The Show (Northwest Passage Book 3)

by John A. Heldt

  "Thank you."

  "If you mean thank you for lunch, then you're welcome. But it's no big deal. Food is cheap," Katie said. "Indigestion is expensive."

  Grace smiled softly. Her friend had not lost her wit.

  "I mean thank you for taking me in yesterday. You didn't have to do that. You still don't have to do that."

  Katie put down her fork and gave her chicken enchilada a rest. She grabbed Grace's hand and stared at her with serious eyes.

  "I have waited a lifetime to repay the kindness you showed me in college. Taking care of you now is no burden. It is my pleasure."

  Grace considered the comment as she returned to her not-so-authentic Chinese meal. Katherine Saito had done more than repay a kindness. She had provided Grace with a place to stay, food to eat, and a wardrobe that brought her into the twenty-first century. Perhaps more important, she had provided her with information – information that could not be found in any library, information on people who had meant the world to her and still did.

  "Tell me about Ginny and Edith."

  "What do you want to know?"

  Grace frowned.

  "How did they cope when I left?"

  "I won't lie to you, Grace. They had a hard time. They thought you had acted rashly and selfishly. I'm not sure that either ever fully believed your story. They assumed that you had just run off to Montana or God knows where and had abandoned us for life with a charlatan. Edith, in particular, became very bitter."

  Grace tapped her fingers on the table as a fresh wave of guilt closed in. She had expected as much. When you abruptly abandoned loved ones, you left wreckage behind.

  "How did Ginny cope with Tom's death?"

  "I don't know how she coped at the time. I was in the camp by then. I did not see her again until after the war, when she had already started dating Joe Jorgenson. But I do know that she rarely spoke about Tom. She never brought him up, and she did not like answering questions about him. He was a part of her past that was off-limits to others, even her family."

  Grace brought a hand to her forehead. She did not yet regret leaving her friends in the past, but she did regret the way she had done it. She had acted rashly.

  "I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you and the others. I was selfish. I just don't know what else I could have done. I meant it when I said I couldn't live without Joel. I still mean it. But it's clear I should have shown more consideration to all of you."

  "You don't owe me an apology, Grace. You followed your heart, just as I followed mine two years later with Walter. We all make decisions that affect others. Sometimes they are good decisions. Sometimes they are not. But they are decisions we must make. You shouldn't feel bad about leaving us. You didn't have time to consider another course."

  Grace wondered about that. It's true that the circumstances of December 7, 1941, hadn't left her much time to weigh the options. But it's also true that she had made up her mind to pursue Joel the minute she had seen the Buick ad in the Seattle paper. She had decided that her life had only one path left, and she was determined to follow it.

  "I suppose we should talk more about the reason for this fuss."

  "I suppose we should," Katie said.

  "Are you certain that Joel will be in Seaside on Saturday?"

  "I know only what his mother told me. She said that he had reserved a room at the Sea Mist Motel and would probably arrive sometime in the early afternoon."

  "Are you sure that he's traveling alone?"

  "That's what Cindy said. She said he wanted to come to the coast to clear his head. She said he hadn't been the same since returning from Yellowstone."

  Grace chewed on that morsel as she watched two well-dressed men walk by. Each appeared to be in his late twenties. Each gave Grace a visual inspection and a friendly smile that she found both flattering and unnerving. She had received many such glances since getting off the bus in Seattle but had not yet learned how to respond to them.

  "Did she say why?"

  "No. She just said that he hadn't been himself since he got back from his trip."

  Grace looked at Katie and saw that the smile she had carried through most of lunch had been replaced by a frown. She began paying more attention to her burrito than her dining partner.

  "Katie?"

  "Yes, Grace."

  "Have you told me all I need to know about Joel? I'm getting the feeling that you're holding back something – something important."

  Katie pushed away her plate and stared blankly at the shop that sold cinnamon rolls by the dozen. When she returned to Grace a moment later, she grabbed her hand.

