Page 30 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Twenty-Four

In the morning, Veronica crossed the street for pastries and good coffee. Before she returned, she called Henry. “Are you up yet?”

“Long time. How’s the patient?”

“Pretty hungover, but okay. I’m getting good coffee now.” She stepped out of the flow of foot traffic to talk. “I got some of Rachel’s letters last night, and she mentioned Zoish. I would guess it’s the same Zoish Irani who is the proprietor of the South Asian bookshop.”

“Ah, very good. Do you feel comfortable sending them to me?”

“Of course. I’ll send the other notes, too, such as they are.”

“Don’t forget that we have Dishoom tonight. It would be best if we take the tube. It’s a hard neighborhood to park in.”

“Noted.” She hung up. She carried the coffee and bag of pastries back to the room and found a shaky, if showered, Mariah in the sitting room. “Hey,” Veronica said. “How are you?”

“Ugh. Desperately hungover.”

“I have the cure.” She handed her a coffee, then arranged the pastries on a plate.

“God, you’re good.” Mariah roused herself to sit at the table. Below her eyes were blue circles.

“Let’s just have an easy day,” Veronica said. “We have the train to Paris tomorrow.” She thought about sharing the letters, but Mariah had been so heartbroken the night before that she’d decided to let Mariah bring them up. There was plenty of time.

Veronica hesitated, then picked up one of the pastries for herself. It smelled of almonds and sugar, and she inhaled deeply before she took a bite, savoring the anticipation of it. It was even better than she’d imagined in her mind, and her taste buds exploded with happiness. “This is amazing.”

“Mmm.”

Wiping her fingers, Veronica asked, “Do you often get panic attacks?”

She shrugged. “It was the gummies. They make me paranoid.”

“Paranoid enough to make a trip in an ambulance?”

“No, not usually. But then, I’m getting used to this version of myself, aren’t I?” She twisted a rope of pastry into a circle and took a nibble from the side. “I just got kind of disoriented and—” She sighed. “It wasn’t just a panic attack. I had a monster flashback.”

Veronica took a bite to keep herself from speaking too soon. Wordless, she raised her eyebrows: Say more.

“They told me it might happen, but I’ve only had one other one, so I didn’t think I’d have to worry about it.”

“Are you talking to a therapist or counselor or anyone?” Veronica asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Dude. Who can counsel me over this shit? Seriously.”

Veronica thought of when she’d been ordered to take group therapy. It made her furious at first, but even during the first session, she found her guard coming down. “You might be surprised.”

“Maybe.” She rubbed her temple. “Can we talk about that some other time, though? I really have a fucking headache.”

“Sure.” Veronica picked up the phone and ordered tomato juice.

Mariah gave her a reluctant smile. “Thank you.”

They spent the day reading and napping, and then took the tube to the restaurant, meeting Henry there.

From the minute they walked in, Veronica was enchanted.

It was unlike anywhere she’d ever been. The walls and decorations were lusciously art deco, elegant arches and mirrors and the colors of dull orange and green.

They were shown to a booth with an open view of the floor and the mezzanine.

“This is so cool,” Mariah said, and looked at Henry. “How come we never came here?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Your mom wrote to me about it just a couple of years ago.” He nodded, looking around. “It captures the feeling of Parsi cafés,” he said, and tapped the menu. “You should read all this. It’s great background.”

Veronica hardly knew where to focus her attention first—the setting itself, and the beautiful young servers, the music playing a soft jazzy something that underlined the mood, the cocktail menu classic favorites like Negronis and martinis, all with a little extra twist. “Great nonalcoholic cocktails,” she commented.

“Seriously,” Mariah said. “I’m even tempted.”

Veronica read the story told on the menu, about Parsi cafés coming into their own in the Bombay of the 1930s.

There was a graphic of what looked like the winged man but, on closer inspection, was a man and a winged circle.

It was the same Zoroastrian symbol they’d seen at Café Guli.

She needed to read more about the religion for context.

She added a reminder to the growing list of notes on her phone.

And then, with a quiet sound, she dove into the menu. Her mouth actually watered. “I want every single thing on this list,” she said, and called out possibilities. “Lamb samosas! Gunpowder potatoes! And, oh! The letters talk about goat, but I don’t see any on the menu. I’ve never tried it.”

Mariah raised her head. “You got the letters?”

Veronica had spoken impulsively. Carefully, she said, “Yes, a few. Do you want to read them?”

“Not yet.”

“Understood,” Veronica said.

Henry tapped the menu. “They also have kulfi . That’s a very Indian thing.”

Mariah said, “You know you want the lamb chops, Miss I Couldn’t Eat Another Bite.”

“I definitely wouldn’t mind tasting them,” Veronica said with concerted understatement, “but can we try both? The chops and the samosas?”

Mariah raised an eyebrow. “You’re getting the hang of this. What else?”

They settled on a wide variety of dishes and drinks to sample, including a rose lassi and a cardamom lassi, which Veronica wanted to try just for the beauty of the ingredient names, nimbu soda, chai, of course, for the bun maska and two of the nonalcoholic cocktails. Henry insisted they add a salted lassi.

The server smiled as she collected the menus. “I can see you are here to indulge. I hope you enjoy it all as much as I do.”

For the first time, Veronica felt like she had something of a handle on what Parsi meant. “Is this anywhere close to the Parsi cafés you’ve experienced in India?” she asked Henry and Mariah.

“I’ve never been to one,” Mariah said. “We never went to India.”

“Really?”

“She nixed it every time. Once we almost went, and then she canceled at the last minute. It really freaking annoyed me.”

A well-tended woman in her mid-forties approached. “I’m so sorry to bother,” she said to Mariah in a posh, dulcet voice, “but I am such a fan. Can we have a selfie? Is that horrible?”

“Happy to,” Mariah said, leaning in to grin at the phone, flashing a shaka sign.

“I’m sorry you won’t be in the games this winter. You were always my favorite.”

“Thanks,” Mariah said. A chilly glass fell around her. The woman took the hint, and hurried away.

“‘Mean Mariah,’” Henry said.

“I was never mean to fans,” she said. “I got a reputation for being a jerk, and the press loved it, but I was never mean to just”—she gestured—“people.”

“Why were you mean?” Veronica asked.

“I wasn’t really. I didn’t see why I owed anybody any of my mental space or time. My mind was on the training and everything that goes into it.” She twisted her mouth. “The boys don’t get slammed for being aloof or short or whatever. They’re more ‘serious.’” She put the word in air quotes.

“That’s brave.”

Henry had a half smile on his mouth.

“What?” Mariah said.

“You were like that even when you were a kid. You never had time for any bullshit.”

She grinned, and in the expression, Veronica caught a glimpse of the girl she’d been before all this happened to her, quirky and bright and brusque but also a lot of fun.

Across the room, the woman who’d taken a photo with her Olympic hero kept stealing glances.

Veronica grasped a little better the enormous losses Mariah had suffered.

The server brought drinks and appetizers. Veronica inhaled the mingled scents. Henry took some up-close photos, then reached for the salted lassi.

“What do you think you’re going to do, going forward?” Henry asked before sipping. “Oh, wow, that’s excellent.” He offered it to Veronica, who used a second straw. She sipped the sharp, yogurty flavor and winced. “Maybe a little too intense for me.”

“How should I know?” Mariah said. “I’m not exactly well-rounded.”

“You could teach,” Henry said.

“Yeah, right. Have you met me?”

“Not adults, but maybe kids.”

She shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad. But really, I just think it will be painful to be anywhere around the slopes. It’ll break my heart every day.”

Veronica said, “I get that.”

“You’d get used to it,” Henry added. “Seems a shame to give up the mountains and snow, which I know you love.”

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “I haven’t come up with anything yet. Maybe when we get back.”

“Fair enough. You have plenty of healing to do yet.”

As if to deflect the attention away from her future, Mariah said, “What about you? You can’t just drift around shooting arty photos.”

“Well, I could, actually. It’s enjoyable.”

“Not very challenging, though.”

He paused, picking up the nimbu soda. He tasted it, nodded, and continued, “Not everything has to be challenging. I’ve had a lot of challenge in my life. I want a little more calm now.”

“Oh, you’re old now, is that it?” Mariah grinned at him.

“Maybe.”

Veronica tasted the rose lassi. “That’s so good!” She offered it to the others, and made some notes on her phone.

Henry said, “I actually am going to do some teaching. Arapahoe Community College hired me to do some adjunct teaching on news photography.”

To her surprise, Veronica felt strangely sad about that. To cover, she said, “You’ll be good at that.”

“Thanks.”

And she could imagine him in a classroom, with adoring young men and women, teaching how to get the best shot, how to remove yourself from the scene. Why would she be disappointed in that?

Well, Spence. His profession had kind of made him a bit of an asshole. But was it the profession or the man?

“What’s on your mind?” Henry asked, straightforward as ever. “Thinking about your future, too?”

“A little. It’s still kind of new for me. It takes some time to let all the realities sink into your body, right?”