Between Lost and Found

by Shelly Stratton

  Little Bill didn’t particularly like dogs, not since Mabel had brought home a basset hound puppy back in ’72 that she had named Doodlebug. The thing had whined and bayed throughout the night—keeping them both up into the wee hours of morning. It had left little bite marks on the wooden legs of all their end tables and in the leather and plush velvet arms of every sofa and chair, and finally—for its grand finale—it had taken a crap in the middle of their four-poster bed. Mabel had had to give the puppy away to a neighbor who already had four dogs and six cats and wouldn’t mind the added chaos Doodlebug could bring.

  After Doodlebug, Little Bill had never worked up enough energy to own, let alone like, a dog. And he would soon find out that dislike was cosmically justified.

  Little Bill’s heart leaped from his chest to his throat. He slammed on the brakes and whipped his steering wheel to the right to keep from hitting the dog. His tires squealed as they lost traction on a patch of black ice and the truck started to skid. He whipped the wheel to the left, overcorrected, and the truck began to spin. Around and around it went, and Little Bill saw a flash of trees, road, and mountains . . . trees, road, and mountains . . . trees, road, and mountains. Finally, he let go of the wheel and closed his eyes, praying for the crazy carousel ride to end. It did seconds later when the truck slid off the road, dipped down a steep slope, and slammed into the sturdy trunk of a pine tree. He heard the glass of his windshield shatter. His airbag inflated with a whomp and with enough force that it threw him back against his headrest and knocked the air clean out of his lungs.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sunday, April 20

  Chantilly, Virginia

  Two hours earlier

  Janelle Marshall set the Lucite tray of mozzarella and prosciutto near the center of the table, between the wine bottles and the platter of roasted carrots and parsnips drizzled with white balsamic vinegar. She shifted the stainless steel tongs to the left by two inches then back to the right another inch. She took a step back and clutched her hands in front of her.

  It was a modernist masterpiece on white tablecloth, and like a gallery visitor, she examined the artwork. She appreciated the symmetry and the clean lines of the eggshell-white stoneware and the way the wineglasses refracted the light from the French crystal chandelier overhead. She noted the vibrant red and yellow of her Mediterranean salad and the understated green and orange of the vegetarian summer rolls she had purchased at the killer banh mi place six blocks from her office but planned to subtly pass off as her own. It all looked so impeccably composed, so . . .

  “Perfect,” she whispered with a grin.

  Tonight’s housewarming would be seamless. She’d gone over the checklist on her iPad to make it so, reviewing every minute detail—from the lighting to the song selection uploaded to her iPod, even to the dinner napkins she had spent hours folding into fleur-di-lis patterns. Now everything was in its rightful place and she could finally relax.

  “The guests are starting to arrive, baby. Are you almost done?” Mark said as he strode through the dining room entryway, carrying a silver-lidded platter.

  He was wearing a tan Hugo Boss blazer, dark khakis, and a yellow polka-dot bowtie she had gotten him for his birthday. He looked much like he had the first night she had met him, like a black Tucker Carlson.

  Janelle had known even back then that Mark was the type of sturdy guy you could build a life upon. He was the stellar boyfriend who came home with the dry cleaning without being asked to pick it up, who took her car to get the oil changed as soon as the odometer shifted three thousand miles. Mark was as reliable as a Swiss watch—and she loved him for it.

  Janelle examined their buffet table one last time, then nodded before turning to him and giving a small adjustment to the knot in his tie. “Yep, all done!”

  “Great!” He then shoved the tray of mozzarella and prosciutto aside, cramming the silver platter into the now open space.

  Watching him ruin her masterpiece, she almost cried out “No!” but she bit it back before the word passed her lips.

  It’s okay. It’s fine. Take a deep breath. It’s just a minor imperfection. Only you’ll notice.

  “Breathe in, breathe out,” is what she often told employees at Bryant Consultant Group who came storming into her office, slamming the door behind them, ready to unload some grievance. As HR director, she had to play arbiter and problem solver. She could not, under any circumstances, lose her cool. She would have to do the same tonight.

