Light Reading
It was snowing heavily on the morning of December 28, and the people of Boston and its vicinity were experiencing the first snowfall of the season. While many New Englanders welcomed the sight of glistening white treetops, to others the wintry weather was an unwanted inconvenience.
To Janice Milligan, an attractive, successful tax attorney who had amassed a fortune helping wealthy businessmen, entertainers and sports figures find tax shelters in order to keep their money out of Uncle Sam's grasp, there was nothing magical about the winter season. The cold, unpredictable weather was one of the reasons she had left Massachusetts and settled in Los Angeles—that and the fact that there were more potential clients on the West Coast.
On that blustery December morning, however, Janice was sipping hot coffee at a Logan Airport Starbucks when she heard the announcement that all flights would be delayed until the storm eased up.
"God, I hate New England winters!" she groaned with frustration.
She immediately took her BlackBerry out of her Louis Vuitton handbag and phoned her client in Los Angeles, informing him of the delay.
"What are you doing in Boston, of all places?" the former Brooklyn cabbie turned action star asked.
"I spent Christmas here with my family," Janice explained.
"I never go back east, except when I'm shooting on location there or when the Yankees are in the World Series," he laughed. "I'm free tomorrow around three. Why don't we meet at that time? Until then, stay warm and try not to get too bored in that crowded airport."
Janice hung up the phone and tried to think of a way to pass the time. If only she had brought her computer with her, she could put the hours to good use, but she had checked her laptop with her luggage and now had nothing to do until airport service resumed.
"There's a newspaper stand around the corner," a middle-aged legal secretary who was waiting for a flight to Orlando informed her. "You can get something to read there."
Normally, Janice did not read newspapers, preferring to keep up with current events by visiting CNN.com. Still, some light reading might make the time pass more quickly; so after finishing her latte, she picked up her handbag and walked to the newspaper stand.
"Can I help you, miss?" the overweight, balding man behind the counter asked.
"I'm just looking for a magazine."
The man's eyes narrowed, and he asked, "Are you a model?"
Janice was about to give him a caustic remark when he spoke again.
"The reason I ask is that you look just like the woman on the cover of that book."
"What book?"
"That paperback on the rack over there."
Janice looked in the direction in which the man pointed and saw a circular wire book rack, the kind traditionally found in pharmacies and grocery stores. The third book from the top was a novel entitled Stolen Moments. The drawing beneath the title, that of a scantily clad damsel in distress, bore an uncanny resemblance to the young lawyer.
"Is that you?" the newspaper seller asked.
"No, but I definitely see a resemblance," she admitted.
"Resemblance is an understatement. That picture is the spitting image of you."
Janice took the book off the rack and turned it over to read the back cover: Janice Milligan, a single, beautiful tax lawyer finds herself snowed in at a New England airport ....
"Is this some kind of a trick?"
"Excuse me?" the man asked.
"This book, Stolen Moments. The main character has my name."
"Really? Do you know the author?"
Janice flipped the book over again and read the author's name on the front cover: Archibald Beddoes.
"No. I don't know anyone by that name. I'd certainly remember if I did. That's not a name one could forget."
"The writer must know you. It would be quite a coincidence to have a character with your name and a book cover with your face on it."
"I don't believe in coincidences," the tax lawyer said, reaching into her purse for her Gucci wallet.
She handed the man a ten dollar bill, and after receiving her change, she slipped the paperback book into her handbag and walked back to the coffee shop.
* * *
"I see you found something to read," the secretary commented when Janice returned to the table at Starbucks where she had previously been sitting.
"Yes. I found a novel called Stolen Moments," the lawyer replied. "Have you ever read it?"
"No. It looks like a romance, and I only read murder mysteries myself."
"I don't usually read books at all, but this one caught my attention."
Janice did not bother explaining to the secretary exactly why she was interested in the book. Instead, she ordered another latte and opened the novel to the first page. Fifteen minutes later, she finished the first chapter and realized that she had not touched her drink. As she sipped the tepid coffee, she began the second. Three pages into the chapter, she put the cup down.
It was as though the author were writing her biography! The main character was born in a small town in northeastern Massachusetts, graduated top of her class at UMass and went on to study law at Harvard. Her first client was an All-Star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox. Janice Milligan's life and the main character's were identical.
"This Archibald Beddoes MUST know me!" she told herself. "If only there was a picture of him on the back cover."
But unlike many books, there was no photograph or brief biography of the author inside or out, only a name on the front cover and spine.
When Janice spied a college student in the waiting area, typing away on his laptop, she boldly approached him.
