Chapter 19
HOLLY
“This is never going to work,” I whisper to Anna as we shuffle forward a step through customs. Three international flights arrived within minutes of each other, and I’m feeling like livestock being herded for slaughter.
“It will. But you can’t look guilty.”
“We are guilty,” I hiss back.
Anna flashes a smile, oozing confidence and nonchalance. She looks fresh and pretty and completely at ease. Something is different about her, but I can’t figure out what exactly. I mean, she’s still Anna with her bright print dress and ridiculous high heels.
The line shuffles forward. The man behind me bumps into my tote. I clutch the bag and glare at him. Anna elbows me.
“Act natural.”
“I am.” I turn my glare on her. It was her idea that I carry Zoe’s urn through customs. According to her, she exudes “Americanness” and is pulled aside for random bag searches every time she travels through the Charles de Gaulle airport.
The one time I don’t want to be responsible for Zoe’s remains is the one time I’m in charge.
“Stop sighing,” Anna whispers. “People are looking.”
I glance around us. “No one is paying attention. They don’t look any more alive than we do.”
“Speak for yourself. Wouldn’t have hurt you to put on a little makeup or a swipe of lipstick.”
We took a red-eye. I look and feel like I just rolled out of an airplane seat, even if it was a first-class one. And negotiating life without a decent cup of coffee.
That’s when it hits me what’s different about Anna. She’s not wearing makeup either. A touch of color on her lips, yes, but not the full-face glam I’m used to seeing her with.
“What?” Anna asks.
“You didn’t do your face.”
Anna touches her cheek self-consciously. “Too tired,” she says, looking down and adjusting the large belt that’s accentuating her tiny waist. I pull the oversized tote closer to hide the mommy rolls clinging to my middle despite the hours on the treadmill.
“You don’t need all that makeup. You’re beautiful without it.”
Anna stares openly at me and I can almost hear the words tumbling in her brain as she processes the compliment. And that it came from me.
An officer at one of the passport booths waves Anna forward. She looks back at me and says, just for my ears, “Remember the plan.”
Before I can respond, she’s flouncing away with a giant Anna smile. The last thing I hear is her chirpy “Bonjour” as I’m waved over to another booth and a surly-looking man in a blue uniform.
“Bonjour. Welcome to France. What is the nature of your visit?”
My mouth dries. “Vacation.” The word sounds as heavy as my bag with the urn.
“How long is your trip?”
“One day.”
He raises an eyebrow, but his expression doesn’t change. Why hadn’t we rehearsed this part of the plan?
“One day is not a vacation.” He tsks at the idiocy of Americans. “Enjoy your stay.” He hands me the stamped passport and waves the next person over.
I hug my arms tighter to my side, hoping the sweat spots in my armpits don’t make me look guilty.
Ahead of me, Anna is standing with a porter who’s carefully removing her suitcases from the conveyor belt and organizing them on a cart.
I arrive at the belt just as my suitcase rounds the bend away from me and past Anna.
Frustration inflates my lungs the same time Anna gives her head a little shake.
The plan. The stupid, stinking plan we hatched on the plane after reading Zoe’s letter that has us pretending not to know each other until we’re past the checkpoint.
The stupid, stinking plan that assumes she’ll be called for a bag check because she always is, and I’ll walk through without a second look.
The stupid, stinking plan that now has me waiting another rotation until my one bag makes it back around.
“Excuse me,” I say, nudging aside a man having a heated phone conversation in German and ignoring the bags as they go round in front of him.
He looks down at me as I reach past him to grab my suitcase but doesn’t offer to help.
He also doesn’t move. I accidentally, but with delight, knock his shin with the wheel of my suitcase.
“Sorry.” I smirk when he scowls at me.
Anna is slowly walking ahead, pretending to look for something in her bag. I catch up but as I come close, she snaps her bag shut and marches toward the door.
“Mademoiselle?”
I focus on the wheels of the suitcase of the woman in front of me, and the clip-clip of Anna’s heels next to me, waiting for her to veer right toward an inspection table.
“Mademoiselle, this way please.” An officer steps in front of me, forcing me to abruptly stop. With a bored smile, he indicates a table to the left.
No. Nonono!
This is not how this is supposed to happen.
I shoot Anna a distressed look. What should we do? But she has eyes only for her phone, typing away as she walks to freedom.
“Your bag, please.” The officer points at my suitcase, and I reluctantly follow him to the inspection table.
He gestures for me to lift my roller onto the table, and I watch him pick through my clothes.
With a satisfied grunt, he zips the case shut and I forcefully exhale, beyond relieved to be done with this nightmare.
Except I’m not, because he’s now pointing at my tote.
“What?” I blink at him, gripping the shoulder strap tighter than Quinn holds onto the plastic T-Rex that’s his “fierce toy” when he goes to the doctor for a shot.
“Your bag, mademoiselle.”
No, nonono, nonononono.
My heart races in my throat. Perspiration soaks the back of my shirt.
The urn. He’s going to confiscate Zoe’s urn.
I glance over at Anna, swallowing a grapefruit-sized lump of dread. She’s loitering on the other side of freedom, where I’m supposed to be. She’s supposed to be here, getting her bags inspected.
