“How about you call Sister Stephanie first?”
“How about not?”
“But—”
“Daniel,” I say, “I’m the girl that threw a glockenspiel for you. You’re the boy that just chased a car with a zucchini for me. We’ve got each other’s backs.”
“Well,” says Daniel. “When you put it like that.”
A few minutes later, we’re standing on Anya’s front step. Daniel, still in his fruit farm sweatshirt and lobster-print pajamas, rings the bell. After a short wait, Anya’s father opens the door. He’s wearing a UMASS sweatshirt and the exact same pajama bottoms as Daniel.
“Nice jammies,” Daniel tells him.
“Thank you.” Dr. Flowers takes a sip from the coffee cup in his hand. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re here to see Anya,” says Daniel.
“Is she home?” I ask.
“She’s still in bed,” he tells us.
I hadn’t considered that. “Oh.”
“We’re early risers,” Daniel tells him.
“As am I.” Dr. Flowers takes another sip of coffee. “Would you like to come in? Mrs. Flowers went grocery shopping, but I can make you a waffle.”
“I like waffles,” says Daniel.
Dr. Flowers gestures for us to follow, and we enter the foyer, head past the room with the beautiful piano, and step into the Flowers’ big kitchen, where we find Anya sitting at the kitchen table. “Are you the ones that rang the doorbell?” she asks sleepily.
“Sorry,” I say.
Dr. Flowers crosses the room to a big, silver refrigerator in the corner. He opens the freezer and pulls out a bright yellow box of frozen waffles. “Oh no,” says Daniel. “That won’t do.”
“What’s wrong?” asks Dr. Flowers.
“Those aren’t waffles,” Daniel tells him. “That’s barely even food. What kind of doctor are you?”
“I have degrees in history from Amherst and Chicago, and a PhD from Yale. I think I know the difference between food and not food.”
Daniel points at the box. “You might know who shot Lincoln, but you don’t know waffles.”
“Do you teach at Trinity College?” I ask.
“I’m the chair of the history department,” says Dr. Flowers. “But apparently I’m not qualified to toast a waffle.”
Daniel shakes his head. “You don’t toast a waffle. You mix a simple batter in a bowl, then pour it over a hot griddle and cook until golden brown.”
“My dad works at Trinity,” I say. “He runs the morning and lunch shifts in the cafeteria. He and Daniel like to cook together.”
Dr. Flowers studies me for a moment. “Is your dad Bruce Magari?”
“That’s him.”
“Bruce speaks to my medieval history class every year about bread. That man knows more about bread than I know about the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. And I know a lot.”
“Pinkie what?” asks Daniel.
“The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh,” says Dr. Flowers. “It was part of the war known as the Rough Wooing between Henry VIII’s British monarchy and the Scottish—”
“Dad,” says Anya, “we don’t want to hear about Pinkie Cleugh.”
“It was a remarkable battle,” Dr. Flowers tells Daniel, who actually looks sort of interested.
“How about bread pudding?” I ask. “But instead of bread, we’ll use waffles.”
“Frozen waffles?” says Daniel.
“Why not?” I take the yellow box from Dr. Flowers and guide him to a seat at the kitchen table. “You sit. We’ll cook.”
Rather than toast the waffles, I soften them in the microwave. Daniel tears them into pieces and tosses the bits into a baking dish. I tell Anya to bring milk, eggs, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, raisons, and a dash of nutmeg, which we combine in a glass bowl. Daniel pours the mixture over the broken waffles, then stirs everything up in the baking dish and slides it into the oven.
“Do you have any maple syrup?” I ask.
Anya heads to a cabinet near the coffeepot. “I’ll get it.”
“Can I ask a question?” says Dr. Flowers.
“Food-related or otherwise?” asks Daniel.
“My question is for Ellie.” Dr. Flowers turns to me. “I understand that you’re searching for your mom.”
I glance at Anya.
“I told my parents,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind. We talk about finding my biological parents one day.”
