To Fall in Love Again Read online

  She shook her head. “Something happened—I don’t remember what. His cell was turned off, so I called his office to find out where he was staying, and Marci was not at work.” She took a long sip of wine. “That was strange, because a couple of years before, there was a major issue when one of the officers and his secretary were on vacation at the same time and a crisis arose. The decision was made not to allow that to happen in the future.”

  She put her glass down and made eye contact with her sister. “The same thing happened a couple of weeks later. When it happened a third time, I became suspicious. I hacked his Facebook account, his email, his telephone.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “He used ‘Marci’ for a password every time. Predictable. Thought I’d never figure it out I’m sure.” She picked up her glass and raised it, toasting to her own brilliance. “You wouldn’t believe the pictures on the telephone. Then I called a friend at his office—a former friend. He told me everything. And…I caught them together in a hotel in Atlanta.” She chuckled. “You ought to see those pictures.”

  Lucy placed a hand on Amy’s arm. “So, how are you holding up?”

  “Pretty well.” Amy looked out over the mountain that loomed behind the house. “We had, you know, drifted part, as they say. That phrase has always sounded so dumb to me, but it’s accurate.” She sighed. “In a way, burying him was less traumatic than divorcing him would have been.”

  “What now? Dating yet?”

  “Dating? Please.”

  “You’re not planning to spend the next forty years alone, are you?”

  “Forty years? That’s a bit optimistic.”

  “Forty, thirty, twenty, whatever. Alone?”

  “I’m not alone. I have Cathy, and Elaine, and—”

  “They are wonderful children, but you know what I mean.”

  Amy swirled the wine around her glass. “I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Maybe it’s time.”

  “But I feel stupid when I talk to men I don’t know. What could I say that would interest some random guy?”

  “You start with something trivial and non-threatening then you build on it. Let’s practice.”

  Amy expelled a loud breath, knowing that she would have to play along.

  “I’ll be you,” Lucy said. “Okay. We are in the terminal waiting for our flight to be called. It’s tomorrow. Ready?”

  “Go ahead.” Amy’s voice was flat.

  “Waiting for your flight to Chicago?”

  Amy did not respond.

  “If you ask a question,” Lucy said, “most likely the other person will respond.”

  “Oh, all right. Yes, I’m going to Chicago. That’s why I’m here at gate fifty-two.”

  Lucy sighed. “I’m trying to help. At least you could cooperate.”

  “But that’s what I would want to say.”

  “But you wouldn’t. Neither would any other non-jerk. He would say, ‘Yes, I’m going to Chicago.’ Then you could say, ‘What’s the weather like in Chicago today?’ or ‘Going on business?’ or ‘Are you from Chicago?’”

  Amy cocked her head to one side. “Or I could cut to the chase and say, ‘You’re a guy. I want to have your baby.’”

  Lucy threw one hand in the air. “You’re simply impossible.”

  “I know what you mean, Lucy.” Amy sighed. “I’ll do it. Promise.”

  Lucy smiled. “Good. Your assignment, tomorrow, is to talk to a man, one you do not know, for ten minutes. Talk about something other than the weather.” She laughed at the expression on Amy’s face. “You’re not trying to pick him up, not looking for a date, just being friendly.” She gave Amy a playful pop on the shoulder. “You’ll never see the guy again, so it’s all right if he thinks you’re crazy.”

  ***

  Drew rolled over and squinted at the clock. The red numbers slowly came into focus. Three thirty. He groaned and boosted himself out of bed. The airport shuttle would leave at five, and he wanted to shower and have something to eat before it left.

  He hurried through his shower and thirty minutes later he was dressed, packed, and almost ready. He brewed a cup of tea and munched on a couple of granola bars. With some luck, he could find good coffee at the terminal.

  He opened his laptop and pulled up the files containing the photographs he had taken over the past ten days. He had spent a week photographing wildflowers near Ouray. He smiled as he flipped through the images. The workshop he had attended had been excellent. The pictures taken at the end of the week were far better than those taken early on.

