Never Too Late, page 9
And on Sunday, Reed went to Guijá to send some emails and get some supplies. He looked sober when he returned. The others were at lunch when he walked in. Pru could see something was wrong. “Was everything all right in town?” she asked him.
“I heard some shocking news. There was an attack on New York two days ago, terrorists like 9/11. They all but destroyed the Empire State Building, the new World Trade Center, and an enormous mall area with apartment buildings adjacent to it. Thousands were killed, and many more injured. All U.S. cities are under lockdown, the borders are closed, and the airports are shut down. Nothing can get in or out of the States right now. Have you heard from your mother?” Reed asked her.
Kate looked worried. “I don’t get cell service here.” Reed nodded and knew that was true.
“I’ll drive you back to Guijá later, and you can try there or send her an email. I hope she’s all right. I’m sure she is. Does she live close to any of the damaged buildings?” Kate shook her head, shocked by what he’d told them.
“She lives in midtown. She just moved in. Those buildings are all downtown. Did they say who did it?”
“It sounds like they don’t know, or they’re not saying. It’s obviously foreign nationals.”
As promised, Reed drove Kate back to Guijá that afternoon. Kate couldn’t get a phone line, due to disturbances on the line in the area, but she was able to send an email, telling her mother she was fine, and hoped she was too. She tried to reach Felicity in France but couldn’t get through to her either. It sounded like a replay of 9/11. She read the reports on the internet and was shocked at the descriptions and the photographs she saw of Friday night in New York. It seemed very unreal. The images were devastating, and it all seemed so far away right now, and surreal.
She talked to Jack about it that night. “Maybe we should go home,” she said hesitantly.
“I thought you wanted to spend time with your father.” He looked puzzled and disappointed. He was having a good time. And he liked Pru.
“I did, I do. We’ve had some good talks, but I don’t want my mother alone in New York, and Felicity is in France. But they say the borders are closed. We can’t go back until they open them, and the airports.”
“That could last several weeks. We might as well stay here, since we’ve come this far.” Africa felt like it was light-years from home. Jack was in no hurry to leave. He had an audience here and was enjoying showing off his knowledge of the local tribes.
They drove back to Guijá again on Monday, to get more news. Kate got an email from her mother saying she was fine, when Kate was able to use the Wi-Fi connection. The reports of the dead and injured were heartbreaking. Kate cried when she read them. She announced at dinner that she should go back to New York as soon as the borders opened. She didn’t want her mother to be alone. And what if there was another terrorist attack, and that had just been the opening salvo? That had been one of the primary fears of 9/11 too, although a second wave of attacks had never happened.
“I don’t think they would attack again,” Reed said, and Jack agreed.
“It sounds like they did enough damage to satisfy them on Friday night, from what you read,” Jack added. He wanted to stay. “If we do go back, we should go up to your place in Vermont. We’ll be safer there.”
“I’m not leaving my mother when I go back,” Kate said firmly, wishing she could reach Felicity, but it seemed hopeless to try and contact her sister, or even her mother, by phone. The service was just too poor.
Kate was uneasy for the next several days. It was a long week until she read on the internet in Guijá that the borders were now open and planes were flying again. Kate had been in Tomanini for a week by then, and it seemed long enough. She had met her father and discovered that he was a hardworking, responsible, and respectable man, doing good work helping others, but she had fewer illusions about him now. He was a man, like any other, with his flaws, and you couldn’t turn the clock back, to recapture all the lost years. He’d been happy to meet Kate, but he was far more interested in his own daily life than hers, and didn’t try to hide it, or pretend otherwise. Pru catered to his narcissism, which suited him. New York was so far away, it was hard for him to relate to it. At the end of the week on Saturday they went to Guijá again, and booked a flight for Monday. On Sunday Jack and Kate made their way back to Johannesburg with Pru’s car and a driver, and stayed at a hotel for the night. Jack went out to dinner with his cousin Chad alone, and Kate stayed in her room to try to contact her mother and sister. She was able to reach both. It had been a stressful week in New York, under lockdown, and Felicity was flying back from Paris on Monday too. Kate and Felicity agreed that they would all feel better once they were back in New York and they knew more about what was going on. But at least their mother was safe.
