True Believer (30 page)

True Believer

Twenty

The rest of the day passed as if he were watching it through someone else’s eyes. Hurt and angry, he barely remembered following Alvin along the highway back toward Raleigh. More than once, he glanced in his rearview mirror, staring back over the black asphalt, watching the cars that followed in the distance, hoping that one of them was Lexie. She’d been perfectly clear in her desire to end the relationship, but even so, he felt a surge of adrenaline whenever he saw a car that resembled hers, and he would slow down to get a better look. Alvin, meanwhile, would move farther into the distance. Jeremy knew he should be paying attention to the road beyond the windshield; instead, he spent most of his time looking back.

After dropping off his rental car, he paced the terminal and made his way to the gate. Walking past crowded shops, veering around people who were scurrying his way, he wondered again why Lexie seemed so willing to give up everything they’d shared.

On the plane, his thoughts were interrupted when Alvin took a seat next to him.

“Thanks for making it so we could sit together,” Alvin said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He stored his bag in the overhead bin.

“Huh?” Jeremy said.

“The seats. I thought you were going to take care of them when you checked in. It’s a good thing I asked when I got my boarding pass. I was supposed to sit in the last row.”

“Sorry,” Jeremy said. “I guess I forgot.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Alvin said, dropping into the seat next to him. He glanced at Jeremy. “You want to talk about it yet?”

Jeremy hesitated. “I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about.”

“That’s what you said earlier. But I’ve heard it’s supposed to be good for you. Haven’t you been keeping up with the talk shows lately? Express your feelings, purge your guilt, seek and ye shall find?”

“Maybe later,” he mumbled.

“Suit yourself,” Alvin said. “If you don’t want to talk, fine. I’ll just take a nap.” He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

Jeremy stared out the window as Alvin slept for most of the flight.

In the cab he took from La Guardia, Jeremy was bombarded with noise and the hectic pace of the city: businessmen rushing past carrying briefcases, mothers towing small children while attempting to manage shopping bags, the smell of car exhaust, horns honking, and police sirens blaring. It was perfectly normal, a world he’d grown up in and had taken for granted; what surprised him was that as he looked out the car window, trying to orient himself to the reality of his life, he thought of Greenleaf and the utter silence he’d experienced there.

Back at his apartment building, his mailbox was stuffed with advertisements and bills; he grabbed it all and trudged up the stairs. Inside the apartment, everything was the same as he’d left it. Magazines lay strewn around the living room, his office was as cluttered as always, and there were still three bottles of Heineken in the refrigerator. After stowing his suitcase in his room, he opened a bottle of beer and carried his computer and satchel to his desk.

He had all the information he’d accumulated in the past few days: his notes and copies of the articles, the digital camera containing the photographs he’d shot of the cemetery, the map, and the diary. As he began unpacking, a packet of postcards fell onto the desk, and it took him a moment to remember that he’d picked them up on his first day in town. The top postcard was a view of the town from the river. Removing the wrapper, he began to thumb through the rest of them. He found postcards depicting the town hall, a misty view of a blue heron standing in the shallows of Boone Creek, and sailboats congregating on a blustery afternoon. Halfway through the packet, he found himself pausing at a picture of the library.

He sat motionless, thinking of Lexie and realizing again that he loved her.

But that was over now, he reminded himself, and he continued shuffling through the postcards. He saw a strangely grainy photograph of Herbs and another of the town as viewed from Riker’s Hill. The final postcard was a picture of the downtown area of Boone Creek, and here he found himself pausing once more.

The postcard, a reproduction of an old black-and-white photo, captured the town circa 1950. In the foreground was the theater with well-dressed patrons waiting near the ticket window; in the background stood a decorated Christmas tree in the small green area just off the main street. On the sidewalks, couples could be seen peeking in windows decorated with garlands and lights, or strolling hand in hand. As Jeremy studied the picture, he found himself imagining how the holidays were celebrated in Boone Creek fifty years earlier. In place of boarded storefronts, he saw sidewalks crowded with women wearing scarves and men wearing hats and children pointing upward at an icicle hanging from a signpost.

As he looked, Jeremy found himself thinking about Mayor Gherkin. The postcard depicted not only Boone Creek’s way of life half a century before but also the way that Gherkin hoped the town could be again. It was a Norman Rockwell existence, albeit with a southern flair. He held the postcard for a long time, thinking about Lexie and wondering again what he was going to do about the story.

