‘Is too sentimental for me, but you have been sad, so I think, just this once I get you a present you like.’
I hung it around my neck and then clicked it closed. ‘I love it.’ I walked over to her and threw my arms around her. She let me hug her for a second, then pushed me away.
‘Now what is the mystery that I must come here so early?’
I thought she’d never get here so that I could share my crazy out loud with her. But it was surprisingly hard to say the words. ‘I need to tell you something that I know sounds totally unbelievable. I’m going out of my freaking mind here. Can you keep an open mind and just listen while I tell you what happened last night?’
‘I can do that. Do I need drink for this?’
‘Maybe. Actually, yes, probably. One minute.’
I grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed one to Katrina. She held it up and said, ‘Živeli,’ to which I replied ‘Sláinte.’ It was one of our things, toasting in Serbian and Irish. All that was missing was Stephanie’s cheers!
‘We’ve not done that in a while,’ I admitted.
‘No. We have not. But you have not been out at all since you and Dan …’
‘I know … soon … I’ll come to karaoke next week,’ I said quickly to shut her up.
‘Is OK. But you have to talk about what happened. What if I see him? Do I hate Dan now? Or do I feel sorry for him?’
I shrugged. I wasn’t ready to get into all that. It was too much on top of my letter.
She took a long slug. ‘Tell me what is code-red emergency.’
As she drank her beer, I told her everything. I showed her the letter. The photograph. And throughout it all she made good on her promise and said nothing. When I finished, she swore softly in her native Serbian, ‘Kurac!’
Yes, indeed.
‘I need new beer,’ Katrina said.
I grabbed another two bottles of beer from the fridge.
‘Normally when I have a drink, I need a cigarette. But the thing is … I don’t want one,’ I said. The look that Katrina gave me was unreadable.
‘You do not smoke,’ Katrina said.
‘Not any more. But I did!’ I cried.
She put her beer down and said slowly, emphasizing each word, ‘You. Have. Never. Smoked.’
I shrugged. While I had no reason to doubt both Dad and Katrina, I knew what I knew. I tugged at the memory of the red balloon party from all those years ago, unravelling it one more time. I smoked one of whatshisname’s cigarettes and we flirted, then kissed. Then the following weekend we went to the cinema to see Surfer Dude. And I’ve smoked ever since, trying most years to give up, but always failing. But even as the words and images from that party flickered through my head, it didn’t feel right. It was as if I could see the end of the thread I’d unravelled but I couldn’t quite grasp it. It kept moving away from me, flickering in the wind, this way and that.
‘If I’ve never smoked before, then why am I so sure I did?’ I asked.
‘That I do not know. But we will work it out.’
‘Do you think anyone is messing with me?’
‘No.’
‘OK. That was quick.’
‘Well, it makes no sense that someone mess with you. Do you want a cigarette now?’
That was the strangest thing. I’d not had a single craving for one all morning. Earlier I ran to the kiosk on the corner of my street and bought a pack of Newport cigarettes and a lighter. I ran back to my studio, opened the kitchen window and sat in my usual smoking spot. And that’s when things got weird again. My hand shook as I tried to connect the flame to the tip of my cigarette and I felt clumsy, unsure of what to do next. I pulled hard and inhaled the smoke, then coughed a lung up, throwing the cigarette into the sink with disgust. I’d forgotten how to smoke.
‘Could I have been hypnotized while I slept last night?’
Katrina’s answering look needed no explanation.
‘What if it’s the letter then?’ I asked.
She put her drink down. ‘Explain.’
‘Either I’m losing my mind, which I cannot accept, or my time-capsule letter is some kind of magical portal to my past self.’ I rushed saying this last bit.
‘You really think you can write notes to your younger self that change the future?’
I was back to shrugging again. This letter was turning me into a moody truculent teen. Katrina stared at the letter some more, then said, ‘OK. Write something to your younger self now. I’ll stay here and wait with you, to see what happens.’
‘That’s a brilliant plan!’
‘I know.’
‘What should I say to her?’
‘To yourself, you mean,’ Katrina said.
‘Yes, I suppose I do. But it’s as if she’s a different person to me.’