* * *
—
When Kate left her father’s hospital on Sunday, she felt that she had been given the time she needed to at least understand who he was. She no longer had the regrets she had before about his giving up his parental rights to her. She had been well loved by her mother and grandfather, and then by the father who adopted her.
“Thank you for coming,” Reed said to her politely, as though Kate had come to tea or for a weekend, and not halfway around the world to meet him and hear his side of the story. Pru hugged her and wished her a safe trip home. Reed hugged her too, but she realized now that he wasn’t a warm person, or he could never have done what he had thirty-seven years before. He had kept his own goals in mind and stuck to them, and never looked back. He had no regrets about leaving her. It had been the right thing for him. What she had seen of him was enough to put her heart at rest at last. His rejection of her wasn’t personal, he just didn’t have it in him. Discovering that had freed her.
“I enjoyed it, didn’t you?” Jack said, looking relaxed and pleased with the trip, after they drove away. “Do you think it will help your writing?” he asked her, and she nodded, thinking about it. It had done much more than that, for her personally.
“Yes, I do.” She had come to find her father, and instead, she had found herself, which was more important.
“Do you think you’ll come back?” he asked her, and she looked pensive, and shook her head. She no longer had a pressing desire to meet her half brother either. They weren’t her family. They weren’t even friends.
“I don’t think so,” she answered Jack. “I don’t need to.” She had learned all she needed to. She was free now. Reed wasn’t her father. He never had been. He had given all that up thirty-seven years before. Now she was ready to give him up too. It was long overdue.
Chapter 6
By Sunday, two days after the bombing, they were no longer finding survivors. The explosions had been too powerful, and people had been buried for too long. The workers were only finding bodies buried in the rubble, so they no longer needed Kezia’s medical skills at the bomb site. All the living victims had been removed and were in hospitals, many or most of them in intensive care units. The death toll continued to rise as more bodies were found, and as many of the most severely injured died from internal injuries, severed limbs, or severe burns. Those who were less injured were released, although most were severely traumatized by what they’d experienced and seen, and were grieving the friends and loved ones they had lost, many of whom had been killed while standing right next to them. It was a horrendous attack, even more gruesome than 9/11. The country would be marked forever by it, as it had been before. The violation of being attacked on home turf made it that much worse, and no one felt safe now, as cities remained tense and vigilant, fearing additional attacks. But in the two days after the July Fourth explosions, nothing happened. What had already occurred was bad enough. The entire country was suffering from the trauma, people had nightmares and trouble sleeping, whether they had lost loved ones or not. The country remained under lockdown, and people were urged not to leave their homes.
Sam had gone back to the site at the World Trade Center on Sunday morning, but the authorities and official OES personnel had things in control, still excavating for bodies and clearing away rubble. There was little he could do, and he came home to find Kezia on her terrace on what should have been a glorious July day. Even the beautiful weather seemed like an affront now, with so much grief and loss at hand.
He peeked through the hedge that had become the link between their two apartments, for rapid easy access, like a secret passage, rather than separate lobbies and elevators for more formal access, and Kezia looked up, saw him, and smiled. In the past two days, Sam had become a familiar face and constant companion, which formed a friendship that might have taken months to establish otherwise. She was happy to see him. It was comforting not to be alone, and she had been touched by his quick response and willingness to help in the crisis. He felt a civic and humane responsibility to his fellow New Yorkers and citizens, just because they were human beings. She gestured for him to sit on the deck chair next to her. She was glad she had them, although in broad daylight, the ravaged view of the Empire State Building made her heart ache every time she saw it, knowing how many people had died there, even though it had been a Friday night and offices were closed on the holiday. There had been a large crowd in the observatory, to watch the fireworks. People in the street had died when the structural debris rained on them from the explosion and the flames engulfed them.
