It took a while to feel fresh and clean for the heat of the water to ease her muscles.

  Mary dragged herself from the bathroom and flopped onto the bed. Deidre only allowed her a thirty-minute nap.

  She forced Mary to get up and go to a restaurant for lunch, saying that she wouldn’t sleep that night if she slept now.

  Then she made Mary walk along the Baltic Sea, in case fate wanted to jump out and say boo!

  Nothing more had happened.

  “Dinner,” Mary said, checking her watch. “And then, I’m done. I’m not sure I’m up to an open mic thing you have us signed up for. I want to go back to our room.”

  Deidre wrapped her arm through Mary’s. “You’ll lay down, try to fall asleep, toss, and turn all night because it’s too early. You’re still jet lagged. Let’s pull on our dresses, we’ll go have a drink. I’ll sing, and if you feel like getting on stage, fine. If not, no pressure.”

  “Pass.” Mary tried to sound unmovable.

  “That’s not how we deal with the horrors of life,” Deidre said. “When shit goes down at the hospital, when we’re on the team dealing with tragic things, we don’t go home and wallow. We change the energy. What if we didn’t go anywhere tonight? What would you do?”

  “Get drunk in our room.”

  “You can do that around people who are laughing and enjoying themselves so you can see that no matter what, life goes on,” Deidre countered.

  “I’d soak in a hot bath.”

  “We have a shower. No bath.”

  “Don’t get technical with me,” Mary grumped. “I want to wallow. I was in my kitchen unpacking my groceries, then forced against my will onto a plane, I fell down a mountain, then fell down a second one, then I was forced on to a second plane.”

  “No one forced you.” Deidre came to a stop to let a car pass, then they started across the road. “You were encouraged and maybe a little pushed. But pushing isn’t forcing. And I will remind you that you made me go to your pole dancing studio, and I hung from a pole held in place by the friction of my skin. Did I love that experience? I did not. Am I glad I did it? Yes, I am, if for no other reason that you continued to go and learned how to do those tricks. And in the videos of today’s events, those tricks saved lives.”

  When Mary didn’t respond, Deidre reached out and squeezed her hand. “Try this on: We go downstairs and have a nice meal. I read the offerings in the restaurant, and there are lots of carbs and fat to help settle your nerves. I told them you were coming, and they have cake.” She singsonged.

  Mary looked up. “Chocolate cake?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay, to dinner.”

  “Once you’re full of potatoes, you’ll feel better. And then, if you do feel better, we’ll go down the street. Look, I’m reminding you again you are here because three things are supposed to happen. Something that affects your career. Something that affects your life trajectory. And something that is about love.”

  “Yeah, I thought about that as I was dangling above the sidewalk. Maybe the other two didn’t matter if my life trajectory had mere seconds to go.”

  Then she remembered what Mrs. V. had said about the one minute past midnight meant everything to others, and a shiver raked up her spine.

  Deidre stopped and looked at her friend with worried eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Mary, you’re supposed to get all three things here. As far as we know, none of that has happened. You have six more hours. You can’t be in the hotel room wasting your opportunity. You have to be out there.” Deidre whooshed her arms toward the door.

  “Okay, just so we agree that on the stroke of midnight, my duty to this whole scenario is done.”

  “Agreed.” Deidre reached to pull Mary’s arm. “At midnight, it is finis. Over. Done.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Deidre was singing her little heart out. She was going for it, and it was spectacular as she cupped the mic and curled over, squeezing every last bubble of oxygen from her lungs to hold that note long and strong.

  Something had gotten into her that night, Mary mused. Usually, she wasn’t quite so … dramatic. Or good. This was a quality performance. Mary was glad she’d propped up the camera on Deidre’s phone to record just how well things had gone.

