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

Her doe-like eyes scrolled up from her coffee mug and locked onto mine. It was haunting. “So you’re saying he is cheating on me.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Bros before hoes, is that what this is about?”

  “You’re not a hoe, Gracie. And if Alex made you feel that way, then I’m very sorry. Perhaps I should have a few more words with him on our trip to New York this weekend.”

  Gracie looked at me for a time. “Okay. I guess that’s all I needed to know.” She stood up, looking very uncomfortable now, and probably agitated at my uselessness, if I was reading her right. And if I had any worldly skill, it was reading women, or maybe not so much.

  “Leaving so soon?” I also stood.

  “I should be getting home, just in case Alex returns.”

  “Here, let me see you out to your car.”

  “No.” She pressed a hand to the door and held it there. “I feel so foolish saying this, but it has to be said. I’m not happy with your answer.”

  “You’re not?” A gush of blood surged to my head.

  “I know what you really think, that I’m crazy, but….”

  I took in a deep breath and sighed. “Try me.”

  “Is my husband cheating on me?”

  “Come, sit down and finish your coffee.” I held five fingers out again as a comforting gesture. “This goes against my better judgment of confidentiality among guy friends, but you came to me, and…. I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

  As Gracie crossed the room again for the leather sofa her lips trembled. I waited until she sat down, sipped from Charlie Brown’s t-shirt, and said: “There’ve been a couple of girls.”

  “Can you be more specific?” She spoke quickly, as if to relieve the tension, and said it to her hands, but even her fingers shook. She clutched all ten of them together in an attempt to calm each one.

  “There was one from our trip to Boston about three weeks ago, a bridesmaid. He spent a night in her hotel, and another in New York that he met at a club. And there’s been talk of others. Gracie, I want you to know this broke every professional and ethical standard that I laid out for him. I’ve been considering what to do.”

  “Men can be such pigs.”

  “They’re not all pigs. Just some of them.”

  “Mine is. You’re saying you’ve never slept around?”

  “No, Gracie. I’m married.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I might be a pig, but that’s a completely separate issue. The monogamous part, anyways, is true.”

  “I'm sorry. You’re not a pig.” She dialed some sort of internal knob and ignited a stunning display of tears, even heaping a helping of snot up through her nose. “You’re nothing of the sort. A couple of years ago he convinced me to let one of my girlfriends, how do I say this, enter our marriage bed. He said our sex life needed a boost. I thought it was just fine as it was.”

  I wasn’t sure if she’d finished her thought yet or not, and so waited while she twitched her eyes between her lap and the Goofy mug.

  “We set up this rule that there had to be trust between us, which meant we both had to be present when, you know, it happened. But afterwards my relationship was never the same between she and I, and I always suspected that I was simply bumped out of the equation. I think Alex kept seeing her, but it didn’t stop there. We attended these swinger parties, all in the campaign to spice up our bedtime habits. The funny thing is, I’d convinced myself then that it’s what I wanted. I was clearly in denial. I think most women are about these things.”

  “I’m very sorry, Gracie. I feel helpless. Is there anything I can do?”

  She pulled her flapper hat off as she stared at me, making sure to loosen whatever strands of hair that had been weighted down by it. “Haven’t you ever wanted to get revenge for what Elise did to you?”

  “Revenge probably isn’t the right word. But I have managed to make a fool of myself on a couple of occasions, if that helps.”

  “It’s not fair that our spouses get to play on-call doctor while the rest of us get stuck playing stay-home priest.”

  “No, you’re right, it’s not.”

  Gracie stood, abandoned her hat and Goofy mug on the coffee table, and made her way across the room, quivering in another way entirely. She never relayed her thoughts but her body language, at least, if I was reading it right, spoke volumes. I heard the voice of Father John Williams, my local Catholic priest, speak a little ditty in my head, from Proverbs. He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself.

  I said: “Doing the right thing isn’t always fair, Gracie.”