The look Katrina gave me spoke volumes.
‘I’ll prove to you that I’m not crazy. You are not to leave my side, you are to guard the letter. That way you can make sure that I don’t write anything else on it. As in, the me from here, that is. If that makes sense.’
‘None of this is sense,’ Katrina answered. She leaned in close to me and I smelled a waft of alcohol from her. ‘I hate to say this, but I think most likely you are crazy. There are no magical letters. This is not a Disney movie.’
I sighed, nodding in agreement. I didn’t believe in magical letters either.
Katrina touched my new chain. ‘You are my BFF, so I must help you, crazy lady. And you are lucky, I like crazy. And if you end up in a special home, I will come visit every week and pluck the hair from your chin.’
‘I don’t have any hair on my chin!’ I rubbed it just to make sure.
‘No. Not yet. But when crazy comes, so does the hair. Trust me.’ She waved a hand towards the letters. ‘What will you write?’
I picked up the pages and flicked through them one by one. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about Stephanie. We’ll never stop being BFFs. Not till the day we die. That’s what I said here. Why aren’t we friends with her any more?’
‘Because she does not wish to be our friend,’ Katrina said with a shrug.
‘Hmm,’ I said, noncommittally. My childhood love for Stephanie shone bright on the pages in front of me. And it made me feel guilty and sad that somehow I’d let her down.
‘How long since we’ve seen her? It must be at least a year since we had a proper conversation.’
‘She came out for a drink with us shortly after you met Dan. We haven’t seen her since.’
‘I can’t believe we’ve left it so long. I’m not sure if I need to use the same pen to write this note.’ I picked up the sparkly pen from the previous evening again. ‘Better use it, to be on the safe side.’
‘Yeah. In case it’s the pen that is magic, not the letter,’ Katrina said. I nodded, delighted she was getting into the spirit of things. Until I saw her throwing her eyes up to the heavens. ‘How much drink you have last night?’
‘A couple of beers and a whiskey.’
‘Whiskey!’ she said, cheered up by this admission. ‘You are not a whiskey drinker. When you had Jack Daniels at my apartment warming party, you went bat shit.’
‘I did not!’ I said, outraged by the comment.
‘You kissed one of our clients.’
‘Ex-client,’ I said. There was a difference. ‘You shouldn’t have invited him to the party anyhow.’
‘He had sad news. I felt sorry. But you made it better for him …’ She winked, then motioned to the letter. ‘Go on … write.’
I scrolled down to the end of the page and wrote a note to my younger self.
Katrina and I are not best friends any more with Stephanie. We haven’t seen her in a long time. With love from Bea, You, Me! x
I folded the letter in half, dropped both it and the sparkly pen into the shoebox, then placed it on the coffee table in front of us. We both stared at it, Katrina with a cushion placed in between her and it, as if she half expected it to come flying at her.
‘Now we wait,’ Katrina said, handing me my bottle of beer. ‘I will not take my eyes off your letter.’
‘You really are a great sidekick. I’d be lost without you,’ I said, unable to keep a grin off my face when I saw her expression. I picked up my letter and read out loud, ‘I plan to have a sidekick because all the great detectives had someone to take care of the small stuff while they went about their business being brilliant. Sherlock and Watson, Batman and Robin, Remington and Laura. Now we can add O’Connor and Petrovic.’
‘For that comment, you will be paying for lunch for the next month. I am nobody’s sidekick … I’ll show you the only kick I have …’ She lifted a pointy-heeled toe towards me, making us both squeal with laughter. As I stared at the shoebox of memories, I didn’t feel scared any more. We sipped our beers in happy silence, waiting for magic to happen. As the minutes ticked on, I worried that maybe I had done it wrong this time.
‘Do you think I need to be in my old bedroom upstairs to make it work again? Or perhaps I need to go to sleep, like I did last night,’ I asked Katrina. I felt tired, as it happened. All of the excitement of the morning was catching up with me. The beers might have contributed to that too.
‘Yes, you sleep. I watch.’ Katrina picked up her phone and began to flick through Instagram.