  The workshop had been a Christmas present from Di.

  His smile faded. Six months had passed and he still missed her.

  His eyes wandered to a manila folder that lay on the desk next to his camera bag. It was a chronicle of Di’s illness. She had kept it religiously since her diagnosis, seven months earlier. It would be, she had said, her last publication.

  Her last novel had been placed on the shelves at Barnes and Noble the day before her cancer was diagnosed. Even though it was her tenth book, Di had been excited. She and Drew had visited the bookstore to photograph the books stacked on the table just inside the front door. Five of them were purchased while they watched. They had logged on to see the digital version and shared a toast to her success. Di was well into a sequel and had told Drew that it would be even better than the one just published.

  The sequel sat on her computer now, half-finished. She had not opened the file again, knowing that she would not be able to see it completed. At least the first volume could stand alone, she had said.

  When Di had begun work chronicling her death, Drew thought the project macabre, but since it seemed important to her, he never said so. On the day of her admission to the nursing home, she had made him promise to complete the project and to see that the manuscript was published. Bully my agent, if necessary, she had said.

  Drew had done as he had promised. He had begun making notes about two weeks before she had passed away, and he had completed the book. The folder held the editor’s final comments and revisions. He’d brought the manuscript with him, optimistically planning to review it during the trip, but had never been able to summon the energy.

  In fairness, he had been busy. Beyond that, he knew that he had avoided the task. He found it painful to read Di’s account of the last months of her life. Moreover, once he had completed the work, she would be really gone. He would have to move on.

  Perhaps on the flight home.

  He turned back to his laptop and opened a file labeled “My Best.” Di would love these. Flowers were one of her passions, and she had talked of attending the workshop with him to see the flowers, not to photograph them, even though they both had known that she would be gone long before July.

  Every spring since their marriage, their yard had been covered with blooms. This year though, Di’s flower pots were stacked neatly in a corner of the garage. Her iris bulbs had never been removed from the refrigerator. No flats of bedding plants had come home from the nursery. The yard was void of color, except for the azaleas that flowered each year with no effort on anyone’s part, and the roses that continued to bloom in spite of Drew’s neglect.

  He closed the photographs and logged onto email. He found a couple of advertisements that had arrived overnight. A men’s store in town was having a sale. A local restaurant had sent a ten-dollar-off coupon. He deleted them both.

  To the side of the screen, another advertisement popped up. Ourtime.com, he read. A dating site for those over fifty. How did they know his age? Surely they did not waste money sending ads to his daughter. He wondered if they knew he was no longer married. How would anyone know that? Otherwise, though, why would he be interested?

  Apparently, they also knew he was male, since images of attractive women appeared in the ad. Drew shook his head. He clicked on one of the pictures and the woman’s face filled the screen. “No way is she over fifty,” he mumbled. “Or that picture is twenty-five year
s old.” He looked closely. “I even remember the hairstyle.” He chuckled. Dr. Spencer in orthopedics wore her hair in exactly the same way. Unlike the woman in the ad, Dr. Spencer’s hair was white and her face had lines like a railway yard.

  He wondered, briefly, what the woman’s appearance was really like. If he were to try online dating, he supposed that he too would hedge the rules on truth in advertising. The previous Christmas, when he had printed photographs of him and Di to send out with their Christmas cards, he had smoothed out a couple of small wrinkles. He had even managed to remove a few pounds too. He chuckled. Photoshop was wonderful. He supposed he might do the same thing again, should he ever look for a date.

  Under the woman’s picture he spied her description of herself. “I love walking on the beach, romantic music, cuddling by the fire.” Cuddling by the fire. He rolled his eyes to heaven. Give me strength.

  Jody Watson, his best friend and a colleague at the medical college, had actually suggested online dating a couple of weeks before.

