Chapter 3
Stronger than Portland Cement
“Hey kid,” Vaughn says when I answer my phone.
“Hey Vaughn. What’s up?” It’s been two weeks since I sat across from him in a coffee shop and told him I thought Mark Eriksson was the one.
Vaughn agreed. He’s been gathering background information on Mark since then—following him, figuring out his routines, his likes and dislikes, his favorite foods, and where he does his grocery shopping.
You know. Everything a woman could want to know before a first date.
It’s not stalking if someone else does it for you. It’s just business. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
“Check your email. It has everything I’ve been able to dig up about Mark Eriksson over the past couple of weeks.
It should be more than enough to get you started.
But I’d recommend you still spend a few days following him yourself before bumping into him.
Literally. Unless someone has a dog you can steal and then heroically return—which he doesn’t, it was the first thing I checked—running into them bodily is your best cold opener.
If you can do it in a way that makes it seem like it’s his fault, more’s the better.
If not, I’d recommend that you be carrying something when you bump into him.
Makes it more dramatic. Don’t ever let anyone tell you men don’t love drama. They do.”
“Okay,” I say with a laugh. “Where are you anyway? I thought we were going to meet up tomorrow.”
“I’ve got a new client. I’ll be out of town for a few days, but let me know if you run into any snags. And Alyssa?”
“What?”
“Take your time. Don’t rush this. You only get one chance. He’s your best shot, so don’t blow it.”
“Vaughn, if there’s one thing in this world I know how to do, it’s manipulate a man.”
“Everyone thinks that. But trust me. It’s going to be different than whatever you’re expecting.”
“I’ll be fine, Vaughn.”
“I know. You’re your father’s daughter. Bye kid,” he says, ending the call, his words echoing through my head.
I am. If there’s ever anything that worries me, it’s that. Once I’ve made a decision and settled on a course of action, I have exactly the same ability to shut off my feelings and do what needs to be done that my dad does. It landed him in prison, though. Hopefully I’m smarter than that.
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in a diner that calls itself a cafe, making my way through my second cup of coffee, waiting for Mark Eriksson to show up.
According to Vaughn’s notes, whenever Mark is in the city, he has breakfast here.
His hours vary, I guess depending on the team’s training or game schedules, which I haven’t put any effort into figuring out.
I’m betting if Mark were interested in dating someone who gave a shit about hockey, he’d already be doing it.
It’s closing in on ten-thirty when he finally walks in.
He’s bigger than I thought he’d be. He probably has six inches on me.
We’re both in the one percent. Hopefully, he’s not one of those guys who only dates short women.
That would be just my luck. His mahogany hair is a few inches longer than it was in the picture Vaughn had.
He’s wearing khakis and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a grey T-shirt.
It’s like he was born and raised here. Looking at him, there’s not a single hint of Louisiana remaining.
Even his skin is the pasty white of a native Portlander.
He takes a seat at the counter and greets the waitress behind it like an old friend. She smiles when she sees him and quickly brings him a cup of coffee.
I watch him surreptitiously as I pretend to work on the Saturday New York Times Crossword Puzzle.
Saturdays’ puzzles are always the hardest. He orders a Denver omelet with a side of hash browns, and when a tall woman with medium-length black hair walks in and takes a seat at a booth near the windows, his head turns as his eyes track her.
Half an hour later, he tosses a twenty on the counter and leaves. I do the same and then follow him out. According to Vaughn’s notes, he’ll hit up a farmer’s market next. After that, his routine seems to vary.
His height makes him easy to track from a distance as he meanders through the stalls, stopping briefly to talk with people. I get the impression most of them have no idea who he is, so he probably isn’t a fan of the spotlight despite his position forcing him into it often.
He buys a jar of local honey at one stall, some apples at another, and two bunches of chard from a third. I wonder if he actually cooks, or if he’s just planning on shoving it all into a blender and making a smoothie.
