The Long Journey to Jake Palmer (3 page)

“The reason I've left you alone is because you've been leading beautifully. You've drawn out the people in your group like an artist. You've asked great questions and offered spot-on suggestions. You've done an excellent job of reading the labels in your group. It's been truly beautiful to watch.”

Rachelle stared at him like he'd just told her that in a few seconds she was going to fly to the moon and back.

“And speaking of beauty, you are beautiful.” Jake let the words hang in the air and watched Rachelle's eyes fill with tears.

“I'm so heavy.” Rachelle let her head fall forward.

“That doesn't matter.”

“It always matters.” Rachelle's eyes dropped and she straightened her skirt though it didn't need straightening.

“And you're not just beautiful physically. Yes, you are beautiful on the outside, but the beauty you have on the inside spills out like a river and everyone around you gets swept up in it. Do you know that?”

Rachelle shook her head. “If only I could lose weight.”

“Listen.” Jake leaned forward and waited till she met his gaze. “That doesn't matter.”

“I'm so heavy.”

“It doesn't matter, beautiful Rachelle. It's time to come out of hiding.”

“It does matter.”

“Look at me.” Jake waited till she lifted her face, eyes red. “It's time.”

“I don't know how.”

“Yes, you do. Not easy, I realize that. It can be brutal at times, but you can. I know. Time to come out of the shadows. To believe what's written on your label.”

Jake clasped his hands in front of him. “If you want to lose weight, fine. But don't do it for anyone but you. Start to believe what is written on your label: Beautiful. Smart. A river of life to those around you. Natural leader. Friend. Your weight is no longer going to define who you are. Do you understand me?”

“You don't know me.”

“You're right, I don't. Yet even in the few seconds I've seen you, the things I just described are so evident, anyone with eyes could see them.”

Jake stood and Rachelle followed his lead. “I wish we could talk longer, but I do need to give you and your colleagues a break.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

Jake grinned and craned his neck as if looking for security. “As long as we're not breaking any company rules.”

Rachelle laughed and hugged Jake hard and he hugged back just as tightly.

“I have a friend who is a wonderful hugger.” Rachelle wiped her eyes. “He says we should always give hugs that are fierce.”

“I like that. Do you think he'd mind if I steal that idea?”

“I think he'd love it.” Rachelle nodded as she stepped backward. “Thank you, Jake. You don't know how powerful this was.”

“So good to meet you, Rachelle.”

At the end of the day Jake stood at the podium and clapped his hands. “Okay, friends. Time for a few minutes of Q and A, then I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled lives. But my hope is they are never regularly scheduled again. I hope you choose to live lives of risk and boldness as you come to realize what is on your label.”

He let his gaze sweep the room. There were some neutral faces, but most had bright eyes and expectant smiles. He'd made it back. A year and a half away—a little creaky in a few parts of his presentation—nothing anyone but he would notice. A few more sessions and he'd be back to firing on all cylinders.

After half a dozen insightful questions from the group, a man in the back row raised his hand.

“Yes.” Jake pointed at him.

The man stood, his head cocked, his eyes narrowed.

“Tell me this, Palmer. What happens when all the gooshy feelings from one of your talks fade away, huh? What happens when your bottle isn't filled up with the things people expect you to pour out? The things they demand you pour out?”

Jake started to reply but the man interrupted.

“What happens when you go home one night and find out your wife doesn't think what's in the bottle is good enough anymore?
What happens when she reads the label and comes up with words that aren't the kind you'd want slapped on a Hallmark card?”

Jake's scarred legs went weak. The man was still talking, but Jake couldn't hear anything but Sienna's devastating announcement, which she dropped on him barely seven months after the attack:
I can't do it any longer. I really, truly thought I could, but I can't and I won't ever be able to pretend that your burns don't make me . . . I'm just not able . . . you know . . .

“It's all candy and tulips for you, isn't it, Jake?” The man pointed at his own ring finger. “Used to have gold wrapped around this here finger. But my ex saw the dark places inside my bottle, and she didn't like 'em too much.”

Jaclyn started to speak, but the man cut her off.

“No, Jackie, I'm going to finish. I'm not trying to hassle Jake. I really want to know.”

He fixed his eyes on Jake and spoke once more, his voice now softer, the tone now tinged with sorrow. “What do you do when your whole life someone tells you what's on the label isn't enough? What if that scar follows you around your entire life?”

