The Missing Year

by Belinda Frisch

  Ross looked out the window. “You have a nice view from here, huh?”

  Lila pushed the tray of food away and went to sit on her bed. She picked up a book off her nightstand and began reading.

  Ross sighed.

  It was time to employ the Ben Franklin.

  Ross moved the food tray to within Lila’s reach, dragged his chair to her bedside, and threw himself at her mercy.

  “Lila, I need to ask you a favor.”

  She glanced over the top of her book and returned to her reading.

  “Since I’m new here,” Ross spoke softly, “on a probationary period, so to speak, it would look good for me if I got you to eat. Not a lot if you don’t want to, but something. You’d really be helping me out.”

  Lila’s eyes moved back and forth across the page, offering no indication that she planned to do as he asked or not.

  “A bite or two? Maybe? It would prove to Dr. Oliver that he made the right decision bringing me here.”

  Nothing.

  “I understand. You don’t owe me anything. I’ll leave you to your reading.” Ross stood to leave, only looking back when he was about to enter the hallway.

  Lila turned the page of her book, glanced in his direction, and reached for the sandwich.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The first day had gone better than expected. Getting Lila to eat reminded Ross that he needed food back at the motel. The nearest grocery store with any selection was twelve miles away, in Lake Placid, not far from his hometown. As he arrived, he realized he probably should have waited until the evening rush died down.

  The supermarket plaza bustled.

  Ross circled the parking lot twice before finding a spot and was about to get out of the car when his cell phone rang, the number on the caller ID causing him to momentarily hold his breath.

  Mattie.

  It had taken her almost exactly forty-eight hours to either notice he was gone, or to cool off enough to want to talk to him.

  Ross had left Chicago without telling her where he was headed or why. Now that he was there, he wasn’t sure he could make her believe it wasn’t to do with Sarah. Yes, he had taken a temporary position at Lakeside, but that he and Sarah had started their life together in New York, that he hadn’t been back since her burial, and that he seemed to have returned at a time when she was the only thing on his mind was coincidental, even to him. He sent the call to voice mail and waited until the screen cleared to listen to what Mattie had to say.

  “Ross, it’s me. I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have come to your house, or pushed you to choose … to make an impossible choice. I don’t blame you for lashing out. I … I miss you. And I’m worried. Where are you? Please call me when you get this message.”

  The voicemail was the opposite of what he was expecting, but that was Mattie. She had her own way of handling things.

  Ross’s, for now, was avoidance.

  He exited the car, took a cart from the corral two spaces away, and went inside.

  Five years was a long time to be away from a town as small as the one he and Sarah were from. He wondered what kind of conclusions people had drawn in his absence. Rural communities specialized in milling gossip.

  Entering the supermarket, Ross considered his limited dinner options, mentally listing the meals he could make with one pot, one pan, a spoon, a spatula, and a strainer. He grabbed a loaf of bread from the bakery, spaghetti sauce, ziti, and was headed for the meat case to get a pound of ground beef when someone called out to him.

  “Ross? Ross Reeves, is that you?”

  He froze, not immediately turning around.

  “It is you,” the woman said in one of her many theater accents.

  “Hello, Camille.”

  Of course he’d run into Sarah’s best friend since grade school.

  The wheels of Camille’s cart thudded against the tile floor fast enough that he knew better than to try and evade her. She was in full costume, her claim to fame being performing as a community theater regular. The woman was addicted to assuming alternate personalities.

  “Camille Grant, as I live and breathe.”

  The mid-forties blond held up her empty left hand and pointed at her ring finger. “I’m back to McKenzie,” she said, tugging at the hem of her dress in a way that emphasized what appeared to be a set of enhanced breasts. “Sounds better on stage, anyway.”

  “Then I guess I won’t ask how Adrian’s doing.”

  “I couldn’t answer you if you did.”

  A young boy, who Ross guessed to be about three-years-old, grabbed Camille’s hand and hid behind her.

  “Cute kid,” Ross said, at a loss for anything else.

  “Oh, thanks.” Camille pulled a face. “But he’s not mine. He’s Viv’s. I’m watching him until she gets off work. She should be here any minute.”

  Vivian McKenzie, Camille’s sister, would have been voted the one least likely to reproduce had year book committees been more forward thinking. Instead, she’d been labeled “Most likely to be incarcerated,” a title Viv proudly accepted.

  “Viv’s married?”

  Camille rolled her eyes. “No. It’s a long story.”

  With Viv, it almost always was.

  Ross shook his head, unable to digest the news. “Viv, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “I know, right?” Camille smiled, her teeth as white as the sash on her v-neck blue dress. Her long hair was the exact shade of blond Ross remembered her bleaching it to in the seventh grade. A lot of changes had taken place over that summer, not just for Camille, but for Sarah, too, who had been the first girl to attract his attention. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing back?” she said.

  Ross shrugged. “I’m helping with a patient at Lakeside.”

  A psychiatric facility in a town as small as Mirror Lake didn’t need more than a mention. People knew well what and where it was.

  “Are you here for good?”

  “No. Definitely not. Six weeks max, depending. I’m staying at Peak View.”

