From the top floor of Wine House, the traffic in the street below wasn't loud. It was audible, sure, but only when standing close to the window, and only from squealing brakes or an impatient horn. There were also lots of electric vehicles passing silently below.
But no white vans.
After thirty minutes of watching, Cal was sure of it.
Cal spent the rest of the day unpacking and putting his fingerprint on their shared apartment. There was a small television in the salon, but none of the cables were plugged in. He'd mess with it later and maybe get Frank to sit down and watch their favorite Western from 1969—well before even their time, but a ritual they'd done a few times in life to honor their friendship and Cal's mom, who sat them down once as teens and insisted they learn about Butch Cassidy and his partner Sundance.
Look at us now, Ma. Riding together once again.
Cal put three framed photographs on the mantle above the television. The first was a family portrait taken when MJ was a senior in high school. Daughter and mother shared the same wild, auburn hair, with MJ's being just a shade lighter and redder than her mom's. As adults, the two had almost been twins—before Molly had shrunken and lost her hair from chemo. Looking at his daughter filled Cal with such love and pride but often hurt just the same.
The second framed picture was a school portrait of his grandson, Ryder, MJ's only child. It was hard to believe he was already in third grade and playing T-ball.
I'll see you this summer, bud. I miss you already.
It was a shame the math didn't add up and Cal couldn't live closer. It was a ridiculous fact that it was cheaper to share an apartment in France with Frank than it was to live across town from his own daughter.
"Ain't that America," he said, quoting John Mellencamp with a shake of his head.
The third framed photo was actually a postcard.
Grandpa Mac had served in the US Army as a tank commander, and this was the postcard he'd sent home from Nice during World War II, faded now and worn around the edges. The scene was Nice as it was before the war:
Azure waters.
Mediterranean-style buildings along a narrow beach.
Green hills in the background, rising to meet a cloudless blue sky.
Of course, by the time Grandpa Mac had rolled into Nice with his Sherman, the Nazis had already turned the picturesque vista into a nightmare. Cal had seen the photos in history books; steel tank traps and barbed wire along the beach and picturesque hotels turned ugly with the Nazi flag.
Cal removed the postcard from its frame and read the back of the postcard like he had a million times before. He smiled at his grandfather's faded script, telling his parents that his unit was safe in Nice and that he'd be home soon. Then, below, in the same slanted handwriting but added later with a different pen:
Promises made, promises kept.
Grandpa Mac had died a long time ago and there was no pledge between them connecting to Nice, but standing there with his postcard in hand felt like a promise just the same. A memory came back, then; Grandpa describing how he rolled into Nice waving at the citizens from atop his M4 Sherman's turret. He'd felt like a hero that day, greeted by the niçoise cheering and garnishing their tanks with garlands of local flowers. He only ever once mentioned the bodies of locals they found later, strung up by the Nazis and left hanging from the lampposts.
If you could see this place now, Grandpa. They have tapas.
Cal woke the next morning and brewed a cup of coffee in the pre-dawn darkness. Now that he'd recovered from the jetlag and travel exhaustion, it was easy to fall back into the circadian rhythm of his old life. Frank still slept, loudly snoring off the extra bottle of wine that Cal found empty on the kitchen counter. Cal poured his coffee into a travel mug and snuck out of Wine House and down the stairs so that the antique elevator wouldn't wake Frank. It's possible that Frank had booby-trapped the stairwell with noisemakers, but probably not. Or at least not yet.
Once outside, Cal bunched his shoulders and leaned forward into the damp air, making his way south towards the beach, his eyes peeled for any white vans lurking in the morning mist. Nice was a different city this early hour, quiet and shining silver like the moon, its traffic lights glowing beside quiet streets absent of any traffic. The scent of sea salt pulled him forward, where the southern horizon peeked between buildings and then revealed itself fully when Cal stepped onto the wide Promenade des Anglais. He jogged through the crosswalk and over the wide sidewalk that paralleled the beach, and then he stepped into Grandpa Mac's postcard.
Promises kept.
Cal checked his Bell & Ross.
Seven minutes.
That's how long Cal had clocked, from the first step outside until he stood on the pebbles that made Nice's beaches so famous, millions of them, tumbled and polished over centuries by the waves. He slipped out of his shoes and socks and walked towards the sea. The pebbles were cold and smooth, and they crunched together softly as they settled under his weight. Even the sound of the waves was not what he expected: a low rumble of tumbling stones rather than the soft hush of fading sand. The water surged over his feet before receding, leaving a shock of cold in its wake.
Molly always loved sand and the feel of it sticking to her skin. She'd probably hate this beach.
