it into my mouth. We stopped at the magazine stand, where Amanda picked up her fashion and celeb rity mags and I bought a selection of newspapers.
'I brought something else to read,' she said, 'but just in case.' Amanda wasn't the kind of girl who waited in line at sample sales and had a separate closet for her shoes, but something about reading about the hottest beach bodies made plane rides go by quicker. Maybe I should give Cosmo a whirl.
Sitting at the gate, I leafed through the Gazette. I felt my stomach clench when I turned to page eight and saw the two-paragraph article that started:
Stephen Gaines, 30, found shot to death in Al phabet City apartment by Neil deVincenzo I'd met Neil deVincenzo about a year ago. He covered the crime beat, had some good connections on the force.
Because of my tenuous relationship with the NYPD, they'd often talk to him rather than me. He was a good guy, around forty-five, and in terrific shape. He'd been a boxer in the navy, even had the tattoo of a pugilist on his upper biceps, though only a few of us were privy to the knowl edge, and that only came out after a few rounds of drinks.
The article was brief, perfunctory. There wasn't much to the story to report. Gaines was found murdered, two bullet wounds in his head. There were no suspects, no leads. And no locations or whereabouts for his mother, Helen Gaines. Sevi Makhoulian was quoted, saying, 'No comment.'
I wondered where Helen Gaines was. If she knew her son was dead. And if so, why Makhoulian couldn't locate her. I wondered if she knew her son was in trouble. And I wondered if she knew about me.
Our flight had one layover in Chicago. We would then go on to Portland, and rent a car for the drive to
Bend. The plan was to stay in Bend over the long weekend. I didn't have any desire to spent any more time with my father than was absolutely necessary to get all the details about his relationship with Helen Gaines and her son. After that, I figured it could be good for us to spend an extra day or two in the city of my birth. It had been the better part of a decade since I left for college,
I was curious to see how much had changed.
After a half-hour delay we settled into our seats.
Amanda took the middle, I got the aisle, and my legs thanked me. I took out a paperback novel, a thriller to help pass the time, and noticed Amanda reach into her knapsack and take out a book.
The cover seemed familiar. It was worn, the spine cracked, color faded. And when I look closer, I under stood why.
The book's title was Through the Darkness. It's author was Jack O'Donnell. The book was a chronicle of the rise of crack cocaine and the massive crime wave it spawned that nearly tore New York apart in the '70s and '80s. The book was nominated for the Pulitzer
Prize, though it lost out to a book that, as far as I knew, was no longer in print. Through the Darkness was the very book that officially gave Jack O'Donnell the moniker of my living hero.
Amanda noticed me staring. She smiled nervously.
'You talk about this book a lot,' she said. 'I just want to understand you better. And Jack, too.'
'It's a great book,' I said. 'Holds up like it was written last year. I really appreciate this.'
'Hope you don't mind that I took it from your shelf.'
'Are you kidding me? You don't know how happy this makes me.'
'Don't be silly, I wouldn't let you do this alone.'
'Not the trip,' I said. 'The book. It means a lot that you want to know more about what matters to me.'
'Why wouldn't I?' she asked, confused. 'I mean, we're together right? What kind of relationship would it be if neither of us cared about what mattered most to the other?'
I felt silly. I'd never read a book because I thought it meant a lot to Amanda, and for the most part she didn't like to talk about her work at home. Working at the
Legal Aid Society, she had to deal with some of the most horrific cases of child abuse. She saw things that would stay with you. I didn't blame her for not wanting to bring that kind of work home with her.
'Is there anything I can do?' I asked, feeling somewhat stupid. 'You know, to know more about you?
What makes you tick? Does Darcy Lapore have a memoir out or something?'
Amanda laughed. Darcy Lapore was her coworker, a professional socialite-in-training. And considering how much value was inherent in that job title, especially in New York where the title socialite was practically a blank check, it was likely only a matter of time before
Darcy's obsession with jewelry, makeup and shoes that cost more than my rent were bound to find the printed word, or more likely, a reality series. It was no doubt that vacuousness and superficiality were the country's drug of choice, and self-promotion was the new black.
'Tell you what, Darcy's husband has enough money that they could pay you to ghostwrite it and you wouldn't have to work at the Gazette until your midthir ties.'
'Hmm…that's an intriguing possibility. Provided I can get past the whole 'crying myself to sleep every night' problem that would come with that.'
'Would leaving your job really do that to do?'
Amanda asked with a mixture of rhetoric and actual cu riosity.
'I think so,' I said. 'I mean I believe, really believe, this is what I was meant to do.'
'Must be a great feeling to know what you're meant to do at your age,' Amanda said. She reached into her purse, took out a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. The plane began to back up, then we turned and approached the runway. Amanda began to chew her gum with a fury rarely seen outside of nature videos where a gang of lions rip a poor gazelle limb from limb.
She looked at me, saw I was staring. 'My ears pop,' she explained. I nodded, smiling. 'Come on, we both know you snore like a chain saw. We both have our little things. '
'I wasn't judging, but thanks for bringing up a sore subject. You know I got tested for apnea a while back.
It came back negative.'
'Maybe you should get a second opinion before I
'accidentally' smother you one night,' she said, settling back into her seat, closing her eyes. 'Okay, I'm going to sleep now. If you're going to snore, it'd be sweet if you wouldn't mind sitting in the bathroom.'
'It's reassuring to know you always have my safety in mind.'
'Oh, come on,' Amanda said. She sat up, leaning over and gave me a long kiss on the lips. I tasted her
ChapStick. Cherry. Delicious.
When she finished we were both smiling. And the old woman across the aisle was grimacing. 'If you two are even thinking about joining that so-called MileHigh Club,' she said, 'I'll call the flight attendant and have you ejected at 30,000 feet. Don't think I won't be watching you.'
We both nodded, embarrassed. Actually, the thought had crossed my mind, but with Mother Teresa sitting there I wouldn't want to be banned from the airline before the trip back.
'Have a good nap, babe,' I said, squeezing Amanda's hand. 'See you in Bend.'
'I hope we find out more about Stephen Gaines,' she said through a yawn.
I nodded, watching Amanda drift off to sleep, not knowing just how much there was to learn.
6
We landed in Portland at five o'clock, or eight o'clock
New York time. We'd both slept a good portion of the flights. While Amanda was awake, she tore through
Jack O'Donnell's book with incredible zeal. It thrilled me to see that she was clearly enjoying the book. It brought back memories of the first time I'd read it, in junior high. I spent the next week plowing through every O'Donnell book I could find at the Deschutes
County Library. My teachers were less than impressed, since I'd read the books in lieu of completing my actual schoolwork. Safe to say O'Donnell's tomes taught me more about myself and what I wanted to be than years
