Baggage Check (31 page)

“Honestly?” Jake said, “I can. I think you'd be good at it. Of all people, you know how hard things can be at that age.”

Rebecca stared at the black linen napkin on her plate.

“But she doesn't want to move to the middle of nowhere,” Marci said. “And he didn't even have the courage to ask her to her face. Who puts their whole relationship on the line with a sticky note? He might as well have proposed to her via text message.”

“He didn't propose,” Rebecca said. “I don't even know if that's what he meant. It just said ‘stay.'”

“See? The guy just asked her to stay,” Jake said. “That could mean anything.”

“Well, it freaked her out. Besides, how could she stay?” Marci said. “Her life is here: her apartment, her job, the Junior League, her friends
who are supposed to be supportive of her choices.…”
She said this last part through gritted teeth. Clearly they had talked about this before.

“Anyway, it doesn't matter,” Rebecca said, cutting them off and sounding far more sure of herself than she felt. “I couldn't stay, I didn't want to stay, and now the Alex Chen chapter of my life is over. And I'm fine.”

She stood and made her way to the edge of the dance floor, where Dylan and Suzanne were dancing to “Fire and Rain,” sung by the actual, real James Taylor, who was actually, really in the room. She hoped she had outgrown her desire to be rich and famous, but she still had to admit it had its benefits. When Dylan and Suzanne glided past her, laughing at each other, however, she saw that their happiness had nothing to do with anything but being together. In spite of all her complaining about the wedding, Suzanne seemed to genuinely be enjoying her moment in the spotlight.

As the weeks had worn on, Rebecca was finding that her familiar routine made her listless, rather than comfortable. She was moody at work, and edgy with everyone. More than once she called Valerie over to deal with a difficult passenger, because she could feel the frustration mounting and knew her job would be at risk if she exploded.

Her luxury one-bedroom apartment overlooking the city felt more solitary than ever. Despite being surrounded once again by polished granite, stainless steel, and the hum of the busy city, Rebecca felt an odd yearning for her father's sparse bungalow in the woods with its cheap furniture and empty refrigerator. When Richard had called to let her know that her childhood home had been sold to a young music minister and his wife, Rebecca was surprised that her first thought had not been for the years spent in the white house with the green shutters. It had been for the last night spent in the crappy little rental. And Alex, unbuttoning her flannel shirt.

What Rebecca had told Jake and Marci was technically true: Alex was not returning her calls or texts. What she preferred not to say was that there was a strong possibility she had brought this on herself. The morning she left for Atlanta, and found Alex's note on her suitcase, she had panicked. Instead of waiting to talk to him, as a normal person might do, she had sent him a hurried text before pulling out of the driveway. “Thank you for last night. You're an amazing friend.”

Even though she had intended this to be a noncommittal half step forward, the hours that clicked by that Saturday without a response from Alex made her realize her text may have sounded a bit dismissive. When she had not heard from him by midnight, she debated texting again to clarify what she meant. But what
had
she meant? What did she want from Alex? It seemed like too much to work out at midnight, and too late for a follow-up text.

So she had waited. Sunday morning had turned into Sunday afternoon. As she unpacked, laundered, pressed, and prepped to resume work Monday morning, she checked her phone every ten minutes. She vacillated between being irritated with Alex for not bothering to get back to her and annoyed with herself for being romantically inept. And also, completely terrified. Either Alex would get in touch and they would move forward, or he would not and she might never see him again. Both ideas scared the hell out of her.

 

35

The week after Suzanne's wedding, Rebecca sat with Valerie at a Chili's in the St. Louis airport, pushing a salad around her plate.

“Val, do you know anything about Southern Air?”

“A little. Why?”

“I was just curious if you knew anyone who worked for them.”

“A few. They seem like a good airline, but they don't do much from Atlanta. Most of their crews are based in Birmingham.”

“I know. I was considering a change of scenery.”

