Finding Fraser (3 page)

Feeling
fine?
Feeling freaked, more like. I wakened this morning
after a night spent alternately panicking between “Oh my god! What have I
done?” and trying to remember how to attain Shavasana. Since I attended my last
yoga class when I was twenty-three, mostly the panic won.

In the end, I decided the best way to combat
panic was action, so I dragged myself out of bed and headed downtown to have
business cards printed up. Nothing says
Take
Me Seriously
like a business card, right? By the time I got downtown, I’d
decided on a design in my head and everything, but I spent a long time looking
at the various fonts and so on to make sure it was perfect. When I placed the
order, it seemed insane to have more than about twenty done, but the printers
had a special deal for a hundred and fifty at half price, so I went for it.

A couple of hours later when I picked them
up, I realized I had forgotten to specify any contact information on the cards.
They were beautiful, all right; a creamy off-white with raised print and a
serious-feeling heft to them. But no number. No email address.

This wasn’t such a bad thing. My cell phone plan
was ending in a week or so, anyway, and I wanted people to reach me through the
blog. But—looking at those cards—god, things suddenly seemed so
real.

So serious.

I hurried home before panic had me raving in
the streets.

By noon I was lying on my back on my
apartment floor, breathing into a fishy-smelling paper bag rescued from an old
lunch I’d somehow forgotten in the back of the fridge. Which had never happened
to me before. I cannot recall missing a meal for any reason since I had my
tonsils removed when I was seven. It clearly speaks to the unsettled nature of
my mind. Or maybe the fact it was tuna on rye. I
really
hate tuna.

I would have tried elevating my feet on the
couch, but the guys from Goodwill had come and taken it away. The removal of
the couch made it seem like everything was happening so fast, and the paper bag
just wasn’t cutting it, so I thought
fuck
it,
and drank the last of the Chablis in the fridge. It was early, I knew,
but I’d have to clean out the fridge at some point, right? Good enough reason on
its own. Besides, the wine was in a box. Juice comes in a box and people drink
juice at two in the afternoon all the time.

Right?

The paper bag smelled like tuna, okay? And
there’s a reason I hate tuna. All fish, really.

I haven’t always hated fish. Barbecued
salmon. Golden-fried halibut. Even oysters in the half-shell. Used to love ’em
all.

Not any more. I lay on the floor beside the
empty Chablis box and remembered …

The old clock by the front door had
chimed eight that night as I set the shrimp cocktail on the table. It was our
first anniversary and I was determined to do it up right. A veritable feast was
lined up, ready to serve after the shrimp: creamy clam chowder to start,
pan-fried trout for the main course and an enormous chocolate torte for
dessert.

Egon showed up at eight fifteen with a pink
posy in one hand—and his assistant Tiffany in the other. “Tiff’s fridge
broke down today,” he said, setting the wilted flowers in the center of the
table.

Tiffany wriggled between Egon and the table.
“Oh, Emma, you are SO kind to include me,” she gushed. “I SWORE I wouldn’t
disturb your special night with Egon, but he insisted you’d put on an enormous
spread and I wouldn’t be in the way.”

That girl sucked those shrimp back like a
Dyson. Egon had smiled indulgently and pushed the plate closer to her.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have taken
the three of us eating our anniversary dinner as a sign. Because within six
months, Tiffany was serving all-you-can-eat lobster dinners for two in my old
apartment, and I haven’t eaten seafood since.

Strangely, though, the break-up dinner
didn’t affect my feelings for chocolate tortes.

So yeah, I’d sworn to Sophia my plan
wasn’t about a man. Egon had cured me of Internet dating for life, but that
didn’t mean I didn’t have a few good memories. Still, by three, the crying jag
brought on by the old Chablis and the pictures of Egon on the mantle that I’d
drunkenly begun to pack was over.

The crying was over, and so were the
pictures.

Over the balcony railing, as a matter of
fact.

That shattering noise glass makes on
pavement?

Extremely satisfying.

I finished sweeping the entire parking lot
free of glass by five-thirty. My building’s Super is small, but she has great
deductive reasoning—and she carries a big stick. (Literally. It’s her
son’s old baseball bat. This neighborhood can be rough at night.)

She also had my security deposit check in
her pocket, which she threatened to tear up if I didn’t get my ass downstairs
to clean up the mess I’d made.

When I dumped the last of my shattered
memories into the bin, she nodded stiffly. “Men are dicks,” she said. “They
can’t help it.”

It was the closest thing to sympathy I’d
received all week. I burst into tears, but she brandished the bat at me when I
leaned in for a hug.

I figured I could live with that, seeing as
she did give me the check.

Figure Four…

8:45 pm, February 18

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Less than a week before my plane leaves.
I’m actually flying out of JFK in New York, so I’m going to have to get myself
across four states in that time. I haven’t quite sorted this out, as yet. But
it is all coming together.

