The Amber Photograph

by Penelope J. Stokes

"Gee, how can we pass up a bargain like that?" Diedre rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. "Let's stop at the next exit, and I'll let you drive the rest of the way to—what is it? Blue Dirt?"

  "Blue Earth."

  "Right. I just hope Blue Earth has a motel with indoor plumbing and clean sheets."

  "Are you kidding? With an attraction like the Green Giant?" Carlene shoved the papers into the glove compartment and leaned back. "They probably have a twelve-story Hilton."

  Diedre paused in the lobby and looked around. It wasn't a Hilton, exactly, but the tiny motel just off 1-90 at the Blue Earth exit had other features to commend it. When they opened the door into the small lobby, the delicious scents of fresh coffee and warm cinnamon wafted over Diedre. Not a soul was in sight.

  Carlene elbowed her in the ribs. "Looks like a Norwegian threw up in here."

  Diedre let her eyes wander and wondered for a moment whether the owner would be flattered or insulted if she took out her camera to get a few shots. Nobody in North Carolina would believe this. Every available surface—the walls, the registration desk, even the backs of chairs—bore decorative flourishes, clearly hand-painted. "It's called tole painting," she said. "It's quite an art form, and I think it's nice. It gives the place—I don't know, a homey feeling. Not like most chain motels. Now be polite." She tapped the bell on the counter.

  A pink-cheeked, middle-aged woman appeared from the office wearing a nametag that said: HEIDI. "Can I help you?"

  "We'd like a room, please. A double. And—" She hesitated. "We have a dog—a small one, and very well behaved. Do you take pets?"

  The woman's eyes crinkled up. "You betcha. But I'll have to charge you a little extra—company policy."

  Here we go, Diedre thought. The old shaft-the-tourist routine. But she wasn't in any mood to argue. She was tired, and she simply wanted to get some dinner and go to bed. She pulled out her Visa card. "How much?"

  Heidi slid a registration form and pen toward Diedre. "Thirty-seven dollars."

  "Just for the dog?" Diedre reared back and braced herself for an argument. "That's highway robbery!"

  Heidi's round face never lost its beaming smile. "For the room. That includes both of you, and your little puppy. And breakfast." She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "You don't want to miss out on breakfast. I make it myself—homemade cinnamon rolls and egg bake. Sometimes lefse, too. Fresh every morning, starting at 6:30, right here in the lobby."

  Diedre hadn't the foggiest idea what "egg bake" or lefse was, but anything that would still the rumbling in her stomach sounded good. "We'll take it." She handed over the credit card and began to fill out the registration.

  "Oh, and we've got coffee and cookies, too." Heidi pointed toward the table around the corner, where the coffee maker sat. "Chocolate chip and sugar cookies, and I think there might be some snicker doodles left. Help yourself, and feel free to take some with you to your room."

  Diedre slanted a glance in Carlene's direction. Tole painting on the furniture, cinnamon rolls for breakfast and fresh-baked cookies at night, plus a room for $37.00? Blue Earth, Minnesota, might be a bit unsophisticated, but if this was the way they treated visitors, she didn't mind it one bit.

  "So, Heidi," Carlene said, leaning over the counter, "where will we find this sixty-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant?"

  "Why, he's right up the road, at the next intersection," the woman responded, her chest puffing out with civic pride. Obviously she had no clue that her little town had won the Tackiest Place in America award. "There's a little park, just across from Wal-Mart. You can see him from our parking lot out front, unless the floodlights have gone out again." She turned her full attention to Carlene. "There are steps to the base; you can walk up there and have your picture taken, if you like."

  "That'll be the first thing on our agenda tomorrow morning." Carlene pasted on a broad grin. "After your egg bake, of course."

  Heidi looked up; her smile had vanished. For a minute Diedre thought Carlene might have offended her, but then she shook her head as if she'd just received news of a fiery ten-car pileup on the Interstate. "I'm sorry, hon. Your card has been declined."

  "Declined?" Diedre frowned. "What does that mean?"

  "Could mean you're over your credit limit," Heidi volunteered. "Happens to the best of us. Or it could mean your account's been canceled. They don't tell us the reason—just whether to accept the card or not."

