them.

He didn’t find a lot of things you’d have expected to be stolen.

Maybe that’s why the detectives don’t seem convinced it was a just a simple robbery gone bad. They didn’t come right out and say that the other day, but Beck could read between the lines.

They suspect her father.

That they didn’t arrest him doesn’t mean they’ve ruled him out—but it doesn’t mean they haven’t.

She can only hope that after interviewing everyone in the family, including Dad himself, they realize it’s ludicrous to think he could be behind this.

But if it goes any further and the police want to talk to Dad again . . .

Beck and her brothers have been quietly discussing whether they should hire an attorney. It’s not something anyone wants to bring up to their father, but they’ve agreed that if the questioning persists after today, they should all stop talking to the detectives and get in touch with a lawyer.

Maybe they should have done it before now, but they don’t want to raise any red flags or be labeled as uncooperative. That would only complicate matters or, God forbid, seem to implicate Dad in some wrongdoing.

Finally, Beck’s shaky hands manage to fit the hook into the clasp on the pearl necklace.

“How long do you think the service will last?” Keith asks.

“I have no idea. An hour? Two?” She picks up a hairbrush.

She doesn’t turn to look at him, but she can see him reflected in the mirror. He’s wearing a dark suit, and he trimmed his beard for the occasion, but he didn’t shave the damned thing off.

She’s been asking him to do that for months, ever since he grew it. She’s never been a fan of facial hair. He knows that. So why, she wondered at first, would he grow the beard in the first place?

Because someone else in his life—someone who matters more than I do—is a fan of facial hair.

That’s the answer that makes the most sense.

“Okay. So I’ll be waiting downstairs,” Keith tells her, starting to go.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“You can leave,” she says. “After the service. If you want. You can go back to Lexington.”

She waits for him to tell her that it’s okay—that he’ll stay here another night, at least. That he won’t leave her yet.

Ever.

He doesn’t say that.

He doesn’t say anything at all, just nods and leaves the room.

Okay. So . . .

She inhales deeply, puffs it out slowly, ruffling her bangs with her own gust of breath.

Jackass.
He really is a jackass.

Beck brushes her bangs back into place, studying her own reflection in the mirror.

You look so much like your mother . . .

How many times has she heard that in her life?

But she’s never really seen it until lately. Mom had short blond hair; she has long brunette hair. Mom had dark brown eyes; hers are hazel. Mom was short and kind of round; she is tall and lanky.

And yet . . .

We do look alike.

She can finally note the resemblance in the curve of her eyebrows, the slope of her nose, the fullness of her lower lip as opposed to the slash of an upper . . .

Her image blurs with tears.

She feels around on the dresser for a tissue, keeping her eyes wide-open, not wanting her mascara to run. She’s gotten pretty good at that over the past week. As soon as you blink, it’s raccoon city.

So you don’t blink. You blot.

She finds a tissue. Dabs at her eyes. Stares at herself.

Oh, Mom.

Is this the way it’s going to be? Every time she looks into the mirror, is she going to miss her mother even more desperately?

Remember me when I am gone away . . .

That’s the first line of the Christina Georgina Rossetti poem she will be reading at the funeral. Her mother had been an English major during her fleeting college semesters before she met Dad, and she kept all her texts on the bookshelves in the den. Beck found the poem among them, one of many with the corner of the page folded down and notes scribbled in the margins. It seemed fitting.

“I wish I could talk to you, Mom,” she whispers. “I wish you could tell me . . .”

So many things.

What to do about the mess she’s made—no, Keith has made—of their marriage.

How to help Dad, not just today, but every day, going forward.

And . . .

Most importantly . . .

“Who did this to you, Mommy?”

The words escape her on a sob, just as she sees a shadow come up in the doorway.

Keith again.

“What?” she asks, high-pitched, sounding strangled.

He just looks at her.

“What?” This time she almost screams it.

“Nothing.”

He walks away without saying another word.

No first-class ticket for Jaycee this time. Not on this no-frills airline.

But at least there were plenty of seats available on the last minute flight to Cincinnati, and she has an entire row to herself.

As the plane taxis out to the runway, she pushes her sunglasses up to her hair and presses her forehead against the window, staring at the gray mist shrouding the New York skyline to the northwest.

She probably shouldn’t be doing this—flying to Cincinnati on a whim.

But when Cory showed her that newspaper, her first instinct was to escape; catch the first flight out of town. She didn’t even care where she went, as long as it was someplace between the coasts, someplace off the beaten path like . . .

Ohio?

I’m cc’ing you just in case you can join us last minute, Jaycee . . .

Browsing the last minute travel Web site, she impulsively entered Cincinnati into the search engine.

Before she could rethink the idea, she had booked a ticket on the next flight out. In the cab on the way to the airport, she used her phone to call a luxury hotel downtown as opposed to the one BamaBelle had mentioned in her e-mail—she doesn’t want to run into the others.

No? Then why are you going at all?

The truth is, she’s not sure. She just knows that she can’t stay here, and she feels as though she should be there. For now, that’s enough.

“Hi, I’m just wondering whether you have rooms available for this evening?” she said to the desk clerk at the Cincinnatian.

“Yes, we do. Would you like to make a reservation?”

“I’ll call back. Thanks.”

But no thanks. Hotel reservations need credit cards, and credit cards leave tracks. Much safer to walk in and pay cash, like she did in L.A. last week.

Maybe, when she lands, she’ll simply hole up in a suite, order room service, and spend the weekend in seclusion.

Or maybe she’ll decide to attend the memorial service for Meredith.

Maybe I owe it to her. And to myself. For everything I did wrong when it came to my connection with Meredith, in the end, I cared about her. We were friends.

One thing is certain: if she does go to the service, she’ll keep to herself. The others will never even have to know she’s there.

It’ll be just like on the Internet, where she can be shrouded in anonymity until when or if she does decide to make her presence known—or she can simply lurk, silently watching.

Bruce Mangione is quite the conversationalist. Throughout the endless wait on the runway, he keeps Landry engaged—mostly with talk of movies they both happen to have seen and books they both happen to have read.

Then, after a lull during taxi and takeoff, he asks again about her plans in Cincinnati for the weekend.