by Becky Wade
He chuckled. “Nice to meet you, Nikki.”
“Nice to admire you, John.” She stuck out an ample hip and set a hand on it. “Come back soon.”
Nora reversed before another word could be said. Not one more word, Nikki! From now on she’d be keeping all meetings with John top secret from Nikki Clarkson.
Her thoughts tumbled as if in a clothes dryer. She couldn’t believe Nikki has just squeezed John’s bicep. She herself would very much like to squeeze his bicep but couldn’t, of course, because she was a well-behaved person and because—as he’d just very clearly stated—he had a girlfriend. Also, with every indrawn breath she could smell bergamot, not Summer Flowers. And of the two, she preferred bergamot hands down. Also, John was sitting beside her, quietly occupying her passenger seat, his body relaxed.
John. Who she was driving to Oregon. She was. Driving him.
“Nice office manager you have there,” he said.
“I’m very sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“Nikki’s flagrant flirting.”
“I can handle flagrant flirting.”
“It was in ill taste.”
“I liked her.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Do you mind if I slide this back?” He indicated his seat.
“Not at all.”
He slid it way back, then tilted it to recline more.
When they came to a light, she glanced across the small space in time to see him slide on a pair of sunglasses. Nora sighed inwardly. She might literally combust from the force of her attraction to him and be reduced to nothing but vapor. If that happened, it would be totally worth it. A good way to go.
Peering back toward the road, she wrapped her hands tightly around the wheel and tried not to combust.
“Are you going to drive all the way to Oregon with your nose one inch from the windshield?” he asked.
“What? Oh. No.” She laughed nervously and leaned back. The light turned green.
She was on a road trip with John Lawson. They were going to Blakeville, potential hometown of Deborah Thompson, to see what they could learn about John’s birth family.
Great Scott!
A new outfit, new shoes, and a bulging travel kit full of new cosmetics filled her suitcase. Since their shopping day in Seattle, Willow had been murmuring about Phase 4 of the Enhancing of Nora Bradford: a new hairstyle. Nora hadn’t decided yet whether she should pull the trigger on Phase 4. Her bright hair and pin-up-inspired hairstyles were her signature. Without her signature, she might really become a textbook example of the invisible middle child.
“Do you like music?” she asked. “We could listen to music. Or we could just chill. I don’t want you to think I’m one of those annoying people who’ll make you fill every minute of a five-hour trip with conversation. I’m sure you have work to do. During the drive. So go ahead. I’m cool.”
“Nora?”
“Mmm?
“Your nose is an inch from the windshield again.”
John spent a good deal of the drive studying Nora. His chair was pushed back farther than hers, and she was concentrating on the road, which meant he could watch her all he wanted without her knowing.
She had delicate wrists. Short fingernails painted dark gray. Her profile was marked with a gently swooping nose and a mouth that, if you took the time to notice, was perfectly shaped. Not too thin or too puffy. Always slightly tilted up at the corners.
The small bumps of her vertebrae ran in a straight line down the back of her neck. Her tiny silver hoop earrings were set with what appeared to be real diamonds.
In the details of her appearance, he found ties to what he already understood to be true about her personality. Nora was high-tech in some ways and old-fashioned in others. Her watch was high-tech, her hair old-fashioned. She was capable and vulnerable. The way she drove, following every rule of the road and braking smoothly, was capable. But the girly shirt she had on, with its little puffy sleeves, was vulnerable. She was intelligent and wry. Real and guarded. And he could find clues to all of that if he looked close enough.
When had Nora become so pretty? He clearly remembered that she hadn’t been pretty at all the first time he’d seen her. But now? Now she was very pretty.
He narrowed his eyes with confusion. Had she become more pretty to him as he’d gotten to know her because of who she was? Or would anyone—even people who didn’t know her at all—say she’d gotten prettier?
He didn’t know. Maybe both?
If anything about her had changed, he couldn’t put his finger on what. Except—wait. She’d stopped wearing bulky clothes. At the training exercise and at their first few meetings she’d worn huge sweaters. He hadn’t seen her in a huge sweater or skirt in a while. Had he?
It was warmer now than it had been then. She’d probably put her cold-weather clothing away and would bring it out again this fall. If she did, it would be a crime because those sweaters and skirts had been hiding a good body.
He rested the back of his head against the seat and rolled his face toward the passenger window. May’s clouds and rain had stepped aside to make room for an early June full of sun and quiet wind and mild temperatures. Summer had arrived.
Their drive would take them through Portland and national forests. He knew the area well, and he knew he could expect beautiful scenery most of the way. In these surroundings, with Nora nearby to make him laugh, his future didn’t seem so dark.
He was happy, he realized with a start. It had been a while since he’d felt this particular thing. In fact, he hadn’t felt this way since the day he’d sat in his doctor’s private office. There’d been framed diplomas on the wall that day, bookshelves, and a miniature globe on the desk’s corner. There’d also been an apologetic steadiness in his doctor’s expression that John had hated.
