Birthday Girls (39 page)

After the call to Louisa she had been too restless to retire to her room; instead, she caught the ferry into Seattle, walked aimlessly in the cold and damp, then picked up a newspaper and a Dungeness crab salad at Elliott’s on the waterfront for the ferry ride back.

After three bites she’d tossed it. Not because it wasn’t delectable, not because its presentation wasn’t acceptable. She simply could not get the food down her throat; the ache in her heart rose too high.

Larry was dead.

Sondra’s baby had been born prematurely.

And Edmund was being questioned for a murder that no one had committed.

She sat on the wet bench of a charming gazebo in great need of paint, took a long swig from the bottle, and thought about how much chaos her birthday wish had created. How
her selfish, self-centered need to put herself first—to
always
put herself first—had caused so much upset. She wondered if anyone had guessed that she’d been so selfish because she’d been so scared—scared that her world would crumble and that she’d be left alone, an orphan again.

The newspaper account of Larry’s suicide said he had hit the ground clutching an Emmy. No one had to tell Abigail which Emmy it was: the one he’d been so angry about, the first Emmy, where she’d omitted his name from the entry, where he’d received no recognition for all his hard work.

That had been a mistake. Another selfish, self-centered mistake. She wondered if she could ever forgive herself. Or if even God would. Abigail Hardy had been so hell-bent on being
the
Abigail Hardy that she’d never considered the feelings of others. Now it was too late for Larry. Even his underhanded stab at revenge did not warrant his death.

Lighting another cigarette, she thought about Sondra and wondered what the new mother would do now. Unemployed, without a husband, unskilled, un-everything except unprotected. Edmund would take care of them, the way he always had.

Only, of course, if he wasn’t in jail.

She clutched the bottle and cried softly into the night.

There was, she knew, only one thing she could do now, Only one thing to rectify her sins.

She had no way of knowing if it was possible for Edmund to be tried for her murder. If no body surfaced, could he be arrested? She did not know. And she certainly could not consult a lawyer. But Abigail knew that if it came to that, she would have to return. She simply could not let that happen; she already had caused too much pain.

As she lit another cigarette, footsteps approached, squish-squishing in the damp earth.

“Sarah?” The voice was Grace McKenna’s, Joel’s mother.

Quickly Abigail tried to wipe her eyes.

“Land sakes, what are you doing out here in the cold?”

Abigail wanted to answer her, but she took another swig instead.

The overweight, overwrinkled woman climbed onto the gazebo and studied her guest. Then she reached toward the bottle. “Care to share a taste of that?”

With a half-hearted smile Abigail handed her the wine. She did not have the strength to ask her to please leave her alone.

“This is my favorite place to dump all my troubles,” Grace said. “Of course, I try to wait until spring, so I don’t freeze my ass off.”

In spite of herself, Abigail laughed. “You are a wise woman, Grace.”

The woman took a deep drink then returned the bottle. “Wise enough to see when someone’s got troubles. I don’t expect you want to share them, but I just wanted you to know somebody’s here if you do.” She nodded and began to leave.

“Grace …” Abigail heard herself call out. “Wait.”

The woman stopped.

Abigail spoke slowly, careful not to say too much. “Have you ever done things you regretted, but it was too late to change?”

“Lord, honey, we all have,” she said, and took a step back toward Abigail. “Ask God to forgive you. He will, if you let Him. Then you’ve got to forgive yourself. Then you just have to let it all go.”

“I tried to let go. But things are still happening.” She stared into the dark night. “And it’s my fault.”

Grace was silent a moment, the sounds of the rain on the roof of the gazebo softening the night. “Honey,” she said in a whisper, “what are you doing here, anyway?”

“In the gazebo?”

She moved closer. “No. Here in Seattle.”

Abigail felt her defenses resurface.

“I told you. I’m writing a novel.”

“Well, I don’t know much about writing books,” she said. “But it seems to me that for that people use computers. Or at least paper and pencils.”

