Looking for Me

by Beth Hoffman

As I pulled in front of the ranger station, I turned to Josh and asked, “You need me to pick you up later?”

  He closed the door and peered through the open window. “Nope. Ranger Jim will bring me home. See you, Teddi.”

  I watched him trot off, his worn-out sneakers slapping against the asphalt. Just before I pulled away, my brother turned and lifted his hand. Sunlight streamed through his open fingers, and he smiled.

  Arriving home, I went upstairs to my bedroom and closed the door. From my handbag I removed the envelope Daddy had given me. When I ripped it open and shook out the contents, twenty brand-new fifty-dollar bills landed on my bedspread. Lightly I touched one and then another. I couldn’t imagine how many lawn mowers he’d repaired to make all that money.

  The thought of it made my throat tighten.

  Something else fell out of the envelope, too. A map. Paper-clipped to the corner was a note that read:

  This will help you find your way.

  Love, Dad

  I thought about how he’d spoken of freedom, how he’d said the car was my red, white, and blue. As I held the map in my hands, the full impact of my father’s words hit me.

  My head swam with possibilities when I unfolded the map and spread it out on my bed. This was my chance to have an adventure, and I didn’t know where to go first. I’d always wanted to see the ocean and the Smithsonian museum. But above all else, I was curious about Mr. Palmer’s antique shop in Charleston.

  After folding the map and returning it to the envelope, I hid it, along with the money, beneath the liner paper in my bottom dresser drawer. Later that afternoon I walked out to the workshop and stood in the open doorway. Daddy was sitting on a wooden stool, dismantling the engine of a lawn mower. The old radio was tuned to a baseball game, the volume low. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, and his hands were blackened with motor oil.

  I tapped my finger against the doorframe. He looked up, and our eyes locked in a way I’d never experienced. Deep in my chest, I could feel a tug of the thread that connected us. Would always connect us.

  “Thank you for the money and the car, Daddy.” I fought back tears as I leaned forward and whispered, “And the map . . . red, white, and blue.”

  He winked but didn’t say a word.

  Two days later I was sitting on the steps of the back porch, secretly planning my trip in a spiral notebook when Josh loped across the lawn. “Hi, buddy. How was your hike? Find anything interesting?”

  He shook off his canvas knapsack and sat on the step in front of me. From a zippered pocket, he removed a book and opened it. Tucked between the pages was a small feather. It was slender and black, with four large white dots along each side.

  “It’s for you, Teddi.”

  I took the feather from his outstretched hand. “Wow, thanks. It’s beautiful. Look at all the detail. What bird is it from?”

  “Downy woodpecker. It’s a secondary wing feather.”

  “You amaze me. I think you know more about birds than all the rangers put together.” I pointed to the book in his hand. “What’s that?”

  He handed it to me—the title was The Ultimate Wilderness Survival Guide. Leafing through the pages, I noticed dozens of underlined passages and notes written in the margins. I looked at my brother and wrinkled my nose. “You can eat cattails?”

  “Yep. Not the tops, but the roots. They’re good.”

  I closed the book and set it down on the steps. “Why don’t you just pack a bigger lunch?”

  “Because that’s not the point . . .”

  For several minutes I listened to my brother describe what he’d learned about surviving off vegetation and making tools. When he finished explaining how he’d crafted a bowl from a small log of dead wood, he grew quiet and began fiddling with his shoelaces. Glancing over his shoulder toward the kitchen window, Josh lowered his voice and asked, “Is Mama home?”

  “No, she and Grammy went to the grocery.”

  My brother looked me square in the eyes. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  “What . . . ? Why would you say that?”

  “You don’t need to play dumb with me. I heard you sneak down the steps last night, so I got up and looked out the window. You loaded stuff into the trunk of your car.”

  My stomach sank. “You aren’t gonna tell, are you?”

  “No. I won’t say anything.”

  I gave his arm a gentle pinch. “Thanks. I won’t be gone long. I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

  Josh looked away and picked mud spatters from his jeans. “But you won’t come back.”

