Rapture

"I'm fine and I'm still in Connecticut. I wanted to check in with you because I've been in and out a lot the last few days and I didn't know if you'd been trying to reach me."

No. There's no real news here, Jeff. Nothing exciting or important to report, so I didn't want to bother you."

"Just the usual day-to-day madness."

"Right, yes," Callie said with a laugh. "We're coping. Pretty well, I think."

"Okay, glad to hear it. Now listen, Callie. I'll be staying on here for another day or two, which will bring us into the weekend, so you might as well not expect to see me until Monday."

"Fine. I'll make a note of that."

"I won't be at the number I gave you," Jeff said. "In fact, I can't really give you a number, because I'm doing a lot of running around, seeing people and tying up loose ends-family business. What I'll do is give you another call, either this time tomorrow afternoon or else the first thing Friday morning. Your time. All right?"

"F'me. Got lt."

"You can give Ted the message," he added. "I assume he hasn't been trying to get me."

"He would have told me, I think," Callie said. 'He's completely wrapped up in the project."

"Of course." The project. Sigma Tau, so sensitive they were forbidden to use those two words on any telephone-not even on the company's internal system. It was such a sweet contract that LiskerBenedictus could probably survive on it alone for the next five years.

After Jeff hung up, he sat back on the bed and lit a cigarette. It was Wednesday evening, and the last twenty-four hours had been tiring.

What was he really doing here? It seemed like the kind of fool's errand that could easily turn into a colossal embarrassment. He hadn't seen her since they were teenagers. She was married now and had a teenage daughter of her own. That in itself was so hard for Jeff to fathom that it almost paralyzed him.

He opened a can of beer as he flipped through the Danbury telephone directory. There it was, Foxrock. A short section for a small town. He turned the pages slowly, enjoying his search. It didn't take long. There were only two Corcorans listed: Bonnie, on Indian Hill Road, and Sean R., also on Indian Hill Road. For a moment, Jeff wondered what the R. stood forsomething Irish, like Rory? He tried to picture the man. Florid, freckled, red-haired? He smiled. Georgianne marrying an Irish stereotype? Fat chance of that ever happening.

What about the daughter? He tried to construct a chronology. Georgianne should be thirty-eight, or nearly so. If she hadn't given birth until after college, Bonnie would be fifteen, sixteen at most. Did she look like Georgianne at that age? It was a dazzling, terrifying thought. But Bonnie didn't really interest him. He was curious about Georgianne, not some teenager who probably dressed like Madonna.

Should he dial the number and talk to her? Now? That was what he had come for, but Jeff was hit by another attack of uncertainty. He could still avoid this moment of possible contact. He could check out of the Mortlake Motel and get to New York at a reasonable hour. Catch a late flight to L.A. or else spend a night in Manhattan, where there were good restaurants, music, films, any number of pleasant things to do. It would make a lot more sense than sitting out in the middle of nowhere drinking beer and acting silly about a girl, no, a woman he hadn't seen in twenty years.

Even if he did call the number, her husband might answer. Then what? Or if he did get Georgianne on the line, he might just dry up and not know what to say. His professional manner would desert him. The whole thing was a whim, a bad idea really, nothing more. The kind of thing that seems irresistible until you actually do it. Then you understand what a mistake it was all along.

Jeff scrawled the two telephone numbers on the road map and put the directory back on the bedside table. He went into the bathroom and urinated, then sat down on the bed again and stared at the floor. All right. He had a plan, of sorts. He called Bonnie's number, and she answered on the second ring.

"Hello."

"Is Harold there?"

`Who?"

"Harold. Harold."

Jeff nearly laughed, because he was doing such a good job of altering and coarsening his voice.

"There's no Harold here," Bonnie Corcoran said. "What number did you want?"

"Who's this?"

"Bonnie. What number-"

"Sor "

Jeff hung up and fell back across the bed, his whole body shaking with excitement. Jesus Christ, that voice! As though it had come right out of his own head, not from the other end of a telephone line. It was like honey poured in his ear, lighting up the center of his brain with a warm glow. Bonnie sounded like Georgianne, as he remembered her. The voice of a teenager-deliciously appropriate, so right, so true to the voice he had carried in his mind all these years.

That did it. He had to see her. Not the daughterhe didn't care about her-but the mother. Georgianne. No matter how it might turn out-awkward, embarrassing, a disaster-he had to see her.