  "I can't believe this!" Diedre muttered. She turned to Carlene. "What could have happened? Daddy always pays the bill on time, so that couldn't be it." She paused, then felt an idea take shape in her mind. "Daddy! Do you suppose he—"

  "What? Canceled your card?" Carlene put a hand on Diedre's shoulder. "Do you think he'd really do that?"

  "What else could it be? He was pretty upset about the birthday present Mama gave me. And I'm not exactly sure he'd be thrilled that I took off without a word to him, especially in Mama's Lexus. You know him. This is probably his way of telling me I'm being foolish—that I should come home. He's never wanted to talk about my sister—and lately, not even about Mama. He'd want me to just let this go, let things stay buried. Maybe he's afraid I'll get hurt if I do find my sister."

  "Or maybe he doesn't want you to find out who your real father is."

  "Whatever his motives, he has to be the one behind this. I guess he figures if I don't have a credit card, I'll have to turn around and come home. What do you think? Can you figure out another explanation?"

  During this interchange, Heidi had been staring slack-jawed at them both. Carlene pulled out her wallet and placed a gold MasterCard on the desk. "Put it on this one."

  Diedre slapped her hand down over the card before Heidi had a chance to retrieve it. "Carlene, no! You've already sacrificed a lot to make this trip with me, and—"

  "You're darn right I have," Carlene interrupted with a wink. "And don't you forget it. But if you think for one minute I'm sleeping in the Maison de Lexus, you've got another thing coming. Shoot, in a small town like this we could probably buy a house for the price of that car, but that still doesn't mean it makes for decent lodging."

  Diedre let out a long breath. "All right. I guess I don't really have very much choice, do I?" She squeezed Carlene's arm and bit her lip. "But as soon as I get this straightened out—"

  "So, do you want I should ring this up, or what?" Heidi looked from Diedre's face to Carlene's, then back again.

  "Sure, go ahead." Carlene nodded. "We'll settle up later, don't worry," she told Diedre. "In the meantime, I intend to get a good night's sleep."

  Heidi turned her back to them and ran the card through the scanner. "So, where are you girls headed?" she called over her shoulder.

  "Ultimately, Seattle," Diedre answered. "Straight out 1-90."

  "There's lots to see out that way."

  Carlene caught Diedre's eye and, behind Heidi's back, mouthed Corn Palace and Wall Drug. "What do you recommend?" she asked when the manager returned to the registration desk.

  "You gotta see the Corn Palace in Mitchell," Heidi responded. "It's a real work of art. And Wall Drug—wouldn't want to miss that."

  Carlene turned a wide smile in Heidi's direction. "Our plan exactly. But first, the Jolly Green Giant and your egg bake."

  The next morning, by the time they had eaten breakfast and driven around a bit, Diedre noticed that even Carlene was ready to concede that Blue Earth did not deserve its title of the Tackiest Place in America.

  For one thing, the motel, though not luxurious, was immaculate and comfortable, each room decorated with hand-painted wall murals that gave the place an old-world feel. They got a good deal more than their $37.00 worth, to Diedre's way of thinking. Heidi's egg bake turned out to be a melt-in-your-mouth quichelike concoction. Her cinnamon rolls, still warm from the oven and dripping with sugar frosting, were enough to make you quit your diet forever.

  The Jolly Green Giant stood, just as Heidi had promised, on a swath of grass across the street from Wal-Mar
t. Diedre and Carlene dutifully climbed its base, stood between the giant's feet above the inscription that read, "Welcome to the Valley," and took pictures of each other. Diedre tried her best to get an artistic shot of the enormous statue, but situated as it was in an open grassy space with nothing to provide composition—or even interest—she settled for a closeup of Carlene reclining on one huge green bootie.

  The outrageous sixty-foot statue was a bit overwhelming, Diedre had to agree, but one quick trip through the rest of Blue Earth made her want to run for a modem and rake the Web-master over the coals for his smug ridicule of this appealing little town.

  "It really is beautiful here," Carlene admitted as they cruised the tree-lined streets with the windows down and listened to church chimes drifting on the chilly morning breeze. "So peaceful. Just listen to those bells. Makes you feel like you've gone back a hundred years."