  “I’ve known several guys who have found dates online,” he had said.

  “Name one.”

  “Will Thompson.”

  “In Pathology? That Will Thompson?”

  “The same. In fact, he met the new Mrs. Thompson online. You know her. You went to their wedding.”

  “It just seems weird.”

  “Why so? Is it really different from meeting a woman in church? I mean all you would really know about the woman in church would be what she looked like. You wouldn’t be dependent on a photograph.”

  “I would know that she went to church.”

  “You would know that she went to church on the day you met her,” Jody had said. “That, and her true appearance. Beyond that, she could misrepresent herself in person as easily as she could online. It could be Fatal Attraction, Part Two.”

  It made no difference that Jody had been right. Drew couldn’t imagine asking a woman out…the thought of putting his arms around any woman other than Di. No way.

  He shook his head. No, he’d had had his chance for love, and he’d made the most of it. He had no desire to chase it again.

  What had he told Jody last month? “Love would have to knock on my front door and hand me a telegram before I would be interested.”

  Still, Di did not want him to live alone, and he had promised that he wouldn’t. He had not actually promised to date, or to remarry, but…

  In any case, living alone was pretty dreary. During the spring he had found himself hanging around the office long after everyone else headed home, taking hours to grade papers that he normally dealt with in one, revising course syllabi that needed no revisions. He had eaten dinner out so often that the waiters at several restaurants knew his name—and his favorite foods.

  He sighed. Perhaps it was time to find someone.

  Drew slipped the laptop into his backpack, along with the folder containing Di’s manuscript. It was a tight fit. He glanced at the clock. Four forty-five. Time to head downstairs.

  ***

  Amy’s alarm had rung at four. She’d tumbled out of bed, already awake, having slept little during the night. The shuttle left at five, and she never slept well the night before an early rise, irrationally afraid that the alarm would not sound, even though it had never failed to waken her.

  She bent over and stretched. Her muscles were tight and knotted up from all of the hiking and walking she had done on vacation. The long ride to Denver hadn’t helped, and she didn’t want to have her back go into spasm while sitting in a cramped seat on the airplane.

  She sighed. Perhaps she should have flown out of Aspen yesterday, rather than driving to Denver. She would be at home now if she had.

  She dressed and then stood at the window, staring into the darkness, holding her first cup of coffee. She took a drink and shuddered. Nothing like Starbucks or Caribou, she thought. She would find something better at the terminal.

  The image of Jack’s face floated through her mind. He had died six months earlier. A state trooper had crested the hill as the plane had gone down. The trooper had seen the crash, heard the explosion, had found the fire too hot to attempt a rescue. It would have been a vain attempt, she was told. They had found pieces of Jack’s body, barely enough to justify a coffin. They had identified the airplane, and Jack had been the one who had filed the flight plan. Quick phone calls had verified that the other five owners were safe in bed.

  The cause of the crash had not been definitively determined. It was suggested that Jack had fallen asleep and his death was ruled accidental, but Amy was certain he had killed himself. She could think of no reason for him to be flying at night, no reason for him to be so far from Charleston, no reason for the airplane to go down at what was said to be full throttle.

  Amy told no one about the divorce petition. She’d attended the funeral as a grieving widow. Marci, his tramp of a mistress, had attended the funeral too, and Amy had been tempted to confront her, to order her out, but she had resisted the impulse. At least Marci had not shown up at the house.

  Three weeks later, Amy had dropped in to see Tom Williams, Jack’s supervisor. She’d told him that she needed a reference for a job. Tom had seemed reluctant. He’d noted that she had never been his employee, that he knew her work only because she had once consulted with his IT department.

  Amy had leaned across his desk, her face a few inches from his. “You know my work,” she had told him. “You know that I’ve worked part-time for thirty years. I did an awesome job when I contracted with you.” She had leaned back and smiled, crossing her arms. “I want a reference,” she’d told him. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to tell your wife that you knew all about Jack and Marci. Leigh will be livid—” She had paused for effect, then she’d continued, blinking her eyes innocently. “Is it true that you’ve hired Marci to be your new assistant? Created a job for her?”