“To Birmingham? Why?”

Rebecca shrugged.

“For that guy? What's his name? Alan?”

“Alex. And, no. Not for him. At least not entirely. I just feel I need to try something different for a while.”

“He lives in Birmingham?”

“Not exactly. He lives a half hour away.” It was more like forty minutes, she knew, but why quibble?

“Be careful, kid. Give up too much at the front end of a relationship, and a man will walk all over you.”

“I don't even know if there is still a relationship there to give anything up for,” Rebecca said. “He hasn't called me in weeks.”

“So you're thinking of changing jobs and moving cities to get closer to a guy who you're not even dating? I know I said you needed to make yourself more available, but this is a little extreme, don't you think?”

Rebecca laughed. “Well, not just that. I think I've needed a change for a while. I feel like I need a fresh start.”

Her mentor stared at her. “This doesn't sound like you, kid.”

“I know. But, maybe that's a good thing.”

Valerie took a bite of her hamburger and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, what the hell do I know anyway? I've been married six times.”

“
Six?
I thought it was more like four.”

“Well, I guess you weren't
technically
wrong. Two were to the same man so that could count as one, and one of them wouldn't be legally recognized in most countries anyway.”

“You are going to have to tell me that story sometime.”

“Our break is way too short for that, doll. Maybe if we get put on the route to Indonesia we'll have enough time to kill in the air that I could cover it. Before you move to Birmingham, that is.”

“I didn't say I was moving there. I said I was thinking about it.”

“Fair enough.”

They finished their meal in silence, and Valerie excused herself to the ladies' room before preboarding started back to Atlanta in fifteen minutes. Rebecca saw that she had missed a call from her dad earlier in the day and dialed him back.

“Hey, Rebecca,” he said. He sounded tired. She realized he had not called her Rockstar in a while.

“Hi, Daddy. What's up?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I put a check in the mail for you today.”

“A check?”

“Yeah, I thought about it, and with me and Sonia getting married, we both decided to try to wrap things up financially, you know.…”

She did not know. “Sure?”

“With all the work you did on the house, when your mother and I sold it last month, we decided you should get my half. It's not much, but I think you should have it. Neither of us needs it, and I would feel better knowing you had some money of your own. You shouldn't have to rely on anyone.”

“Oh. I don't know what to say. Thanks, Dad.”

He's passing on the fatherly stuff he doesn't want hanging over him,
she thought.
This is money he never had to spend on a wedding.

“The other thing,” he went on, “I wanted to let you know that Cory's record will probably be broken next Friday night.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they've got this kid, Holden Murray, who's really good. The coach called to ask if I could be at the game next week, because they're thinking he'll break the record then unless he gets injured or something. It's also homecoming.”

How appropriate,
she thought. “You're going?”

“Yes. They're going to give Cory some kind of posthumous award. I wondered if you would like to accept it with me?”

“Sure,” she said. “I'll check the schedule. Do you think any of Cory's teammates will be there?”

“I'm sure Roger Simon will, and John Boozer is still in town.”

“What about Alex Chen?” She tried to sound casual.

“Not sure. I haven't talked to him since he moved,” her dad said.

“Moved?”

“Yeah. He finally got a job he'd been waiting on for over a year with the Birmingham PD. It's better pay, and he's closer to his daughter in Leeds. I thought you guys had sorta become friends. You haven't talked to him?”

“Not recently,” she said. Her dad didn't need to know the details, she decided.

“Well, yeah. He sold the Pickney Place a couple of weeks ago to a big family with a bunch of kids. Let me know if you can be there Friday.”

“Okay, Dad.” She started to hang up, and then thought of something. “Hey, did you call Mom?”

“Yeah, honey. I did. I don't think she can make it. I'm sorry.”

“No, that's fine. Probably for the best.”

When they hung up, she went to the terminal by the nearest gate to pull up her flight schedule and verified that she was off the following Friday and Saturday. She glanced at the clock and saw she had just enough time to call her friends before preboarding began.

