Night Thunder

by Jill Gregory

  Flair. Freshness. Inspiration.

  Frustrated, she sank into the chair and dumped the sketches in the wastebasket. She dragged her hands through her hair, trying to picture the runway at the spring show, the models all dressed in the new line from Francesca Dellagio. And what were they wearing? she wondered, closing her eyes, trying to see the suits and jackets and skirts and dresses draping the models’ bodies. They were wearing . . . they were wearing . . .

  Nothing. She saw nothing.

  And that’s what your future will hold if you don’t shake off this block, she told herself furiously, opening her eyes and pushing back her chair. She began to pace through her apartment. She thought better when she paced.

  But all she could think about was how much she was going to miss working with Jane and Reese after she was fired.

  They’d both hurried into her office after that last nasty phone conversation with Francesca.

  “That bitch ought to be kissing your feet!” Jane had exclaimed. “The only reason Francesca Dellagio Designs made it in the first place was because of your ideas! You’ve been letting her take the credit for three years, when you’re the one who came up with every single element of the collections!”

  “And look what happened this season, when she vetoed your stuff and went ahead with her own,” Reese pointed out, as they both dropped into the chocolate suede chairs opposite Josy’s desk. “The fashion writers crucified her. She knows the new line has to be a stunning success. You’re her only chance.”

  “Start your own company and I’ll come with you.” Jane leaned forward, her blue eyes dancing beneath her crown of short, spiky red hair. “Wouldn’t you, Reese?”

  “Yes, if everything was in place. If Josy had the resources and was ready,” Reese had said slowly. She’d studied Josy with frank appraisal. “I don’t think you are right now, are you?” she’d asked thoughtfully. “You’re still figuring out what direction you want to go in.” At thirty-four, she was tall and lean as a model, with dark hair, flawless olive skin, and a master’s degree in business from Yale. And she’d been married and divorced three times before she was thirty.

  “Ever since Doug Fifer burned you, you’ve been . . . different. Distracted. You can’t let a man get to you like that, Josy. Don’t take men—any man—so seriously. They’ll only bring you down.”

  “I’m not down. I’m just . . . blank. Every time I get an idea, I discard it. Nothing’s ringing my bells.” She’d pushed a bunch of papers around her desk, hesitated, and finally told them the truth. “It’s not just Doug. It’s not just because I feel like an idiot for not knowing he was married, for letting him deceive me all that time. Even though, God knows, I do.”

  She’d taken a deep breath and looked from one to the other. “There’s . . . something else. Something that I found out about right around the same time. And . . . I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Oh, my God, you’re pregnant!” Jane gasped.

  “No. I’m not pregnant!” Appalled, Josy stared at her in shock.

  “You’re sick?” Reese’s eyes moved over her, as if searching for some sign of disease. “What have you got? Whatever it is, if it isn’t advanced, we can take care of it. My first ex-husband’s brother is the chief of staff at the Mayo Clinic. I can call him and get you in for a second opinion by the end of the week—”

  “I’m fine,” Josy interrupted her. She shook her head. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea confiding in Jane and Reese. “It’s nothing that . . . earth-shattering. Well, maybe it is. Sort of. To me. ”

  “Tell us!” Reese demanded.

  “Now!” Jane’s eyes were wide.

  Josy looked from one to the other of them. “I have a grandmother,” she said quietly.

  For a moment there had been utter silence in the office. Then Jane had burst out laughing. “Doesn’t everyone? . . .” she’d begun. And then she remembered.

  “Oh. Sorry. I mean . . . I know you were an orphan, but . . .”

  “I thought you said your grandparents were all dead or in nursing homes when your parents died,” Reese interjected.

  “That’s what I thought. But this is someone else. Someone . . . new. I found out recently that I have another grandmother—a birth grandmother. It turns out that my mother was adopted.”

  “You never knew?” Reese asked.

  Josy shook her head. “I had no idea. But my mom apparently found out about it when I was still a little girl. She was given up for adoption by a woman named Ada Timmons.”