None of that had the power to overwhelm him today, though.
Today, he was happy.
Blakeville sat in the shadow of Mount Bachelor, a nine-thousand-foot-high volcano located on the eastern side of the Cascade mountain range. It had been christened Mount Bachelor because it stood off to the side of the famous trio of peaks named the Three Sisters.
John used his phone’s GPS to guide Nora through the historic town of Blakeville toward the courthouse. Nora followed his directions. It was clear, however, that trusting someone else’s map-reading skills didn’t come naturally to her.
“Take a left here,” he said.
“Left?” she asked skeptically. “Okay.”
“Straight through the light.”
“That’s not it there?” She pointed to a two-story beige building in the distance. Stone accented its corners, a central stairway led to its front doors, and a flag flew out front.
“That’s it, but some of these streets are one-way, so we have to go straight here.”
“Ah,” she said, as if she thought he’d just fed her an outright lie. As if finding the Blakeville courthouse was tricky for him. As if he hadn’t spent the bulk of the Third Phase of BUD/S proving his land nav skills.
“Are you usually the navigator?” he asked.
“No.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “How could you tell?”
Ten minutes later they’d parked and been given maps that listed the contents of each of the courthouse’s three basement levels. Nora’s prediction had come true. Blakeville’s city directories were located in the bowels of the building.
John held open the elevator door for her when they reached B2, a space filled with white-washed cement walls and stained industrial carpeting. Metal shelves held everything from cardboard boxes to rusting pieces of junk that Nora would probably call antiques. It smelled like dust.
They followed the map to the basement’s rear wall. Worn drawers rose from the floor to a waist-high counter. Above the counter, open-faced cubbies contained records, rolls of paper, and stacks of who knew what.
John and Nora sepa
rated and began searching the cubbies from opposite ends.
“Here,” Nora said after a time.
He neared.
She indicated a group of books with matching black writing on their spines.
During the drive, they’d gone over their plan. They’d start their search of the directories by looking for Thompsons living in Blakeville at the time of Deborah’s birth, seventy-seven years ago.
John did the math in his head, found the volume from that year, and set it on the counter. When Nora came to stand next to him, his awareness of her heightened. The rhythm of her breath. Her height. Her body heat. The basement felt suddenly, heavily silent. The fluorescent lighting buzzed loudly.
The book’s index showed that the contents were divided into sections. An alphabetical listing of inhabitants. A list by street address. A list of businesses and community buildings. Maps.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what to do?” he asked Nora.
“What? And treat you like a sixth grader?” She smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He flipped to the alphabetical listing of inhabitants and made his way to the Ts. Four men with the last name of Thompson had lived in Blakeville that year. John squinted, trying to understand how the information was arranged. If a man was married, his wife’s name was listed in parentheses next to his. Then came his home address.
Deborah’s parents had likely been married at the time of her birth, so he focused on the names of the three married men and their wives. Albert and Virginia Thompson. George and Ruth Thompson. Homer and Mary Thompson.
Nora bent closer to the book and the outside of her arm brushed against the outside of his arm. Nothing. There and gone.
Yet warmth spread from the spot through the rest of John’s body. He drew in an uneven breath. Let it out slowly.
Nora pulled a notepad and pen from her bag. “Care to do the honors?” She extended the notepad and pen toward him.
“How about I read it and you write it?” he suggested.
“Good.”
He moved his finger along one line at a time, spelling out the names, saying the addresses and occupations so Nora could take them down.
“No children are listed,” John said when he was done. “Does that mean that these people didn’t have children? Or that these directories only listed adults?”
“These directories only listed adults.” Nora leaned against the counter. “The federal government takes a census every ten years that includes children.” She chewed thoughtfully on the tip of her pen. “The government makes the census data public seventy-two years after it’s taken. The most recent one came out about five years ago.”
“So you’re saying that the census they made available five years ago would have been taken around the time Deborah was born?”
She met his eyes. “Yes. If we’re fortunate, we might be able to find Deborah there, now that we know who to look for.” She motioned to the names she’d written on the notepad.
“Then let’s check the census.”
“Can you get cell phone reception down here?” They both pulled out their phones.
“No bars,” he said.
“Me either. C’mon.” She reached to lift her giant bag.
“Seriously, Nora. Stop trying to carry it. I’ve got it.” And he did, even though he felt like a wuss every time he put her bag with its green trim and bright pink monogram over his shoulder.
They made their way to the courthouse’s ground floor. Their phones immediately reconnected to the network. “I have bars.” Nora walked toward a bench set against the hallway’s wall. The beige marble floor had been buffed so much that John could see his reflection in it.
They sat. Nora tugged her computer free, settled it across her knees, and went to work searching for census data.
“All right,” she said when she had all the fields filled in for the first of the three couples named Thompson. “Whew. This is making me nervous all of a sudden.”
“Why?”
“Maybe nervous isn’t the right word. Excited is better. This is a big moment. Ready?”
“Ready.”
