Best Man

  The Best Man

  By Laura Briggs and Sarah Burgess

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Laura Briggs

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  Cover design courtesy of DJ’s eBook Cover Designs

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter One

  "In thirty minutes, we will be landing in San Francisco slightly ahead of schedule. As we begin our descent, please turn off all cell phones and electronic devices.” The voice over the plane’s intercom had a droning, pre-recorded quality as if the pilot were bored with these words. The announcement, however, caused a ruffle of activity in the various sections of the plane as passengers switched off music players or searched for power buttons on phones.

  The announcement escaped Michael’s notice until a flight attendant touched his shoulder. Dutifully, he removed the ear buds echoing strains of rock music, his fingers poised over the keyboard below a screen of words. Macleod knew he was lost; knew all of them were lost, the sentences read in Sans Serif font. As the drumming in the distance grew louder, he did not allow himself to cringe inwardly at the thought of what would soon come for himself and his countrymen when the king’s mercenaries marched upon them...

  A few strokes and the open document disappeared with a flash, followed by an orderly disassembly of his laptop and shuffling of his notes. A copy of his previous book, Code of the Camerons, tucked in the side pocket of his laptop case, a dog-eared line creasing the name printed below the Irish crest on the cover.

  “Michael Herriman,” the passenger next to him read aloud from the protruding volume. An elderly woman whose eyeglasses were perched on the end of her nose, her hand sliding a biography of Abraham Lincoln into her purse. “I just love his books, don’t you?”

  Michael smiled faintly. “I’ve never read one from cover to cover, I’m afraid,” he answered. Which was true, since he could never bring himself to read more than a few paragraphs of his own work before setting it aside. Weeks of meticulous editing labor with a highlighter cost him more than one moment of shame over phantom shortcomings he detected in his manuscripts, from mistakes in Highland characters’ brogue to scenery descriptions which he believed fell short of the real landscape’s beauty.

  The woman beside him smiled. “Well, I’ve always enjoyed them,” she said. “They make quite a good choice for plane travel, don’t they? Getting lost in some epic battle instead of worrying about engines and landing gear and all that.” She was gathering up a large knitted shawl in blue and purple as she chatted on, giving Michael a sense of embarrassment that he was privy to remarks about his own books.

  A few seats ahead, a child scrambled up and raced towards the rear of the plane, a harassed-looking mother following behind. A teenage boy shoved a computer tablet into a knapsack while the young woman in the seat beside him gazed out the window. No electronic devices in her possession, apparently–her hands were folded together as a support for her face, dark hair streaming beneath a powder blue cap.

  As the plane jarred slightly upon contact with the runway, Michael’s fellow passenger braced herself against the arm rest. She was brisk to rise the moment they were allowed to disembark, pulling a compact little case from the overhead luggage compartment, a forest green plastic that reminded him of travel films from the sixties. He pulled his own bag from the compartment, a nondescript duffel bag that slung over his shoulder beside the laptop case. Ahead of him, passengers shuffled forward in a straggling line of pillows and sleep sacks, bulky coats shed for California climate and sequined tote bags. The girl in the blue cap had a khaki rucksack buckled with frayed straps like a soldier’s carryall.

  The waiting room in the airport had the forlorn, sparse feel created by the strict security atmosphere barring visitors from the gates. Still, there was a sense of human drama in the businessman talking excitedly into his cell phone, two young people pouring over brochures from a travel agency. Michael observed these things with a keen eye for detail, small pieces of life in color and motion.

  The San Francisco flight was a connecting one for him, the final destination a literary conference in Belfast. Michael scheduled flights as if he possessed a shoestring budget, with another stop in Chicago. Already his inbox was flooded with a series of notes from attendees of his lecture in Nagano on writing historical novels in a modern age, professors requesting an address for students’ thank-you notes to the attending authors, requests for interviews by a handful of literary journalists who were present. A part of him envied the people left behind, comfortable in their everyday routines, while Michael felt himself growing stale in the usual publicity rounds for his latest novel. By the third or fourth engagement, his mind was usually focused on whether his plants were now brown in his apartment or his mail piling high with letters and magazines.

  Several of his fellow passengers exited the gate, including the teenage boy and the little girl with her mother. Michael’s former seatmate settled a few chairs away, withdrawing her Abe Lincoln biography again; the teenagers with the color brochures moved their coats to accommodate the girl from the flight.

  Michael pulled out his manuscript notes and scribbled a reminder to change the description of the Scottish clan’s tartan and contact his editor about the period map for the insert. With the flick of his pen, he emptied the nagging reminders he mentally filed while typing on the plane. His thoughts roamed towards a cup of coffee and a desire to know if there was a Starbucks anywhere in the airport’s labyrinth.

  The flight layover was supposed to be thirty minutes, but time stretched on. He checked the flight status, now listed as delayed. As if by magic, however, it switched to cancelled with an abrupt transformation.

