Just Once Page 2

  When Charley Blackwell looked at you, you felt special. When he took your picture, you became immortal. People trusted Charley. They loved him. Frankie had.

  When he broke her heart, he broke it forever. Sure, she’d survived. Didn’t we all? But she was never again the woman she’d been before she’d lost him.

  Frankie’s hands seemed empty without her camera. She felt more naked without it than without her bra. With a camera, Frankie could distance anyone just by bringing the viewfinder to her eye.

  It also made a great weapon. Just ask Charley. He’d saved himself in countless dicey situations by bashing someone on the head with his Nikon. Right now, she really wanted to bash him.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Charley?’

  ‘I live here.’

  He sounded so certain that she pinched herself to see if, maybe, this was a dream. It was strange enough.

  Her fingernails left half-moon marks in her arm; the pinch pinched. She didn’t wake up.

  ‘You don’t live here any more.’

  He laughed – the big, booming Charley laugh she’d fallen in love with. ‘Did you toss my clothes on the lawn again?’

  ‘I only did that once.’ Of course the time he’d really deserved it, the time he’d admitted to boinking an editorial assistant – worse, to loving an editorial assistant – she’d been too devastated to do anything but curl into a ball and cry.

  ‘Seemed like more.’

  Frankie made a soft sound of amusement and his smile deepened. He grabbed her hand before she could stop him. ‘Let’s go to bed. I’m beat.’ He started up the stairs, tugging her along.

  She hung back. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  Because there was something wrong. Very.

  ‘Nothing that twelve hours in the sack with you won’t cure.’

  Frankie shook her head to try and make the weird buzzing in her ears stop.

  Charley took it as a ‘no’, which it also was. ‘Still working? OK.’

  He continued up the stairs, his hiking boots silent on the new plush carpet, but instead of going into what had once been their bedroom on the left, he turned into the room on the right. He immediately came out. For the first time since he’d walked through her door, uncertainty flickered across his face. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  He glanced into the room again, then back. ‘Where’s Lisa?’

  Gooseflesh broke out everywhere on Frankie’s body. She tried to breathe, but the air she drew into her lungs tasted like fire, burned like it too. Maybe there was a fire, because her eyes suddenly watered as if smoke billowed all around.

  Why would he ask that? How could he ask that?

  Their daughter was dead.

  ‘Did you let Lisa stay at a friend’s? You knew I was coming home and that I’d want to see her.’

  Frankie stood in the foyer, gaping like a kamikaze goldfish that had flipped from the bowl and on to the floor. She could not draw in enough air.

  ‘Fancy? You OK?’

  Neither of them was OK, but one of them was less OK than the other. Right now, as black dots began to dance in front of her eyes, Frankie wasn’t sure which one that was.

  Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Charley smacked her – hard – in the center of her back. She gasped and began to breathe again.

  Charley pulled Frankie into his arms. She was so loopy she let him.

  He smelled exactly the same beneath that gamey, too-long-in-a-plane smell. Since Frankie had met him he’d used a shower gel that brought to mind fresh herbs just sprouted in a sunny garden. Every time she caught a whiff of basil, Frankie thought of Charley. Right after the divorce, she’d been unable to prepare any of her mother’s Italian recipes. The instant Frankie smelled those herbs she’d felt sick. It had been years before she could stomach bruschetta again, and it had once been her favorite.

  Frankie stepped out of Charley’s arms. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right.

  ‘I’ll see Lisa tomorrow,’ Charley said. ‘I’m beat. You sure you’re OK?’

  Frankie hadn’t said she was – and in fact she really wasn’t – but she nodded, and he ran upstairs and disappeared into their – her – room. Frankie collapsed on to the couch and tried to make sense of things.

  Charley seemed to have forgotten the past twenty-four years. Couldn’t blame him. There had been many times during them when she’d wanted to forget too. Even odder was that he hadn’t noticed her graying hair, sagging face, rounder body.