This isn't what I signed up for, Jake. I won't ever feel toward you the way I used to. I'm so sorry, but it's over.

The only sound in the room was the whir of air pouring through the heating ducts.

“You know what I mean, Jake?”

Jake gave a slow nod as his mind raced for an answer that he knew he'd never find.

I've filed for divorce. I know you'll say we can work it out, but we can't. So don't try. There's nothing you can do.

Every eye in the auditorium fixed on him. As heat rushed to his face, Jake shifted from trying to find an answer to trying to fight the panic threatening to take him to the floor. His legs wobbled and the corners of his vision grew darker.

“Jake?” Jaclyn appeared beside him and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “Are you okay?”

He blinked and stared at her for a few moments before years of experience navigating difficult questions kicked in. Jake fixed his eyes on the man and cleared his throat.

“Excellent question.” He swept his eyes over the rest of the group. “The kind of change I'm talking about doesn't happen overnight. At times it will seem as if you can never erase what others have written on your label. But in time the ink will fade, replaced by the truth.”

He paused and tried to think of a final, powerful thought to wrap things up, but all he could think about was how lame and cliché the words he'd just spoken were, and the panic started to seize him again.

Jaclyn saved him. “Thank you all for coming today, and let's thank Jake Palmer for sharing his life and his wisdom with us.”

Jake barely heard the smattering of applause as he gave a half-hearted wave and a quarter-hearted smile. He'd never get the man's question out of his heart, because the exact same question had haunted Jake for the past year and a half.

Disquiet settled on him as he faked his way through the necessary good-byes, then rode the elevator back down and left the building. Everything he'd said during the past six hours was true. But it was also true that he'd shoved his own bottle into a locked
closet at the back of his soul and conveniently misplaced the key. There was only one thing his label said these days. That he wasn't enough—not for his dad, not for his mom, not for Sienna, not for anyone—and he never would be again.

J
ake handed his boarding pass to the woman at the kiosk. She scanned it, handed the pass back, and he trudged down the Jetway toward the 737 that would wing him from Chicago's O'Hare Airport back to Seattle.

He pressed his phone to his ear and said for the second time, “I'm not going this year. Drop it.”

“Not an option. You gotta be there. Come on. Tenth anniversary.”

“Forget it, Peter. You don't remember what happened last year?”

“That was your fault.”

“Mine?”

“You didn't exactly engage.”

Jake came to a stop on the ramp behind a woman with hair straight out of the late sixties. Groovy.

“No, it was your wife's fault,” Jake said. “Can't go through it again this year. Last year sealed the deal. No more Jake Palmer at the annual summer gathering.”

He was weary of the conversation. Weary of his business trip. Weary of his life.

“It won't be like that this time, I promise. Camille feels bad about what happened. Plus, it'll be good for you. Really. You've done the hermit routine long enough. Time to—”

“I'm boarding, Peter. I gotta go.”

Jake hung up and stepped from the walkway onto the plane, taking his briefcase in one hand, carry-on in the other. He stared at the passengers in first class. He could afford to be there, but he'd never been able to rationalize the expense. One-fifty to three hundred percent more for a little extra room? Nah, it didn't compute.

His phone vibrated. Jake glanced down as he waited for the people ahead of him to grab a piece of that precious overhead cargo space. Peter. Again. He sent an automatic message saying he'd call back later, then stuck his phone in his pocket.

Peter Danner was a stellar friend and meant well, thought he was doing the right thing putting the full-court press on Jake to come this summer, but there was no way Jake would join the other five at the lake in three months. Last year had been brutal even without Camille rubbing the proverbial salt in his wounds. The tradition held too many memories of how life used to be, and he wasn't going to face them a second time.

The flight was full, one section packed with what looked like a girls' soccer team, the rest with the typical assortment of people from a cross section of life. He settled in next to the window in seat 11A, slid his briefcase under the seat in front of him, and stared out the window at the crewman loading luggage onto the plane.

A few minutes later Jake turned as an elderly gentleman with a full head of white hair and a well-worn brown leather jacket sat next to him. The man's face was tanned and ruddy, dotted with
sun spots. The moment the man finished buckling his seat belt he inclined his head slightly and touched two fingers to his brow. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

The man stuck out his hand and shook Jake's with a strength that belied his age. Jake couldn't remember the last time he'd been greeted on a plane with a handshake, but something about the way the man did it felt right.

“Name is Leonard.”

