Goodbye, Miss February

by Sally O'Brien

  “Look at all this food,” I said, hoping to distract her. “What did you bring?”

  “You.” She laughed. “But usually I make my famous tuna and noodle casserole.”

  “Sounds delicious. Do you make your own noodles?”

  “Of course.” She leaned forward to share the secret to her method. “I boil them first.”

  I was searching for an appropriate comment when a woman with a cat’s-eye glasses interrupted to ask Florence if she was going to Lois Stangel’s funeral.

  “Not sure. Who is she?” There was someone Florence didn’t know?

  “Oh, you’d recognize her if you saw her. She sat in the front of the church near the choir loft. She was an Austin.”

  “Oh yeah, Dan’s daughter.”

  “No, that’s Elva Lou. Lois was Tom’s. Or maybe Bill’s.”

  “Must have been Bill’s. He had three. Which one was this?”

  “The one who graduated.”

  Before we could learn whether Florence would attend the funeral, a tinkling bell announced the start of lunch. As guest of honor, I was first in line, piling a dainty teaspoonful of everything onto a plate that soon overflowed. Florence pushed me toward a seat at the officers’ table and made introductions. The president, a small, colorless woman—gray sweater, gray hair, red eyes—was Corrine Mason; I didn’t catch the other names.

  After studying my salad assortment, I popped a bite of the pale yellow one into my mouth. It was butter. I set the roll aside to eat later. The plump woman on my left had two carrot sticks, a tomato, and a lot of white space on her plate. Florence came back with four desserts but was willing to share.

  When it was time, Corrine whacked the table with her gavel and called the meeting to order. The secretary, vintage rubber boots slapping against her ankles, read the minutes of the previous meeting. She reported that the luncheon had been delicious and a good time had been had by all. The treasurer, who looked to be in her eighties or nineties—or hundreds—reported a balance of $158.92 in the checking account.

  The events coordinator announced occasions at which cake would be served and read thank you notes from places where cake had been served already. The group’s sole purpose seemed to be to serve cake. One woman—Florence told me she was Margaret Evans, her son married Karen Judge’s daughter—baked all the cakes. She interrupted Corrine when she tried to start the program and said first they had to sample today’s cake. No wonder Florence had been willing to share her desserts. Smiling in contentment, she whispered, “I saw her carrying in chocolate with fudge icing.” I grabbed a fork.

  Cake eaten, the program began with a boom box playing a song written and sung by Corrine’s niece. CDs were available for purchase. Next a woman dressed in a nurse’s costume consisting of a white cardigan sweater and a rubber-tubing stethoscope around her neck read excerpts from the diary of a World War II Philippine Islands missionary.

  Corrine became so choked up she could hardly continue but managed to introduce the new president who, in turn, announced the other officers: “Sue’s taking Mary’s place, Louise is taking Irma’s, and Pauline is taking Teresa’s. Corrine will remain as president.” Corrine raced back to the podium to explain that the new president would replace her for the coming year, not merely the remainder of this meeting. Discussion was deferred.

  Then it was time for the main event. Florence introduced me as an authority on children’s books. Following polite applause I took my place in front of a field of white hair—short straight, shorter straight, tight curls, loose curls, waves. My heart pounded and I was certain not one of them knew CPR.

  Then my voice began explaining how to divide the children into age groups and select appropriate books and videotapes for each. I recommended starting with a weekly half-hour session for ages three to five and including stories, coloring, and cookies. Volunteers could make posters to advertise the program, and perhaps someone could write a little column for the newspaper. From there we progressed to reading as a service project and merchant funding to encourage local shopping—any day but Friday. The women asked questions I could answer. I was a success. Florence beamed as though her child had made it through her recital solo without a mistake.

  We were approaching the boundaries of my knowledge base when Bertha, nearly purple with excitement, popped in with a news bulletin: Leland Goetzmann had hanged himself in the jail.

  Thirty-Three

  I drove back to the hospital as fast as I could. Leland’s suicide would certainly be on the news. I hurried to Andy’s room at just short of a dead run and found her propped up in bed reading a Sue Grafton mystery. “Aren‘t you looking perky,” I said, trying to control my breathing.

  “Yeah, fever’s gone. Surgery’s tomorrow at ten.”

  “Good.” I took off my coat and bobbed my head up and down. “That’s good.” I folded my scarf into an exact square and lined up my gloves finger to finger. “Really good news.”

  Andy closed her book and waited. Finally, patience gone, she asked, “Are you going to tell me how it went?” I tried to downplay my success—claimed the drive was uneventful and the talk went well—but she knew. “You merged.” She grinned.

  Leland temporarily forgotten, I wanted to jump up and down with excitement. “I did—and it wasn’t that hard.”

  “I know.”

  I was waiting for the I told you so when a gray-permed volunteer in a red hospital jacket brought in a vase of pink and white carnations. Andy read the card: “From John and Lucy.” Her voice sounded disappointed. “Put them over there with the others.”

  I added the new bouquet to the shelf. “Wow, look at all these. Must be from everyone you know.” Right away, I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Wouldn’t you think I’d have heard from Leland?”

