Chapter Twenty-Four
twenty-four
Lanie
■ 20-NOV ■ Trans-Continental Airways ■ Flight: 403 ■
JFK-John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport ? LHR-London, Heathrow
Seat Assignment: 15F/15G
“I don’t think I can do these forty-eight-to seventy-two-hour hops back and forth much longer.” Ridley yawned, making the words barely decipherable. Lanie walked with him through Immigration at Heathrow after yet another of his practically overnight jaunts to New York. “But I have to say, I think it’s impressive how you look so fresh coming off a red-eye.”
“I’m a veteran traveler. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve.”
“Oh yeah?”
“A whole bag of them, in fact.” Lanie thought about Gemma with gratitude.
“Well, it’s working for you.”
She could see from the bags under Ridley’s eyes that it wasn’t working for him so much anymore. And while it thrilled her to be able to occasionally fly back and forth to London with him, she wasn’t without sympathy for the strain of his fifth or sixth visit in fewer months.
“Thanks.” Lanie’s cheeks reddened as she placed her passport down on the glass panel of a high-tech turnstile. “I miss the stamps.”
“You can always get back in the line, if you really need one.” Ridley thumbed toward the long line they’d skipped past.
“Uh, no.”
It was easier to breeze through Immigration now that they’d installed the fancy new electronic turnstiles, but Lanie couldn’t help feeling robbed. “How will I know where I’ve been years from now without my passport stamps?” she sulked.
Back in her late teens and twenties, Lanie could have racked up a million flier miles on TitanAir, a discount airline that offered dirt cheap flights all over Europe. Every summer, for the cost of a pizza pie, Gemma used to drag Lanie all over the continent—Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Frankfurt, Madrid—basically anywhere they could grab a cheap ticket and fly to in under three hours.
“You need your passport to remember all the places you’ve been?” Ridley said it with judgmental disbelief.
Her chin rose with defiance. “I’ll only say we had a lot of fun back in the day.”
Ridley’s eyebrow rose. “We?”
Lanie watched all the bags go around the carousel, trying to identify her massive seldom-used suitcase before pointing it out as it headed toward them.
“What the hell do you have in here? Rocks?” he asked, straining a little to haul the weighty bag off the carousel before it moved away.
Lanie rolled her eyes. “Lady things.”
This time around, in addition to her normal travel-friendly backpack and carry-on approved suitcase, Lanie had needed to carry a larger suitcase to accommodate nearly a dozen beaded, sequined, silken and otherwise bedazzled bridesmaids’ dresses. Gemma had seen them in an imported wedding magazine someone had left at her salon. And naturally, all the ones she liked were made by designers who either didn’t have an authorized retailer in the UK or were similarly obscure. So, in her capacity as the world’s best maid of honor, Lanie had rented samples and lugged them across the Atlantic for Gemma’s perusal.
“Ladies’ parts, you said?” Ridley teased with a perfectly straight face. “Feels like it.”
“Haha.” She smirked. “Anyway ‘we’ included me, my cousin Gem and her best friend, Fatou. We were very bad. Every summer was a Hot Girl Summer. Years before Megan Thee Stallion. We were, like, the Three drunken Musketeers.” Lanie blushed remembering it. “So yeah, I do need my stamps to remember...some of it.”
Ridley eyed her, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what did your grandmother think?”
“You’re assuming a lot, thinking she always knew. Particularly when we were younger.”
“But you left the country.”
“Within the EU, baby.”
He looked first astonished then a little shaken by the thought. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t see it. Not you.”
“Absolutely me.” Lanie gave a nod, amused by his incredulity. “We were teenagers. We went all over the place.”
“No, I mean, Lanie Turner, Miss Aplomb herself, getting blackout drunk in Europe?”
Is that how he sees me? She was flattered. “Believe it. And that’s all over Europe, by the way. Before I could even drink legally in the States,” she gloated. “One time in Amsterdam in Vondelpark, I passed out and when the girls woke me up a couple of hours later, there was this couple near us...”