  Flight 174 to Chicago has been canceled due to mechanical issues... This announcement didn’t escape his notice as it echoed over the loudspeakers. There was a new form of shuffling among the passengers, a hesitant flurry of concern. The apologetic smile of the flight attendant, the nasal complaint of a fellow passenger arguing the circumstances–all familiar to Michael from years of flights, but his mind was otherwise occupied. He packed up his notes, shoving them into a compartment in his laptop case, then rose and made his way towards the ticket counters.

  The woman behind the airline desk had a pert expression framed by a layered haircut, a scarf tied around her neck above her uniform shirt.

  “I’m sorry, but there was wing damage to the plane due to turbulence,” she explained. “The next flight to Chicago is fully booked–”

  Michael’s flight for Belfast was scheduled with a fifteen minute layover; it was impossible for him to make it. The desk clerk scanned the possible routes for him–the next convenient flight to Ireland–with seats available at bargain rates, that is–departed from Boston at ten o’ clock p.m.

  “So what’s the earliest flight to Boston through this airline?” asked Michael. Behind him, another passenger muttered something about the service. From the corner of his eye, he could see a few of the remaining passengers breaking free from the line
, fingers already scrolling across mini cell phone screens as they booked replacement flights or transferred their tickets electronically. Circumventing him despite his status of being first at the counter, he thought ironically.

  The woman behind the counter clicked a few keys and studied her computer screen. “We have seats available on our six-thirty flight,” she said. “There is a first class seat available on another plane leaving at five–”

  “No thanks,” he answered. “Six-thirty is fine.” He shifted the laptop case to be more comfortable as he reached for his wallet, mentally calculating the leisure time he would possess in between his arrival at the Boston gate and the hour he disembarked on a flight carrying him across the ocean.

  The world of ticket counters and screens was growing old-fashioned, he realized, along with his avoidance of upgrading his seat or participating in mileage point plans. Perhaps it was time he changed all that–instead of spending this afternoon huddled in a flight waiting area, he could get a hotel room and take a nap before his flight.

  Or perhaps he would go out for once. Hail a cab and see a glimpse of the city around him if only a blur of streets through the pane of taxi glass. Buy a loaf of sourdough bread for the sake of telling someone at a dinner party he visited an authentic local bakery. His step quickened slightly as these thoughts entered his head, going against the lull of napping in a flight waiting area.

  A married couple was arguing about luggage claims as they approached the desk, brushing past Michael as they took his place. He glanced at them, but they were unfamiliar faces, passengers from another flight than his own. He tucked the ticket in his pocket as he walked on, glancing ahead at the moving crowd. The girl in the powder blue hat was standing in its midst, her rucksack slung low on her shoulders.

  Her dark hair was free flowing, a shining brown that was almost black in the fashion of a classic brunette. The blue cap had a neatly-folded rim, a matching fringed scarf striped with ivory dangling freely past the pockets of her jeans. A slender figure in work boots and a silk top visible beneath an open white coat.

  She seemed lost in thought as she stood there, a cell phone resting in her hand as she gazed towards the glass entrance to the airport. Her features seemed delicate, her form upright and graceful, as if a sculpture in the moving crowd of slouched shoulders burdened with heavy carry-on bags.

  Probably twenty-six or twenty-seven, Michael decided. Too young and too busy to notice him as he passed, the distance in their ages closer to ten than two– reason enough for him to be another middle-aged figure in the crowd with his sensible bags and business destination.

  Her glance flickered towards him as she turned, a smile more friendly than polite on her lips, a warmth briefly visible in the depths of her blue eyes. A gentle sensation passed through him as they met his own, as if their hands brushed in passing before she turned away again.

  He was almost past her. With a sudden burst of courage, he pointed to her ticket. “Chicago?” he asked. Smiling shyly, apologetically, in case she was insulted as he discovered this was a mistake.

  She looked in his direction again, an expression of surprise on her face at the sound of his voice until she became aware of what he meant.

  “Chicago,” she repeated in confirmation. Her accent was soft and British, making it his turn to be surprised.

  “Boston,” he said, opening his jacket to reveal the ticket in the pocket. “So I guess we won’t be flightmates this time.” It would have surprised him to know that she even recognized him from the plane, despite their mutual position in the ticket line.

  In his head, the final half of this scenario was written as if by a storyteller’s foreknowledge of character. A sense of shyness would overtake him in a moment’s time and he would lope onwards towards the Boston gate with nothing more than a final glance over his shoulder, his mind returning to the subject of Belfast and hotel room meals. The end seemed destined even as the lovely face before him gazed openly into his own.

  A strange impulse took him, a tingling beneath his skin as his hand slid into his pocket, closing over something. “What seat were you?” he asked. “On the flight we missed.”

  She looked confused momentarily before she realized what he meant. Her eyes slanted upwards as if visualizing the number above her in its recollection. “Forty-three B,” she answered.

