The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(57)

“Excuse me? Ma’am?” The man knocks again on Jaycee’s window and gestures for her to roll it down.

She hesitates—courtesy of a decade’s worth of New York street smarts—then obliges. Clearly, he works here—he’s wearing a jacket and name tag emblazoned with the rental car company’s name. Besides, nothing terrible is going to happen to her in broad daylight in a public place, right?

“Yes?” She regards him from behind her sunglasses.

“I just wanted to ask . . . and you probably get this all the time . . .”

She sighs inwardly as he talks on, fighting the urge to roll up the window and drive away.

Few things irk her more than strangers without boundaries.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our initial descent into the Cincinnati area. Please turn off and put away any electronic devices you’ve been using. If you’d like to use your cell phone right after we land, please make sure you keep it handy, because you will not have access to the overhead bins until we reach the gate.”

Hearing the flight attendant’s advice, Elena remembers her cell phone. The battery was almost drained when she turned it off back at Logan. No need to turn it on now; she’ll charge it as soon as she gets to the hotel.

She forces her eyes open and lifts the shade covering the window beside her seat. Brilliant sunshine spills into the cabin. Leaning into the glass, she sees a network of roads, waterways, houses, and forests far below. Almost there.

After guzzling her beverage service Bloody Mary, she spent the duration of her flight either dozing or pretending to be asleep—anything to avoid conversation with the chatty elderly man in the aisle seat. He was perfectly friendly, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Not after what happened with Tony.

She couldn’t get out of his car fast enough back at the airport, still insisting that he needn’t meet her flight tomorrow night. She didn’t give him the correct information, but for all she knows, he saw it posted beneath a magnet on her refrigerator and will show up.

Of all the men she could have chosen for a one night stand . . .

She still can’t quite grasp that it really happened—and now, of all times, on the heels of the week from hell, leading into what promises to be one of the most heart-wrenching funerals ever?

But then again, is it any surprise? She’s never dealt very well with this kind of pressure. Her response to stress has always been to run away or self-medicate—preferably both, simultaneously. Which is why she ordered a double Bloody Mary as soon as the plane took off, much to the amusement of the man in the aisle seat.

“Nervous flier?” he asked.

“No—tough day,” she said, only to be met with one of those You think you’ve got problems? Listen to mine spiels.

She tuned him out while pretending to listen, inserting comments in all the right places. You get very good at that, being a first grade teacher. Her students like nothing better than to give her blow-by-blow recaps of their favorite cartoons, and self-editing is hardly their forte.

Right now she keeps her forehead fastened to the window, not wanting to engage in another round of Good Listener. Her head is still pounding and she might be tempted, this time, to tell the old guy to keep his problems to himself. She’s got enough of her own—Tony being the most recent, but hardly the least troubling.

Again, she thinks back to last night. Her skin crawls when she thinks of it.

So don’t think of it!

That’s what Meredith would say—and famously did, in the blog post where she asked, Why dwell on the past when you can focus on the future?

Some followers slammed her for being insensitive.

Not Elena. She couldn’t agree more. Her own past was no picnic.

The plane banks and she loses sight of the ground. They’re getting ready to land.

Forcing her thoughts to what lies ahead, she feels her pulse quicken.

I can’t believe we’re really going to meet each other in person at this time tomorrow, Landry had e-mailed yesterday afternoon. I just wish it were under better circumstances.

Meredith would be glad we’re going to do this, Elena responded, and Kay wrote, I know she’ll be there in spirit.

Elena didn’t respond to that particular comment. What could she do—argue?

She’s done it before, against her better judgment, both with online friends and in real life. That never ends well.

It’s surprising how many people out there disagree with her personal belief that when you’re dead, you’re gone. Period.

None of this afterlife mumbo jumbo for her.

Her argument: if that were possible, then her own mother—who had loved her dearly—would have been with her in spirit for all these years, instead of abandoning her to a miserable, lonely childhood and a life-threatening disease.

Believers have all kinds of responses to that theory. Usually, spirituality comes into it. They’re never particularly pleased to learn that she is almost as fond of religion—of God, really—as she is of cancer.

“Ma’am?” Someone touches her shoulder, and she turns to see the flight attendant, reaching past the man in the aisle seat, who is now wide-awake. “Please return your seat to its upright and locked position.”

She does.

“Did you have a nice nap?” asks the chatty passenger, then proceeds to tell her about all his health problems that make it impossible for him to get a good night’s sleep anymore.