Your Voice in My Head
Disclaimer: I own nothing here and am just doing this for fun and to ease my new-found Leverage addiction.
A/N: Written for prompt 20 (a hot air balloon) @ story_lottery .
The expression “finding myself” makes Sophie cringe, but it’s convenient shorthand for what she’s trying to do. The problem is that she isn’t quite sure where to look. All her life, she’s heard that retracing one’s steps was the best way to locate a lost item, but Sophie finds the thought exhausting. She’s been too many places and has no desire to ever return to some of them.
So she unleashes her inner gypsy and hopscotches randomly around the globe, feeling a bit like Goldilocks because every destination turns out to be too much of one thing or not enough of another. London is too familiar, plus it’s too easy for the team to find her there. Uzbekistan isn’t familiar enough, even if it is the last place anyone would look for her. Paris has too many distractions, from the cute shoes to the gorgeous paintings, all crying out for her attention. Senegal doesn’t have enough distraction, just sand, goats, and baobab trees. And Tibet, while perfect in every way, makes her feel like a walking cliche.
Sophie loses count of the miles traveled and countries visited in her quest. She once had a drama coach, a stout woman with the voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker, who used to say “We carry our baggage around with us, people, every last memorable thing that’s happened to us. Open that baggage, find the feeling you need for the scene and put it on.” Sophie desperately wishes that her metaphorical baggage would get lost in transit because opening and rummaging through them isn’t helping her figure things out. If anything, it’s making her more confused.
It’s an accident that she ends up in Morocco. The bus she’s on in Spain breaks down in Gibraltar and it just happens to be an hour before the ferry departs for Tangier. She spends two weeks working her way down the coastline, eventually landing in Essaouira. Something about the place, with its whitewashed walls and blue shutters, agrees with her and she impulsively decides to stay for a month, renting a comfortable room in a riad.
In Essaouira, Sophie finally is able to relax, to breath the sea air and let the tension slowly drain out of her. The team has stopped calling every day, which is both reassuring and depressing. It’s not that she thinks Tara has replaced her, and she’s certainly relieved to know they have someone to watch over them, but she misses them. Parker, endearingly crazy and confusing. Hardison, smart and sassy. Eliot, loyal and dependable as a grumpy old dog, and three times as dangerous to ill-meaning strangers.
Nate... she doesn’t let herself think of Nate, not if she can help it, because it’s too painful and confusing. In the collected baggage of her life, that man merits an entire steamer trunk all to himself. But she knows she can’t avoid opening that trunk forever, especially when it might contain the key to unlocking everything.
Sophie falls into a comfortable routine, rising early and walking along the beach, watching the sun rise as the sea gulls fight over scraps of food. She’s fascinated by the Bordj El Berod, the ruins of an ancient watchtower. Sometimes, it looks like a shipwreck, the way the water laps around its edges as the tide changes.
She likes to picture what it looked like in all its splendor and imagine what it was like the day it crumbled, to have something so substantial reduced to a scattering of pieces, a kicked-over sandcastle. Intellectually, she knows that it took decades, maybe even centuries, for the tower to collapse, but it’s more enticing to picture a single calamity than to imagine the steady erosion, the misery of being relentlessly ground down a pebble or two at a time.
She makes up for her early mornings with a mid-afternoon nap, sleeping away the worst of the day’s heat while the ceiling fan in her room swishes hypnotically. In the evenings, she wanders the city walls. She dresses modestly, keeps her head covered, and wears a wedding band to discourage unwanted attention. It works, mostly, and she’s left alone with her thoughts.
The skies above the beach in Essaouira are always dotted with the small sails of windsurfers and kitesurfers. The tradewinds blow hard, pulling in the adrenalin junkies and providing a nice boost to the local economy. Every time she sees one, she thinks of Parker.
Gliding through the air with only a flimsy bar and harness for support does not appeal to Sophie, but when she spots a hot air balloon drifting over the desert on the other side of the city walls, she’s intrigued. That looks like a civilized way to get a new perspective.
Sophie keeps an eye on the balloon for several days, noticing that it doesn’t seem to travel very far. She asks the innkeeper about it, but he just shrugs. Curiosity overwhelms her, and the next day, she skips both her beach walk and her nap, opting instead to rent a car and drive out toward the balloon.
After a half-hour of driving along dusty, rutted roads, she arrives at a campsite with an ancient VW bus and an equally old Airstream trailer. Chickens wander around, pecking at the scrubby grass. She’s met by a short, stout guy with red dreadlocks and a scruffy beard a few shades lighter than his hair.
Sophie knows that he’s American before he even opens his mouth, but even so, the broad Boston accent that comes out is a surprise. The sound reminds her of Nate, not because he always sounds like that, but because he sounded like that once and it scared the hell out of her.
Sophie doesn’t want to spend a lot of time talking with this guy, so she starts with French, earning her a pleasantly blank look. Switching to broken English, the transaction takes less than three minutes. She hands over 1000 dirham for two hours alone, floating in the tethered balloon. He explains something about how the balloon works, shows her where the blankets are, and hands her a thermos of sweet tea.
He adjusts a knob, gives her a little wave, and then steps back over to where the tether is coiled on a large wheel. He turns the wheel, playing out the rope, and the balloon slowly ascends. Sophie can hear the soft puff of the gas leaving the canister, followed by the whoosh of ignition. She looks out over the desert and feels like the only person for hundreds of miles.
She finds her thoughts automatically turning to descriptive phrases, imagining if she were writing a letter to Nate, how she would describe the scenery unfolding underneath her, the soft hiss of the gas through the canister, how the warm sweet tea soothes away the worst of the chill.
--//--
Letters had been the backbone of her relationship with Nate. He was married when they met, which was part of the allure. Not that she wanted him to give in, but the fact that he wouldn’t. The completely unassailable fact that Nathan Ford would never cheat on his wife was reassuring, like the sun rising in the east or the swallows returning to Capistrano.
Their relationship was partly a courtly dance of innuendo and smoldering looks and partly an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Which, Sophie supposed, didn’t make it all that different from any other seduction; theirs just had the added complication of the occasional stolen Degas or bearer bonds swindled from the Spanish government.
They’d met three times, attraction arcing between them, before he’d whispered two mysterious words to her “Poste Restante”. Three weeks later, she was in Budapest and, on a whim, stopped into the main post office. After she’d handed over her British passport for Sophie Devereaux, the clerk handed her two letters.
They looked like they’d been written with a fountain pen, in careful script that spoke of a lifetime of education by ruler-wielding nuns. The letters were jaunty and cavalier, filled with news of his exploits and gossip about the criminal world.
The letters surprised Sophie and touched her, too, because they played into an idea she had about herself. She always felt frustrated that she’d been born in the wrong decade. She would’ve loved to have been alive during WWII, writing lovelorn letters to a serviceman stationed on the Russian front. It was about adventure and unrequited love, about the tragedies that shaped and molded the course of a life. It was all terribly romantic, one-page letters in flimsy air-post envelopes, carrying hopes and dreams for the price of a single stamp.
