Dirty Letters by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 1

LUCA

Oh boy, here we go again.

I pushed my shopping cart forward rather than turning to walk down the aisle I’d originally planned. But after taking a step or two, I couldn’t help myself. I backed up enough to hide my body behind the endcap and peeked my head out to watch the action.

A woman with the frizziest, most unnatural color of red hair placed a deodorant back on the shelf and grabbed a new one. She opened the top of the stick and sniffed it, then proceeded to lift one side of her shirt and wipe the deodorant under her armpit, then moved on to the other. Replacing the cap, she examined the shelf for a moment before picking another brand. Again, she plucked the top off, sniffed, then swiped under each of her pits. I watched, fascinated by how serious she was, while she sampled six different deodorants before a store employee finally noticed what she was doing. When they both ran down the aisle yelling, I figured that was my cue to move my ass and finish up my shopping trip.

A few months back, I’d seen a man sample a dozen whole rotisserie chickens. He removed the plastic cover off each one, ripped off a leg, took a big bite, jammed the leg back inside the cavity of the chicken, and replaced the cover of each. When I’d told the manager, he’d sighed and yelled to a stock boy to go fetch Mr. Hammond. Food shopping at two in the morning in a twenty-four-hour supermarket tended to bring out a unique brand of shoppers. I fit right in.

“How are you doing today, Luca?” Doris, the cashier, asked as I loaded my groceries onto the conveyor belt. She’d been working at this supermarket since I started coming here about five years ago—really nice lady. I knew she was a grandmother of nine and number ten was on the way. She babysat a few of them during the day, which was why she worked the graveyard shift. Doris was also one of the few people who I ever told the truth about why I shopped forty miles away from my home in the middle of the night.

“I’m doing good.” She scanned a package of black licorice followed by two canisters of Pringles and two boxes of packaged brownies. Not my usual grocery items, so I explained. “I’m stocking up for a road trip, not pregnant.”

Doris’s brows rose. “A road trip? Must be something special if you’re boxing yourself into a little car for a long haul.”

“I have to clean out my dad’s apartment in Manhattan.”

“He passed away last year, right?”

I nodded. “I’ve been avoiding it. I’d rather be water-boarded than step foot onto a tiny island with a population of eight and a half million people. Not to mention hours stuck in a car with traffic jams to get there—pure torture.”

Doris frowned. “Can’t you hire someone to do it?”

I had hired someone. Then a combination of my own guilt and Dr. Maxwell, my therapist, made me decide to do it on my own. But eventually the stress of thinking about all those people in New York City gave me trouble sleeping, and I hired the company again. Then I canceled. Again. Then I’d hired a new company because I was too embarrassed to hire the same company a third time. And again I canceled. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Until I was out of time, and, well, now it’s tomorrow.

“It’s just something I need to do myself.”

Doris looked genuinely concerned. “You going to be okay? I’m a good copilot if you need a friend to tag along.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Doris. That’s really generous of you. But I have someone coming. We’re leaving tomorrow evening to avoid traffic as much as possible.”

Doris finished scanning my groceries, and I swiped my card. Before leaving, I reached into my cart and grabbed the bag containing bing cherries and a package of dark-chocolate Milano cookies. I put it at the end of her checkout counter, like always. “The cherries are for your grandkids. Hide the Milanos from the little monsters.”

She thanked me. “Have a safe trip, sweetheart. Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Yeah, me too.This was going to be one hell of an interesting road trip.

“You could focus on relaxing more if you’d let me drive my car. Maybe listen to some of those breathing technique recordings I gave you.”

I looked over at Dr. Maxwell’s dented-up Cadillac parked in my driveway. The man shouldn’t be driving at all. In fact, he was a prime example of why people over a certain age should be retested to keep their driving privileges. Relaxing would be the last thing I would be able to do with him behind the wheel. Plus, he knew I needed to be in control as much as humanly possible.

