Searching for Yesterday (3 page)

I realized then that Annie was staring at me.

“This is about
my life
, Shelby,” she said, her voice rising and getting shrill. “It's not some kind of game — something for you to entertain yourself with because you're bored or something.”

“I didn't mean ...”

“You just assume you can come over here — the first time you've ever been to my house, by the way — and start making plans that have nothing to do with you? Without even bothering to ask if it's what I want?”

It took me a minute to find my voice and answer her. “I'm really sorry, Annie. You're right — I had no business assuming anything. Believe me, I didn't mean to jump in and act like I was taking over.”

Annie's gaze on me remained steady and accusing, but I thought her expression might have softened just a little. I went on.

“And I know I've never come here before, but I have called you a couple of times lately and I honestly do want to be friends.”

“I've been thinking about how even though we've gone to school together all these years, we're hardly more than acquaintances.” I cleared my throat, wondering if I was even making sense. “So, I thought it would be nice if we got to know each other.”

“Oh,” Annie said. Her eyes dropped away from me while, at the same time, her hand squeezed at a clump of the duvet that covered her bed. She cleared her throat. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“No, you don't have anything to be sorry about, Annie. I'm the one who's wrong here. I seem to have developed an awful habit of butting into other people's business.”

“But you've helped people, too,” Annie said. “I just get overly sensitive about some things.”

“Like your mom.”

“Yeah, like my mom. You don't know how hard it is going through every day not knowing whether she ever even gives me a thought. That's the hardest part — wondering if she might have just put me out of her mind completely. And, sometimes ...”

As her voice trailed off I stayed silent, not wanting
to push it, even though I was curious. And then she coughed, clearing her throat, and went on.

“Sometimes I wonder if she might have other children. For all I know, she could have met someone after she and Lenny broke up, and got married and had a whole new family.”

“Were your parents married?”

“No. I don't even know who my father is. I asked a few times when I was a little kid, but my mom always said she'd tell me about him when I got older.”

“Your grandmother didn't know?”

“I asked her once, when she was still having some good days, but Nanny said my mother never told her, either. I'll probably never know who he is.”

“That must be hard.”

“It's weird, really. I look at guys sometimes, guys who are probably around my mom's age, and try to see if there's any resemblance. But it's not like I could just walk up to someone and say, “Hey, Mister. I can't help noticing that we have the same hair and eyes. Think you might be my father?'”

“Yeah, I can see that there'd be problems with that.”

She smiled — just a little at first, but it spread and grew and then she began to laugh. “Can you imagine, some poor guy walking along minding his own business, suddenly getting called “Daddy' by some crazy teenage girl?”

“I'm thinking a little research might be a better
approach,” I said, laughing with her.

“You think research could actually help me find my, uh ... one of my parents?”

I wondered which parent she'd been about to say. Probably her mother, since she was the one Annie knew. On the other hand, we had just been talking about her father. Either way, I told her it was certainly possible.

“Even after all this time?”

“There's always information out there somewhere,” I told her, feeling my pulse quicken with excitement at the thought of a new mystery to look into. “It's just a matter of figuring out how to find it.

“Just one thing, though. If you decide that you want to go ahead with this, I'd like your permission to talk to Greg about it. I promise it wouldn't go any further. See, I don't want to have to hide things from him — it's been a problem for us in the past.”

“I guess that would be okay,” she said after a slight pause. “Are you sure he won't say anything to anyone?”

“You can trust Greg one hundred percent,” I said.

“Okay,” Annie said. “I wouldn't want you to have to sneak around and hide things from him.”

“Awesome!” I told her. “So, let's do it!”

Annie nodded. Then she jumped up from the edge of her bed and crossed the room to the chair I was occupying. She leaned down and gave me a quick hug. Her face was flushed and her eyes shining.

“Let's do it!” she echoed.

Annie stared at the list I'd made for a moment before saying anything. When she did speak, her only comment was, “It's kinda short, isn't it?”

“That's true,” I admitted. “But this is just a beginning. It will grow — honest.”

I hoped I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. Looking down at the page in my notebook, I could see why Annie hadn't exactly been impressed. Following a cold trail was new to me, and all I'd been able to come up with were a few weak ideas. The list read:

1) Talk to Lenny

2) Talk to Gina Berkley's old friends (Annie had told me that her mom's name was Gina.)

3) Find out where Gina worked and talk to her former co-workers, if we can find any.

4) Visit old neighbourhood. (I wasn't sure what that would accomplish, but at least it was something to put on the list.)

I thought it might also be a good idea to make up a list of questions to ask, but I had no ideas at all there. The big problem facing us there was that people often don't realize which bits of information might happen to be important. So, when someone tells you about something, it's easy for them to leave out details that could have been helpful.

Now, we were about to talk to Lenny Herbert and I was hoping I could hide the fact that I really didn't know what I was doing from Annie.

The house Lenny was living in had been his mother's. My guess was that it was the thing that had brought him back to Little River after all those years away. Mrs. Herbert had died sometime during the summer, and had left the house to Lenny.

It was a squat little bungalow, white with dark-green eaves and window frames. The lawn was in need of mowing and a small brick-lined garden was almost overgrown with weeds. Whatever Lenny was doing with his time, it wasn't landscaping.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” Annie said as we reached the door.

“You're just feeling nervous,” I told her. At the same time, I jabbed the doorbell button quickly before she could turn and leave.

