My Very Best Friend (2 page)

I told her, “That doesn’t make sense, Ms. Feminist.”

She waved a hand, “I know. Go anyhow. My burning bra and I can’t do it.”

I have not been back to Scotland in twenty years, partly because I am petrified of flying and partly because it’s too painful, which is why my mother, usually a ball breaker, refuses to go.

I’m nervous to leave my cats, Teddy J, Daffodil, Dr. Jekyll, and Princess Marie. Teddy J, in particular, suffers from anxiety, and Dr. Jekyll has a mood disorder, I’m sure of it. Princess Marie is snippy.

But it must be done.

My best friend, Bridget Ramsay, is still living there. Or, she was living there. We write letters all the time to each other; we have for twenty years.

Until last year, that is. I haven’t heard from her in months.

I don’t know what’s going on.

I have an idea, but I don’t like the idea.

It scares me to death.

Truth often does that to us.

Bridget’s older brother is Toran Ramsay. I often send my letters to Bridget to his home.

I would see him again. Soon.

I shivered. It was a delectable sort of shiver, not at all based in science.

That evening I called my agent, Maybelle Courten, from my white deck. A whale blew water into the air through its blowhole as a hummingbird zoomed past my tulips and daffodils.

“You’re going where, Charlotte?”

“Scotland.” I adjusted Dr. Jekyll on my lap and he glared and tried to scratch me.

“For damn and hell’s sakes, are you kidding me?” Maybelle almost jumped through the phone to strangle me.

“This is not a joke.” Maybelle’s house is always noisy. She is a single mother with five kids. They are twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, and eighteen. Her husband died of a heart attack five years ago. They dated from the time they were sixteen. He was a reporter. When he died she found out he’d left a life insurance policy worth a half a million and a love note in the safe deposit box saying the best thing in his life was her.

She’s temperamental, loves whiskey, and calls her kids “My hellions” or “My white hair instigators.” They adore her.

“You don’t travel, Charlotte. You hardly leave your island. You rarely speak to people. You don’t like people. You told me that flying on an airplane gives you panic attacks.”

“I have panic attacks unless I’m slightly drunk. I don’t like heights.”

“You’re going to get drunk on the plane to Scotland?”

“That is correct.”

“Hang on a second.” Maybelle covered the phone with her hand, but I could hear her yelling, “Jamie, you take your sister’s underwear off your head right now. Sheryl, that is not a skirt. That is a scarf. You may not leave the house wearing that scarf around your hips, and put your boobs inside your shirt or I will send you to a Catholic school for girls and let the nuns straighten you out. That’s right, smart one. A Catholic school for girls means no
boys.
You’d better believe I’d do it. Charlotte. Sorry. What in the blasted world are you going to do in Scotland?”

“I’m going to sell our cottage and find my friend.”

“Where is your friend?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I need to find her.”

“When will you find her?”

“When she’s not lost anymore.” I heard glass clink against glass, and I knew she was pouring herself a whiskey.

“I didn’t know you had friends,” Maybelle said.

“I have this one friend. And my mother.”

“Ah. Right. The Scottish pen pal. And I’m your friend.”

“Now I have three friends,” I drawled. “Bridget’s more than a pen pal.”

“Uh huh. Sure. Hang on . . . Eric! Put your sister down. I said put Sandy down right now. No, she is not your hat. You got a D on your last science test, now study. You don’t have a pencil? You have a balloon for a brain if you can’t find a pencil.” I heard more yelling, then back to me. “You know that you have only two months to get a novel to me? You are aware of your deadline?”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s going to be late. Have another whiskey.”

“How do you know I’m drinking whiskey? Never mind. I am. How far along are you?”

“Did you hear me when I told you to have another whiskey?” I pulled my dark brown sweater around me. It was almost the same color as my hair. I noticed my beige blouse had stains along the hem. Blueberries? Ketchup?

“Yes. How far along?”

“I wrote a sentence.” I heard a brief intake of breath, then she swore. She is so inventive.

“That’s it? Still? One sentence.”

“Yes.” Dr. Jekyll hissed at me, tried to scratch. I caught his paw.

“What was it about?”

“Peanut butter and how it makes me feel like I’m choking and how McKenzie Rae Dean does not eat sausages because they’re too phallic. Makes her feel nauseated. Two sentences.”

