The Plane and the Parade (Veronica Barry Book 3)

by Sophia Martin

  Cybele had come to visit Veronica after Veronica broke her arm in the whole Grant Slecterson affair. “It’s good as new, as far as I can tell.”

  “Well, don’t take any chances. Often a break may seem perfectly healed, but the arm is just a bit weaker. I’ve seen dancers reinjure themselves too many times—”

  “I’ll be careful, Cybele.”

  “Good. What else? How is that detective you were seeing? Didn’t he also end up in the hospital this spring?”

  “Yes,” Veronica said. “We’re quite a pair. He’s almost all mended.”

  Cybele clicked her tongue. “You really should both be more careful.”

  Veronica chuckled. “I’ll pass that on.”

  “And Melanie?”

  Veronica felt her cheeks grow hot. Of course Cybele would ask about Melanie, and now she had to choose between giving Cybele the scoop or lying. She bit her lip and quickly released it. “Uh. Melanie’s good. She’s going through something a little complicated at the moment. But she’s good.”

  “Oh? Complicated, is it? Well. That sounds mysterious.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I really can’t say anything more about it right now. It’s all very fresh and I need to give it a little time to settle before I go into it with anyone.”

  “Well, now I’m hooked. You know how I adore gossip.”

  Veronica grimaced and wrapped a strand of dark hair around her finger. “I’m sorry Cybele. I’ll call you back as soon as I get the go-ahead. In the meantime, you can help me figure out a little complication of my own.”

  “A consolation prize? Very well, carry on.”

  Veronica told Cybele all about Eric, from their flirtation in Paris to the Facebook message. When she was done, she felt better already. Saying it out loud really did make it seem like no big deal.

  “An old flame,” Cybele said pensively. “Well, be careful, my girl. Especially a French charmer like Eric—he is liable to try to sweep you off your feet.”

  Veronica’s stomach flip flopped. “Really? You don’t think I’m being silly?”

  “No, I do not,” Cybele stated. “You’ve got a good thing with Daniel. Am I right? Or have things changed?”

  “No, they haven’t changed. We’ve been seeing a lot of each other,” Veronica said.

  “Well, don’t let Eric come between you. And most importantly, don’t tell Daniel about him. You’ll only make him feel insecure.”

  Frowning, Veronica continued to toy with her hair. “I don’t know, Cybele. I kind of think when it comes to Daniel and me, honesty is the best policy.”

  “Nonsense. Don’t listen to those Doctor Phil nincompoops on the television, Veronica. Telling your partner everything is a recipe for disaster.”

  Veronica sighed and looked up at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure Cybele was the best person to have spoken to, come to think of it. After all, Cybele didn’t exactly have a stellar track record with her relationships. Some of her ideas were retro—in the worst possible way.

  “Okay,” Veronica said to appease her aunt. “Thank you for the advice.”

  “Anytime, my dear.”

  Veronica asked Cybele about her dance troop and the repairs to some water damage that her house suffered when an old pipe burst. The call wound down.

  “Do you have plans for the fourth of July?” Veronica asked. The holiday was still two weeks away.

  “It’s one of our performances,” Cybele said, referring to the troop’s schedule for the summer.

  “Oh yeah. No barbeques, then?”

  Cybele snorted and Veronica smirked. Imagining Cybele at a barbeque was like putting Queen Elizabeth in the middle of a square dance. “I imagine you do have plans to barbeque?” Cybele said.

  “Well, Daniel is Korean. It’s hard not to get excited about having a barbeque with his family.”

  “Ah yes, that is a good point.”

  “Anyway, Cybele, I’m so glad we had a chance to chit chat.”

  “Likewise, my dear. Call again soon.”

  “Will do.”

  Veronica hung up and flopped back into the couch pillows. Blossom took this as an invitation and hopped up on Veronica’s lap. Veronica stroked the cat absently as Bloss settled herself and closed her eyes, purring.

  Should Veronica take Cybele’s advice? Would it really just be damaging to Daniel’s confidence if Veronica told him about Eric? And should she steer clear of Eric so he wouldn’t threaten her relationship with Daniel?