“How was it?” Kezia asked him. She was thinking of volunteering at one of the hospitals, but there would be more red tape and delay involved than lending a hand on the street right after it happened.
“They’re doing a great job. It sounds corny but the last few days make you proud to be an American. They have it pretty much under control downtown. There wasn’t much I could do in a nonofficial capacity.”
“The last two days really made me miss nursing,” she said, as they lay on the deck chairs side by side. She felt as though she had always known him, and he acted as though they had.
“Would you ever go back?” Sam asked.
“I never thought so, but I’m wondering about that now. It reminded me of everything I loved about nursing. It makes you feel useful. My kids are grown up, and we sold my husband’s company, which kept me busy for the last five years. I have nothing to do now, except shop, go to museums, and go out for lunch. If I take a refresher course, I could get a part-time job as a nurse practitioner, maybe at a clinic for inner city kids, and give something back, instead of just indulging myself.” She liked the idea, and he was impressed.
“You gave a lot back for the last two days.” He had watched how kind and competent Kezia was, reassuring people in their pain and distress. Her hands had been covered with blood from all the hands she held, until someone gave her a pair of surgical gloves.
“What do you do between films?” she asked him. It was the first time she had referred to Sam’s professional work. His stardom seemed like the least important thing about him, and he paid no attention to it either, or seemed not to. He was a very humble person.
“Most of the time, I hunt for scripts. It’s not easy to find good ones. People send them to me. I read a lot of books to see what we could adapt. I’m very picky about the films I do.” It showed, since Kezia had never seen him in a bad one, or one she didn’t like. He had made few mistakes, if any. “I spend time with my son when he has time.” Sam smiled as he said it. “He’s a busy guy. He works hard, and he has a revolving door of girlfriends, but at his age, that’s to be expected and it’s acceptable, although I’m not always crazy about the woman of the hour. He likes the flashy ones, and some of the smart ones. He’s a good-looking kid, and he’s a magnet for overambitious, greedy women, who see him as a stepping stone to what they want. I hate that for him. I avoided it by getting married young, before I was successful. I came from a normal family. They did okay. My father had a good job as a lawyer, but he wasn’t overly ambitious. We were comfortable, but he didn’t make a lot of money. I grew up in Philadelphia, and went to Penn. My mother didn’t work. We were three boys, and we were expected to do well in school. Both my brothers became lawyers and worked with my dad. I was the youngest, and one of them is retired now, the oldest. Our other brother died fairly young.
“I wanted to be an actor. The whole family thought I was nuts. After I graduated from Penn, I went to L.A., which is where I met my wife. I got lucky after I took some acting lessons. We were both lucky, but she had more talent. It was easier then. I don’t even know most of the young actors now. They come and go faster than I can learn their names. The studios used to build careers then. They wanted real stars that people would be loyal to, and they were. If you worked hard, most of the time you could be successful, with some good decisions and a certain amount of luck and hard work. Nowadays, they’re in and out of the business, and want to be stars overnight. I don’t believe in overnight success. I believe in hard work, and after a lot of years and sweat and some tears, it pays off. That makes more sense.” It did to Kezia too. “There are only a handful of actors I really admire who have genuine talent and work at it. My wife was a talented actress, more so than I am, as I said.” Kezia was struck again and again by his humility and how down-to-earth he was. She was curious about his son and wondered if he was as genuine as his father. She felt sorry for Sam for the loss of his wife. He had clearly loved her a great deal and it sounded like a good marriage.
“My husband was a hard worker too,” Kezia said about Andrew. “He didn’t believe in easy success either, like all the young guys now who make billions at twenty-three and twenty-four with social media companies, and don’t know how they got there. It’s like winning the lottery.”
“It’s an amazing phenomenon of our times. I like it better the way it was. At least I know I earned it, and I made it honestly. I sleep better at night.”
They lay side by side for a while, not talking, and Kezia got them bottles of cold water, and he thanked her. It was comforting being together in a time of crisis. It would have been much harder without him, and Sam felt that way too about her.