She swore again. So creative! “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Charlotte, but you’re giving me heartburn. Bad. Bad heartburn.”

“I’ll get it done.” I caught Dr. Jekyll’s scratching paw again. “Probably.”

“Damn. I’m going to lie down.”

“Me too.”

“No,” she snapped. “You don’t lie down. You go work. Now.”

“I don’t have anything to say. I have writer’s block. I told you. Everything I write is stupid.”

“Stupid . . . tear my hair out and eat it . . . knock my knuckles together and split them open . . . bang me with nunchucks . . . handcuff me to Antarctica . . .”

“Bye, Maybelle.” She makes up silly stuff when she’s stressed.

“You’re killin’ me. Write that book. Hang on. Can you help Eric with his science homework? I don’t understand it.”

I could. Eric and I talked for over an hour, and we got two weeks’ worth of work done. I was pleased with his enthusiasm. “Randy wants to sing you his latest song. Hang on, Ms. Mackintosh.”

I listened to Randy sing and play four songs on his guitar. We worked on the lyrics together. “Thanks, Ms. Mackintosh. You’re groovin’.”

“I endeavor to always groove.”

Dr. Jekyll gently bit my hand. I tapped his head. He blinked a few times, then stood and licked my face. Mood disorders have serious effects on personality, even with cats.

I’m not sure if my female readers like the adventures McKenzie Rae Dean has as she’s popping in and out of different time periods in the past or the fact that they get to live vicariously with her popping in and out of bed with new and luscious men in each book.

Variety is healthy for the female mind.

It does not, however, demolish writer’s block.

That’s a problem.

At least for me.

I detest flying. You could correctly call it “pathologically afraid.” I cannot breathe on planes. I know that I am going to die a fiery death as we plunge into the ocean.

I have studied planes, their engines, and why they stay in the air in depth. My studies took two years. I understand mathematical aerodynamics description, thrust, lift, Newton, and Bernoulli’s principle. I even had three tours at Boeing. I have talked to pilots and engineers and examined blueprints for planes. Yet the sensible part of me knows that the plane will crash at any moment because nothing this large, heavy, and rigid was ever meant to be in the sky.

This knowledge is in direct contrast to my physics studies. I acknowledge this dichotomy.

I sat down in my first-class seat. I need room if I fly. I don’t want to be sandwiched next to strangers who will be intruding upon my personal space by body part or by air. I prefer to die within my own confines.

Inside my carry-on bag I had these things: Travel-sized bottles of Scotch. My list folder. A handkerchief. Travel-sized bottles of whiskey. My own tea bags—chamomile, peppermint, and for my adventurous side, Bengal Tiger. Three journals to write in if my writer’s block dissolves. Pictures of my cats. Travel-sized bottles of tequila. Two books on gravitational physics and evolutionary biology.

I adjusted my glasses. If we’re going to crash, I want them to be sturdily placed on my nose so I can see our doomed descent. My glasses have brown rims. I affixed clear tape on the left arm, as it’s cracked. I’ve been meaning to go to the eye doctor to get it fixed, but the tape seems to be functioning well. It does make my glasses tilt to the left, though. Not much of a problem, except if one is worried about appearance, which I am not.

I rechecked the top button on my beige blouse to make sure it was still fastened. I had been able to get most of the blueberry and ketchup stains out of it. If I end up in the ocean, I want to be covered. No need to show my ragged, but sturdy, bra.

My underwear is always beige or white, and cotton. When there are more than two holes, I throw them out. High risers, you could call them. I like to be properly covered, no tiny, lacy, itchy tidbits for me, even though I put McKenzie Rae, the heroine in all of my time travel romance novels, in tiny lacy tidbits that do not itch her.

If we crash, I can assure you that my underwear will stand up far better to the fire and flying debris than a tidbit would.

I situated my brown corduroy skirt and took off my brown, five-year-old sturdy shoes and put on my blue slippers with pink rabbit ears that Bridget sent me. I took out a tiny bottle of Scotch, as my hands were already shaking.

My seatmate, a man who appeared to be about my age, was white faced. “I hate flying,” he muttered. I heard the Texan drawl.