A few moments passed before the door squeaked and opened enough to reveal a man who must have been about my father's age. He was balding and his stomach strained against a grey T-shirt with some kind of sport logo on the front. I couldn't quite picture someone running off with him. Of course, he might have looked a lot different nearly ten years ago.

“Yeah?” he said. His voice wasn't exactly gruff, but you'd never describe it as warm and welcoming either.

“It's me,” Annie said. “Annie,” “Annie?” He squinted.

“Annie Berkley?”

“Right.”

“I told you, I don't know where your mother went.”

“Yes, but we thought you might be able to tell us something that would help,” I said quickly.

“And who are you?”

“I'm a friend of Annie's,” I told him. “We're hoping to find out where her mother is. There are just a few questions we'd like to ask ... unless you'd rather not help.”

He paused and I thought he was going to tell us to get lost, so I was a little surprised when he expelled a long breath, rolled his eyes, and told us to come in.

“You're wasting your time, though,” he said as he led us into a small, dark kitchen. “I haven't seen Gina in years. Don't have a clue where she might be.”

It wasn't the most encouraging beginning, but I knew from experience people sometimes have important
information without even realizing that it's significant. I was hoping that would be the case with Lenny.

Once we were seated at the table, which was surprisingly clean, Lenny plunked down across from us and said, “Shoot!”

“I'd like to know where you and my mom went when you left Little River.” I was surprised at the strength in Annie's voice as she asked this. She'd seemed so nervous just a moment before, but her chin was up and she was looking steadily at Lenny.

“Well, now, that's no big secret,” Lenny said. His eyes were down and his fingers tapped unevenly on the table. “We went to Toronto. Ended up in Mississauga, actually. I had a friend there at the time and we stayed with him for a bit.”

“What was his name?”

“Doug, though I don't see what difference that makes,” Lenny said. He seemed kind of annoyed and I made a mental note just to ask really important things. “He moved up north for a while and I heard later that he died in a snowmobile accident. Can't say for sure if it's true or not.”

“So, was that where you were living when you and my mom split up?” Annie asked.

“We didn't exactly split up, kid,” Lenny said. “She just up and left. I came in from work one night and poof! No Gina.”

“Did she leave a note?”

Lenny looked startled, like he didn't quite understand the question a first. “I don't remember,” he said after a pause. “I think she just took off and that was it.”

“Did she take all of her things? Her clothes and stuff?”

“Yeah, everything.”

“And you never saw or heard from her again?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Did you have a joint bank account or credit card or anything?”

He laughed at that. “I don't think you quite get the picture, Shelly.”

“Shelby.”

“Whatever. Anyway, we weren't exactly living the dream. There was no little house and picket fence or nothin' like that. I made enough money to pay my way and party a bit and that was it. There were no bank accounts or credit cards.”

“Did Gina work?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sure. She had a job in some restaurant. I couldn't tell you what it was called to save my life, though. It's been a lot of years.”

“Why didn't my mother call me when you got to Mississauga?”

“I dunno, kid. She was busy a lot, working and stuff.” Lenny paused, like he was thinking something over. “You wanna know the truth?”

“Of course.”

“I think your mother figured you were better off with your grandma than with her. Because of the life she was living and whatnot.”

“But Nanny was old, even then. She got sick, you know — Alzheimer's. They had to put her in a home and I got sent to foster care.”

“Well, that's too bad, kid. But I can't do nothin' about what your mother did.”

“Had you and Gina talked about going anywhere else?” I asked.

“Like where?”

“That's what I'm asking. Did you ever talk about moving? Did she have any big dreams that might have taken her to some specific place?”

“Only thing she wanted to do was raise a little ....” He stopped, looking guilty, like he'd been about to say something impolite and had caught himself in time. “Nah. Not that she ever told me about anyway.”

“If you think of anything else — even if it doesn't seem important — would you call to let us know? It could be something as simple as Gina telling you she'd like to see a Broadway show or meet a movie star or ... well, anything at all that might give us an idea of where she could have gone when she left you.”

“Yeah, sure. I'll give it some thought. But I wouldn't get my hopes up.”

There was no need for him to have told us that.
After all, he'd been the last one to see Annie's mother, and he hadn't been able to tell us one single thing that was useful.

“I wonder ...,” Annie said as we were walking back toward her foster home.

“What?”

“When my mom left Lenny, why didn't she just come back here? To me.”

I had no answer for that. And it didn't look as though the answer, if we found it, was going to be one she'd really want to hear. Lenny sure hadn't made it sound as though Gina was what you'd call a devoted mother.

I don't know whether or not Annie slept well that night, but I had a horrible dream about her. She was a little girl again, and she was running down the sidewalk behind her mother, crying and pleading for her to come back.

Her mother just kept walking, getting farther and farther away. She was moving stiffly, sort of like a Barbie doll. When she looked back at Annie, there was no expression on her face, and she just kept repeating, “I said go to your nanny. I said go to your nanny,” over and over like a robot.

Writing it down it doesn't sound bad, but it really bothered me. Enough to wake me up, in fact, and when I looked at the clock it was not quite three in the morning.

I groaned and flopped back on my pillow but no matter how hard I tried to relax, I couldn't get to sleep
again. At a little after four, I gave up and switched on my light.

The steno pad I'd used for notes when we talked to Lenny was beside me on the bed and I flipped it open and read through them. They sure weren't inspiring, and I'd written down almost every word he'd said.

After a while, I put the notes aside and picked up a novel I'd been reading. By eight I'd started to get drowsy again and then, the next thing I knew, Mom was knocking on my bedroom door.

“Shelby? Are you up, honey?”