by Alafair Burke
The man in the booth at the facility entrance stared into the screen of an iPad, his brow furrowed, seemingly oblivious to the quiet hum of her Tesla or the sound of the car window rolling down.
“Good evening,” she finally said.
He tried stepping backward on instinct, but had no room to maneuver within his one-butt work space.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Don’t worry. I made sure to pull the car up at least six feet away from you.”
This man, with a round, ruddy face and a belly that pulled at the buttons of his uniform, was literally the first human being she had seen face-to-face in ten days.
“I recognize your voice,” he said. “You’re the one who called?”
She nodded. “I thought maybe the whole place would be locked down like everything else.” She gazed through the security gate in front of her and saw no evidence of other employees. “You’re holding up okay? It can’t be easy to work a shift all alone.”
“Just happy to have a paycheck. And tell you the truth, sitting in this booth by myself is a perfect gig for me. Social distancing is my natural habitat. Only sacrifice is having to read off this thing.” He wiggled his iPad. “Bookstores are all closed, and no way I’m ordering them from you know who. Found a way to buy ebooks from an indie, so I’m good.”
She was usually the type of person who would have been tapping the steering wheel impatiently after a few seconds of unnecessary chatter, but she found herself not wanting to leave. Fear of what was waiting for her next, yes, but also...it was nice to talk.
“I swore I’d never give up my beloved hardbacks,” she said. “But I love to travel. Well—I used to, back when things were normal. It was much easier to pack a little tablet with all my beach reading than to lug a ton of books.”
He pressed a button in his booth and the metal gate began to slide open. She raised her voice to be heard above the mechanical grind.
“Do you know where I go for unit 78? It’s my son’s,” she added quickly. She had never been a skilled liar.
“Oh no. I hope he’s okay? He didn’t catch it, did he? You’d need to stay away from him, your being—” His lips remained parted, but he didn’t finish the sentence.
Old, he meant to say. Old enough to be one of those people who might actually die if struck by this mysterious illness that was little more than a cold to someone half her age. “Not to worry. He’s perfectly healthy, as am I. But he was cross-country when all this started, so won’t be flying home.” That part of the story was actually true. He and his wife were at their house in Hilton Head when this madness began, and were choosing to stay put for now. “He’s got some of my old papers in there. Thought I’d use all this downtime to go through them.”
It was a more elaborate cover story than necessary. She had already learned when she called earlier that all she needed was the unit number and a key. He spelled out the two turns she’d need to take to find the unit she was looking for.
“Have a good night,” he said, as she shifted the car back into Drive. “And thanks for even bothering to ask how I’m holding up. Most of the people who’ve come around the last few days have been jackasses. I saw one guy unload an entire pickup truck full of toilet paper and every kind of disinfectant. I was tempted to rat him out to the local news. At least I know whose stuff to steal if this keeps up.”
She made her way through the security gate, maneuvered the two turns within the maze of identical green corrugated-metal garage doors, and stopped in front of the one marked 78.
She stepped out of the car and watched her fingers tremble as she raised the key to the stainless-steel disc lock. She had no idea what to expect once she rolled open the door, but the details no longer mattered. She knew the truth already, as obvious to her as the deep lines and mottling she now noticed on the back of her hand. Had she looked this old when she met him?
Until five months ago, Marilyn Frost had only been in love once, with her beloved husband of thirty-seven years, Thomas Hunter Frost III. They met when she was a young travel agent, chosen by her agency to be one of the first guests to experience the soft opening of a new resort in Anguilla, the latest Frost luxury property and the chain’s very first in the Caribbean. A member of the Frost family, the firstborn son and heir apparent, Thomas, kicked off the Friday cocktail-hour ribbon-cutting ceremony with a champagne toast on the marble sunset deck overlooking Meads Bay. By the time she showed up to the reception desk for her Monday morning checkout, he was waiting there to escort her on the hotel’s private charter boat to the airport in St. Maarten.
“I hope you like to fly,” he had said before giving her one final hug at the boarding gate.
“I’d make a pretty crummy travel agent if I didn’t.”
“Good. Because I live in Philadelphia, and you live in Kansas City, so we’ll be logging a lot of miles.”
“You have better places to be than with me in Kansas City.”
