Page 59 of One Night in Alaska

And then she was gone.

34

GEORGIA

No one was waiting with a lei when I landed in Seattle. In fact, no one was waiting with my luggage either. When I got to the baggage carousel to pick up my checked bag, it wasn’t there.

I waited and waited, watching all of the other people from my flight grab their stuff and be on their merry way. Even the bratty kid who kept kicking my seat and kept sticking his stinky sock onto my armrest got to leave with his oblivious mother while I continued to stand there.

Just when I was about to go stand in the line to report my bag missing, I saw its sorry ass come toppling down the ramp, looking about as put together as I felt. It flopped down onto the carousel and seemed to take its time slinking around the black treadmill to reach me.

A woman standing near me said, “Oh, lucky you. Your bag’s the first one off.”

I stared at her for a moment and realized that the people from the next plane had already arrived to claim their bags. “Uh, yeah,” I said, not wanting to get into a conversation with a stranger in the mood I was in. She started to say something else to me, but I just walked away. Mama would scold me for being rude, but after an incredibly long flight I couldn’t afford to get away from a man I didn’t want to leave, I was in no mood to converse with anyone.

Except for Lucy. When I walked through the exit and saw her standing there, tears filled my eyes. It was silly, so I tried my best to keep them from falling, but I’d missed her friendly face so much, I just wanted to fling myself into her arms and have her make me feel happy again.

“Hey!” Lucy said, her tone much more chipper than necessary. “Let me get your bags. Geez, it looks like they kept it on top of the plane all the way from Sweden.”

“Switzerland,” I corrected her.

She picked up my bag, which was almost as big as she was, and tossed it in the back of her car. I placed my carry-on and purse in the backseat as well and hopped into the passenger seat, just as the old man waiting behind us began to honk for no apparent reason.

“Give me a minute!” Lucy shouted at him before swearing under her breath. As she got in the car, she muttered, “He’s been sitting there for a half hour and didn’t even help his wife into the car. Now, he’s in a hurry? Fuck my life.” She put on her seatbelt and shifted into drive, checking that nothing was coming before she pulled out into traffic.

“Fuck my life indeed,” I agreed with her, already buckled in. Ordinarily, I would be terrified to have Lucy driving in such a chaotic area as the airport, but at the moment, I didn’t care. If we got hit, maybe I’d end up in a coma for a month or two, and then I wouldn’t have to think about the horrible pain in my heart.

“Are you hungry?” Lucy asked. “We could stop and get some lunch on the way home if you want.”

The food on the plane had tasted like cardboard with ketchup on it. I hadn’t even been able to figure out what it was meant to be. As much as I wanted to go home and bury myself under the blankets in my bed, I found myself nodding. “Yeah, sure. I could go for a sandwich.” And a drink. But then, drinking had been part of the problem.

Lucy was being uncharacteristically quiet as she drove. I was shocked, considering I’d only told her that I needed her to pick me up from the airport because Beau and I had had a falling out. She had to be dying to get the details from me, and I wanted to tell her in a fit of verbal diarrhea, but I didn’t want to distract her while she was driving either.

It took a few minutes for her to work her way out of the heavy airport traffic, and then the two of us relaxed slightly. Rather than asking me about what had happened, she started calling out restaurants. We settled on a sandwich shop that wasn’t too far away from my apartment, and Lucy headed in that direction, swearing at passing drivers from time to time, but other than that, she was silent.

We pulled into the parking lot and headed inside. The place wasn’t too crowded, so we were able to get a booth in a more secluded area of the dining room. We both ordered teas and turkey sandwiches with the works with sides of chips. It wasn’t until Lucy had her tea in front of her that she said, “All right. What the fuck happened?”

My mouth dropped open, and for a moment, I thought my entire life story was going to come flying out of me, but instead, I just started to sob. Lucy handed me a napkin, and I wiped my eyes, but I knew I must look ridiculous to everyone else in the shop.

No one was paying us any mind, but I still did my best to stop crying so that they wouldn’t start staring. That, and I really wanted to tell her what happened. Eventually, I was able to get out, “He called me Kaylee.”

“Um, what?” Lucy asked before sipping sweet tea through her straw. “Who the fuck is Kaylee? Is he seeing someone else?”

Shaking my head, I dabbed at my eyes, glad I wasn’t crying anymore. “No, no. That’s the name of his wife.”

“Wait—he’s married? Fuck, Georgia! I had no idea. Damn that bastard—”

“No, Lucy. His dead wife.” I had told her this much. Why was she so confused?

“Oh, right, right,” she said, calming down. “So he called you his wife’s name by mistake? That seems like an honest mistake, Georgia. I don’t understand why you would leave because of that.”

I inhaled deeply, trying to figure out the best way to tell her why it had upset me so much. I picked up where I’d left off speaking to her last, telling her about the photograph I’d found in the bedroom. I told her how we’d gone to the bar and he’d gotten drunk off his ass.

She laughed when I told her about me trying to drive back to the house and getting disoriented. She laughed again when I told her about him puking all over the side of the car and in the bushes. I didn’t particularly find that part funny, but I waited for her to stop giggling before continuing.

“So when we got up to the bedroom, he puked a few more times. Then, I helped him take a shower and got him to bed. As I was getting ready to leave the room, he said, ‘I love you, Kaylee,’” I explained to her.

Lucy stared at me for a long moment before she said, “I have so many questions.”