Chasing Pearl, page 15
The intercom by the door buzzed. The sound of the doorman’s voice filled the room. “Miss Pearl, ya cab is here. Meter’s running.”
Violet smiled and released her sister. “I like that doorman. He’s all business.”
Scarlett grabbed the handle of her suitcase and put her hand on the door. “Love you, Shoog.”
“Love you, too.” When Scarlett didn’t immediately open the door, she shooed at her like she’d wave a fly off of a sticky pie. “Now get. What are you waiting for?”
As her sister left, she shut the door behind her and locked all three locks. She moved through her apartment, her mind whirling with thoughts and fears. Her heart fluttered and raced with frantic palpitations and sweat beaded her brow. What had she done? What kind of mistake had she made?
She wandered through the living room with the low red L-shaped couch and black glass coffee table. Giant windows overlooked a slice of the city. She could see the new patio chairs she’d put on the balcony. The October sky had started to darken and the lights of the buildings shown through the twilight.
She went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard, expecting to see glasses and instead saw her brand-new dishes. Slamming the door shut, she opened another cupboard. There. Glasses.
She couldn’t even find her way around her own kitchen! This was a mistake!
Filling the glass with water, she drained it standing right there at the sink. Feeling a little better after the water, she rubbed her face with her hands and walked back through the living room, down the little hall, and into her bedroom.
When she saw the bed, a sob escaped her. She never saw Scarlett slip their mother’s quilt onto the large queen-sized bed. She must have looked through the boxes in the garage until she found it. She fingered the blue and white fabric that made the wedding ring pattern. Her mother’s mom had made it as a gift for her parents’ wedding day, and it had graced their bed for as long as she could remember.
Tears streaming down her face, Violet pulled the quilt off of the bed and wrapped up in it, then lay on the bed. What a bad idea moving here was! She knew no one, here. Home was a time zone away. She was completely alone. She couldn’t’ do this.
Panic made her vision gray, and she fought free of the blanket. She’d just leave. Go back to College Station. Tell Chase it wasn’t going to work.
Then she thought more about Chase. Chase. The reason she came here in the first place was to see if she could live anywhere other than the home she had known all of her life. Had the inn really turned her into a hermit? If she couldn’t stay here in New York, in a nice apartment in a nice part of town with 24-hour access to absolutely anything she wanted, she probably couldn’t stay anywhere else. What chance did Violet have of staying with Chase wherever the army sent him? Would he come back to College Station? He had made it clear that he didn’t feel God leading him that way.
With shaking hands, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent him a text. She wrote several texts that came out sounding either panicked or needy or a little bit crazy. Finally, she sent:
Scarlett left. Feeling lost.
Seconds later, the phone in her hands rang, startling her. “Hello, you.”
His voice sounded so close, not thousands of miles away. “Hey, there,” she said, her voice cracking.
“It’s a big deal what you’ve done. I know it wasn’t easy. Feeling lost is normal. I felt like that the first night in my dorm in college. My parents were already flying back to Boston, and it took all of my strength not to just leave and buy a ticket home.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t know how to do this here.”
After a few moment’s pause, he said, “Well, of course you don’t. But, you promised yourself you’d try. If you leave now, you’ll never know. So, try to relax. Take it one day at a time. And know that I will call you back any time I’m available, and so will your sister.”
“One day at a time until when?” She could hear the shrill sound of panic in her voice and did not like it. At all.
“When? Let’s see. How about as long as it takes?” She heard him say a muffled thanks and knew she’d caught him getting lunch.
“What does that even mean? “
“It means I’ll wait for you for as long as you need me to, Violet Pearl.”
Violet realized he had said that before. “I appreciate that but I think I need to set a definite timeline. Something a little bit more concrete.”
“Okay. I can do that. Here’s my deal with you. Twelve months. The time of your lease. You ought to have things figured out one way or another well before then, but one day at a time for the next fifty-one weeks, because you’ve already been there a week. Do we have a deal?”
“Honestly?” Violet hesitated, thinking about the prospect of fifty-one weeks stretching out in front of her. “I don’t know.”
Violet could nearly hear his grin. “I was in the desert once for fifty-seven weeks. You’re getting six weeks grace period I didn’t have and I was in a combat zone with somewhat more spartan living arrangements. We won’t even mention the food.”
The laughter bubbled up past the panicked tears. “You know how to get me with a low blow, don’t you?”
She could hear the smile in Chase’s voice. “As long as you don’t think I’m playing fair. Do we have a deal?”
Taking a deep breath, Violet walked out onto her balcony and looked out over the foreign city. In her imagination, she overlaid the streets and buildings with what her imagination knew so well, so intimately, as having existed there decades before. Could she be brave in real life? A brave as her fictitious widow who walked these streets every day in the pages of her novels?
“Know what, soldier? You got yourself a deal.”
The next morning, Violet forced herself out of her apartment. She put on tennis shoes and grabbed her phone and a light jacket, then took off at a brisk walk, determined to call it exercise despite the full gym off of her apartment lobby. She walked for an hour in one direction, turned a corner, walked for another hour, and made it home two hours later, making a large square.
