Honeymoon Alone: A Novel Read online

  Three hours later, I am still at the police station and I still have not had a chance to answer the detective’s questions. I am sitting in a waiting room going stir-crazy. I have to say, some very unsavory characters hang out in police stations at three-thirty in the morning on New Year’s Day. Drug addicts mostly. A few hookers. Some underage rebellious types.

  But at least I’m warm. And not on a ledge seven stories high.

  I haven’t seen Oliver since I left Kiki’s hotel room. In that room, he looked at me like he wanted to talk. He’d stepped toward me like he wanted to come to my room and wait for me while I changed. But I hadn’t encouraged that. I mean, what was there to say? Just that he had been confused. That he’d simply gotten too close to his case. He’d admit he suspected me of something I didn’t do and tell me that now he felt bad that I ended up on the ledge of a hotel as a result. And I’d tell him that I was embarrassed because I had stupidly thought that something nice – something real – had been happening between us.

  “There you are,” Cary exclaims, rushing into the waiting room and throwing himself into the seat beside me. “Lucy – what the hell happened?”

  I look over at him. “They’re making you answer questions too?”

  He shakes his head. “No,” he says. His face looks pale and his eyes look concerned. There’s an almost wild look in them. I guess this isn’t how he thought his night would go. “I had no idea where you were. I’ve been trying to find you.”

  I sigh as tears spring to my eyes. I just want this night to be over. I cannot believe I ruined his night with Anne. His perfect date with her. “I’m sorry, Cary. I took everything and left,” I explain lamely, not daring to meet his eyes. “I didn’t even think about leaving a note. And – oh no, I had your phone,” I realize out loud, putting a hand to my forehead. I grab my purse and begin rummaging through it. It’s not here. “Where is it?” I ask. Of course. It’s probably still in the flat.

  “Do you think I care about a cell phone right now?” Cary asks. “Lucy – Lucy, stop,” he says, grabbing my hands. “Look at me.”

  I do. And I don’t hide anything from him. I let the tears fall and the apology show. “I am sorry, Cary,” I say sincerely. “This turned into a big mess and you ended up in the middle of it.”

  “Pretending to be married was my idea, remember?”

  I laugh, remembering how he’d stormed into the lobby and kissed me – a move that started our whole charade.

  I shake my head. “So you’re okay, then?” I ask, turning my attention to him. “They didn’t try to handcuff you or anything?”

  “Oh, they did,” he assures me with an amused smile. He sits back and relaxes visibly as he talks. “Or at least that other cop did. Oliver just kept asking me where you’d gone. He looked in our flat and couldn’t find you, came back down and drilled me. When Anne’s phone rang with my cell number, I said it had to be you and Oliver grabbed it and answered.” He shivers. “The guy went pale. I’m not sure what you said, but he took off, demanding the other cop come with him.”

  “Cary, that was the most insane thing,” I say. “If I didn’t have your phone—“

  He grabs me and pulls me into a hug. “I know.”

  “So how were you not able to find me?” I ask. “It’s been three hours. And I was at the Chaizer for a little while.”

  He places his arm around me and smiles. “Because,” he explains. “Someone said a woman was on the ledge and I ran with the rest of the crowd outside.”

  Oh, God. There was a crowd down there? I never noticed. I stare at him wide-eyed.

  “Lucy, the whole ballroom and just about every guest cleared out. The crowd on the sidewalk was insane. Seeing you up there was pretty incredible.”

  I manage a small smile. “You know I’m resourceful,” I say. “I’m sure you knew I had it all under control.”

  He laughs. “Oh yeah. I wasn’t nervous at all.” He squeezes my arm and leans forward until our foreheads are touching. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he admits quietly.

  “Me too.”

  He pulls back and takes my hand again, holding it securely in his own. “It was hard to get back in to see you. The police had sectioned off the hotel, the crowd was just so big because by the time the Honeymooners were taken out, everyone in nearby pubs, restaurants, hotels, you name it – were on the sidewalk at our hotel.”

