Barbara White - The In-Between Hour

Just as his dad had never let go of his mom, he would never let go of Freddie.

He would never stop missing Freddie, and he shouldn’t have tried. He shouldn’t stomp down the memories. He should bust them open. He should celebrate Freddie’s life.

As soon as he got back to his apartment, he would start researching Freddie’s adventure. His last, great adventure. And for as long as it took, he would hold Freddie in the present tense.

* * *

The second he picked up his phone, Will knew he’d screwed up. Four text messages from Ally, all variations on a theme: “Where the hell are you, and why are you not answering your phone?” Then one message that said, “Have you lost your freakin’ mind?”

As he tugged his T-shirt over his neck, he glimpsed the tiny scar Ally’s teeth had left on his bicep. Thanks to his mother’s stories, he’d grown up believing that true love was a narrow path with room for only one. What a masochistic legacy to hand a commitment-phobe.

They were five years old with his-’n’-hers scraped knees when Ally bit him. It was the first time he’d tried to kiss her. He tried again at seventeen, adding a declaration of love, and she slapped him. There hadn’t been a third time. When her husband lost his Wall Street job five years ago and Will hired her, even he hadn’t been sure of his motivation. But the moment Freddie entered his life, that whimsical decision to put Ally on his payroll proved to be the wisest move he’d ever made. After all, Ally had been guarding his secrets since grade school. She’d always had his back.

He hit speed dial one and pictured five feet two inches of brown-eyed female indignation.

“You went soloing?” she yelled.

“How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t be a very effective P.A. if I couldn’t weasel information out of your publicist, would I?”

Damn. That was a silly mistake. Why had he felt the need to explain his absence from the weekly spin session?

“So, what’s up?” he said.

“A journalist from the National Enquirer. She was prowling around outside the apartment when I stopped in to check messages. She wanted to know if you were the father of Cass’s little boy.”

Will ground his teeth. “What did you tell her?”

“To move or I’d call the cops, you dolt.”

“She’s just fishing, eliminating former lovers by the math of dates. No one’s buying the story that the poor loser who died in the crash with them was Freddie’s father.” Will and Cass had only agreed on one thing outside of the bedroom: keeping Freddie’s life private and his paternity secret. Will had expected everything to change once Freddie entered the school system, but Cass, who loved to travel on a whim, kept insisting on private tutoring. No preschool, no kindergarten, but Will had been gearing up to fight for first grade. A kid needed friends. How else could he survive his parents?

“No one knows the truth except you and Seth.”

“Not strictly true. Your entire P.R. office knows. And so does Cass’s publicity machine—”

“Ally, I just worked hard to clean Cass out of my mind. Can we not talk about her?”

Ally sighed heavily. “You scared me. I thought you’d do something stupid.”

Will fiddled with the beads wound around his wrist. A one-of-a-kind gift of mini skulls strung together like shrunken heads, the friendship bracelet had been Ally’s idea of a joke the first time he hit the New York Times bestseller list: In case you get bigheaded. The one person who knew him better than anyone, and even she didn’t understand. He hadn’t driven to the Gunks that morning to end his life. He’d been trying to save it.

“Come on, darling. You know me better than that.”

“Will, you’ve barely left the apartment in three months, and suddenly you want to shimmy up a rock face alone and unroped?”

“I picked a climb I’ve done many times before.”

“When you had good reasons to live.”

“I still do.”

“Not that I don’t agree with you, but since you refuse to talk with a therapist about any of this, it’s my job to make sure you’re thinking straight. What, exactly, do you have to live for? And if you answer the Agent Dodds movie deal, I’ll bite your other bicep.”

“You. Your poor, long-suffering husband. The chocolate mimosa you guys gave me for my thirtieth birthday. My dad. All good reasons to live. Happy?”

“If you’d told me you were going, I would have come along. Kept my eye on you.”

There was a time when the thought of Ally watching him climb would have floated his boat for all eternity. Loving her had saved him many times, but like the healed scar, it was no longer a mark of anything more than his past.

“I wanted to be alone. I came here to work the piss out of a route and get my head together.”

“Be one with the rock?”

“If you want to put it that simplistically, yeah. Look, I didn’t mean to cause worry. Why don’t you take Seth out for dinner on the corporate credit card? A pre-Halloween bonus.”

“What the hell is a pre-Halloween bonus?”

“A gift from a grateful boss. Listen, I’m going to find somewhere to stay overnight. I’ll be back in the city tomorrow.”

“You want us to come join you?”

“No. It’s ninety miles—a colossal waste of time and money.”

“Promise me you’re okay, Will. No bull. Just you and me and the truth.”

Will looked back at the mountains. “I’m good.”

“Okay, but do me a favor. Please take an hour to check your email, answer some messages. Act like a guy who cares about his business.”

“I don’t need to care about my business. That’s why I have you.”

“Will—”

He knew that tone.

“Let it go, Ally. I’m doing all I can right now.”

“I know. Love you.”

“Ditto.”

“And, Will? Don’t forget you have a hair appointment tomorrow at four. Please don’t make me reschedule again. You look like a surfer dude with a really bad dye job.”

Will ducked down and glanced in his wing mirror. She had a point. He inspected a clump of dirty-blond hair. The tip was platinum—discolored by the sun during his last climb. He stood and tried to run his hand through what used to be his bangs, but his fingers snagged on a huge knot.

“Go henpeck your husband.”

She gave a laugh. “Bye, you.”

Will stared at his phone. Might as well take ten minutes to dump emails. Trashing unread messages was strangely liberating. Grief had either desensitized him or revealed that ninety percent of his life was disposable. He clicked on the email icon and began deleting. He stopped, finding one he should read—one from Hawk’s Ridge. What was his dad’s latest infraction? Will huffed out a sigh. Had the old man demanded pancakes? Circulated another petition for a fall dance?

Dear Mr. Shepard, the director had written, I trust this email will solicit prompt action on your part.

Pinching his thumb and forefinger together, Will touched the scene and then spread his fingers apart to zoom in on the type.

His dad had been right all along. Fucking bastards.

Four

Blinding October sunlight burst through the trees, jolting Will’s attention to his speedometer. Eighty-five, he was clocking eighty-five. Flying, rather than driving. He slammed his foot on the brake pedal, and the tailgating idiot behind blasted his horn.

Will pulled into the inside lane and waved. Dickhead.

One state away and already he was thinking like his dad. Will hit Pause on his iPod. Bad enough to be heading back to Orange County, North Carolina. He didn’t need to mess with his head by listening to the drumbeat of a Boxer Rebellion song that summoned up the ghost of powwows past.

Why hadn’t he waited for sunup and dealt with this latest crisis by phone? Why had he driven back to New York, packed an overnight bag and jumped into the Prius at two in the morning like Batman on an ecofriendly mission? Will Shepard planned and orchestrated, didn’t do spontaneity, never released anger, but here he was, acting like a caped avenger. Rushing to defend what remained of his dad’s honor. Trying to save someone who likely as not could no longer be saved.