  And what about the house? Frankie hadn’t changed much downstairs – new carpet, but the same shade; she was pretty sure she’d painted a few walls; she’d definitely painted the kitchen cabinets to complement the new volcanic rock countertop.

  But Lisa’s room had more changes than simply the lack of Lisa. It was still a bedroom, but for guests. Frankie had replaced the pink throw rug with white plush, wall-to-wall. The canopy bed was now a Sleep Number, complete with a black upholstered headboard. The quilt wasn’t pink either but bright red. All the stuffed animals were gone.

  Frankie grabbed her computer and Googled ‘stroke’. Symptoms were confusion—

  ‘I’ll say.’

  Combined with trouble speaking and understanding.

  Well, Charley didn’t understand that he didn’t live here any more but he’d certainly had no trouble talking. In Frankie’s opinion, he’d had trouble shutting up.

  She continued to read symptoms. Charley hadn’t complained of a headache; he wasn’t vomiting or having trouble seeing or walking. His face hadn’t sagged. His hands and arms worked just fine. Too fine, considering the hug.

  She tried ‘aneurysm’ next. Those often had no symptoms, but if they did they came on suddenly and consisted of a severe headache, neck pain, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, loss of consciousness and seizures. Couldn’t miss any of those. Charley would never have been able to walk up to her door and stroll around the house as if he still owned the place with such symptoms.

  Frankie’s fingers flew over the keys needed to type: ‘brain tumor’.

  The brain tumor hit parade was similar to the previous options. Changes in speech, hearing, vision, balance, as well as the seizures, were all present on the list but not in Charley. However, there were a few that fit his profile – namely personality changes and memory issues.

  ‘Shit.’ Frankie was going to have to call Hannah. She’d hoped she’d be able to Google her way out of it.

  In an attempt to avoid the inevitable for a little while longer, Frankie dialed Irene.

  ‘Bubala, it’s four a.m.’

  ‘Three,’ Frankie corrected. Or near enough. ‘You shouldn’t have answered.’

  ‘When haven’t I answered? Especially in the middle of the night. You’d do the same for me.’

  Frankie would. She had.

  Irene and Frankie had been best friends since childhood – back when Irene had been the only Jew in school. She’d been an oddity to others, but to Frankie she’d been Irene from next door. They’d grown up together. They’d shared everything. They still did.

  ‘Charley showed up at my house.’

  Silence came over the line for so long Frankie feared Irene had fallen back asleep. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  ‘I’m here. I just …’ Irene’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Yeah. That was my reaction too.’

  ‘Why now? Did the shiksa throw him out?’

  Irene tossed Yiddish words into her conversation whenever she could. She said she didn’t want the language to die. Frankie thought she just liked how they sounded.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Frankie said. ‘Though there was something off about her when she called.’

  ‘Wait. The shiksa called you? Why?’

  ‘She wanted to ask if Charley was here.’

  ‘Why on earth would he be there?’

  ‘Exactly. Except he is.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him why?’
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  ‘He’s …’ Now Frankie’s voice trailed off. What was he? ‘Not himself.’

  Except he was himself – of twenty-four years ago.

  Quickly she told Irene what had happened, leaving out the hug. She wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Bullshit,’ Irene said.

  ‘I wouldn’t bullshit you at three a.m.’

  ‘Four,’ Irene corrected. ‘And I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about him. Shiksa threw him out and he needs a place to stay. He knew you’d never let him past the front door if he wasn’t … whatever it is he is.’

  ‘He can afford a hotel.’ Charley could afford several hotels.

  ‘He hates hotels.’

  As he lived most of his life in them, this made sense. Or maybe it didn’t. Frankie had questioned on many occasions before they’d parted ways, why, if he hated hotels so much, did he continue in a job where he had to make use of so many of them? However, she didn’t think Charley was capable of doing anything else. He had tried.

  Before.

