He scoffed.
I finished my coffee-cocoa combination and we stepped outside into the light, whispering snow. “By the way,” I said, “you never told me what happened in France.”
“France.” Just the way he said it spoke volumes.
“Yeah.”
The car wasn’t far. He trudged toward it. I walked beside him.
“I had a bad experience there with pillow mist. Bought some while I was doing a training for INTERPOL.”
“Pillow mist?”
“Yeah. You spray it on your pillow at hotels, you know. To…so they smell nice-what are you looking at me like that for?”
“You don’t strike me as the pillow mist kind of guy.”
“Hey, I like a nice-smelling pillow and I’m man enough to admit it.”
I had no idea how to respond to that. “So, what happened with the pillow mist?”
“I had a reaction. Allergies. My whole face swelled up for a week.”
“And you held it against France instead of pillow mist?”
“I told you. I like a nice-smelling pillow.” He climbed into the car. “Besides, they use the metric system over there.”
I decided what present I’d get him in return for the flashlight-a bottle of pillow mist. And I’d make sure it was measured in milliliters. Just for fun.
Then I pulled away from the curb to take Ralph Hawkins, my friend, to the airport.
2007
Epilogue
Friday, May 18
4:32 p.m.
Time has taught me some things.
Some people say that, in retrospect, our hard times aren’t as bad as they seemed, but I’m not so sure about that. I think they were as bad as they seemed, and the good times were just as good too.
Hollywood glamorizes violence. The media either mutes it or sensationalizes it. But here, in this job, you see it for what it truly is every day. The blood and the gore and the terror.
But you see love and beauty too, if you keep an eye out for them.
Now, I wait in the living room.
Taci has become a part of my story, a good one, a gift no one can take away-shared times of love and beauty that really were as good as they seemed. Over the years I’ve had a number of other relationships, though none as meaningful as the one with her.
A couple weeks ago, however, I started seeing another woman, Christie Ellis. Already she seems special to me, like she might be the one. Before introducing me to her daughter, she’d wanted to get to know me first, so here I am now, in their apartment, waiting for the big meeting.
She’s fifteen.
A teenage girl.
And just the thought of talking with her makes me feel clueless.
Christie brags about her all the time, even though she’s warned me that she can sometimes be a bit opinionated and a tad impulsive: “Occasionally,” she told me. “Just once in a while.”
The doorway at the end of the hall opens and footsteps approach.
Christie’s daughter emerges from the hallway. Shoulder-length, raven black hair. A look of innocence about her, but wary and deeply intelligent eyes.
Before I can speak, she does. “So, you’re Patrick.”
“Call me Pat, if you like.” I stand and reach out my hand to shake hers, but she makes no move to respond in kind, and I end up lowering my hand somewhat awkwardly again to my side.
Okay.
“Come here.” She nods toward the balcony. As we head that way, Christie gives me a hint of a smile: See, I told you. She’s got some spunk to her.
We step outside and then the two of us are alone on the balcony overlooking New York City, where I live now, working for the Bureau. As it turns out, Ralph was right. That FBI jacket did suit me pretty well after all. And, actually, Calvin was right about that PhD program too. Both, a perfect fit.
“So, you like my mom?”
“I do.”
“Well, you better treat her right.”
“I will.”
“No, I mean it, she’s been hurt before.” There’s a depth of love in her words I’ve rarely heard from anyone before. “I swear to God you’d better not break her heart.”
A pause. “I won’t.”
The girl has a gaze that’s steady and unflinching. “She raised me by herself, okay? I never had a dad here and she never had a husband. She deserves a guy who’s man enough to treat her the way a woman deserves to be treated. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Is that you?”
No matter where things went with Christie and me, I knew the answer to that question right away. “Yes. It is.”
Only then does she reach out her hand. “In that case, I’m glad to meet you, Patrick.”
“I’m glad to meet you too, Tessa.”
And as I take her hand, the city and all that the future might hold here seem to spread out in a wide and inviting circle at my feet.