Sophie can pinpoint the exact time when his letters went from jocular, newsy missives to something more like confessions or therapy sessions. Nate sent her a postcard with a picture of a sunny beach on the front. The back simply said “Sam has cancer...waiting for prognosis... haven’t slept in three days. --N”
When she turned the card back to look at the now incongruous cheery beach scene, she was struck by a flaw in the photograph. Perhaps it had been a speck of dust on the lens, but she spotted a small dark spot on the sun, ominous and unwarranted, like a specter at a feast or a tumor in a young boy’s bone. Sophie wondered if that imperfection was the entire reason that Nate had selected the postcard.
She answered every letter he sent, carefully writing on those ready-post airmail sheets that folded up into their own envelopes, mailing them from all over Europe. She always sent them to General Delivery in the main Los Angeles post office. Since Nate never referenced her letters, she never knew if he read them, and that freed her to say what she wanted, to imagine, sometimes, that this wasn’t just a silly flirtation with a job-obsessed insurance investigator. That it was a real relationship with potential for growth and happiness.
She saved all his letters, nearly a decade’s worth, grouping them by the year and tying them with lacy white ribbons that yellowed over time. When she rented the storage unit to hold her “retirement plan”, she placed the letters in the bottom of a fireproof box. Even now, she could close her eyes and picture individual letters, each one signed with a single cursive N that bore a recognizable and predictable flourish on the final upswing.
--//--
A sudden breeze buffets the balloon, causing tea to splash over the edge of the mug onto Sophie’s fingers and lap. She curses softly then rummages through her purse to find a tissue to clean up the spill. The interruption is welcome, though, because she realizes that she’s gone off on yet another mental tangent about Nate.
“This is your problem,” she says, confident that hearing the words out loud would make her more ready to accept them. “You circle the bloody globe to find yourself but spend more time thinking about Nate Ford than anything else.”
Sophie sighs and stows the mug and thermos away. She stands up slowly, getting a feel for how the basket moves as she shifts her weight. The view is tremendous, shifting drifts of sand stretch for miles until finally bumping up against ramshackle collections of dwellings, scrubby trees and patchy grass indicating some sort of ready water supply to keep the desert at bay.
Sophie can see as far as the ocean, can nearly make out the walls of Essaouira. She lets her eyes wander back across the sand, retracing the journey she made earlier in the day. In one of the villages, smoke floats between two stands of trees, reminding her of Train smoke, which is bloody annoying, since Edvard Munch paintings and Nate are forever and inextricably linked in her head.
--//--
Nate had asked Sophie to be his date for a reception at the Edvard Munch museum in Oslo. Ostensibly, his excuse was that he suspected the new museum curator of intending to defraud the museum, but Sophie knew he could’ve asked any number of colleagues.
The reception turned out to be a mind-numbingly boring affair. Any intrigue over the new curator was quickly squashed when Sophie realized he was too thick to perpetrate a fraud. Nate had to leave her on her own for a few minutes while he took care of some business, and Sophie found herself trapped near the wine bar, smiling blankly and nodding as some auld dear prattled on about her grandchildren.
She had never been so relieved as when Nate took her hand and offered a regretful smile and rushed apologies about needing to leave to attend to an urgent matter. He waved and ushered Sophie out of the museum with a deft grace.
Out in the crisp night air, he loosened his tie and let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that, Soph. Guy comes across as a lot more intelligent and sneaky in his emails.”
“Then maybe someone else is writing them.”
“Good point.” He made to hail a cab, but she caught his arm and brought it down, casually keeping her hand on the crook of his elbow.
“It’s a lovely evening, let’s walk.”
Somehow, they got turned around and ended up in a slightly dodgy neighborhood. As they passed a dive bar, a sign in the window caught Nate’s eye.
“An a-ha tribute band. I don’t see how we can pass that up,” he said.
She eyed the poster suspiciously and read it aloud with a jaundiced tone. “‘ha-ha, Norway’s only a-ha tribute band comprised entirely of comedians.’ Oh Nate, you must be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding I love a-ha. I have every album.”
“The only person who would have the entire library of a-ha’s music would be a Norwegian teenaged girl, circa 1987. This is not the music that a grown man listens to,” she said, giving him a small shove to emphasize the point.
“What? It reminds me of college. Good times.”
“You have horrible taste in music.”
“Yes I believe you’ve mentioned that a time or two,” he said dryly, taking her hand and pulling her through the open door into a long, dark hallway.
The bouncer, a burley man with prison tattoos on his hands, looked like he’d seen nearly every thing in his life, except for a well-dressed couple entering a dingy bar to see a band of comedians sing songs that were just barely popular two decades earlier. Nate gave him an uneasy smile, then slipped him a 100-kroner note, just to smooth the way. The bouncer ran an appreciative eye over Sophie and then drew back his legs, allowing them to make their way into the main bar.
The room itself was odd, with strange short walls and corners in places you wouldn’t expect. Sophie had to wonder if the blueprint was created by a drunken cubist architect. The empty dance floor was lit with a display of flashing lights that made her thankful that she wasn’t epileptic. Tables with high stools dotted the place, but most of the clientele congregated at the bar. Sophie counted only a handful of patrons, mostly young hipsters with fashionable glasses and perfectly ripped jeans, who were clearly there for the irony value.
Nate steered her over to a table in a dim corner, the walls creating the impression of a cove. An added benefit were the acoustics, which kept out the worst of the noise and allowed them to talk without shouting in each others’ ears.
“What can I get you?” asked Nate as he pulled out a stool for her.
Sophie gave him a flirty smile, holding his gaze for longer than was necessary. “Surprise me.”
He returned a few minutes later with a double whiskey and a large glass beer stein that was dangerously full of an impossibly blue drink, adorned with a little umbrella and a straw.
“Are you trying to get me drunk, Nate?”
He just smiled like the Cheshire cat and slightly lifted one shoulder.
“You never do anything for no reason.”
“Maybe I want you just a little tipsy. Enough to dance with me.
“You know I’d always dance with you if you asked.”
“To the music of a-ha played by a tribute band of comedians?”
“Good point,” she said, lifting the drink with a cheery smile. It was overly sweet, a warning sign that it was probably loaded with alcohol. She made a mental note to mind herself, since it would be easy to quickly get drunk off such a concoction.
Nate watched her with an amused smile on his face until she started to feel self-conscious. Casting about for a conversation topic, she finally resorted to asking after Sam’s health.
“Good, really good. It’s been two years now, so we’re hopeful that the cancer really is gone forever.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” she said, returning his easy grin. This part of their relationship was like a carefully choreographed dance. Sophie knew exactly how far she could go, how close she could get before she stepped on his toes. Nate would write about anything in his letters, but he rarely talked about Maggie and only talked about Sam when she asked questions.