“Eventually, maybe. After we get married.”
She thought it was a joke, a bittersweet way to mark the end of a magical weekend. They were married on that same marble deck as the sun went down exactly one year later, and then returned on that same date another thirty-seven times to celebrate each anniversary, staying each time in the same hotel villa, flying always in their favorite first-class seats, 2A and C, window for him, aisle for her, on the only direct flight from Philly. Then, when Thomas got the news that there would likely be no thirty-eighth, they flew there together one last time to stay and to wait.
He nearly made it. Just two weeks shy. Instead, she commemorated the date alone, scattering his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean, knowing she was lucky to have had their time together.
Still, the following year, she kept up the tradition, and every year since. The airlines wouldn’t allow her to book a seat for the purpose of keeping it unoccupied, so she opted for Thomas’s spot in 2A. She always flew into St. Maarten the Friday morning before their anniversary. She kept the same meal schedule they had favored as a couple: Mexican food Friday night after sundown, a decadent Saturday lunch at the elegant French restaurant down the beach, Saturday dinner at “home” in the villa and Sunday by the pool. And she always took one solo trip by boat to the reefs where she thought of Thomas as a permanent part of the ocean’s life cycle.
So committed was she to this annual rite that their son, Tommy, had asked if Frost Hotels could feature her “widow weekends” in the company’s in-room travel magazine. She agreed on the condition that she write the article herself and, of course, choose the most flattering photographs. She had donated her modest freelance fee to Anguilla’s animal rescue organization in memory of Thomas. He always told her she was an excellent writer.
Five months ago, on the Friday before anniversary number forty-two, she sipped a pre-takeoff mimosa. Despite feeling a bit goofy about it, she raised her flute to the still-unoccupied Seat 2C and snapped a photo of her private toast. She emailed it to Tricia, the company’s social media manager.
Playing up the family-business angle of a globally respected chain of luxury hotels, every member of the Frost family had become a persona on the Frost Hotel Instagram page. To brand loyalists, she was known as “Mama Marilyn.” She initially hated the moniker, picturing a grandmotherly type with a white bun, cat-eye glasses and orthopedic shoes. But Marilyn Frost was not your typical seventy-year-old. She power walked twenty miles a week, worked with a private trainer and Pilates coach in her home gym, and treated monthly facials and root color as a second religion. Her social media content included suggested workouts for seniors and her annual summer reading list.
Five minutes later, she received a text from Tricia. Love it! Have a perfect trip. But what our followers would REALLY love is a photo of Mama herself. Pretty please?
Marilyn had smiled to herself. She checked to make sure no one was paying her any mind before holding up her phone for a quick selfie, posing with her champagne glass and boarding pass in her free hand. Another text round with Tricia, and the photo was posted with the caption, Bon Voyage, Mama Marilyn! #lovelastsforever #42ndanniversary #ThomasFrostIIIalwaysinourhearts.
She had powered down her phone and powered up an ebook when a final passenger boarded at the last minute, stopping in the aisle at her row to stow his roller bag in the overhead compartment. “I’m afraid you’ve got company,” he said, glancing at the cell phone and magazine occupying Seat 2C. “The flight from Detroit was late. I nearly missed the connection.”
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry.” She gathered up her belongings and placed them in the seatback.
Snapping on his seat belt, he mentioned that he felt overdressed. While most of the passengers were in casual travel clothes, destined for vacation, he wore a jacket, tie and dress pants.
“I take it you’re not heading for the beach like the rest of us?”
“I am, in a way, but not for fun in the sun.” He was a geologist, flying to St. Maarten to advise the government after recent earthquakes in Puerto Rico had affected several other Caribbean countries. Officials on the Dutch side of the island had made a last-minute decision to bring in outside consultants to conduct an independent assessment to avoid any impression that the risk assessment was tainted by concerns for the tourism industry.
“You know? It didn’t dawn on me until now that I don’t have the foggiest idea what a geologist actually does.”
“You’re not alone. Someone asks me what I do for a living? It’s a surefire conversation-stopper.”