Grace, of course, cleaned Abigail’s room. She wondered if Grace had also noticed that all her clothes were new, and all had labels from shops in Seattle.

“Look, honey,” Grace continued, “I’m not going to pry. I want you to know that. And I also want you to know that you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

That said, she moved off into the darkness, back toward the house.

Abigail took another drag on her cigarette and watched the puff of smoke dissolve into the mist.

Two days
later she awoke shivering. When Grace brought in her breakfast tray, Abigail was still in bed.

“No breakfast this morning,” Abigail said. “I … I’m not feeling very well.”

Grace set down the tray on the clumsy old bureau and went to the bed. With a rough, callused hand, she touched Abigail’s forehead.

“Land sakes, honey, you’re burning up.”

“It’s just a cold,” Abigail said.

“No. And I’m calling the doctor, like it or not.”

The doctor
diagnosed the flu. The a-lot-of-it-going-around, garden-variety flu.

For three days Abigail huddled under the thick covers of the deep feather bed, her eyes glazed, her body wracked, existing on fruit juice and chicken soup that Grace supplied on an hourly basis.

On the fourth day Grace brought her a hot toddy.

“Guaranteed to break the fever, once and for all,” the woman proclaimed.

Later that night Abigail awoke in a sweat. Her flannel nightgown was soaked, the bedsheets were drenched, and she felt better than she’d felt in days.

After changing herself she tiptoed across the uneven floor, went into the hall, and removed clean sheets from the McKennas’ linen closet. Back in her room, she was halfway finished making the bed when she realized what she was doing: Abigail Hardy, for the first time in her life, was making a bed. No one was doing it for her. She was amazed that she even knew how.

Crawling back under the covers, Abigail smiled. It felt good, she realized. It felt good to do something for herself for a change. To take some responsibility for her own person; to make her own damn bed by herself. For once in her life, before she turned fifty.

Maybe
, she thought as she drifted off to sleep,
maybe there’s hope for me after all
.

In the morning
Abigail awoke with her answer. She showered and dressed, all the while smiling. Then she went downstairs and tracked down Joel and Grace. They were in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

“You look wonderful,” Grace said.

“I feel wonderful. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Grace nodded but returned to her work. It looked like hollandaise sauce for eggs Benedict. Another specialty that Abigail knew she could make much more tasty.

“You have such a wonderful dining room,” she said as her eyes shifted to Joel, who was busy stacking plates on the long, stainless-steel counter. “It’s a shame you only use it for breakfast. Have you ever thought of expanding?”

Joel looked at his mother, then back to Abigail.

“We have enough business to get through the winter, Sarah,” he said. “It’s enough for us.”

“Is it?” Abigail asked. “Really?”

He laughed. “Well, we sure don’t have any extra money to go doing anything else to the place.”

“How much would it cost? To really get this place into shape? It’s such a wonderful location. You could turn it into a gourmet restaurant as well as an inn. You could have tourists come here from all over.”

Grace stopped stirring the sauce. She wiped her hands on her apron and removed the pan from the stove.

“You have highfalutin ideas for a lady who spends most of her days sitting in her room,” Joel said.

She smiled. “I thought no one around here cared about anyone else’s business?”

“Well, you seem to be caring about mine.”

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “How much would it cost, Joel? I don’t have a lot of money, but I could lend you enough to get started.”

“Get us started at what?”

“To turn McKenna Guest House into a viable tourist place. An up-and-coming inn and restaurant that all of Seattle and beyond would clamor to come to—year round.”

Grace said nothing.

Joel scowled. “And what would be in it for you?”

“A job,” Abigail said. “I’d want a job once things got rolling.”

He stared at her, then broke into a grin.

Kris had
decided to return to Khartoum and resume her research for the next Lexi Marks escapade. It seemed as good a place as any. After all, the last thing she wanted was a man. For that, Khartoum was safe. This time, however, she booked a room at the Hilton to be sure she’d have a
view of the Nile. And this time she remembered to telephone Devon before she left.

He had not been pleased. The Texas book tour that he’d put off last fall was rescheduled for March. “How long do you plan to be gone?” he asked, an edge to his voice.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back in time.”