She tried to find a place on the table to rest her elbows, but the entire surface was sticky and grimy. Giving up, she sat back and watched Nate as he watched the band. He tapped his fingers on the table’s edge, keeping time with the music and slowly sipping his whiskey.
The band finished a song, told a few jokes, and then launched into the next song. Nate’s face lit up and he slid out of his seat. He held a hand out to Sophie.
“They’re playing our song.”
“Our song?” she asked, puzzled, unsure that they even had such a thing. And if they did, she certainly didn’t think it would be an a-ha song.
Nate took her hand and led her to the dance floor. He put his free hand on her hip and pulled her close, holding her other hand up near his chest. She allowed him to lead, the song’s tempo in the awkward range where it was neither slow or fast.
About half-way through the song, Nate pulled her closer, his mouth nearly brushing her neck. She could hear him singing softly, as if only to himself.
I'll go on till the winter gets me
Oh, "sleep..." you wrote "sleep, my dear"
In a letter somewhere
Oh, but how can I sleep with your
voice in my head
With an ocean between us
And room in my bed
Oh, have I come to the point where I'm losing the grip
Or is it still time to get into
The swing of things
Oh, when she glows in the dark
And I'm weak by the sight
Of this breathtaking beauty
In which I can hide
Sophie pulled away to look into his eyes, but he avoided her gaze, opting instead to step back and hold up her hand, twisting it slightly so she spun around two, three, four times. Just when she thought she’d get dizzy, he pulled her close again.
Yes, when she glows in the dark and
I'm struck by the sight
I know that I'll need this for the rest of my life
When the song was over, Nate dropped his arms abruptly and stepped back. He was looking down, with his lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes full of regret. She knew that look, the one that said he felt that he’d given too much away.
She laughed airily and trotted back to the table, taking a long pull of her blue drink for fortification. When Nate rejoined her, she smiled at him brightly.
“You’ve a lovely voice. I had no idea. You should sing more often. In fact, maybe you should ask the band if they need another singer. You clearly know all the words to all the songs.” She spoke quickly, the words slipping easily off her tongue, a distracting mist of jokes.
Nate smiled, and she didn’t know if he was trying to keep his sense of relief from showing in his eyes, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless. It was all part of the arrangement, both of them careful not to go too far, keeping each other in check with jokes or purposeful misunderstanding.
--//--
A sharp tug jostles the balloon, and Sophie looks down. The guy stands next to the wheel, ready to gather up the rope and pull her back down to the ground. He waves at Sophie and gestures at the blue rope that dangles down in front of her. She nods and takes a deep breath, remembering the short briefing he gave her earlier. She pulls the rope, which opens a flap at the top of the balloon, letting out most of the hot air and starting the descent.
The guy is waiting for her when the balloon reaches the ground. He ties down a few straps and then helps her out. Sophie preempts any small talk by unleashing a torrent of rapid-fire French and expansive gestures, smiling widely, she walks quickly toward her car.
“I need you,” he shouts after her, the accent stopping her in her tracks. She’s heard those words before, said with a lot more desperation. She signs the liability release that he waves in front of her, then drives away
The car is stuffy after sitting in the desert for two hours, and the air conditioning can’t circulate the air fast enough. She rolls down the window, wishing that the wind could wash the words out of her ears and take the memory with them.
--//--
May in the South of France had always been one of her favorite times. Cannes was ripe for grifting and had the added benefit of the ever-present possibility of being discovered as an actress. And this particular May had been good to her. She’d met a promising mark, a film producer with more money than sense who had a vast painting collection, mostly surrealists and cubists, that he kept in his country villa.
Posing as an art restorer, she’d visited his collection and then was able to source a rather passable forgery of a Paul Klee work that he had. Before she was able to make the switch, he’d been called away to a movie set in Prague, so Sophie was biding her time in a swanky boutique hotel in Nice. Usually, delays made her edgy and impatient, but France always did have a calming effect on her.
Sophie had been spending the afternoon relaxing in her room, recovering from her latest shopping spree, when she heard the knocking. Firm, authoritative taps that made her smooth a hand over her hair as her eyes fluttered involuntarily to the wall where the Klee knock-off hung.
She walked slowly to the door and put on a curious but helpful look. She pulled the door open and blinked as she tried to process the scene in front of her: Nate Ford, standing next to a very uncomfortable hotel manager.
“Honey, I forgot my key again. Stupid, I know,” said Nate, his slightly wide-eyed look urging Sophie to go along with him.
“Silly, darling. Simply silly,” she replied, stepping back to let him into the room. He paused to kiss her cheek on the way in and she could smell peppery aftershave and peaty Scotch.
Sophie smiled at the manager, who had gone from uncomfortable to confused. She murmured her thanks to him in French. He stuttered a little, expressing confusion about where this man had come from. Sophie’s tone changed and she reminded him that she expected discretion from such a reputable hotel and that she trusted that would not be a problem. Understanding finally dawned in the man’s eyes, and he excused himself.
She closed the door and looked at Nate, who was at the window, his forehead pressed against the glass and his hands in his pockets.
“To what do I owe this surprise?” she asked, wondering if this was a social, business, or investigative call.
“I was in town, checking security for a new installation at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.”
“Okay,” said Sophie, drawing the word out to prompt Nate to explain further. She’d long since stopped asking how he was able to find her, how he always seemed to know where she was, no matter how well she covered her tracks.
Nate turned slowly and opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shook his head and ran a hand over his face. Now that he’d wiped away his professional mask, Sophie could see exhaustion and sadness.
“Nate, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“Sam... it’s Sam. The cancer came back a few months ago. Fast, aggressive, not like anything the doctors have ever seen.” Nate swayed a little, then leaned against the window sill.
“Oh Nate, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
He let out a bitter chuckle. “Wait, I haven’t gotten to the punchline yet. I found this doctor at Cedar-Sinai, who has a protocol for exactly the same kind of cancer. He just got through clinical trials and was ready to treat Sam.”
Sophie twisted her hands and waited as Nate paused, rubbing his hand over his mouth. She silently waited for him to continue.
“IYS called me today to tell me that... they aren't going to pay for the treatment. And then, with perfect timing, Maggie called to say that Sam seemed to be getting worse, right in front of her eyes, like she could see him... nearly slipping away.” Nate’s voice had changed, turning rougher around the edges, sliding toward a Boston accent that she realized must have been how he’d spoken as a child. She wondered how much effort went into maintaining his neutral mid-Atlantic inflection.
“But, they have to, don’t they? Don’t they have some kind of ethical or moral or legal obligation?” asked Sophie.
“Get real, Soph. The only obligation they have is to their shareholders, to keep profits high and costs low.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think. “There must be something you can do. You work there, after all. You must be able to talk to someone, get the authorization to overturn the decision.”
He shook his head. “This came directly from the top. Blackpoole.”
“But surely he can be convinced to make an exception.”
