Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2)

by Noel J. Hadley

  “Are you being followed now?” Her eyes widened.

  “Don't look, but yes.”

  She looked anyways. “Is that him?”

  “I told you not to look.”

  “Are we safe?”

  “He's not after you. And I don't think the Mancini's of this world want to bring any unwanted attention to themselves. I don't think he's really after me at all. Maybe he thinks I can lead him to Alex.”

  “Can you?”

  “Not that I'm aware of.”

  She thought about it, sighed, and then pressed her arm into mine. A strand of hair that had found its way out of her hoodie scrapped alongside my cheek. It felt good. “Being with you is like living out those stories that your uncles used to tell about themselves.”

  “They never lived gossip headlines like this.”

  “Those were different times, when President Kennedy could have a call girl hiding out in just about every room of the White House. Here's a headline that I think you'll appreciate. I’ve found a seat for you at tomorrow’s matinee performance. That is, if the mafia hasn't dumped you into the Hudson yet.”

  “Bricks or no bricks?” I said.

  “Bricks, of course.”

  “Well, I didn’t really want to tell you this.....” Leah turned to look at me as she waited for my thought to finish, and her eyes widened. “I don’t know how to say it, but…”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” she said.

  “Can I be frank?”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I…. I sort of purchased tickets for Mary Poppins tomorrow afternoon.”

  Leah slapped my arm, seemingly relieved, but with an overemphasis on the flirtatious, and tried terribly hard not to laugh. “No you didn’t.”

  “That’s the other thing I’ve wanted to speak with you about. I…. I’ve sort of been seeing Mary on the side.”

  Leah hit me again. “Ashley Brown has not been seeing you. I know Ashley’s type, and you are not her type.”

  “Oh please, like you know Mary Poppins.”

  “Actually, I do. You’re going to be at that performance tomorrow afternoon, and you’re going to like it.” She stopped in her tracks, turned to face me, and poked me in the chest with her index finger. “It’s in the rear mezzanine.”

  “The back again? Life isn’t worth living sometimes.”

  Leah dug deeper into my arm. “To make it up, I may let you visit my dressing room.”

  “Is it clothing optional?”

  “Um, a full wardrobe is required, mister.”

  “There’s this place in San Francisco, it’s called Baker Beach. Clothing isn’t an issue, and…”

  Leah held a finger up to my mouth. “Shhh, we’ll both be wearing clothing at all times.”

  “Am I granted VIP access to the fortress of solitude before or after the show?”

  “What if I said both? And I'll even make sure that you're not harassed by Lawrence Greenberg again.”

  “Now you’re spoiling me.”

  “And I think you’ll like this part. I managed those two evening tickets you’d requested several days ago, back when that second photographer of yours was still a model disciple. It’s in the second row.”

  “I seem to have lost my date.”

  “Those tickets weren’t easy to come by, being my final performance and all. You’d better find one. Richie will be in attendance too.”

  “I was thinking of Ashley Brown.”

  “You will not.”

  “There’s always Miranda. Maybe afterwards she can even read me my Miranda Rights.”

  “Um, your wife left you and you’re vulnerable. If you think I’m gonna let my roommate anywhere near you, even if it’s a crowded room and all the lights are on, then you’re crazy. She’d read someone their Miranda Rights halfway down a waterslide.”

  I said: “Sounds fantastic.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll never know.”

  “She’s gonna be at Mahoney's party tonight.”

  “Then I guess that means I’m not going to let you out of my sight for a second.” She dug deeper into my arm. “You think you can keep up with me tonight?”

  “I did with Lawrence Greenberg.”

  “Is your number one fan really going to follow us to the party?” She nudged her head in recognition of Frank Sinatra.

  “Probably.”

  Leah crinkled her mouth. “Where does he sleep, on the doormat?”

  “He's got a Nissan Cube parked out front of your apartment. It's a rental. But my guess is he had someone set the reservation up for him. He can't be working the east coast alone. It was probably waiting at the time of my arrival.”

  Leah crinkled the rest of her face. She looked adorable doing it, despite the serious reasons behind it.