The meeting with the television producers was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Nate met Jeremy at his favorite steak house, Smith and Wollensky’s, beforehand. Nate was his buoyant self, excited to see Jeremy and relieved to have him back in town under his watchful eye. As soon as he sat down, he began talking about the footage that Alvin had shot, describing the images as fantastic, like “that haunted house in Amityville, but real,” and assuring him that the television executives would love them. For the most part, Jeremy sat in silence listening to Nate jabber on, but when he saw a dark-haired woman leaving the restaurant, her hair exactly the same length as Lexie’s, he felt a lump in his throat and suddenly excused himself to go to the restroom.

When he got back, Nate was perusing the menu. Jeremy added sweetener to the iced tea he’d ordered. He, too, scanned the menu and mentioned that he was thinking of having the swordfish. Nate looked up.

“But this is a steak house,” he protested.

“I know. I’m in the mood for something lighter, though.”

Nate’s hand absently traveled to his midsection, as if wondering whether to do the same thing. In the end, he frowned as he set the menu aside. “I gotta go with the strip steak,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning. But where were we?”

“The meeting,” Jeremy reminded him, and Nate leaned forward.

“So it’s not ghosts, right?” Nate said. “You mentioned on the phone that you saw the lights but had a pretty good idea of what they were.”

“No,” Jeremy said. “It’s not ghosts.”

“What are they, then?”

Jeremy pulled out his notes and spent the next few minutes telling Nate what he’d learned, beginning with the legend and describing in detail his process of discovery. Even he could hear the monotone in his voice. As Nate listened, he nodded continually, but when he finished, Jeremy could see wrinkles of concern forming on Nate’s forehead.

“The paper mill?” he said. “I was hoping it was some sort of government tests or something like that. Like the military testing a new plane or something.” He paused. “And you’re sure it’s not a military train? News folks love to expose anything about the military. Secret weapons programs, things like that. Or maybe you heard something out there that you couldn’t explain.”

“Sorry,” Jeremy said, his voice flat, “it’s just light that ricochets off the train. There weren’t any noises.”

Watching Nate, Jeremy could see the wheels turning. Nate, Jeremy had come to realize, had better instincts than his editors when it came to stories.

“It’s not much,” he said. “Did you find out which version of the legend was true? Maybe there’s something you could do with the race angle.”

Jeremy shook his head. “I haven’t been able to confirm that Hettie Doubilet even existed. Aside from the legends, I couldn’t find any record of her in any official documents. And Watts Landing is long gone.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be picky here, but you’ve got to pump up your delivery if you want this to work. If you’re not enthusiastic, they’re not going to be excited, either. Am I right or am I right? Of course, I’m right. But come on, be honest with me. You found something else, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alvin,” Nate said. “When he dropped off the videos, I asked him about the story just to get his impression, and he mentioned that you found something else that was interesting.”

Jeremy’s expression didn’t falter. “He did?”

“His words, not mine,” Nate said, looking pleased with himself.

“He didn’t tell me what it was, though. He said that was up to you. Which must mean that it’s big.”

Staring at Nate, he could practically feel the diary burning a hole through the fabric of his satchel. On the table, Nate fiddled with his fork, turning it over and back again, waiting.

“Well,” Jeremy began, knowing his time to make his decision had finally run out.

When he didn’t continue, Nate leaned forward. “Yes?”

That evening, after the meeting was concluded, Jeremy sat alone in his apartment, absently watching the world outside. It had begun to snow, and the flakes were a swirling, hypnotic mass under the glow of the streetlamp.

The meeting had started out well; Nate had revved the producers up to such an extent that they were transfixed by the images they saw. Nate had done the best he could. Afterward, Jeremy told them about the legend, noting their growing interest as he spoke of Hettie Doubilet, and the painstaking way he’d approached the investigation. He interspersed the story of Boone Creek with other investigations into the mysterious, and more than once, he saw the executives glance at each other, clearly trying to figure out how to work him into the show.

But as he sat alone later that night, the diary in his lap, he knew he wouldn’t be working with them. His story—the mystery of Boone Creek’s cemetery—was akin to an exciting novel that petered out at the end. The solution was too simple, too pat, and he’d sensed their disappointment by the time he said good-bye. Nate had promised to keep in touch, as they did, but Jeremy knew there would be no further calls.

As for the diary, he’d kept that to himself, as he had with Nate earlier.

Later, he made a phone call to Mayor Gherkin. Jeremy’s proposal was simple: Boone Creek would no longer promise visitors on the Historic Homes Tour a chance to see ghosts in the cemetery.