  I close my eyes and lean back in my seat. I still can’t believe it all. It’s been hours. Midnight has come and gone, a new year has started. And I’m sitting at a police station in central London because of this whole mess.

  “Incidentally,” Cary adds after a moment. “Geoff from reception said that the police are paying for your room since you were instrumental in catching the actual Honeymooners.”

  He’s got to be kidding me. I was instrumental? I was their number one suspect until a few hours ago.

  “I imagine they felt a little bad that an innocent person ended up climbing out onto a ledge to get away from the actual bad guys because they let you get into harm’s way.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. The more I hear, the bigger the knot in my stomach becomes. I don’t owe a penny for my hotel stay now? Oliver convinced them to pay for it?

  “Miss Gray,” the receptionist says, walking through the door that Cary just came bursting through ten minutes ago. The middle-aged woman looks tired and like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I sympathize only too well on that front. “Detective Cameron is ready for you.”

  “Finally,” I mutter, standing. I look down at Cary. “You should go,” I say. “Salvage what’s left of your New Year’s.”

  He smiles softly at me but doesn’t budge. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I smile at him appreciatively. “Thank you.”

  The receptionist walks toward me. “Also,” she says, “your barrister is here.”

  I look at her like she’s grown a second head. “My barrister?” I ask. Do they give anyone going in for questioning a lawyer in London – even innocent people who didn’t ask for one? “But I don’t have a law—a barrister.”

  She shrugs. “He was just using the restroom. He’ll be in here in a moment.” She turns toward the door and smiles. “Oh, here he is now.”

  “Hi, Lucy.”

  As if my night couldn’t get worse, my barrister does in fact walk through the door. And it’s my big brother.

  harles, to his credit, doesn’t lecture me in front of the other cops. Or Cary. He just sits there quietly as we tell Detective Cameron our story. I can tell that he wants to. Lecture me, that is.

  “So to synopsize,” the detective says in a dry voice, “you did not phone in the leads to the cops, you had no idea your neighbors were the Honeymooners, and you were both pretending to be honeymooners to stay in the resort to avoid–” he looks at his notes and makes a weary, almost annoyed face – “’staying in a hostel where people pee on suitcases.’”

  “And to avoid paying an asinine amount of money to stay somewhere last minute at Christmas,” I add. “But remember – Kiki did phone in the leads. Even though she was severely misguided in love, she tried, in the end, to do the right thing.”

  “Kiki,” the detective says, thinking. “Oh, right – her alias.” He nods. “Her name is actually Susan Sinclair – a name you’ll undoubtedly hear when the story makes papers.”

  I exhale deeply and place my chin in my hands. The end of my vacation ended up being a story that will make papers. Of course. And Charles is here to see it all unfold.

  “Can I go now?” I finally ask in a voice fraught with emotion. I’ve never been so embarrassed or tired in my life. Or so sad. “I’ve been here all night.”

  I sneak a look at Charles. He must be exhausted too. He just flew in and the dark shadows under his eyes speak volumes for how much sleep he’s gotten. But he doesn’t even look annoyed. Just concerned. And supportive.

  The detective looks his notes over once more and stands. “Yes,” he finally says.
“Sorry to take so long, Miss Gray.”

  I walk out of the interrogation room with Cary and Charles, pulling my suitcase behind me.

  “Maybe I can get the airline to change my ticket,” I say to Charles. “I wasn’t supposed to leave until the third.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Charles assures me, putting a hand on my back. “I have it all taken care of.”

  “So you’re not coming back to The Chaizer?” Cary asks, eyeing my suitcase.

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Cary. I hope it doesn’t screw things up for you.”

  He sighs. “I could probably get Anne to agree to let me stay with her,” he says with a wink. He looks quickly at Charles and pulls me aside, out of his earshot.

