The Last Flight(53)

Claire


Saturday, February 26

That Rory lied about his last weekend with Maggie is interesting, but not incriminating in a legal sense. Of course, he would make himself look sympathetic when recounting the story to me, his new girlfriend, and I can’t begin to guess why Maggie might have changed her mind and gone anyways. But Maggie’s reference to a scary argument chills me, because I know what Rory’s temper looks like, how easily she could have ended up at the bottom of that staircase.

But the note doesn’t prove anything other than they fought. Which was widely reported at the time. What nags at me is how Charlie Flanagan is connected to that weekend in 1992. That’s the key to figuring out everything. Perhaps he was the one to organize the payoffs Aunt Mary mentioned, illegally skimming them from the foundation’s account.

A quick check of the time tells me I have just a half hour until I’m supposed to meet Kelly, so I go into the kitchen and grab a Diet Coke from the fridge and take a sip, staring out the back window. As I wait for the caffeine to hit my bloodstream, I imagine Charlie releasing whatever he has to the media. Huge exposés in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, stripping Rory of all his power. I know it’s a leap, but the fantasy still energizes me.

I set the can on the counter and head upstairs in search of a pair of black pants and a white top.

*

When I arrive at the coffee shop, Kelly is already there, waiting in her car, and I open the door and slide in.

“Ready?” Kelly asks.

“Let’s do it.”

Kelly’s phone rings as we hit the end of the block. “Jacinta,” she says into the phone. “I’m on my way to work.” She listens for a moment, and then curses. “Okay, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She hangs up and turns the car around. “Sorry,” she says. “My daughter, Jacinta, has been working on this project for her art history class and she left the poster supplies in my trunk.”

“I don’t mind,” I tell her.

“Normally, I’d leave her to sweat it out, but she’s working with a partner and I don’t want to punish her for Jacinta’s carelessness.” She sighs. “This project has been a pain in the ass from day one.”

“What is it?”

“Compare and contrast two twentieth-century artists. Deliver an oral presentation with visuals.” She rolls her eyes. “Berkeley takes its arts education very seriously.”

“How old is your daughter?” Kelly can’t be much older than her late twenties.

“Twelve.”

She glances at me, catching my surprised expression. “I had her when I was only seventeen.”

“That must have been hard.”

Kelly shrugs. “My mother nearly killed me when she found out I was pregnant. But then it was buckle down to business.” We stop at a red light, and she glances at me. “My mom is my rock. I couldn’t work or go to school without her. And she and Jacinta are tight. Where I get attitude and eye rolling, my mother gets giggles and secrets.”

“You must be busy, working two jobs and going to school,” I say.

Kelly smiles as the light turns green. “I suppose. But I’ve always worked, so I’m used to it. I have the early morning shift at the coffee shop, take classes during the day, and do catering events for Tom at nights and on the weekends. I’m saving money so Jacinta and I can get our own place. Right now, we live with my mother and it’s crowded.”

I bite my lip, wishing I could tell her not to be in such a hurry to leave.

*

Kelly’s house is in a neighborhood of small, one-story houses so similar to my mother’s in Pennsylvania, I could squint my eyes and believe I was back home again. When we pull into the driveway, she turns to me and says, “Come in and meet my family.”

I hesitate, knowing I should stay in the car. There’s a difference between being one of many black-and-white-clad servers at an event and shimmying up to Kelly’s family with a name and a handshake. But it would be strange if I refused.

And I’m overwhelmed by how much I want to go inside. After so many days of being alone, I want to sit in someone’s kitchen and talk about art. “I know a bit about art history,” I finally say. “Maybe I could help.”

“We can use all the help we can get,” Kelly says.

It’s exactly as I imagined it would be. The living room is spare, just a couch, a reclining chair, and a television. Through an open doorway is a small kitchen and eating area where two girls sit, hunched over the table. Beyond the living room is a short hallway that probably leads to a couple small bedrooms and a bathroom. My mother’s house had the same feel to it, frayed and scarred around the edges, but polished to a high shine. I can imagine the three of them here in the evenings, each of them in her favorite spot. Kelly’s mother in the armchair, Kelly and Jacinta on either end of the couch, their legs in a tangle the way Violet and I used to watch TV.

An older woman stands at the counter, chopping vegetables, while on the stove, pots simmer, the air thick with the smell of rosemary and sage.

One of the girls looks up as we enter. “Sorry, Mom,” she says.

Kelly leads me into the kitchen and says, “Let’s practice some manners, Jacinta. This is Eva.”