“Me too. Here. Have a drink.” I pulled out another bottle.

“Thank you, ma’am, I am much obliged.”

We clinked our tiny bottles together. His hands were shaking, too.

We both breathed shallowly. “Close your eyes, inhale,” I said. “Find your damn serenity. Think of your sunflowers . . . bells of Ireland . . . catnip . . . sweet Annies . . . wild tea roses . . .”

“Think of your ranch . . .” he said, barely above a whisper. “Think of your cows. Your tractors. The bulls. Castration day.”

The vision of castration day was unpleasant. I closed my eyes again.

We inhaled.

We drank.

We shook.

We took off. I started to sweat. So did he.

“My turn,” he said when we were done with the first bottle. He handed me a tiny bottle of Scotch out of his briefcase.

“Cheers to aerodynamics, thrust, lift, and Bernoulli’s principle.”

“Cheers to your green eyes, darlin’. Those are bright twinklers. Brighter than the stars in Texas, may she reign forever.”

“Thank you. May Newton’s laws reign forever.”

Third round on me.

Fourth on him, ordered from the flight attendant, who said cheerily, annoyingly, “Nervous flyers?”

The fourth round did the trick. We decided to sing the National Anthem together, then “Frosty the Snowman” and two songs by Neil Diamond. One was “Cracklin’ Rosie,” which made him cry, so I cried, too, in solidarity. The annoying flight attendant asked us to be quiet. We sang “The Ants Go Marching Down” in whispery voices, then I taught him a Scottish drinking song about a milkmaid. We woke up in Amsterdam, his head on my shoulder.

I wriggled him awake. “It was a pleasure getting drunk with you.”

“The pleasure was all mine, green eyes,” he drawled in his Texan drawl. “It seems we have arrived alive.”

“We did our part. Praise to Newton.”

We stumbled off the plane, shook hands, and I caught the next flight to Edinburgh. I forgot to change out of my blue slippers with pink rabbit ears before I walked through the airport. No matter. The top button on my beige blouse was still buttoned and I was in one piece.

I put my hand to my head. Lord. I hate flying and I hate airplane hangovers.

The green hills of Scotland hugged both sides of the road, smooth and endless. The sun shone down like gold streamers, lambs ambled along, the ocean sparkled.

The sky seems closer here than the sky off the coast of Washington, as if you could climb an extremely tall ladder and scoop the blue up in your hands and take it with you.

The air was different here, too. Lighter, would be the way I would describe it, although that made no scientific sense. It was saltier than the air on my island, and it had the tiniest hint of cool mint tea, I don’t know why.

I breathed in, held it. Can you miss air? I had missed Scottish air. I took a swipe at my eyes, which were tearing up. I prefer my emotions controlled, so this brought on some consternation.

Our stone cottage was fifteen minutes, by car, outside of the charming old village of St. Ambrose, which was situated on the eastern side of Scotland on the North Sea. The village had cobblestone streets, at least three ancient stone churches with soaring ceilings and stained glass, and short doors for the short people who had built the buildings hundreds of years ago. I sniffled again. I had loved living near the village as a girl.

I had taken a taxi from the airport, then rented a car. I was starving and stopped by a bar called Her Lady’s Treats. There was a full wall of liquor, a stuffed goat on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, and a steel reindeer head attached to the wall above my table. The reindeer had a furry moustache.

I ordered one of my favorites, fish roulades with a side order of kailkenny, then picked up the paper.

ST. AMBROSE DAILY NEWS

FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY
OF MISSING PRIEST
Part One

By Carston Chit,
Reporter

Was Father Angus Cruickshank murdered?

It is hard to believe that almost fifteen years have gone by since Father Angus Cruickshank disappeared. Father Cruickshank was the headmaster at St. Cecilia’s Catholic School for Girls, ten minutes outside of the village, bordering the Kinsey Woods.

His shocking disappearance, on May 14, 1975, has become an enduring mystery swirling around our village ever since. His wallet, keys, and eyeglasses went with him, which suggests he left on his own. His Bible, however, stayed behind.

Father Cruickshank was at St. Cecilia’s at lunch, on a Wednesday, giving a blessing, his dark head bowed, hands clasped, after glaring at the girls, in their plaid skirts and white shirts, lined up at the tables.