  “Sounds horrible.”

  This is also the precise moment when inspiration struck, the furnace in her eyes blazed, and she followed up her last statement with what appeared to be more of a royal declaration: “Let's loose him.”

  “That doesn't sound like a very good idea,” I said. But she apparently wasn't listening. “He'll just go back to your apartment and look for us there. I mean, it's where we're going anyways.”

  “Let him look there then.” She grabbed my hand in preparation to sprint. “Saint George has rescued me from the dragon and I'm feeling pretty good about it.”

  “Leah, this isn't a good idea.”

  “Too late,” she said.

  And it was too late. She'd already begun running, towing my arm as she went, which meant, like it or not, I was coming along if I didn’t want to kiss the gum on the sidewalk. And the way she ran, Frank Sinatra never had a chance to keep up.

  14

  A GET TOGETHER OF FRIENDS AT BROWNSTONE, particularly Mahoney's apartment, 401, is everything you'd probably imagine a party to be, if it were in college and held at a frat house, packed toe-to-elbow respectively. Hoity-toity types showed up just as with Seeger, only these people seemed a little less in the clouds, probably even twenty-thousand feet closer to ground control. Or maybe it was the fact that a man with bulging eyes, guerilla-like arms and a mop for a head carried a keg of beer over his shoulder and preceded to mouth-feed everyone with a hose, which basically had the effect of dragging cloud stragglers down to his level; the California way. I liked Leah and Mahoney's friends. You know, laugh a lot, cry a little, spill some beer if it’s funny enough; my sort of people.

  I numbered Jay and Stephanie in the rank. If you've been closely following since my first manuscript, Wrong Flight Home, they were the couple whose wedding I'd photographed only weeks before in Boston (when Leah and I were reacquainted). He was a cop, and thank the Lord off duty that night, and she an on-and-off-again Broadway performer. Savannah and Olivia, Stephanie's two bridesmaids (plenty of Broadway actors to go around), were accounted for in the crowd. I recognized the woman laughing hysterically into a mirror to be the same woman who walked her greyhound through all four seasons of Mahoney's documentary. Even Devine, New York Cities birdie by the window, shared a drink of beer with me, fed directly into our mouths with a hose, courtesy of Mop-Head. I was apparently now her Baby. Richie brought out the karate jumpsuit. Succulent conversations followed all around. And be careful about pulling back shower curtains. You never know who might be lurking behind it.

  Mahoney may have kept his camera rolling, but I myself took dozens of pictures, mostly of Leah, or of the people standing around Leah, but Leah herself made it into just about every shot. Under any other circumstances they would have been uploaded to Facebook by morning except for, well, you know, I was trying to keep my whereabouts on the down-low (Leah had given Jay and Stephanie advance warning that I'd be there, and to shut up about the controversy). Two or three attenders were big players on the Broad, friends of Leah. Devine had brought them to my attention. Not that I'd recognize stage celebrities without a spotlight or stage make-up on. Is it safe to say Elphaba and Glenda the Good, anyone? At a party like this, the flash-work on
ly got better as the night progressed. And how it progressed, until Brownstone's landlord, Chester Hamilton the Third, poked his nose through the door.

  It was somewhere around midnight and Miranda said (with a wave of her hands): “Hey, shhh. Shut up, everyone.”

  I knobbed the stereo speakers off.

  Aerosmith, Dude (Looks like a Lady).

  “What's going on?” Hamilton sounded very much like a parrot as he pressed both knuckles up against his thigh and combed the room with his eyes. Standing at roughly five feet, I understood now why he spoke the way he did, because otherwise, much like a Chihuahua, there was nothing threatening about him.

  “Uh, nothing, buddy,” Mahoney said, Mop-Head's hose dangling carelessly from his mouth. I found out later that Mop-Head was Mahoney's brother, owner of the goat, which explained a lot.

  “I let my guard down and take my wife out to town this one night, to Mamma Mia and Stardust Diner, and look what happens. Then I put her down in bed. If she doesn't get ten hours of beauty sleep each night, forget about it. And look what happens. How can anyone get any sleep around here with all this racket? And if I find anything illegal lying around, well let me tell you something brother, don't even get me started.”

