Fireside

by Susan Wiggs

  He glanced at the clock. Still twenty minutes to go.

  The busy bar was crammed with people, sipping coffee or bloody Marys while talking on cell phones, checking their email or reading the paper. Damn. Didn’t anyone just sit around and drink anymore? When did people decide that it was necessary to be busy all the time, even when you were sitting there, nursing a cold one?

  Bo’s mouth watered at the idea of a tall beer, crisp and cold from the tap. Hell, there was time. He could just grab a quick one and be back to the gate in a few minutes.

  He watched a line of people boarding a flight to Fort Lauderdale and felt a twinge of envy. Yeah, Fort Lauderdale would be good right about now. Without even thinking about it, he ambled toward the bar at an unhurried gait. Hell, fifteen minutes was more than enough time to scull a beer. A morning eye-opener. He’d just park himself at the bar opposite the cash register. That was where to stand to get the best service. His many years as a bartender had taught him that. Every time the bartender went to the register, he’d see the customer’s face in the mirror. A guarantee of faster service. He’d just step up to the bar and—

  “Taylor Jane Purvis, you come back here!” shouted an angry voice.

  A very small, laughing dynamo whirled past Bo, heading for the moving sidewalk that had nearly swallowed the redhead. The dynamo was a little girl with a mop of yellow ringlets. She had outmaneuvered her mother, who was burdened with about nine pieces of luggage. The little kid jumped on the sidewalk and ran. With the added speed of the moving walkway, she easily outpaced her harried mother. The woman looked as if she was about to lose it.

  Bo hesitated, thinking about the redhead. He’d already been accused of being a perv once today. But the kid was getting farther away from her mother. He left his spot at the bar and strode to the moving walkway, easily catching up with the little kid. He reached over the side and plucked the child from the stream of pedestrians like a carnival prize. The startled kid’s feet kept pedaling away.

  “Are you Taylor Jane?” he asked, holding her up at eye level.

  Dumbfounded, she nodded.

  “Well, your mama is looking for you,” he said.

  The girl got over her surprise. She let out a scream, and kicked him in a vulnerable area.

  Bo taught the kid a new vocabulary word as he set her down and backed away, palms out, regarding her like a stick of dynamite.

  The girl’s mother rushed forward and snatched her hand. “Taylor Jane!” she said, then turned to Bo, her eyes filled with terror. “You stay away from my child, or I’ll call security.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” He didn’t bother explaining that he’d only been trying to help. He just wanted to get the hell away from Taylor Jane. He’d never been good with kids, anyway.

  Strike two. The little incident ended up costing him that beer. A flight had let out, and the bar was now three deep with thirsty customers.

  He returned to Gate 22-C just as the uniformed agent was opening the security door. Redcaps were lining up with wheelchairs and electric carts. Bo felt himself tense up, and all his senses sprang to awareness with the kind of hyper vigilance he felt when he pitched in a ball game. Every detail came into sharp focus—a guy striding past, a guitar case lightly bumping his back. The bright clack of a woman’s high heels on the gleaming floor. The scent of pot smoke wafting incongruously from the overcoat of a passing businessman. The staccato cadence of two skycaps’ conversation in Spanish. Everything bombarded him in that moment, and a burst of adrenaline gave him one final warning.

  Escape was still an option here. There was still time to walk away, to disappear. It wouldn’t be the first time he had done something like that.

  He scanned the gates, noting flights bound for Raleigh/Durham, Nashville, Oklahoma City... The flight to New Orleans was boarding, the sign flashing Final Call. One quick transaction and he could buy a seat. Go, he urged himself. Do it now. No one would blame him, surely. Any guy in his right mind would leave things up to people who were equipped to deal with the situation.

  He approached the counter with the flight to New Orleans. The gate agent, a heavyset iron-haired guy hacking away at a keyboard, looked up. “May I help you?”

  Bo cleared his throat. “Are there any seats left on this flight?”

  The agent nodded. “Always room for more in the Big Easy.”

