A phone rang in another part of the house. “Yours?” Bill asked. She shook her head no. Hers was still in her purse.
Teresa walked in with a phone to her ear. “Karen’s still here, and Bill too.”
“You two know each other?” Karen looked at Bill.
“Of course, Teresa’s our cleaning lady.”
“Amelia needs to talk . . .” As Teresa said that, Karen reached toward her to take the phone. “. . . to you, Bill.” Teresa handed him the phone.
WTF. No one wants to talk to me today! What am I, persona non grata? She leaned on the back of a chair, her mouth sandpaper dry, not sure she’d be able to speak even if she had to. She needed water but would be damned if she’d leave Bill alone in a conversation with Amelia. Karen grabbed his arm and led him to the kitchen. She didn’t offer anything to Bill or Teresa, who was back doing whatever cleaning ladies do.
“Oh, thank God,” Bill said and then started “yup-ing” and “okaying” and nodding as if Amelia could see him. He gestured to Karen to get him something to write with, so she pulled a purple ballpoint out of the small desk drawer. He looked at her as if to say, “Now, what am I supposed to do with this?” Taking the not-so-subtle hint, she slid a pad of paper embossed with the letter K on top that she’d found in another desk drawer and chuckled inwardly. Most likely Bill would think it referred to her. She knew the truth.
She peered over his shoulder, trying to read his chicken scratch. All she could make out was a K and two As with a bunch of phone numbers.
“Who’s that? Who you calling?” Karen pointed to the notepad.
“I’ll try Kassie first. Then Annie if I can’t reach her. She might still be in Italy.” Bill ended the call.
“Who’s the other A you wrote there?”
“Amelia. So we can keep in touch.”
“Why call Kassie?”
“The hospital wants Kassie notified. She’s his next of kin,” Bill said as Teresa joined them in the kitchen.
“Why not me? I’m his fiancée. She’s estranged—”
“Miss Kassie not strange. . . .” Teresa butted in.
“You’re right about that.” Bill added insult to injury as he gave Teresa back her phone and switched to his own. “Kassie would want to know what’s up with Mike.”
Karen exhaled loudly through her nose, as dogs do when they’re settling down for a nap. She shoved her hands in her pockets and stared at the floor.
“Here, I think these belong to you. . . .” Karen pulled out what was left of the mangled Red Sox tickets, pitched them onto the kitchen counter, and took her leave.
28
There’ll Always Be Paris
“Mike? This better be good. What happened? Is he dead?” Bad Kassie was AWOL. This was vintage Kassandra O’Callaghan at her finest.
“No, no. He’s in the hospital. Heart attack, Annie thinks.”
“Annie?”
Chris painstakingly took her through his morning. After she left, he’d showered and dressed, and thought he’d write a bit—their reunion and Paris inspired him so—but he couldn’t write because she had his journal. Instead he opted for a stroll around the neighborhood and stopped at a café for coffee, where he picked up Tuesday’s Le Monde.
Will I ever be able to read a French newspaper? Time will tell.
Kassie nudged him to keep going. She needed to know—about Mike, not about his minute-by-minute morning itinerary.
In no apparent rush, Chris said in the short hour he was at the café, he counted as many as sixteen—sixteen, mind you—people enter with their very well-behaved dogs of every shape and size and color. “Parisians do love their dogs. I love dogs. Maybe we should get a dog, Kassie. What do you think?”
“We already have a cat. Have you forgotten?”
“Such a gorgeous day for dog walking, n’est-ce pas? Before Uber, I did that as a business for a while,” Tanya interjected. Kassie’s sunglasses masked her eye roll. Meow. Maybe her next act will be in the circus. Welcome back, Bad Kassie.
“Come on, Chris . . . Annie.”