She survived. She smiled at people. She got coffee from a vendor and hot dogs from another vendor and actually enjoyed the experiences.
Lighter, she left again the next morning and found the alleys and streets that Mandalynn Clementine called home. She studied the buildings that still stood for decades of centuries after they were built and made sure she noted distances, colors, and the sky.
Before she knew it, she’d spent a week in New York, alone, learning how to navigate, and finding her comfort level. On Sunday, she went to a church within walking distance of her apartment. She’d attended last week, but this time, she went without Scarlett.
The size of the congregation absolutely overwhelmed her. But, everyone she met spoke to her so kindly and welcomed her so lovingly. Violet sat in the old wooden theater style stadium chair and listened to the preacher speak.
“So many of our waking hours here on earth are spent waiting on something, waiting on someone. Maybe waiting on the Lord. What are you waiting on, church?
“Sarah waited on the Lord to keep his promise to give her a child.
“Leah was so in love with Jacob that it pained her heart when he didn’t return that love.
“Leah, was the oldest daughter, never considered beautiful. Do you struggle with self-esteem issues, sisters? Do you realize how beautiful you are in God’s eyes?
“Martha waited for the Lord Jesus to return to heal her brother Lazarus before he died.
“Without exception, all of these women waited until they thought it was too late. They lost hope. Have you lost hope?
“Sarah waited until she thought God wasn’t going to keep his promise. She lost hope. She asked her husband Abraham to try to have children with her hand maid.
“Leah named her son Simeon, which means heard, which is to say the Lord has heard that Leah is unloved. Leah feels so unloved that she feels like she will die without God’s favor.
“Martha goes to Christ our Lord when he arrives and says, ‘Had you been here, my brother would not have died.’
“They all lost hope. They stopped waiting on the Lord.
“But you know what? God keeps his promises. Amen?”
All around Violet, people affirmed the pastor’s words by repeating, “Amen!”
The pastor continued. “God opened Sarah’s womb and gave her Isaac. God kept his promise, church. Amen?”
Again, a chorus of, “Amen,” rang around her. This time, she lent her voice to the sound.
The pastor hit the pulpit with an open hand. “Leah had six sons with Jacob and at least one daughter that we know of. Dinah. One of her sons was Judah. You understand what I’m saying here? Leah is the great-great-something-grandmother of the Lion of Judah. Church? Do you hear me? Do you think Leah was highly favored by an all knowing all seeing God? God keeps his promises, church.”
“Amen!”
He leaned closer to the microphone and looked in her direction. “What has God promised you? What are you waiting on? Have you lost hope?
“Martha said, you’re too late. My brother’s dead. You weren’t here. She lost hope.
“But you know what? Jesus said, Lazarus come forth! Death is no barrier to God, church! God keeps his promises.”
Violet barely remembered getting home after the service. She ran from the elevator to her door and pushed herself into her apartment. By the couch, she fell to her knees and put her forehead on her couch cushion.
“God. I hear You. I know you’ve gifted me. I’ve used Mandalynn to speak Your truth to my readers. For me to doubt Your calling to me, to bring Chase who so intelligently led me to leave my comfort zone and enter the real world, I reckon it makes me a billion times stupid and stupid and stupid.
“I’m so sorry, God. I know you’ll forgive me. Please, God, give me the courage to do what I need to do next. I believe, now, I’m where You’ll have me. Thanks for the new church home. Give me my gift so that I can keep writing Mandalynn’s testimony.”
The next morning, the fear of leaving her apartment had greatly diminished. She spent the days wandering the streets, in awe of the smells, sights, sounds, and especially the people. She spent the nights sitting at her window, amazed that she could still hear the street sounds seven stories up. She sat in church on Sundays, gradually feeling less intimidated by the throngs of strangers around her.
She enjoyed the meal times the most. She sat in restaurants at the window or outside on patios, watching the passing street traffic for hours, just observing. People didn’t seem to realize how easily someone could observe them walking down a city street. They walked down the streets, defenses down, completely exposed to anyone who would dare to actually look, and rarely noticed a stranger noticing them.
At Scarlett and Chase’s urgings, Violet contacted her agent and let her know that she was in town. The first meeting went so much better than she could have ever anticipated. Once Violet started mentally translating the woman’s constant Brooklyn accent, they talked and laughed like old friends. Violet couldn’t believe how comfortable she felt around her. Likely, the years of remote communication and correspondence helped bridge the gap.
The meeting with her publisher left Violet stunned. Violet knew she had good sales because she regularly hit bestsellers lists and received really good quarterly royalty checks, but she had no idea her sales warranted a limo ride to a Park Avenue restaurant where a dinner party in honor of her ninth book hitting number one on the bestseller list in three major publications brought out people in tuxedos and sequins. Thankfully, she had her agent at her side who fielded a lot of the small talk.
In meetings with both the publisher and the agent, Violet found out about the commissioning of a script for a series of mini-movies. The idea that some movie producer wanted to bring Mandalynn Clementine to life overwhelmed her, and it took her several days to agree to it and her only condition was that no one in the film could profane God’s holy name in any way.