  Needless to say, Tom had given her a reference, and she’d been hired for the job for which she had applied.

  And life had gone on.

  She and Cathy, a rising senior at the college, had continued to live in their house. Her oldest child, Elaine, and her family lived nearby, while her son, Rick, lived in Charlotte with his wife, Heather, and their new baby, Eliza. Jack’s insurance policy had paid quickly—it would have paid even if his death was suicide—and his estate would be settled in January. Amy would have survived without her job, but she would not have been able to live as she had been, certainly not in “the manner to which she had become accustomed.”

  Amy glanced at the clock. Four forty-five. Time to head downstairs.

  ***

  She stood by the elevator, watching the display as it descended from the sixth floor.

  Ding.

  The doors slid open. A man stood in the elevator, his backpack slung over one shoulder and a single rolling bag beside him. Good-looking guy, Amy decided as he moved to the rear to allow her to enter.

  “Excuse me.” She smiled as she boarded, her large duffle in one hand, a lager suitcase rolling behind her.

  Both faced the door, eyes on the display as the elevator resumed its descent.

  Talk to him. Go ahead. She heard Lucy’s voice as if she were standing beside her. You think he’s good looking. Speak.

  Amy glanced over her shoulder, but the man was not looking at her.

  “Taking the shuttle to the airport? The five o’clock shuttle?” How dumb, she thought. Why else would he be checking out before sunrise?

  The man smiled. “Yes, I’m taking the shuttle. I returned my rental car last night. One less hassle to deal with this morning.”

  Amy was about to ask where the man was traveling to when the elevator stopped with a bump and opened onto the darkened lobby. Through the front doors she could see the driver pacing beside the shuttle. One passenger had already boarded, so both Amy and the man hurried outside.

  The drive to the airport took fifteen minutes. They were sitting on different seats and the man was
staring through the window, paying Amy no attention. As they reached the terminal, she headed toward the United Airlines desk to check her luggage, and the man walked toward security.

  “Have a good flight,” he called over his shoulder.

  There was no line at check-in. Amy deposited her luggage and made it through security in short order. As she walked through the terminal, she spotted the green logo on the coffee shop and she turned in. It was one of the few stores open at this hour, and it was crowded. Amy took her drink and her coffee cake and scanned the tables for a place to sit. Not finding one, she stepped away from the counter, intending to proceed down the concourse toward her gate. As she swerved to avoid a little boy who was running around the tables, his mother in pursuit, she bumped into a man sitting at the first table and almost fell.

  “I’m so sorry,” Amy exclaimed as she noticed it was the man from the hotel. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  He looked up and smiled, then reached out to steady her. “We meet again.”

  “I’m sorry.” Amy juggled her things, trying to get a better grip on her cup. “I was looking for a table and I guess I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  The man glanced around the shop, then motioned to the chair across the table. “Perhaps you should sit down. They serve their coffee hot, and you wouldn’t want to spill it on yourself.” He turned his attention back to a folder that lay on the table in front of him.

  Amy set her cup down and sank into the chair. “Thank you.”

  The man did not reply. His eyes were focused on the folder.

  She tried again. “I’m Amy Barrett, by the way.”

  After a moment, the man looked up. “Did you say something?”

  She smiled. “I’m Amy Barrett.” She gestured at the folder. “It must be interesting.”

  The man nodded. “It is. My wife’s book. It’s almost ready to go to her editor.” He glanced down once more, then looked back at Amy. “I’m Drew Nelson,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Barrett.”

  His wife’s book. He was married. Should she continue to talk to him? Would he think she was flirting or something? Her eyes drifted to his left hand and she saw that he was not wearing a ring. Strange, she thought. Most married men wore rings.