  “Listen,” Cary says quietly. “I’ve been to London so many times before, but this was the best visit.” He stares at me intensely. I can see he means that. “Because of you.”

  “It was good for at least a little while, wasn’t it?” I admit.

  “Thanks to you, I am finally not waiting around for life to happen. I learned that from you. So when you go home, remember that. Forget this mess. It’s not worth thinking about.”

  “You better keep in touch with me,” I say coyly, pulling him into a fierce hug.

  “You’re the one who has yet to accept my friend request on Facebook.”

  I laugh. “It’ll be the second thing I do when I get home.”

  Cary nods and smiles. “After you kiss and cuddle Ricky.”

  I laugh. “You know me so well.”

  As Charles and I finally get outside, we begin heading toward a taxi that is pulled over, lights flashing.

  “Charles,” I say, horrified. “Has this guy been waiting this whole time?”

  Charles holds his hands up defensively. “I had no idea what was going on, Lucy,” he explains. “I got to the hotel and they said you were at the police station. I grabbed a cab, and when I got here, I told him to wait. Once I found you, I wasn’t exactly thinking about the taxi anymore.”

  “Charles. The fare’s going to be—“

  “Lucy.”

  I stop and look behind me. Oliver runs out of the police station – no coat, no gloves – just the same outfit he was in before, minus his jacket.

  I take a step toward him. “I gave your jacket to the receptionist,” I tell him.

  Oliver eyes Charles, and I see the confusion in his gaze. But it clears in an instant when he looks back at me.

  “I don’t care about my jacket. I just wanted to…”

  I swallow. This is just what I wanted to avoid.

  “What?” I ask quietly.

  “I’ve been tied up with the Sinclairs,” he explains. “I wanted to see you. See if you were alright.”

  “I’m fine,” I say adamantly. The last three times I’ve seen the guy, he’s acted like I am some doll marked “Fragile”. Someone he has to make things right with. Coming from Oliver, of all people, it really stings. I kind of miss the guy who pushed my buttons without giving a thought to my feelings. “You don’t have to check up on me anymore. I’m not your case. I’m not your anything. It’s okay if you go back in there and just deal with the Sinclairs.”

  His eyes flash and he steps toward me. “Is that what you think?” he asks, his voice almost hoarse. “That you were just a suspect in all of this?”

  “Wasn’t I?”

  He looks down at the ground momentarily. “At one point, yes.” He looks back at me, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Of course. You were incredibly suspicious.” He looks so handsome. So sweet. He’s just making everything harder. He’s making it all worse.

  “I really have to go, Oliver.”

  “I owe you—“

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I say softly. I turn and begin heading toward the cab.

  “So that’s it?” he asks. I turn around to face him again. He looks almost hurt. But what is there to be hurt about? Everything about our relationship from the moment we met was a lie. There really is nothing to say.

  “That’s it,” I echo. “You go back to your normal life. And I go back to mine.”

  He walks toward me until he’s close enough to touch. “What about that kiss?” he finally asks.

  “What about it?” I ask, my eyes flashing in indignation, humiliation and about a thousand other things. “We were two people who lied to each other about everything, Oliver. We drank too much beer after a great night with great music. It was snowing and it was London. And you ran away as fast as you could when it was over, in case you forgot.”

  “I didn’t handle it very well,” he admits, his expression darkening. “But that was because—“

  “Based on what you thought you knew about me, I completely understand why you felt the urge to run far away from me. But listen. There was nothing there. Not really. Nothing real.”

  He nods and looks away just as I feel something on my face. Rain. My London rain. I look up and marvel once again at the beauty of timing. When I look at Oliver, he is staring at my face, smiling sort of sadly. He knows.

  “Have a safe trip back,” he eventually says. He holds my gaze for an interminable moment and then turns and runs back into the police station.

  I release a long breath once I’m safe inside the taxi with Charles. Rain patters against the car, leaving sad trails along the windows as we speed away. “Auld Lang Syne” softly buzzes in the background and it’s chock full of nostalgia and hope tonight.