Through it all, she texted Chase, sending him pictures, updates, jokes, and statuses. She found it so easy to communicate that way. She never knew what to say on the phone, but learned video chatting was much easier. Who knew there was so much to learn about herself with a long-distance relationship?
After about three months, Violet pulled out her laptop, sat on her balcony, and opened the lid. The cold December wind blew around her, but she had a space heater at her feet and fingerless gloves on her hands. She hesitated, the blank screen and blinking cursor staring at her for several minutes. She looked over at her whiteboard, a new purchase from an office supply store on the corner, and the complicated murder fully fleshed and plotted out. Everything stood ready. She just needed to start typing.
That’s all it would take. She simply needed to write it down.
What if she couldn’t, though?
She closed her eyes and huffed out a breath. That was a lie from the insecure part of her mind. God had gifted her. God had provided for her. God had spoken to her, affirming her mission.
Violet prayed, “Alright, God. I’m sorry if I waited too long. I’m not waiting one more second. I’m ready to tell your story”
She opened her eyes and stared at the blinking cursor. Her laptop had patiently waited for nearly four months. The time had come. Her fingertips stroked the ASDFJKL and semi-colon keys without writing a word. Her warm Texas basement and the familiar night and morning sounds of the Pearl tickled at her memory as the reality of the New York chill and miles of unfamiliar sights and smells assaulted her. She longed for the familiar serenity of the sounds of birds and insects while shouts and trains and car horns filled the air.
The noises of the city gradually amplified even more until all she could hear were car horns, distant shouts, subway trains, sirens, whistles, harbor bells, and noises she simply could not identify. The sounds crowded out any other thoughts and she felt her shoulders tensing up.
“Noisy as a restless mule in a tin barn,” she muttered.
Violet closed her eyes again, took a deep breath, and traveled in time, back from where she sat, back across the decades to this very city. Finally, her fingers stroked the keys, and these words appeared on her screen:
Chapter One
Violet breathed deeply through her nose as the cursor blinked patiently at the carriage return. Violet felt the chilly December day harden, and Mandalynn felt the sting of the ice in the wind of a New York February when her doorbell rang.
Mandalynn opened her front door and a blast of cold air rushed inside, blowing the frozen wind up her skirt, making her gasp. Detective Lance Peters stood at her door, hands in the deep pockets of his trench coat, Fedora tucked down tight on his skull. He stared down into her eyes from beneath the brim.
Mandalynn smiled and offered, “Well, if it isn’t tall dark and tall. What’s shaking, Detective? Just needed to come block some of my sunlight?”
“Good morning, Mandalynn. Got a sec?” His voice came out slow, steady, measured. The lack of a return quip puzzled Mandalynn.
“For you, Detective, I’ll carve out the time.” Mandalynn stepped outside, knowing Lance would never voluntarily enter her home. The last time he had come inside had been at the wake for her late husband. She stepped over to the porch swing and tucked her long skirt beneath her legs as she took a seat. The angle of the porch blocked a lot of the winter breeze. Tilting her head toward him, she asked, “What’s up, Lance?”
Lance stripped the Fedora from his head and the winter wind tousled his hair. He walked forward, running his hand around and around the hat brim, making it spin like a wheel. “Mandalynn, It’s been two years tomorrow. I want to go to his grave with you when you pay your respects.”
Feeling some alien giddiness that she could not explain, she said, “I think that would be swell, Lance. Just swell.”
“I was gonna wait until tomorrow and say it there, but then I prayed about it and figured that didn’t add up. After all, he ain’t really here. Not like I gotta get his permission.”
His permission? “What’s this gobbledygook?”
He stepped closer. “Here’s the skinny. I know how you feel, but the truth is you know how I feel, too. I think it’s time we let the dead bury the dead. I think it’s time you and me tried to make a go of it on our own. You and me against the world.”
Heart in her throat, she said, “Can’t say the thought never occurred to me, Lance. In my brief flights of fancy, we make a real killer-diller with an exclamation mark.” Tears burned in her eyes, but she would not shed them. “But, the thing is I miss him every day.”
With a harsh sound, he tore his gaze from her and declared, “Yeah? Well so do I. He was like a brother to me. More than that, even. Since he’s been gone, I just feel all tore up most of the time, riled, really angry I miss him so bad.”
He slowly caught her eyes again. “I am also completely clobbered by you, like over the moon, Mandalynn. I can’t hide it. I got the hots for you, doll. At first, I felt like that would never work but the more I prayed about it and thought about it, the more I figured maybe it ought to work. Then I realized it absolutely would work. You and me? We make a good team.
“I’m a stand-up guy. I’m no dreamboat. And I’ll never be him, but I’m me, and I’m not exactly chopped liver. I can’t think of anyone alive who could love you more than I do.
Putting a hand over her heart, she said, “You love me, Lance?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t bust my chops, doll. You know I love you more than freebie donuts.”
“Why tell me all this now?”
“The way I figure it, I had time to chew on all this. I may be ready to start up working toward a me and you scenario, but maybe you still need some time to sleep on it. Pray about it. That’s aces.” He finally crossed all the way to her and took a seat next to her. She could smell his aftershave in the winter air. “I will wait for you for as long as it takes.”
