Whole Latte Life (16 page)

Five thousand dollars. No checking with Mom. No worrying about Tom. No urgent cell calls or text messages waiting for approval. She’ll come up with the money. It’s a small price to pay to start living her choice life.

But she’s so happy that she actually placed her first Sotheby’s bid, she has to at least send her mother an email. It’s become such a habit, logging on and zipping off quick one or two line messages, staying connected. She can imagine her mother reading it and keeping her fingers crossed for Sara’s bid.

“Do you want to come up? I could use some company.”

“You’re nervous about explaining this to her husband, aren’t you?”

Rachel sits beside Michael in the taxi. “I just wish none of it had to happen.” It helps being able to lean against someone, to not be so alone. He kisses the top of her head and she thinks that’s comforting, being kissed there. It’s such an underrated thing, the way it makes your eyes drop closed, being kissed on the head, and the way his fingers barely move on her hair, like another kiss, and the way the feel of it all lingers. It’s a little refuge, that kind of kiss. They’d been beneath the George Washington Bridge at The Little Red Lighthouse for two hours. Years ago it helped ships navigate into the harbor.

“Maybe this is what Sara Beth needs,” Rachel had said after they’d climbed the spiral staircase in the forty-foot lighthouse to the observation deck. The Hudson River view, with the span of the George Washington Bridge crossing it, was breathtaking. “Some beacon, guiding her back.”

“Don’t we all,” Michael had answered. “At one point or another. Maybe she’ll find it.”

Now, as they near The Plaza, Rachel dreads what will happen if Sara Beth hasn’t found a beacon leading her back here. She’s glad to have Michael with her to talk it out. “Oh, I have something for you,” she says, pulling a small wrapped box from her bag.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a keepsake.”

Michael unwraps the box to find a Christmas ornament of the Empire State Building.

“I bought it for Ashley at the gift shop there. But I thought it would be a better gift for you. Do you have one already?”

“No I don’t.”

“Well you should, with your grandfather working on it. Lunch on a fifty story beam and all that? He needs to be commemorated.”

“You’re right,” he says, slipping the ornament into his jacket pocket. “I should have a tree of these.”

When Rachel gets out of the cab, the sunshine is golden, the air clear. Why couldn’t the day just be easy, like this?

Back in the hotel room, she checks her voicemail, her answering machine at home, and the hotel’s voicemail. She feels Michael watching, and so talks while dialing her home phone. “I extended the checkout time a few hours, in case we need it for Sara.”

“I know. You’ve really gone the extra mile. But you shouldn’t pack her bags.” It makes her hands stop and set down the phone. “It might be better to leave things how she left them.”

She turns to him standing at the window, wearing khakis today with a button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled casually up. He’d been looking over the room, at the tapestry sofa, the Queen Anne cherry tables, the paintings. At her jacket neatly folded over the back of a chair. At her purse and keys set on the table, next to an opened pad of paper with a fountain pen laying across it.

“In case she doesn’t come back,” he adds.

“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”

“Everything is, at this point. And her possessions could hold a clue to what happened.”

“Come here,” Rachel says. “I want to show you something.” They go into the bedroom and stop at Sara Beth’s dresser. Her hairbrush and the velvet jewelry case her daughters gave her are there. He has to see that they are fine items chosen with care. “What do you think about all this?” she asks.

“It seems like she wanted to enjoy herself.”

“That’s what I thought too. Which makes me feel terrible.”

“Terrible? Why?”

She pulls open the closet door. “Check out the clothes she brought. But something snapped and I never saw it coming. And I
should
have. There were things going on. Like her mother dying unexpectedly last year. Sara was devastated, maybe more than I realized.” Sara’s cabaret night outfit hangs beside the jeans, next to a long skirt and a couple of light sweaters and jacket. “Because she’s not thinking right anymore. I mean, she didn’t even take her coat. And walking out like this? What the heck is she doing?”

“Rachel. We can’t guess. When’s her husband getting here?”

She walks to the living room window, which faces the park. Is Sara Beth somewhere in Central Park? Is she taking a horse and buggy ride, a pretty mare trotting her along, the big carriage wheels turning beneath her?

“I’m scared of what’s next. My best friend, what has she done? Something’s very wrong. Maybe I should have been there more for her, with the baby, and her mother. I could’ve helped her settle her thoughts.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let her husband handle it now.” He steps closer. “If I were married, and my wife went missing, I’d want to know. I’d bring in the detectives, the works.”