But she'd love the view.
And it was the view that inspired Cal to sneak out again the next morning.
By the third morning, it was a ritual, like warding against evil spirits and dropped fly balls. He always brought a travel mug of hot coffee, which helped against the cold wind blowing hard off the sea, and he'd stand on the pebble beach, sipping in silence while the sun slowly painted the gray horizon with brilliant gold. It was the same sunrise that greeted Odysseus the morning he kissed his queen and prince goodbye and set off for Troy. Or close enough, anyway.
On the third morning, a woman called out to him from down the beach, her voice melodic and playful as if dancing on the waves and carried by the wind.
"Cal, is that you?"
He already knew who it was.
"Eeva!"
What an easy name to say. It escaped him almost like a cheer.
She appeared unbothered by the cold, wearing just a long-sleeved shirt and long shorts over even longer legs. Cal recognized a fellow athlete and wondered what she competed in. Something outdoors. Nordic skiing, he imagined. The only sign she was bothered by the wind was how she held her hair out of her face with one hand as she strode towards him across the pebble beach.
Eeva took three confident steps and, when Cal silently prayed that she'd take a fourth and a fifth step towards him, he realized he was in trouble. Not danger, but trouble. She embraced him in a friendly hug, then stepped back and stared at him with a surprised grin.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her, at a loss for anything else to say.
"I followed you here."
"You did?"
"No, silly! This is my beach," she said. "I mean that it is closest to my apartment, and I come here often. What about you? Do you live close?"
Cal nodded and said, "I'm getting the feeling that Nice isn't exactly a big city. I'm running into everybody."
"Oh, I'm just everybody?" she said in a teasing voice. She could be reading the phonebook and still sound enchanting.
"No, I mean . . . It's amazing to see you again, and a much better surprise than the last guy I ran into."
"It's funny you say that," she said. "You will never guess who I saw again— driving around in a white van."
Cal already knew. "Hoodie," he said.
"Yes! Or whatever his real name is. He spotted me coming out of the grocery store and he followed me for two blocks!"
"Jesus. Are you okay?"
She shrugged away the danger.
"I lost him down a side-alley."
"Frank and I saw him, too, a few days ago."
"Who's Frank?"
Shit.
"I mean Martin.
"Then who's Frank?" Eeva stared at him innocently with patience. Cal knew he wasn't good with this stuff, keeping stories straight, or remembering lies. Honesty was always his best policy, Martin be damned.
"I'm sorry, I grew up calling him Frank. I didn't mean to confuse you."
If Eeva was suspicious, she didn't show it. The same wind that sent shivers through Cal seemed to blow past her without effect.
"I understand," she laughed. "I have two names, too."
"You do?" he asked, but she was already walking away.
"Yes, now follow me if you want to hear it. I'm jealous of your coffee now, and I can see you're cold. Let's go inside and I can tell you about my half-Russian aunt and the nickname she gave me."
They crunched over the pebbles together until they climbed the concrete stairs up to the Promenade des Anglais and back to street level.
"How are you not cold, is my real question."
She laughed, a tinkling sound like a little bell. "This is a warm day in Estonia. Why do you think I retired here?"
"To meet a nice American guy?" he tried and immediately regretted it.
Eeva made a hmm sound like she considered it. "No, but that has been a happy surprise. But do you know what you can do if you really want to be my American hero?"
"What's that?"
"If we see a white van on our way to the cafe, you could get its attention while I sprint the other way!"
"Like that white van?" Cal said and pointed past Eeva down the street.
She whipped her head around and stared, but there was no white van, just a joke etched on Cal's smile when she turned back to face him.
"Not funny!" she said and slapped his shoulder, but her grin betrayed her. "Alright, mister, we will see who is laughing when these bad guys really show up again."
"Bad actors," Cal said.
"Excuse me?"
"That's what Frank calls them."
"Like in a movie?"
"I feel like I'm in a movie, right now," he said in all honesty, admiring the warm glow of the morning sun painting the classical French architecture with hues of pink and orange.
God, did he say that out loud?
Eeva smiled at him sideways as they walked the sidewalk together. "But will you stop the bad actors, get the girl, and save the day?"
She said it with such a straight face.
"I'm retired, Eeva," he said. "I'm just here for the sunrises, the sunsets, and a few cups of coffee with some wine in between."
They'd reached a cafe, and she grabbed the door first and held it open. "Sometimes life has other plans," she said at the threshold.
Years flashed through his head with all the events both planned and unplanned that had made and then broke his life.
"Life certainly does," he said, taking the door. When he followed her into the cafe, he felt the ghost in his heart enter with him.