Realizing she’s the first to arrive in the lobby, even though she’s late, Landry perches on the arm of a chair perpendicular to the couch and exchanges curious glances with the young mother, wondering if it’s possible . . .
No. No way. The woman is a blonde, and anyway, neither Elena nor Kay has children.
Unless one of them does and didn’t mention it.
But if this woman happens to be one of the bloggers, wouldn’t she be expecting Landry? Wouldn’t she speak up and introduce herself?
What if she doesn’t recognize me? After all, I was younger in my picture, and not nearly as weary, or frumpy, as I am now . . .
And what if . . .
Suddenly, Landry’s situation seems to have gone from promising to precarious. Rob’s warnings—months, years of warnings—fill her head.
You never know who you’re dealing with online. It could be anyone . . . People can make up whatever they want . . . Men can pass themselves off as teenage girls—predators do it all the time . . .
Elena and Kay are her friends, just as Meredith was her friend, and yet . . .
There’s no getting around the fact that they’re strangers. All of them. Strangers, lifesavers . . .
They know her deepest, darkest secrets. They know where she is, and that she’s all alone in a strange city, and what if . . .
What if none of it was real?
She nervously toys with the bracelet, rolling the two silver beads etched with Meredith’s initials between her thumb and forefingers.
What if none of her friends even exists in real life? What if all those personalities were made up; figments of some twisted imagination? Even Meredith?
No—Meredith was real. She has to be real. She was in the newspaper.
But what if—
Behind her the elevator doors ding open.
A woman steps out.
Middle-aged, tall and heavyset, she has plain features and graying shoulder-length hair parted on the side. She’s wearing a black pantsuit that’s a little on the dowdy side for a woman who’s at least a decade shy of her retirement years. With a tentative expression, she looks toward the seating area.
Kay.
It’s her; it has to be her.
Paranoia evaporating, Landry utters the name impulsively, punctuated by an exclamation rather than a question mark.
The woman breaks into a relieved smile and walks toward her in sensible shoes most likely bought on sale at Kohl’s, plus an additional thirty percent off with a coupon, knowing Kay, Landry thinks affectionately.
Getting to her feet, she realizes belatedly she doesn’t know how to greet her friend for the first time.
Handshake? Hug?
Hug, she decides in the last moment.
Kay’s stocky frame seems to stiffen for a moment, and Landry thinks she’s made the wrong choice.
Kay has intimacy issues. Anyone who’s read her blog knows about that. All those years spent with a cold, unfeeling parent, and working in a federal prison, hardly a cozy environment . . .
But then Kay relaxes and she hugs back. Hard. And when they pull away to regard each other at arm’s length, Landry sees tears in Kay’s eyes and can feel them in her own.
She hastily wipes them away with her sleeve, as does Kay.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to jump on you with a big ol’ hug like a long lost friend without even introducing myself.”
“It’s all right.” Kay smiles, shyly, but warmly. “Landry, right? BamaBelle?”
“That’s me. I was beginning to think no one was going to show up!”
“I thought the same thing! I had to force myself to come down here. I’ve been up there in my room for hours, pacing and trying to convince myself not to turn around and drive back home.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Me too.”
They smile at each other, and Landry is suddenly conscious of the young mother watching them, listening with interest, oblivious to her toddler rolling the luggage cart away again, this time toward a corridor lined with first floor rooms.
“Have you seen Elena?”
Kay shakes her head. “I just saw the texts she sent before she took off, saying that her phone was dying.”
“Hopefully she made it here.”
“Hopefully she did.”
There’s a crash down the hall. “Mommy!”
The woman on the couch jumps up, thrusts the baby and its bottle on the man with the cell phone and heads in the direction of the noise.
A split second later a woman in a black dress—Elena, is it Elena?—appears in the hallway, shaking her head as she strides toward the lobby.
Spotting Landry and Kay, she breaks into a smile and calls out, “Is that you, guys?” Without waiting for a reply, she adds, “I just had a close call! I nearly just got run over by a luggage cart.”
Cart is pronounced “caht,” New England style. Landry grins. Definitely Elena.
This time a hug feels right from the start.
As she and Elena embrace, Landry catches a whiff of alcohol on her breath. She must have had a drink on the plane, or maybe after she landed. Probably nerves. Who can blame her?
Elena steps back to take a better look at them. “You’re both just the way I pictured you.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Landry agrees. “I’d know y’all anywhere.”
“Me too. I just wish . . .” Kay trails off, shaking her head.
Remembering Meredith, Landry touches Kay’s hand. Her fingers are icy. “I know. It’s hard.”
Kay moves her hand away to look at her watch. “We should go. It’s late. Can one of you drive? I . . . I forgot to fill up the gas tank after we got here.”
“I will,” Elena offers, but Landry is already pulling her own rental car keys out of her pocket.
“That’s okay. I’ll drive.”
“I don’t mind. I’m parked right out front.”
“I’ve already got the address plugged into the GPS,” Landry tells Elena firmly. “Really. I want to drive.”
“That’s fine if you’re sure you really want to. Just so you know you don’t need to,” Elena says, and for a moment Landry is taken aback.
Then she sees Elena’s smile.
“Remember that blog Meredith wrote?” Elena asks them. “The one about the difference between wanting something and needing something?”
“I remember it,” Kay says as Landry nods. “It was one of her better blogs. But there were so many good ones. A lot of the things she wrote keep coming back to me now. It’s kind of comforting. Almost like she’s still talking to me, you know?”
“Sometimes I feel the same way,” Landry says, and Elena agrees that she does as well.
As they head out into the bright June sunshine and across the parking lot, Landry can’t help but think that she really doesn’t just want to drive—she needs to. After all she’s been through—and all the lectures she’s given her teenagers—there’s absolutely no way she’s getting into a car with a driver she suspects has been drinking. Elena doesn’t seem the least bit inebriated—for all Landry knows, that was just mouthwash she sniffed on her breath—but there’s no need to take chances.
As the rental car comes into view, Landry aims the electronic key and presses the button to unlock the doors. If she were back home with her kids, this is the point where they’d both yell, “I call shotgun!” and race each other for the front passenger seat.
She turns to Kay and Elena to joke about it, but quickly changes her mind. Elena has stopped in her tracks behind them, frowning as she looks at her cell phone. Her energy is completely different now, Landry notices; not a hint of the bubbly, upbeat woman who burst into the lobby a few minutes ago.
“Everything okay?” Landry asks her.
“Hmmm? Oh . . . yes. It’s fine. I was just getting a call from a friend back home that I’d rather not answer right now. Some people will drive you crazy if you let them, you know?”