I started the ignition, and my bow-tie-wearing copilot lifted binoculars up to his eyes, peering out his window. I needed a new therapist for thinking it was a good idea to go on this trip with my current therapist.

“You ready, Doc?”

He nodded and didn’t lower his binoculars. “Never been to the Big Apple. Can’t wait to see what birds we’ll encounter.”

I shook my head. “Pigeons, Doc. Rats with wings. That’s what we’ll encounter.”

We set off on our seven-hour trip from Vermont to Manhattan. The first few hours were uneventful until we hit a traffic jam. I started to sweat—literally—and my fingers began to tingle at the tips. Oh no. Not while I’m driving. The fear of the looming panic attack was sometimes almost as bad as the actual attack. My heart started to race and my head felt light. I sometimes vomited during a severe episode and did not want that to happen while on the highway. I made the rash decision to drive up the shoulder so I could escape the feeling of being boxed in between immovable cars. The rumble strip on the road jarred Dr. Maxwell from his nap. He woke and grabbed on to the oh shit bar above his door. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. We just hit some traffic. My heart started to race, and I needed to take a detour.”

Only Doc would look relieved by what I’d just said. He released his death grip on the car and spoke in a calming voice. “Relax your grip on the wheel, Luca.”

I looked down. My knuckles were white, and the surrounding lengths of my fingers were bright red. I did as instructed, because while I might not trust the nutty doc to drive a car, he knew how to steer me away from panic attacks. Nodding, I said, “I tried a breathing technique. It obviously didn’t work.”

“Tell me what you’re doing right now.”

My eyes flashed to him and back to the road as I continued on the service road. “What I’m doing? I’m driving.”

“No. Tell me what you were just able to do when you felt the feeling of panic set in.”

“I got off at the exit?” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

“That’s right. You steered the car from one road to another road, which made you feel safer. You can do that. And you can also pull over at any time and get out of the car if you feel like it.”

I nodded. Of course, he was right. But he wasn’t merely stating the obvious. He was reminding me that I was in control of the situation and had exerted that control when I felt I needed to. The biggest part of my anxiety disorder was the overwhelming fear of being trapped. It was why I didn’t do crowds, traffic, public transportation, or small spaces—yet I could be okay walking outside in a busy city. Exercising control to remove myself from the situation helped alleviate the anxiety.

“Take a nice deep breath, Luca.”

I inhaled through my nose and blew out a deep breath through my mouth. A chill hit my skin, which actually comforted me. My body became clammy when it headed into a panic attack; a coating of sweat often permeated my entire face with the rise of my body temperature. A chill meant my body was cooling back off.

“Tell me about that date you had Saturday night.”

I knew he was trying to distract me, to keep my mind focused on something other than the panic attack brewing, but I was okay with that. “He brought . . . his mother.”

Doc’s brows drew together. “His mother?”

“Yup. To a picnic lunch I’d made.” Picnic lunches at the park were my go-to first date regardless of the weather. They allowed me to avoid crowded restaurants, yet keep it casual. It was that or my place, and the last guy I’d invited over to my house for dinner assumed that meant I’d invited him for first-date sex.

“Why on earth would he bring his mother?”

I shrugged. “He said he’d mentioned our plans to her, and she had said she’d never been to that park.” This is what I got for being up front with men about my issues before we met—I got weirdos. But it wasn’t fair to hide the fact that I couldn’t go out on dates like a normal twenty-five-year-old woman. Not so shockingly, men tended to disappear fast when telling them about yourself and using words like agoraphobic and anxiety. Which in turn meant the remaining dating pool needed a bucket of chlorine.

Realizing our conversation had distracted me and helped quell the looming full-fledged panic attack I’d felt coming on, I said, “Thank you for that, by the way. I feel a lot better already. I’m just going to pull over in that empty parking lot up ahead and get out and do some stretches.”

Doc smiled, knowing yoga was one of my own self-calming techniques. “Atta girl.”