  Trust in the Zen, she reminded herself before giving one last longing glance at the buffet table, resisting the urge to shift around the dishes again to regain the symmetry and balance it once had.

  “Mom’s here,” Mark said as he removed his wire-framed glasses, grabbed one of the linen dinner napkins, and began to wipe his lenses.

  “Yes, I heard.”

  Even over the sound of jazz playing on their surround sound system and the rising murmur of conversation, Janelle could hear Mark’s mom, Brenda Sullivan, with her distinct Southern drawl. Though, truth be told, that drawl was as fake as the curly wig Brenda wore. Janelle wasn’t sure why the aging divorcée spoke like Scarlett O’Hara considering, according to her son, she had grown up in the projects of Detroit and not on a plantation in Savannah.

  “She didn’t come empty-handed, either. She brought this,” Mark said as he placed his glasses back on his nose and removed the silver lid. He grinned. “Looks good, huh?”

  Janelle stared down at the platter.

  The dish was displayed in a carved-out pumpernickel loaf with a nest of gourmet crackers and bread slices radiating around it, with shavings of parsley sprinkled on top like green confetti. It looked like it should have been on the cover of one of those gourmet food magazines—Bon Appétit or Saveur.

  “It’s crab dip,” Janelle said flatly.

  “Yeah, it’s crap dip. What? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? Honey, you know I’m allergic to it, and so does your mom,” she said, dropping her voice down to a whisper.

  Allergic—as in breaking into hives, swelling like the Stay Puft marshmallow man, gasping for air, and ultimately dropping dead—unless she got a quick stab of epinephrine.

  “So then don’t eat it!” He chuckled in exasperation. “I mean, come on, baby! Mom just meant to be nice. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Janelle glanced at the crab dip again. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

  “You’re right,” she said, patting his arm. “It’s no big deal.”

  She would just have to shrug this off like she had shrugged off the other little digs from Brenda since she and Mark started dating, all of which could be mistaken for (or disguised as) well-meaning though clueless gestures.

  Thanks, Brenda! A Weight Watchers subscription is just what I needed for my birthday!

  You’re right, Brenda! My curly hair does look awfully big. I should straighten it or just cut it all off!

  Brenda’s assistant, Shana, was another annoyance. Shana would sometimes come through the door trailing behind Brenda, nodding eagerly as she carried boxes like a happy pack mule, taking notes and gushing over everything Brenda said and did. She felt like yet another impediment to Janelle and Brenda truly ever bonding.

  But we’ll bond—eventually, Janelle told herself. It will happen.

  Because with time and with effort, she could make it work—like she made everything else work.

  Mark replaced the silver lid, leaned down, and kissed Janelle’s cheek. “That’s my girl! Don’t sweat the small stuff, baby. Let’s just enjoy the night.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We should get out there and mingle with our guests. You ready to jump into the fray?” He extended his hand to her.

  She nodded before taking his hand, standing on the balls of her feet and giving him a quick kiss. “Of course, honey.”

  He escorted her into the living room, where there were several clusters of partygoers near the fireplace, the
bay windows, and nestled on the sofa and armchairs. It was a microcosm of typical NoVa (or “Northern Virginia,” for those recent transplants) types: Beltway political insiders, long-time federal employees who could rattle off where they fell on the government pay scale faster than they could their own Social Security numbers, and pseudo-liberals who donated thousands to the Green Party but would still pull their Michael Kors purse close to their side whenever a hoodie-wearing guy walked nearby.

  “Great party, Jay!” someone shouted out to her.

  “Your new place looks amazing,” someone else called.

  Janelle waved and blew a kiss to them, graciously accepting the compliments she had worked so hard to earn.

  Brenda spotted Janelle and Mark as soon as they walked into the room. She sauntered toward them with wineglass in hand. Shana skittered after her across the Brazilian hardwood.

  Brenda and Shana were wearing almost identical Albert Nipon suits. Brenda’s was gray and probably purchased at full price; Shana’s was red and likely bought off the sale rack. They looked like mirror images of each other, from their clothes to their petite figures to the plastic smiles on their faces.