  Bo grabbed the wallet from his back pocket. As he flipped it open, an old receipt and a coin fell out. He stooped and picked up the coin. It was ancient, embossed with a triangle symbol. It was a token they gave out at those meetings held in church basements, when you swore you’d stayed sober a whole year. It sure as hell hadn’t been earned by Bo. Who wanted to go a whole freaking year without a drink? Certainly not him. It was hard enough lasting an entire baseball season. He kept the coin because it was old, because it came from a time, a place and a person he didn’t know, but to whom he was intimately connected.

  “Sir?” the gate agent prompted. “Is there something you need?”

  Bo studied the coin in his hand. Service, unity, recovery. “Guess not,” he said quietly, and his fingers closed into a fist around the token. He started walking back to Gate 22-C. A waiting skycap held a radio, which crackled as he fiddled with the tuner.

  In his head, Bo heard the distant roar of a crowd, sounding like the ocean through the whorls of a seashell held to his ear. An announcement blared over the stadium’s PA system—Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a sellout crowd tonight at Yankee Stadium. And here’s our starting pitcher for the home team, stepping up to the mound. This has to be the toughest and most triumphant walk of his career, folks. I would think, at this moment, that mound is the loneliest place on earth. He’s one and one to Tony Valducci. Now he’s ready: Fastball, high, ball two. You can’t blame the guy for pushing it, with so much at stake. An All-American out of Texas City, Crutcher was considered to be an early-round draft pick straight out of high school...but the draft came and went. It took another thirteen years and a mother lode of luck, but here he is at last. He’s proof positive that sometimes, age is just a number. It is his time to shine....

  Bo nearly bumped into the skycap. He shook off the fantasy and focused on the gate. Passengers from the Houston flight were coming through the door in a steady stream—businesspeople were already talking on their cell phones, couples and lone travelers were heading toward the baggage claim, exhausted-looking parents emerged with cranky, tousle-headed kids. The emptying of the plane seemed to take forever.

  So long that Bo began to have his doubts. Had he written down the flight number correctly? Was he completely wrong about the time, the airline, the day? Was this some freakish, horrible mistake?

  He was about to approach the gate agent when an elderly couple shuffled off the plane. Skycaps helped them to an electric cart. Finally, a flight attendant with wispy hair and weary eyes emerged from the Jetway with someone behind her. The attendant went to the podium, handing over a clipboard. The last passenger walked off, toting a battered carry-on suitcase repaired with duct tape and a backpack clanking with gear, and wearing a Yankees baseball cap, which had been a Christmas gift from Bo. A clear pouch on a string, with a card that read Unaccompanied Minor, dangled around his neck.

  Strike three. Yeeee’re out.

  Bo stepped forward, assumed his best posture. “AJ?” he said to the boy he’d never laid eyes on before. “It’s me, Bo Crutcher. Your dad.”

  Chapter Three

  Kim hobbled through the airport to the commuter-plane concourse. The dress, torn to within a few inches of decency, flapped around her chilled, bare legs. She hoped to catch a flight on a private carrier upstate, thus avoiding a trek into the city and a long and lurching train ride. In this, at least, fate was on her side. Pegasus Air had a seat available on a flight to Kingston that was leaving within the hour. She didn’t dare look at the charge slip of her credit card, but scribbled her
signature and headed for the waiting area. Within minutes, the flight was called and the small cluster of passengers lined up to board the plane.

  The route to the commuter aircraft was a long outdoor walkway with a canvas awning, currently being whipped into a frenzy by an icy, sideways wind. She was beyond exhausted, beyond feeling conspicuous in her evening wear. That didn’t, however, protect her from feeling the pure, freezing torment of the cold, lashing about her ankles and legs. Small rivers of snow eddied underfoot, chasing her to the truck-mounted stairway leading up to the dual-prop Bombardier.