They had cleared the customs area and were walking through the arrivals concourse to the street.
“The joke was we got kicked out for sleeping there, but that couple didn’t for...what they were doing.”
“What were they doing?”
She caught his eye and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Ridley’s eyes widened. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. Then one time I lost my passport in a bar on Rose Street in Edinburgh. Some bar. Had no idea which. That was a fun night, trying to retrace our steps.” Lanie’s head hurt remembering that. “We drank so much back then that I don’t even drink anything harder than wine anymore. I figure I’ve killed enough brain cells. And I need all I can manage to keep.”
“You know that’s a myth, right?”
“It is?”
He nodded.
“Wow, I was sure I lost some crucial IQ points during college.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Ridley teased.
“So.” Lanie took a deep lungful of the chilled and rainy London air. “How are we doing this? I’ve got my Oyster card but I suspect you don’t want to jump on the tube.”
“Nope.” Ridley’s brows furrowed as he shook his head.
Lanie rolled her eyes.
“Don’t give me that look. I take the Underground all the time,” Ridley challenged her.
“Okay, when?” She didn’t even bother to hide her doubt. “Where?”
“Except for, you know, coming from the airport. But that’s because I know they’re sending a car.” He straightened his glasses, deliberately avoiding the smug look she wore. “Anyway, because of that I can give you a lift to Balham. Won’t that be nice?”
“That’s on the other side of the river from you. Don’t be silly.”
“It’s a driver. He won’t mind the extra cash. I guarantee it.” Ridley wore his own smug look now. “Just hang out here with me. And relax.”
Lanie bit her lip, panicking internally. Why, she didn’t know. She’d already planned to split the cost of a cab with him. Truth was, Lanie was still just coming to terms with the fact that she wanted to be around Ridley as much as she could. All the time.
A few minutes later, a sleek black BMW honked its horn, startling Lanie as it slid up to the curb in front of them. Ridley bent forward to peer into the lightly tinted windows, looking confused.
“Dash?” Ridley asked, surprised to see his best friend.
Lanie took a step to the side, feeling the need to stand apart from him. She hadn’t realized until that moment how close they were to one another, but suddenly there was this pang of guilt. Ridley glanced at her but otherwise didn’t say anything, turning his attention back to the driver of the car.
“Surprise! I’m the welcome wagon. Happy to see me?” Dash spread his arms wide as if he planned to give the world a hug, not just Ridley.
Ridley definitely seemed surprised too. Happy , not so much.
Lanie gave him a tentative smile. Dash screamed lumberjack with his full beard and broad shoulders. Are there lumberjacks in the UK? She mulled over the random thought. If so, that’s what this man should be. Wearing flannel all the time.
Once Dash had hopped out of the car and opened the trunk with his fob, Lanie noticed he was shorter than Ridley, closer to her height. He slapped Ridley hard on the arm, jostling him. “Let’s get these into the boot, shall we?” Dash looked back and forth between them, never losing the enormous smile.
Ridley stood there for a moment longer as if he’d forgotten how to speak. Dash grabbed his bag and Ridley followed his friend to the back of the car.
“Change of plans, apparently,” Lanie muttered to herself, fishing her Oyster card out of her pocket. It seemed that she’d be taking the train after all.
“What are you doing here? ”
Lanie could just make out Ridley’s words when he seemed to regain his ability to talk. It intrigued Lanie that he was so discombobulated. It might have been amusing if she didn’t suspect she knew what had tripped him up in the first place.
“I’m here to take you to work,” Dash said innocently. “And maybe I also wanted to see what Just Interesting looked like.”
There was a hurried exchange of words Lanie didn’t understand and largely missed because they were now obscured by the raised trunk lid. Afterward, both men returned to the curb, looking at her. She smiled awkwardly, waiting for someone, anyone , to break the conversational seal.
“Well,” Lanie announced, starting to back up. “You’ve got a ride, so I guess I’ll take off.”