The word “haunted” would be removed from the brochure, as would any claims that the lights had anything to do with the supernatural. Instead, the legend’s history would be given full play, and visitors could be informed that they just might witness something spectacular. While some tourists might see the lights and wonder aloud if they were the ghosts from the legend, the volunteers who conducted the tours were told never to suggest as much. Finally, Jeremy asked the mayor to remove the T-shirts and cups from his department store downtown.

In exchange, Jeremy pomised he would never mention anything about Cedar Creek Cemetery on television, in his column, or in an independent article. He wouldn’t expose the mayor’s plan to turn the town into a ghostly version of Roswell, New Mexico, nor would he tell anyone in the town that the mayor had known the truth all along.

Mayor Gherkin accepted the offer. After hanging up, Jeremy called Alvin, whom he swore to secrecy.

True Believer

Twenty-one

In the days following Jeremy’s unsuccessful meeting with the producers, he focused his attention on trying to return to his previous routines. He spoke to his editor at Scientific American. Behind on his deadline and vaguely remembering something Nate had suggested to him, he agreed to do a column about the possible dangers of a low-carbohydrate diet. He spent hours on the Internet, scanning countless newspapers, looking for other stories that might be of interest. He was disappointed to learn that Clausen— with the help of a high-profile publicity firm in New York—had largely weathered the storm after Jeremy’s appearance on Prime-time and was still in negotiations for his own television show. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Jeremy, and he spent the rest of the day bemoaning the gullibility of true believers.

Little by little, he was getting himself back on track. Or, at least, he thought he was. Though he still thought of Lexie frequently, wondering whether she was busy preparing for her marriage to Rodney, he did his best to force those thoughts out of his mind. They were just too painful. Instead, he tried to resume the life he’d been living before he met Lexie. On Friday night, he went out to a nightclub. It didn’t go particularly well. Instead of mingling and trying to catch the attention of the women standing nearby, he sat at the bar nursing a single beer for most of the night, leaving long before he normally would have. The next day, he visited his family in Queens, but seeing his brothers and their wives playing with their kids only made him wish again for something that could never be.

By Monday noon, as another winter storm was settling in, he’d convinced himself that it was really over. She hadn’t called and neither had he. At times, those few days with Lexie seemed like nothing more than the mirage he’d been investigating. It couldn’t have been real, he told himself, but as he sat at his desk, he found himself thumbing through the postcards again, finally pinning the one of the library on the wall behind the desk.

He ordered lunch from the Chinese restaurant down the block for the third time in a week, then leaned back in his chair, wondering about the choices he’d made. For an instant, he wondered if Lexie would be eating at the same time he was, but the thought was interrupted by the buzz of the intercom.

He grabbed his wallet and headed toward the door. Through the static of the intercom, he heard a female voice.

“It’s open. Come on up.”

He riffled through his bills, pulled out a twenty, and reached for the door just as he heard the knock.

“That was fast,” he said. “Usually it takes . . .”

His voice trailed off as the door opened and he saw who was standing before him.

In the silence, he and his visitor stared at each other before Doris finally smiled.

“Surprise,” she said.

He blinked. “Doris?”

She stamped the snow off her shoes. “It’s a blizzard out there,” she said, “and it’s so icy I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. The taxi was sliding all over the road.”

He continued to stare, trying to make sense of her sudden appearance.

She slipped her handbag from her shoulder and met his gaze. “Are you going to make me wait out in the hallway, or are you going to invite me in?”

“Yeah . . . of course. Please . . . ,” he said, motioning her inside.

Doris moved past him and set her bag on the end table near the door. She glanced around his apartment and removed her jacket. “This is nice,” she said, walking around the living room. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be. But the stairs were a killer. You really need to get the elevator fixed.”

“Yeah . . . I know.”

She paused at the window. “But the city is beautiful, even in the storm. And so . . . busy. I can see why some people would want to live here.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you, of course.”

“About Lexie?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she sighed, then said evenly, “Among other things.” When his brow furrowed, she shrugged. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tea, would you? I’m still a little chilly.”

“But . . .”

“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” she said, her voice holding steady. “I know you have questions, but it’s going to take a while. So how about some tea?”

Jeremy went into the small kitchen and heated a cup of water in the microwave. After adding a tea bag, he carried the cup back to the living room, where he found Doris sitting on the couch. He handed her the cup, and she took a sip almost immediately.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t call. I know I should have. You must be pretty shocked. But I wanted to talk to you in person.”

“How did you know where I live?”

“I talked to your friend Alvin. He told me.”

“You talked to Alvin?”

“Yesterday,” she said. “He had given his phone number to Rachel, so I called him, and he was kind enough to give me your address. I wish I’d had the chance to meet him while he was in Boone Creek. He seemed like a perfect gentleman.”