  “Sure I will. I just need to see what’s out there.”

  My brother gazed across the hay field. “I could never leave the farm, but I sure wish things were like they used to be. Ever since they built that Sky Lift over by Natural Bridge, seems like all we get around here are tourists and city campers. A lot of them don’t respect nature. Remember that giant rock we used to sit on, the one shaped like a turtle shell? Well, I was up there today, and you know what someone did?”

  “What?”

  “Carved a bunch of swear words in it. And when I was on my way home, I saw these two guys in a pickup. I watched ’em pull off the road and onto a hiking path. Both of ’em cussing and laughing. They were either drunk or high, maybe both. The ground was soggy from the all the rain we had last week, but the driver just kept on spinning the tires and laughing. He drove between two locust trees and busted the lower limbs real bad. Then he ran over a young red oak. Totally destroyed it.”

  I put down my notebook. “What a jackass. Too bad a ranger didn’t see it—those guys would be in big trouble.”

  Josh unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and rolled them up. “Well, they won’t be doin’ that again.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I hid behind some pines until they got their gear and went down the path. When I was sure they were gone, I snuck over to their truck and unscrewed the caps from the valve stems of the tires. I put a small pebble inside each stem and screwed down the caps till I heard a psssssst sound. When all four tires were leakin’ air, I hightailed it outta there.”

  “Oh, my God! You really did that?”

  He flashed me a grin, his eyes bright with triumph. “Those tires will flatten like pancakes, and the truck will sink real deep into the mud. It’ll cost ’em a lot of money to have it towed out of there. Plus, they’ll get fined.”

  “Good. Maybe those jerks will learn a lesson. But you have to be careful, Josh. What if they had seen you?”

  “Not likely. Besides, they were idiots. The poachers are the real problem. They kill the deer and red fox. They even shoot hawks and eagles just so they can sell their talons and feathers on the black market.”

  Though I knew there’d been an ongoing battle against poachers, I’d never heard about the killing of raptors. “What does Ranger Jim say? Have they caught any of them?”

  “They’ve arrested a few.”

  “You know what? You’d be a great ranger. Nobody knows the woods like you do.”

  “Well, somebody’s got to do something. The wildlife needs protecting, Teddi.” He looked away, his eyes fixed on the woods. “Yesterday Ranger Jim found the carcass of an eagle. I won’t even tell you what somebody did to it. But I—”

  “Hey, son?” Daddy called from the barn. “Come give me a hand.”

  When Josh stood, I reached out and took hold of his shirtsleeve. “Promise not to tell Mama I’m leaving?”

  He leaned toward me, the blue of his eyes deepening. “Don’t worry, Teddi. Everyone’s got a secret.” Then he took off toward the barn.

  That evening I sat on my bed and studied the map that Daddy had given me. After marking my route with red pencil, I put the map back in its hiding place and got ready for bed. When I opened the drawer to pull out my pajamas, I found a folde
d piece of paper. Inside was a feather—light honey in color with nine horizontal stripes of brownish black. In the note my brother had written:

  From the highest branch he watches and waits.

  The horned owl keeps secrets.

  I didn’t know where my brother came up with such things, but I smiled and tucked the feather and note into my handbag.

  Late the next night, when everyone was asleep, I got dressed and made my bed. It was just after midnight when I closed my bedroom door. I left the typewriter my mother had given me sitting on the floor in my closet, still in its unopened box. Holding my breath, I tiptoed over the creaky floorboards and down the stairs. I opened my handbag and removed sealed letters addressed to Mama, Daddy, Grammy Belle, and Josh. After placing them on the kitchen table, I opened the back door and crept outside.

  By the thin light of the moon, I put my suitcase into the trunk of my car, silently closing the lid with a gentle push. I gazed at the house, and then the fields, and finally the barn. My heart went wild with uncertainty, yet I couldn’t ignore my longing for adventure. I climbed into the car and took one more look at the house. Silhouetted in his dimly lit bedroom window was Josh. The sight of him brought tears to my eyes. I pressed my palm against my window, and he did the same against his. We stayed like that for a long moment.