  As Deidre came up with a radiant smile, the audience whooped, whistled, and clapped in appreciation. And in a very un-Deidre-like way, she did a little curtsy. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. If you would indulge me for a moment, I wonder if you would help me celebrate my best friend’s fortieth birthday. She’s here with us tonight.” Deidre stretched her arm out, palm up, to focus everyone’s attention to where Mary sat.

  Offering the room a flat-lipped smile, Mary gave them a finger wave.

  Deidre started them off on “Happy birthday to you —”

  Mary was surprised they knew the words and had joined in, raising their glasses in her direction and swaying to the tune. It was sweet, Mary thought. Yeah, it was nice. She didn’t mind turning forty. She didn’t mind everyone knowing that she’d hit that milestone. She just hated it when she went out for a birthday dinner; it was mentioned to the waiter, and the waitstaff came pouring out of the kitchen to sing to her when she knew darn well that it was probably the most miserable part of their night. This didn’t feel that way. She was fine with this, Mary decided.

  What she wasn’t fine with was the second part of Deidre’s ask.

  Once the clapping stopped and the audience turned back to Deidre, she winked toward Mary. “So my birthday friend is quite the burgeoning comedian.”

  Mary shook her head.

  “She was signed up to try out her new schtick tonight.”

  Yeah, Deidre had signed her up in her new-found “Grab the bull by the horns” life philosophy that she had adopted. Just like Mary’s own twenty-new-things goal, Deidre seemed to put her head down and plow ahead as a way to cope with her own child-off-in-the-world, her own divorce, and her hot-flashing, menopausal brain warp.

  “But tonight, she was feeling a little shy.”

  Bruised. Burned. Exhausted. A bit in shock. Not shy.

  “I think if we give her a little encouragement, though, we could get her up on the stage. What do you all think? Should we invite the birthday girl up to entertain us?”

  The audience did as asked. The clapping extended on and on until Mary was able to get up from her table and move to the stage stairs.

  The look Mary sent Deidre as they passed each other would make any normal mortal wither into a pile of remorse on the stage. But as Deidre handed the mic over to Mary, she smiled her wicked smile and popped her brows, leaning into the privilege of a lifetime of mutual support and sisterly love.

  Mary wasn’t feeling that love so much. But she was feeling genuine warmth coming from the people who had gathered. She decided to try on her new material, do her best, bomb if she must, then slam a glass of something strong, and go to bed to pass out.

  “My friend Deidre, ladies and gentlemen.” Mary extended the mic in Deidre’s direction as her friend took the two steps down from the platform and wended her way, gratitude arm in the air, back to their seats.

  “So here I am. Kinda of spur of the moment. A lot spur of the moment. So I’m afraid that you’re going to get what you get. And I’m going to tell you right here and now that if you don’t enjoy yourselves, it’s your own darned fault that I’m up here.” She pointed toward the back of the room. “I was minding my own business, and you all insisted.”

  The crowd laughed.

  Laughter was good, actually. After a day of terror, yeah, laughter was good. Maybe she should trust that Deidre had her best interest at heart.

  “The great thing about having a standup mic night here at the comedy club in Tallinn, Estonia, is that almost everyone here listening to me is an English-as-a-second-language person. Don’t get me wrong, most of the men and women I’ve spoken with in my short time in your amazing city speak better English than the folks in my hometown.”

  A chuckle ran through the crowd.

  “Anyway, if you don’t laugh, I’m going to chalk it up to ‘lost in translation’ a lesson learned. Speaking of lessons learned. Let’s talk about the deficit of my education.”

  Mary paused as a stagehand dressed in black slid smoothly toward center stage, a stool in each hand. He placed them down, side by side, then pulled a water bottle from under his arm, loosened the cap, and slid back behind the curtains.