  He drew the slip from his pocket, the printed flight info for Chicago, crumbled amidst a peppermint wrapper and coffee receipt. When he unfolded it, his smile tugged upwards as he glanced at the seat information in small black print. Forty-three C.

  “We were seatmates after all,” he said, with a faint laugh. “Our destiny was thwarted by flight mechanics, apparently.” Now was the moment to walk away and leave her with an impression of a mysterious stranger whose path almost crossed her own. Her gaze lowered as if she receded in shyness; when she raised her face, it was gazing towards the glass airport entrance again, the doors admitting a large family burdened with luggage.

  “What does one do when they have this sort of time?” Her voice was soft, as if she spoke to herself and not to him. “I suppose I would wonder about the same in Chicago. What one does in a strange city with their spare moments.”

  With the distance between them, he could easily assume she was talking aloud in general and not to him. His lips parted after a moment of hesitancy.

  “They eat sourdough bread,” he said. “From the bakeries. And have their photos taken aboard trolley cars. At least that’s what I’ve heard from others who visit this place.”

  Her head turned towards him with a startled snap of attention, proof that her words had not been for him at all. He felt foolish for saying those words, the flicker of a smile on his face a struggle to maintain beneath her eyes.

  “Was that what you were going to do?” she asked. “Have bread in a bakery?” A note of amusement emerged in her voice as if a hint of playfulness leaking through the placid surface. Michael’s smile was encouraged by this; he shrugged in response as he turned towards the doors.

  “I was thinking about doing anything besides sleeping in another terminal,” he answered. The doors opened again, a woman towing a suitcase on wheels entering. Outside, a taxi pulled up to the curb and deposited its customers.

  Michael was moving forward now, born along by a tide of well-wishers and passengers-to-be drifting through the lobby. The girl moving also, making it natural for him to fall into step beside her. Easy, in fact, to walk along beside her with his bags slung across one shoulder. She glanced towards him with a brief smile.

  “It might be as well for you that we didn’t fly together. I have rather a tendency to grow restless after long hours on a plane–but you were engrossed in your work, as I recall.”

  He remembered her passing him on the plane at one point, the memory coming back with a flash of clarity that surprised him. The tangible scent like honey of her bitter perfume drifting towards him as she moved down the aisle.

  “Curse of being a writer,” he answered, absently. A burst of cool air washed over them as the automatic doors wooshed open again.

  “A writer?” she repeated. “Would I have heard of you?” He detected a note of faint curiosity in her voice. Polite curiosity, as if friendliness were a formality conducted by a reserved personality. The possibility of impressing her with his name tempted him momentarily–but there was a grain threading through Michael’s nature that loathed public exposure of his name. The possibility that she was not a fan, perhaps even hated his literature, was not far removed his thoughts.

  He coughed slightly. “Maybe,” he answered. “So that’s why I probably won’t tell you who I am. In case you’re the one who’s been sending me all those death threats with letters pasted from magazines.”

  Her peal of laughter startled him with its openness, light and merry as if breaking forth from behind placid clouds. “Not I,” she answered. “Clear me of the possibility of guilt, please.”

  “I’ll tell you that my name is Mic
hael,” he said. “There are a million writers with that name, so I dare you to find me.” The photograph on the jacket blurbs of his books was taken at least seven years ago, depicting a younger face than his current profile. There was a strong, and for him, comfortable, possibility that his readers would never recognize him on the street using the image as a point of reference. “Michael with no last name, should you feel the urge to feed it to a search engine.”

  “Kate,” she said, after a moment. “My name is Kate.” She followed his example, omitting her last name as she extended a hand with polished nails curved in half moons, her smile an upward curve in the corner of her lips. He shook her hand solemnly, aware of a slight moisture in his palm from where his fingers had gripped his laptop case strap. They passed through the doors almost side by side as the glass partition slid open automatically, the flow of pedestrians exiting into bright sunlight and the hum of airline engines in the distance.

  A cab rolled up to the curb, no pedestrians ahead of Michael taking advantage of it as they broke off in the direction of parking levels and lots. Their hands were still linked in a handshake, lingering a fraction of a second longer as they both glanced towards the cab.

  He moved to withdraw his hand, realizing the awkwardness of standing with eyes and fingers locked with a stranger. Kate’s eyes flickered downwards with a faint laugh as a flush arose from beneath Michael’s collar.

  “Where to?” The cabbie’s voice emerged through a slightly rolled-down passenger window, words wrapped in a thick Jamaican accent.

  “Where’s the nearest bakery?” Michael asked. His eyes had not redirected their gaze towards the cabbie’s window, as if they were transfixed by the movement of Kate’s head. Her face angled away from him for a fraction of a second, revealing the profile of a slender nose and high cheekbones. “Will you take us there?” he added, a slight skip in his heart as he spoke these words.

  He met Kate’s eyes with a questioning glance, as if seeking permission for asking this. In the depths of blue, there was no sign of dismay or disconcertion to behold.