  Ada Timmons. How many times since she received the adoption report had she stared at that name, trying to picture the woman it belonged to?

  “She’s my biological grandmother,” she continued in a low tone. “The only person left in this world who’s my flesh and blood.”

  “Wow.” Jane stared at her open-mouthed. “Oh, please, tell me you come from some rich family and you’re going to inherit a vineyard somewhere—or a plantation outside New Orleans—or an oil empire in Dallas—”

  “Hardly.” Josy smiled. “She’s from some little town in Wyoming. It’s nothing but a speck on the map. But . . .” A note of excitement crept into her voice. “I did some on-line research into public records and found out that she married a man named Guy Scott in 1949, so her name is now Ada Scott. And she’s still there. In Thunder Creek.” She moistened her lips and looked at each of them. “I’ve been thinking about going to see her . . . making contact.”

  “Okay, start from the beginning,” Reese had ordered her, tapping a long exquisitely manicured finger on the desk. “Tell us how you found out about all this.”

  And so she’d told them then, told them about the papers, her mother’s papers, which had been accidentally discovered in a misnamed file by social services a few months ago—more than a decade after Andrea and Gene Warner had been killed by a drunk driver, more than a decade after Josy, with no living relatives able to care for her, had been placed into the overworked maelstrom known as “the system,” a labyrinthine network of social workers, bureaucrats, red tape, and foster homes.

  She’d told them what those papers and a few subsequent phone calls and Internet searches had proved—that she did have family left in this world. She had a biological grandmother named Ada Scott who was alive and living in Wyoming—in a community of fewer than six hundred people, in a town called Thunder Creek.

  Thinking of their astonishment, their arguments for and against making contact with her grandmother, she reached into the center drawer of her desk on that mild Saturday afternoon and pulled out the manila folder that Gloria Renfrew of social services had belatedly discovered and had mailed to her.

  Her fingers shook a little as she lifted out the adoption report for her mother, Andrea Salenger Warner, which had been found among her parents’ papers after the accident. Her gaze fell on the name of the town where her mother’s birth mother lived—Thunder Creek.

  And as the vibrant, overcrowded city of New York pulsed and raced far below her window, a breeze of a long-ago memory once more stirred her heart and ruffled something deep in her soul.

  For Josy had been to Thunder Creek. Once. She’d gone on a trip there with her parents when she was very young, perhaps seven or eight—and ever since she’d received these papers, she’d known why.

  They’d flown into some city in Wyoming, rented a car, and driven to the town of Thunder Creek for a day. One day. Josy dimly remembered the big open land of Wyoming, the sky seeming bluer than she’d ever seen it before, as blue as the dress she’d worn that year for the first day of school. She’d seen mountains, and cows dotting all the hillsides and valleys they drove through, more cows than she’d ever imagined existed in the world. And her father had pointed out some elk on a tiny distant ledge.

  The town itself had been small and pleasant and quiet, she remembered. There’d been a diner with a ceiling fan where they’d eaten lunch. Afterward they’d walked along the main street and Josy had seen men wearing cowboy hats, just like o
n TV.

  And . . . her eyebrows drew together as she fought to summon the last vestiges of memory . . .

  They’d taken a drive. She could see a house in her mind’s eye . . . trees down the end of a lane . . . she could just make out a figure on the porch, a woman. She was watering pots of geraniums, looking their way . . .

  It must have been her, Josy thought, her fingers tightening around the adoption report. Mom must have gone to Thunder Creek to find her birth mother. But . . . had she met her? Was Ada Scott the woman on the porch?

  She remembered her father driving away when the woman had looked up toward their car, when she’d set the watering can down on the porch railing. Had that been it, that one brief glimpse? Had that been their only contact? Had her mother ever spoken to Ada Scott or approached her? Or had she sped away after that one fleeting look?

  Neither of her parents had ever mentioned anything about the adoption to her, or anything about Ada Scott. All she’d known was that her mother’s parents had both passed away, and her father’s parents had divorced, her paternal grandfather moving away and losing touch, and her maternal grandmother ending up in a nursing home by the time Josy was ten.