  She dozed during the short, bumpy flight north to the snow-clad hills of Ulster County, and jolted awake when the plane slammed down on the foreshortened runway. Blinking at the flat, gray winter scene outside the window, a fresh wave of misgivings nudged at her. Walking out on last night’s party and going straight to the airport, leaving behind a successful career, a crappy boyfriend and all her belongings, might not have been the best idea she’d ever had. Quite possibly, heading directly from the L.A. disaster to the small town where her widowed mother now lived was a bit extreme.

  Still. Sometimes a girl simply had to respect her instincts, and every instinct last night had urged her to flee. Quite often, her impulses had proven to be wrong; she’d get a head full of steam over something, only to discover things weren’t so bad, after all. This time, she acknowledged, was different. Because beneath the shock and panic, the humiliation and disappointment, something else emerged—determination.

  She would get through this.

  Squaring her shoulders, she endured the arctic crossing of the open-air tarmac and headed into the waiting room of the tiny airport. Here was something Kim was good at—appearing calm. To the point where she actually was calm. No one would guess that she was on the verge of screaming.

  The waiting room was a drafty, cavernous aluminum building that became a virtual wind tunnel every time the door opened. She set her jeweled clutch on a vacant counter. The evening bag had been a Christmas gift from Lloyd, and was worth thousands of dollars. But when she peered inside, all she could see was how small it was, how empty. It contained her remaining diamond chandelier earring, a gift from the hockey player she’d dated before Lloyd. She wouldn’t miss wearing the earrings, since they were heavy and uncomfortable. There was a lipstick and a tube of concealer, one credit card, a platinum American Express. Her driver’s license and a wad of cash she’d withdrawn from an ATM at the airport, charging it to the American Express. This would likely incur an exorbitant fee but she couldn’t worry about that. Not now. She had more immediate worries.

  Gritting her teeth, she took out her phone, balking as she had earlier. Turning on the phone meant acknowledging what had happened last night. Well, ignoring the phone was not going to make her troubles go away. She set her jaw and hit the power button. As expected, there was a full queue of missed calls. She scrolled through them but didn’t listen to the messages. She knew they would be a string of rants from Lloyd and, no doubt, Lloyd’s manager, his various coaches and teammates, his parents. Good lord, the man was thirty years old and didn’t even take a piss without getting input from his parents.

  She definitely wouldn’t miss that aspect of him. She wouldn’t miss any aspect of him, not even his money, his status, his looks or reputation. None of those were worth her heart. Or her self-respect.

  As she glared at the tiny screen, it gave her a low-battery warning and then went blank. All the better, she thought. Except she really did need to make a call.

  She looked around for a pay phone. The only one in range was a phone booth about fifty yards across the frozen tundra of the parking lot. Please, no, she thought, approaching the counter. “Excuse me,” she said to the girl working there. “Is there a pay phone indoors? My cell phone died.”

  “Local call?” the girl asked, eyeing Kim’s outfit.

  “Yes.”

  The counter girl indicated a phone on the wall, surrounded by scribbled-on Post-it notes. “Help yourself.”

  Kim watched her own fingers punch the numbers as though they belonged to someone else. To her horror, she was shaking uncontrollably. She could barely connect her fingers with the correct number. After a couple of false starts, she finally got it right.

  “Fairfield House.”

  Kim frowned, momentarily disoriented. “Mom?”

  “Kimberly,” her mother chirped. “Good morning, dear. How are you?”

  Trust me, you do not want to know.

  “You’re up early,” her mother continued.

  “I’m not there,” said Kim. “I mean, I’m not in L.A. I came home on the red-eye.”

  “You’re in New York?”

  “I’m at the county airport, Mom.”

  There was a beat of hesitation, weighted with doubt. “Well, for heaven’s sake. I had no idea you planned to fly out from L.A.”

  “Can you come and pick me up?” To her dismay, Kim’s throat burned and her eyes smarted. Fatigue, she told herself. She was tired, that was all.

  “I was just cleaning up after breakfast.”

  Screw breakfast, Kim wanted to scream. “Mom, please. I’m really tired.”

  “Of course. I’ll be there in a jiff.”

  Kim wondered how long a “jiff” was. Her mom was always saying things like “in a jiff.” It used to drive Kim’s father crazy. He always thought colloquialisms were so déclassé.