  At first, talking to Cybele had made her feel so much better—like none of it was such a big deal and she could handle it. But Cybele’s warnings made her doubt herself again. Still, Cybele’s last relationship had ended after four months in a tempest of drama. So maybe Veronica could try to let go of that doubt and go with her initial feelings.

  Veronica scratched Blossom under the chin and behind the ears, letting her breath out in a sigh. It was all too much trouble. She was spending way too much time and energy worrying about Eric Huette. She’d just pretend he never messaged her, and leave it at that. Then whether Cybele was right or wrong wouldn’t matter, because she’d avoid the whole issue.

  Chapter 5

  At first all she saw were clouds, then Veronica was sitting in an airplane seat. Her tray was down and a plastic cup with apple juice on ice rattled lightly on it. Smoke oozed into the compartment, but she couldn’t tell from where.

  Down the aisle two female flight attendants whispered to each other tensely, and soon a male flight attendant joined them. The rattling grew stronger, until Veronica had to scoop up her cup to prevent liquid from sloshing out of it. The seatbelt light went on.

  Passengers murmured but quietly buckled their belts. Veronica took a sip from her cup and was shocked to taste whiskey, not juice. When she glanced down at the cup she realized she had a man’s hand, with a silver watch on the wrist that had a black face.

  The flight attendants appeared to be having some sort of hushed disagreement. She couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other.

  “Huh,” came a voice beside her. She looked at the source: a middle-aged, chubby woman who was clutching a purse to her chest. “I hate turbulence.”

  Just as Veronica turned back to look at what was going on with the flight attendants, the plane lurched. She gripped her arm rest and took a deep breath, feeling the beginnings of anxiety clench her chest.

  A ringing startled her, and for a moment, she searched the airplane for its source. Then she opened her eyes.

  ~~~

  Her alarm clock.

  Nice. A creepy, maybe-there’s-going-to-be-a-plane-crash dream. It wasn’t lost on her that the hand she’d seen was male, and that Eric Huette would be on a plane pretty soon.

  Veronica lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, clutching the alarm clock in her hands on her chest. What absolutely marvelous timing it had, waking her up at that moment. Now she couldn’t be sure the plane was going to crash. And she didn’t know enough about the plane to properly warn Eric about it, anyway. Most flights from Europe had at least two or three legs—it could be the first plane he took, or the second or third. If there really was an impending crash, it wasn’t enough to only warn Eric so he wouldn’t get on it—and good luck there, as he’d probably think she was crazy anyway—the really useful thing would be to warn the airline so they could prevent the crash.

  Veronica pondered the situation. Ordinarily, her first impulse would be to call Daniel and talk about the dream. He was very good at helping her tease out details she might otherwise overlook. But she still hadn’t decided how to handle the whole Eric thing.

  Well, now she was confronted with this dream, and perhaps what she should take away from it was that Eric might be in danger, and until she had more information, she couldn’t help him. Yes, that seemed pretty straightforward. She needed to know when he would be flying, for one thing, so she had an idea of how urgent figuring out the dream was. She might have time to dream again, with any luck.

  Which poi
nted to only one possible course of action regarding the message he’d sent. She’d have to answer it. She’d have to ask him when he was coming. Which would mean saying she planned to meet him, to help him find a place to live and learn his way around Sacramento.

  If she was answering the message and planning to meet him, she probably should tell Daniel about him. For a moment, she felt relief. Yes, she’d explain about the dream, and Daniel would help her think it through, and it wouldn’t seem sketchy that she was in contact with an ex… ex-what? Ex-flirtation? Ex-crush? Whatever. It wouldn’t seem sketchy, because she was just acting on the dream.

  But then she thought about Cybele’s advice, and she hesitated. After all, she knew the dream wasn’t the only reason she was going to answer Eric’s message. She wanted to. Thinking about that kiss still made her heart flutter. She still wondered what might have been.

  “Damn it,” Veronica breathed, still clutching the clock.

  Acknowledging those feelings made her just want to ignore the message all over again.

  “But I can’t,” she murmured.

  No, she couldn’t. She got the visions for a reason. Time and again, she had seen the good she could do with them. If she ignored this dream, she might well be putting Eric’s life at risk. She still couldn’t be sure the plane was going to go down, but chances were, something was going to happen on that flight, and the spirits wanted her to know about it. And in all likelihood, it was so she could warn Eric. She couldn’t ignore that.

  So complicated mess of feelings or not, she had to answer him, and she had to ask when he was flying, which meant justifying such a question with a plan to meet him.

  “There’s just no way around it,” she murmured.

  Very well, then. Decision made.

  And she would tell Daniel. She would not start playing games with Daniel the way she’d seen Cybele do with her boyfriends over and over. Maybe it was oversharing, maybe it was the trendy thing to do, as Cybele implied, but for once maybe the trendy thing was the healthy thing, too.

  Veronica sat up, feeling lighter with her course of action determined. She set the clock back on the nightstand. It was almost ten, and she was supposed to be at Sunny’s in two hours. Plenty of time for a Facebook message and a call to Daniel.