“The policy of IYS is to deny all claims involving experimental treatments pending further investigation,” said Nate, as though reciting a lesson by rote. “No exceptions.”
“How much does-”
Nate cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t.”
Sophie was about to protest that he hadn’t even heard her question, but she knew that he was often three steps ahead of her. He didn’t want her to ask how much it cost, didn’t want her to offer to help. She wanted to feel indignant that he’d be so presumptuous as to assume she’d offer, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She would have done just about anything if it would have helped him stop hurting.
Nate pushed off from the window sill and paced the room, swinging his arms angrily. “I don’t want plans or charity. It’s the principle of the matter. I’ve given IYS 20 years of my life, saved them hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Sophie stepped back, hoping he’d burn off some of his anger.
“I’ve done everything they’ve asked, done the right thing every last time. Shouldn’t that count for something? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Sophie pulled a bottle of still water from the minibar and opened it. She handed it to Nate and patted his chest reassuringly, while her other hand slipped into his jacket pockets, deftly plucking out several small bottles of Scotch.
Nate took a sip of water and she listened to him struggling to calm his breathing. She put her arm around his shoulders and steered him over the couch, waiting until he sat down. She perched on the arm of the chair across from him.
“I don’t know, Sophie. Maybe my father had the right idea. Worked for himself, worked hard, didn’t answer to anybody, broke fingers when things didn’t go his way... You break a few fingers, people aren’t going to cross you,” he said, sounding different, so angry and unlike himself.
“You think breaking fingers is somehow the answer?”
Nate rubbed a hand across his forehead. “No, I don’t. Sophie.. I don’t know the answers because the questions don’t even make sense anymore.”
He stood up and tried to resume his pacing, but he tripped. Sophie moved quickly from her perch and was able to catch him. His fingers curled tightly around her shoulders and his gaze moved slowly from her mouth to her eyes and back again.
“No ocean between us today,” he said, the words thick and throaty.
“Nate, you’re drunk,” she answered, gently trying to ease some space between them.
“Maybe,” he said, refusing to release his hold on her.
“You don’t want to do this. You have so many reasons not to do this.”
“That’s not true.”
“You love your family, more than anything. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“My family is nearly gone, Sophie. Gone. And without them, well....nothing matters, does it?”
It felt like a slap, but she tried not to react. She pried his hands from her shoulders and backed away from him.
“Sophie, I need you. Please,” he said, the rough voice and accent scaring her because he sounded like a man who had well and truly given up.
“I know you do, Nate. But not like that.”
Before he could respond, his phone buzzed. He slipped it out of his pocket, looked at the display, and hit a button to silence it.
“Who was that?”
Nate shook his head and sank into the couch, stretching his arms out as his head lolled back on the cushion. He tapped the spot next to him. “Come sit down.”
Sophie shook her head, preferring to pace the room while she listened to the phone buzzing in his pocket several more times before it finally stopped. She chattered nervously, trying to build a wall of words and logic to return Nate to reality, to steer him back into being the man she knew.
He finally became tired of waiting for her. He stood up and walked over to the minibar, where he downed three small Scotch bottles in quick succession. He emptied a few more bottles into a glass and then paused a moment, hands on the counter, eyes fixed on the Klee knock-off hanging on the wall.
“Sophie, what’s this?” he asked, suspicion creeping in around the edges of his question.
“That? Oh nothing, just a more upscale version of hotel art, I guess,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
“No,” he said, speaking in the slow, deliberate way he did when he was trying to unravel a scam. “Every print in this place is a Chagall. But this... this is a Klee.”
“Maybe it was the interior decorator’s idea of a joke,” said Sophie. Nate came toward her with more questions in his eyes and a wobble in his step. She steered him back to the couch, confident that he wouldn’t be conscious much longer.
As he sunk down onto the couch, she lifted his phone, then excused herself to use the bathroom. She turned on the water in the sink and sat on the edge of the whirlpool tub. Taking a deep breath, she hit the voicemail button and then entered his password, which was Sam’s birthday.
Seven messages were waiting and she quickly skipped past one from the doctor, one from Sterling, and a revoltingly insincere one from Blackpoole. The next four were from Maggie. A hang up. A request that he pick up the phone. A shaky, teary plea for him not to do anything stupid. A slightly more composed plea asking him to please come home immediately.
She turned off the water and left the bathroom. Nate was passed out on the couch. She slipped his phone back into his pocket and eased out a room key for the hotel across the street. Uncharacteristically, Nate had left the key in the flimsy paper holder with the room number written on it.
Sophie looked from Nate to the Klee and back to Nate. Sighing, she knew what she had to do. The man was flying blind and as his friend, she had a responsibility to be his compass, to guide him back home safely.
She lifted the painting from the wall and took it apart. She retrieved the Chagall print from under the bed and hung it up. In the bathroom, she opened the window and turned on the extractor fan, and then burned the forged Klee painting in the tub. The last order of business was to dispose of the frame, and she decided she would leave it under the bed in Nate’s room, where it was unlikely to ever be found and, if it was, it would never be traced to her.
It took Sophie fifteen minutes to go to Nate’s room, hide the frame, pack his belongings, and call the airport to make arrangements for the flights. Nearly record time for an escape, she thought, although it ended up taking nearly twenty minutes to wrestle Nate off the couch and load him into a taxi. She complimented herself for having the presence of mind to book two tickets for the first part of the journey, since it was clear that he wasn’t able to get anywhere under his own steam.
Nate and Sophie flew to Heathrow, where Sophie escorted him to the gate for his connecting flight to LAX. She had a quiet word with the gate attendants to explain the situation, swearing them to secrecy since she knew Nate would fly into a rage if he suspected her of sharing his private life with strangers. They’d nodded sympathetically and when the boarding call was made for first class passengers, they’d allowed her to help him onto the plane.
Sophie stowed his carry-on bag in the overhead bin and then paused to fasten Nate’s seatbelt. He had barely regained his consciousness long enough to stagger onto the plane, so she was surprised when he grabbed her hand as she turned to leave.
“Wait, Sophie. I need you.”
“No, Nate, you don’t. You need your family,” she said, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
“My family,” he whispered softly. He gave her the look that indicated that he’d given away too much, but this time, she didn’t have the energy to joke it off. Her mouth managed a sad smile before she walked away, relatively certain that she would never see him again.
In Barcelona three weeks later, she called in to the post office to collect her mail and walked out with a single envelope. The only thing inside was the memorial card from Sam’s funeral.
--//--
Sophie opens the door to her room at the riad just as her phone stops ringing. She’d unintentionally left it on the bedside table and she wonders if Freud were right about there being no accidents.
Sophie scrolls through the missed calls list and can see ten calls from Nate and one from Tara. She pulls out her suitcase and begins packing before she’s even listened to a single message.
When she’s done, she stands up straight and looks around the room slowly, checking to see if she’s forgotten anything. Ready or not, lost or found, it’s time for her to go back and unpack that steamer trunk.
