Now You See Her

TWENTY-SIX


IT WAS RAINING WHEN she woke up.

Marcy glanced at the clock through lids that refused to open more than a quarter of the way. “That can’t be right,” she muttered, pushing her face right up against the clock’s clear plastic face. Could it really be almost ten o’clock? Was it possible?

She reached for the phone, punched the “0” for the front desk, and listened to the receptionist’s cheery, “Good mornin’, Mrs. Taggart. How can I help you?”

“You can tell me what time it is.” Marcy’s voice was so husky she didn’t recognize it. She almost looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was beside her.

“Certainly. It’s just comin’ on ten o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

A slight pause. “Are you all right, Mrs. Taggart?”

“I’m fine. Thank you. I must have slept in.”

“Well, you couldn’t have picked a better day for it,” the receptionist informed her. “It’s rainin’ somethin’ fierce out there. You don’t want to be out in that if you can help it.”

Marcy looked toward the window. The heavy salmon-colored drapes were still open, revealing a morning so dark and dreary it might as well have been night. Rain was pelting the leaded windows like an army of small stones. “Crap,” Marcy said, forgetting about the phone still in her hand.

“Yes, I guess that about sums it up,” the receptionist said. “Can I do anything else for you, Mrs. Taggart?”

“Coffee?”

“I’ll have room service bring you up a pot. Anything you’d like with that? Juice? Eggs? Toast?”

“Juice. And eggs. And toast. Orange, over-medium, rye,” she added before hanging up. Then she lay back down, closed her eyes, and fell asleep again until room service arrived half an hour later with her breakfast.


LIAM’S PHONE CALL woke her up again at two that afternoon.

“Thank God,” he said when she answered in the middle of the third ring. “When you didn’t call, I started to worry you’d gone out.”

Marcy looked toward the window. It was still pouring, the sky even darker than it had been earlier. She looked at the clock. “Please tell me it’s not two o’clock.”

“Did I wake you up?” he asked incredulously.

Marcy pushed herself into a sitting position. “I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. What kind of pill was that you gave me last night anyway?”

“Just a Valium. Shouldn’t make you this dozy. Maybe you’re coming down with something. Do you want me to call a doctor?”

“No, I’m fine. I guess I was just more exhausted than I realized.”

“No kidding,” Liam said. “You’ve been operating on all eight cylinders since you got here. I’m amazed you’re still breathing, to be perfectly frank.”

“I’ve wasted the whole day,” she said sadly.

“You haven’t wasted a damn thing. Have you not seen what’s doin’ out there? Believe me, the only people steppin’ outside today are the tourists who don’t know any better. It’s a sign, Marcy,” he told her.

“A sign?”

“A sign to take a day off and get some rest.”

“Doesn’t look like I have much choice,” Marcy said, sleep tugging at her eyelids, forcing her head back onto her pillow.

“I’ll swing by on my way to work.”

“No. You don’t have to do that.”

“I never do anything I have to,” he told her. “Anyway, I’m off to visit my mum. She’s been complainin’ she don’t see enough of me lately.”

“Didn’t you just say you never do anything you have to?” she asked him.

He laughed. “Guess the rules don’t apply to mothers,” he said before saying good-bye.

“Guess not.” Marcy thought of her own mother as she hung up the phone. Certainly rules of any kind had never applied to her.

She’s a world unto herself, Judith had once remarked, although Marcy could no longer remember whether her sister had been referring to their mother or to Devon.

Marcy climbed out of bed, discarding her flannel pajamas on the bathroom floor as she stepped into the peach-grained white marble shower, letting the hot water pour down on her head and wondering, not for the first time, what she could have done differently, what she should have done differently, if there was one thing she could have changed, one thing she could go back in time and redo, one thing that would have altered the course of all their lives, brought her anywhere but here.

You think too much, Judith had once said, chastising her.

The key is to stop thinking, Sarah had similarly told her during one of Marcy’s early golf lessons. That’s the problem with golfers today. They’re a bunch of overeducated control freaks trying to play a game you can’t control. So don’t think. Just swing.

Marcy wondered exactly when Sarah had stopped thinking and started swinging with her husband. “Don’t think,” she told herself now, stepping from the shower and wrapping herself in two luxurious bath towels, then rifling through her bag of recent purchases, selecting the khaki pants and beige T-shirt to go over her new underwear. The pants were a little big, the T-shirt a trifle snug, but not so big or snug that anyone would notice. She combed her wet hair, feeling it drip onto her shoulders as she reached for the phone. She read the instructions for making a long-distance call, understanding it was still morning in Toronto, although definitely late enough to call, then punching in Peter’s number without further thought. “Just swing,” she repeated out loud.