"I'll give you fifty dollars," she said, reaching into her wallet, "if you let me use your computer for five or ten minutes."
The young man saw Ulysses S. Grant on the bill and beamed.
"Sure," he replied, handing over his Toshiba Satellite notebook.
Janice, who preferred doing research on a computer rather than on her phone, sat down on the chair beside him and placed the notebook on her lap.
She first went to Amazon and typed in the author's name. Surprisingly, the search yielded no matches. Archibald Beddoes did not have any books on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble either.
Janice next went to Google and typed in the name Archibald Beddoes. She checked the first few pages of results and found a sixteen-year-old boy from New Mexico on Facebook, a mechanical engineer on LinkedIn, an orthodontist in North Carolina, a divorce lawyer in California, a real estate agent in Oklahoma, an insurance salesman in Louisiana and half a dozen other Archibald Beddoeses, none of whom appeared to be a writer.
The author must be using a penname. But surely he—or she—would want to advertise the work on the Internet. Why write a book if you don't plan on selling any copies?
Janice's next step would have been to search the United States copyright records. However, while she was reading through the Google results, the storm had ended and an announcement was made that Flight 54 for Los Angeles was ready for boarding. She reluctantly handed the laptop back to the student and headed toward the gate.
Once she was in her seat, the attorney took the paperback novel out of her handbag and continued reading.
* * *
By the time Flight 54 was over western Pennsylvania, Janice reached the halfway point in her book. Ironically, had the novel not paralleled her own life so closely, she would have found the plot boring. Seeing her own mundane, career-centered existence laid out in black and white made her realize how empty her life actually was. She had no romantic entanglements, no close friends, no pets and no outside interests of any kind.
Well, I'm still young yet, she thought confidently. There is plenty of time for a husband and children at some point down the road.
Janice began reading the final chapter in the book as Flight 54 approached the Kansas-Colorado border. It began as her own day had: the main character said goodbye to her parents and siblings, got into a rented Toyota and drove to Logan International Airport, only to discover that all flights were temporarily delayed due to inclement weather.
She shivered with fear.
Am I imagining all this? she wondered. Surely, it CAN'T be real!
The author accurately described the middle-aged legal secretary in the coffee shop and the three-foot Christmas tree on the counter. He also repeated the lawyer's conversations with the secretary verbatim.
Janice's hand trembled as she turned the page. She continued reading about her own experience with the man at the newspaper stand. When the character in the novel found a paperback entitled Stolen Moments with a cover that bore her image, Janice gasped. It was like being in a room full of mirrors and seeing your face being reflected from inside a reflection.
The tax attorney was so shaken by the events unfolding in the book that she failed to notice the lurch of the airplane as it flew into another storm.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot announced over the intercom, "we're experiencing some rough weather. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts."
It was as though the pilot were reading the lines in Janice's book: his words were in sync with the dialog she was reading.
How on earth is the story going to end?
With fearful anticipation, she turned the page again. The next page and the others that followed it were blank.
It reminds me of that fantasy movie I saw when I was a kid, she thought. What was the name of it?
She searched her memory. Just as the title The NeverEnding Story flashed in her mind, she heard the engines of the Boeing 767 sputter and die. Several passengers screamed, but there was no time for panic as the plane rapidly descended toward the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
* * *
Josephine DeFranco was jostled by the post-holiday crowds entering and exiting Penn Station. Normally, she would have taken a plane back to Chicago after spending the holidays with her relatives in New York, but the recent crash of Flight 54 had frightened her and she decided to travel by rail.
All those poor people killed, she thought sadly. And just after Christmas, too. What a terrible shame!
While Josephine felt safer taking the train, she did not look forward to the long ride to Chicago. Hoping to pass some of the time with a little light reading, the emergency room nurse headed toward the nearest newspaper and magazine stand. While deciding if she should buy either Good Housekeeping or People, she saw a rack of paperback books. One novel in particular caught her attention, a book entitled Stolen Moments.
Why, the woman on the cover looks like me! she thought with surprise.
Josephine picked up the paperback and read the back cover.
What an extraordinary coincidence! The main character of this book not only has my name, but she's an emergency room nurse as well.
She paid for the book and headed toward the platform to board the Lake Shore Limited, mercifully unaware at that moment that she would never make it home to Chicago.
Cat image below is from www.catsncats.com.
This story is dedicated to all the readers who have sent me emails telling me they or someone they know has the same name as a character in one of my stories. It's purely coincidental.
Salem, don't go into that restaurant! The book, HOW TO SERVE CATS: it's a cookbook!
(A little homage to The Twilight Zone)