  “On the Fourth of July, when we were water-skiing on Michael’s boat, you kept staring at me.”

  “You weren’t wearing a life jacket. I was concerned you might drown.”

  “I was wearing a life jacket, and you were staring at me longingly.” She stood about three feet away, but closing the gap in swift swoops. “Don’t think I didn’t notice. It’s because I kissed you the night before, when Alex went to the bathroom, wasn’t it? It’s okay to be curious.”

  “I wasn’t curious.”

  “Yes…you were.”

  “I thought that’s simply how one says goodnight in the Mancini family.”

  “Only to the people my father finds favor with. And curiosity, after all, is what makes us human.”

  “I like being human.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “But I’d hate to be out of favor with Mr. Mancini. And speaking of curiosity that killed the cat, what does your father exactly do for a living?”

  There was a ruler’s length between us now. “That’s not what I came here to talk about.”

  “Your husband then, I was thinking….”

  “The very thought of him makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “The toilet works, if you need to use it.”

  “I've got a better cure for an aching stomach.”

  “That's what I was afraid of.”

  She closed her massive doe-like eyes and maneuvered her mouth in my general vicinity. Her lips trembled. So did mine. And for a second there I thought she might miss the lunar landing of my face completely. I wondered if Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong's landing on the moon was anything like this.

  “Gracie, this isn’t a good idea.”

  Houston did not give her clearance to land, but our lips met, and just as quickly I pushed her away.

  “Gracie, no.”

  “You don’t want me.” She spoke as someone awoken to the medical state of shock.

  “Of course I want you. I want every good-looking woman that comes along. That doesn’t mean I act on it.”

  “This is different.”

  “I’m not your husband, Gracie.”

  Her eyes became a mosaic of anger and embarrassment as she wiped her mouth of my memory, saying nothing, and went straight for the door. She opened it before I could, turned around as I offered to hold it for her, and with one fell swoop slapped five fingers across my cheek.

  “That’s also how we say goodnight in the Mancini family,” she said.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  “Goodnight, Grace,” I said, and waited until she descended the stairs before closing it. “I liked the first way a whole lot better.”

  THE RUNAWAY

  1

  BEFORE TURNING IN FOR THE NIGHT I left the animated glow and volume of the television on. Aristotle was there to keep me company, but otherwise my apartment was entirely empty and barren of life. Wild Turkey saluted me from the kitchen cabinet (I promised myself the second shot would definitely be the last pour of the night), and was doused with just enough Kentucky Bourbon to warm my blood and numb my loneliness when I decided on another viewing of Hitchcock’s 1959 classic, North By Northwest.

  There’s that scene towards the beginning of the film where the bad guys force Carey Grant to guzzle down a poisonous helping of liquor and then send him on his way across a treacherous
Long Island highway, all while driving a 59 Mercedes-Benz 220S Cabriolet. My own glass of alcohol was good, and I laughed at the absurdity of Grant’s predicament, letting him know I was planning on getting just as intoxicated as he before the night was through. Carey was too busy staying alive to answer.

  Only I didn’t follow through with my promise. Weariness quickly swept over me, my eyes grew heavy, I thought about presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barrack Obama, both US Senators, and within minutes I succumbed to an even better escape from reality. Sleep. It's a womb thing. I had an entire thirty-six hours before I could jump on that flight for a long overdue reunion with the Boston Bridesmaid, and I hoped by some miracle that I wouldn’t wake until my next rebirth, when it was time to pick up my bags and leave.

  2

  REALITY DIDN’T STAY HIDDEN FOR LONG, because when my old college buddy Alex Parker disrupted my sleep on the leather sofa, Carey Grant had just been accused of murder in the United Nations building, courtesy of an unidentified back stabbing knife thrower, and was now a fugitive on the run. Alex hadn’t cut an inch of hair since his premiere wedding seconding as a photographer some five or six weeks earlier, and it was beginning to show clear signs of shag around the ears and collar again, probably exactly as he felt most comfortable. Within months he'd probably work it back into a pony-tail, the Alex that I knew. I was surprised to see him though, especially considering that he’d never helped himself into my apartment before, and as he stood over me it was abundantly clear, something was as off kilter as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressing up in drag.