  There had been no one, no one at all, to care for her after her parents’ fatal accident.

  But now she knew she had a relative, a grandmother . . . after all these years . . .

  Something in her yearned to meet the woman. Of course she had no idea how Ada Scott would receive her, or even if she would allow a meeting. But she’d been fantasizing about making the call, introducing herself . . . seeing what would happen.

  How would it feel to have a grandmother, someone to call on the phone now and then, to send a card or picture at Christmastime, or to invite one day to her wedding . . .

  If she ever had a wedding. Right now it wasn’t exactly a hot prospect—or a top priority. After the debacle with Doug, she’d have to vastly improve on her instincts about men before she’d even consider going out on another date, much less starting any kind of relationship.

  And first, she had to secure her job.

  Perhaps once the sketches were done, once she helped Francesca and Jane get production started and fabric ordered, perhaps then she’d call Ada Scott. Maybe then she could take off a few days, and if her grandmother— her grandmother—she repeated the words to herself in wonder—agreed to see her, she could go to Thunder Creek, find her . . . and what? See what happened?

  Don’t expect miracles, she told herself, going into the kitchen and fixing herself a bowl of Easy Mac. It’s not going to be instant connection, instant family, hugs, and kisses.

  Maybe it will be a disaster, she thought, moving her bowl to the breakfast counter and hopping onto a stool. Maybe Ada Scott will turn out to be a mean, bitter old woman, someone who doesn’t want to be reminded of a teen pregnancy—or that she gave her baby away. Maybe she has other family now who will resent an outsider showing up, or a husband who doesn’t know anything about the child she gave up. You could ruin her life . . .

  Or you might enrich it. You might enrich both of yours, she thought, picking up a forkful of macaroni and cheese, staring at it, unseeing.

  She’d been spending far too much time lately thinking about the what-ifs and why-nots instead of focusing on the here and now. She needed to focus on her sketches. Her job. Her life.

  She took a bite and made up her mind, working out a compromise with herself. Right now she couldn’t afford to be distracted with any more personal issues. She’d been stressed and scattered enough. She had to work, nothing else. But once she finished the sketches, once Francesca was off her back and the pressure was gone, she’d allow herself the luxury of time, time to think hard about actually placing the call.

  She had to go that far, at least, and then . . .

  Then she’d see about the rest of it. When the sketches were finished . . . when the fall collection was set, she’d be more ready to take the first step.

  Now all she needed was an idea, a theme or mood that grabbed her, that she could focus and expand upon, something that would capture the shape and colors and textures of the clothes Francesca’s elegant clientele would clamor for come September. She’d been going back and forth between a chaotic blur of choices: lush peasant looks, rocker glam, ladylike chic given edge with metal or fringe, bold contemporary colors and taut lines, or soft and flirtatious little skirts and jackets with oversize belts and zippers— cowl necks and miniskirts, or skinny jackets with wide leather pants, A-line versus pencil-shaped skirts, pastels or earth tones . . .

  She gobbled the rest of her macaroni and cheese, snatched a can of Coke from the fridge, and hurried over to her desk. Her face set in concentration, she tore off a fresh sheet of sketch paper and began to draw.

  Six days later she was still at it. She’d worked from home half the time, gone into the design studio the other half, and torn off sheet after sheet, starting anew, adding and subtracting pieces, changing her mind.

  But none of it was clicking. None of it was coming together. It was a mishmash, not so much a collection as a jumbled kaleidoscope, lacking unity, form, and drama.

  In short, she thought in despair, it was a mess. She hated it, every single page of it. She was alone in the design studio Friday night, ripping the most recent sketch into shreds and hurling them in the wastebasket, when the cordless phone on her desk rang. Bleary-eyed and discouraged, she peered at her watch. Lord, it was a quarter past nine.