Jeremy sensed that the small talk was a sign of mounting nervousness and decided to say nothing. He knew she was simply trying to work up to whatever it was she was going to say.

The buzzer sounded again and Doris glanced toward the door. “That’s my lunch,” he said, annoyed by the distraction. “Give me a minute, okay?”

He rose from his seat, pressed the intercom, and unlocked his door; as he waited, he glimpsed Doris smoothing her blouse. A moment later, she fidgeted again, and for some reason, the fact that she was nervous helped to steady his own nerves. He drew a long breath and stepped out into the hallway, meeting the deliveryman as he emerged from the stairwell.

Jeremy came back in and was just about to set the bag of food on the kitchen counter when he heard Doris behind him.

“What did you order?”

“Beef with broccoli, pork fried rice.”

“It smells good.”

It was, perhaps, the way she said it that made him smile. “Would you like me to make up a couple of plates?”

“I wouldn’t want to take your food.”

“There’s plenty,” he said, reaching for some plates. “And besides, didn’t you tell me that you like to talk over a good meal?”

He spooned out the food, then brought it to the table; Doris sat down next to him.

Again, he decided to let her begin, and they ate in silence for a few minutes.

“This is delicious,” she finally said. “I didn’t have any breakfast, and I guess I didn’t realize how hungry I was. It’s quite a trip to get here. I had to leave at crack of dawn, and my flight was delayed. The weather had everything backed up, and for a while there, I wasn’t sure we’d even take off. I was nervous, too. It was the first

time I’ve ever flown.”

“Oh?”

“Never had a reason to. Lexie asked me to come up and visit her while she lived up here, but my husband wasn’t in the best of health and I just never got around to it. Then she moved back. She was quite a wreck back then. I know you probably think she’s tough and strong, but that’s just what she wants others to believe. Underneath, she’s like everyone else, and she was crushed by what happened with Avery.” Doris hesitated. “She told you about him, right?”

“Yes.”

“She suffered in silence, kept up the brave front, but I knew how upset she was. There was nothing I could do for her. She hid it by keeping busy, running from here to there, talking to everyone and trying to make sure they had the impression that she was okay. You can’t imagine how helpless that made me feel.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because she’s acting the same way now.”

Jeremy moved his food around with his fork. “I wasn’t the one who ended it, Doris.”

“I know that, too.”

“Then why talk to me?”

“Lexie won’t listen.”

Despite the tension, Jeremy laughed. “I guess that means you think I’m a pushover?”

“No,” she said. “But what I’m hoping is that you’re not as stubborn as she is.”

“Even if I’m willing to try again, it’s still up to her.”

Doris watched him carefully. “Do you really believe that?”

“I tried to talk to her. I told her I wanted to find a way to make the relationship work.”

Instead of responding to his comment, Doris asked, “You were married once, weren’t you?”

“A long time ago. Did Lexie tell you that?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve known it since our first conversation.”

“Psychic abilities again?”

“No, nothing like that. It has more to do with the way you interact with women. You carry yourself with the sort of confidence that a lot of women find appealing. At the same time, I had the sense that you understand what women want, but that for some reason you’re unwilling to give yourself completely.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Women want the fairy tale. Not all women, of course, but most women grow up dreaming about the kind of man who would risk everything for them, even knowing they might get hurt.” She paused. “Kind of like the way you went to find Lexie at the beach. That’s why she fell in love with you.”

“She’s not in love with me.”

“Yes, she is.”

Jeremy opened his mouth to deny it but couldn’t. Instead, he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. She’s marrying Rodney.”

Doris stared at him. “No, she isn’t. But before you think it was her way of pushing you away, you should know that she only said it so that if you did leave, she wouldn’t lie awake at night wondering why you never came back for her.” She paused, letting that sink in. “And besides, you didn’t really believe her, anyway, did you?”

It was the way Doris said this that made him remember his initial response when Lexie first told him about Rodney. No, he suddenly realized, he hadn’t believed it then.

Doris reached across the table and took his hand.

“You’re a good man, Jeremy. And you deserved the truth, which was why I came up here.”

She stood from the table. “I’ve got a flight to catch. If I don’t get back tonight, Lexie’s going to know something’s up. I’d rather she didn’t know I came up here.”

“That’s quite a trip. You could have simply called.”

“I know. But I had to see your face.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to know if you were in love with her, too.” She patted

him on the shoulder before heading to the living room, where she

picked up her handbag. “Doris?” Jeremy called out. She turned. “Yes?” “Did you find the answer you were hoping for?” She smiled. “The real question is, did you?”