After a few more minutes, Mark leaves the farmer’s market opposite the side where we entered, then makes his way along the city streets another couple of blocks before he pulls a set of keys from his pocket. A black Audi twenty feet ahead chirps as he unlocks it, and then he gets in.
Damn it! I’m parked about three-quarters of a mile in the opposite direction.
I’ll never make it back in time to tail him to wherever he’s headed next.
With any luck, he’ll simply return to his house near Forest Park, and I’ll be able to resume following him there.
I walk past his car and turn left at the corner to loop around the block before beginning the return journey to mine as he pulls away from the curb.
Ten minutes later, I finally make it back to where I parked.
It’s almost noon. I drive the twenty minutes up the hills toward Forest Park, moving down progressively smaller, more shaded neighborhood streets.
Based on the map, it looks like Mark lives halfway down a dead-end street.
By the time I turn off the main road and onto his, I’m questioning whether the directions are accurate.
There are so many trees around his house that I drive past without seeing it.
It’s not until I reach the end of the road that I realize I must have missed it.
I turn around and creep by more slowly. I catch a glimpse of the deck, and a small break in the trees that marks his driveway, but unless I drive right up to his house, there’s no way to tell if he’s there.
After a second of indecision, I park on the street and pull out my phone, opening Zillow and typing in his address as I consider my next steps. The house sold last year for $1.8 million. Damn. I should’ve become a hockey coach, I think. My condo is nice, but it’s not $1.8 million nice.
I bet there are no female head coaches in the NHL. I Google it to see if I’m right, and unsurprisingly I am. There’s one woman in the league who’s a full-time assistant coach—the first woman to have the position in NHL history. She must be a badass.
I put my phone away with a sigh. I can sit here waiting indefinitely for Mark to come or go… but that seems like a waste of time. I shift my car into drive, heading away from Forest Park, back toward civilization, deciding to come up with a better plan.
“What are you doing?” Katie asks, her eyes meeting mine in the bathroom mirror as she looks in from the doorway.
“Dyeing my hair,” I reply.
“I can see that. But why? And is that black hair dye?” she probes, her eyes moving to the discarded box sitting on the bathroom counter. “You know you’re never going to get that out, right?”
I shrug. “I felt like a change.”
“So you’re channeling your inner goth?”
“Something like that,” I tell her with a smirk as I smear some dye over an uncoated section of light brown hair.
Katie huffs. “Sit down. Let me help you. You’re going to miss a spot, and it’ll look ridiculous.”
I glare at her reflection, but she merely stands there waiting until I turn and hand her the bottle.
Then I take off the overly large plastic gloves that came in the box and pass them to her too.
Once she has the gloves on her hands, I sit down on the lid of the toilet.
She sections my hair and begins diligently ensuring each section is coated in dye before moving to the next.
“So why are you really dyeing your hair?” she questions after a few minutes.
I shift my weight, trying to decide how to answer, and Katie ‘tsks’ at my fidgeting. I don’t want to tell her the whole truth, but I also don’t want to lie to her about it. “Promise not to laugh?” I ask.
“No, but tell me anyway.”
I groan.
“C’mon Alyssa! Tell me,” she whines in a singsong voice that I know means she won’t let it go until she gets an answer. She’ll spend the next three days pestering me if I don’t give her something.
“Fine. I sort of…” I close my eyes, already cringing. “I sort of met a guy, and I think he likes black hair.” I dig my nails into my palms so I have something besides the mortification I’m currently feeling to focus on.
“You… You’re dyeing your hair for a guy? You?”
“Kind of?” I say lamely.
“Which guy? Why haven’t I met him? Why don’t I already know who he is?”
“Um… We’re not exactly… dating… yet.”
“I want to meet him!” Katie declares.
“No. No way, Katie. I don’t need you scaring him off before I even have a chance!”
“Oh, so you’re serious about him,” Katie teases, and I don’t contradict her, because I am serious about Mark Eriksson, just not in the way she’s assuming. “Did you finally meet someone you’re going to date for longer than a month or two before getting bored?” she asks, continuing to poke at me.