The phone rang four times before voice mail picked it up. “Hi,” said Sarah’s annoyingly peppy voice. “You’ve reached Sarah Harris …”

“… and Peter Taggart.” Peter’s voice chimed in, almost alarming in its enthusiasm for being who he was.

Sarah continued. “We’re unavailable to take the call at the moment.”

“Oh, God,” Marcy moaned, suddenly remembering that this was the weekend Peter would likely be visiting their son at camp, where he was a counselor for the summer. Naturally Sarah would be right beside him, smiling and chirpy and as nauseatingly supportive as always—the mother Marcy should have been. No wonder Darren had been making noises about moving into his father’s new house when he got back home.

“So, if you’ll leave your name and number and a short message after the beep,” Peter said, “we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

“Bye for now and have a wonderful day,” Sarah added just before the beep.

“I’d love to,” Marcy told them. “But it seems that someone has cut off my credit, so if the man with the nice smile and straight teeth would be kind enough to straighten this mess out as soon as possible, I’ll be generous enough not to put the kibosh on this whole divorce thing as soon as I return. With your daughter,” she added for good measure. And then, because she still wasn’t satisfied, “Bye for now, and go f*ck yourself.” She slammed down the receiver.

They were right, she thought, laughing out loud. It felt good not to think, to just come out swinging. Hell, it felt great.

For about ten seconds.

And then it felt like shit.

“God, what have I done?” She groaned. Peter would hit the roof when he heard her message. He’d be more convinced than ever he was dealing with a lunatic. No way he’d restore her credit. “Shit.” What was she going to do now?

She quickly pressed in another number. “Please be home. Please be home.”

Marcy pictured her sister, back from her morning workout and relaxing with a giant cup of black coffee at her white stone kitchen table, the Sunday Star spread out around her, her nose buried in the pages of obituaries. In the years since their mother’s death, Judith had taken to reading these notices religiously, carefully noting the age of each deceased. “I just feel better when I see one or two who are younger than me,” she’d admitted rather sheepishly. “I know it sounds a little ghoulish but it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.”

“Hello,” her sister said now, answering after the first ring.

“Judith, hi.”

“Marcy! Where the hell are you?”

“Still in Ireland.”

“Shit.”

“Judith, listen to me, I need your help.”

“You need help all right.”

“Judith …”

“All right. What can I do?”

“I need money.”

“What?”

“I don’t have any money. Peter canceled my credit cards.”

“Then come home.”

“I need you to send me a money order,” Marcy said, continuing as if Judith hadn’t spoken. “Not much. Three thousand dollars should be enough. I wouldn’t ask you, but I didn’t bring my bank card, and I’m running out of cash.…”

“Three thousand dollars?” Judith repeated incredulously.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“What do you need three thousand dollars for?”

“I had to buy a few things. It’s a long story.”

“I’m listening.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to hear this one.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No. Honestly. Listen, if it’s the money you’re worried about, I’ll pay you back as soon as I get home.”

“And when will that be?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as I find Devon,” Marcy said, picturing her sister’s head drop toward her chest in dismay.

“You said you’d come to terms with that. You told me—”

“She was happy, wasn’t she?” Marcy said, interrupting. “I mean, it wasn’t all misery and gloom. There were times when Devon was happy. Weren’t there?”

Judith’s voice instantly softened. “Of course there were.”

Marcy thought of the weeks immediately preceding Devon’s disappearance, times when her daughter had seemed not only happy but almost serene, her smile genuine and steady, her voice soft and calm. Had she already solidified her plans to flee the country?

Of course, Judith would argue, as Peter had, that there was another reason for Devon’s apparent serenity: that people on the verge of suicide were often at peace once they’d actually made the decision to end their lives.

“Will you or will you not send me the money?” Marcy pleaded, trying to block out the unpleasant thought. Don’t think, she told herself.

“Where do you want it sent?” Judith asked after a pause of several seconds.

It was Marcy’s turn to hesitate. She was reluctant to reveal her exact address. But what choice did she have? “Send it to the Hayfield Manor Hotel in Cork.” Marcy grabbed the notepad beside the phone and read Judith the hotel’s address. She pictured her sister scribbling the information across the top of the columns listing Toronto’s recently deceased.

“You’re in Cork? I thought you were in Dublin.”

“You’ll courier me the money order overnight?” Marcy said, more demand than question.

“I’ll go to the bank first thing tomorrow morning. You should have the money by Tuesday.”

“Thank you.”

“Marcy, please—”

“I have to go,” Marcy told her sister before hanging up the phone. She sat for several minutes in silence, feeling her heart ticking down the seconds like a metronome, her mind purposely blank. Then, accompanied by her new mantra—Don’t think; don’t think; don’t think—she jumped up, took one final look at the rain pummeling her window, grabbed her new peacoat and purse, and headed out the door.


