Yesterday's Stardust

by Becky Melby

  “A lie.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” She chewed the olive.

  “No prob. You’re an average writer, a mediocre dresser; you’ll never be really successful, but you’ll be relatively happy; you drive like a girl, but you’re supposed to. People don’t mind inviting you to par—”

  “Stop!” The olive lodged halfway to her esophagus. She hacked it up. “I said lie to me!”

  “I did. You are a seriously brilliant chick, and if I wasn’t just swamped with girls my own age wanting to date me, I’d fall head over heels for your brain.”

  “Just my brain? Don’t answer that.” She picked up the diary. “I found something. In the trash behind China’s apartment.”

  “Perfect place to get story material. And rats.”

  “Thank you for that picture. Now shut up and listen to this.” She told him about the book.

  “Wonder how it got here from up north. What’s the date of the last entry?”

  “September 14, 1928. I didn’t read it, but she stopped in the middle of a sentence. How mysterious is that?”

  “Read me something.”

  “Here’s January 2, 1924: ’Mrs. Johnson gave us her Marshall Field’s catalogue. All the models look like Suze, at least the way I remember her. If I only drank water for a month and did calisthenics all day long, I could never look like her. It’s not fair, but doesn’t stop me from working on it. Maybe someday styles will change again and curvy girls will be the bee’s knees.’”

  “Hmm. She’s a workout freak like you. That really could be story material—how ‘what a girl wants’ hasn’t changed all that much in a hundred years.”

  She sat up straight, nerves tuned to the low hum of adrenaline racing to ignite with an idea spark. “You could be right.”

  “I am, generally. Hey, the guys are coming for study in a few minutes.”

  “Okay. See you Saturday? You’re going to the funeral with me, right?”

  “Unless some big story breaks, I’ll be there. Against my better judgment.”

  “I don’t need your better judgment. Just your camera.” The teakettle whistled and she lunged to stop the noise. “I don’t want to go alone.”

  “I’m amazed you’re going at all. You’re the bee’s knees, girl.”

  September 15, 1924

  Francie spit out a word forbidden by Miss Ellestad and threw her empty syrup pail at the ground. “One more month. Just one more month.” Four more weeks of sitting in front of Earl Hagen and his nasty mouth and she would be gone. She had her Christmas money. Four more Saturday nights of minding the Huseby children and she’d have enough for a train ticket. There’d be no Christmas presents for anyone this year, but Suzette needed her. Hugging her books to her chest, she ran down the hill, away from the laughter.

  A whistle split the autumn air. One long, one short. “Vait up.” Francie grabbed a low limb and swung around. Mad as she was, she almost laughed. She still wasn’t used to Theo Brekken’s man voice. When he’d left school in the spring, he’d been a boy like all the rest of them. When he returned, a shadow darkened his upper lip and a voice like his father’s carried across the room. A preacher voice.

  Plowing gold leaves with his boots, Theo half slid to the bottom of the hill. He skidded to a stop two feet in front of her and held out her lunch pail. The crisp air turned heavy. She’d known Theo since she was five and he was six. He’d asked her to marry him when he was twelve. She’d said yes. Since then, they’d held hands every day on the way to and from school. Never, in all that time, had she felt awkward around him. But never before had his eyes simmered like Rod La Rocque’s in The Ten Commandments. She took the pail.

  “Earl is just dumme.”

  She kicked moss off a rock and shrugged. “Sticks and stones.”

  Theo laughed. Gentle. It rumbled in her belly. “You do not always need to be strong,” he said.

  “I just…don’t care. You’re right—he’s dumme.”

  One corner of his darkened lip rose. Because she’d gotten the accent right or because she’d failed? His head tilted to one side. “Vhy—” His brow furrowed as he reshaped his mouth. A summer at home with a mother who spoke little English had deepened his accent. “Why would Earl say something like that?”

  She took two steps, head down as if she were searching for something. Like an answer that wasn’t a lie. Or the truth.

  “Francie?” His man voice slid over her like summer sun. “It is not true, is it?”