Stupid, stinking plan.
“Your bag, s’il vous plait,” the officer says with more force.
I set the tote on the metal inspection table feeling like the utmost failure. We’re going to lose Zoe.
My bag lands with a thud. The officer noses around inside and says something I can’t hear over the blood pounding in my ears. He repeats his question.
“Huh?” I stare at him.
“Open it,” he orders for the third time, pointing at the urn. Words from Zoe’s letter float in the air around me. Do not let them confiscate me. It’s illegal. I’m counting on you.
I’m going to let her down. The first time I’m responsible, I’m going to let her down.
Focus on the plan, Holly. Stupid, stinking plan.
It takes four attempts to untwist the lid, my hands are shaking so badly. The officer peers into the urn and directs a questioning look at me. “But, it is empty.”
“What?” I don’t play poker for many reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve never mastered censoring my expressions. I don’t even try to hide my surprise. I look into the urn and gasp. It is empty.
I shoot a wild-eyed look at Anna and mouth, “It’s fucking empty.”
She gives me a subtle eyebrow twitch and dismissive flick of her wrist, then turns back to her phone. Probably posting something pithy about Luxe Vacations Travel Tip Number F-you about getting through customs without being searched.
I turn back to the officer. Fold my arms, unfold them. “Um, yes. We, I, um, yes.” I shift my weight from one foot to the other and nervously scratch an elbow. “I scattered my friend’s ashes in, um, Mexico. I was in Mexico. I’m returning the urn to her family.”
It’s all true. I force a slow breath into my lungs. Everything I said is true.
But where the hell is Zoe?
In my peripheral vision I catch Anna palming her face. Call it mommy intuition or principal instinct or just knowing Anna, but she’s rolling her eyes behind her hand.
“Ah, bon. Merci,” the officer says, apparently satisfied with my lame response.
Before he can ask anything else, I snatch my bags and speed-walk for the door. Anna starts walking as I near her and, with her luggage cart, maneuvers me into the women’s restroom. Except that, for once, I don’t have to pee.
A flight attendant in a crisp Air France uniform and perfectly tied scarf walks past as Anna pushes us and our luggage into a large family-sized stall.
I immediately turn on her. “What the fuck happened to Zoe?” I gulp air.
“Relax,” Anna says.
“How can you say that? Where’s Zoe?”
“Breathe.”
“I’m trying,” I answer, though I’m one inhale short of full-on hyperventilating. “Where… is… she?”
“Everywhere,” Anna says with a secret smile.
I know that smile. I’ve seen that smile. That smile means I’m about to lose my shit on someone.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
Anna removes a makeup compact from her bag and twists off the lid. Inside, the powder is not the warm colors Anna usually wears but a dull gray. I gasp as realization sinks in.
“But— Where’s the rest of her? Jesus, Anna. We had a plan. We discussed it. We agreed on it. What. Happened?” Now I am hyperventilating.
“And it was a good plan. But after you fell asleep, I kept thinking what if? What if this one time I don’t get stopped and you do. I couldn’t risk that happening, and I’d feel horrible if it did after convincing you to carry Zoe. So she helped me come up with a new plan. Travel Tip Number Thirty.”
Anna and her freaking travel tips. Number 22 is “understand the laws of the country you’re visiting.” Number 23 is “be respectful of the law and customs of the country you’re visiting.” She’d explained those after we read Zoe’s letter.
“I’m going to regret asking, but what is Travel Tip Number Thirty?” I lean back against the wall, then shoot forward as though I’ve been shocked. Anna may have her travel tips, but I have my travel rules: touch as little as possible in public bathrooms.
“When all seems hopeless, trust Anna.” She gives me a sheepish smile. “While you were asleep, I washed out my makeup containers and split Zoe’s remains among as many of them as I could. Just enough in each so that if anyone got suspicious, we’d only lose an ounce or two instead of all of her.”
I blink as Anna shows me one cosmetic jar after another. “My god.” I cover my mouth with my hand. Eight of Anna’s fanciest makeup containers have been emptied of their expensive contents and filled with the dull gray powder and bone shards that is Zoe.
“I should have told you, but you were already worried, and I didn’t want to make you more nervous. Please don’t be mad,” Anna says.
Mad?
“I’m… I’m—” I sputter, shaking my head as I digest what she did. What I am is stunned. And blown away. And thoroughly impressed. But…
“I’m furious at you for not telling me. I almost peed my pants when that officer looked inside the urn.”
Anna’s face transforms from relief that we’d gotten away with her plan to distress that the truce we’d established in Montana didn’t last more than twenty-four hours.
“You did the right thing. I would have mucked the whole thing up if I’d known. Damn, Anna. I never would have thought to do that.” I point at the powder containers stacked in her hands. “Travel Tip Number Thirty for the win.”
“I was so scared I’d screwed things up again.” Anna’s eyes mist, and I feel the sting of tears in mine as well.
I wave off the emotions. “No time. We have to check into the hotel and get to the store before the museum closes. We have some makeup to buy. Can’t take selfies without at least a bit of color on, right? And I suspect we’re going to need all the extra help we can buy to get through Zoe’s next ask.”