A/N: Written for prompt 20 (a hot air balloon) @ story_lottery .
The expression “finding myself” makes Sophie cringe, but it’s convenient shorthand for what she’s trying to do. The problem is that she isn’t quite sure where to look. All her life, she’s heard that retracing one’s steps was the best way to locate a lost item, but Sophie finds the thought exhausting. She’s been too many places and has no desire to ever return to some of them.
So she unleashes her inner gypsy and hopscotches randomly around the globe, feeling a bit like Goldilocks because every destination turns out to be too much of one thing or not enough of another. London is too familiar, plus it’s too easy for the team to find her there. Uzbekistan isn’t familiar enough, even if it is the last place anyone would look for her. Paris has too many distractions, from the cute shoes to the gorgeous paintings, all crying out for her attention. Senegal doesn’t have enough distraction, just sand, goats, and baobab trees. And Tibet, while perfect in every way, makes her feel like a walking cliche.
Sophie loses count of the miles traveled and countries visited in her quest. She once had a drama coach, a stout woman with the voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker, who used to say “We carry our baggage around with us, people, every last memorable thing that’s happened to us. Open that baggage, find the feeling you need for the scene and put it on.” Sophie desperately wishes that her metaphorical baggage would get lost in transit because opening and rummaging through them isn’t helping her figure things out. If anything, it’s making her more confused.
It’s an accident that she ends up in Morocco. The bus she’s on in Spain breaks down in Gibraltar and it just happens to be an hour before the ferry departs for Tangier. She spends two weeks working her way down the coastline, eventually landing in Essaouira. Something about the place, with its whitewashed walls and blue shutters, agrees with her and she impulsively decides to stay for a month, renting a comfortable room in a riad.
In Essaouira, Sophie finally is able to relax, to breath the sea air and let the tension slowly drain out of her. The team has stopped calling every day, which is both reassuring and depressing. It’s not that she thinks Tara has replaced her, and she’s certainly relieved to know they have someone to watch over them, but she misses them. Parker, endearingly crazy and confusing. Hardison, smart and sassy. Eliot, loyal and dependable as a grumpy old dog, and three times as dangerous to ill-meaning strangers.
Nate... she doesn’t let herself think of Nate, not if she can help it, because it’s too painful and confusing. In the collected baggage of her life, that man merits an entire steamer trunk all to himself. But she knows she can’t avoid opening that trunk forever, especially when it might contain the key to unlocking everything.
Sophie falls into a comfortable routine, rising early and walking along the beach, watching the sun rise as the sea gulls fight over scraps of food. She’s fascinated by the Bordj El Berod, the ruins of an ancient watchtower. Sometimes, it looks like a shipwreck, the way the water laps around its edges as the tide changes.
She likes to picture what it looked like in all its splendor and imagine what it was like the day it crumbled, to have something so substantial reduced to a scattering of pieces, a kicked-over sandcastle. Intellectually, she knows that it took decades, maybe even centuries, for the tower to collapse, but it’s more enticing to picture a single calamity than to imagine the steady erosion, the misery of being relentlessly ground down a pebble or two at a time.
She makes up for her early mornings with a mid-afternoon nap, sleeping away the worst of the day’s heat while the ceiling fan in her room swishes hypnotically. In the evenings, she wanders the city walls. She dresses modestly, keeps her head covered, and wears a wedding band to discourage unwanted attention. It works, mostly, and she’s left alone with her thoughts.
The skies above the beach in Essaouira are always dotted with the small sails of windsurfers and kitesurfers. The tradewinds blow hard, pulling in the adrenalin junkies and providing a nice boost to the local economy. Every time she sees one, she thinks of Parker.
Gliding through the air with only a flimsy bar and harness for support does not appeal to Sophie, but when she spots a hot air balloon drifting over the desert on the other side of the city walls, she’s intrigued. That looks like a civilized way to get a new perspective.
Sophie keeps an eye on the balloon for several days, noticing that it doesn’t seem to travel very far. She asks the innkeeper about it, but he just shrugs. Curiosity overwhelms her, and the next day, she skips both her beach walk and her nap, opting instead to rent a car and drive out toward the balloon.
After a half-hour of driving along dusty, rutted roads, she arrives at a campsite with an ancient VW bus and an equally old Airstream trailer. Chickens wander around, pecking at the scrubby grass. She’s met by a short, stout guy with red dreadlocks and a scruffy beard a few shades lighter than his hair.
Sophie knows that he’s American before he even opens his mouth, but even so, the broad Boston accent that comes out is a surprise. The sound reminds her of Nate, not because he always sounds like that, but because he sounded like that once and it scared the hell out of her.
Sophie doesn’t want to spend a lot of time talking with this guy, so she starts with French, earning her a pleasantly blank look. Switching to broken English, the transaction takes less than three minutes. She hands over 1000 dirham for two hours alone, floating in the tethered balloon. He explains something about how the balloon works, shows her where the blankets are, and hands her a thermos of sweet tea.
He adjusts a knob, gives her a little wave, and then steps back over to where the tether is coiled on a large wheel. He turns the wheel, playing out the rope, and the balloon slowly ascends. Sophie can hear the soft puff of the gas leaving the canister, followed by the whoosh of ignition. She looks out over the desert and feels like the only person for hundreds of miles.
She finds her thoughts automatically turning to descriptive phrases, imagining if she were writing a letter to Nate, how she would describe the scenery unfolding underneath her, the soft hiss of the gas through the canister, how the warm sweet tea soothes away the worst of the chill.
--//--
Letters had been the backbone of her relationship with Nate. He was married when they met, which was part of the allure. Not that she wanted him to give in, but the fact that he wouldn’t. The completely unassailable fact that Nathan Ford would never cheat on his wife was reassuring, like the sun rising in the east or the swallows returning to Capistrano.
Their relationship was partly a courtly dance of innuendo and smoldering looks and partly an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Which, Sophie supposed, didn’t make it all that different from any other seduction; theirs just had the added complication of the occasional stolen Degas or bearer bonds swindled from the Spanish government.
They’d met three times, attraction arcing between them, before he’d whispered two mysterious words to her “Poste Restante”. Three weeks later, she was in Budapest and, on a whim, stopped into the main post office. After she’d handed over her British passport for Sophie Devereaux, the clerk handed her two letters.
They looked like they’d been written with a fountain pen, in careful script that spoke of a lifetime of education by ruler-wielding nuns. The letters were jaunty and cavalier, filled with news of his exploits and gossip about the criminal world.
The letters surprised Sophie and touched her, too, because they played into an idea she had about herself. She always felt frustrated that she’d been born in the wrong decade. She would’ve loved to have been alive during WWII, writing lovelorn letters to a serviceman stationed on the Russian front. It was about adventure and unrequited love, about the tragedies that shaped and molded the course of a life. It was all terribly romantic, one-page letters in flimsy air-post envelopes, carrying hopes and dreams for the price of a single stamp.
