Love at First Flight (42 page)

She took Mrs. Romanello out to dinner at
least once a month, and that's how she found out in July that Jeremy had sold
the dream house, moved to Florida, and married a girl named Sherrie.

Mrs. R clucked with disapproval as she
delivered the news. “I don't know what that boy is thinking, but rushing into
marriage with another woman isn't the answer to his problems.”

“Maybe it'll work out for them,” Juliana
said with sincerity. She had nothing to gain by wishing against the success of
his marriage—apparently to the girl who called his cell phone all those months
ago and set off a chain of events that changed their lives forever.

After she dropped off Mrs. R, Juliana
drove down Chester Street for the first time since she last saw Michael. She
slowed to a stop outside No. 8 and watched a young couple carry a baby stroller
up the stairs. Even though she was sad that he had sold the place where they'd
lived together, she was delighted to know he was in Newport seeing to pipe
dreams.

In late August, she was strolling
through the mall at the Inner Harbor on her lunch break one day when a teddy
bear dressed as a bee wearing a tiara caught her eye in a window. She walked
into the store to buy the bear, flooded with thoughts of her own Queen Bee.
That night she called Monique Griffith to ask if she would mind if Juliana
visited Rachelle.

Monique hesitated before she replied. “I'm
sorry, Juliana, but we've decided it's best that she not have any reminders of
the trial or of that time in her life.”

“I understand,” Juliana said, even
though she was disappointed.

“She's doing so well, and it's not that
seeing you would be a setback—”

“I'd be a reminder.”

“Yes,” Monique said, sounding relieved
that Juliana understood.

“I'm thrilled to hear she's doing well.
I have something I'd like to send her. Would that be all right?”

“Of course. I'm sure she'll love
anything that comes from you.” She gave Juliana the address. “Michael called a
couple of months ago. I was sorry to hear you two aren't together anymore. I
always thought you made such a lovely couple.”

“That's funny,” Juliana said with a
small, sad smile. “Rachelle said the same thing. I miss her. I only knew her
for such a short time, but I think about her all the time.”

“She's a special kid to go through what
she did and come out of it so unaffected. Ever since those monsters were killed
in the courtroom, she's like a new person.”

“Will you keep me posted on how she's
doing?”

“Of course. I have a school picture I
could send you if you'd like.”

“I'd love that. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Juliana. Your friendship
made an enormous difference to her at a very difficult time in her life.”

“Every minute I spent with her was such
a joy.”

They hung up with promises to keep in
touch. Juliana lay awake that night thinking about Rachelle and Michael and the
night she cut their hair in the hotel room. How far they all had traveled since
then.

Paullina died in her sleep in September.
The medical examiner said she'd had a massive heart attack and didn't suffer,
but Juliana was devastated to lose her mother just when they had finally begun
to form a real bond. It was left to her to call her brothers and sisters with
the news. Donatella and Vincent came right away to their mother's house where
they waited for Domenic and Serena to arrive from the West Coast. Juliana
couldn't remember when she last saw her older siblings, but the minute they
came in the door it was like no time had passed.

They got through the wake and funeral
where it seemed that Allison, the home health aide, was more distraught than
any of Paullina's five children.

“Thank you so much for everything you
did to make her last months so comfortable.” Juliana hugged the sobbing
Allison. “I wasn't kidding when I called you a miracle worker.”

“She was a lovely person, and I'll miss
her.”

After the funeral, the siblings spent
two days cleaning out the house, each setting aside things they wanted to keep.
On the last night before Domenic and Serena were due to fly home, they sat on
the floor of the empty living room and finished the food that had poured in
from neighbors and extended family.

“We've been talking, Juliana,” Donatella
said as Domenic opened a second bottle of wine.

“About what?” Juliana asked.

“We all agree that you should sell the
house and keep whatever you can get for it,” Vincent said.

“No way. It belongs to all of us.”

“You're the one who did the heavy
lifting with Ma for all these years,” Serena said. “It's only fair you should
get back some of the money you put into the mortgage and her other expenses.”

“You guys, really,” Juliana said,
enormously touched by the gesture. “I wouldn't feel right about it.”

“It's a done deal,” Domenic said. “We've
already decided.”

“Are you sure?”

“We are,” Vincent said. “She would've
died a long time ago if you hadn't taken care of her and forced us to help.”

Donatella nodded in agreement.

“I hope we can see each other once in a
while,” Juliana said. “I know we all have our own lives and you guys have
families in California, but maybe we can try to get together once or twice a
year.”

They agreed to try. Over the third
bottle of wine, Juliana told her brothers and sisters about everything that had
happened to her in the last year. She found it hard to believe that it had
already been a year since she met Michael in the airport. Her siblings were
stunned to hear how much danger she'd been in during the trial and astounded by
the way her relationship with Jeremy ended.

“So,” Vincent said with a wry grin, “Mr.
Wonderful didn't turn out to be so wonderful after all, huh?”

Juliana smiled. “You don't need to look
so pleased, Vin.”

He made an attempt to hide his grin. “Sorry.”

Juliana laughed and threw a wadded up
napkin at him. “No, you're not.”

“What I want to know is why you haven't
gone after Michael like you promised him you would,” Donatella said. “What the
hell are you waiting for?”

“I was just about to ask the same thing,”
Serena said.

“I'm thinking about it,” Juliana
confessed. “When my self-imposed year is up, we'll see.”

“Don't think too long,” Domenic advised.
“He sounds like a good guy.”