But not for the two of them. He talked about his work and all the travel it required. When he asked about her, she said she and her husband had “retired” from the “travel industry.” She even told him about her yearly anniversary trips, but omitted the bit about owning the resort where she stayed. And, yes, she did know St. Maarten well enough to recommend the best French restaurant.
Halfway through the flight, as their meal service was cleared, he apologized for being so chatty. “So much of my work is computer modeling and writing reports. I tend to get a little too talkative when I’m around other human beings.”
Even though Marilyn was usually the person who wore noise-canceling AirPods to ensure a silent flight, she assured him that she was enjoying their exchange.
“So I noticed your tablet when I was putting my bag up top. What book have I kept you from reading?”
“A Mary Higgins Clark novel. I thought I had read them all, but apparently I missed one. I’ve been saving it for this trip.”
“I also consider myself a completist when it comes to writers. I’ve got the new Harry Bosch book preordered to automatically download this Tuesday.”
“Ah, so you like them hard-boiled.”
“All the way. Green yolks and cracked shells.”
And off they went again on yet another topic, falling silent only when the wheels touched down.
“Well, thank you,” he said, “for the company. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a flight so much. I’m Patrick, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
“Marilyn.”
They shook hands, but here was the thing about an airplane: you couldn’t really say goodbye quite yet. He helped her retrieve her carry-on. They walked off the plane as a pair. Lined up for immigration together. They went to separate counters for passport inspection, but then merged right back into the same hallway that led to the exit. Bread and butter, as Thomas used to say.
Then, at last, it was time to go their separate ways. He was heading to a local taxi. She had the hotel’s charter boat waiting for her at a dock across the street from the airport. “Good luck with your...geology-ing.”
“And enjoy your time in Anguilla.” He pronounced it Ang-wee-la, like most people did.
“Anguilla,” she corrected, “rhymes with vanilla.”
On her fourth day on the island, she returned to her villa from a morning water aerobics class to find the red message light blinking on the hotel telephone.
“Good morning, Mrs. Frost.” She immediately recognized the voice at the front desk as Stephanie’s. She’d worked at the resort for a quarter of a century, now as a manager, and would never feel comfortable calling Marilyn by her first name. “I got a call this morning from someone asking for a Marilyn. He described you to a T, but I wasn’t going to put the call through when he didn’t even have your full name. He left me his number, though. Patrick Miller?”
He answered on the second ring. “I’m so glad you called.” She thought she heard the crackle of a PA on the other end of the line. “So, I just got to the airport. My flight leaves in ninety minutes.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine. Not to worry.” She had it on good authority that the warning for tourists to arrive three hours early was to drum up business for the airport bar.
“Yeah, but... I find myself not wanting to leave. It’s beautiful here. And warm and sunny and...beautiful. I hope this isn’t weird, but...would you want to have lunch?”
“With you?”
“Oh wow. Yes, that is what I was proposing.”
“As in—”
“As in...lunch. I hear Anguilla is worth the day trip.” He pronounced it correctly this time. “And, yes, as in a date. I should probably make that clear before bailing on this flight.”
Her silence was brief, but her thoughts were racing. She had of course noticed that he was handsome—trim with a strong jaw, salt-and-pepper hair and green eyes behind his tortoiseshell glasses. But she had noticed in a “what a nice-looking young man” kind of way, and now here they were.
“I’m very flattered, Patrick, but you should know I am much older than I look. Much. Proudly so, in fact.” How many times had she been told she could pass for fifty?
“Well, I certainly don’t believe you’re old.”
“My son is thirty-nine.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I’m considerably older than that.”
As she would learn over lunch, he turned out to be fifty-two, giving them an eighteen-year age gap. He courted her long-distance, FaceTiming and texting from airports and hotels, and visiting her whenever possible. Tommy didn’t approve, but she told him that she deserved to keep living her life. “He’s going to want to marry you, Mom. Just watch.” She replied that she should be so lucky.
He had proposed on Valentine’s Day, surprising her with an unannounced visit, his duck confit and a bottle of Burgundy waiting at a candlelit dining table. After a chocolate soufflé, he dropped to one knee and handed her a shallow, rectangular gift box.
“I knew you’d want to pick out your own ring,” he said. Sometimes she thought he understood her even better than Thomas ever had. “But I wanted to give you something to show how sure I am that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marilyn, will you marry me?”