  There was my opening. No avoiding it. I had to tell her. “Andy . . .”

  “What’s wrong?” She always could read me.

  I cleared my throat. “About the flowers. . .” I took a deep breath and tried again. “About Leland . . .”

  “What about him?”

  “Well . . . you know that bank robbery just before we came down here?”

  “The Mid-Iowa in Cherry Glen?”

  “Yeah, that one.” I located the nurse call button on the bedrail. “They found the guy who did it.”

  “And?”

  “And . . . oh dear heaven, I really hate to tell you this . . . it was Leland.”

  “What?” Andy shook her head in disbelief. “No, that can’t be.” She scowled. “Leland would never do such a thing. You must have heard wrong.”

  I offered her a glass of water. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

  She batted away the glass. “It’s not Leland. That stupid sheriff couldn’t catch a real bank robber if flashing neon arrows pointed at him. Why Leland? Just because he’s not from around here?”

  I prayed for the right words. “Andy, it was Leland. The robber was wearing a salmon-colored sport coat and driving a yellow Hummer.”

  She stared at me without speaking as the words sank in. How many salmon jackets could there be? “Oh my.” She sank back against the pillows and shook her head. “Then someone borrowed his coat.”

  “And his car,” I added.

  “Yes, the car too.”

  “Then there’s the note.”

  “What note?”

  “The one he wrote on the back of his personal check.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Damn, oh damn,” she moaned. “Why on earth would he do such a crazy thing?” She stared intently out the window, her throat working, while I remained ready to offer tissues or call for a sedative. Suddenly, she startled me by chuckling. “Just the coat and the car and the check? No nametag? Hope he stole enough for a good lawyer.”

  I relaxed a little and edged my hand away from the call button. �
��There’s more,” I said, ‘but why don’t you get used to the idea of Leland as a thief and we’ll talk later.”

  The smile slipped from Andy’s face. Perhaps I hadn’t phrased that right. “Might as well get the bad news over with,” she said. “I’m just going to be imagining stuff, probably worse than what actually happened.”

  “Not necessarily. It’s pretty bad. You sure?”

  “Jane, get on with it.”

  “Well, they think he robbed two other banks, one in Marshalltown and one in Eldora.”

  She waited. “What else?”

  “Maybe I’ll come back later.”

  “Jane!”

  “Okay, okay, he had a wife, back in Alabama, thirty years younger.”

  Andy gasped and closed her eyes while her hands strangled the book she was holding. “Had? He’s divorced?”

  “Not exactly.” I threw in the clincher: “He committed suicide this morning.”

  She sat in stunned silence for a minute, then said, “Oh, Leland, such a waste.” I could hear the pain in her unsteady voice and knew she was struggling not to cry.

  I threw words into the quiet. “The town’s very supportive of him. People are saying it was the wife’s fault. She was a spender—married him for money obviously. Why else when he was so much older? Did you know he was seventy?” Andy’s face remained set. Talking about the wife might not have been a good idea.

  Poor Andy. This was a lot to take in all at once. Maybe I should have held off on the wife part but what if she saw it on television or Florence told her? No, I had to be the one with the grim news. Now I needed to make her feel better. I launched into my drive to Cherry Glen, complete with Florence and her purse. Andy nodded as if she understood—or cared—but it was obvious her mind was focused elsewhere. I kept going, my heart beating urgently, chattering like an idiot as I described every salad in detail and assured her the Neighborhood Club women were concerned about her.

  Finally Andy held up her hand, palm out. “Jane, why are you still talking?” She managed a weak smile. “Did you know about his arrest before?” I hesitated, then offered a guilty little dip of my head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I straightened the stack of newspapers on the table. “Maybe I should have . . . I didn’t want to upset you before your surgery. But after today . . . well, I couldn’t let you hear about it on TV.” We both looked at the television set.

  “It’s broken,” Andy said. “They offered to get me another one but I said there was nothing I wanted to see.”

  “You got that right.” Andy didn’t laugh. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “About the TV?”

  “No, about Leland. I know you and he . . .”

  “He and I what?” She pressed her fingers to her eyes and ran them through her hair. “He was a friend, sure, but you know we weren’t really that close. We only went out once. Of course I feel terrible about what happened to him. Who wouldn’t? But just because a man smiles at me and has a cute little dimple and talks like Ashley Wilkes doesn’t mean I want to . . . well, have a second date with him.”

  I’d missed the cute little dimple.

  Andy sat without moving, staring out the window at nothing, her mouth trembling. I mumbled something about coffee and left to give her time alone.

  I leaned against the wall outside her closed door. Andy hadn’t fooled me with her one-date story. I knew she was crying and trying not to care—or at least trying not to show she cared. She was probably mad at herself for letting Leland charm her. How dare he hurt my Andy! She deserved some joy in her life, someone to make her feel as special as she was. Instead she got an old bank robber—and not even a smart one—with a young wife at home. It was just as well he was already dead because I wanted to kill him. He was such a . . .darn, where was a bad name when I needed it? Sleaze didn’t cover Leland. How on earth did he manage to fool the entire town? The only good thing I could say about him was he distracted Andy from worrying about cancer surgery.

  The kitchenette was full of nurses, probably guarding the pudding cups, but I found coffee in the visitor lounge. I settled down to watch the evening news and caught the end of a commercial featuring two anorexic young girls demonstrating lip gloss with great enthusiasm. Next, a more mature woman with windproof hair promised to tell us about missing Iowa children following these messages. I waited through news of a car robbery at Valley West Mall delivered by a freckled reporter wearing what had to be a borrowed suit. He was standing in a nearly deserted parking lot and seemed excited to be at the very spot where the robber had accosted the car owner. Accosted? Someone else must have written his script.

  At last they aired pictures of lost or stolen children. Even though I was watching for it, Elizabeth’s caught me by surprise. I leaned forward, an idea percolating. Suddenly it hit me, and I jumped up so fast I spilled my coffee.

  “Andy,” I cried as I burst into her room, “we have to call the Stones right away. I know where Elizabeth is!”

  Thirty-Four

  I was sitting with Tiffany and her friend Stevie, watching them listen to their cell phones while simultaneously texting important messages, possibly to each other, when Bob and Esther pushed Andy’s wheelchair into the room. I heard Stevie’s quick intake of breath at the same time Bob said, “Hello, Elizabeth.” Esther made no sound but a strangled choke. Stevie/Elizabeth yanked out the earbuds and jumped to her feet. Tears running down her cheeks, Esther held out her arms. Her daughter ignored her.

  “What are you doing here? How’d you find me?” Elizabeth asked. Esther stood motionless, her face white and crumpled.

  Bob coughed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Andy’s sister recognized you,” he said with a quick glance my way. “Jane. She‘s a famous child authority.” He turned to me. “How’d you know it was her?”

  Being the focus of attention caught me off guard, making me stammer a little when I spoke. “Oh, uh, well, uh, television—the young girls on TV, the missing ones. When Elizabeth’s picture came on, I could see how she’d look with different hair and makeup and remembered Stevie was a model. My friend . . . Gloria . . .,” I explained with a nod to Andy, “is trying to talk her daughter into modeling school in Chicago instead of going to Hollywood, and Chicago’s pretty close to here and, well . . . it just seemed right.”

  They said I was amazing, although from their grim expressions I didn’t think the girls meant amazing as good. I tried to appear modest. Esther never took her eyes off Elizabeth and stretched out her hand to pat her daughter’s arm. Elizabeth brushed her away but the hand kept creeping forward to touch her again. Bob put his arm around his wife’s shaking shoulders. Finally Esther managed to say, “Where were you? Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” Her voice held relief shading toward irritation.

  Elizabeth folded her arms across her tight red T-shirt, blocking a few of the letters in CHICAGO CUBS. Good thing she wasn’t a White Sox fan. The words would have stretched completely around her thin torso. “That woman was right,” she said with a quick glance in my direction. “I was in Chicago modeling. Well, learning how to be one.” I thought they’d done a good job of teaching her about makeup slathering although perhaps I was prejudiced against black lipstick.

  Her parents stared at her for a minute before Esther said, “Well, my goodness, we had no idea you wanted to be a model. If you’d just told us, we’d have helped you. Why didn’t you say something?”

  Elizabeth tossed her head, rattling the large silver triangles in her ears. Words tumbled out: “Yeah, right, like you give a damn about what I want. All you ever think about is grades—study hard, get your homework done. Your idea of what I should do with my life is take food courses at boring old Iowa State.” Hands on her bony hips, Elizabeth glared at us. “I’m sick of waiting for my life to begin. High school’s just a waste of time. This guy from Chicago spotted me at Valley West Ma
ll just before Christmas, said I had the right look to be a model. He used his phone to take my picture and gave me his card.”

  Talk about déjà vu all over again. Wasn’t that what happened to Gloria’s daughter? Same shopping center even.

  The memory brought a smile to Elizabeth’s face. She thought for a minute, then said, “So when I saw this ad on the internet for a national modeling place in Chicago, well, it seemed like a sign and I called the guy. He said he’d shown the agency my picture and they were interested. I needed to go through their classes but I had to hurry, they were about to start. So I packed a bag and was gone—like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “You’ll be a great model,” Tiffany said.

  “I know, right? They chose me to compete in this international competition. All the top agencies go there to find models.” She stopped and seemed to be waiting for applause. “First I had to learn stuff like how to walk with my butt forward.” A butt-forward demonstration followed. “The classes are over now, but they guaranteed they’d find me work and said they’d call me. I’ll probably go to Los Angeles or New York next.” After a defiant look at her parents, she smiled at the sleeping Joshua. “So I came back to be with Tiff when she had her baby. Couldn‘t miss that. I could tell from talking on the phone every day that she was due pretty quick.”

  Bitterly I recalled hearing about the friend who was expecting a baby in Des Moines but claimed to know nothing of Elizabeth’s whereabouts. Bob and Esther might have a hard time forgiving Tiffany once they realized she’d been lying to them.

  Elizabeth studied her denim-covered knees for a minute before continuing. “I didn’t figure you’d find me here.” Did she sound sad? I wondered whether she knew she’d been hoping to be found.

  “What’d you use for money?” Bob asked.