  “That’s the second man to mention kissing you on this trip,” Charles mentions casually, leaning into me.

  I laugh and look out the window again. That’s just great. On top of everything, my brother probably thinks I’m a floozy. I rest my head back and close my eyes.

  “Just get it over with,” I plead.

  He looks down at me in surprise. “Get what over with?”

  “The lecture. The ‘I told you so’. The big brother run down on why I should never leave home again without your permission.”

  To my surprise, he doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t use my opening as his opportunity to say all of that and more. He just stares at me, blinking, tired and something else. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.

  “What?” I ask, when the silence becomes too much.

  “Do you really think that I came all the way here to say ‘I told you so’?”

  I just look at him as something aches inside. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, relishing the comfort of his unconditional love, as the taxi rushes down London’s streets, heading for the airport.

  * * *

  The rescue mission is complete

  Posted by @Delores at 9:18 PM on january 2 on TheGrayBlog

  Lucy is home. Not that anyone will tell me ANYTHING. All I know is that Charles left after apparently reading Marian’s last blog entry. He wrote a quick email to say that Lucy is fine, completely IGNORING all of my other questions about WHY she left to begin with, where she’s been, what she’s been doing…

  At times like this, maybe we should think about staging an intervention. Maybe Lucy has some kind of fight-or-flight problem, and if something triggers it again, who knows where she could end up?

  Mom

  * * *

  New Year’s Resolutions

  switch to one iced coffee a day

  wear brighter colors

  don’t steal anyone’s honeymoon

  don’t get mistaken for a criminal

  only eat one croissant a day

  ne week. One week is all it seems to take for life to get back into a rhythm resembling “normal.” Preparing lesson plans, sorting through photos from the trip, and hiding out with Ricky has been a great way to ease back into everything following the drama from London.

  I haven’t had to deal with twenty questions from probing family members either because for once, Mother Nature seems to be smiling on me. A blizzard has more or less trapped me in my loft and trapped everyone else in their homes too. Plus, I still don�
�t have a new cell phone. I guess I got used to being disconnected (mostly) when I was away. I haven’t exactly been barging into the cell phone store for a replacement just yet.

  In all, it’s been kind of a quiet return without any fuss. Sitting by candlelight, Ricky purring on my lap, I stare at the thick mass of snowflakes falling heavily outside my window. In the building just next to mine, I see Mrs. Suzayaki smoking in the window. When she notices me, she smiles and waves. It feels so nice to be home. And yet I do miss it.

  London.

  I finally stop burning with embarrassment when I think about my trip. As I look at my pictures on my computer, I am floored. It went by in a flash. And it really was amazing. Cary’s right – I’d be stupid to let the events of the very last day taint any of it.

  I continue scanning through the photos from the trip. I can’t believe how many I took. There must be over a thousand pictures to sort through.

  “Come on, Ricky,” I say, patting the ottoman of my reading chair. I sit by my tiny Christmas tree with my laptop on my tray table and put the photos in slideshow mode. I pet Ricky as my trip plays out before my eyes with music. This is my story. My story to go with the stamps in my passport.

  A knock on the door interrupts me and I pause the slideshow and jump up. I slip on my candy-cane slippers and pad over to the door. I look through the peep-hole and see Charles staring back at me. He’s checking up on me no doubt.

  “Hey, big brother,” I say, opening the door.

  “Hey, woman of the world” he says, pulling his hat off, and rubbing his hands together to warm them. He’s taken to calling me ‘woman of the world’ since we got back. I like the nickname actually. Even though two destinations don’t exactly make me anything of the sort. “Tuesday night dinner isn’t happening at Mom’s tonight.”

  I look out the window at the snow and laugh. “I figured as much.”

  “It’s happening here,” he adds, scrunching his face up apologetically.

  “What?” I swat Charles’s arm and glare up at him. “How could you let this happen?”