Sophie can pinpoint the exact time when his letters went from jocular, newsy missives to something more like confessions or therapy sessions. Nate sent her a postcard with a picture of a sunny beach on the front. The back simply said “Sam has cancer...waiting for prognosis... haven’t slept in three days. --N”
When she turned the card back to look at the now incongruous cheery beach scene, she was struck by a flaw in the photograph. Perhaps it had been a speck of dust on the lens, but she spotted a small dark spot on the sun, ominous and unwarranted, like a specter at a feast or a tumor in a young boy’s bone. Sophie wondered if that imperfection was the entire reason that Nate had selected the postcard.
She answered every letter he sent, carefully writing on those ready-post airmail sheets that folded up into their own envelopes, mailing them from all over Europe. She always sent them to General Delivery in the main Los Angeles post office. Since Nate never referenced her letters, she never knew if he read them, and that freed her to say what she wanted, to imagine, sometimes, that this wasn’t just a silly flirtation with a job-obsessed insurance investigator. That it was a real relationship with potential for growth and happiness.
She saved all his letters, nearly a decade’s worth, grouping them by the year and tying them with lacy white ribbons that yellowed over time. When she rented the storage unit to hold her “retirement plan”, she placed the letters in the bottom of a fireproof box. Even now, she could close her eyes and picture individual letters, each one signed with a single cursive N that bore a recognizable and predictable flourish on the final upswing.
--//--
A sudden breeze buffets the balloon, causing tea to splash over the edge of the mug onto Sophie’s fingers and lap. She curses softly then rummages through her purse to find a tissue to clean up the spill. The interruption is welcome, though, because she realizes that she’s gone off on yet another mental tangent about Nate.
“This is your problem,” she says, confident that hearing the words out loud would make her more ready to accept them. “You circle the bloody globe to find yourself but spend more time thinking about Nate Ford than anything else.”
Sophie sighs and stows the mug and thermos away. She stands up slowly, getting a feel for how the basket moves as she shifts her weight. The view is tremendous, shifting drifts of sand stretch for miles until finally bumping up against ramshackle collections of dwellings, scrubby trees and patchy grass indicating some sort of ready water supply to keep the desert at bay.
Sophie can see as far as the ocean, can nearly make out the walls of Essaouira. She lets her eyes wander back across the sand, retracing the journey she made earlier in the day. In one of the villages, smoke floats between two stands of trees, reminding her of Train smoke, which is bloody annoying, since Edvard Munch paintings and Nate are forever and inextricably linked in her head.
--//--
Nate had asked Sophie to be his date for a reception at the Edvard Munch museum in Oslo. Ostensibly, his excuse was that he suspected the new museum curator of intending to defraud the museum, but Sophie knew he could’ve asked any number of colleagues.
The reception turned out to be a mind-numbingly boring affair. Any intrigue over the new curator was quickly squashed when Sophie realized he was too thick to perpetrate a fraud. Nate had to leave her on her own for a few minutes while he took care of some business, and Sophie found herself trapped near the wine bar, smiling blankly and nodding as some auld dear prattled on about her grandchildren.
She had never been so relieved as when Nate took her hand and offered a regretful smile and rushed apologies about needing to leave to attend to an urgent matter. He waved and ushered Sophie out of the museum with a deft grace.
Out in the crisp night air, he loosened his tie and let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that, Soph. Guy comes across as a lot more intelligent and sneaky in his emails.”
“Then maybe someone else is writing them.”
“Good point.” He made to hail a cab, but she caught his arm and brought it down, casually keeping her hand on the crook of his elbow.
“It’s a lovely evening, let’s walk.”
Somehow, they got turned around and ended up in a slightly dodgy neighborhood. As they passed a dive bar, a sign in the window caught Nate’s eye.
“An a-ha tribute band. I don’t see how we can pass that up,” he said.
She eyed the poster suspiciously and read it aloud with a jaundiced tone. “‘ha-ha, Norway’s only a-ha tribute band comprised entirely of comedians.’ Oh Nate, you must be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding I love a-ha. I have every album.”
“The only person who would have the entire library of a-ha’s music would be a Norwegian teenaged girl, circa 1987. This is not the music that a grown man listens to,” she said, giving him a small shove to emphasize the point.
“What? It reminds me of college. Good times.”
“You have horrible taste in music.”
“Yes I believe you’ve mentioned that a time or two,” he said dryly, taking her hand and pulling her through the open door into a long, dark hallway.
The bouncer, a burley man with prison tattoos on his hands, looked like he’d seen nearly every thing in his life, except for a well-dressed couple entering a dingy bar to see a band of comedians sing songs that were just barely popular two decades earlier. Nate gave him an uneasy smile, then slipped him a 100-kroner note, just to smooth the way. The bouncer ran an appreciative eye over Sophie and then drew back his legs, allowing them to make their way into the main bar.
The room itself was odd, with strange short walls and corners in places you wouldn’t expect. Sophie had to wonder if the blueprint was created by a drunken cubist architect. The empty dance floor was lit with a display of flashing lights that made her thankful that she wasn’t epileptic. Tables with high stools dotted the place, but most of the clientele congregated at the bar. Sophie counted only a handful of patrons, mostly young hipsters with fashionable glasses and perfectly ripped jeans, who were clearly there for the irony value.
Nate steered her over to a table in a dim corner, the walls creating the impression of a cove. An added benefit were the acoustics, which kept out the worst of the noise and allowed them to talk without shouting in each others’ ears.
“What can I get you?” asked Nate as he pulled out a stool for her.
Sophie gave him a flirty smile, holding his gaze for longer than was necessary. “Surprise me.”
He returned a few minutes later with a double whiskey and a large glass beer stein that was dangerously full of an impossibly blue drink, adorned with a little umbrella and a straw.
“Are you trying to get me drunk, Nate?”
He just smiled like the Cheshire cat and slightly lifted one shoulder.
“You never do anything for no reason.”
“Maybe I want you just a little tipsy. Enough to dance with me.
“You know I’d always dance with you if you asked.”
“To the music of a-ha played by a tribute band of comedians?”
“Good point,” she said, lifting the drink with a cheery smile. It was overly sweet, a warning sign that it was probably loaded with alcohol. She made a mental note to mind herself, since it would be easy to quickly get drunk off such a concoction.
Nate watched her with an amused smile on his face until she started to feel self-conscious. Casting about for a conversation topic, she finally resorted to asking after Sam’s health.
“Good, really good. It’s been two years now, so we’re hopeful that the cancer really is gone forever.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” she said, returning his easy grin. This part of their relationship was like a carefully choreographed dance. Sophie knew exactly how far she could go, how close she could get before she stepped on his toes. Nate would write about anything in his letters, but he rarely talked about Maggie and only talked about Sam when she asked questions.