Ridley snapped out of his daze then, reaching out lightning fast. “No, uh, ride with us.” He took her by the forearm, before dropping his hand from her wrist just as quickly. Still, it was enough to pause her midstep. “I already promised you a lift.”
Ridley looked over his shoulder at his friend, who merely watched this play out.
She forced a smile. “Ridley, you didn’t promise me anything.”
“Dash.” He turned back to his friend, who brightened expectantly. “Dr. Dash MacGeraghty, let me introduce you to Ms. Melanie Turner.”
“So formal.” Dash eyed Ridley, and Lanie was certain she caught a glint of mischief there, before regarding her. “Hallo, Ms. Melanie, a pleasure!” Dash gave her a nod that she reciprocated. His appraisal felt slightly more than casual.
“Hi, nice to finally meet you,” Lanie said, shaking off any growing discomfort.
“He talks about me, does he?”
Her smile grew into something a little more genuine. “Yes, but it makes me wonder why you still talk to him. Apparently, you do all the real work while he’s off gallivanting,” she joked.
A spark of amusement finally lit in Ridley’s eyes, the corner of his mouth rising slightly to a near smirk.
Dash looked from Lanie to Ridley. “Ooh, I like her!”
Dash’s otherwise fairly tame accent really popped on the words like and her and Lanie remembered how much she enjoyed the Irish.
“Me too,” Ridley replied almost reflexively, catching both her and Dash by surprise. He coughed then to clear his throat. “By which I mean, um, you can see what good company I have on my flights sometimes.”
“Yeah, I definitely do,” Dash said. “Well, in we get and off we go then.”
Lanie looked to Ridley, whose expression, as usual, gave her nothing. Certainly not sympathy or concurrence with her plan to leave. Finally, he just shrugged.
“Really?”
“Far be it from me to force you into something you don’t want to do, Ms. Melanie, but I guarantee, we’re better company than you’ll find on the Piccadilly Line at this hour of the morning. And the ride is far smoother.” Dash smiled again, pointing with pride to his 3 Series. “Promise.”
“Fine.” Lanie gave up, beginning to pull her enormous bag toward the car.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Ridley finally interjected, tutting.
He stopped her with a hand over hers on the handle of her suitcase. Their eyes met and Lanie’s stomach took a tumble as it did often nowadays. Without intending to, Lanie shot a guilty look in Dash’s direction and saw his attention was taken by Ridley’s hand still covering hers. She slipped it away quickly, hustling into the back seat.
Lanie hated to trade in stereotypes but so far Dash was every notion of the jolly Irishman she’d ever encountered. The only thing missing was the shock of red hair. He was expansive, lively and had the singular ability to drag real, actual laughs from Ridley at an alarmingly frequent rate. In front of Dash, Lanie again saw the jovial man she first met on the plane. As they drove, Dash dominated the conversation, regaling Lanie with stories. Of how they met when Ridley was a young American doctor in a fellowship program at St. Thomas’s. Of being the best man at Ridley and Thyra’s wedding and misplacing their wedding bands. Of practicing the art of the diaper change on Beatrix’s dolls in preparation for his own daughter.
Traffic was lighter than it would be in a couple of hours. Between that and Dash’s stories, they made it through West London, flying through Hammersmith and Fulham and almost across the river, before Lanie knew it.
“For at least a year, my daughter, Peach, refused to wear anything but her nappies...” Dash said through a gale of laughter. “And the missus and I started thinking, ‘Maybe this isn’t so bad?’ We were saving a ton on wee clothes she was just going to outgrow, right? But then we didn’t have any clothes for the next one!” Dash let loose yet another peal of his hearty guffaws, wiping tears from his eyes with a thumb.
LANIE:
Your friend is a trip.
RIDLEY:
He is.
Smiling genuinely as Ridley looked at her through the side mirror, she gave him a quick wink.
“After that, every time we just went to the charity shops to get their things!”