“Oh, yeah. I digress.” Chris held up his phone, reminding her that he’d shut it down when they were at dinner the night before at the Eiffel Tower and didn’t have it with him at the café, as there was no reason to. It was off, and he’d intended to keep it that way throughout the week. So no one could reach him. He’d kept an eye on a clock at the café to be sure he returned to the hotel by noon, expecting she’d be back from her meeting by then. As he headed for the stairs back at the hotel, the concierge flagged him down and handed him an envelope. Because it was marked for the two of them, he opened it. If only her name was on it, he wouldn’t have.
Kassie lifted her closed eyes toward the roof of the car and shook her head ever so slightly. Spare me.
“It was a message from Annie to call her right away. So I did. Good thing I didn’t wait for you. If I had, we wouldn’t be able to make the evening flight home.”
“Goddamn it, Chris, what did she say? You are so dramatic. Just like your mother.”
“Sarah? Rich, yes. Dramatic, not so much.”
“No, the other one.”
Chris nodded, likely in agreement, and stared out the window.
“Well . . . Annie said what?” Kassie stamped her foot.
Chris prattled on about Bill calling Annie looking for Kassie at some ungodly hour before sunrise. So early, in fact, she said Topher—see, he hadn’t forgotten—was still curled up on Kassie’s bed. Annie said Bill apologized for waking her; he was really trying to reach Kassie, but her phone was turned off.
“I explained to Annie that my phone was off because I didn’t want anything to distract me from you, and that you had done the same. Essentially, we were off the grid, getting to know each other again. I think she knew what I meant because she laughed. Anyway, you were at a meeting. Of course, she didn’t know anything about your meeting with Mimi, but since we were long distance, I decided that was a story you could tell her yourself.”
“I appreciate that. Go on.”
Chris said when Annie told Bill she wasn’t home, he asked if Annie knew how he could reach her.
“Oh my God. Did she tell him about us . . . being in Paris . . . together?”
Chris kissed the back of her left hand; her wedding band hit him squarely across the nose. “No, our secret is safe for the time being. After I talked to Annie, I checked my phone. Both Bill and Karen had called. Their only message was to call them back, which of course I didn’t do. Everyone in the office thinks I’m on the West Coast, three time zones and three thousand miles in the opposite direction.”
“Why would they think that?”
“A red herring, my love.”
“Good move. So, then what did she say?”
Chris said Annie told Bill that Kassie was still in Europe. She could reach her if there was a rational reason to do so. It would have to be something extremely important for her to interrupt her vacation. That’s when Bill told her Mike had been rushed to Boston Clinic. An apparent heart attack. Mild. Resting comfortably.
“If he’s resting comfortably, why do we have to go back to Boston? More than likely he’ll be released before we land at Logan. You know they don’t keep folks very long in hospitals these days.”
“Unless they’re there for observation.”
Kassie gulped as a vision flashed through her mind of the fateful Easter weekend the year before when she’d learned about Mike’s kidney disease and his love child, which happened to be sitting right next to her at that moment. Keeping Mike for observation that life-changing weekend spiraled into a hot mess they were still recovering from.
“There’s probably nothing we can do, Chris. Anyway, he’s probably got Karen doting on him,” she said, not anxious to insert herself squarely in Mike’s life when she’d gone through hell to escape it.
“You’re kidding, right? Nothing we can do?”
“Do I sound callous? It’s already Tuesday. We’ll be home
Saturday, just four days from now. We’ve only started to explore Paris. We didn’t even get to the Louvre.”
“Like Notre-Dame, the Louvre isn’t going anywhere. We can come back.”
Kassie raised her eyebrows, ready to say something about the real possibility of returning to Paris, but covered her mouth with her trusty invisible duct tape. No way was she going to tell Chris her news with Blondie sharing their air space.
“I have to go back to take care of the business.”
She tilted her head away from him. “The business? Now who’s callous? You’re going back, interrupting our trip, because of the business? Not because your father had a mild heart attack?”
“Who knows how long he’ll be laid up. As long as he is, I’ll be running the show.”
“What about Bill? He’s there. He can handle everything at least until next week, if we stay.”