The rest of the trip was almost peaceful—sans a few extra detours and Doc talking to his lady friend on his cell with the volume turned up so loud that I heard her remind him to fill his Viagra prescription. I’d timed it so we’d arrive in Manhattan in the middle of the night to avoid as much traffic as possible, and we were lucky to nab a parking spot on the street, since a garage was out of the question for me. My trusty therapist was staying at a hotel, which was only half a block from my dad’s apartment.

“Doc. Wake up. We’re here.”

He woke looking confused, and I felt bad for having to interrupt his sleep at all. “What? Huh? Oh. Okay. Here. Yes. Okay.”

I walked him to his hotel and waited out front to make sure he checked in with no issues. “Thanks again for taking the ride with me, Doc. Give me a call if you feel up to breakfast in the morning. I know it’s late so, if not, maybe lunch.”

Doc patted my shoulder. “You call me if you need me. Anytime, Luca. And you did well today. Really well. I’m proud of you.” I knew he meant it.

Even though I’d been tired for the last few hours of the drive, when I let myself into Dad’s place, I was suddenly wide awake. It was the oddest feeling to walk into my father’s living space without him there. He’d been gone for a year now—although you wouldn’t know it from looking at his apartment. Mrs. Cascio, Dad’s neighbor, had been checking on the place every few days, bringing in the mail, and generally keeping the cobwebs at bay.

I walked around and opened all the windows, because fresh air always helped me feel less trapped. Dad’s bookshelves were still lined with framed photos, none of which had been updated in the five years since Mom died. I lifted a small silver double frame. The left side had a photo of me in my Girl Scouts uniform, and the right had one of me sitting on Dad’s lap while leaning forward and blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. I must’ve been six. A large ivory frame displayed my parents’ wedding photo. I traced my finger along the length of Mom’s veil. Everyone always told me I looked just like her, but growing up, I didn’t see the resemblance. Now, though, I was the spitting image of her. It was hard to believe they were both gone.

The small dining room table had a pile of mail. I’d had Dad’s mail forwarded to my house, so mostly it was just catalogs and junk. Once a month, Mrs. Cascio sent me everything that arrived, even though I’d told her it wasn’t necessary. I mindlessly fingered through the pile, not expecting to see anything worth keeping. But I stopped at an envelope addressed to me—well, not me, but Luca Ryan. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. In second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Ryan, started a pen pal writing program with a small town in England. We weren’t allowed to use our real last names for safety reasons, so the entire class used her last name—hence I was Luca Ryan.

I checked out the return address for the sender’s name.

G. Quinn

Wow, really? It couldn’t be.

I squinted at the postmark. It was from a PO box in California, not England, but I didn’t know any other Quinn other than Griffin. And the handwriting did look pretty familiar. But it had been close to eight years since we’d exchanged letters. Why would he write now?

Curious, I ripped it open and scanned right to the bottom of the letter for the name. Sure enough, it was from Griffin. I started at the beginning.

Dear Luca,

Do you like scotch? I remember you said you didn’t like the taste of beer. But we never did get around to comparing our taste in hard liquor. Why is that, you might ask? Let me remind you—because you stopped answering my letters eight damn years ago.

I wanted to let you know, I’m still pissed off about that. My mum used to say I hold grudges. But I prefer to think of it as I remember the facts. And the fact of the matter is, you suck. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been holding that shit in for a long time.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not obsessive or anything. I don’t sit in my house thinking about you all day long. In fact, there have been months that go by when thoughts of you don’t even enter my brain. But then some random thing will pop into my head out of the blue. Like I’ll see some kid in a pram eating black licorice, and I’ll think of you. Side note—I’ve tried it again as an adult, and I still think it tastes like the bottom of my shoe, so perhaps it’s that you just have no taste. You probably don’t even like scotch.

Anyway, I’m sure this letter won’t find its way to you. Or if by some miracle it does, you won’t answer. But if you’re reading this, you should know two things.

1. The Macallan 1926 is worth the extra cash. Goes down smooth.
2. You SUCK.

Later, traitor,

Griffin

What in the hell?