She tried to find a place on the table to rest her elbows, but the entire surface was sticky and grimy. Giving up, she sat back and watched Nate as he watched the band. He tapped his fingers on the table’s edge, keeping time with the music and slowly sipping his whiskey.
The band finished a song, told a few jokes, and then launched into the next song. Nate’s face lit up and he slid out of his seat. He held a hand out to Sophie.
“They’re playing our song.”
“Our song?” she asked, puzzled, unsure that they even had such a thing. And if they did, she certainly didn’t think it would be an a-ha song.
Nate took her hand and led her to the dance floor. He put his free hand on her hip and pulled her close, holding her other hand up near his chest. She allowed him to lead, the song’s tempo in the awkward range where it was neither slow or fast.
About half-way through the song, Nate pulled her closer, his mouth nearly brushing her neck. She could hear him singing softly, as if only to himself.
I'll go on till the winter gets me
Oh, "sleep..." you wrote "sleep, my dear"
In a letter somewhere
Oh, but how can I sleep with your
voice in my head
With an ocean between us
And room in my bed
Oh, have I come to the point where I'm losing the grip
Or is it still time to get into
The swing of things
Oh, when she glows in the dark
And I'm weak by the sight
Of this breathtaking beauty
In which I can hide
Sophie pulled away to look into his eyes, but he avoided her gaze, opting instead to step back and hold up her hand, twisting it slightly so she spun around two, three, four times. Just when she thought she’d get dizzy, he pulled her close again.
Yes, when she glows in the dark and
I'm struck by the sight
I know that I'll need this for the rest of my life
When the song was over, Nate dropped his arms abruptly and stepped back. He was looking down, with his lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes full of regret. She knew that look, the one that said he felt that he’d given too much away.
She laughed airily and trotted back to the table, taking a long pull of her blue drink for fortification. When Nate rejoined her, she smiled at him brightly.
“You’ve a lovely voice. I had no idea. You should sing more often. In fact, maybe you should ask the band if they need another singer. You clearly know all the words to all the songs.” She spoke quickly, the words slipping easily off her tongue, a distracting mist of jokes.
Nate smiled, and she didn’t know if he was trying to keep his sense of relief from showing in his eyes, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless. It was all part of the arrangement, both of them careful not to go too far, keeping each other in check with jokes or purposeful misunderstanding.
--//--
A sharp tug jostles the balloon, and Sophie looks down. The guy stands next to the wheel, ready to gather up the rope and pull her back down to the ground. He waves at Sophie and gestures at the blue rope that dangles down in front of her. She nods and takes a deep breath, remembering the short briefing he gave her earlier. She pulls the rope, which opens a flap at the top of the balloon, letting out most of the hot air and starting the descent.
The guy is waiting for her when the balloon reaches the ground. He ties down a few straps and then helps her out. Sophie preempts any small talk by unleashing a torrent of rapid-fire French and expansive gestures, smiling widely, she walks quickly toward her car.
“I need you,” he shouts after her, the accent stopping her in her tracks. She’s heard those words before, said with a lot more desperation. She signs the liability release that he waves in front of her, then drives away
The car is stuffy after sitting in the desert for two hours, and the air conditioning can’t circulate the air fast enough. She rolls down the window, wishing that the wind could wash the words out of her ears and take the memory with them.
--//--
May in the South of France had always been one of her favorite times. Cannes was ripe for grifting and had the added benefit of the ever-present possibility of being discovered as an actress. And this particular May had been good to her. She’d met a promising mark, a film producer with more money than sense who had a vast painting collection, mostly surrealists and cubists, that he kept in his country villa.
Posing as an art restorer, she’d visited his collection and then was able to source a rather passable forgery of a Paul Klee work that he had. Before she was able to make the switch, he’d been called away to a movie set in Prague, so Sophie was biding her time in a swanky boutique hotel in Nice. Usually, delays made her edgy and impatient, but France always did have a calming effect on her.
Sophie had been spending the afternoon relaxing in her room, recovering from her latest shopping spree, when she heard the knocking. Firm, authoritative taps that made her smooth a hand over her hair as her eyes fluttered involuntarily to the wall where the Klee knock-off hung.
She walked slowly to the door and put on a curious but helpful look. She pulled the door open and blinked as she tried to process the scene in front of her: Nate Ford, standing next to a very uncomfortable hotel manager.
“Honey, I forgot my key again. Stupid, I know,” said Nate, his slightly wide-eyed look urging Sophie to go along with him.
“Silly, darling. Simply silly,” she replied, stepping back to let him into the room. He paused to kiss her cheek on the way in and she could smell peppery aftershave and peaty Scotch.
Sophie smiled at the manager, who had gone from uncomfortable to confused. She murmured her thanks to him in French. He stuttered a little, expressing confusion about where this man had come from. Sophie’s tone changed and she reminded him that she expected discretion from such a reputable hotel and that she trusted that would not be a problem. Understanding finally dawned in the man’s eyes, and he excused himself.
She closed the door and looked at Nate, who was at the window, his forehead pressed against the glass and his hands in his pockets.
“To what do I owe this surprise?” she asked, wondering if this was a social, business, or investigative call.
“I was in town, checking security for a new installation at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.”
“Okay,” said Sophie, drawing the word out to prompt Nate to explain further. She’d long since stopped asking how he was able to find her, how he always seemed to know where she was, no matter how well she covered her tracks.
Nate turned slowly and opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shook his head and ran a hand over his face. Now that he’d wiped away his professional mask, Sophie could see exhaustion and sadness.
“Nate, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“Sam... it’s Sam. The cancer came back a few months ago. Fast, aggressive, not like anything the doctors have ever seen.” Nate swayed a little, then leaned against the window sill.
“Oh Nate, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
He let out a bitter chuckle. “Wait, I haven’t gotten to the punchline yet. I found this doctor at Cedar-Sinai, who has a protocol for exactly the same kind of cancer. He just got through clinical trials and was ready to treat Sam.”
Sophie twisted her hands and waited as Nate paused, rubbing his hand over his mouth. She silently waited for him to continue.
“IYS called me today to tell me that... they aren't going to pay for the treatment. And then, with perfect timing, Maggie called to say that Sam seemed to be getting worse, right in front of her eyes, like she could see him... nearly slipping away.” Nate’s voice had changed, turning rougher around the edges, sliding toward a Boston accent that she realized must have been how he’d spoken as a child. She wondered how much effort went into maintaining his neutral mid-Atlantic inflection.
“But, they have to, don’t they? Don’t they have some kind of ethical or moral or legal obligation?” asked Sophie.
“Get real, Soph. The only obligation they have is to their shareholders, to keep profits high and costs low.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think. “There must be something you can do. You work there, after all. You must be able to talk to someone, get the authorization to overturn the decision.”
He shook his head. “This came directly from the top. Blackpoole.”
“But surely he can be convinced to make an exception.”