  “Oh good.” She lifted a thigh onto the stool, so she was half-sitting, half-standing. “I’ve had a busy day today. So this is nice. Okay, so about me. I grew up Catholic. Not the C&E Catholic, where you go to mass only on Christmas and Easter. We were good Catholics.” She put the last words into finger quotes. “My Aunt Mary was a nun. And it was very strange to have a nun in the family, especially one who took the vow of poverty and silence. When she came over for dinner, she’d sit there and smoke. She’d eat what was scooped onto her plate. Then, if she wanted more of something, she’d lift her chin to point it out and make these puppy dog, pleading eyes.” Mary acted it out. “And when she was full, she’d leave.”

  Mary paused as a chuckle ran through the room.

  “But I guess the nun that had the most impact on my life was a woman by the name of Sister Inez. She’s the one who taught my all-girls, state-required family life course. Here was a woman who—orphaned at age ten—grew up in a convent in Spain. As a fifty-year-old woman, she decided suddenly to leave her cloistered life where the only men she ever saw were the priest and, once a year, her dentist. She got on a plane, came to America, and started teaching language classes. And oddly, she was the one assigned to teach the girls at my school the state required sex ed information that she called ‘Family Life.’”

  Mary watched as the silhouettes of the giant men standing in the back of the room migrated to the tables the host brought them to.

  Was that the team from this morning?

  Was Halo with them?

  Her heart beat faster.

  “Sister Inez was a woman who had no understanding of how sex worked. And even less understanding of the male body. In her Spanish convent, they shielded the nuns from the sins of the flesh; even in the paintings, there were no nudes. I will never know how and why she was the chosen teacher to prepare us young women for our marital beds.” Mary reached over to take a sip from the water bottle. “So imagine, if you will, there I was in my science class taking notes as the very innocent Sister Inez presented to us the private parts of a male body and its functionality.”

  Another sip, and she set the bottle down to free her hand.

  “This is what Sister Inez told us about the male penis.” Mary held up a peace sign and then pointed it toward the ground. ‘A man has penises,’ she said. Two of them.” Mary tapped her middle finger. “One was for procreation.” She tapped her ring finger. “the other was for urination.”

  She raised her eyebrow. “Yes, I was taught, and honestly believed, that there would be two penises when I unwrapped the male package.”

  She let her head hang and shook it back and forth while the men in the room chuckled.

  Raising her eyes again, she said, “I was married very early, straight out of high school.” And lest Halo was in the room. “He’s my ex- now. And I can’t say that it isn’t ultimately Sister Inez’s fault. Our sex life got off on a very bad foot. And I don’t think my then-husband ever fully recovered from the experience.” She adjusted herself on the stool. “Imagine on my wedding night, I am seeing a naked man for the very first time. I’m ready to consummate my vows.” she held the two fingers and then pointed them down. The crowd already got it and laughed long and hard. “I understood that a man would be engorged while aroused. Sister Inez said that was how a woman could tell the difference between the penis meant for procreation and the penis meant for urination, and we wouldn’t mistakenly put the peeing penis inside of us because that would lead to infections called STDs.”

  The guffaws grew louder.

  “There he was, my new hubby. Very happy. Very excited about what was coming next. There was me, kneeling on the bed, looking down at him. And I realized my new husband only had one penis. I was in shock.” She stopped and blinked at the audience. “Obviously, something was horribly wrong with him. Some terrible disfiguring accident that he hadn’t told me about.”

  More laughter.

  When Mary challenged herself to take the stand-up classes and say the things that she’d been taught not to say in public—things like sex, words like penis—it was a bit of a struggle. But when people laughed at the shared human experience, Mary had learned to really enjoy it. Connecting with an audience, receiving their energy in return that wasn’t for “other people.” It could be for her, too.

  Wonder of wonders.

  “And because my hubby was at full staff and ready to rock my world. I knew that whatever disfiguring horror had happened to him, he’d at least kept the penis meant for procreation. Win!” Mary held up a victory fist.

  The laughs kept coming.

