“You heard me. Start looking.”
Jackie, who was in the front seat, checked everywhere. She looked in the glove box and on the visors; she felt around the gearshift and radio; she even felt under her seat and all around her mother’s seat. She was just about to give up when she noticed something.
“Mom, did your rearview mirror always have this thing on it?” Jackie pointed to a small sliding switch that moved the mirror from day to night mode. Deirdre, who was driving, did a double and then triple take. The line of her mouth, which for weeks had formed a taut, straight shot across her face, inched up at the corners. She reached up to pull the mirror, but it was glued on tight.
“Can you help, Jax?”
Jackie reached up and pulled hard, but it was stuck. “I can’t get a good grip with my seat belt on.”
“Then take it off.” Jackie looked at her mother, disbelieving. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you’ll be safe.”
Jackie did as she was told and put her full weight onto the mirror, but still it wouldn’t budge. She tried banging it with her fist.
“Use your shoe,” Deirdre offered. Jackie nodded and then took off her hiking boot. On the third hit, the mirror came free and landed on the dashboard with a thud. Jackie pitched forward, hitting her head against the windshield, but not hard.
“Are you okay?” Deirdre asked.
“I think so.”
“Good girl. Now put your seat belt back on.”
Deirdre used her side-view mirror to take stock of the cars following her—all three were still there. She was just coming up on a shopping mall whose garage had entrances and exits on four sides. She figured it was her best shot.
“Hold on tight, girls,” she said, lowering the driver’s side window.
Waiting until the last possible second, and then one second more, Deirdre made an abrupt hairpin left turn into the parking lot. As she made the turn, she tossed the rearview mirror out the window and up into the air.
Only one of the three cars managed to make the turn with Deirdre, and the windshield of that car caught the full force of the impact of the flying mirror. While the mirror made a crack that ran from the top to the bottom of the glass, the real damage was done when the driver, a tabloid paparazzo assigned to cover the Stone family, slammed on the brakes. His sudden stop started a small chain reaction of crashing cars that allowed Deirdre time to slip through the mall and escape.
Twenty minutes later, Deirdre and the girls were seated in a sleepy diner on the outskirts of Portland. There were only two other patrons, and neither looked up when the three Stone women entered. Even the waitress didn’t pay them any special attention as she came to the table.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked in the monotone of an actor condemned to perform the same soliloquy every day and night for the rest of her life.
Deirdre was taken aback that there were no mobs of people, no grotesque intrusion into her and her daughters’ privacy. They had lived so long in the bubble of the television show that she had forgotten life outside went on as it always had. Yes, a lot of people watched the show, but more people didn’t. Many more.
It was a sobering reminder that the world had become a fractured place. In her parents’ day, everyone watched Johnny Carson and Walter Cronkite. And if they didn’t, they at least knew who they were. Today, the long tail of culture pulled three hundred million Americans in one million different directions.
Deirdre regained her composure and said, “I’ll have a coffee. And an omelet with green pepper.” The girls each asked for a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate milkshake.
After they ordered and the waitress had left them alone, no one said anything for a very long time.
Deirdre sipped her coffee and savored the bitter taste. It was the first time in weeks that she allowed herself to enjoy a simple pleasure like a cup of coffee. This might be, she thought, the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.
But then she thought of that first cup of coffee on that first date with Jared. She could still smell the latte, the aroma encircling them, pulling them together. Deirdre realized that since this whole nightmare began, she had not been afforded a moment to grieve. Her Jared was dying. He was already dead.
She started to weep.
Jackie and Megan looked at each other alarmed.
“Mom,” Megan asked, “are you okay?”
Deirdre nodded, but couldn’t stop the tears. “It’s your dad, girls. I’m just sad is all.”
Before long, the three of them were crying quietly in the booth of that diner. The waitress looked over once or twice, but let the family be. By the time the food came, the tears had run their course. They ate in silence.
“So what do we do now?” Jackie asked when the meal was over.