Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries) (22 page)

Jane stared at her mother. Where the hell had she picked up that one?

“We’ve eaten,” said Don, following Nellie into the kitchen, “but I’ll have some ice cream. Nellie?” he asked as he headed for the freezer.

Nellie shook her head. “That’s expensive champagne.”

“Yup,” said Jane. “I used to give it to my creative team at the agency as the holiday gift.”

“You think Carl won it on a punchboard or something?” Nellie asked Don.

“I think he bought it for us. A nice gesture,” said Don. “Carl could be like that.”

“What anniversary?” asked Jane, spreading mustard on roast beef.

“EZ Way Inn,” said Don. “This month. Forty-five years in business.”

“Wow,” said Jane, wishing she could think of a more profound remark, something that didn’t sound like the realization that her parents were really getting older. Too old to run a tavern and work twelve hours a day.

“We’ve been talking, Jane,” said Don. “And I’m just going to say this and you don’t have to answer or say anything yet. Just think about it. Your mom told me about your stuff going missing and how the house deal has gone through and we know Nick’s in school out of Evanston and happy there and Charley, well, you know about Charley, and like you said, you used to have that good job at the agency and everything, but now, you’re…”—Don searched for the unfamiliar word—“freestyle.”

“Freelance?” Jane asked.

“Freelance,” repeated Don. “Your mother and I have been talking and we were thinking if you wanted to move home for a while, we could fix up the basement so you could have some privacy down there … You could do it up however you wanted. We don’t usually use that door that leads in directly, but we could unboard it and fix it up as a better entrance so you could come and go.…”

Jane went over and hugged her father. She buried her face in his shoulder, knowing he would think she was crying. She didn’t want him to see that she was smiling. She had been touched enough to cry at this sincere and heartfelt offer, but the thought of Jane having privacy in Nellie’s basement was hilarious.

“Thank you, Dad,” said Jane. She looked over at Nellie, who stood in front of the sink with her arms crossed and her lips pursed. “But, no.”

“I told you,” said Nellie. “She doesn’t want to live here with us. My idea’s better.”

Don and Nellie had a plan B?

“Carl’s apartment over Wally’s tavern,” said Nellie.

Jane couldn’t think of a response fast enough. She had been a successful advertising executive, a happily married woman with a wonderful son, and a PPI, picker and private investigator, with a fairly successful record … and why was it again her parents thought she might want to live over a bar in Kankakee?

“You look lonely,” said Nellie. “And we thought while you got on your feet, you might want to be around here for a while. That Lowry would be close by and you could work at the EZ Way every now and then if you needed spending money.”

Jane was about to have more money deposited in her checking account than she had ever imagined having all at once. Even after putting aside the money for Nick’s high school and college tuition, she would be in fine shape. The insurance on all of her lost items was excessive, Tim had seen to that, and the replacement value check would be more than generous. But instead of laughing about how rich she was, she tried, unsuccessfully, to hug Nellie.

“Thank you,” said Jane. “I’ll think it all over.”

Don and Nellie both nodded. Jane was surprised that Nellie didn’t agitate for more of a commitment. Nellie had always preferred the fast yes or no to the slow maybe. Jane realized that those bedroom mutterings she overheard were about her. Don had told Nellie that they’d present their offers and suggestions and then just leave it up to Jane. Since Jane was a middle-aged woman who had faced down murderers, thieves, forgers, rabid scavengers, and pickers as well as the even larger specters of downsizing and divorce, she appreciated that now, at forty-something, fortyish, the new mid-thirties, Jane’s parents were letting her make up her own mind. It touched Jane more than she could say that Nellie must have agreed, at least for now, to let Jane think for herself.

Nellie took Don’s ice cream bowl from him as he scooped his last bite and his spoon as soon as it left his mouth. By the time he swallowed, Nellie had the bowl and spoon washed, rinsed, and in the drying rack. Her parents went to bed, leaving Jane at the kitchen table with Belinda St. Germaine’s book on repressed memory and a roast beef sandwich.

Jane used her phone to e-mail Nick the good news about the house. She needed to fill him in on the details, emphasize their good fortune. She knew he would be relieved and grateful not to picture his mother there. It had already been planned that he would spend Thanksgiving with Jane and for his longer holiday vacation, fly to Honduras to be with Charley. Jane told Nick that she had a couple of ideas about where to live, but in the meantime, she would be in Kankakee. Don and Nellie needed her and she was happy to be there. She signed off, feeling guilty that she wasn’t totally honest with her son. She knew that if she told Nick the whole truth, she would have to admit that, right now, she needed Don and Nellie as much, if not more, than they needed her.