  He said: “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

  “No,” I said, trying to make sense of where and when I was, despite using Carey Grant’s televised presence as my compass. At first I thought maybe it was a couch in Aunt Nancy and Patty’s San Franciscan Victorian, where Elise and I had been staying over the weekend for her twin sister’s wedding. “Yes…. Maybe.”

  “This isn’t the time, Prosexionist. I’ve got a flight I need to catch in less than two hours. And it’s LAX, not Long Beach. So let’s get a move on it.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “We don’t have a gig for another three days, two of them. And they’re in Jersey and Connecticut.”

  “I know. But this time I got the gig. I’ve been posting some ads on Craigslist, and…”

  “You’re shooting a wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “I know it’s soon. But the last couple of months under your wing have been amazing. I’ve learned so much, and this couple in Boston liked my website.”

  “I didn’t know you had a website.”

  “It’s new. They had a guy drop out at the last minute, and…”

  “It’s a Tuesday.”

  “Yes, I know. They’re getting married manana. Come on. We’ve got to get you up and into my BMW.” He’d grown impatient. “I desperately need a ride and I’m not paying for another flight if I miss this one. It’s like you’ve always said, guys like us don’t get per-diems.”

  I slipped my flip-flops on, rubbed my eyes, found my wallet on the coffee table, and unsuccessfully combed the room for car keys. Aristotle was already standing by the front door, nudging his nose in the direction of his leash.

  “We can take my Ford Country Squire. It’s several blocks away, but I didn’t really want to leave it there all night anyways.”

  “You think I’m gonna get caught pulling up to the curb at LAX in that thing? Zach Galifianakis might see me.”

  “That weird bearded guy who interviews people on Between Two Ferns? If he saw you pulling up to LAX in a beautiful station wagon classic like my Country Squire, he might jump in and join you.”

  “My point exactly,” Alex tugged at my arm. “Forget your keys. We haven’t the time. I’ve got my stuff in the BMW. Aristotle can ride along too. Let’s go.”

  “I can’t lock up without my keys.”

  “I won’t tell the sinners and home intruders you’re gone if you won’t.”

  I clipped the leash to Aristotle’s collar, took another lasting gaze around my lonely apartment, the electric glow of a Hitchcock classic, and lamented with a sigh. On my way out I didn’t lock the front door.

  3

  RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC WAS ONLY a passing memory on the 405 Freeway as Alex kept to the speed limit, not his usual driving behavior. The alcohol had slowly begun to wear off, and the unusually cool July night air felt good as we passed the Dow Chemical plant in Torrance, with its various jagged mountain peaks of twisted pipes and steam generating smokestacks. A lot of people thought the largest US Chemical makers were a Southern Californian eyesore. No argument here, except at night, when its illumination of lights made the entire city of industry look like a fantastical dreamscape.

  I finally said: “Nice car.”

  “Better than that so-called hipster thing-a-ma-jig you drive,” he said.

  “Gracie's father paid for this?”

  “He pats a little spare change into her pockets now and then.”

  “It's nice looking into store windows and not having to worry about the price tag, I guess.”

  Alex's voice trembled. Something dark and menacing was definitely paralyzing his interior skull as he twitched his eyes towards the radio clock (it read 10:25pm). I wasn’t sure if I should bring up the fact that I knew he and Gracie had been fighting earlier that evening, or that she visited me with the thought that he might have left merely to be with another woman rather than a gig, and far more importantly, that she was really into getting revenge, that is, if revenge included having passionate sex with one of his closest friends.

  A few minutes later he said: “I don't get it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Facebook, I don’t get it.”