I’m really confident——and
excited!

- ES

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It
was
not
all coming together.

And with every day, the blog seemed to be
rapidly morphing from true-life travelogue to creative non-fiction.

I decided I was okay with that. Reality TV
notwithstanding, public humiliation is not all it’s cracked up to be. Let the
world see my best self, right?

And I had managed to find myself a killer
deal on the plane ticket, even with the cost of the bus trip to New York tacked
on.

My sister had left six messages on my cell
phone, alternately haranguing me about shirking my family duties and reminding
me to call our mother, so maybe
she
could talk some sense into me.

I did not call our mother.

Instead, I sold the last of my furniture.
The worst was saying goodbye to my Xbox. No more dragon slaying in my future. It’s
like—well, it’s kind of like saying goodbye to my youth. I mean, I didn’t
even have to give up the Xbox when I got married, for god’s sake. And it’s not
like I’ve been playing Dragon Age anywhere near as much as I was two years ago.

But still. It hurts.

On the other hand, the Super’s son paid
thirty bucks for my old bed. I didn’t tell him it was the same double bed I’d had
since I was seventeen. Kinda sorry to see it go, but really? It’s time.
Everything has to go for this trip to even happen. And for it to mean anything
at all? I need to make a complete break from the old Emma

By afternoon, I found myself waiting at the
passport office. I got there on time for my appointment, but they seemed to be
running late and I ended up sitting in the waiting area, roasting in my coat
and boots. My number was B48, and with only two officers on duty, the numbers
crawled by painfully slowly.

A woman seated in a chair just in front of
me was reading her Kindle, and I mentally kicked myself for forgetting to bring
a book or a newspaper. With nothing else to do, I began killing time making
notes for my next blog post. I was jotting a list of things I’d rather do than wait
with fifty strangers for a passport when, out of the blue, the woman made a
little involuntary sound.

I recognized that sound. Half gasp, half
sigh. I had made it myself.

Over her shoulder I saw a single word, and I
knew in an instant what she was reading.

One of the interview windows opened up, and
the red digital number on the wall pinged as it changed. B47. No one moved. I
gathered my papers together, hoping they’d just go to the next number when the
woman in front of me suddenly jumped up. Her handbag and papers cascaded off
her lap onto the floor

“That’s me,” she said loudly, pointing at
the number on the wall, and scrambling to pick up her papers.

I knelt down and handed her two of the pages
that had fallen near my feet.
 

“Thank you,“ she said, jamming the Kindle
into her handbag.

I grinned at her. “OUTLANDER?” I said.

The smile on her face turned to puzzlement.
“VOYAGER,” she replied.

I nodded knowingly. “Oh, right. Must be the
post-reunion scene?”

She stared at me suspiciously. “Have you
been reading over my shoulder?”

I winced. “Not—not really. Claire’s
name just jumped out at me.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow and hurried
off to the open window.

When my turn finally came, I paid the fee
and picked up my passport. My photo looked like the face of someone who could
drive a splintery wooden stake through a newborn puppy’s heart.

So, just about like usual. A bit better than
my driver’s license, actually.

As I stepped into the elevator, mentally
calculating if the money I got from the bed would justify a stay in a New York
hotel instead of a hostel, someone touched my shoulder.

It was the woman with the Kindle.

“Are you a writer?” she blurted, looking
pointedly at my notebook. She had one hand buried deep in her handbag.

I started to shake my head, and then
re-thought it. “Well—I blog a bit,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes and shot a look at my
abdomen. “Mommy blogger?”

“I’m NOT pregnant,” I said. “I just ate
Indian food for lunch.”

She shrugged, but didn’t apologize. “So—book
blogger, then?”

“No. It’s more of a personal journal. About
a trip I’m taking. A—a travel blog.”

The doors opened. “Oh. Never mind, then.”
She turned on her heel and sped off toward the entranceway.

I hurried after her. “Wait a sec,” I called,
as she descended the front steps. “Why did you think—I mean, how did you
know I’m a writer?”

She stopped on the stair below me. “
Only
a blogger,” she corrected, and then
paused for a minute, staring up at me.

“You were scribbling in that notebook, is
all,” she said, at last. “And since you knew the books, well—I thought
you might be interested in this conference.”

She dug deep into her handbag, and then
thrust a flyer into my hands. It was heavily creased, and in the time I took to
unfold it, she had her hand on the front door.

“What is it?” I cried out, unable to read
and catch up at the same time.

I could feel the rush of cold wind as she
opened the door below me. I heard her voice, borne on a wave of city traffic
noise. “Love Is in the Air!” she yelled, the slam of the door cutting off her
last word.

I was left standing in the entranceway,
clutching my passport and a crumpled piece of hot pink paper.