Jane took a bite of her sandwich and opened Belinda’s book to a chapter entitled, “Researching What Really Happened—Pros and Cons.”

Why travel to your childhood home? Why walk the path that you trod so long ago? Why not simply look up the facts, interview the family, talk to friends? The answer is painfully simple. Your friends and families will not be the source of truth you seek.

Even the best-intentioned family members will have faulty memories themselves. If you don’t believe me, call your brother or sister and ask about the last holiday you spent together. Ask about the food served, the conversation at the table, who cleaned up, and who watched a football game in the den. Ask about who liked the pie and disparaged the green beans. I will bet you the price of this book that the answers you receive on everything, from the dinner menu to who complained, who argued, who bragged, will be different from what you expected. No two people have the same memories.

If you are trying to piece together what happened in your youth, you will not be well served by someone who was there with you. Why? Because they have their own struggles with their memories, their explanations for what happened in their lives, why they turned out to be who they are. You were not and are not their focus. Ask yourself this—do you remember everything about their days, their nights, their important moments? Then why should they remember yours? Even if they claim to know something about your childhood or have a vivid memory of an event that revolved around you? Their accounts will be heavily filtered by how the event affected them, what impressions were left on them. Only you remember you.

Okay. So you can’t trust the truth and accuracy of the accounts of others. But what about facts? you ask. What about simply looking up dates on the calendar, addresses of the houses of friends or relatives, checking for photographs that might offer factual answers?

I will answer that with a story. Suppose you decide to walk through your old neighborhood, hoping to find the house of your old friend Bill. You know something happened in that house but your memory is blank, an erasure on the page. You walk up and down the block, searching for the house where it happened. What happened? IT happened, but you do not have a clue about what IT was. You walk up and down, back and forth. Did Bill’s house have a red door? Did it have a red door or has it been painted? Was there a porch? With a swing? Do you remember a rosebush, a birdbath, a crooked chimney stack? Why not simply find a phone book from your childhood years and look up Bill’s family’s address? Once you’ve obtained the facts, the address, you can simply walk to the house and look at it and not waste all of your precious time pacing and speculating.

Precious time indeed! It is the time you spend walking up and down the block, searching literally as well as figuratively, that offers the rewards you seek. For every moment you spend speculating on whether or not you sat on that porch swing with Bill, you build another small piece of your bridge back in time. You build it intricately and carefully, engineered with your own memory of you. Perhaps that wasn’t Bill’s house, but you and Bill trick-or-treated there, sitting on the porch swing gazing at the scarecrow that was built in the yard. Perhaps it was there that you realized what had happened to you was not right. Perhaps that’s where you began the process of forgetting. It is there, then, that you must rebuild the bridge of remembering. That bridge to another time cannot be made of pylons of disjointed facts—addresses and accounts of others—or you will be forced to leap across the span, from teetering column to teetering column. No. You must become a careful architect, engineer, and builder. All three of these jobs are yours—and no amount of facts will hasten the memories or the reconstruction of who you were and how that led to who you are.

Jane had to admit that Belinda St. Germaine could make a case. Of course, Jane might be able to poke some holes in her theories and make a case of her own for gathering some easily obtainable facts. But that bit about the architect and engineer and builder? Jane liked the idea that one had to multitask in order to grab hold of one’s life. Maybe that’s what Jane had been doing with all of her hunting and gathering. She searched out all sorts of memories from her childhood and beyond, surrounded herself with all sorts of items that were keepsakes, defining objects of the lives of others. Why in the world did she do that? She admired Art Deco design, loved the feel of worn wood and the patina of old silver, but all that stuff about the stories, about the caretaking of stuff. What was all that about? Jane built a bridge to the past, all right, but instead of her own past, she had constructed millions of those “teetering pylons” Belinda described and in Jane’s case, where in the world did they lead? Whose past was illuminated?

Jane got up and rinsed all of her dishes and poured herself a glass of water. It was ten o’clock. She was tired enough to sleep, but it was always hard to go to bed without saying good night to someone. She had already e-mailed Nick. Tim was on a date and if she texted him good night, she would appear pathetic or nosy or both.