“I’m needed there. We’ve got our lanes. Bill’s operations. I manage the rest—business development, client engagement . . .”
As Chris rambled on about how important he was to a company he’d only joined a year ago—as a very junior partner, no less—Kassie glanced at the engagement ring. A nail. In a coffin? Whose, she wondered. She was saved from her dark thoughts as Tanya pulled alongside the airport terminal. Demonstrating this wasn’t her first rodeo, Tanya deftly unloaded their suitcases, gave them each a hug and air kisses, and sent them on their way.
Always the gentleman, Chris placed his hand on the small of Kassie’s back, guiding her through the sliding doors to the airline terminal.
“Hey, by the way, how was your day, honey?”
29
Culture Shock
Kassie gave up and threw her hands in the air. Standing in lines was something she decided she’d just have to get used to if becoming an international frequent flyer was in her future. Didn’t matter the length of the line or where she was headed; patience was not one of her virtues. She even bristled at the lines at Fenway Park, if you could believe.
In her opinion, airports were the worst with their trifecta of potential headache triggers—check-in, security, boarding. Shifting from one foot to the other, she counted. As far as she could tell, there were at least a hundred people ahead of them and only three ticket agents available to check in that crowd and the ever-increasing throng in back of them.
Kassie pointed out the obvious and predicted to Chris, “At this rate, getting through security is going to be a nightmare.” She was getting antsy . . . and itchy.
Glancing down at her luggage, it suddenly occurred to her that Chris must’ve packed her bags. Shocking. No one had ever done that for her. Why would they? She was the most self-sufficient person she knew. He tried to help sometimes. Like when they were getting ready to check out of a hotel, and she was busy showering, Chris would fold her clothes for her. Sweet man that he is. But he would never actually put her things in the suitcase, knowing how particular she was. He’d say she was fussy; she’d say fastidious.
Oh, what the hell. Give it a rest, Kassie. You’re heading home. Wrinkles be damned.
Twenty-two minutes later, as she handed the ticket agent her passport, she rubbed the right side of her neck under her chin. Four bumps. She knew the root cause. Pomegranates. Haunting her still. Attacking her immune system. Damn it, she thought she had it under control. She hadn’t scratched all day since she’d taken one of those French pills before she left for her meeting with Mimi. Wrong time for a flare up. She was about to be confined in a germ-infested tube with two hundred or more people on a seven-hour transatlantic flight home. With her luck and her immune system out of kilter, she was sure to contract some unpronounceable ailment that the United States had yet to approve drugs to combat. Another reason living in France for a while looked appealing.
On their way to security, Kassie grabbed Chris’s hand and glared at him. “You packed my things,” she said through clenched teeth, her tone more accusatory than questioning.
“You just figured that out now?”
“Did you pack the amphetamines?”
“Shh. You mean the antihistamines?” Chris laughed and reached into his pocket and dropped the small package in the palm of her hand.
“Whatever. Not funny. I need water now. Thought you forgot—”
“I think it’s you who forgot something.” Chris dangled the Eiffel Tower necklace in front of her face.
“Thanks, better not put it on now.” She pointed at her neck and slipped the necklace in her pocket.
The line to get through security was longer than the check-in process. Since Chris had just booked their flight that day, her patience was tested again as they meandered their way through the blue-taped maze, rather than breeze through TSA Precheck. She made another note to self to be sure Vicki checked her TSA status for her future roundtrips to Paris. She’d do anything to buck the system—legally, of course.
Chris must’ve read her mind because as they reached the last leg of the maze, he tugged on Kassie’s arm and led her to the far left side. “Lines always shorter on the left,” he said as she smiled at him in relief.
My hero. Coming to save the day again.