  "There is something else, something I should have told you last night."

  Within seconds, the not-so-authentic Chinese cuisine that had at least gone down without a fight began to work its way up Grace's throat. She took a deep breath and looked at Katie.

  "What is it?"

  "When I called Cindy Smith on Monday night, Joel had been out of the house. He had gone to a bar to meet a friend."

  "And this friend, who is he?"

  "The friend is not a he, dear, but a she. She's a woman, a very pretty young woman who has been accepted into Stanford Law School."

  Katie squeezed Grace's hand and sighed.

  "Joel has dated this woman for two years, Grace. He has a girlfriend."

  CHAPTER 17: GRACE

  Seaside, Oregon – Saturday, June 17, 2000

  Two days of peace and quiet at the Saito house had done nothing to remove the knots in Grace's stomach, nor had a night at the Oceanfront Inn, one of the largest and ritziest hotels on the Oregon coast. Grace had been wracked by fear and worry the minute she had learned that the biggest gamble of her life may have been her biggest blunder.

  "You have to eat something. It's not good to go without food," Katie said.

  Walter Saito looked on from a chair in their ground-floor suite.

  "Katherine is right, Grace. You should eat something."

  "I'm not hungry."

  Grace huddled in a fetal position at the end of one of two queen beds in the room. She wanted something to eat. She knew she needed it too. But she also knew that there was not a snowball's chance that she'd be able to hold it down until she knew what was swirling through the mind of a tall, dark-haired man she had not seen in three weeks.

  Katie turned away from the others and walked toward a sliding glass door that separated the room from a small patio and the beach. She unlatched the door and opened it about a foot, allowing a warm breeze to enter the room. In the distance, squawking seagulls and crashing waves created a Pacific symphony that on any other day might be considered soothing.

  "It shouldn't be long now. I left a message with the motel clerk," Katie said "Joel checked in about an hour ago and went for a walk."

  Walter put the local newspaper on a table by his side and looked at his wife.

  "What is your plan, Katherine? I assume you have a plan."

  Katie looked at Walter as if he had asked the dumbest question in history but did not reply right away. She instead picked up a graduation card and a black-and-white snapshot: a picture that Joel Smith had taken with Katie's Brownie Junior in July 1941. She returned to Grace and handed her the photograph.

  "Do you remember this night?" Katie asked.

  Grace looked at the photo and closed her eyes. She remembered well the night that Joel had pulled Katie's camera out of her hands and taken a picture of Ginny, Grace, Linda, and Katie as they stood arm in arm in front of their rental house on Klickitat Avenue.

  She remembered how empty she had felt as a man she secretly loved prepared for a double date with Linda, Ginny, and Tom at a lakeside dance hall. She remembered how she had bought Linda breakfast and helped her pick out an outfit as a way of telling her sorority sister that Joel Smith was a man she did not want and, as an engaged woman, could not have. She remembered it all, but her vivid recollections meant little now. They were in a different time and place.

  "I remember it,"
Grace said as she returned the photo.

  "Good," Katie said. "I knew you would, just as I know Joel will too."

  "What are you getting at?" Walter asked.

  "I'm getting at something that both of you are missing. Joel is not someone who just wandered into our lives for a weekend. He spent six months in our time. He made friends. He found a family. He fell in love. You do not erase that from someone's heart and mind in three weeks."

  The statement brought Grace out of her semi-catatonic state.

  "But what if you're wrong, Katie? What if you're wrong?"

  Grace grabbed her stomach and held out a hand as she raced to the bathroom. Within seconds she was leaning over the toilet releasing the breakfast and lunch she had not eaten. The dry heaves sent shock waves through a body already weak from stress and insomnia.

  When she returned to the room in tears, she looked at Walter and then stepped toward Katie. She gave the old woman a firm hug and didn't let go until Katie pushed her away.