“Let me call his house to be sure he left. I know he had to pack the girls’ school things. They’re staying with Sara’s sister Melissa tonight.” How many times has she dialed Sara Beth’s home number without a thought? Zipped right through it, anxious to share a piece of news or make plans or just, well,
talk
, damn it. Why didn’t Sara Beth talk this out with her? She leaves a brief message and hangs up the phone.

“He must be on his way.”

“Why don’t you try his cell?” Michael asks.

“Maybe I should pack first?”

Michael walks to her and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Listen, I hate what this is doing to you. But you might be staying another day, if things get bad.”

“Okay.”
If she doesn’t come back
goes unsaid.
If she’s messed up somehow.
She picks up the phone and starts dialing Tom’s cell, holding her pen as though she might need to jot something down, something urgent and new that will fix this, that she’ll have to write down before it gets lost in other talk.

“Rachel,” Michael interrupts her dialing. He nods toward the door right as Sara Beth closes it behind her.

She’s not sure what she thought. That she could breeze in easily? Like she had stepped out on a quick errand? That Rachel would say
Hey you. Did you find what you wanted?
That coffee would be poured and they’d laugh, check in at home, then leave for the train?

“Hey, Rach,” she says, setting her bags down.

“Sara. Oh my God, Sara Beth.” Rachel hugs her friend and doesn’t let go for a long moment. “Where have you been? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, yes. I’m so glad you’re still here.” She glances over at the man standing further in the room. “We have company?”

“Company?” Rachel asks. “Well, no. And of course I’m here, I was so worried about you. Michael’s with the police, Sara. He’s been helping me look for you.”

“Look for me? Why? I told you not to worry.”

“You’re kidding, right? Don’t worry? You disappeared.”

“Do you need anything?” Michael interrupts, stepping closer, and Sara’s surprised to see he’s talking to her. “Something to eat? Water? A doctor maybe?”

“What? No. Why would I need a doctor?” Her eyes move from Michael to Rachel.

“It’s routine,” Michael explains, watching her carefully. “Medical attention, in case anything’s out of sorts. In case you’d been assaulted.”

“Assaulted? Rachel? Didn’t you get my note?”

“Come on,” Rachel says. “This was so unlike you. Disappearing like that. We’re still trying to figure out what to make of it.”

“You’re sure you don’t need anything? Maybe file a report? Were you a victim of a crime, do you need medication, an examination?”

“Stop, please. You’re scaring me now.”

“Listen. I need to be very sure you weren’t coerced.”

“No. Nobody forced me to do anything. Rachel, is this necessary?”

“Yes it is, for the record. But if you’re fine,” Michael says, turning for his jacket, “I’m going to take off.” He takes Rachel’s arm and leads her to the door, lowering his voice. “Unless you want me to stay. But you two have a heck of a lot to hash out.”

“You’ll wait downstairs?”

“No, I’m going home, but I’ll come back in a few hours, okay? Don’t leave?”

“Sara?” Rachel asks, turning. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, of course I am. You really don’t need the cops here, Rach. I’m fine.”

“Rachel,” he says, and she turns back to him. “She looks okay, a little beat. But her eyes are clear and she’s making sense. Be careful, though. You have my number. Call me if you need me, if she changes her mind about filing a report or whatever, for anything. Okay?”

She nods and glances back at Sara.

“Give her something to eat. And lock this door, too. Be sure.”

And when he leaves, telling Sara Beth seriously to
take care now
, when he walks out the door, Sara sees the pallor of Rachel’s face, the strain of the past days, the notes by the telephone, the police, empty coffee cups, and what it all becomes is an artist’s sketch, the random form and dimensions of the weekend, the suggestion of what happened in her absence.

Chapter Eleven

S
ara Beth watches Rachel pack her bag. Nothing is what it seems. Art, people, friends. They’re all layers, and this layer of their friendship is not one she’d ever fathomed. She listens to Rachel as she packs, listens to the whole story: Billy’s cupcakes to help ease the talk, the pacing the city, her breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Today Show, the Empire State Building. Every coffee shop she passed, Rachel did a double take inside, looking. Searching. The cell phone checks. The endless worry. The text message she never got.

Sara Beth sees that. She doesn’t need to hear the words. Studying art in college, she’d been trained how to look. At a showing she’d once seen of a lesser known Impressionist’s work, there was a long, narrow case in the museum’s exhibit room. Inside the case, a display of his sketches was set out for viewing. They had to be behind glass; they were the originals, on one-hundred year old paper, pencil and charcoal delineations of his paintings. Human touch would sully them.