“Jake Palmer.”

Leonard nodded and gave a quick smile as if he knew something Jake didn't. Jake tried not to stare at the gap where the man's two front teeth should have been. But for some reason it didn't look odd, as if this was the way a smile was supposed to be. He returned the smile with one of his own and hoped it didn't look phony. He wasn't in the mood for conversation, but after the usual pleasantries, Leonard pulled out what looked like a book on gardening and started to read.

Jake thankfully pulled out his e-reader and reviewed his notes to see if he could figure out what had gone wrong in Chicago. But even before he started he knew he wouldn't find the answer in his outline. The problem was buried somewhere much deeper.

By the time they flew over South Dakota an hour and a half later, Jake had skimmed through half a dozen articles on kayaking. Leonard apparently was done reading as well, because he closed his book and shoved it into the holder on the back of the seat in front of him. He did it with enough force to make the scarecrow-thin woman seated there rise up, twist, and glare at
him with coal-black eyes. At first it seemed Leonard didn't notice, but as the woman continued to fling her scowl at him, he waved a hand as if to dismiss her, then focused on Jake.

“These planes? Way too small. Metal tube shooting through the sky like an elongated toaster with wings. Only the ninth time I've been on one in my life, and it'd make me plenty happy for this to be my last.”

“I'm not a fan either.” Jake knocked on the white wall of the plane to his left. “Can't wait till they invent teleportation so I can beam all over the country instantaneously.”

“They've already done it.” Leonard gave Jake that double-gap-toothed smile. “They have. I'm one hundred percent serious. Now it wasn't people or lab rats or even bugs, I'll give you that much. But way back in 2014 scientists took two qubits that were separated by a distance of three meters and watched and recorded the spin of one electron and saw that same spin reflected in the other qubit instantly. Instantly. No time passed. Teleportation. Proven.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Jake grinned. “But it sounds dang cool.”

“All I'm trying to tell ya is—think there've been breakthroughs over the past hundred years? Ain't nothing compared to what's coming.”

“You're into technology?”

“Nah, but I like to read. And I'm intrigued by things that prove we don't have next to nothin' figured out. See, I think there's way more to life than what our ears can hear or our eyes can see. We've barely scratched the surface of the surface of what's out there beyond our five senses. There's much more going on than we know.”

A flight attendant passed by with a large bottle of water and Leonard flagged her down as if he were in a restaurant. After his plastic cup was filled, Leonard pointed at Jake and gave him a cryptic smile.

“What do you do, Jake?”

“I'm a speaker and a corporate trainer.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I give talks to the public, I work with salespeople, CEOs, managers, individuals.”

The cryptic smile again. “And what do you teach them?”

“How to help them see deeper into themselves. See that the things that hold them back are usually lies they believe are true. I help them see themselves as they truly are.”

“For some that could be a rather disturbing vision.”

Jake laughed and popped the last of his airline peanuts into his mouth. “Yeah, I could tell you some stories, wow. But I've found most people are well aware of their faults, their weak areas, those places where they've brought pain to themselves and those around them. And they dwell on those failings and continually beat themselves up with a stick so big they have no chance of seeing the other side; the areas where they bring light and hope and life to people. And even though others can see those qualities, the people themselves can't.”

The smile on Leonard's face grew as he tapped the plane's armrest between him and Jake. “And because they are so focused on their own darkness, they miss the light and don't do all they could for themselves or those around them.”

“Well said. I should hire you to write the copy on my website.”

Leonard's face grew serious and he nodded as if it was a certainty that would happen. “When do you want me to start?”

“I was kidding.” Jake laughed again. He liked this quirky guy.

“Don't worry, so was I.” A knowing smile grew on his face. “I think you're doing people some good. You discover people's areas of light—that they can't see—point them out, then give them a plan on how to work from that perspective instead of the one where they're emotionally crippled. You take them through exercises to discover and define the things they could accomplish if they'd only see the truth about themselves and believe it.”

Jake opened his mouth slightly and frowned as the old man's smile grew into a full-out grin.

“Do you realize you're quoting me almost word for word?”

“Yep, I do. I sure do, bucko.”

Jake shook his head as the obvious explanation filled his mind.

“You've been to one of my seminars, haven't you?”

Leonard's eyes narrowed. “Like I said, I think you're doing people good. But don't you think your talks would be more powerful if you were living what you're preaching?”