I roll my eyes, even though I don’t really mind. This is the most animated I’ve seen her since she spoke to reporters on the courthouse steps the day the verdict was read. If ripping my love life apart is what it takes, I’ll gladly let her.
“I’m not that bad!” I insist.
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you were in a relationship that lasted more than two months?”
“Med school,” I admit.
“And even that was only because you were too busy to find the time to break up with him!”
“Whatever. It’s not my fault people are boring.”
“Uh huh. But not this mystery man you’re dyeing your hair for?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s why I want to meet him!” she says in that same badgering singsong voice.
“I’ll consider it. Maybe in a few weeks.”
“Fine. But don’t expect me to forget about this!”
“I won’t.”
“Turn around so I can do your eyebrows too. You’ll look ridiculous otherwise.” I spin around and let her coat my eyebrows in dye as well. “Wipe that off in a few minutes,” she tells me. “If you don’t—”
“I’ll look ridiculous,” I mutter. “I know.”
Katie hands me a cup of coffee when I walk into the kitchen. She’s always been a morning person. There’s not a single day in my life I’ve ever been that awake at seven in the morning, let alone on a Sunday. Our entire childhood was like that—Katie waking up with the sun, and me hiding from it.
“You know, the black hair actually really suits you,” Katie says. “I thought it would be too dark, but it makes you look like a green-eyed Krysten Ritter.”
“Thanks.”
“I kind of think you should keep it like that.”
“We’ll see.”
“So what are you doing today?”
“I was going to go see about a guy. Why? Did you want to do something?”
“Nope,” she replies quickly, her voice too chipper. “Go see about a guy.”
“I can stay here if you need me to,” I offer.
“Alyssa, your life can’t revolve around me forever,” Katie states. “Eventually, I’m going to have to… Eventually, I’m going to have to get over it.”
“Kay—”
“No. You know it’s true.”
“You don’t have to ‘get over it.’”
“No. I do,” she asserts. “And you need to get over feeling guilty for not coming with me that night.” I open my mouth to protest, but she continues. “Don’t even think about denying it. I know you do. It’s not your fault any more than it’s my fault.”
“I know,” I agree.
“Okay, then. Go see about your guy. By the time you come home, I’m going to have gone to the store and bought some flowers.” The way she says the words makes it sound like she’s giving herself a pep talk.
“Sounds good, but call me if you need anything?”
“Yes. Go.”
I’m peeking around a maze of bookshelves, watching Mark Eriksson browse for books in Powell’s. Apparently he’s a reader, which I wasn’t expecting. He’s got three books wedged under one arm, and he’s reading the back of a fourth—In the Woods Somewhere.
Maybe it’s about his house, I think with a quiet snort.
His head jerks up, and I look down, pretending to read the back of the book that’s at the top of the stack I’m holding—Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta by Robert Palmer.
I grabbed it off the shelf along with a couple of others when Mark was perusing the music section, figuring it’d be a decent study guide for what he likes.
I’ve been following him for the past couple of hours.
He started with breakfast at Wilma’s Cafe again, then he hit up a vintage record store and spent a solid forty minutes flipping through old vinyl.
He walked out with two records. One was Stronger than Dirt by Big Momma Thornton, and I wasn’t close enough to make out the second.
We’ve been wandering through Powell’s together ever since—although he doesn’t know that.
It’s kind of fun. It’s like I’m pretending to be a spy, only I’m not really pretending.
Mark adds the book to his stack and then snakes through a few more aisles before stopping to consider another.
I climb up onto a small step stool to get a better look at what he’s doing.
A burble of laughter escapes as a title on the shelf catches my eye.
I grab it, scanning the blurb. I laugh again, and then someone clears their throat.
Mark. Mark clears his throat.
The step stool wobbles beneath me as I startle, and then I’m on the floor. My elbow is pulsating and tingling waves are spreading down my forearm to my fingertips.
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow, is the only thought repeating through my head.
“Shit!” a voice snaps. Mark. Again.