“You talk about it?” I say. “Out loud?”
“Anya knows she’s adopted,” says Dr. Flowers. “Pretending otherwise would be absurd. And the fact that she has her own history makes it even more special that we are together now.”
“I never thought of it like that,” I admit.
“Did I mention that my dad is a history professor?” says Anya.
“Have you made any progress?” Dr. Flowers asks me.
“A little,” I say.
Dr. Flowers nods. “Anya explained that your mother passed away before you ever had a chance to meet.”
I nod.
“Was she from around here?”
“My parents grew up in Rockhill.”
“Then your grandparents must have lived here too,” says Dr. Flowers. “Did you know them?”
I shake my head. “They all died before I was born.”
“Did your mom and dad have brothers or sisters?” he asks. “Any aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”
In our small town, even my father wouldn’t be able to hide an entire clan from me. “I don’t think so.”
Just then, the doorbell rings. Anya steps out of the kitchen. When she returns, she’s with her mom, who, like Anya, is carrying several bags of groceries. “I needed help with the door,” says Mrs. Flowers. “And what is that amazing smell?”
“Frozen waffle pudding,” Daniel tells her.
She raises an eyebrow.
“You’ll like it,” he promises.
“It will be ready in five minutes,” I say.
“I’ll be right back,” says Dr. Flowers. He steps out of the kitchen while Anya and Mrs. Flowers begin unpacking groceries. He returns a moment later with a copy of the Rockhill Free Press and a fat yellow book, which he plops into my arms. The book weighs a ton.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“A newspaper and a phone book,” he says. “Hardly anybody uses them anymore. It’s a shame. Fortunately, the library has copies going back a hundred years. The librarians can help you find news, obituaries, wedding announcements, city maps, and even school yearbooks. They’ll lead to your mom. You just have to ask.”
“That’s a good idea,” says Daniel.
“You won’t be looking for a person at first,” Dr. Flowers tells me. “You just collect clues and bits of information. When you have enough pieces, you can arrange them into a story that makes sense.”
I turn to Anya. “Is this where you learned how to do that storyboard thing?”
“No,” she says, “but it’s not that different, is it?”
“It sounds like your family has been in town for at least a couple generations,” Dr. Flowers continues. “They won’t be able to hide for long.”
The oven timer goes off, so I trade the newspaper and phone book for a pair of hot mitts. I move the baking dish from the oven to the countertop. While it cools, I add a generous helping of maple syrup and think about everything Dr. Flowers just said. A moment later, Daniel and I scoop servings into bowls.
“This smells delicious,” says Mrs. Flowers.
“It used to be waffles,” Dr. Flowers tells his wife.
Daniel leans toward Anya’s mom and speaks in a loud whisper. “Mrs. Flowers,” he says, “it was never waffles.”
After the morning waffle lesson with Dr. Flowers, Daniel and I phone our friends. They agree to gather at the Rockhill Public Library to help explore my past. An hour later, we’re all squeezed around a heavy, wooden table on the library’s top floor. “Ellie,” says Charlotte, who dragged Josh and Sinb
ad along, “what do you need us to do?”
Above us, an autumn sun shines through a tall, arched window that’s been letting light into the library for over a hundred years. A few of the people sitting nearby look like they’ve been here that long too.
“It’s sort of like working on a research paper,” I explain.
“Wow,” says Josh. “You really know how to have fun on a Saturday.”
“It’s more like solving a mystery,” offers Anya.
“I like mysteries,” says Sinbad.
“Let’s start with something simple.” I hand out phone books and yearbooks and assorted documents that one of the librarians gathered for us earlier. “Just look for anything that says Korkenderfer.”
At first, the whisper and crinkle of turning pages is the only sound we make. Daniel’s the first to interrupt the silence. “Hey!” he shouts.
“Dude!” says Josh. “You’re in a library!”
“Sorry!” Daniel lowers his voice. “I found something!” He pushes an old phone book toward me.