  "Be positive, dear. Have faith," Katie said. "If there is one thing I know about the Joel Smith of today, it's that he's a restless soul. You are in his heart just as surely as you are in this room. This battle has not been lost."

  Katie grabbed Grace's hands and gave her a faint smile. She then retrieved her cane from the corner of the room, grabbed her purse, and turned to her husband.

  "Do you have your phone, Walter?"

  "It's right here."

  "Good. Good," Katie said. "Keep it close and await my call. It's almost five now."

  Katie turned to Grace and stared at her with the eyes of a warrior.

  "It's time."

  CHAPTER 18: GRACE

  Walter's cell phone buzzed thirty minutes later.

  Grace could not hear Katie's voice or even tell which way the wind was blowing based on Walter's facial expressions, but she did know two things: Katie had met Joel on the Promenade, a mile-and-a-half concrete walkway that separated the city of Seaside from its public beach, and the two were now making time in something called the sitting room at the other end of the hotel.

  Walter turned off his phone and smoothed the wrinkles from his cream-colored slacks and a green polo shirt that bore the emblem of a Portland golf club. He took a sip from a plastic bottle of water sitting atop his table and looked at Grace with a poker face.

  "That was Katherine. She wants us to meet her in the sitting room – first me and then you."

  "Did she say anything else? Does he still have a girlfriend? Please tell me."

  Walter sighed.

  "She said nothing else. If I knew more, I would tell you," he said. Walter walked across the room, opened the door to the hall, and turned to Grace. "Shall we go?"

  Grace smiled weakly and stepped into the hall. She could not understand why Katie had thought it necessary to meet Joel first and then bring him to a public place and not her room. She could not understand why she wanted Walter to meet him next. Were these signs that something had gone wrong? Once again, anxiety took center stage in her unsettled mind.

  When they reached the lobby minutes later, Walter told her to stand by a pay phone and await his return. He then walked across the lobby and passed through the arched doors of a room that Grace knew from reading a brochure was stuffed mostly with furnishings from the 1890s.

  The temptation to follow Walter through the doors was almost unbearable. Joel was in that room. So were the answers to all of her questions and a glimpse of her future.

  Grace watched hotel guests come and go: a couple in a tux and a wedding gown, two girls in swimsuits, and an elderly man in plaid shorts. They were just the kind of people one would expect to see in a resort town on a Saturday in June.

  She didn't know them. She didn't know if they were happy, sad, or something in between. But she was certain that they understood what they were doing, where they were going, and how they would manage to find their way through this seemingly complicated and mysterious world.

  Grace looked again at the doors to the sitting room. They were closed. What was taking so long? Were the Saitos pleading with Joel to soften the coming blow?

  She realized now what a fool she had been. Joel may have loved her in 1941, but that was another time. He was a different person in 2000. He was wealthy and educated. He had friends and connections and a girlfriend bound for Stanford Law. He'd be crazy to trade that for a bumpkin in a blue gingham dress with little more than a few hundred dollars and a dated education.

  Grace grabbed her stomach as she felt yet another wave of nausea. She berated herself for being weak. She hated this. She hated the fear and the loneliness and growing sense that she was powerless to control her future.

  Feeling weaker by the second, she stepped away from the pay phone and walked briskly toward the front desk. She needed to find a restroom and find it soon. Her stomach was reeling.

  When she reached the desk, she saw a clerk pick up a phone and hold up a finger. Time was running out. She scanned the room for a helpful sign but saw nothing to guide her way. She was about to race out of the building when she heard a door open in the distance.

  It was Walter. He shut a door to the sitting room, looked toward the front desk, and motioned to Grace to join him.

  "Please come, Grace," he said. "Please come."

  Walter Saito said no more to her. He didn't have to. Walter Saito was smiling.

  CHAPTER 19: GRACE

  Grace ran to the open door and looked at Walter one more time to see if his smile was more than an illusion. It was. He grinned broadly as he held out an arm.

  "Katherine has asked me to bring you in," Walter said.