  “Right, so there I am hunkered over, staring at his dick, and my expression had to be one of confusion. Horror even. How did this man pee? I wondered, trying to work through the situation in my mind. And I just remember looking up at him, wanting to convey sympathy, caring, and support. And so I said, “Oh, dear. I'm so so sorry. But it's gonna be OK. I’m sure this isn’t as terrible as it looks.”

  The room roared with laughter.

  “That’s my time.” Mary lifted the mic over her head. “Thank you for your kind reception.” She bowed, stood, and waved goodbye, turning to leave the stage, buoyed by their response.

  Today had been weird, and having checked this off her to-do list, all Mary had to do was wait out the clock until midnight to get Deidre off her back.

  The stage manager ran out on stage and grabbed one of her hands, dragging her back to center stage and taking the microphone from her.

  Mary thought he might want her to take a second bow, but instead, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I think you all should know that Mary Williams, who just entertained you with her very funny story, happens to be the woman who scaled the pole, saving the young family in today’s Old City fire.”

  Mary froze.

  Recognition was absolutely something that she had not wanted to happen.

  The whole audience rose to their feet. Their roar was a tsunami of energy that washed over her. Overwhelmed. Mary stood there, eyes unblinking, completely horrified to have this attention.

  The spotlight swept the room so she could see the respect and gratitude.

  What she saw brought her relief—a way to divest herself of this kind of attention.

  The men at the back of the room, cheering her, were indeed the team that had saved her. Mary pulled the microphone to her mouth. “You are very kind. But I was merely one of a group of people trying to help. If you turn to the back of the room, ladies and gentlemen, you will see the heroic team that used their bodies to make a human ladder. My great thanks go out to each of them, as I could have done nothing alone. And without them, I would have been a victim of the fire.”

  As the wave of gratitude shifted to the men, Mary wobbled toward the stairs.

  And there was Halo, his hands ready to catch her.

  Without any hesitation at all, she collapsed back into his arms.

  The only real surprise to Mary was that he whispered into her ear, “Oh, thank god, I was afraid I wouldn’t find you again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Hey, you’re shaking. Are you okay?” Halo bent to speak in her ear so she could hear above the continued applause for the rescue team—so well deserved.

  No, actually, Mary realized she wasn’t okay. She shook her head with a frown.

  “Come on,” he reached for her hand. “I know what might help. Why don’t we go find Max, and you can get some dog medicine?”

  As Halo led her out of her room, Mary turned and caught Deidre’s gaze so she would know what was going on.

  Deidre gave her an exaggerated wink and two thumbs up.

  Mary turned to make sure that Halo hadn’t seen that. Luckily, he was giving his own signal to the team.

  As they moved away from the noise into the lobby, Mary asked, “Where’s Max?”

  “In my room. Nutsbe had a meeting, so he was doing dog-sitting duties.” He stopped to look her in the eye. He did that a lot, Mary thought. It was like he was trying to read her expression and not just listen to her words. It felt intimate.

  It felt …

  Yeah, Mary had spent a lifetime speaking into the wind, hoping her then-husband was paying any attention at all. Invariably, she’d bring up a conversation, and her ex would gaslight her, saying she was crazy and that they had never talked about X, Y, or Z.

  But Halo, Halo was fully present.

  “If you’re uncomfortable in my room, we can figure something else out.” He reached for the elevator button, and the door slid open.

  “Quiet is better, I think.”

  Flashing his keycard in front of the panel, then pressing the sixth-floor button, Halo said, “Max was devastated that you left without him when you got in the cab.”

  “Sweet Max.” And that was the last they said until Halo tapped the door before swiping his card. The silence between them had been easy.

  A man stood up from behind his computer. “Mary!” He looked over to Halo. “You found her.”

  “She happened to be downstairs.” Halo moved over to the crate, where Max pawed at his latch. “Are you done with your meeting? We can leave.”

  “Good timing, I just got off the call.” The man nodded toward Max. “He just used the toilet.”

  “Good job, Max.” Halo opened the door, and Max pushed through, bounding over to Mary.