  In fact, Blue Earth reminded Diedre a little of Brigadoon, the mystical Scottish town that appeared out of the fog for one day every hundred years. A village caught in the past, but content with its blessings and not inclined to bemoan its shortcomings. Main Street boasted a stunning red stone courthouse and an enviable collection of well-kept Victorian homes. Except for the infamous Minnesota winters, it might well be the kind of community that entreated you to park yourself on the porch, have coffee, and stay forever.

  "I'm a little sad to leave this place," Diedre murmured as Carlene put the Lexus in gear and headed for the highway. "It almost felt like home."

  "Home?" Carlene gave a grim little chuckle. "Seems I remember somebody saying that 'home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.'"

  "Right," Diedre assented absently. Her mouth spoke the words, but her heart defiantly disagreed with Carlene's joking cynicism. Home wasn't where they had to take you in; home was where they wanted to take you in. Home was where you always knew you were welcome, where their eyes lit up at the sight of you.

  But where was that for Diedre McAlister? Was there any place like that left for her, anyone whose days would be empty without her?

  For a moment her mother's drawn face swam before her eyes, but she resolutely pushed the image back down. She couldn't let herself think of Mama's love, of that comforting, nurturing presence, or she would surely fall apart. Her heart, already so fragile, didn't dare confront those memories. Not now. Not until she was stronger. Diedre reached in to her bag, pulled out the brown-toned photograph, and stuck it into the visor above her head. For a long time she sat in silence, staring at the smiling faces. This was all she had left of home.

  A sister who was a stranger to her.

  A father she couldn't call Daddy anymore.

  15

  Flat, Empty Spaces

  Diedre gazed out the window as the prairie rolled by. Beyond her own ghostly reflection in the glass, ridged fields of dark earth stretched all the way to the horizon—furrowed, plowed under, awaiting the spring planting. An occasional white farmhouse dotted the landscape, and a barn or two. But except for these infrequent signs of human habitation, South Dakota could have been completely deserted. Empty. Flat. As flat and empty as the highway that stretched out before them like a straight line of railroad track.

  Beside her, wedged into the storage spaces of the console, were Carlene's souvenirs from their stops along what they now called the Tackyville Highway—so far, a miniature Jolly Green Giant made of molded plastic and a triangular-shaped angel from the Corn Palace, woven entirely from corn husks. The angel had no face, and the twine around its neck, bearing a card that read Handcrafted in Mitchell, South Dakota, made the figure look as if it had just been lynched. If this was the kind of guardian angel she got, Diedre thought darkly, she was in big trouble.

  They had stopped in Mitchell for lunch, toured the Corn Palace, and now began the two-hundred-mile stretch of nothingness, marked only by roadside signs luring them on to the uncontested Middle of Nowhere, to the infamous Wall Drug.

  The monotonous landscape had a hypnotic effect, and Diedre's eyelids grew heavy. For lunch they had tried the Specialty of the House, what the locals called a "hot turkey sandwich"—white breast meat on white bread with white mashed potatoes smothered in white gravy—and the heavy meal lay like an undigested lump of paste in the pit of her stomach. She heard a soft snoring noise behind her and turned to see Sugarbear curled up in her bed, sound asleep.

  "I think she's got the right idea," Carlene commented, briefly averting her eyes from the road. "You look tired; why don't you take a nap?"

  "Are you all right to drive?"

  "I'm wide awake. If I get sleepy, I'll let you know."

  Diedre retrieved a small pillow from the backseat, leaned it against the window, and closed her eyes.

  Carlene set the cruise control on seventy and pointed the Lexus down the unbending highway. One car passed going the opposite direction; the driver lifted one hand from the steering wheel and waved as he went by.

  She had never driven west before. The two or three times she had traveled to California, she had been in the air at thirty thousand feet, skirting the flat prairie and vast deserts as if there were nothing of significance down below. The really important action was taking place on the coast, and everyone seemed to want to get there as quickly as possible.