  “Wait, can you bring a spare coat and some snow boots?” she asked hurriedly. But it was too late. Her mother had already hung up. She wondered what her father would think of her current getup. No, she didn’t wonder. She knew. The formfitting gown would earn his skepticism at best, but more likely disapproval, her father’s default mode.

  I wish we’d had time to forgive one another, Dad, she thought.

  She pulled her thoughts away from him, telling herself not to go there, not in her current state of mind. One day, she would get to work on making peace with the past, but not this morning. This morning, it was all she could do to keep from turning into a sequined Popsicle in the waiting room. She found a bench to sit on in the terminal, and started nodding off like a wino.

  She jerked herself awake and glanced at the clock. It would probably take her mother another ten minutes to get here. Ten more minutes. How many things could happen in ten minutes? That was about how long it took to send a flower delivery. Or to write an email.

  Or break up with a boyfriend. Or quit a job. These ten minutes, Kim thought, right here, right now, were the start of forever.

  The notion made her sit up straighter. Right here, right now, she could pick a new path for her life. Leave the past behind and move ahead. People did it all the time, didn’t they? Why couldn’t she do the same?

  Her mother had made a new start in Avalon, Kim reminded herself. It could be done. After the death of her husband, Penelope Fairfield van Dorn had moved to the small mountain town to live in the house where she had grown up. Kim had visited only one other time, two summers ago. Penelope claimed she preferred to meet her daughter in the city, having lunch and strolling the Upper East Side neighborhood where Kim had grown up. Penelope was certain Kim would find Avalon too uneventful and boring.

  Penelope was endearingly dazzled by Kim’s work, her friends, her way of life. Just a few weeks ago at Christmas, they’d rendezvoused with Lloyd’s family in Palm Springs. Penelope had adored Lloyd, and vice versa—or so it had seemed to Kim. But after last night, she wasn’t sure she knew Lloyd Johnson at all. She did, however, know enough now to realize she never wanted to see him again. Ever.

  The waiting room rang with emptiness. The girl at the counter and a couple of workers stood around, sipping coffee and acting as though they weren’t sneaking glances at Kim. On an ordinary workday, Kim might be having coffee and gossiping, too. In her line of work, gossip was more than just a way to fill the silence. Sometimes it was
a mortal enemy, to be fought off like the bubonic plague. Other times, it was a means to an end, a way to get a client attention. Kim had used gossip like a power tool. She wondered what people would be saying back in L.A., at her old firm.

  She just lost it, right in the middle of the party.

  He always had a mean streak in him.

  Then again, who knew she had that kind of fight in her?

  And the breakup was so public....

  People at the firm had no idea what had happened after the public part of the breakup. Lloyd had followed her to the hotel parking lot and—

  Agitation drove Kim to her feet. By now, her toes were numb, so the shoes didn’t bother her so much. She went to the ladies’ room and removed the dark glasses. As a resident of Southern California, she was never without a pair of shades. This was the first time she’d used them for such a purpose, however.

  Taking out the concealer, she touched up her makeup. It was a top-of-the-line product, used by professional makeup artists to cover up even the most glaring flaws. And really, this was just an extension of what she did so well in her career. She was a master of the cover-up, though usually on her clients’ behalf, not her own.

  Satisfied that she looked perfectly fine, she returned to the waiting room and stood at the window, willing her mother to get here but at the same time, worrying about the road conditions. Upstate New York winters were not for the faint at heart. SUVs and cars lumbered and skidded along the state road in a steady progression. She didn’t know what kind of car her mother was driving these days. Was it a cautious little hybrid? A shiny Volkswagen bug?

  It was funny, not knowing, yet oddly diverting to guess.

  A safety-conscious Volvo? An economy-minded Chevrolet or a practical import? Perhaps it was the Cadillac that was approaching like a glossy beetle. Kim had no idea. It was startling—and a little disturbing—for her to realize how much she didn’t know about her mother’s life these days.