  Her chest hurt; her throat went tight. Their lives would forever be divided into before and after that horrible, awful, terrible day when their daughter had died.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Irene asked, interrupting memories Frankie didn’t want to have.

  ‘Sleeping. I think.’

  ‘Or getting naked.’

  She had a vivid memory of Charley naked. Charley naked had been a beautiful thing. One of the reasons that finding out he’d been naked with Hannah had nearly ended her. How could he have taken what had been hers alone and given it to someone else?

  ‘Why would he want me when he can have her?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘I always thought of that question the other way: why would he want her when he could have you?’

  ‘Blond, young, brilliant editor with her own magazine and a wealthy, connected family? Who wouldn’t want that?’

  ‘Meh.’

  Frankie imagined Irene’s shrug.

  ‘You’re loyal. I appreciate it.’

  ‘I’m not a moron. Youth fades. In fact, hers has. I saw her last week. She didn’t appear well.’

  Maybe that’s what this was. Both Hannah and Charley had been ill. Nothing more than a bad flu, a nasty fever, which – for a man Charley’s age – would be more dangerous than it had been for his child bride. Certainly Hannah wasn’t a child any more, but she was still closer to one than Charley was.

  ‘Why did you see her?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Same reason I always see her. Publisher party at her mother’s company.’

  Irene was a literary attorney, Hannah’s mom a bigwig publisher. For some reason Hannah came to the parties, even though she was a magazine editor in DC. Maybe it was the only time she saw her mother. Who knew? Who cared?

  Not Frankie.

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘That never turns out well.’

  Irene didn’t pull punches. Not in her job – which was why she was one of the most sought-after attorneys in the biz – or in social situations – where she was also sought-after, though, considering her lack of a mouth filter, Frankie couldn’t figure out why.

  ‘Besides, when she sees me she runs like a little girl from a mouse.’

  ‘More like a grown woman from a shark.’

  ‘Whatever works,’ Irene said.

  ‘I’m going to have to call her, aren’t I?’

  ‘You could probably wait until morning. If you want to be nice.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll happen.’

  Frankie didn’t want to call Hannah. One conversation a night was enough. But she wasn’t going to be able to put it off either, so she might as well get it over with.

  ‘Call me first thing and tell me how it went,’ Irene said. ‘Love ya.’

  ‘You too.’

  Frankie didn’t know what she would have done without Irene. After. Irene had dropped everything and flown to Milwaukee. She’d stayed for weeks. Frankie couldn’t remember how many. Then, when Frankie had found out about Charley and Hannah, Irene had come back and done it again.

  Frankie scrolled through her recent calls. Hannah’s was labeled Private – no number – and she didn’t have it in her contacts for obvious reasons, so she headed up the steps. If Charley were awake, she’d insist he call his wife. If he were asleep, she’d use his phone and do it herself.

  Pausing in the doorway, she suddenly couldn’t breathe again.

  Charley had left on the bathroom light, the door pulled nearly closed so the glow spread across the Berber carpet in a thin shaft, illuminating a path from bed to bathroom. It also served to illuminate the bed – new, with a frilly white comforter Frankie never would have bought when they were married.

  The only man she’d ever loved lay right where he had the last time he’d slept here.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he murmured, his voice slurred.

  With sleep or with stroke/aneurysm/brain tumor? Maybe she should call 911 instead of Hannah.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Tired.’ His blue eyes seemed to gleam, so bright that when he closed them the entire room dimmed. ‘Come to bed.’

  ‘You need to call your wife.’

  ‘Fancy,’ he called. ‘Fancy.’

  ‘On the phone, Charley. Call her.’

  ‘I don’t need to use the phone to call you. You’re right here.’ The final three words came out slowly and were followed by a soft snore.

  Charley had always been able to fall asleep between one instant and the next. Probably from spending the majority of his time on the road, catching rest on trains, trucks, planes, the ground.

  Frankie knew that snore. He would wake up if an IED went off, but if she tried to rouse him he’d be dead to the world.