  Grace grabbed Walter's arm and followed him into a room that looked like it belonged in a museum. Plush furniture, fountains, artwork, and plants filled nearly every space and complemented exotic rugs that covered the floor. The chamber was the most incredible thing Grace had ever seen. Then she stepped farther into the room and saw something a tad bit better.

  Grace stayed with Walter until they reached the edge of a rug. She stopped, released his arm, and fixed her eyes on the center of the room, where Katie stood next to a dream. For several seconds, Grace could do nothing but let her mind go. It remained in a better place until the woman who had set up this incredible reunion brought her back to the here and now.

  "I believe you two know each other," Katie said.

  Grace wanted to say something but couldn't. Just the sight of Joel left her speechless. He was dressed for a hike in a sweatshirt and jeans. He needed a shave and probably a bath. But he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

  "It's you," Joel said.

  "It's me," Grace replied.

  Grace smiled as tears rolled down her face. Gripped by a hundred different thoughts and emotions, she found it nearly impossible to move. But move she did. With a few brisk steps, she raced toward a man, not an illusion, and met his embrace at full stride.

  Joel smothered her with a hug and a kiss, the kind she had wanted the night he had left – the kind she wanted the rest of her life. He pulled back, shook his head, and repeated his greeting.

  "I'm so sorry, Grace. I can't even find the words."

  "Then don't," Grace said as she wiped her eyes. "Don't apologize. I understand why you left. Just tell me I haven't made a mistake. Tell me you love me."

  Joel smiled broadly as tears of his own began to form.

  "Are you kidding? I love you so much it hurts. I've thought of nothing else since I left. I've been miserable," Joel said. He grabbed Grace's hands. "It's really you."

  "It's really me."

  "But how?"

  "I opened your card on December 7 and flew to Helena that night with money Katie gave me. I said goodbye to Aunt Edith and Ginny and left. Your letter was like a road map."

  Grace saw the sheer joy on Joel's face and lapped it up. If there was ever any doubt that he loved her – and only her – it was gone. But she could also see confusion on his face. Katie had not told Joel the enti
re story, and he had not figured it out.

  "But it's not possible," Joel said. "It's not. Even if you left in time, you could not have known where to go. I never named the mine. There must be hundreds in Montana."

  "There are thousands," Grace said. "But there was only one Buick dealer in Helena. He remembered you and where he'd picked you up. He was very helpful."

  Joel smiled at Grace and Katie. Then he looked at the ceiling, as if giving thanks to God or a guardian angel or the grandmother who would have loved this moment.

  Grace didn't wait for Joel to inquire more. She didn't want to answer questions. She wanted only to put an exclamation mark on an incredible day. She put her hands on Joel's face, met his eyes, and gave him a tender kiss.

  "You left me some crumbs," Grace said, "and I picked them up."

  CHAPTER 20: JOEL

  Sunday, June 18, 2000

  The waves were smaller than the last time around, the air was cooler, and the morning sun loomed higher in the sky. But in so many other, more meaningful ways, the setting was the same. Seaside was Seaside, Grace was Grace, and 2000 was 1941. Joel had the love of his life at his side, a love he thought he had lost. Nothing else now really mattered.

  "I can't believe you wore the dress," Joel said as he led Grace by the hand on the Promenade, which they had walked for more than an hour. "That was a nice touch."

  "You remembered."

  "How could I forget?"

  How could he forget? Joel thought as he laughed to himself. She had worn the blue gingham dress on an incredible night that was permanently etched in his mind – a night just five weeks distant, or at least five weeks distant as the crow flied through time.

  They had stopped at his place to get money for a movie but never made it out of the house. Responding to Joel's depression over losing a fight to three thugs and losing a roommate to the Army, Grace had turned on some music, turned off the lights, and taken their relationship to a much higher level. The prim and proper orphan of prim and proper missionaries had given him her unconditional love at a time when unconditional love really meant something.