  I started the ignition and rolled down the driveway. When I turned for one last look, my brother was still standing at the window, his palm still pressed against the glass.

  FIVE

  And now here I was all these years later, driving down the same road and feeling that familiar twinge of regret. Not for leaving home to go after my dream but for the thoughtless way I’d done it. Though Daddy claimed that Mama eventually got over it, I knew she’d never forgiven me. Most likely she never would.

  Sometimes there’s no way to fix things.

  The drive to Charleston was plagued with heavy traffic, made worse by an accident and a detour along the way. It had taken me nearly eleven hours to get home. I woke the next morning feeling achy and disoriented. I had also overslept.

  While hustling down the alley next to my shop, I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes past opening time. I unlocked the side door and was greeted by the soft shoo-shoo sound of sandpaper being rubbed across wood. Peering into the workroom, I watched Albert smooth his aging hand over the top of a piecrust table.

  “Hey, Albert. How’re you doing?”

  He looked up with a sly grin. “I’m doin’ just fine, but your day ain’t gonna start out too good.”

  “Why?”

  “Your favorite person is waitin’ on you. Been here since ten o’clock sharp. Got a bug up her butt ’cause I wouldn’t let her in.”

  “Where’s Inez?”

  “Took the day off, remember? So it’s all up to you.” He laughed and went back to sanding.

  I shoved my handbag into my desk drawer and turned on the showroom lights. My high heels made a sharp clickety-click across the wood floor as I walked down the hallway. I groaned when I saw Tula Jane Poteet standing on her tiptoes, hands cupped at the sides of her eyes as she peered into the window.

  I unlocked the door and held it open. “Good morning, Miz Poteet.”

  She stepped inside and blotted her upper lip with a handkerchief. “Well, I was gettin’ ready to leave. Your man wouldn’t let me in. I know he saw me, but when I waved, he up and walked away. Left me standin’ in this awful heat. Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Albert is a repair specialist. He doesn’t work in the front of the shop. It’s my fault that nobody was here to greet you. So what can I do for you today?”

  She fluffed her blue-gray hair. “Well, I just thought I’d browse and see what all’s new.”

  “Nothing much new since your last visit. Maybe you should come back when—”

  “You just go on about your business and don’t mind me,” she said, walking around an English armoire and disappearing behind a coromandel room divider.

  As I set off to follow her, the front door opened and the UPS man walked in. He set a box on the floor and handed me a receipt to sign. “Hey, Teddi, how’s it going?”

  “Great, Tim. And you?” I said, scribbling my signature as fast as I could.

  “Can’t complain. Have a good day.”

  Before he was out the door, I slipped off my shoes and silently trotted past a china cabinet to find Miz Poteet, which I did, just as she was shoving a sterling candlestick into her handbag.

  For three years I had put up with her frequent thefts, and I was sick to death of it. Whenever I called her son, a hotshot lawyer who lived with his mother on South Battery, he would tell me to send him a bill for whatever she’d “forgotten to pay for”—claiming she had a nervous condition. He would end our conversation by specifically requesting that I never embarrass his sweet little mama by confronting her.

  Well, those days were over.

  I approached Miz Poteet, my lips pressed into a thin smile. “Allow me to wrap that up for you. And please tell me how you’d like to pay for it. Cash or check?”

  She didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed when she reached into her handbag. “Well, come to think of it, I believe it’s a bit too short for where I had in mind.”

  Placing the candlestick on the Flemish refectory table from where she’d snatched it, Miz Poteet never missed a beat when she said, “I hear Trudy’s makin’ her Fredericksburg whole-wheat bread today, so I’d best be on my way and get a loaf before they sell out.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed, folding my arms over my chest. “You’d best do that.”

