The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(51)

Okay. So . . .

She inhales deeply, puffs it out slowly, ruffling her bangs with her own gust of breath.

Jackass. He really is a jackass.

Beck brushes her bangs back into place, studying her own reflection in the mirror.

You look so much like your mother . . .

How many times has she heard that in her life?

But she’s never really seen it until lately. Mom had short blond hair; she has long brunette hair. Mom had dark brown eyes; hers are hazel. Mom was short and kind of round; she is tall and lanky.

And yet . . .

We do look alike.

She can finally note the resemblance in the curve of her eyebrows, the slope of her nose, the fullness of her lower lip as opposed to the slash of an upper . . .

Her image blurs with tears.

She feels around on the dresser for a tissue, keeping her eyes wide-open, not wanting her mascara to run. She’s gotten pretty good at that over the past week. As soon as you blink, it’s raccoon city.

So you don’t blink. You blot.

She finds a tissue. Dabs at her eyes. Stares at herself.

Oh, Mom.

Is this the way it’s going to be? Every time she looks into the mirror, is she going to miss her mother even more desperately?

Remember me when I am gone away . . .

That’s the first line of the Christina Georgina Rossetti poem she will be reading at the funeral. Her mother had been an English major during her fleeting college semesters before she met Dad, and she kept all her texts on the bookshelves in the den. Beck found the poem among them, one of many with the corner of the page folded down and notes scribbled in the margins. It seemed fitting.

“I wish I could talk to you, Mom,” she whispers. “I wish you could tell me . . .”

So many things.

What to do about the mess she’s made—no, Keith has made—of their marriage.

How to help Dad, not just today, but every day, going forward.

And . . .

Most importantly . . .

“Who did this to you, Mommy?”

The words escape her on a sob, just as she sees a shadow come up in the doorway.

Keith again.

“What?” she asks, high-pitched, sounding strangled.

He just looks at her.

“What?” This time she almost screams it.

“Nothing.”

He walks away without saying another word.

No first-class ticket for Jaycee this time. Not on this no-frills airline.

But at least there were plenty of seats available on the last minute flight to Cincinnati, and she has an entire row to herself.

As the plane taxis out to the runway, she pushes her sunglasses up to her hair and presses her forehead against the window, staring at the gray mist shrouding the New York skyline to the northwest.

She probably shouldn’t be doing this—flying to Cincinnati on a whim.

But when Cory showed her that newspaper, her first instinct was to escape; catch the first flight out of town. She didn’t even care where she went, as long as it was someplace between the coasts, someplace off the beaten path like . . .

Ohio?

I’m cc’ing you just in case you can join us last minute, Jaycee . . .

Browsing the last minute travel Web site, she impulsively entered Cincinnati into the search engine.

Before she could rethink the idea, she had booked a ticket on the next flight out. In the cab on the way to the airport, she used her phone to call a luxury hotel downtown as opposed to the one BamaBelle had mentioned in her e-mail—she doesn’t want to run into the others.

No? Then why are you going at all?

The truth is, she’s not sure. She just knows that she can’t stay here, and she feels as though she should be there. For now, that’s enough.

“Hi, I’m just wondering whether you have rooms available for this evening?” she said to the desk clerk at the Cincinnatian.

“Yes, we do. Would you like to make a reservation?”

“I’ll call back. Thanks.”

But no thanks. Hotel reservations need credit cards, and credit cards leave tracks. Much safer to walk in and pay cash, like she did in L.A. last week.

Maybe, when she lands, she’ll simply hole up in a suite, order room service, and spend the weekend in seclusion.

Or maybe she’ll decide to attend the memorial service for Meredith.

Maybe I owe it to her. And to myself. For everything I did wrong when it came to my connection with Meredith, in the end, I cared about her. We were friends.

One thing is certain: if she does go to the service, she’ll keep to herself. The others will never even have to know she’s there.

It’ll be just like on the Internet, where she can be shrouded in anonymity until when or if she does decide to make her presence known—or she can simply lurk, silently watching.

Bruce Mangione is quite the conversationalist. Throughout the endless wait on the runway, he keeps Landry engaged—mostly with talk of movies they both happen to have seen and books they both happen to have read.

Then, after a lull during taxi and takeoff, he asks again about her plans in Cincinnati for the weekend.

“You said you’re visiting a friend?”

“Yes.”

“So . . . doing some sightseeing?”

“Actually . . .” She takes a deep breath. “It’s a funeral for a friend. I’m going with other friends.”