“Have you heard from your daughters today?”
“Not yet. I’m sure they’ll come home as soon as planes can fly again. They’ll be nervous being so far away, but maybe they’re safer where they are. The scary part of all this is that you feel so vulnerable, right here at home, waiting to be attacked again, and not sure if you will be.” Sam nodded agreement. He was worried about it too. He was relieved that his son was out of town with his girlfriend in the Berkshires.
“I thought we were under missile attack the other night,” Sam said to her. “It was inconceivable to me that it was happening right here in New York, again, and worse than last time.” The death toll was much higher now, and the entire country had been taken totally by surprise both times, now and on 9/11. “We weren’t prepared for an attack of this magnitude on home turf.”
Sam fell asleep on the deck chair for a while, and Kezia couldn’t help noticing how handsome he was, but he didn’t play on it or use it, or even seem aware of it, although “officially” he was a movie star. She still found it hard to believe that she had met him and that they were becoming friends now.
His cellphone woke him, and he answered it. He listened for a few minutes and said he would call back, and turned to Kezia. “That was Louise. She wants to know if we want to come to dinner tonight. Does that appeal to you? I don’t mind making a salad at my place if you want to do that with me, if you’re not in the mood to see her, or if you want to be on your own,” he said casually. He clearly wanted to spend the evening with Kezia, and she liked the idea. They had nothing else to do. He was good company, and the entire city was closed. They couldn’t even order a pizza or takeout, and a little distraction was comforting.
“I like her a lot, that would be nice,” Kezia said, feeling relaxed and happy to spend the evening with him either way. He called Louise back and accepted for both of them. Kezia wasn’t sure if that was his idea or Louise’s, and if he had included her in an invitation meant for him.
“She said to wear whatever we have on. She always wears her black skirts and black T-shirts or blouses. It’s sort of her uniform. I’ll put on jeans.” He was wearing shorts on the terrace, and she wasn’t even wearing makeup and had barely combed her hair. She felt relaxed with him, and they had already seen each other at their worst, so it didn’t matter.
* * *
—
They went to their own apartments at the end of the afternoon, to shower and put on whatever they were going to wear. Kezia reappeared in a white T-shirt, jeans, and gold sandals, with her hair brushed back in a ponytail and a freshly washed face with just a little lipstick. Putting on makeup seemed like too much effort in the situation they were in, and too festive. Sam was wearing a blue shirt, white jeans, and loafers, his dark hair still damp from the shower, but she noticed that he’d shaved.
When they got to Louise’s apartment, Kezia was surprised to see that another couple was there. The man was about Sam and Kezia’s age, somewhere in his late fifties, and the woman with him was very attractive, around forty years old, with well-cut, highlighted blond hair. They seemed very subdued. Louise explained that the couple were her neighbors and they had become friends in the last few years. It became clear in the conversation that Greg Avery was a big film studio executive, and divided his time between New York and L.A. The woman with him was clearly his girlfriend. Paige Robbins was very quiet, and in talking to her, Kezia discovered that she was an executive for a major fashion brand and had a big job in marketing. She was very discreet about it and let Greg have center stage, which he took over with ease. He was charming and funny, and Louise whispered to Kezia when they went out to the kitchen to get dinner ready, “She’s worth ten of him.” Oddly, he seemed to pay no attention to Paige, or very little. He spoke mainly to Sam and Louise, and Kezia enjoyed talking to Paige. She was interesting and well-traveled, knowledgeable on a number of subjects, and very indulgent of her partner, who talked mostly about his own success, in case they were unaware of it. Sam knew him, having met him several times, and wasn’t overly impressed with him. Greg was the opposite of Sam, who never mentioned his movies or his stardom. The dynamics of the evening were interesting. Sam was much warmer and friendlier to Kezia, in a nice way, than Greg was with Paige. Louise made pasta carbonara and a big salad, with fruit for dessert. It was delicious and easy, with a lot of good French wine. It was a very pleasant evening, and Kezia was happy to have met Paige.
