The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [99]
“And you wanted to sit inside all day,” Lisbeth reminds me, hoping to reassure as we climb straight up into the blue sky and the Sants’ yacht shrinks below us. “Bye-bye, rich people with perfect lives who make me feel inadequate and fat—we’re off to endanger ourselves!”
Staying silent, I keep my forehead pressed to the window. At the sandy tip of the Palm Beach inlet, where Lake Worth flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the glowing blue-green water expands to the horizon, its colors more mesmerizing than a peacock’s tail. It barely registers.
“C’mon, Wes—you’ve earned a smile,” Lisbeth adds, her voice still racing. “We’ve got a lead on The Roman, some hints into the crossword, Rogo and Dreidel are on their way to dig up the scoop on Boyle, and we, in a mad stroke of your own genius, are now flying on a three-million-dollar whirlybird to the one person who was in the absolute best position to show us what happened that day. I’m not saying you should order the confetti and schedule the victory parade, but you definitely can’t just sit there and sulk.”
With my head still pressed against the glass, I shut my eyes and replay the video. She’ll never understand.
“Listen, I know it was hard watching that tape . . .”
I press even harder.
“. . . and just to see yourself without the scars . . .” Unlike most, she doesn’t shrink from the issue. I can feel her looking—not staring—right at me. The helicopter banks into position, heading south down the golden coastline, then quickly cutting right and heading inland, southwest over the carpeted green waves of the country club golf course. At five hundred feet, we’re about as high as a plane coming in for a landing. Golf carts scurry like tiny white ants across the grass, while the course’s sand traps dot the landscape like dozens of round beige kiddie pools. Within minutes, the beachfront homes and breathtaking yachts of Palm Beach give way to the mossy, mosquito-filled brown marshes of the Everglades. It changes so damn quickly.
“I’m just saying,” she adds, “whatever you’ve been through . . . it’s still the same you.”
Staring out the window, I watch as the tall strands of sawgrass peek out and sway in the Everglades’ shallow brown waters. “It’s not about my face,” I blurt.
Ignoring my reflection and pulling back slightly, I use the polish of the window to stare over my shoulder. Behind me, Lisbeth doesn’t move, still watching me carefully, with no hesitation as she studies my face.
“You saw the tape,” I add. “The way I stepped out of that limo . . . waving to the crowd . . . the swaggering sway in my shoulders . . .”
“You’re better off. You looked like Dreidel.”
“See, but that’s the point. When I see that tape . . . when I see the old me . . . I don’t just miss my face. What I miss—what I mourn—is my old life. That’s what they took from me, Lisbeth. You can see it on the tape: A twenty-three-year-old cocky kid strutting like only a twenty-three-year-old cocky kid can. Back then, when I imagined my future, from the White House to—I was rocketing so high, I couldn’t even pick the next coordinate. The whole damn world was possible. I mean, that’s the promise, right? I run and run and run this race—and then, in one stupid day, with one stupid ricochet . . .” My chin starts to quiver, but after all these years, I know exactly how to grit my teeth to bury it. “. . . I find out I’m never getting any further th-th-than . . . than halfway there.” The quivering’s gone. It’s not much of a victory. “That’s my life. Halfway there.”
In the reflection of the window, Lisbeth tucks a red curl behind her ear. “You got further than halfway, Wes.”
“Why, because I fetch the President’s Diet Coke and know which of his friends he hates? Rogo said it for years, but I wouldn’t listen. It was supposed to be a stepping-stone. Somehow it became a destination. Can you possibly fathom