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Hamilton.” Miranda slushed her face into the look of a puppy, sounding very much like Marilyn Monroe now. “It won't happen again. I promise.” The I promise was sprinkled with an extra coating of sugar.

  “It had better not. Not if I'M NOT INVITED!” He flailed his hands over his head and attempted some sort of universal gesture closely resembling raise the roof. A blond in nighties and bunny-slippers handed him a beer, and everyone cheered; except he quickly shushed everyone again with a forceful lowering of one hand. “But whatever you do...” He spoke now in an outdoor whisper. “Don't....wake.....the wife.”

  I knobbed the speakers back up, more Aerosmith. Dude (Looks Like a Lady). It had Hamilton's approval. Within minutes the news that a Hollywood producer had slugged me in the eye was made into a public announcement, courtesy again of New York Cities birdie by the window. It resulted in a jubilee of cheering from everyone. Bunny-girl said in the cutest voice ever that I needed a beer. Leah frowned at Bunny-girl. I accepted one from her anyhow, and chugged.

  And then the goat got loose.

  15

  MAHONEY'S PARTY EVEN MANAGED to spill across the hall into Apartment 402. Leah's humble abode was mostly vacant upon my return (no sign anywhere of the runaway goat, there were sightings later on in SoHo), but empty pizza boxes and beer bottles attested to that fact that intelligent life had once flourished there. A young woman, I didn't see her face but thought she might have been the person walking the greyhound through all four seasons of Mahoney's movie, was presently dozing off into la-la land on the kitchen counter, probably already dreaming, but otherwise Leah was nowhere to be seen. Mahoney's documentary sprung to mind, particularly that scene where Leah stood on Brownstone's rooftop and watched two pillars of apocalyptic smoke carry its souls into the embrace of eternity, and so climbed through the window for the fire escape. The acoustic guitar was faint, but I recognized its chords, a little ditty called The President’s Wife from REPUBLICAN BLUE; a song that detailed a loss of identity in even the most prestigious of positions. It was coming from the rooftop, and so it was of little surprise to climb the ladder another four stories and find her seated on the ground by the stairway door, a pack of Virginia Slims indiscreetly kept at her side, with a single stick freshly lit and shelved on her lips.

  What astounded me (as I climbed the stairs) was that I’d heard her sing that song multiple times now, three times in person and another six or seven times through on CD. They all sounded the same, but not this. This rendition was different. It wasn’t intended for public ears. It was all hers, something that she reserved strictly for herself. And it was beautiful.

  “Not this again, I’ve heard you sing it twice today already,” I said. “How about Defying Gravity from Wicked, or maybe even I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables?”

  “I should push you off the roof,” she said, all sarcasm of course, never breaking her finger picking stride. “How did you know I'd be up here?”

  “I'm not sure. I guess I just knew.”

  And it was true, the most honest answer that I could give. I sat down about three feet away from her, crossed my legs, reached for the pack of Virginia Slims without bothering to ask permission, and lit one up with her lighter. My butt hurt, thank-you party crashing goat. I had to shift uncomfortably before settling on the better cheek. It was worse for Jay. He wouldn’t be sitting on his for a week. The view of lower Manhattan was immaculate. But Leah made it so. I could spend every night for the rest of my life here.

  “I thought you didn't smoke.” She reclined the palm of her picking fingers on all six nylon strings. As Tears Go By always made me sad, naturally, but I was sadder to hear it go.

  “I don't.” In fact it was my first cigarette in probably eight years, with the exception of an occasional glass of gentlemanly whiskey and cigar. “And apparently, neither do you.”

  “You see absolutely nothing.” She waved her hand, some sort of Jedi mind trick or something, and let a trail of smoke pass before two bronze furnaces for eyes. “I'd never do such a thing. It's not good on the voice. The President’s Wife or Who Am I Now wasn't exactly written with emphysema in mind.”