“‘Every time’? How many?”
“Three more. Four in all. Peach, Clementine, Plum, and my youngest, a boy, Crispin. Three girls and my wee man.”
Moments later, Lanie’s phone buzzed.
RIDLEY:
YES. THEY ARE ALL NAMED AFTER FRUIT.
Lanie snorted loudly. Dash glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “I can see it now, a house full of little nudists,” Lanie recovered quickly.
Dash’s boisterous laughter filled the car.
LANIE:
Okay then, so what’s Bea named after?
Lanie saw in the side-view mirror the cloud that quickly crossed Ridley’s face and she regretted asking. He was hard to navigate; she never knew when and where was too far. But his face told her she’d tripped one of the invisible lines in his mind. Ridley’s lips flattened.
“What’s the matter?” Dash surprised them.
“What? Nothing.” Ridley squirmed, put on the spot.
Lanie pressed her phone into her purse, turning to the window in time to see the verdant greenery and flat expanse of Clapham Common come into view. They were nearly there and Lanie was glad, because the car suddenly felt too small. She was tired of sitting in this confined space too. When her phone vibrated, giving a brief chime a minute later, Lanie ignored it, more embarrassed than upset she’d overstepped.
She gave Dash a forced smile when he checked her out in the rearview mirror. The car fell into silence.
“Okay?” Dash said unconvinced. “How about this then?”
Dash turned the radio to BBC Radio 1. The DJ’s mile-a-minute delivery and thick Scottish brogue made her nearly indecipherable to Lanie. So, her mind wandered. The phone chimed again. Lanie sighed.
RIDLEY:
I didn’t choose her name.
RIDLEY:
Since her childhood Thyra had always liked Beatrix Potter.
LANIE:
I love Beatrix Potter!
RIDLEY:
Then I need to take you to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Every year we used to do a pilgrimage there to see the Beatrix Potter archive.
“Are you two texting each other inside the same car?”
They both looked up simultaneously, as if caught.
“Truly?” Dash’s eyes flew from Ridley to her in the mirror. “What are you, children?”
“I swear we weren’t talking about you, Dash!” Lanie spat out.
“Likely story,” he said sullenly as Lanie looked from one to the other of them in their respective mirrors before bursting out laughing.
“Remind me to never commit a crime with you,” Ridley broke his extended silence to say drolly.
Then they all laughed and before she knew it, they were pulling up to her grandmother’s curb. Ridley hopped out to get Lanie’s suitcase out of the trunk.
Dash turned around in his seat to face her. “So, Melanie.”
Lanie startled at the full and sudden force of his attention.
“Don’t worry, grá . I don’t bite.” He laughed and Lanie settled a little. “I just wanted to say it’s been a pleasure.”
“It was really nice to meet you too.”
Dash eyed Ridley outside walking the suitcase up to her door, pulling it through the gate as he continued, “Ridley’s ma best mate and this has been a rough couple of years for him, he’s said?”
She nodded, growing curious where this was going.
“That’s why I’m so glad he’s found someone to talk to. And he likes you. I just want to make sure you know that, ’cos I love the guy, but uh, he’s been absolute minus craic the past few years—understandably—” He put up a palm to stop her, as if she had any idea what he was talking about. “So, it’s been really lovely to see him come out of that. Thank you.”
“Okay...”
Dash clammed up just as quickly as he’d begun talking when Lanie’s door opened.
“You guys planning my birthday party in here or what? Hop out.”
“I don’t know if I like you enough for that,” Lanie teased, taking his arm to help her out of the back seat. “Thanks.”
“Me neither!” Dash smiled. “No clue.”
“Just talking about me, then?”
“It’d only be fair if we were.” Dash leaned toward the passenger window from the driver’s seat to watch them both on the curb, giving Lanie a wink.
“You’re good from here?”
Lanie nodded, backing toward her grandmother’s front door. “Yep. Talk soon?”