  Bread crumbs skittered in the bottom of her pail as it banged against her hip.

  She slowed and glanced at Theo. His father’s eyes looked back. Grown-up eyes. She watched a squirrel dig a hole at the base of an oak tree, hiding his plunder from the world.

  “Is it true?” Theo touched her arm. “Your father is bootlegging?”

  In her head, Earl’s jeers drowned the concern in Theo’s new, strange voice. Eyes smarting, she ran up the hill toward home. Reaching the top, she scanned the valley. A truck sat in front of the barn. Gold letters painted on the shiny black side spelled out HENDERSON MAPLE SYRUP Co. EST. 1919. Theo wouldn’t know not all the gallon cans held syrup, but the sight made her skin prickle.

  She whipped around, almost banging into him, took him by the hand, and led him to her rock. Sitting down, she patted the flat slab and Theo joined her, his arm almost touching hers as they faced into the sun.

  “What are you going to do when you spring this place, Theo?”

  He ran his hand through hair streaked with blond. It fell back over his forehead. “You know vhat I am going to do. But I am not in a hurry. I do not see this as a prison. I wish you did not.”

  Drawing her knees to her chest, she pulled her dress down to her ankles and wrapped her arms around her legs. “After I leave here, I’m never going to shuck another ear of corn or slop another pig or muck another stall or churn butter or—”

  Theo laughed. “Who is this very, very rich man you vill marry?”

  “I’m going to Chicago, Theo.” She spoke softly, looking away from the hurt in his eyes. She couldn’t tell him she was leaving next week. Theo had the power to make her change her mind. “And after that, New York. And then I’ll study art and fashion in Paris.”

  His chin rose suddenly. Wide eyes turned on her. “France?”

  “Of course, France. I’m part French, you know.”

  “You are part Chippewa. Why not go live on a reservation for adventure?” He picked up a chunk of sandstone and chucked it down the hill.

  “Come with me.” Her voice rose just barely above a whisper.

  He stood. “God has called me to India, Francine. You have known that for years.” He turned his back and spoke over his shoulder. “And I believe, with all my heart, that He has called you to be a missionary’s wife.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Evan steered Agatha away from Dani’s apartment on Saturday afternoon. “Are you sure about this?”

  “No.” She turned to the second page in the diary. “Listen to this.”

  “You’re sidetracking.”

  “I’m not. You’ll see. It’s actually kind of a setup for what we’re doing.” She angled the book toward the window. “‘January 11, 1924. Massive snow last night. Drifts to the top of the chicken coop. Storms are bad for business. No suppliers, no customers. Daddy and Applejack have been plowing for hours. I shoveled in front of his office. Mama didn’t like that. She thinks if she pretends Daddy’s business doesn’t exist, it will disappear. If it does, so will the farm.’”

  Evan raised an eyebrow. “What’s the business?”

  “I haven’t read enough to know for sure, but I have a guess.”

  “1924. Bet there was a still in that barn.”

  “Or her father just sold it. She talks about ‘suppliers.’” She turned several pages. “‘January 19. Last night Mr. Nielson came to Daddy’s office. He talked about the War. The French and American soldiers sometimes talked all night to the Germans who were in their own trenches te
n meters away. They became friends, but as soon as their orders were given, they shot each other! I hate guns. If men have guns they will find reason to use them.’”

  “You’re right, it sets the tone for today. ‘If men have guns, they will find reason to use them.’”

  Dani closed the book and took out her phone and legal pad. “Back to work.”

  She scrolled through the Hansen-Lendman Funeral Home site and scribbled notes. “The founder went to the Oriental School of Embalming.”

  “Creepy bit of trivia. It would make a great segue into the grieving girlfriend with the oriental name.”

  Dani wrinkled her nose. “You can be very crass when you want to be.” She turned her phone to vibrate. “I don’t know if I’ll use any of this, but I want details just in case.” She stared out at luxurious lawns surrounding massive Victorian homes. “I love this part of town. I want a time machine.”

  “I can see you living on this street. Twirling your parasol and batting your eyes as you spy on your rich neighbors and record all their sordid little secrets for the Times gossip column.” He flipped the turn signal as the gabled mansion came into view.