  Camille wrinkled her nose. “Eww. What about Chicago? You work for a hospital there, right?”

  “It’s a long story,” Ross said, using her words against her.

  “Mommy!” A smile spread across the timid boy’s face as a dyed redhead wearing enormous hoop earrings and tiny shorts with the pockets hanging out the bottom rushed down the aisle toward them.

  “Viv?” Ross couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Viv ruffled the boy’s hair as she apologized to Camille. Her voice was deeper than Ross remembered, probably from the cigarettes he could smell on her breath. “Goddamned court again. The asshole, of course, didn’t show up. Like I have the kind of cash to pay for everything on a part-time job.”

  Camille covered the boy’s ears.

  If it weren’t at the exact moment Vivian recognized Ross, he wasn’t confident Viv would have taken the hint that she shouldn’t have been disparaging the boy’s father in front of him.

  “Ross Reeves is that you?” she said.

  “In the flesh.”

  “Are you back?”

  “That’s the burning question, isn’t it?” he said. “No. I’m not back.”

  “Logan’s had lunch, but he’s hungry,” Camille interrupted. “You had better get him home and get him something to eat.” She ushered Viv away.

  “Nice seeing you again.” Ross waved to Viv, who scowled at Camille over her shoulder.

  “You, too,” Viv said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry about that.” Camille couldn’t hide her embarrassment. “Family Court stuff, and Logan.”

  Ross couldn’t imagine anyone dressed the way Viv was dressed coming off as the “responsible parent.”

  “She wore that to court?”

  Camille nodded. “Really says something, right? You’ve missed a lot.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Speaking of missin
g ….” Camille made a show of surveying his cart. “That’s not much food. Shopping for one?” she asked, prying the way small town women do.

  Ross nodded. “Yep.”

  “Then you don’t have plans?”

  “For when?”

  “For right now?”

  “I guess not,” he said.

  “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mick’s Tavern—a floor to ceiling green, two-room bar that smelled of fryer grease and stale beer—was an Italian’s attempt at an authentic Irish Pub with an “Every day is St. Patrick’s Day” motif.

  Ross and Camille had gone to high school with the owner, Luca Stefano, who had purchased the place shortly before Ross and Sarah had left town. Ross looked around thankful Luca was nowhere to be found.

  The last thing Ross needed was more pity.

  “Luca’s really gone tacky with the place,” he said.

  “And filthy, too, but it’s a staple, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  Mick’s had been the late-night spot in its heyday.

  A middle-aged waitress wearing a plaid skirt and a white blouse greeted Ross and Camille at the door with, “Sit anywhere you want.” Easily twice the age of the other girls, the uniform wasn’t nearly as flattering on her. Her sour attitude indicated that maybe she knew it.

  Camille surveyed the room and settled on a booth near the corner where the table was still wet. “At least it’s wiped down,” she said, sitting across from Ross and opening the beer menu.

  Ross, who had narrowly escaped a bachelor’s spaghetti dinner, went straight for the food. He settled on ordering Shepherd’s pie and set the sticky menu on the table next to his vibrating phone.

  “You need to take that?” Camille asked.

  It was Mattie again.

  “It can wait,” he said, sliding the phone into his pocket. “How have you been?”

  “Good. Well, not good, but okay. It is the craziest coincidence running in to you. I had heard … I mean, people were saying …”

  Ross lifted his eyebrows. “What’s the rumor?”

  “That you’re holed up like some kind of crazy hermit halfway across the country.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite halfway.”

  “And the rest?” Camille said.

  “I’d say hermit is fairly accurate.”

  “That’s a shame. Sarah wouldn’t want that. You know that, don’t you?” Camille set her hand on his, making him instantly uncomfortable. If he was reading her right, it had been a long time since anyone had touched her—romantically. “You were a great husband, Ross. Everyone knows how much you loved Sarah.”

  Love, Ross thought, seeing no reason to put his current emotion in the past tense. “It’s been a rough five years.”

  “I know something that will make it better.” Camille raised her hand to call over the waitress.

  Fortunately one of the younger ones answered.

  Ross’s stomach bottomed out as he waited for her suggestion.

  “Two Guinnesses, please,” Camille said. “That’s okay with you, right?”

  “Sure.” Ross wasn’t a beer man, per se, but it seemed a solid order given the location.

  “And a basket of sweet potato fries with Melba sauce,” Camille added.

  The waitress scratched down the order and left without a word.

  “She seem strange to you?” Ross asked.

  “Strange? Maybe. She’s quiet, but cute, right?”

  “I guess.” The girl had an athletic build, lean and not at all doughy like the over-forty crowd. Her crimson curls contrasted her milky complexion and she was the perfect mix of natural and made-up. Easily the best looking girl in the bar, Ross wasn’t about to admit he’d noticed to Camille who was about as subtle as a Mack truck.

  “Are you seeing anyone?”

  It took less time than Ross expected for her to ask.

  “On and off. Nothing serious.”

  “Hard for a girl to date a hermit, right?” Camille smirked.

  The waitress set down a frosted pint of beer in front of each of them and placed a basket of greasy fries with dipping sauce in the middle of the table. “Can I get you anything else?” she said, her voice quiet in the loud surroundings.