“Yeah, I’ll call you later. I have an idea I meant to run by you.” Ridley got into the car as Lanie turned to walk away.
She paused for a moment, replaying Dash’s words. Ridley likes me. She knew that she liked him too. But perhaps that was not what he meant. No, don’t do that , she admonished herself. Don’t go there, Lanie.
Feeling for her keys, as she stepped up to the front door, Lanie realized she’d left her small backpack in the car. “Oh shit!” Spinning on her heel toward the street, she couldn’t see the car on her road anywhere. Lanie pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and dialed Ridley.
“...her. You could certainly do a lot worse for a little fun,” Dash was saying as the call connected.
He could do worse? Than what?
“Dash, I’m on the phone.” Ridley’s voice bore a sharp edge. “Lanie?”
A little fun?
Dash’s words pressed into her, coloring their whole ride, souring their whole interaction, particularly that odd bit at the end.
Was she supposed to be the “little fun” he was talking about?
It definitely wouldn’t be the first time, and probably not the last time either, that someone had dated her for that purpose. As a placeholder or for the ego boost or someone to validate them or just when they were between actual girlfriends. And she’d been largely okay with it. Nobody was “using” her, she’d insisted for years, because her love was waiting for her. The man she was waiting for just needed to wake up and finally realize it. But the truth was that Ridley had just been using her too.
Lanie sighed. And now, this.
If she seriously considered it, it made a hell of a lot more sense that an attractive young widower would be looking for her to help him “get his groove back” than to have anything serious. Why would he have any genuine interest in her? What did they have in common? Ridley was eight years older with a teenage daughter and a real job. He had a real career instead of a nine-to-five, he owned his own home and had real commitments and concerns. A couple of engaging conversations did not a real relationship make. When she thought of Dash’s words as some sort of tee up to a proposition, they made a hell of a lot more sense.
“Lanie? Are you there? Hello?”
“My bag is still in the car,” she said flatly.
“Do you need it now?” Ridley asked.
Lanie pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it incredulously. She’d just replaced the picture in her phone of Ridley’s business card with an actual picture of him very studiously doing some work as they sat by the gate before a flight. Now she wished she could reach into that photo and shake him.
“No, I can stand outside in the cold indefinitely.” Sarcasm dripped like acid from her words.
“Shit, you’re locked out?”
Technically, no . There was the key under the pot and with her Gran’s lifestyle getting more and more sedentary, chances were better than decent that she was at home too. Lanie stepped up from the curb and rang the bell. Almost immediately she heard movement from inside.
“’Cuz we’re running a little late for a meeting. But...” There was a flash of hesitation then she heard him say, “Dash, turn around, she left something in the car.”
“No,” she said quickly. They were running late because of her. And while given what she now knew, she shouldn’t care, but she did. “No, I can get in. Someone’s home.”
“You’re sure?”
Lanie took a breath. If Ridley came back right now, it was highly unlikely they would still be friends tomorrow.
“Yes, positive.”
“Okay, I’ll get your bag back to you as soon as I possibly can. I’m sorry.”
“You’d better.”
“Call you late—”
Lanie disconnected the call just as the door opened. To her surprise, instead of Gran, Gemma opened the door casually, snacking from a bag of chips in her hand. “Oh, I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Why?” Gemma gave her a quizzical look. “Don’t I live here?”
“Yeah, but I know you spend a lot of time over at Jonah’s,” Lanie explained.
“I had to be here when you brought these, now, didn’t I?” Gemma stepped into the doorway and reached for the large suitcase. “Cor, it’s bloody boulders in ’ere!” Gemma put on the voice of an old cockney man.
Lanie slung the strap of her weekender over her shoulders and then bent to give the large suitcase a shove over the raised threshold of the front door.
“How the hell did you get this here?” Gemma asked between labored breaths.
Grabbing the side handle of the bag to evenly distribute the suitcase’s weight between Gemma and herself and lug it further inside, Lanie admitted begrudgingly, “With a lot of help.”