‘Do not film me on Snapchat,’ I warned. She’d done that before while I had a power nap in the office. With the sound on too, so my snoring was on show for the world to see. Fifteen thousand people had watched that bloody video. I flopped back on the sofa and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the cackle of laughter from Katrina. She was enjoying this a little too much. I’ve always been a fan of the power nap. I’d read somewhere that the optimum time was seventeen minutes, and I found that to be true. I always woke up feeling refreshed afterwards. Sometimes when I was working late in the office on a case and felt tiredness overcome me, I’d lie my head on the desk, then close my eyes. Now, with the beer and the fact that I hadn’t slept much all week, I drifted off on cue. Next thing I knew Karl was licking my face as he dry-humped my arm. As I shook him off me, Katrina sent another Snapchat comedy gold moment off, courtesy of me.
‘I hate you sometimes.’
‘No you don’t. One moment. I check letter.’ She picked it up, laughing at what I’d written. ‘Nothing here except your childish nonsense. See, you are not crazy. You were drunk last night and write it yourself. Case closed. I am hungry. Let’s eat.’
‘That doesn’t explain the cigarettes,’ I whispered as she searched my fridge for food. Surprisingly, in addition to feeling relieved that there hadn’t been any more blasts from my past, I also felt a little disappointed. Whatever spooky, creepy stuff had gone on last night, it must have been a one-off. I’d involved Katrina for no reason and given her ammunition to make fun of me for years.
‘There is nothing to eat,’ Katrina said, opening and closing cupboards and my fridge.
I shoved her out of the way and made some lunch for us both. I didn’t feel like cooking so it would have to be my fail-safe comfort food: cheese and crackers. We could always order pizza later if we needed something more substantial. When I placed the food on the coffee table, I heard Katrina gasp. And she’s not the gasping type as a rule.
‘Relax. I’ll buy you a pizza later!’ I said.
‘No. Look.’ Katrina grabbed my arm, her red nails gripping me so tight that they were hurting me. ‘I don’t believe my eyes. This is too much.’
Written in red glitter gel was another message.
Once a BFF, always a BFF!
We screamed and jumped into each other’s arms as we read the words out loud together. Katrina blessed herself and began muttering some Serbian prayer. I started the Hail Mary. Karl looked up from his new lover (the cushion) with interest.
‘Please say you are seeing that too,’ I said.
‘Yes. I see.’
‘And there’s no way I could have written it myself, here, I mean.’
‘I have not left letter for a second. I even took it to bathroom with me. Hang on. Except when I look for food a few moments ago. You could have written it then.’ She looked at me with suspicion.
‘So you think that the second you walked over to the kitchen, I took the opportunity to write this. And I am now lying about it? That’s ridiculous.’
‘I do not know. This is new crazy for me.’
‘I swear I didn’t write this. So why is this happening?’ I jumped up and began pacing around my studio.
‘When I was small child in Belgrade, my grandmama tell me about a sign she received from my dead grandpapa. From the other side.’
‘What was it?’ I felt the hairs on my arm rise.
‘The sign was a chicken.’
‘A chicken?’ I repeated, wondering if Katrina was muddling her words up, as she sometimes did.
‘Yes. My dead grandfather was in the body of a chicken.’
‘Was the chicken alive or dead?’ I asked, trying not to smile.
‘Alive of course. And this chicken kept going peck, peck, peck at the same area in her garden, where she sowed potatoes. My grandmama decided she must dig up the potato where the chicken pecked. And that’s when she found it.’
I held my breath, imagining all the possible things the chicken might have found. Money, jewellery …
‘She found his pipe.’
Not quite what I imagined. But maybe it was solid gold or a family heirloom. ‘Was it worth a lot of money?’
‘It was worth nothing to anyone but my grandpapa, who never had it out of his mouth. Over the years she grew tired of the sound of him sucking on that pipe, so she buried it in the garden. You see?’
I nodded, even though I had no clue where this was going. Maybe the common link was the smoking. ‘They are the same, because he smoked and I smoked?’
‘No, stupid. My grandpapa was angry and he accused my grandma of throwing his pipe away. She say no. Over and over, they fought about this for years, every day, until he died.’