  She turned and left, her pink shirtwaist dress flapping around her knees and her head held high as if she were the most upstanding citizen in all of Charleston. As she crossed the street, I shook my head and said, “Nervous condition my ass.”

  After slipping my feet back into my shoes, I headed for my office. But while walking by the mahogany display cabinet, I stopped. The glass door hung open, and a Limoges box was missing from the middle shelf. “Damn her!”

  That little box was my favorite, a true collector’s piece—painted with a frog on a lily pad, it was very old and in near-perfect condition. I marched into my office and opened my address book, muttering to myself as I dialed the number.

  An efficient voice answered, “Green, Poteet, and Davis.”

  “Mr. Poteet, please. This is Teddi Overman.” The receptionist put me on hold, and a moment later a voice I’d come to recognize all too well came on the line.

  “Good morning, Miz Overman.”

  “No, Mr. Poteet. I’m sorry to say that it is not a good morning. Your mother visited my shop today and stole another Limoges box. I really wish you’d—”

  “Miz Overman, my mother is forgetful, but I can assure you she’s not a thief. I’m sorry for your frustration, but I believe you and I have an agreement. When she forgets to pay, you’re to bill me and I’ll take care of it. Now, that seems simple enough, doesn’t it?”

  “Simple for you. But, quite frankly, for me it’s wearing thin. Every year when I do inventory, there are things missing that I just know have left my shop in your mother’s handbag. And I really wish—”

  “I’m happy to pay my mother’s bills, Miz Overman. I’m comfortable with our arrangement. Now, you have a nice day.”

  And with that he ended the call.

  “Mama’s boy,” I snarled into the receiver.

  I spent the rest of the morning at my desk catching up on the mail while Albert repaired a split in an oak library table. He hummed along with the radio, occasionally making a snide comment at an ad between songs. Every now and then, I’d lean back in my chair and peer into the workroom to watch him—how patient and exacting he was, how he mended each piece of furniture as if commissioned from above.

  SIX

  I met Albert James Pickens
on the day I arrived in Charleston, back in the summer of ’72. I wasn’t prepared for Charleston, though no first-time visitor could be. Church steeples pierced a sky so blue it didn’t seem real, and the streets were lined with trees that left me speechless. Some had branches so long and twisted they appeared to defy gravity, and others were tall palms that swayed in the breeze like giant green fans. While I was driving down a street that ran along the water, my mouth dropped when I saw the grand old houses that looked out across the bay. Many had porches on each of their three stories, and in the slant of sunlight I swear those homes shimmered with the soft pinks and yellows of fine mother-of-pearl.

  Charleston was a unique place—one where it seemed as if two different worlds not so much collided but gracefully slid up beside each other and decided to just get along.

  Realizing I was lost, I turned around and drove slowly until I found Wentworth Street. I parked at the curb, and with Mr. Palmer’s business card tucked in my pocket I began walking. All the buildings were old and tall, and many had arched windows, keystones, and deep eaves accented by fancy cornices. Though I’d seen photographs of all these architectural details in the books I’d studied, seeing them in person was something else entirely.

  I passed one shop after another, peering into windows that showcased everything from the latest fashions to fine bone china. After walking several blocks, I saw a small, weatherworn sign hanging cockeyed from a broken frame. The sign read: PALMER’S FINE ANTIQUES.

  Wedged between a deli and a narrow, brick-paved alley, the shop didn’t come close to the image I’d conjured in my mind. The window was so dirty it blurred the chest on display, the door was scarred with deep gouges, and when I pressed the old bronze latch and stepped inside, I was greeted by an aroma of mildew.

  The entire place was crammed with furniture, paintings, lamps, and all sorts of knickknacks. Boxes filled with tarnished silver spoons and glass doorknobs sat atop a giant mahogany sideboard, and rugs rolled up like cigars and tied with twine were stacked in a corner. From a metal pole suspended across the ceiling hung two crystal chandeliers and a sock monkey. There was even an old one-eyed doll sitting in a porcelain soup tureen.