  “Janelle, there you are! We were wondering where you were hiding.” Brenda kissed Janelle, leaving a smear of blood red lipstick on the younger woman’s cheek that would have to be discreetly wiped off later.

  Shana did a perky wave. “Hi, Janelle!”

  Janelle nodded and forced her smile to stay in place. “Brenda . . . Shana, thank you so much for coming tonight.”

  “And for the crab dip,” Mark added, gently nudging Janelle’s elbow. “Right, Jay?”

  “Of course,” Janelle said through clenched teeth, almost tasting the words as they curdled on her tongue. But she was the consummate hostess. She refused to be rattled, even by the likes of Brenda and her deadly appetizers.

  “Anything for you, darling,” Brenda drawled before playfully pinching Mark’s cheek. She turned back to Janelle. “Janelle, I was hoping to finally meet your family tonight.” Brenda looked around the living room. “Where is your mother, anyway?”

  “Oh, Mom’s on a two-week cruise in the Mediterranean. She’d hope to make the housewarming, but I told her to just go and enjoy herself.” She waved her hand and chuckled. “She’s wanted to do this cruise for years!”

  “Is your dad on the cruise with her?” Shana asked with raised brows. “Or is he coming tonight?”

  For the first time, Janelle’s casual veneer and deep breathing exercises wavered. Her polite smile teetered on its axis. “My dad’s . . . uh . . . he’s dead.”

  Shana looked stricken. Her mouth formed into an “O” as she clapped a hand over lips. “I am so sorry! I didn’t know!”

  “No, it’s fine.” Janelle shrugged awkwardly. “He died more than a decade ago, and he was . . . well, out of my life, for the most part. So when he passed away, I barely even noticed. I-I mean I noticed. He was my father! I was sad, of course. But I wasn’t . . . you know, devastated.”

  Her voice shook a little as Shana lowered her hand. The two women stared at Janelle with blank faces. Mark squinted at her like she had all of a sudden decided to speak in French.

  Oh, God. I’m babbling.

  She always did that whenever she spoke about her dad, which is why she preferred not to talk about him, let alone think about him.

  “I just meant it wasn’t like I missed out on much because my mom was . . . was really great and—”

  “Her grandfather raised her,” Mark interjected, saving her. “He was like her dad. Too bad he couldn’t make it tonight either, huh, baby?” Mark swept his hand around him before throwing an arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze. “It would have been nice for him to see how well it all turned out. I bet he would have been impressed!”

  “Oh, absolutely!” Janelle gushed, though, in truth, she highly doubted Pops would find any of this impressive.

  When she had given him a tour of their new home more than a month of ago, she had proudly shown him the Phillip Jefferies stitched-linen wallpaper that she and Mark had chosen to hang in their living room: a sumptuous chocolate interlaced with gold thread. All Pops had said was “Jeffries who? You’d think I’d at least heard of the man if he’s gonna charge people two hundred dollars for one sheet of wallpaper!”

  If he saw their home now with all its expensive details and finishes, he probably wouldn’t have anything nice to say—much as he had very little nice to say about Mark.

  “Well, I’ll let you two get back to your other guests,” Brenda said. “Maybe there will be another special occasion where I can finally meet your family, Janelle.”

  She gave an exaggerated wink at Mark, causing Janelle to furrow her brows in mystification. Brenda wiggled her fingers in good-bye, making her many rings twinkle underneath the glare of the recessed lights. She then strode away with her human puppy, Shana, trailing after her.

  “That was odd,” Janelle muttered, staring after Brenda.

  “No, it wasn’t,” he said, clutching her hand again. “That was just Mom being Mom.”

  “If you say so, honey.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry about her. Besides, tonight is about you and me, right? Not Mom!”

  “You’re right. It is about us,” she said, her chest warming at the word “us.”

  He leaned down to give her a quick kiss, and they held eyes.

  How could Pops not see what she saw right now in this man’s adoring gaze?