  This time she was getting a different perspective, a ground-level point of view. A lone bay horse, still in his winter coat, tossed his head and galloped in circles around his pasture, snorting in the chilly spring air. A flock of landlocked sea gulls picked languidly at the leftover seed in an unplowed cornfield. Far away, a thin column of smoke drifted toward the clouds.

  The prairie held a different kind of beauty than the lush layers of the Blue Ridge Carlene called home, but it was beauty nevertheless. The sky was bigger, the air fresher, the pace of life slower. You could see for miles out here. You could let your mind drift, like that smoke on the breeze, and allow it to take you places you'd never been before.

  She glanced over at Diedre, who sat with her feet tucked under her and her face pressed against the glass. Where will her thoughts take her? Carlene wondered. And will she be willing to follow?

  The truth was, she was worried about Diedre. They had been best friends since college, and except for the recurring dreams about her sister, Diedre had seldom been faced with a major life crisis. Until now. If struggles made you strong, Diedre McAlister might end up winning a gold medal in weightlifting.

  It wasn't that Diedre was shallow—in fact, she had always been remarkably insightful and steady for a girl who had every kind of security offered to her on a silver platter. But suddenly, without warning, she had been subjected to a blitzkrieg of pain and emotional upheaval. First the recurrence of her mother's cancer, then Cecilia's death, then the revelations that followed about her mother, her sister, her father.

  And Carlene had been forced to stand by and watch, feeling helpless, while her closest friend shut down. Diedre hadn't really grieved the loss of her mother yet—she hadn't been still long enough. Almost immediately, she had been swept up in a storm of confusion and frantic activity surrounding the visitation and funeral. And before that turmoil had even begun to settle, she had lit out on this trip like a missile launched from a slingshot, blindly catapulting toward—

  Toward what?

  Toward the truth, Diedre believed. Toward an unknown sister, a nameless father, an identity she couldn't begin to comprehend. And although Carlene valued the truth and understood the necessity of Diedre's search, she also knew that truth came at a high price: there was pain in breaking through to it.

  Still, she reminded herself, a real friend didn't try to control another's actions or second-guess her decisions. Free advice was a bad bargain on both sides. Carlene's job as she saw it right now was to be with Diedre, to wait, to be present, to love, and—as much as possible, given her nature—to keep her mouth shut until she was invited to open it.

  In the meantime, she would pray that when Diedre finally did discover the tr
uth, she would also find the strength to bear it.

  Through half-open eyes, Diedre watched the landscape pass in a narrow band, like a movie in letter-box format on a nine-inch television screen. Sleep had eluded her, although she kept her face averted and pretended to doze. Maybe, if she remained quiet long enough, her mind would be able to sort some of this out on its own.

  Long-distance driving, she was beginning to discover, was not an occupation for the faint of heart. The rhythmic thump of wheel against pavement mesmerized the soul, sending Diedre back into memories she thought were lost forever.

  Images clicked through her mind—a panorama of isolated pictures from the past. Her birthday party the year she was six, with a cake created around a beautiful Barbie, so that the doll stood upright in the center, and layers of chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting arched out from its waist like a enormous skirt. Her first dance recital, with her parents in the front row, beaming proudly. The state high-school tennis tournament, where she had come in second in mixed doubles and brought home a trophy to display on the mantel. The photo taken before her junior prom, in which she and her date—was his name really Ken?—posed stiffly together like a plastic wedding-cake bride and groom in front of the big fireplace in the parlor. The bright blue Mazdaconvertible Daddy gave her as a graduation present the year she turned eighteen.

  Happy memories, memories of the Perfect Childhood.

  And all of it had been a lie.

  How could she have been both blind and deaf to all the signs? How could she not have known that something in the McAlister household was terribly, terribly wrong? There were clues; there had to have been. Had she simply closed her eyes and shut her ears, willing the truth to go away?

  Another image surfaced in her mind, this one fuzzy and indistinct, like a jerky old home movie. She had been very small, no more than three or four—she must have been that young, because she could remember wearing soft flannel pajamas with feet in them and dragging her teddy bear by the ear. A nightmare had awakened her, but she hadn't cried out. Instead, she had gotten out of bed and was tiptoeing down the hall toward her mother's bedroom.