I put my finger on a fading entry. Charlotte glances over my shoulder and reads aloud. “Rex and Constance Korkenderfer are listed at 1472 Tulip Street in Rockhill.”
“Tulip Street is in my neighborhood,” says Sinbad. “Were those your grandparents?”
“I don’t know,” I confess.
“I’ll check the Rockhill Free Press archives,” says Charlotte. “They’re all online.” It takes less than a minute of swiping on her phone before she’s got something to share. “According to Constance Korkenderfer’s obituary, she was predeceased by her brother, Ronald, and her husband, Rex. They were married forty-nine years. Constance was the daughter of the late Frank and Theresa Leopold of Providence, Rhode Island. She was survived by a daughter, Wilma Korkenderfer, of Boston, Massachusetts.”
“I guess they’re my grandparents,” I say.
Sinbad reaches across the table and grabs a Rockhill Memorial Cemetery index that’s held together by three brass clips in an old green binder. “I can look for them in here.”
“Listen to this.” Josh takes an old newspaper from the stack in front of him. “Some people say that the Internet is going to change everything.”
“Rex and Constance are buried in plot number 3439,” Sinbad announces. “They’re located in the East Apple section of the cemetery.”
“The cemetery has an Apple section?” I ask.
Sinbad unfolds the map that was tucked into the back of the green binder. “It’s between the Strawberry section and the Pear section.”
“Are we talking about a cemetery or a fruit salad?” says Charlotte.
“Is this really what your dad does for his job?” Daniel asks Anya.
“Sort of,” she tells him. “But not really.”
“Is your father an FBI agent or something?” asks Josh.
Anya shakes her head. “He’s a historian.”
Josh holds up his newspaper. “This isn’t history. This is real life.”
“Josh,” says Sinbad. “History is real life.”
“Check this out.” Daniel pushes a yearbook to the center of the table. “Here’s Ellie’s mom.”
Everybody leans forward to see. On the page, several rows of goofy-looking but surprisingly well-groomed teenagers stare back at us. They’re all smiling except one sad-faced boy who’s wearing a really ugly sweater. Charlotte notices the sad boy too. “I bet his mother picked that out.”
In the bottom corner, a dark-eyed, frizzy-haired girl wearing a sleeveless dress and a big smile tilts her head in a classic yearbook pose. It’s Wilma Korkenderfer.
“She looks just like Ellie,” says Josh.
“She’s definitely the girl we saw on the CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD! website,” says Daniel.
Anya studies the photo for a long time. “She’s even prettier without all the neon-green eye makeup.”
I think so too.
“Have you ever seen a picture of your mother before?” Josh asks me.
I pull the yearbook closer. “Not like this,” I admit.
“Is it weird?” he asks.
“No.” I change my mind. “It’s a little weird.” I change my mind again. “Actually, it’s very weird.”
Charlotte reaches over and flips the yearbook a few pages ahead. She turns the book around so that Anya can check out the photo of a serious, athletic-looking boy. They both start to laugh. “He’s still very handsome,” says Charlotte.
“Who?” I ask.
“Your dad,” says Anya.
I look back and forth between Anya and Charlotte. “You think my father is handsome?”
Charlotte presses the back of her hand to her forehead. “Ellie, your father is the best-looking of all the fathers.”
Josh stands. “That’s enough history for me.”
Over the next few days, my friends and I discover the history of Korky everywhere we look. We visit the Korkenderfers’ old house on Tulip Street. We see my grandparents’ final resting spots in the cemetery. Both the Korkenderfers and the Magaris are just a few steps away from the happy Buddha. In old yearbooks and fading school newspapers, we find photos and snapshots from my parents’ high school days. One picture even shows my parents together after a nighttime football game. Beneath a star-flecked night sky, my teenage dad stands arm in arm with my mother-to-be. Apparently, the Howling Wolves won football games back then. Not only that, my father had hair.