  She should be glad he wasn’t actually dead to the world. In her bed.

  ‘Goddamn it, Charley.’ She went through his stained jeans – as Irene had predicted, he’d gotten naked; all his clothes were on the floor – and found his cell phone.

  She pressed a thumb to the Favorites button, surprised to find her own name there. The man hadn’t called her in two decades.

  Frankie scrolled until she found Hannah and pressed again. She figured the phone would ring several times, maybe even go to voicemail. Instead, it was answered between the first and second rings.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘He’s … uh … here.’

  ‘Francesca?’

  Considering Hannah had called not more than an hour ago to warn of just this possible occurrence, she seemed awfully surprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he say why he’s there?’

  According to Charley, he still lived here. How was Frankie going to explain that on the phone? How was she going to explain it at all, ever?

  ‘You should probably come and get him.’

  ‘Me? There?’ Hannah said the last word as if Frankie had asked her to fly to an Ebola-ridden nation. ‘Why?’

  Frankie debated telling Hannah not to bother. She didn’t want to see her. She specifically didn’t want to see her with him. But Charley was no longer Frankie’s problem. He was Hannah’s.

  ‘Because there’s something wrong with Charley. He thinks we’re still married. He thinks Lisa is still alive.’

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Frankie said, and hung up.

  Charley

  University of Southern Illinois. Summer, 1976

  Most of the students were talking – small cliques of two or three, maybe four. The drone decreased significantly when Charley Blackwell set his battered black camera bag on the gray metal table at the front of the room. There were about a dozen tables just like it dotted across the yellowing linoleum. Students sat on top of them or in the equally clunky metal chairs positioned three or four apiece.

  Curious faces turned Charley’s way; many became skeptical. He knew in his torn jeans and sandals, with his curly hair overgrown and shaggy, he more closely resembled a student than one
of the faculty.

  He was only twenty-three, but he’d been to Vietnam and back; so had many of them. The GI Bill was in full force on campuses across America. Former soldiers going to college on Uncle Sam’s dime. It was the least they deserved.

  Charley could have taken advantage of the bill himself. No money for college meant he’d been drafted, and while he had spent time as a grunt with a gun, he’d also had a camera. He could have come home after his first tour; instead he’d stayed and kept on shooting. The pictures he’d taken while marching through the jungle, in the midst of firefights, faces, bodies covered in blood, the tears and the laughter, then his insider’s view of the final days in Saigon, had landed him here.

  For the summer semester he would teach Advanced Photography, and in the fall he would begin his new job with the Associated Press. This was the life he’d dreamed of while growing up on a farm not very far away.

  ‘Are you Charley Blackwell?’

  In the middle of searching for his notes, which must be at the bottom of his camera bag, below every camera body, lens and filter he owned, Charley glanced up and into the prettiest green eyes he’d ever seen.

  ‘I am.’ He smiled. ‘And you are?’

  The girl blushed, her cheeks turning apricot instead of crimson, a shade lighter than the auburn streaks in her dark brown hair. Her summer-weight short skirt and tie-dyed T-shirt were replicated all over the room, but she wore them a lot better than anyone else.

  ‘I’m Francesca Sicari.’

  ‘Fancy,’ he said.

  She lifted her eyebrows and her mouth quirked. ‘People usually call me Frankie.’

  He rarely did.

  Charley managed not to touch her while she was his student, but it wasn’t easy. That skin – dusky with a hint of peach – begged touching. Those eyes, like a wise Egyptian cat’s – he found himself staring into them when he should have been teaching. Her hair, which hung to her waist as so many women’s did then, was thick and straight and whenever it swayed a different shade revealed itself. He wanted to photograph that hair at dusk, at dawn and every hour in between.

  She was his best student, as well as his most talented student. Frankie saw things in a way no one else did. When Charley looked at her photographs he found a world he wouldn’t have without her, a world that was different from the one he saw through his lens. That’s what photography was all about.