SHE SAW HIM as soon as she reached the lobby.

He was standing, half-hidden, behind a pillar near the grand mahogany staircase and she might have missed him had she not stopped to ask the concierge whether she might borrow an umbrella.

“You’re not thinkin’ of goin’ out in that, are you?” the concierge asked incredulously.

But Marcy was already walking away from him and toward the man behind the pillar. Clearly sensing her presence, the man took several steps back, as if trying to disappear into his surroundings, his eyes staring resolutely at the floor even as she stopped directly in front of him. “What are you doing here?” she asked without preamble.

Vic Sorvino raised his eyes to hers with obvious reluctance, clearly embarrassed at having been discovered. “Marcy,” he said, the sound of her name on his lips causing her to go immediately weak in the knees.

What is the matter with me, for God’s sake? she wondered impatiently. “What are you doing here?” she asked again.

“That’s a good question.”

“What’s the answer?”

Vic suddenly looked as confused as she felt. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.”

They stood this way for several seconds, Marcy unable to turn away. It wasn’t that he was all that much to look at, she tried to tell herself. Liam was far more handsome; hell, even Peter was better looking. There was just something about Vic. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, the blistering intensity of his blue eyes, the way they latched on to her own and refused to let go, burning into the secrets in her brain. The threat of real intimacy. Was that why she was being so mean to him? Because she knew that once he saw her—really saw her—the yearning on his face would be replaced by disgust and he’d run screaming for the nearest exit?

As had almost everyone she’d ever loved.

Her mother.

Peter.

Devon.

Don’t look at me, she wanted to tell him. Some secrets are best left undisturbed. “Have you been following me?” she said instead, suddenly reminded of yesterday’s sighting at the mall.

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly? Was that you yesterday, at the mall?”

“Maybe we should sit down.” He led her toward a nearby sofa, sinking into the overstuffed, apricot-colored velvet seat beside her, taking her hand in his.

“Was that you or not?” she asked again, trying to ignore the tingling in her arm.

“Yes.”

She quickly brought her hand back to her lap. “I don’t understand. Why?”

He shook his head, a deep whoosh of air escaping his lungs, then shook his head again, as if he himself didn’t quite believe what he was about to say. “After I was questioned by the gardai regarding the break-in at your hotel room, I decided to stick around for a few more days. I asked Detective Murphy to keep me informed.” Vic cleared his throat, shook his head a third time. “He called me yesterday, said you were being brought to the station. I went right over, hoping to get a chance to talk to you, convince you that I had nothing to do with the trashing of your room—”

“I never believed it was you,” Marcy said, interrupting.

“Well, thank you for that anyway.”

“Nobody told me you were there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he continued. “You left with that young man from the pub, and I don’t know, I just decided to follow you. Don’t ask me why.”

“Why?” she asked anyway.

“I guess because I was worried about you. I’m still worried about you.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“Somebody breaks into your hotel room and trashes your things, I’d say that’s cause for concern.”

“But not your concern.”

Vic sat very still for several very long seconds. Then he took a deep breath, as if inhaling the full import of what she was telling him. “No, I guess not.” A hint of a wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Okay. I admit I’m a little dense about these things, but even I see the light eventually.” He rose to his feet. “I’m sorry. I won’t pester you again.”

“Do you know my daughter?” Marcy asked suddenly, surprising herself with the question she hadn’t meant to ask.

He looked startled. “What?”

“My daughter. Do you know her?”

Vic looked around uneasily. “No. Of course not. How would I know Devon?”

Again, the easy, almost casual use of her daughter’s name. “You’ve never met?”

“Marcy, you’re not making any sense. You’re from Toronto. I live in Chicago. When could I possibly have met your daughter?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Of course you don’t know her.” Marcy apologized immediately, watching as Vic’s eyes wandered toward the lobby’s front entrance. “What is it?”

“Looks like you have a visitor,” Vic said.

She followed the direction of his gaze to see Liam walk through the front doors, shaking the rain from his shoulders with an exaggerated shrug. “Liam,” she stated, pushing off the sofa and rushing toward him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing. You weren’t thinking of going out in this mess, were you?” he asked accusingly, as if he already knew the answer.

“I thought you were going to see your mother.”

“Decided to come see you first,” he said. “Good thing, too, by the looks of it.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her full on the mouth. “I’ve got news.”

“What kind of news?” Marcy asked, feeling the imprint of his lips on hers. She glanced over her shoulder toward Vic, knowing he’d felt it, too.

But there was no longer anyone sitting on the overstuffed velvet sofa by the stairs.

Vic was gone.