He'd vacated the house, his phone number was still connected but he'd turn
ed off the phone. Every call went straight to voicemail with no reply. For all I knew, he'd lobbed the phone into a lake.
Why would he show up after all this time only to kiss me like that before walking out on me again?
The questions consumed me while, at the same time, I realized I had to make decisions about Richard. With the wedding only a few weeks away it was too late to make many changes. Richard didn't seem to be acting any differently. He was still spending most of the week days at the capital. He was still loving and devoted when he was home with me. But I found myself distancing myself from him. I couldn't bear to let him touch me. I claimed stress from the wedding, from Erik's sudden disappearance again, from finally being hit with my parents' death. Richard was kind and understanding. He didn't put any pressure on me and gave me space.
His compassion used to melt my heart. I used to think he was sweet and sympathetic, now I found myself wondering if it was because he really was sweet and compassionate or if was because he was keeping himself busy on the side.
A few days after Erik left, I got my answer. A large envelope arrived for me at the office marked "PRIVATE" on the outside. I signed for it with shaking hands. The return address said "Alaska" and there was only one person I knew who would send me mail from Alaska.
I locked myself into my office and began opening the envelope. I had a feeling the contents would change my life forever. But then, somewhere inside me I knew my life had already been changed forever, the contents of this envelope would only cinch the deal.
Sure enough, I pulled out a stack of printed photos of Richard with various women. Most of them were just photos of him leaning in a little closer than necessary, smiling, laughing. Having lunch. Walking with his arm around them. Some of women hugging him. Just about all the photos were of situations he could explain his way out of easily enough.
It wasn't the photos that were the most disturbing. It was the sheets of personal information for each woman pictured. Name, age, occupation, address. With the financial information for each address-- bank accounts for each woman showing deposits from the same account. Apartment leases, car leases, credit cards. All in the same name. All paid from the same account. And then the kicker-- the link between the name on all those accounts and Richard.
Richard was supporting at least 3 women in apartments. He'd bought cars for 2 of them and 1 other woman. No less than 6 women had credit cards that were being paid for by my fiance.
Thousands of dollars a month were being skimmed from a secret bank account to pay for what appeared to be several girlfriends scattered around the state.
A handwritten note at the bottom of the stack read,
"I just want to make sure you are safe. Take care of yourself. I never meant to hurt you but I can't be near you and not want you. Love Always, Erik."
I had the last of the wedding arrangements canceled by the end of the day. I lost the deposits on nearly everything but it had been mostly Richard's money anyway.
My lips twisted in a malicious little smirk as I thought about how he wouldn't blink at the financial loss-- all I'd really cost him was one more girlfriend for a year-- it was the publicity that was going to hurt him.
I wondered what his parents would say when they found out how he was spending all that money he'd inherited from his grandparents?
Oh well. I guess it's not my problem anymore. He can explain it to his parents, he can explain it to his girlfriends, and he can explain it the media, the voters and all his campaign contributors.
I didn't even bother to go home. I left Richard a text message. I figured I'd let the reporters fill him in on the rest.
I had a plane to catch.
When I'd called the Thompson Airstrip in Alaska-- the return address on the envelope-- a pleasant male voice informed me that Mr. Nelson was "currently in the air" but that he was expected to be "back on the ground" by sunset and that he was also expected to be the following day.
The 5 hour flight to Anchorage had been expensive but painless, sitting in the tiny, 5 passenger Cessna however was proving to be downright exhilarating. I had been informed that I was very fortunate to be able to charter the air taxi this far north at this time of year on such short notice. The scenery out the window was amazing. The time change meant I'd gained two hours of daylight and now we were soaring about 12,000 feet, close enough to see wild life on the ground as we wove between mountains instead of flying far above them.
I understood why Erik had ended up here. It was the perfect place for him. Rugged and a little out of control with a eloquent fuck-you-ness to it that took pride in being what most people considered uninhabitable. It reminded me of the idealistic, long-haired rebel that I had fallen in love with out in the shop helping put that Honda back together.
When my pilot, Laurel, got me safely on the ground at the Thompson Airstrip, I thanked her profusely as she helped me out of the plane and handed me my bag. Then I began hunting for Mr. Nelson.