She untied the white silk bow and lifted the top from the box. Inside was a framed slip of paper.
A boarding pass dated four months earlier, Philadelphia to St. Maarten. Seat 2C.
“How do you even have this?” She felt a lump in her throat larger than any ring he possibly could have chosen.
“I kept it because I knew that flight would change my life forever.”
They agreed to keep things simple. A judge friend of hers would marry them in a private exchange of vows with Tommy as the (reluctant) witness. The plan was for him to relocate his consulting office from Detroit to Philadelphia and to search for projects that wouldn’t require so much work in the field. They had already moved the bulk of his things into storage until they found him a proper office space. And at her son’s insistence, a prenuptial agreement had been drafted. Patrick, to no surprise, had no reluctance to agree to it. They were all ready to say “I do.”
And then, faster than anyone could have expected, the entire world changed. It was that virus she’d first heard about right after the New Year, the one from the seafood market in China. By the beginning of March, what seemed like a tragedy from the other side of the globe felt like a real possibility at home. When she attended the monthly Women of Philly lunch, all the ladies greeted one another with silly elbow taps instead of the usual hugs and kisses. Within ten days of that, Americans around the globe rushed to airports in search of last-minute flights home, terrified that routes would be canceled and they would be unable to return. They stood in crammed waiting areas, sharing pens with bare hands to complete customs forms, knowing that every second gathered together increased their risk of infection. From the airports, they dispersed domestically, no one bothering to screen them for exposure or monitor their temperatures.
One of those panicked passengers was Patrick, who flew back from Copenhagen, then headed directly to his home in Detroit to self-quarantine voluntary for the two-week recommended period.
“Come to Philly,” she had pleaded. “If you get sick, I’m an excellent caretaker.”
He said he’d never forgive himself if he exposed her. He implored her to shelter in place. The implications were clear. He was young and healthy. She? She was old.
She made it to Night Ten, completely alone at home, before she got weird.
One through nine, she envisioned as a mini staycation, reading the entire paper front to back, working out a little longer and stretching a bit deeper than usual. She streamed binge-worthy television shows with abandon and finished a novel every thirty-six hours.
But then it was Night Ten. In another world, she and Patrick would have been married the previous weekend.
Like everyone, she was restless. Claustrophobic. Longing for something as simple as a meal in a restaurant. How many times had she been annoyed by the volume at the adjacent table? By Night Ten, she could imagine nothing lovelier than the screeching sounds of an over-served bachelorette party.
If she couldn’t enjoy her fabulously curated life, she could at least plan a special outing when life finally returned to normal. What would Patrick love?
She opened Google and searched for “best French restaurants in US.” She had a lazy tendency to favor the Frost resorts, including for dining options. She was comforted by a list of familiar culinary giants: Le Bernardin, Daniel, French Laundry, Jean-Georges. She scrolled down farther and saw mention of a newer restaurant in Atlanta, called simply Lyon. Promising. Clean, simple, sophisticated.
She opened the Tripadvisor website to check for customer reviews, already picturing the weekend getaway she would spring upon Patrick once the world began to turn again.
An average of 4.86 stars, the second highest–rated dining establishment in Atlanta. Four dollar signs, naturally. She clicked to pull up an array of photographs posted by the amateur reviewers. She had learned from experience that some highly rated restaurants did not have an ambience suitable for a seventy-year-old woman. She had no interest in spending her first celebratory meal after the Apocalypse seated family-style at a picnic table, drinking hooch from a mason jar.
White linens. Soaring ceilings. She could picture them there.
She was about to close the web page when a photograph caught her eye. A shot down the length of the bar, bustling but refined. At the back corner, facing the camera, a handsome man in a sports jacket with salt-and-pepper hair, holding a wineglass, leaning in toward his companion. She zoomed in. It was Patrick.
The photo could have been taken anytime, but it was posted two weeks ago, when Patrick was still in Copenhagen.
It’s amazing how different a person appears if you actually give him a hard look.
She pulled up his LinkedIn profile. Nice headshot. University of Michigan, undergrad and masters. Founder and CEO of Miller GeoTech for a decade. But where were the jobs in between? She still knew nothing about geology, but she knew that you didn’t start an independent consulting firm from scratch.