  Ivory trim surrounded porches, porticos, garrets, and a round turret. She imagined the view from the top window—the green lawns and branching sidewalks of Library Park, a clear look at the library’s cupola-topped red roof. Agatha followed a silver van into the driveway and beneath a carport.

  Ten minutes before the service began, and only a dozen cars were in the parking lot. Evan pointed at a shiny black car with bowed fenders and a white roof. “Javelin. Homegrown sweetness.”

  Dani recognized the distinctive style of an American Motors car. “Nineteen…sixty-eight?”

  “Close. Seventy. Seventy-one, maybe. And not a speck of rust. Somebody’s put some work into that baby.”

  They parked at an angle next to the van and watched three kids, late teens, get out. Short skirts, tight pants, stringy hair. Dani craned her neck in search of tattoos but didn’t find any. She pushed her hair away from her face and took a shaky breath.

  Evan pulled the keys out and dangled them over her purse. “Not too late to back out.”

  “I know.”

  “We don’t belong here.”

  Her fingers grazed a white envelope as she put the keys away. “I know that, too.”

  The opening bars of “Angel” slid through ceiling-mounted speakers and wound around the half-empty chapel. Nicky folded his arms across his sport jacket. The haunting melody always transfixed him. Sarah McLachlan’s smooth voice caressed lyrics that fit like a second skin, as if she’d written them for him as he waited for a second chance, always feeling not good enough.

  Beside him, his father shifted in his chair and shielded his mouth with his hand. “Who plays junk like this at a funeral?”

  Who goes to a funeral of someone they’ve never met? “Good PR,” would be the answer. His dad hadn’t seemed to notice the blocks surrounding Bracciano had changed. Like the human body replacing cells every seven years, the people were new, but the place looked older. And neighbors hadn’t been neighborly in over a decade.

  In the front row, a forty-ish woman, Hispanic-looking, clung to a tall, broad-shouldered African American man as she sobbed. The man wrapped both arms around her. Next to the woman a young boy stared straight ahead, his face blank.

  The song dragged on. Fly away…

  Though Nicky felt nothing at the moment, he heard the couple’s thoughts. As if having once sat that close to a coffin had heightened his grief senses. Why didn’t I see it coming? Why didn’t I stop it? If only I had…

  Fourteen people filled the chairs in front of them. Nicky turned as if stretching his neck and counted over his left shoulder. Seven more. He did the same over his right and froze as his gaze locked on the too-innocent face he’d kneeled in front of two days ago. She stared back, eyes filled with pain she couldn’t possibly feel. Only one reason a reporter would sit in the back row of a funeral.

  She was doing a story.

  His jaw clenched. A box in the hall closet at home held clippings written by a woman like her. A woman who’d mastered the art of replicating empathy.

  “That must have been terrifying for you. It’s easy to second guess, isn’t it? If you could change one thing, one moment, what would you have done differently?”

  Questions pressed against the inside of his skull—the same unanswered pleas causing the couple to sob and cling to each other and the boy to stare vacantly.

  Like the boy, he chose not to feel.

  “Miguel’s life was shorter than you, his family and friends, hoped it would be, but our lives are not measured by the number of years, or days, or hours. Our lives are measured by the amount of love we give and the quality of joy we experience.” The man at the microphone raised the corners of his lips as if looking in the mirror and trying to copy a picture of a smile. Dani looked down at the black-and-white photo of Miguel and his parents, at the en dash between his birth and Tuesday afternoon.

  “One thing I know beyond the shadow of a doubt after talking to many of you is that Miguel Reyes loved his parents and…”

  The man—no title decorated his name in the program—droned on with generic words about a person he’d never met. He spoke with glittering adjectives of a man who’d displayed his joy for life with a 9 mm pistol. Dani stared at the child who must be Miguel’s brother as hopelessness filled the room like invisible, scentless gas.

  “Miguel was a listener. Friends could count on him to hear them out and to offer wise advice.”