  “Come on. Let’s mingle,” he said, abruptly ending the moment.

  And for the rest of the night, Janelle and Mark charmed their guests. They looked good together; she looked like the black Ann Coulter next to his black Tucker Carlson. They filled in the gaps in each other’s conversation, reminding the other of a name, place, or date the other had forgotten.

  “I’m so glad you made it, Don,” Mark said to one of their guests and shook his hand. “So where is your darling wife . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

  “Celeste,” Janelle said in a voice only loud enough for him to hear.

  “. . . Celeste?” Mark asked, not breaking stride. “How is she?”

  It was a delicate dance, and as a couple, they performed it wonderfully. She felt like a seasoned tennis player on the court engaged in a game of doubles. Janelle knew instinctively when to hit the volley and when to back off and let her partner, Mark, take a backswing.

  This seamless synchronicity was something Janelle had never witnessed between her own mother and father before their divorce. Her parents’ marriage was less like a game of doubles and more like a mixed martial arts death match some nights. (“Get the hell off my back, woman!” her father would yell. “I wish you would just walk out that door and never come back, Carl! Never . . . come . . . back!” her mother would shout in reply.) But Janelle had learned a different way, a better way, after years of trial and error, after watching other couples interact, and after trying her best and failing miserably with ex-boyfriends. Practice makes perfect and with practice, she had become a pro at this.

  Even when she and Mark were separated, Janelle felt an imaginary tether between them—something to let her know that they were always connected. She felt the tug at that tether mid-conversation with one of her new neighbors. She turned to find Mark standing near the fireplace, tapping a knife against the side of a wineglass.

  “Excuse me!” Mark called out as he pressed a button on a remote to lower the volume of the music playing in the living room. The sound of tinkling piano keys and Coltrane faded. “Excuse me, everyone!”

  Suddenly, her cell phone began to chime.

  Janelle shoved her hand into her skirt pocket to silence it, but the peppy ringtone continued to play. She yanked out her phone just as she heard Mark say, “If you guys could just quiet down for a few minutes, I have an announcement to make.”

  Huh? What announcement? She stared at her phone’s glass screen, prepared to send the call to voice mail.

&nbs
p; But when she spotted the name on her caller ID, she beamed. It was Pops.

  She had wanted him here with her tonight but he had made a half-hearted excuse about why he couldn’t come.

  “Sorry, baby girl,” he had said. “Got too much to do back here.”

  She knew the truth. Rather than standing around sampling brie, crackers, and Chardonnay at a housewarming party, Pops would rather be off playing cowboy in the small mountain town in South Dakota that he went to eight to nine months out of the year. She suspected that’s where he was happiest.

  “Hey, Pops!” Janelle said in a voice barely above a whisper so as to not disturb whatever speech Mark was making. She began to walk toward the kitchen. “I didn’t expect to hear from you today. This is a nice surprise!”

  “Hi . . . uh, hi . . . is this J-Janelle Marshall?” a woman answered.

  Janelle paused. Her grin and stride faltered. That wasn’t the voice she had anticipated hearing. “Yes, this is she.”

  “Umm . . .” The woman cleared her throat. “Your . . . your grandfather has gone missing in Mammoth Falls. We need you to come here and . . . and help find him. Get here as soon as you can.”

  “What?”

  The woman’s tone was stilted, like she was reading off of a teleprompter. She sounded so strange that Janelle wondered if she had heard her correctly. It sounded like she said Pops had gone missing, but that couldn’t be right.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “Uh, I-I said that your . . . your grandfather is missin’.” The woman cleared her throat again. “I thought . . . I thought you should know.”

  Janelle’s stomach took a nosedive straight to her knees. Her grip on her iPhone tightened to the point that she could swear she heard the plastic-and-metal casing crack.

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean he’s missing?” she cried, now frantic.

  She turned to look at Mark, who was talking, smiling, and gesticulating in front of the fireplace. He must have made a joke. Several partygoers around her began to chuckle. A man standing next to her hooted and slapped his thigh.