  ~~~

  As it turned out, she got the first done but not the second. As soon as she sent the message to Eric—expressing surprise and happiness that he was coming to Sacramento, giving him her cell number, and asking him when—she tried to call Daniel. He didn’t pick up.

  She tried several more times between breakfast, shower, and getting dressed. On her morning walk to McKinley Park with Harry, she tried again. She left one voicemail, mentioned she’d had a dream, but didn’t say anything about Eric. Finally, a few minutes before she had to leave, she tried again. He’d probably be worried when he finally picked up his phone from wherever he’d misplaced it and saw seven or eight missed calls from her (she had lost count). With a sigh, she accepted that now she just had to wait for him to call back.

  Perhaps Melanie would pick up her phone, and at least Veronica could get the news on how her talk with Chris went.

  “Veronica,” Melanie said by way of greeting. This was ominous—Melanie rarely called her Veronica.

  “Um, hey. How are you this morning?”

  “Nauseous. Which, by the way, is nothing new. I’ve been nauseous off and on—and not just in the mornings—for two weeks now, I’ve realized. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

  “How did it go with Chris?”

  Melanie didn’t answer right away. Veronica heard her exhale slowly. “It was… a little weird. He just… he gave me this funny look. And he… well, I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “He patted my hand.”

  “Huh.”

  Melanie blew air out of her mouth in a frustrated noise. “I don’t know what I expected. Tears? A big hug? I think I thought he’d be happy, somehow. But I can’t blame him, it’s not like we were planning on having a kid. Or doing anything that serious, any time soon. I mean, no one was talking about the ‘M’ word, you know?”

  “I’m sorry, Mellie.”

  “I wonder if he wants me to get rid of it.”

  Veronica sucked in her upper lip, then released it. “Is that what you want?”

  Melanie made a noise between a whimper and a sob. “God, no. I don’t want this—this baby to even know I considered getting rid of it, even for a second.”

  “You did consider it?” Veronica asked as gently as she could.

  “Of course, V. I mean, I feel terrible saying so. But I thought about it for a while last night, after I talked to him. I don’t know if I can do it alone, again.”

  “You weren’t alone the first time, Mellie. You had me, eventually. And before that, your mom.”

  “Yeah, I know she’ll probably move into the guest bedroom if I ask her to.”

  “Grace has her flaws, but she’s an awesome grandmother.”

  “She was a life-saver with Angie, when she was little.”

  Veronica paused, and the silence hung in the space between them, heavy with the worry Melanie carried.

  “So,” Veronica said. “You decided to keep it.”

  “I think so,” Melanie said with a ragged breath. “I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I thought about it, you know. And you know what else, V? I’m glad I have a choice, because someday this child will be old enough to maybe realize he or she was unplanned, but that I decided to keep them. And I want them to know I had a choice, and I chose them.”

  “That’s good, Mel. It sounds like you’re feeling pretty sure about it, then.”

  “Yeah, actually. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. Wow. Yeah. I’m sure.”