  “No, thank you. We’re all set.” The waitress walked away and Camille dipped a fry in the steaming purple goo. “Remember Sarah’s twenty-first birthday?”

  Ross nodded, thankful the waitress’s interruption had Camille changing the subject. “Cosmopolitans,” he said, that night being summed up easily in one word. He had never been one for a pink drink, but Sarah, who had never had a drink in her life, saw a woman at the bar ordering one. The four of them, including Camille’s now ex-husband Adrian, spent the night drinking Cosmos of their own. Three drinks later, Sarah was fall down drunk.

  “She couldn’t hold her liquor,” Camille said.

  “That never changed.”

  Ross had seen Sarah through her share of hangovers. Eventually she had learned her lesson, drinking less and less at social events.

  “I hate that the move to Chicago put a wedge between us,” Camille said. “It was like Sarah had another lifetime I wasn’t part of.”

  “We intended to keep in touch, but you know how things go. First my mom got sick and then Sarah.”

  “I miss her,” Camille said. “I miss having her to talk to.” Camille started to tear up and Ross handed her a napkin. “I think a lot about the time we all spent together before you two moved away. Those were the best days of my life. Today, when I saw you at the grocery store, I thought I was hallucinating. Five years is a long time and for you to come back ….”

  “I’m not back.”

  “You are for now. I mean, the timing is perfect. Sarah’s birthday is in a week,” she said, as if he had somehow forgotten.

  “And?” Ross took a long gulp of his dark beer, finishing half the glass.

  “What do you say the three of us get together for old time’s sake? I was planning on bringing flowers to the cemetery for her birthday. Now that you’re here, it would be kind of perfect if you’d come with me. I think Sarah would like that.”

  Camille’s proposal made it clear that Ross wasn’t the only one who hadn’t moved on. He finished the beer in three slow sips and considered his answer. He hadn’t been to Sarah’s plot since her burial, and wasn’t sure he could go.

  “Please?” Camille said. “I really need this.”

  Though Ross wouldn’t admit it, he needed it, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Dinner led to drinks—at least on Camille’s part—and one too many Irish fries for Ross. The two of them talked for hours, long enough that the waitress gave them dirty looks at closing time. Ross left twice the customary tip and called for Camille’s ride home.

  “It was so good to catch up. Please don’t be a stranger.” Camille walked across the parking lot with her high heeled shoes in hand.

  “I won’t,” Ross said, putting her into a cab. “Text me or something, so I know you got home okay?”

  Camille smiled. “Will do.”

  Acknowledging their feelings about Sarah’s death had led to a celebration of her life. Ross hadn’t thought about the good times in years. Rather, he had focused on Sarah’s illness and her deterioration, which had been his most recent and lasting memories.

  Camille, who had seen Sarah only once before her first chemotherapy session, remembered better times. Seeing Sarah through Camille’s eyes made Ross remember the youthful, vibrant, beautiful woman he had fallen in love with.

  It also made him long for her that much more.

  Ross took the long way home, needing time to mull over meeting Camille for Sarah’s birthday. The only way he could be assured not to break down was to make a dry run. He headed down the back roads toward his home town, remembering the lesser travelled route with the familiarity of a local. Things had been strangely automatic, muscle memory helping
him along with things he was sure he’d forgotten. He rolled down his window less than half way, letting in the crisp night air as he closed in on a string of personal landmarks that transported him back in time.

  An old ice cream shop, one with an original soda fountain that specialized in milkshakes, had been his and Sarah’s first official “date.” They were thirteen-years-old and chaperoned by their mothers, who sat at a table across the room. There wasn’t a doubt in either Ross or Sarah’s minds that they were being watched. Sarah’s father had insisted on it. Neither of them let it ruin their time. They sat at the counter, sharing a chocolate malt and talking quietly about the teachers they hoped to get for eight grade. Summer break was romantic in its own way, and they were locked in its grip.

  The now defunct Highway Oil gas station reminded Ross of the day he got his first car, a four door, red with black leather interior, 1962 Plymouth Fury his father had garaged before he died. Ross restored the car with the help of his uncle, pouring all of his time and money into it. The car was something to be proud of and Ross felt like the king of the world as he headed to Sarah’s house, high on teen energy. He was so excited for her to join him that he coasted into the gas station on fumes, having not bothered to fill up first.

  Ross and Sarah had been inseparable for years before he had decided on medical school, leaving Ross to wonder, in months after Sarah’s death, if he had taken too much time from her. He struggled to strike the balance between time with her and the demanding career she had never once complained about. His being so medicine-focused was one of his biggest regrets. He wondered if Sarah knew, if she could feel, how absolutely he loved her, how beautiful she was to him, or how grateful he was for the care she had taken of his ailing mother.

  In those final days, when Sarah was asleep more than awake, too weak to talk, and maybe too tired to listen, Ross told her, at length, how much he loved her, continuing a game they’d been playing for months.

  “Where are we going?” she would ask.

  Ross spent the previous night preparing. “Bali,” he answered. “I booked us a safari.” He hooked his laptop up to a projector, closed the blinds, and turned off the bedroom light.