And Kris knew she’d return. She knew that all she needed was a few weeks of concentrated, day-and-night work to get her mind back to where it needed to be. To get her mind off Abigail. And off Edmund.

It was too hot to work during the day, so she sat at her laptop now, long after dark, and savored the dry breeze that drifted in through her open window. She chewed on the tip of her red pen, studying the computer screen in front of her. The plot had taken a new twist: Lexi Marks had discovered that the art thief was missing-and-presumed-dead. Missing-and-presumed-dead—a concept very much on Kris’s mind these days. She would rely on Lexi Marks to purge her of that.

But in this latest thriller the thief Lexi pursued was black, of Sudanese descent. She suspected he would fence his latest acquisitions in a place he knew well: the underground world of Khartoum.

Kris had no idea if there were such a thing. But in the world of Lexi Marks anything was possible.

She scrolled through the text, reading what she’d already created. Lexi had learned there was a desert mosque that in reality was not a mosque at all but an ornate, mosaic-tiled, gold-domed cover for a ring of thieves. The building was nearly inaccessible, set as it was across miles of desert, with no roads leading to its doors.

Kris chewed her pen again. An inaccessible building across miles of desert, with no roads leading to it.

Hmm, she thought, with a slow, satisfied smile. It appeared as though Lexi Marks was about to learn how to ride a camel.

A camel ride. Another adventure. Hey, it wasn’t exactly the Matterhorn, but it was something new to try. Lexi Marks, after all, wouldn’t hesitate. Neither, then, should her creator.

Of course
, Kris could not locate a rent-a-camel concession, though she believed if Khartoum were a bit more Americanized there would be one on every street corner. Instead, with a few Sudanese pounds placed into a few hands, the following morning she found herself being taxied in a white Toyota pickup truck to the outskirts of town, accompanied by a translator who had also received his share of cash.

It wasn’t long before they stopped in front of a square cinderblock structure that was washed in beige. Beige, white, brown—the colors of the landscape of Sudan.

Abigail’s colors.

She pushed away her thoughts. Her damn, wouldn’t-go-away thoughts.

Then a small black man dressed in a traditional white Sudanese
eimma
robe and
jalabiya
head covering emerged from the run-down building. He smiled and nodded as the translator explained her needs. The man motioned for them to get out of the truck and follow him.

Around the back of the structure stood a shack, even smaller and less sturdy. At a rotting wooden fence post next to the shack, two camels were tied.

The man jibbered something in Arabic.

“He says you are welcome to ride and wants to know what you’ll give him.”

“How much does he want?”

More jibbering.

“He does not want money. He wants something from New York.”

“What?”

The translator shrugged. “Anything. A newspaper?”

Kris frowned. “I have a copy of last week’s Sunday
Times
. But can he read English?”

“He will look at the pictures. The ads.”

The deal was made. It was decided that Kris would return after sundown, after the prayers toward Mecca had been said. She was to bring the newspaper and then she would experience camel riding in the cool nighttime desert air.

Back at her hotel, she waited until afternoon to place a call to Maddie. She wanted to thank her for being so honest; she wanted to share with her the wonderful feeling of regaining control of her life, of herself. But there was no answer at Maddie’s, only the prerecorded message and the beep of the answering machine.

Everything
she’d ever thought about camels was true. Saliva spilled from its mouth; the broad carrier perched on its hump was not constructed for her long, curled-up legs; and the smell was atrocious. But as the beast moved forward behind her guide, who had been overjoyed with his week-old
New York Times
, Kris congratulated herself on another adventure, another way of giving Lexi Marks—and her world—as much realism as possible.

They plodded across the desert. Kris’s mind whirled with concepts and scenarios and fragments of phrases she repeated over and over to herself so as not to forget: the gritty taste of the desert dirt, the sway of her butt in the uncomfortable saddle, the hollow sound of the beast’s hooves as they smacked the desert floor—one-two, three-four, one-two, three-four.