Jane turned out the kitchen lights, and looked for Rita. Where had she been all night? Listening at her parents’ door, she could hear her dad’s light snoring, her mother’s breathing, shallow and impatient as if she resented having to sleep at all, and yup, the snuffling, sighing deep breaths of Rita, who had decided to sleep in with the ’rents.

Jane held her water in her left hand, Belinda’s book under her left arm, and her phone in her right hand. With her right thumb, she clumsily texted,

Read some Belinda and learned about her theories. Talk tomorrow. Good night.

Jane pushed
SEND.

Settling into bed, heaping her covers around her chin, she listened for the late summer, early-fall cicada sounds, the Midwestern autumn song that had lulled her to sleep her entire life. A high-pitched trill joined the chorus and Jane picked up her phone to read the reply to her text.

Good night, Mrs. Wheel. Rest well. Oh.

17

Lucky Miller Productions was sponsoring a bowling tournament at the Flamingo Bowl beginning at three in the afternoon. Lucky had asked (demanded) all staff to participate (show up). There were teams of writers, drivers, designers, staffers, production assistants, and then there was Lucky’s team. He had promised surprise guest stars and as far as Jane could tell, the townspeople in Kankakee had way too much faith in Lucky’s “connections.”

“According to an article in the
Journal
last night, some big TV stars are coming in on private planes,” said Don, at breakfast.

“Dad, I saw the weekend schedule and unless there are changes, no one is coming in. I’m not even sure who the roasters are for the taping. I saw a list of names with no confirmation checks next to any of them, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t recognize any of the names.”

“You don’t watch enough television,” said Don.

Jane filled Rita’s bowl, all the while telling her she had been quite the traitor, sleeping in Nellie’s room. Rita paid no attention, wagged her tail in time to the music on the radio, and settled into her breakfast. The song ended and the local WKAN morning show host announced the various special events happening around town, ending with an exhortation to listeners to come over to the downtown farmer’s market.

“Rumor has it that Lucky Miller might be dropping by the market with a few of his friends in town for the Lucky Miller roast. Come to the Gazebo at eleven when Lucky will draw a name for two tickets to the dress rehearsal!”

“What the hell?” asked Jane out loud, punching numbers into her phone. “Why don’t I get any of these events on my schedule?”

“No problem, Jane. Malcolm can drive me over there,” said Lucky, when he answered, sounding like he was in the middle of brushing his teeth.

“But, Lucky, if I’m your assistant, shouldn’t I have these events on my schedule? I got it in my e-mail this morning, but I didn’t see anything on there for you but the bowling today. Don’t I need to know this stuff so I can … assist you?”

“Yeah, I guess. Trouble is, I’ve gotten kind of loose with the planning. I saw something in the
Journal
about the market and just decided it might be fun to take a stroll so I called up the radio station and told them I’d do it. Besides, all the shoppers and vegetables and stuff might give my memory a jog,” Lucky said, between sips and swishes of water. “Belinda said that places with lots of people and colors and ‘sensory triggers’ are good places for breakthroughs. And what the hell, it seems like a nice thing to do on a Saturday morning.”

Was it only Saturday? Was it Saturday already?
The rootless have no calendar,
thought Jane. She ticked off on her fingers the main events of the past few days. Drove down on Wednesday and got the offer on the house. Carl died on Thursday. Sluggo Mettleman died on Thursday. She became Lucky’s assistant on Thursday. Walked through the Evanston house on Friday. Went to the studio with Lucky Friday night. Last night. So, yes, today would be Saturday. Yikes, Saturday. Soccer. Jane quickly texted Nick a good luck message. Then, with a second cup of coffee, she wrote a long and detailed e-mail to Charley about selling the house. The house was hers to sell, but she still thought twenty-some years of co-ownership gave Charley the right to know that the house was appreciated and passed on. She could also reassure him that the money would be most helpful with Nick’s education, which might be important for any of Charley’s future professional plans. He had made it clear he’d like to stay in Honduras working for the foundation there. Northwestern had been generous with extending his sabbatical—or rather, turning it into a leave of absence—but if they insisted he come back to hold his spot? Knowing Jane had money set aside for Nick might give Charley some breathing room. And breathing room was important. Breathing. Breathing room. Breathing new air. All important.