  She hadn’t even heard everyone else leave. The phone rang again, echoing loud and lonely through the highceilinged studio with its vast charcoal granite floor and bright overhead lighting, its oversize paintings adorning stark white walls, setting the backdrop for the mannequins and tables draped with every color and texture of rich, glowing fabric.

  “Josy Warner,” she mumbled into the phone, weakly remembering that she hadn’t had a bite to eat since the bagel with cream cheese and cucumber slices she’d wolfed down at lunch.

  “Josy, it’s me.” Ricky’s voice on the other end of the line was raw, tight, and urgent. “I need you to get me the package back—now.”

  “Now? You mean . . . right now?” She shook her head, trying to cast off her fatigue and to digest what he was saying. Suddenly, the hard, driving urgency of his tone registered and she clutched the phone tighter.

  “Ricky, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t ask me questions, there’s no time to explain. I’m not in town, so you’ll have to bring the package to this guy, Archie. He’s a friend, maybe the only one besides you I can trust. Write down this address. Fast.”

  Her heart was pumping. Frantically she grabbed for notepaper and scribbled down the street number he gave her.

  “It’s in Brooklyn—Windsor Terrace—right off Prospect Park. Tell the cabdriver to wait,” Ricky ordered, “and as soon as you give Archie the package, get the hell out of there. You hear me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Go now. Right now.”

  He hung up.

  Josy stared at the phone, her throat dry. Ricky didn’t sound good. It couldn’t be the trial—it hadn’t started yet. There’d been a postponement. But . . . why did he need the package now?

  What the hell difference does it make? she thought, dropping the cordless phone into its base and springing out of her chair, sending her colored pencils clattering to the floor. He needed the package right away. And she was more than glad to be rid of it.

  She left the studio at a run, hailed a cab at the corner, and gave the driver her address as she jumped into the backseat. When she reached her building she spared only a quick nod to the doorman as she strode past and punched the elevator button. She’d never heard that note of frantic urgency in Ricky’s voice before. Even when they were kids on Jefferson Street, there’d been a cool toughness about him that had made it appear he had no problem keeping every emotion in check. Tonight he’d sounded almost unraveled.

  What the hell is in that box? she wondered as she fitted t
he key in her lock.

  She half expected the package to have disappeared when she opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, but it was right where she’d left it under her sweaters.

  She stuffed it into her black leather work tote and in less than a minute she was hailing another cab.

  It took nearly an hour to get to Brooklyn zooming straight across the Manhattan Bridge, down Flatbush and cutting through Grand Army Plaza, and by the time the cab turned onto Vanderbilt and braked before the small brick house on the left side of the street, her nerves were shot. She felt queasy, her hands were shaking, and she didn’t know if it was from having skipped dinner or from anxiety, but she heard herself ask the driver to wait in a breathless voice that sounded completely unlike her own.

  Clearing her throat, she climbed out of the cab and hurried up the cement steps, feeling the package swaying inside her tote. It was nearly ten o’clock, and the windows of many houses on the street were open to the April night. She heard a radio blaring rap, smelled the aroma of pizza drifting from one of the windows. Down the block, a dog yapped, rapid and staccato. She saw kids skateboarding around a corner—a few people sat on porches in aluminum chairs, enjoying the spring air.

  She rang the doorbell of the silent brick house and waited.

  Chapter 2

  THIRTY SECONDS DRAGGED BY. THERE WAS NO answer.

  She rang the bell again and followed this up immediately with three sharp raps on the door.

  Still no answer. This wasn’t right. And it wasn’t good, not at all.

  She checked the slip of paper again, confirming the address, then turned to the cabdriver.

  He was hunched over the steering wheel, watching her, looking irritated as hell. “One minute,” she called as imperatively as she could with her heart beating in time to the rap music, and she pounded on the door again.

  Damn it, Ricky, she thought. Maybe Archie was late. Maybe she should leave the package on the front porch for him.

  Or . . . inside.

  She gave the doorknob a little jostle, praying it wouldn’t turn. But it did. The door gave and she pushed it open an inch just to see if she could.