‘So the chicken came back to tell her that she was wrong to lie? To make her feel guilty.’
Katrina tsk’d. It was never good when she made that sound. I decided to stay quiet. ‘My grandmama said that the chicken came back so that my grandad could have the last word.’
I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. Katrina however was serious. ‘Don’t you see? These messages are your chicken, who is peck, peck, pecking. Now you must work out what you have to dig up.’
‘I think it’s telling us we have to go see Stephanie!’
‘You maybe. I have no chicken telling me to do anything.’
‘Listen, the chicken wants what the chicken wants. And like it or lump it, Katrina Petrovic, you are in this with me now. I’m going to ring Stephanie and then you and I are going to Staten Island to see her.’
11
BEA
January 2020
Family Finders Agency, 57th Street, Manhattan
My smart watch buzzed on my wrist, telling me that it was time to stand. Where had that hour gone? Lately, time had become fleeting. It passed me by without my knowledge, leaving me every now and then slightly puzzled and bewildered as to where it had gone. I quickly checked my phone to see if Stephanie had returned my now six voice messages and dozen text messages. Nothing. I’d read my time-capsule letter at least a dozen times every day. Half hope and dread as I scanned the pages, wondering if my younger self had written any more messages. But so far no further notes were issued or received. I stood up and stretched my arms above my head and felt a pop as one of my shoulders protested their new position. Just because my watch told me to stand didn’t mean that I always listened to it and it had been a few hours since I moved more than my right hand to click the mouse. As I swung my arms around in a circular motion to further loosen them up, I began to pace my office. There was a path worn on the grey carpet from the hundreds of times I’d done this over the past couple of years. I liked a good pace.
&nbs
p; The voices of my colleagues, light, giddy and giggling, floated inside my door. Hidden in the dark corner of my office, I became an unwitting eavesdropper. It was Friday evening which meant that the Family Finders gang were heading to Cassidy’s Bar on 55th Street for karaoke night. The traditional end of the week celebration for our firm. One that I’d normally be leading the charge to. I felt a flash of guilt as I remembered my earlier promise to Katrina that I’d go tonight. A promise I had no intention of keeping.
‘Is she in there? I can’t see her,’ Nikki asked. Our PA’s voice sounded impatient. She’d be out there, lip gloss on, ready for her night out. I should have called out there and then, but instead I stepped further back into the corner. I found myself in an almost embrace with a potted plant. For the record, I felt guilty. Whatever about Nikki, Katrina deserved better. I thought once I managed to get through the holidays, I’d feel more like myself. But the reality was that I felt less like me than ever before. The thought of socializing, being with friends or strangers, filled me with a dread that I normally reserved for visits to the dentist.
‘If she is not at desk, then maybe she is gone out for coffee,’ Katrina said.
‘Or she could have slipped out home,’ Nikki said.
Katrina snorted her contempt at this suggestion. ‘Bea is not home. She is always working. When I get here, she is at that desk. When I leave, she’s there too.’
Not always. I felt annoyed at the inference that I had no life outside of this place.
‘If we don’t go soon, we won’t get a seat. And my feet are killing me. I should never have worn these new boots to work,’ Nikki said, looking down at her four-inch stiletto black boots.
‘Let’s go,’ Katrina said, with a sigh. ‘She might follow. Maybe.’
I peeped around the plant and watched her scribble a note on the board that sat in reception.
Cassidy’s. Join us. Please. K x
‘She won’t come,’ Nikki said. ‘She’ll text you tomorrow saying that she got caught up in her case and that she forgot the time.’
Nikki was beginning to irritate me with her stinging comments. Maybe this time I did want to go for a drink. Even as the thought entered my head, I knew it was a lie. Nevertheless, I looked out from behind the potted plant and knew it was a new low for me. I was a grown-ass woman, and if I didn’t want to go for a drink, all I had to do was say so. But instead I chose to act like a kid and hide behind a plant. The absurdity of my situation struck me as funny and I felt a gurgle of laughter splutter out. I clasped my hand over my mouth so that they couldn’t hear me.
The Moon Over Kilmore Quay Page 7