“He is,” Juliana said softly, missing
him more in that moment than any other in the last nine months.

Her mother's house sold in November, and
Juliana was staggered to clear just over forty-six thousand dollars after she
paid the taxes. She wrote a check to Jeremy for seventeen thousand dollars and
sent it to him via his mother with a note that said only, “Thank you for paying
off my mother's mortgage. Please accept the enclosed check as reimbursement.”

Part of her windfall went toward the
early December purchase of her first-ever new car—a silver Honda Accord. She
said a sad good-bye to her old Tercel, which had served her well for many years
and was one of the last remaining links to her old life. The rest of the money
went in the bank, giving Juliana more of a nest egg than she'd ever had in her
life.

By then it had been almost six months
since she hung Michael's picture on the wall, and she had fallen into the habit
of telling him about her day as she lay in bed each night.

“Do you still want me?” she asked the picture
one cold night about a week before Christmas. “Am I really supposed to take
this huge gamble that you'll still love me?”
Have I ever said anything I didn't mean?
The memory was so powerful
he might have been in the room with her rather than hundreds of miles away.

 
She studied the faded picture for a long time
that night. “I think I'm ready to find out if you meant it, Michael. I miss you
so much that sometimes I worry I'll go crazy if I don't see you soon. For what
it's worth, I like myself a whole lot better than I did a year ago, so I hope
you'll forgive me for waiting this long to keep my promise.”

The next day, she gave the salon two
week's notice. It was time to find out if he'd meant what he said.

CHAPTER 36

JULIANA LEFT BALTIMORE EARLY ON NEW
YEAR'S DAY with even fewer possessions than she had taken to her place in
Fell's Point. She had found out over the last year that she could live without
a lot of the things she used to think were essential.

Driving through the pre-dawn mist in her
new car, she thought about how yesterday would have been her first anniversary
with Jeremy. But she wasn't thinking about him today. No, today she was
thinking about Michael and how proud of herself she was for taking this last
year to get her life in order. Wondering if she had waited too long to keep her
promise, her stomach fluttered with nerves. Because she had given herself the
time she needed to heal and to grow, she knew that no matter how this day
turned out, she would be okay. She had proven to herself that not only could
she survive on her own, she could thrive.

The road was deserted, so she gave the
new car a workout and was in Connecticut in just under three hours. Remembering
Michael's horror at the way she had driven his car gave her the giggles. She
didn't believe in wasting time behind the wheel. That was something he would
just have to get used to if they were going to be together.
Don't jinx yourself by thinking that way.

It seemed to take forever to get through
Connecticut, but she finally made it into Rhode Island around noon.

She had used the computer at the salon
to get directions to Newport, but once there she'd be relying on memory to find
the place she had been to only once—and in the dark.

The view from the Newport Bridge was
different in the wintertime than it had been in autumn but no less striking.
She took the Newport exit, and as she drove along America's Cup Avenue she
remembered Michael comparing Newport to Annapolis. Taking a right onto Lower
Thames Street, Juliana's heart began to beat fast with the knowledge that she
was within blocks of him—and everything she wanted.

She drove slowly along Lower Thames
until, all at once, she recognized his building and pulled into the first
available parking space on the street. Without giving herself even a minute to
get nervous, she freshened up her lipstick, tucked her purse under the seat,
and got out of the car. She locked the car and with her shaking hands tucked
firmly into her coat pockets, she set off down the street, stopping only when
she reached the sidewalk outside his building. The glass on the right side of
the door was still covered with paper, but painted on the left-hand window in
gold script were the words, “Michael Maguire, Attorney at Law.”

“Good for you, Michael,” she whispered,
her heart swelling with pride. “You really did it.”

With a deep breath for courage, she
pushed open the door. Once inside the vestibule, she was surprised to find the
lights on in his office even though it was a holiday. She opened the office
door, where again his name was painted on the glass. It was exactly as he said
it would be—a comfortable waiting area, a reception desk, and his office in the
back. Nothing fancy but it suited him. The receptionist looked up and gasped.
Michael's sister Mary Frances got up to come around the desk.

“Juliana.” She hugged her. “Lord, is it
really you?”

“It's me,” Juliana said, returning the
warm embrace.

“Oh, is my brother going to be happy to
see you!”

“Is he?” Juliana's spirits lifted. “Is
he really?”

“You have no idea. Come in. Let me take
your coat.”

“Is he here?”

“No, he's downtown at the police
station, but I expect him back any minute. We came in for a couple of hours
today to deal with a few clients whose New Year's Eve celebrations landed them
in jail.”

The phone rang, and Mary Frances excused
herself to answer it. “Michael Maguire's office. Yes, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, he's
still out.” She rolled her eyes at Juliana. “I'll give him your messages as
soon as he gets back, but he's going to tell you the same thing he told you the
last time Fifi got locked up. You have to keep her on a leash.”

Juliana giggled at the look on Mary
Frances's face as she got rid of Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

“There are great clients and then there
are high-maintenance clients.”

“Let me guess,” Juliana said. “Fifi's
owner is high maintenance?”

“The
highest
.”

The phone rang several more times in the
next few minutes, and Juliana was delighted to realize his practice was busy. “I'm
sure he loves having you here with him,” Juliana said between calls.

“I share the job with Shannon and
Maggie. We work every three days, but with all our trading of days,

Michael complains that he never knows
which one of us will be here in the morning. He calls it one of life's little
mysteries.”