  “Well, okay then. That’s a great first step. Don’t worry about Chris, I’m sure it was just a shock. And a lot of people don’t know what to do when they get really surprising news like that. He’ll come around.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Ryan never did.”

  “His loss. Angie’s amazing.”

  “How do I keep making the same mistakes, V?”

  “I don’t think of it as mistakes, Mellie. I know you don’t think of Angie as a mistake. I mean, sure, this baby is unplanned, but like you said, you have a choice. And it sounds to me like you’re making the right choice for you.”

  “I know, but I just—I can’t seem to have a kid and be married, you know?” Her laugh was hollow. “Isn’t that how people are supposed to do it?”

  “Well, maybe that’s how it works in books and on TV, Mellie. But you sure aren’t the only one who’s ever been a single parent.”

  “I just wish—I’d like to know what it’s like, sharing it all with a partner.”

  Veronica couldn’t argue with that. “Well, can a friend be the next best thing?”

  “Oh, V. Of course,” Melanie said. There was a smile in her voice.

  “Besides, I’m telling you, Chris is going to come around.”

  “Do you know that, V? I mean, really know?”

  Veronica grimaced. “I don’t mean I saw anything. I’m sorry. I just know Chris is a good guy.”

  “Yeah,” Melanie said. “Well, yeah. I know you’re right. And I hope—I hope you’re also right about him just being shocked. I guess we’ll see.”

  “We will.”

  Veronica ended the call with a few more words of encouragement, grabbed her things, and hurried to get on the road to Sunny’s. On the way, she ruminated over Melanie’s situation. Veronica met Melanie about twelve years before, when Angie was three. Angie was not a baby anymore, but she could still be quite a handful, Veronica remembered. As a baby, she must have demanded an incredible amount of attention and care. Melanie was facing taking on the role of sole care-giver now, and it would mean such a huge change in her life—Veronica could hardly imagine it. And what about Angie? She certainly seemed resentful of Melanie already. How would she take it when she learned a
bout the pregnancy?

  ~~~

  Sunny lived on the top floor of one of Sacramento’s beautiful Victorians. The building had three stories, and each housed a different tenant, but each was also accessible by an outside staircase. Veronica knocked on Sunny’s door, clutching the bottle of sprite she had agreed to contribute to the Shirley Temples.

  Wearing a yellow pencil-style luncheon dress, Sunny greeted Veronica at the door. She wasn’t really dressing up per se—Sunny almost always wore vintage dresses and outfits. As usual, she had styled her bangs and shoulder-length black hair like Bettie Page. Veronica considered her own ensemble—a pair of light denim capris and a striped navy and white boat neck tee—and decided she’d managed to emulate Audrey well enough to be acceptable to Sunny’s tastes. Not that Sunny was a snob about it, but Veronica liked Sunny’s style and wanted to make more of an effort to dress retro herself.

  “Hi,” Sunny said, ushering Veronica inside.

  It wasn’t the first visit Veronica had ever made to Sunny’s place, but she took in her décor with an admiring eye—a square dinette table of matte white laminate surrounded by four red and white channel back chairs, a red vinyl couch with chrome legs, and a vintage popcorn maker in one corner caught her eye first. But it was little details like the hanging bird cage with the singing mechanical canary and the sage green kitchen clock Sunny had found the last time she, Daniel and Veronica went antiquing in Placerville that Veronica really admired. She touched the rim of the clock, and a vision hit her.

  ~~~

  Daniel stood in the kitchen by the clock. He ran a hand through the hair at the back of his neck—a nervous gesture Veronica rarely saw.

  “Are you sure she’ll say yes?” he asked. “Are you sure it’s not too soon?”

  “You guys have been seeing each other for what, five months now? I think it’s about time,” Veronica said with Sunny’s voice.

  “It’s such a big step, Sun. It’s a big deal.”

  “Just ask. The worst she can say is ‘no.’”

  ~~~

  Veronica came back to herself just as abruptly, and she sat down on one of the channel back chairs. So many visions lately, and this one had really knocked the wind out of her.