Late that night, when she finally dragged her wheeled carry-on bag down the hall to her apartment, Rebecca was surprised to find a large package outside her door. She had not ordered anything recently, and her heart jumped as she thought immediately of Alex. Could it be a peace offering in their silent standoff?

It had been nearly five weeks since she left Alabama with a text message. What had begun as uncertainty on her part had now hardened into prideful stubbornness. By the time she'd been able to admit to herself—at least somewhat—that she'd screwed up her goodbye and desperately wanted to talk to Alex, he refused to answer or return her calls. His continued silence intensified her sense that a simple apology and explanation was not going to cut it.

But this could be something, she thought, as she carried the package through her door. This could be the gesture that he intended to end their stalemate. It was about two feet wide and almost as tall, just three inches thick. As she went to the kitchen drawer for scissors, she wondered what he could have sent. She found the edge of a canvas and pulled it out, bringing with it scores of little foam packing peanuts. Rebecca tried hard not to notice the mess they were making on her kitchen floor.

It took only a few seconds to realize that the package was not from Alex, but Rebecca's eyes filled with tears anyway. The painting was on a sixteen-by-twenty-inch canvas, and she recognized the image immediately. She had come across this photograph while cleaning her mother's house.

Rebecca had been about five years old, she guessed. Her hair was still streaked honey blond, before it had become a true uniform brown a couple of years later. Sunlight glinted off her hair and she was surrounded by the greenery of the backyard.

In the original photograph, which was presumably snapped by her father, you could see that she and Cory had been playing with a garden hose. Cory seemed to be chasing her with the hose; his seven-year-old boy face was beaming with mischief in the nearby background. But Rebecca had run, squealing or laughing or both, into her mother's arms. The shutter had clicked just as she reached sanctuary, and caught both of them in profile. Rebecca's face wore the uninhibited joy only a child can experience, and her mother's expression was a subtler version of the same emotion.

Lorena had painted a masterful close-up of this section only, just their two faces, so that it was hard to tell if the two figures were actually touching in the space beyond the canvas. Rebecca tried to envision the original but could not remember whether their arms were linked, or if they were still reaching for each other. The portrait was unsigned, but on the back frame, her mother had painted a tiny inscription. “You are my sunshine. Always. Love, Mom.”

Even though it was nearly 10
P.M
., Rebecca decided the neighbors would forgive her eventually. And if they didn't, she was never here anyway. She left her suitcase in the middle of the floor and went to find her hammer and level to hang the first piece of custom artwork she had ever owned.

 

36

It happened within the first two minutes of the game. Holden Murray caught the snap, took a few unobstructed steps backward, and threw a pass forty-seven yards downfield to break Cory Williamson's record by thirteen yards. Jake squeezed Rebecca's hand on one side, and Suzanne—fresh from her honeymoon and disgustingly tan—on the other. Marci sat on the other side of Jake and covered her eyes when he threw the pass, as though it were a scene in a horror movie she could not bear to watch.

When the pass was caught, the crowd went wild, filling the stadium with a cacophony of sound for several minutes before the officials on the field could restore order. Holden Murray accepted high fives and chest bumps from his teammates, but otherwise seemed more interested in huddling for the next play than basking in his achievement. Without ever having met him, Rebecca liked him for this.

At halftime, there was a short ceremony on the field commemorating Cory Williamson as the holder of the record for nineteen years. Rebecca and her father stood on the field to accept a plaque from the principal and the athletic director, the latter of whom was also the head football coach. Behind them gathered about ten members from the 1996–97 varsity football team, most of whom were now showing signs of expansion around the middle. But they could still get into their old jerseys, and they stood at attention behind the folding chairs that had been brought to the field for Rebecca and Richard. They included Roger Simon, John Boozer, Will Caterman, and, she noticed at a glance, Alex Chen.