Her relief turned into a nightmare, just as she’d foreseen. Actually, part of the process of going through security—putting her carry-on bag and purse and shoes on the black belt—went like clockwork. No problem. None of her belongings needed closer investigation than the x-ray box and the security officer’s prying eyes provided. Kassie, herself, was a different matter. Obediently, and like Chris and everyone ahead of her, she entered the full-body scanner, intrigued by the newest technology. Isn’t it a bit titillating, almost pornographic, to be commanded by a total stranger to stand with your hands above your head and your legs spread apart?
Her fantasy lasted only until the security officer raised his hand and signaled a woman to join them.
Oh, here we go. She’d been wanded before, a wide belt buckle usually the culprit. Though she didn’t need to, she checked her waist out of habit. No belt in sight. What the hell could’ve tripped the body scanner sensors?
“Venez avec moi, s’il vous plaît,” the lady security officer said, motioning her to step aside.
Barefooted, Kassie cooperated. No way would she confront someone packing heat. She spotted Chris dutifully retrieving her bags off the belt. She caught his eye, gave him an I-have-no-clue shrug and pointed to her feet, hoping he’d get the message to not forget her Skechers.
For a second time in less than two minutes, Kassie was instructed to spread her legs. Good grief. Again she did as she was told, but this time it felt more as though she was being invaded than pleasured. The metal detector wand made a barely audible vibrating sound as the security officer moved it around her body’s perimeter, first along her left side and between her legs. As the woman without a smile moved the device over Kassie’s right hand, the wand went berserk. The ring.
“It’s new,” Kassie said, smiling and wiggling her finger.
Relieved, Kassie took four steps away from the guard, saying “au revoir,” pleased she’d gotten the language right that time.
“Arrête!”
Exasperated, Kassie stopped in her tracks. What now? Her eyes widened as her judge and jury clapped her light blue plastic-gloved hands together like a mad scientist in a James Bond movie and waved her index finger, directing Kassie to spread her loins once more. She’s going to frisk me. How humiliating. Not seductive or pornographic. Just gross.
And pointless. Kassie took a deep breath and suppressed her embarrassment and annoyance about being made to feel like a terrorist over a ring. Her only crime that day was allowing Chris to insist they fly home when Paris still beckoned.
Just as suddenly as the security officer invaded her privacy, she tapped Kassie on the arm and said, “Ça va. Au revoir. Bon voyage.”
Having no clue what the guard said, she shot the woman a quizzical look and said, “Merci, I guess I’m good to go?”
“Oui. La bague,” t
he guard lifted Kassie’s right hand, pointing to the ring.
“Told you so,” she mumbled as she scanned the morass of travelers gathering the luggage off the black belts, arms flailing as they balanced to slip on their shoes, scurrying to meet up with their companions who’d left them behind. By the way, where was Chris? Ah. She spotted him standing by Starbucks, holding up a water bottle as his calling card.
“Was it fun for you?” Chris teased her as she ripped her sneakers out of his hands.
“This ring. Already making waves.” Kassie showed him the ring and regretted her words as soon as they slipped off her tongue. “In a good way,” she added. “All that excitement . . . and touching,” she said, wanting to change the subject, “makes me have to pee.”
“Come with me.” Chris said he had a solution for what ailed her. He held her hand as they jockeyed around women weighed down with oversized cross-body bags, men glaring up at lighted departure boards, and unsupervised children with pictures of princesses and zombies on their backs running around as if the terminal were their own personal playground. A multitude of unfamiliar words and accents floated through the air with a sizable amount of English and French being bantered about. Clearly international travel was a cultural experience unto itself. One she vowed to embrace, rather than reject.
Above the normal airport racket, Kassie thought she heard a piano melody, live, not piped in. She squeezed Chris’s hand and tilted her head in the direction her ears targeted. And they did not deceive. Smack dab in the middle of the terminal sat a red piano. How about that for a cultural experience she could get used to fast? The young lad at the keys finished his lively piece, grabbed his backpack, and went on his way to who knows where. Imagine that, a public piano. Her appreciation of the finer things of France was blossoming by the minute—the security snafu already a distant memory.
What’s Not True: A Novel Page 18