She submitted the search. John’s concentration homed in on the census page that appeared. The scanned image showed rows and columns that had been filled in by hand. Nora scrolled down until they located Albert and Virginia Thompson. They had no children.
She ran a new search for the second couple, George and Ruth Thompson. They had five children. John read the first child’s name under his breath. Nora joined in, and they read the next four names in soft unison.
None of them were named Deborah. Just one couple left to try. It could be that Sue had been wrong, that Deborah wasn’t even from Blakeville. Or it could be that Deborah’s family had moved to the town after this census. Or it could be that Sue had given them an incorrect age for Deborah.
Nora ran a new search for the third couple, Homer and Mary Thompson. They had three children. “Lucas,” John and Nora read. “Kenneth. Deborah.”
John stared hard at Nora’s computer screen, at the neat black cursive on the white background, clearly spelling out the name Deborah.
“Ha!” Nora gave an excited clap.
John continued to stare.
“For a few weeks nothing was going our way,” Nora said. “But this, right here? This just went our way. Discoveries like this are my favorite part of the job.”
“I can’t believe we found her.”
“Believe it.” She grinned widely at him.
He dug his hands into his hair, paused, then ran them the rest of the way through. “Do you remember the name Sherry gave me on my original birth certificate?”
“Mark Lucas Thompson, wasn’t it?”
“Deborah’s brother’s name is Lucas.”
Nora reread the record. “It sure is.”
They let that sink in.
“Birth mothers often give their babies names that have personal significance to them,” Nora said.
“So maybe Lucas is Sherry’s father. Which would mean that Deborah is Sherry’s aunt.”
“Maybe. Could be. Possibly. It depends on the data.” A small dimple flashed in Nora’s cheek. “When this census was collected, Homer Thompson was twenty-six. Mary was twenty-five. Lucas was five. Kenneth was three. And Deborah was ten months old. Homer was a clockmaker and watch repairman.” She added the new details to her notepad.
They still didn’t know for sure that Sherry was related to these people. But the evidence was stacking up, making it look more and more like John had blood ties to them. “The address that’s given for Homer and Mary here is the same one that was given in the city directory,” John said. “There’s an R under the own or rent column. So they were renters?”
“Yes.”
“Would looking up the deed to the property give us any information we could use?”
“Since they were renting, probably not. I think we’re better off heading back to B2 and trying to track Homer and Mary from one city directory to the next. That will tell us whether they stayed in Blakeville. When their kids become adults, we’ll hopefully be able to locate them in the directories, too.”
John carried Nora’s bag back to B2.
The Blakeville city directories spanned the period from 1936 to 1960. John and Nora started at the beginning and began working their way through, locating Homer and Mary in each book. Homer and Mary had moved a few times, but they’d never left Blakeville. John and Nora had finished with fifteen of the volumes and were approaching the time period when Lucas Thompson would have become old enough to be mentioned in the directories, when a voice over the PA system let them know that the courthouse would be closing in ten minutes.
Already? John checked his watch and was surprised to see that it was ten till five. It would take them the remaining ten minutes to put the directories back in their cubbies.
“When we come back tomorrow, we can go through the rest of these,” Nora said.
“I’m glad I booked us room
s.”
“Good foresight, John.”
“Thank you very much, Nora.” She handed him the books and he pushed them into their slots. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Once we check in at the hotel, I’ll order us some appetizers.”
I didn’t make the suggestion because I want to spend more time with her, he told himself almost angrily. He refused for it to be about that. They were both hungry, and she’d come all this way to help him. Offering her food was the least he could do. It was only polite.
Her face swung toward his. The power of their eye contact sent a knife of pleasure driving into him.
“Sounds good,” she said.
Facebook message from Duncan to Nora:
Duncan: Hard at work today as usual? You know what they say about all work and no play . . .
Nora: I’ll have you know that I’m on an adventure! I’m sitting in my car at a gas station on the outskirts of Blakeville, Oregon. The Navy SEAL is insisting on filling up my tank before we drive to the hotel, even though my tank’s not yet empty. He’s nice like that.
Duncan: Is this a road trip for work or for pleasure? I seem to remember cautioning you not to develop a crush on the Navy SEAL.
Nora: It’s a road trip for work. We’re hot on the pursuit of research.
Duncan: If you could see me, you’d see that I’m frowning.
Nora: Not only am I on a road trip, but I’m also in the throes of designing an invitation for my grandmother’s 80th birthday party. The invitation is going to be impeccable. So there, famous person. My dance card is filling up. Take that!
Duncan: Impressive. Message me a picture of the invitation once you have it finished. I want to live vicariously through your impeccable-ness.
Nora: Your wish is my command. Now I’d better dash. The Navy SEAL is back.
Duncan: One last thing. Did you see on the events page of my site that I have an appearance coming up on Tuesday?
Nora: Thanks for the heads-up! You can count on me, Duncan. I’m on it. I’ll drum up as many attendees for it as I can. Cheerio!
Quote from Uncommon Courage: