Clouds by Robin Jones Gunn Read Free Book Online

Meri and immediately caught herself by saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I’m glad everything is working out for you.”
    The phone rang again. Meri excused herself to answer it, and Shelly busied herself wrapping pictures.
    “She’s right here,” Meredith said, holding the phone out to Shelly. “It’s Mom.”
    “Oh, good,” Mom said when Shelly picked up the phone. “I wondered where you were. You received a phone call here from the airline. I didn’t know if you needed to call them back right away, but they said something about calling by five.”
    “Thanks. I’ll call them. Did they leave a number?” Shelly wrote the number down on the side of a packing box with a wide marking pen she found on the counter. “Thanks, Mom.”
    Shelly dialed the number and waited. A recording came on asking her to wait. When a human voice answered, Shellyexplained that she had been asked to call. Everything about the Seattle system was different from LAX’s. When she called in there, she knew the people by first name, and they knew who she was. This stressed voice spoke with her only long enough to ask if she could work a red-eye flight to Philadelphia that night.
    Her spirits instantly picked up when she agreed and promised to be there in forty-five minutes.
    “Things might be working themselves out,” Shelly said after she hung up. “I have a flight. I need to leave, though. Sorry I couldn’t help more.”
    “That’s fine. Byron said he would come if I needed him.”
    “Are you and Byron getting serious?” Shelly asked as she looked for her keys.
    “Byron and me? Are you kidding? He’s a lug. A sweet lug, but a lug. He went out with Trina from work, but she gave him the cold shoulder. Now he’s crying on my shoulder. That’s what the long conversation was about. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating him, but he said he still wanted to help me move. I think he needs to be needed.”
    “Don’t we all,” Shelly muttered, moving around the packing paper on the kitchen counter. “Have you seen my keys?”
    “No. Don’t forget your microwave dinner. Do you still want it?”
    Shelly opened the microwave and checked under the cardboard lid. The noodles had turned to mush, and the beef had a gray tinge to it. “No, and I don’t recommend that you eat it either.”
    “Here are your keys,” Meri said, lifting up the key chain from the top of a packing box by the front door. “What would you do without me?”
    Shelly granted her little sister the smile of approval Meredith seemed to be hoping for. “I don’t know. What would I do without you?”
    “Call me when you get back,” Meri said as Shelly left the apartment.
    Shelly drove through a fast-food taco place before entering the freeway. With each bite of her burrito, she assured herself things were looking up. They had called her to work tonight. Maybe she would actually end up with more hours on reserves.
    In the back of her mind, Shelly heard the word
Bahamas
.
    “That’s silly,” she muttered aloud. “I would never call the Renfields to ask about Jonathan. Never.”

Chapter Five

 
    T
he passengers on the red-eye were placid, and the flight went without a hitch. The plane was nearly full, which was somewhat unusual but a good sign for the airline. Most of the passengers were families on summer vacations.
    Dirk, the flight attendant whom Shelly shared the shift with, was overly cheerful and seemed a little too eager to welcome her on his usual flight. Shelly ignored his attempts at flirting and went about her job. She liked being on the longer flight. It was good to feel busy.
    Not until about halfway through the return trip did she start to feel tired. She had stayed on the ground at the hotel the required eighteen hours and had managed to catch almost six hours of sleep, but now she was feeling rundown.
    While the movie played, Shelly sat in the pull-down seat nearest the porthole in the back door. They were