Julie Clark - The Last Flight

At first the story was slow to take shape, while Rory’s attorneys battled to uphold the nondisclosure agreement. But once he lost, a crash of information flooded the media, with something new released almost every day—the fight Rory and Maggie had the night she died, how it had ended with her unconscious at the bottom of the stairs and Rory scrambling to save himself from what he believed he’d done. How Rory had driven straight to Charlie’s apartment, only a few blocks away from his on the West Side. At the time, she’d tried to help him. She believed the story he’d told, a deer in the road on his way back to the city, the car on the verge of going into a ditch, a close call that had him severely rattled. Until news of Maggie’s death started to emerge. Charlie, who was young and in love with Rory, and had once hoped Rory would leave Maggie for her, began to grow alarmed. When she started asking questions, Rory’s father paid her to keep quiet and then slammed her with a nondisclosure agreement so steep it guaranteed she’d stay that way.

For years, she’d tried to leave it behind her, until the rumors of Rory’s run for Senate surfaced. Charlie was no longer a scared twenty-year-old. Like many, she’d grown tired of watching powerful men never being held accountable, boys will be boys evolving into an impenetrable armor, shielding them from blame.

The media had a field day. Revisiting the summer Maggie Moretti died, reprinting old articles with updated information, interviewing her friends again, this time adding in Charlie and her relationship with Rory, which overlapped the one he had with Maggie by several months. Everyone wanting to know more about the love triangle, to look into every corner and see something new. To be the outlet that got the newest morsel to dish out via Twitter.

I’ve tried to stay out of the spotlight, but Kate Lane was right. My first week back, I’d made the cover of People , my face turned in three-quarter profile, my hair returned to its original shade, and the headline “Resurrected.”

While most people were sympathetic, having harbored doubts about Rory’s involvement in Maggie’s death for years, there were others who attacked me viciously, questioning my character, calling me a gold digger, a vindictive wife bent on destroying all the Cook family had built. Blaming me for the fact that the Cook Family Foundation was now under investigation by the New York Attorney General for allegations of misuse of charitable assets and improper self-dealing.

Through the LLC documents, my attorneys have been able to shield me from legal jeopardy, and I’m free to leave the state. New York isn’t home anymore. I can’t wait to get back to California and away from this circus.

I enter my office, where stacks of boxes line the walls. Armed with a very specific list and a limited window of time fiercely negotiated by my attorneys, I’m here to get what belongs to me. My clothes. My jewelry. My personal items. My gaze falls on the photograph of my mother and Violet on the wall, and this time I lift it off its hook and place it with the other things I’m taking with me. I let my eyes linger on my sister’s smile, the way the dimple creases her left cheek, the way the sun shines through her hair as it blows in the wind, making it look like spun gold. The memories feel sweet when they come, instead of the sharp ache I’ve been running from for so many years.

I pick up a small statue, six inches tall, an original Rodin that Rory bought last year, and think of how much money I could get if I sold it. But it’s not on my list. Aside from my own things, all our joint assets are locked down, though really there’s very little I want or need in my new life in Berkeley.

Kelly had helped me find an apartment. I’d called her a few days after my CNN interview, after I’d met with my attorneys and begun the long process of unraveling everything I’d done.

By that time, I was leading the news on every network and cable news show. “Holy shit, Eva,” she’d said, and then caught herself. “Sorry. I guess I should call you Claire.”

I smiled and sat down on the bed in the hotel room my attorneys were paying for, exhausted from hours of depositions. We were only going to be there for a few more days, and then I’d have to return to New York to finish up. I imagined her on campus somewhere, her backpack heavy with books, pausing on one of the shady paths that crisscrossed campus to take my call. “I’m sorry I misled you.”

“No, I’m sorry the job I got you started this mess.”

“It would have happened eventually, one way or another. The life I was trying to live would have been unsustainable.” I cleared my throat. “Listen, you mentioned you could help me find a place to live? After all of this is finished, I’d really like to stay in Berkeley.”

“Let me make a few phone calls and get back to you,” she said.

The apartment was located on a narrow street that wound up the hill behind the football stadium, the top floor of a narrow wooden structure nestled in between the towering trees of Strawberry Canyon. The landlady, Mrs. Crespi, was a friend of Kelly’s mother and was more than happy to rent it to me. She warned us that parking could be troublesome on game days and that the sound of the cannon they fired after touchdowns could be startling at first. It had about forty wooden stairs, and when we reached the top, Mrs. Crespi opened the door and stepped aside so I could enter first. Not even eight hundred square feet, it was like a tree house. Kelly huffed next to me and said, “You might want to think about grocery delivery. I can’t imagine carrying anything heavier than a purse all the way up here.”

“I have three tenants, professional women like yourself,” Mrs. Crespi said. “I charge fifteen hundred dollars a month, but that includes all utilities. If you decide to take it, I’ll need first and last for security deposit. And the furniture can stay since it’s difficult to move things in and out of here. I can have it professionally cleaned if you like.”

My attorneys had negotiated a monthly stipend, although it wasn’t much. I’d have to sell all my jewelry and find a job, but I was looking forward to the chance to be on my own. To earn my own way. “That should work,” I said, stepping into the living room and kitchen space.

Even though I knew it was going to be small, the fact that nearly the entire west side of the room was glass made the apartment seem bigger. A sage-green couch faced the window, with a small TV mounted on a stand next to the front door. Behind us, a tiny kitchen with a patch of counter space for food prep, a stove, and a refrigerator took up the back of the room. Beyond that was a short hallway leading toward a bathroom and tiny bedroom.

I walked to the window. A blanket of green treetops swooped down the hill, with the university buildings tucked in between them, glowing like half-buried treasures in the late afternoon light. Beyond that, San Francisco Bay shimmered, the sun casting the city skyline and bridge in the distance as a silhouette. “I love it,” I said, turning to face Kelly and Mrs. Crespi.

A smile illuminated Mrs. Crespi’s wrinkled face. “I’m so glad.” She opened the file she was holding and handed me a lease agreement. “You can move in whenever you’re ready.”

I took the paperwork from her and grinned. “I’m ready now,” I said, and turned back to the view again.

* * *

“Do you want me to pack up everything in the bathroom, or do you want to go through the drawers yourself?” Petra stands in the doorway to my office, and I turn from the box I’ve been sorting through to face her. When I’d returned to New York, she had been the one to pick me up from the airport. She’d waited until we were safely in the back of the town car she’d hired before falling apart.