She googled “Miller GeoTech.” There was a website, sure, but what did it really contain? The same headshot as the LinkedIn profile. Gobbledygook about the services provided. A phone number she recognized as his cell. And not a mailing address in sight.
What did she really know about her fiancé?
One thing. One thing she knew for sure. He had been rescheduling a flight one night while she was sleeping, and she woke up to the sound of his voice, giving the customer service agent a password.
Twenty-eight minutes on hold to get a human being. No one was flying on airplanes anymore, but everyone was calling. All those canceled conferences, reunions, weddings and dreams.
When Marilyn finally got a real person’s voice, she decided at the last second to narrow the scope of her request. Asking for a full summary of an entire travel history might trigger a red flag, especially since she couldn’t exactly pose as a customer named Patrick.
But one trip in particular? She could pull that off.
The rep was named Darla and wanted to know how she could help this evening.
“Hi, Darla. I know you’re helping a million people through this mess right now, but I’m trying to get our tax stuff together and I need help tracking down a receipt for one of my husband’s flights last year?”
“I heard that even the IRS deadline got pushed. And they say only death and taxes are certain, so where does that leave us now?”
Marilyn sighed. “I’m running out of ways to stay busy, so I’m doing it anyway.”
She could tell Darla was relieved to have a caller who wasn’t screaming at her while she feared the loss of her job. Marilyn recited the confirmation number from the framed boarding pass that she kept on her nightstand, because that’s how much it meant to her.
“Passenger name and either the Miles Plus account number or phone number?”
Marilyn realized Patrick could have multiple phone numbers, so she read the frequent flier information from the boarding pass.
“Oh—” A pause. “Your husband’s got a security pin for phone inquiries. He may need to call back himself unless you happen to have it?”
When she and Thomas saw Rain Man, he said she was just like Dustin Hoffman’s character. 82, 82, 82. 246 toothpicks. She wasn’t quite that gifted with numbers, but could immediately memorize a string of digits because she automatically envisioned them on a ten-key pad from all the data entry she had done as a travel agent.
“It’s 3515,” she said. A V-shape.
“Yep. I’ve got it right here. You want me to send that to the email address we’ve got on file?”
“Can you send it to me instead? If I need to track him down for it, who knows how long that could take.”
“I know exactly what you mean. We girls just knock it out, don’t we?”
“Oh, and I think that might have been the trip when he had to change his return flight, so there may be an extra charge for that, too.”
She heard taps on Darla’s keyboard. “Nope. He flew the original itinerary.”
A minute later, Marilyn had what she had asked for, Patrick’s proof of payment for his spot in Seat 2C, purchased four months before he ever boarded.
As she tugged on the storage unit’s rolling gate, she wondered again how he had found her. Had he stumbled upon a mention of Mama Marilyn in a Frost publicity campaign? Maybe it was last year’s Time profile, featuring enduring family-controlled businesses. Or had he been planning this ever since Thomas’s half-page obituary appeared in the New York Times?
However it happened, once she was on his radar, what an easy mark she had been. A complete stranger could know four months in advance what flight she would be taking on a specific Friday morning. He’d even know her seat number and affinity for mystery novels.
Just as he had looked different to her when she took a more scrutinizing look, so, too, did his belongings. Water rings on tabletops. Worn edges on the arms of the wingback chairs.
Who was the woman with him at the restaurant in Atlanta? Another potential fiancée, one without a son who would insist on a prenup? Or perhaps she was supposed to be next, after he’d taken as much from Marilyn as she would give.
She stood before his desk. Thomas’s desk had been grand, worthy of a lion. This one felt like a cheap imitation.
She opened the top drawer to find a paperback book, Geology for Dummies. Reaching behind it, she pulled out a stack of papers, some connected with paper clips, all bound together with a rubber band. The paper clips were attached to blue index cards containing names, dates and other notations.
She slipped off the rubber band to get a better look at the white rectangular sheets of paper clipped to the blue cards. Boarding passes. So many boarding passes. Flights going back at least three years. And notes on every passenger who had ever sat next to him.
The sound of her own laughter bounced off the corrugated steel walls, and for one second, she forgot she was alone.