The whole operation was very small. The airstrip was pretty much exactly that. Laurel had explained that it was one of the more popular strips because it was paved. The idea of a dirt runway blew me away, but Laurel had laughed and said at least they were runways, a lot of places were only accessible with floats because the pilots had to land on water. This place was a long way from the suburban life I'd been living.
The Thompson strip-- still bearing its founder's name-- consisted of one paved runway, two small hangars that were barely big enough to fit the little Cessna we'd flown in on, and a big, metal building that seemed to house mostly a giant mechanic shop with a tiny waiting room in the corner with a coffee counter that served cold sandwiches and hot soups according to the hand written sign on the counter. Which was currently closed.
I found an older gentleman calling himself Jesse out in the garage, tinkering on something attached to a propeller but not a plane. When I asked about Erik, he gave me a long look from top to bottom and back again that made me feel like my grandfather deciding if my attire was appropriate for the fishing trip. He looked over his glasses at me and demanded to know what business I had with "the Boss."
I hadn't finished my practiced explanation before he handed me a piece of paper with a hand drawn map on it. "You might as well turn that confounded cell thing off right now," he added, "even if you get a signal your navigation'll send you wrong." When I inquired about a rental car he laughed so hard he started choking. Then he reached into his pocket, handed me a set of keys and pointed toward an old Ford 4X4 to one side of the building.
At first I thought he meant it was a rental and I wanted to know who to pay, but he looked at me and shook his head, muttering something about "city" under his breath before barking at me that there "weren't no" rentals there, it was his truck but he'd have his wife come get him so no hurry getting it back to him.
That was certainly a shock. People back home don't ordinarily just hand you the keys to their cars without even getting your name first. Jesse promised me that people in Alaska didn't either, but he wasn't going to get in the way of a pretty girl looking to visit his boss. As I thanked him and turned toward the truck he added, "the Boss could use a visit from a pretty girl like you. Man ain't been right since he got home, y'know."
I looked back to find Jesse with his head tilted back to study me. When he saw me looking back, he nodded like we shared a secret.
The ancient Ford truck was like driving a World War 2 tank and stick shift to boot, but once I figured out the shift pattern and how to turn without cutting a corner I was out on the 2 lane road that Jesse had referred to as "the highway" headed west into the setting sun in search of Erik and what I hoped would be the reunion that would finally close the distance between our hearts as well as our addresses.
I had replayed that kiss over and over in my head a thousand times, every time I remembered the ache behind his confession my heart broke and my resolve to find him strengthened. I needed to find him, to make him understand that it was OK to love each other. We wer
en't kids anymore. We didn't have to worry about what the family would think of us. We could be together if we wanted. We could work out the glitches and face any remaining opposition as a team.
I watched the trees and the open spaces outside the windows of the truck as Jesse's ancient cassette tape player droned out a compilation of hit songs from 1978. I found the turn off to Erik's driveway just as the lilting tone of Barry Manilow's voice began belting out "Ready to Take a Chance Again."
I laughed as I realized I was singing along. I shouldn't even know who Barry Manilow is, but Mom loved him. It warmed my heart that I could think of Mom now and smile instead of cry.
The truck bounced down the mud and gravel road that was marked on the hand-drawn map as Erik's driveway. He sure as hell doesn't drive that little Z4 to this house, I thought as I stopped to shove the transfer case into 4 wheel drive.
Erik's "driveway" was a full quarter mile of sheer Jeep trail hell, but eventually I rounded a curve and found myself looking at a wide clearing that revealed a scene that took my breath away. Like a scene from a painting, the cabin style house set at the edge of a large lake, complete with wooden dock with a canoe and a small plane on skis bobbing at the end of the long pier. Behind it all, the landscape stretched out in wide meadow before rising up to become the base of high, granite walls that tapered into mountains that already had a dusting of snow along the top ridges.
Sitting just in front of a large shop building to the side of the house, a Honda Nighthawk motorcycle sat huddled against the outside wall next to an old Jeep Cherokee that looked like it had made several trips down the driveway in recent days.
The house's big front door opened as I parked, a black lab broke into a wild run toward me with tail wagging enthusiastically as I climbed out of the truck. "Don't worry, she's friendly." A familiar voice called out from the direction of the house.