I pause for a breath in front of the entryway door. What in the fresh hell am I doing?
A road trip? Because the new pharmacist wasmeanto meonce? I can’t upend the next week of my life for this man. I’m not the kind of person to have a big plan like this.
I collapse onto the floor in front of the door, and I pull my tote bag into my lap, and bring the postcards out. The card on top is the one Andy sent me just before his death. Postmarked in St. Agatha, with a photo of a green and lush Long Lake on the front, there’s a short message scrawled in his handwriting.
Dear Madeline,
We’re almost finished with the tour. We have one more show at The Belladonna here in St. Agatha. The weather is great. The music is fantastic. And the fans are incredible. I hope you get to experience something like this someday. There’s nothing quite like the excitement of a crowd on their feet, screaming your name, singing your song.
But none of it compares to you. I ‘ll be home with you soon.
Love,
Andy
My heart is pounding. Andy wanted this for me. I’m going to make it in time for tonight’s concert even if it kills me.
2
“Ma’am. We have no more rental cars. We just gave the last one to him.” Brayden, the rental car associate, tells me and points to a dark, brooding figure bundled up in a massive, all consuming, black trench coat sitting in the corner of the waiting area. “I can’t do anything. Take it up with him.”
With a huff, I breathe in and out. I think about giving up on this deranged plan, but I made myself a promise. This is just a small hurdle in the grand scheme of things. I can make this work. I’ve been through worse—I can do this.
I hustle my way over to where the man is sitting, my coat swishing while I walk, I pull down my hat and take my gloves off. I clasp my hands together and clear my throat to begin my speech.
“Hello. My name is Madeline. I really need this rental car.” I speak almost robotically, as if I have rehearsed this a thousand times and am not pulling this straight out of my ass. I’m not sure he notices me. “You see, I don’t have a car. And I really,reallyneed to get to Kennebunkport by tonight to see this band playing there.”
“You can’t take the bus?” The figure mutters, without looking up from his cellphone. His face is covered by his scarf except forhis dark brown eyes that are illuminated by the white-blue light of his phone screen. “Or an Uber?”
“No,” I say. “I really need this van. Please.” I’m practically begging this stranger for the keys to the vehicle he just paid for. I throw out the wildest bribe I can think of. “I’ll pay you double what you paid for the car.”
He unwraps his scarf and looks up at me. It’s him. That miserable bastard.It’s Dean from the pharmacy.
This is just lovely. I think I’ll throw up all over his shoes.
I grip the straps of my tote bag tighter, itching to root through it for something to calm my churning stomach.
“Dean from the pharmacy?” I ask.
“Madeline?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“Why do you need to be in Kennebunkport? Are you not too busy having a heart attack?” His voice is monotone and bored, and he looks like I just asked him what the weather was, and not if I could steal his rental van out from underneath him. He looks back at his cellphone.
Well, that’s just mean.
“No, asshole, I need the rental van.”
“Why can’t you take the bus?” It’s a genuine suggestion from him, but I’m perturbed at the thought of riding a bus with thirty coughing, sniffling people in the middle of winter.
“Why do you think so?” I retort, as if my hypochondriasis was not the obvious answer.
“But you’ll go to a jazz club?” He raises an eyebrow, skeptical of my plan. I grimace because he has a point. Illness related anxiety never claimed to be rational—the jazz club was different. It was for Andy.
“Will you take me?”
“I will if you stop coming to the pharmacy.”