  Dani bit back a laugh. Maybe the description was true. Maybe there were times the boy had been a model friend, but none of the speaker’s words shed light on the reality China had shared with her three months ago. Nothing hinted at his jealous, paranoid nature, at the way he stalked her when she went out with her friends, texted her incessantly when he was out with his. No one in the room could guess by the eulogy that the boy they memorialized was capable of flashes of rage that left bruises that faded and emotional scars that never would. Dani wrapped her fingers around the rolled program.

  Several rows from the front, Dominick sat with a man she guessed was his father. Dani tried to read the tight line of Dominick’s mouth, but she had no frame of reference. She’d only seen him angry. Except for one strange out-of-context moment. The distinct angles of his profile would be easy to sketch.

  A frustrated sigh rippled onto her shoulder, snapping her out of contemplations that had no place at a funeral. Evan glared at the man at the podium and folded his arms across his chest, apparently sharing her frustration at empty, meaningless words.

  “…are tempted to grieve for him, we must remember that our sorrow is for ourselves alone. It is good that we grieve, for it means we have loved, but we need always remind ourselves and each other that he is in a place untouched by pain. A place…”

  Really? What makes you so sure? She fought the sadness with an imaginary leap over chairs and a shove to the man at the podium. Don’t listen to him! There’s real true hope, people!

  A song interrupted her sermon. The Indigo Girls sang “Closer to Fine.” Evan sighed again and shook his head. “What a waste,” he whispered.

  She nodded. A captive audience searching for direction, and the whole service came off like a talking Hallmark card. Her eyes burned as the song touted the pointlessness of seeking meaning in life. Who did it comfort? Would the family feel less guilt, less grief, if they were convinced life had no purpose?

  “Miguel loved his music. His friends have shared some of his songs with me. I was touched by his poetic ability to put words to the challenges and disappointments common to the human condition. He was a contemplative person, who questioned everything…”

  But got no answers. Dani silently repeated Evan’s observation. What a waste.

  “…work on relationships and not take each other for granted. Each day is a gift…”

  Nicky closed his eyes as the speaker pray
ed; he wasn’t sure to whom. Life can’t be a gift if there’s no giver, mister. The guy hadn’t mentioned God once. It didn’t take somebody tight with God to notice the glaring lack of anything religious. Halfway through the message, Nicky had started imagining Gianna, the woman who’d taken over his mother’s job, reacting to the service. He could see her high-heeled foot swinging in time with her agitation, her mouth puckered, her long nails clicking on the open program. But Gianna wouldn’t stop at body language. She’d park herself by the door and give each person a “God word.” Like she’d done four years ago.

  “The Lord has a plan for you, Nicky. He’ll pull you out of this and move you beyond the sadness. You’ll see. You can turn your back on Him, but He won’t let go of you.”

  He hadn’t believed her promise at the time, and he wasn’t buying it yet.

  The speaker stopped praying, or whatever he called it. No “Amen,” the words just stopped. Nicky stood with his father and turned.

  The back row was empty.

  CHAPTER 6

  Depressing.”

  Evan took the keys from her and walked around to the driver’s side. Agatha sputtered when he turned the key.

  Not now. She didn’t want to see the little band of people filing out to cars marked with orange flags. The engine coughed twice then started. Evan backed out of the parking space. “Where to?”

  She leaned her head against the door. “Go to the beach where we can talk to kids who didn’t know Miguel.” As they neared the lake, she rolled the window halfway down and breathed in the cooling air. “I should have listened to you. We shouldn’t have gone.”

  “Maybe. But maybe it was good that we were two more bodies in a mostly empty room.”

  “All those hurting people looking for answers and hearing nothing. Imagine if somebody had gotten up there and told them about God knowing the pain of losing a son and how He longs to comfort those who mourn. I wanted to grab the mic and start preaching.”

  What kind of message did the angry Italian need to hear? God loves you no matter what. He forgives you. He can help you forgive. She pictured his expression when he’d turned around and recognized her—surprise morphing into hostility. What’s your story, Dominick? The reporter in her wondered about the source of the rage.