By midweek, my brain is on overload and my head is swimming. Alone in my room on Wednesday night, I sit on my bed and revisit the CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD! website to confirm that the band is still scheduled to play at Trinity College on Friday. They are.
“How are you doing, Ellie?”
I glance up and see my father just outside my room. I didn’t even hear him come upstairs.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say.
“Of course.”
I put a hand on the shoe box I’ve been keeping at my bedside table. “How come there’s nothing in here about the fact that she got remarried?”
“Are you still going through that box of nonsense?” asks Dad.
“Did she think I already knew?” I ask. “Did she send a wedding invitation that you never gave me?”
Dad stands like a palace guard framed in my doorway. He stares at me without speaking for a long moment. “You were not invited to the wedding,” he finally says. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure you would have been busy that day.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Learning how to spell your name? Counting to ten? Pooping in your diaper? I don’t know, Ellie. The days were pretty full back then. Of course, Korky wouldn’t know about any of that.” He turns and heads back downstairs.
Suddenly, I feel an anger grow inside me like an unexpected volcano. If there was a glockenspiel nearby, I would definitely send it sailing toward my father’s head. But Dad’s not the only person I’m angry at. I’m angry at everybody, and I’m especially angry at myself. Because really, Korky Korkenderfer has not been hiding under deep cover for all these years. If I ever went looking, I probably would have found her. But I didn’t go looking. I hardly ever thought about her. I didn’t care. I did nothing, and now I have nothing to show for it. Actually, that’s not true. I have a box filled with nonsense.
The next morning, I find a fat slice of homemade peach cobbler and a tall glass of orange juice on the kitchen table. I eat it, because throwing away good food is stupid. Rather than wait for Daniel, I head to St. Francis alone. I find Sister Stephanie inside the school’s front door. “I think I need to see a priest,” I tell her.
“Did you do something that requires absolution?” she asks me.
A few lonely students march around us like early-morning zombies bent beneath ten-ton backpacks. “I wanted to commit murder last night.”
“Who did you want to kill?”
“Everybody,” I confess.
She looks around at the kids plodding past. “Either you c
hanged your mind or more than a few of us survived.”
“I didn’t follow through.”
“Glad to hear it,” Sister says. “Let’s talk.” She turns and heads away, so I follow. We walk into her office, where I take a seat. “So?” she says after closing the door behind us.
“A month ago, I hardly cared about Korky Korkenderfer,” I blurt out. “Now I think about her all the time.”
Sister Stephanie sits at her desk, leans forward, and rests her chin in her hands. “Can I tell you something about your mother, Ellie?”
“I’m kind of sick of her if you want to know the truth.”
“Here’s the thing,” Sister says. “I don’t think you would have liked her.”
As a matter of fact, I’ve come to the same conclusion.
“I remember Wilma,” Sister continues. “She liked being popular. She liked to be the center of attention whether she deserved it or not. She was obviously very talented, and from her perspective, talent and good looks meant that she should be the queen bee.”
“What did my father like about her?” I ask.
“Your father was a boy,” says Sister Stephanie. “Teenage boys often have trouble seeing past a pair of …”
“Pretty eyes?” I suggest.
“Sure,” says Sister. “Let’s go with that. At the same time, your father was not an idiot. He recognized something special in Korky. And he was right. She had talent, she had passion, and she had desire. It was her dream to be a singer, and she wasn’t going to quit until she made her dream come true.”
“It would have been nice if her dream included being a wife and a mother.”
Sister’s eyes narrow and she leans toward me across the desk. “First of all,” she says, “there are plenty of women in the world whose dream is to have a husband and children. There are also millions of others leading happy, productive, and dare I say blessed lives who are neither married nor maternal.”
“I didn’t mean anything against conventhood, Sister.”
“I’m not just talking about the convent, Ellie.”
“I know,” I tell her. “It’s just that—”
Sister interrupts me. “You know what I always find interesting?”
I have a feeling that she’s not actually looking for a reply, so I say nothing.
Confusion Is Nothing New Page 8