The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(59)

I decided I was never going back there. It was too sad. I couldn’t take it. It made me feel worse, not better.

And so I returned to shouldering the burden in solitary silence. I told myself that I could get through on inner strength, a positive attitude, and faith alone, as my grandmother had forty years ago. Again, I thought I was going to be just fine on my own.

Again, I was wrong. I needed someone. I needed all of you. This is my virtual support group, blessedly free of eye contact and tears. I can show up on my own time and I don’t have to speak if I’m not in the mood, or make excuses if I feel like fleeing abruptly. This is my haven, my home. I thank God every day that I eventually found my way here, and I thank you for being my friends.

—Excerpt from Landry’s blog, The Breast Cancer Diaries





Chapter 9

Riding the elevator down two floors to the hotel lobby, Landry smooths the skirt of her black dress. It wrinkled pretty badly in her suitcase, and she didn’t dare use the iron in the room. As soon as she plugged it in, she smelled something burning and noticed scorched fabric stuck to the bottom.

She called down for another iron, but it didn’t arrive by the time she had to leave for the funeral, so here she is, rumpled and running a few minutes late to meet Kay and Elena. She feels better, though, every time she looks down at the onyx bracelet Addison made for her. And no matter what happens today—this weekend—she’ll be back home tomorrow night, and everything will be back to blessed normal.

With a ding, the elevator arrives in the lobby and she takes a deep breath as the doors slide open. She’s jittery—in a good way—about the prospect of coming face-to-face at last with friends who’ve been lifesavers in the most literal sense of the word, if positive energy really does have healing powers, as Meredith believed.

Stepping into the lobby, she glances around. It’s not a true budget hotel, but not fancy, either. This is the kind of place frequented by traveling salespeople, families with kids, senior citizens . . .

Bloggers coming face-to-face for the first time . . .

Landry passes the front desk, manned by a young woman reading a paperback romance, and the computer station occupied by a teenage boy, and the darkened dining alcove blocked off by a sign advertising the hours for the free breakfast. Just beyond is a large seating area where she, Elena, and Kay agreed to find each other.

Well, she and Kay agreed, anyway, in text messages exchanged after she checked into the hotel. Elena hasn’t been in touch since before she left Boston, saying her phone battery was almost dead but she would check in with them when she got to the hotel and could plug it into her charger.

The seating area is empty, other than a frazzled-looking young mom sitting on a couch. She’s trying to feed a fussy baby a bottle and scolding a toddler for noisily pushing a luggage cart across the tile floor. In the far corner, a man—probably her husband—has a cell phone clasped against one ear and a palm covering the other ear, as if to tune out the commotion behind him.

Realizing she’s the first to arrive in the lobby, even though she’s late, Landry perches on the arm of a chair perpendicular to the couch and exchanges curious glances with the young mother, wondering if it’s possible . . .

No. No way. The woman is a blonde, and anyway, neither Elena nor Kay has children.

Unless one of them does and didn’t mention it.

But if this woman happens to be one of the bloggers, wouldn’t she be expecting Landry? Wouldn’t she speak up and introduce herself?

What if she doesn’t recognize me? After all, I was younger in my picture, and not nearly as weary, or frumpy, as I am now . . .

And what if . . .

Suddenly, Landry’s situation seems to have gone from promising to precarious. Rob’s warnings—months, years of warnings—fill her head.

You never know who you’re dealing with online. It could be anyone . . . People can make up whatever they want . . . Men can pass themselves off as teenage girls—predators do it all the time . . .

Elena and Kay are her friends, just as Meredith was her friend, and yet . . .

There’s no getting around the fact that they’re strangers. All of them. Strangers, lifesavers . . .

They know her deepest, darkest secrets. They know where she is, and that she’s all alone in a strange city, and what if . . .

What if none of it was real?

She nervously toys with the bracelet, rolling the two silver beads etched with Meredith’s initials between her thumb and forefingers.

What if none of her friends even exists in real life? What if all those personalities were made up; figments of some twisted imagination? Even Meredith?

No—Meredith was real. She has to be real. She was in the newspaper.

But what if—

Behind her the elevator doors ding open.

A woman steps out.

Middle-aged, tall and heavyset, she has plain features and graying shoulder-length hair parted on the side. She’s wearing a black pantsuit that’s a little on the dowdy side for a woman who’s at least a decade shy of her retirement years. With a tentative expression, she looks toward the seating area.

Kay.

It’s her; it has to be her.

Paranoia evaporating, Landry utters the name impulsively, punctuated by an exclamation rather than a question mark.

The woman breaks into a relieved smile and walks toward her in sensible shoes most likely bought on sale at Kohl’s, plus an additional thirty percent off with a coupon, knowing Kay, Landry thinks affectionately.