“The policy of IYS is to deny all claims involving experimental treatments pending further investigation,” said Nate, as though reciting a lesson by rote. “No exceptions.”
“How much does-”
Nate cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t.”
Sophie was about to protest that he hadn’t even heard her question, but she knew that he was often three steps ahead of her. He didn’t want her to ask how much it cost, didn’t want her to offer to help. She wanted to feel indignant that he’d be so presumptuous as to assume she’d offer, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She would have done just about anything if it would have helped him stop hurting.
Nate pushed off from the window sill and paced the room, swinging his arms angrily. “I don’t want plans or charity. It’s the principle of the matter. I’ve given IYS 20 years of my life, saved them hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Sophie stepped back, hoping he’d burn off some of his anger.
“I’ve done everything they’ve asked, done the right thing every last time. Shouldn’t that count for something? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Sophie pulled a bottle of still water from the minibar and opened it. She handed it to Nate and patted his chest reassuringly, while her other hand slipped into his jacket pockets, deftly plucking out several small bottles of Scotch.
Nate took a sip of water and she listened to him struggling to calm his breathing. She put her arm around his shoulders and steered him over the couch, waiting until he sat down. She perched on the arm of the chair across from him.
“I don’t know, Sophie. Maybe my father had the right idea. Worked for himself, worked hard, didn’t answer to anybody, broke fingers when things didn’t go his way... You break a few fingers, people aren’t going to cross you,” he said, sounding different, so angry and unlike himself.
“You think breaking fingers is somehow the answer?”
Nate rubbed a hand across his forehead. “No, I don’t. Sophie.. I don’t know the answers because the questions don’t even make sense anymore.”
He stood up and tried to resume his pacing, but he tripped. Sophie moved quickly from her perch and was able to catch him. His fingers curled tightly around her shoulders and his gaze moved slowly from her mouth to her eyes and back again.
“No ocean between us today,” he said, the words thick and throaty.
“Nate, you’re drunk,” she answered, gently trying to ease some space between them.
“Maybe,” he said, refusing to release his hold on her.
“You don’t want to do this. You have so many reasons not to do this.”
“That’s not true.”
“You love your family, more than anything. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“My family is nearly gone, Sophie. Gone. And without them, well....nothing matters, does it?”
It felt like a slap, but she tried not to react. She pried his hands from her shoulders and backed away from him.
“Sophie, I need you. Please,” he said, the rough voice and accent scaring her because he sounded like a man who had well and truly given up.
“I know you do, Nate. But not like that.”
Before he could respond, his phone buzzed. He slipped it out of his pocket, looked at the display, and hit a button to silence it.
“Who was that?”
Nate shook his head and sank into the couch, stretching his arms out as his head lolled back on the cushion. He tapped the spot next to him. “Come sit down.”
Sophie shook her head, preferring to pace the room while she listened to the phone buzzing in his pocket several more times before it finally stopped. She chattered nervously, trying to build a wall of words and logic to return Nate to reality, to steer him back into being the man she knew.
He finally became tired of waiting for her. He stood up and walked over to the minibar, where he downed three small Scotch bottles in quick succession. He emptied a few more bottles into a glass and then paused a moment, hands on the counter, eyes fixed on the Klee knock-off hanging on the wall.
“Sophie, what’s this?” he asked, suspicion creeping in around the edges of his question.
“That? Oh nothing, just a more upscale version of hotel art, I guess,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
“No,” he said, speaking in the slow, deliberate way he did when he was trying to unravel a scam. “Every print in this place is a Chagall. But this... this is a Klee.”
“Maybe it was the interior decorator’s idea of a joke,” said Sophie. Nate came toward her with more questions in his eyes and a wobble in his step. She steered him back to the couch, confident that he wouldn’t be conscious much longer.
As he sunk down onto the couch, she lifted his phone, then excused herself to use the bathroom. She turned on the water in the sink and sat on the edge of the whirlpool tub. Taking a deep breath, she hit the voicemail button and then entered his password, which was Sam’s birthday.
Seven messages were waiting and she quickly skipped past one from the doctor, one from Sterling, and a revoltingly insincere one from Blackpoole. The next four were from Maggie. A hang up. A request that he pick up the phone. A shaky, teary plea for him not to do anything stupid. A slightly more composed plea asking him to please come home immediately.
She turned off the water and left the bathroom. Nate was passed out on the couch. She slipped his phone back into his pocket and eased out a room key for the hotel across the street. Uncharacteristically, Nate had left the key in the flimsy paper holder with the room number written on it.
Sophie looked from Nate to the Klee and back to Nate. Sighing, she knew what she had to do. The man was flying blind and as his friend, she had a responsibility to be his compass, to guide him back home safely.
She lifted the painting from the wall and took it apart. She retrieved the Chagall print from under the bed and hung it up. In the bathroom, she opened the window and turned on the extractor fan, and then burned the forged Klee painting in the tub. The last order of business was to dispose of the frame, and she decided she would leave it under the bed in Nate’s room, where it was unlikely to ever be found and, if it was, it would never be traced to her.
It took Sophie fifteen minutes to go to Nate’s room, hide the frame, pack his belongings, and call the airport to make arrangements for the flights. Nearly record time for an escape, she thought, although it ended up taking nearly twenty minutes to wrestle Nate off the couch and load him into a taxi. She complimented herself for having the presence of mind to book two tickets for the first part of the journey, since it was clear that he wasn’t able to get anywhere under his own steam.
Nate and Sophie flew to Heathrow, where Sophie escorted him to the gate for his connecting flight to LAX. She had a quiet word with the gate attendants to explain the situation, swearing them to secrecy since she knew Nate would fly into a rage if he suspected her of sharing his private life with strangers. They’d nodded sympathetically and when the boarding call was made for first class passengers, they’d allowed her to help him onto the plane.
Sophie stowed his carry-on bag in the overhead bin and then paused to fasten Nate’s seatbelt. He had barely regained his consciousness long enough to stagger onto the plane, so she was surprised when he grabbed her hand as she turned to leave.
“Wait, Sophie. I need you.”
“No, Nate, you don’t. You need your family,” she said, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
“My family,” he whispered softly. He gave her the look that indicated that he’d given away too much, but this time, she didn’t have the energy to joke it off. Her mouth managed a sad smile before she walked away, relatively certain that she would never see him again.
In Barcelona three weeks later, she called in to the post office to collect her mail and walked out with a single envelope. The only thing inside was the memorial card from Sam’s funeral.
--//--
Sophie opens the door to her room at the riad just as her phone stops ringing. She’d unintentionally left it on the bedside table and she wonders if Freud were right about there being no accidents.
Sophie scrolls through the missed calls list and can see ten calls from Nate and one from Tara. She pulls out her suitcase and begins packing before she’s even listened to a single message.
When she’s done, she stands up straight and looks around the room slowly, checking to see if she’s forgotten anything. Ready or not, lost or found, it’s time for her to go back and unpack that steamer trunk.