  “What’s not to get?”

  “Ever since you discovered it earlier this summer,” he used bunny quotes with one set of fingers when pronouncing discovered it, “you’ve been like a kid in a candy store, putting up new statuses two or three times per day.”

  “Pictures, I mostly post pictures.” From the floor of his convertible, Charlize Theron was on GQ’s cover, barely draped in a single sheet. I picked it up and studied the photo itself, how it was engineered as a whole (I imagined the very pose the photographer was in when he snapped it, surrounded by various lighting), and then returned Theron to the floor. “It’s what I do.”

  “And how many people actually see those pictures?”

  “Plenty.”

  “What like twenty people?”

  “I already have a hundred Facebook friends, and counting.”

  Alex looked at me with his typical leanings towards sarcasm, or was he being serious? I wasn’t always sure which of the two dominated his thinking (maybe both in equal measurements), but on this particular evening I was detecting an extra amount of agitation and anger, and I considered the possibility that this entire conversation was simply made up to distract or mask the terrible truth already at work deep within him.

  “Facebook was so, I don’t know, 2007.”

  “No, Myspace was 2007.”

  “Myspace was 2006. Most people just haven’t realized that yet. Mark my words, this time next year Facebook will be a thing of the past. And whatever happens, take my advice, never friend your mother.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Really, I’m telling you, they shouldn’t let anyone over thirty-five on these things. The Internet’s far too small for my mother and I to be surfing it at the same time, especially if she’s checking up on me. As soon as something like that happens…”

  “I’m so fortunate to have a culture guru as a friend.”

  “When I picked you up at your house, you had your laptop screen opened up to the Facebook page of that theater chick. You fell asleep looking at it.”

  “You remember the Boston bridesmaid.”

  “I sure do. Mm-mm, Savannah.”

  “No, the other one. Leah. Isn’t that exciting? I m
ean, we were friends in high school and she’s currently starring in Broadway’s most successful play, REPUBLICAN BLUE. Isla Elliot, America’s favorite First Lady. She even won a Tony.”

  “Imaginary girlfriends are nice sometimes.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You’ve been staring at her Facebook page for days. All throughout Josephine’s wedding in San Francisco, when you thought nobody was looking, you kept turning to it and staring at her picture.”

  “I’ll have you know she’s befriended me now.”

  “Mm-hmm. Does she know you’re stalking her?”

  “I’m just doing a little preparatory research. You do realize we’re staying at her apartment this weekend in New York. You will be there, won’t you?”

  “You know I will. I got this gig in Boston tomorrow afternoon, and then I’ll drive down as soon as it’s over.”

  “She is beautiful, don’t you think?”

  “So is Charlize Theron, but staring at a pretty picture is strictly for sausage flogging. It never got anyone laid.”

  “You might have said something before I picked it up and touched it.”

  “And speaking of research, I was hoping to give your love life a little boost by sleeping over at your Cousin Joe’s again.”

  “I think he's in the Riviera this week, but you can stay wherever you want. I hear the Express train from JFK to the Bronx is particularly lovely this time of year, as hotel rooms go.”

  “I thought you might need her apartment to yourself one night. Maybe stalk her with her clothes off, if you know what I mean. I’m just looking out for you, as always, Prosexionist.” Alex grinned.

  “Leah and I are just friends. She knows I’ve been having a difficult time, and she’s reaching out, a shoulder to lean on.”

  “I love the way Cleopatra reached out to Marc Anthony in his hour of need, don’t you?”

  “That ended well.”

  “Whatever the outcome, I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks. But I haven’t given up on Elise. I'm not trading in my marriage ring just yet.”

  Alex decelerated to cruising altitudes down the Century Boulevard off ramp and came to a complete halt at the stoplight, where one of the most luxurious Motel 6’s I’d ever seen couldn’t erase the image of a homeless man pushing grocery carts in front of it.