Halfway to You(94)



“Lorna didn’t give them any information, thankfully.” Todd looked at Keith. “What am I going to do?”

Keith could only shake his head.

Todd stood and began to pace, threading his fingers through his hair and balling his fists against his scalp. “I can’t have people come to the bookstore all over again, Keith. It was bad enough back then.”

I didn’t know how to comfort him. To publicly relive the tragedy was Todd’s nightmare. He’d spent so much time trying to let go of his past. For the media to invade the most tender part of him and expose his wounds all over again must’ve felt like a bomb going off in his heart.

I looked to Keith, expecting solidarity or some sort of united front to help Todd come back to center—but Keith was melting down too. His face had turned bright red. And of course—of course. Penny was his sister. This was just as invasive to him as it was to Todd, at least when it came to dredging up the past.

I racked my brain as to how to help, comfort, problem solve. I loved these two men more than anyone else in the world. I hated to think that I had brought them this unwanted attention. I didn’t know how to help them. All I knew was how to run.

But perhaps, this time, running could work?

“Why don’t we go on a vacation?” I asked. “God knows you both need one. Why don’t we get away and let the bullshit blow over?”

“I don’t know, Ann,” Todd said slowly. “I should probably be at the bookstore.”

“Why? So you can field calls from reporters?”

“Will distance really make a difference?” he asked.

“You’re talking to the expert of running away from problems.” I pointed to myself. “Let’s go somewhere together. Like old times. Let’s re-create Greece!”

Keith ran a hand over his face. “You might be right about lying low,” he said. “But I need to be in New York with Barbara and Iris. It’ll be quiet enough there. You two should go.”

Todd stopped pacing and stared at him. “Seriously?”

Keith and I both nodded. “Seriously,” we said.

“What about Lorna? She can’t deal with all of it on her own.”

“She’s been working for your family for thirty years, I think she’ll manage,” Keith said.

“Where would we go?” Todd asked me, and I was relieved that he was actually considering it.

“Anywhere you like.”

“I want to go somewhere you haven’t been,” Todd said. “Somewhere new for both of us.”

“Is there anywhere left?” Keith quipped.

I already had an idea. “Actually, there is.”





ANN


Various Locations, Thailand

December 1999

Six weeks after the movie premiere, the tabloid gossip had settled, and strangely, the bookstore was thriving. Lorna—bless her—was still handling phone calls from angry, overzealous fans of Chasing Shadows, people who claimed Todd was the reason I hadn’t published anything new—but that was the extent of the drama. Penny had not been a tragedy just for Todd and the Whitakers; that hospital fire had killed others, too, and due to all the public attention, the bookstore saw a surge of local support. Lorna had to hire another employee to help through the holiday season, and aside from receiving a few nasty phone messages from out-of-towners, Todd’s team managed just fine.

I kept telling Todd that we could stay in Thailand forever if we wanted to. That’s the thing about travel: your normal world feels far away and inconsequential compared to what’s up close in front of you. And that only makes it easier to keep going. We lived in a dreamland of togetherness, both ignoring the future and promising each other forever.

First, we went south to see the teal water. We rented a villa for next to nothing on Koh Yao Noi, a quaint island not far from the bling and bustle of Phuket. It was a fantasy place, lush and tangled with vines, with beaches that were powdery and pristine. Rock formations jutted out of clear shallow ocean, narrow and vertical. They looked like ancient stone-head statues, crowned in waxy leaves.

And the water—it was otherworldly. A hue of teal so postcard perfect, I was disbelieving. But it was not the only shade of blue. When the sky was overcast or the sun had not yet punctured the surface of the morning, we saw lavender gray and cornflower ripple across the ocean’s calm surface. Under the high sun, we boarded fishing boats and walked beaches, witnessing coastal cerulean, jungle azure, deep pools of peacock and sapphire. We swam in turquoise, indigo, aquamarine.

The land, the ocean: it was not unlike my brief glimpse of Tahiti—except now I was seeing it all with Todd by my side, and in that way, there was no better place on earth. I’d traveled my whole life, but this was by far the most magnificent. The company made it so.

Under the diaphanous veil of our mosquito net, nestled among colorful pillows and fresh-smelling sheets, Todd whispered, “Can it be like this forever?”

“Of course.”

He stroked my hair. “But at some point—I mean, back home, when the buzz dies down, we—”

“Shhh.” I knew what he was about to say. At some point, we’d have to make a decision. Rome or Colorado. Together or apart. But we were postcoital in paradise; this was not the time to discuss it. I wanted to believe that we were the only two people in the world.

Jennifer Gold's Books