  “Mm-hmm, I can see that.” A contemplative inhale and exhale from my own lips, another uncomfortable shift on my cheeks, and then: “I heard it can be killer. That's the latest rumor from the morgue, anyways.”

  “According to my agent and director and just about everyone I know, I've been smoke free for about four years. I only have a smoke maybe once a week, alone.”

  “Nowadays I only smoke about once every eight years.”

  “Yeah, well, if you tell, I'll deny everything. And then I'll call up your mother.”

  “Oh God, no. Not my mother. In that case, my lips are sealed.”

  Another line of smoke drifted lazily past Bishop's eyes. It was all so beautifully haunting, almost surreal, a dream within a dream that I dared not wake myself from. The distant hum of traffic produced an almost constant white noise that relaxed my senses the way a Sierra stream or the waves of the Pacific would back home in California. Maybe it was a womb thing. I thought about that for a second, and the electric stars of the city. I fantasized what Leah Bishop might look like underneath that little cute dress of hers, the shape of her breasts without a bra and the arch of her spine as it curves towards her butt and wraps around to its most intimate end.

  She finally said: “So I'm curious. Why did you skip the Empire State Building?”

  I said: “Long lines. I wanted to get reacquainted better.”

  “Ca-ca-spaniel,” she pointed her cigarette at me. “What's a better way to get reacquainted with someone than standing in a long line?”

  “Disneyland has long lines.”

  “Nope, not the same.”

  “You always hated Disneyland.”

  “We were there together, weren't we? Once.”

  “Senior night.”

  “I snuck that flask in. We were all taking swipes of it on Splash Mountain.”

  “It also made singing on Pirates and Small World especially interesting. Someday you're going to have kids, and they'll be like: Mommy, can we go to the happiest place on Earth?”

  “Mm-hmm, I'll have their father take them. Mommy can go lay out around the hotel pool and work on her tan. And stop changing the subject on me.”

  “What subject? I didn't change the subject.”

  “Empire....State.....Building.” She carefully pronounced each word.

  “The reasoning is silly.”

  “Spill the beans, Chamberlain.”

  “I have this irrational fear of elevators.”

  “You're not ca-ca-spaniel-ing me.”

  “Nope, you remember that night we were making out behind the stage of the NYU theater?”


  “Oh god, here we go. How often do men think about sex, anyways?” The honest answer is sobering. I thought about Leah Bishop naked again and then I thought about sex in general and she said: “Yes, I do. Elise breaks it off with you, so you come running out here to New York like a little lost puppy. But I had a boyfriend, Mister.” Flirtatiousness abounded in her closing statement.

  Neither one of us brought up the fact that my coming out here now was a lot like my coming out here then. “That didn't stop you from kissing me.”

  “Yes.” All flirtatiousness left her when recognizing that fact. But she quickly regained a playful posture. “Elevator. Get to it, man.”

  “The next day I visited my cousin Joe at his office. Did you ever meet him?”

  “Can't say that I have.”

  “Cousin Joe worked on one of the seventieth level floors of the North Tower.” I probably didn't need to tell the rest of it. I suspected she might have already caught on. “That next day, Leah, was September Eleventh.” Leah's mouth widened. Her eyes looked suddenly wet. I thought the cigarette might fall from her mouth. “I was sort of in an elevator when American Airlines Flight 11 struck.”

  “And you got out.”

  Mahoney's film footage of Leah on this very roof, watching the South Tower collapse at exactly 9:59am (Chester Hamilton the Third squawking Oh my god!) while I made my way down the North Tower's endless staircase, dominated my thinking. “I'm sitting here, aren't I?”

  “Those elevators were tombs. That's not silly, or irrational.”

  “No, I guess not.” I meant it, but my tone didn't sound convincing.

  “You're not piling on the corn syrup.”

  “I've never been more serious.”

  “Joshua, that's not silly. I've met people who were in those buildings. Some of them haven't gotten over it. I've met people with loved ones who died in there, and they'll probably never get over it.”

  “My dreams still haunt me. I've actually never been back to Ground Zero, physically, at least, despite the fact that it pays me regular visits. There's nights where I'm afraid to go to sleep.”