Jake's face went hot. “What are you—”

“The owner of the company you just spoke at is a friend of mine. She told me you were coming.” Leonard tapped his temple. “I read your book. I liked it. I happened to be in town visiting my daughter and decided since I was already here, I might as well hear you speak. So they let me sneak in a few minutes after you started and sit in the shadows in the back of the room. You didn't spot me, I'm guessing.”

“No,” Jake said.

“I felt for you during your, uh, stumble at the end of the day.”

Jake didn't respond.

“Tough getting back in the saddle after a long layoff.”

“Yeah, it can be.”

“But we both know that it's more than the layoff, don't we?” Leonard sighed. “Awhile back I watched your TED Talk after I finished your book. The guy who gave that talk and the guy I watched today are different people. Something happened to you.”

Again, Jake didn't respond.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“No worries,” Leonard said. “You want to know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think you can relate to the guy who heckled you more than you'd ever want to let on.” He pointed at Jake's ring finger. “I think you used to have a gold band too.”

Jake glared at him. “Interesting coincidence that we wound up sitting next to each other.”

“Yeah, quite a surprise.” Leonard winked, settled back in his seat, and continued at a volume that said he didn't care if anyone else heard them. “So what's the scoop? Not married any longer? Or do you take off the ring on trips so you can pick up women?”

Jake considered making a joke to deflect the question, but chose not to. “Next week it'll be nine months since we signed the papers.”

“Pain in the butt, divorces,” Leonard muttered. “I've had two.”

“Then why the ring?” Jake pointed at Leonard's left hand.

“Yeah, well, the third time stuck.”

Leonard blinked as if dust had landed in his eyes, but Jake didn't think it was dust. If Jake was guessing, Leonard wasn't the type of man to admit to tears even if they were streaming down his cheeks. Jake turned away to give Leonard a moment and stared out at the dusk stealing the last of the sun. A minute or two later, Leonard cleared his throat.

“Married to her for fourteen years. Till she decided to leave me for the world where there's no more pain. But I'll graduate from here someday, probably sooner than later. At that point maybe I'll see her again. She said I would. Not sure, but it's a thought, you know?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Ah, what can you do? The moment we're born we have a death sentence hanging over us.” Leonard leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Okay, Jake. We're almost friends here. Tell your old pal Leonard what happened last year that makes you not want to go to the summer gathering this year.”

“You listen to my phone calls too?”

“Couldn't be helped.” Leonard grinned and a laugh sputtered out.

Jake joined Leonard and leaned his chair back, then scolded himself. “I always talk too loud when I'm on my cell phone.”

“Most people do.”

Jake closed his eyes and dumped his story on Leonard. “Every year for eight years, my wife and I and two other couples got together at a small lake in eastern Washington for a week of sun, water, great dinners, and deep conversation. Our best friends. We rented the same place, same dates in mid-July, and it was always one of the highlights of my year.”

“But this year you don't want to go because it reminds you too much of your wife.” Leonard waved his hand as if to wash away his words. “Sorry, I mean, ex-wife.”

“Yeah.”

“In other words, you didn't divorce her, she divorced you.”

“That's right, detective. Thanks for that reminder of the facts.”

“What happened? Why'd she leave?”

“That's a very long story.”

“Got it,” Leonard said. “You don't want to tell me.”

“It's not that, it's—”

“Yeah it is. You don't know me.” Leonard folded his hands and settled back in his seat.

“I'm going to plead the fifth, Leonard. At this point, the end of the why-stick is still a little too sharp, so it's pretty brutal to tell the story. Let's just say I loved her and did everything I knew how to do to show her that, but she ended up shattering my heart into so many pieces you'd need a microscope to spot any of them.”

“Fair enough.” Leonard reached into the satchel at his feet, pulled out a novel, and opened it toward the end, but he didn't read. “Is there any part of you that wants to go this summer?”

“Not much.”

Leonard turned to his book, and the rumble of the engines had just started to lull Jake into the edges of sleep when he was hauled back to the conscious world by Leonard's tap on his arm.

“You asleep?”

“Almost. At least I was. Not so much now.”

“Good.” Leonard clasped Jake's arm and shook it. “Then open your eyes. I have an idea for you.”

Jake blinked and gave his eyes a quick rub with his thumb and forefinger. “What? You've figured out a way to time travel with all your futuristic science stuff? I can go back and make that October night disappear?”

“What October night?”

“Doesn't matter. It's done. What's your idea?”