The Last Grand Adventure

by Rebecca Behrens

  “Where should I take you ladies?” Officer Wendell asked.

  “Over to Santa Fe Street, please.” Pidge added, “At the intersection with Second Street.” She unwound the scarf from around her neck and dropped it to her lap, where her hands wrung it.

  “Over by the river. Okey-doke.” Officer Wendell turned the car. Atchison didn’t look like I’d always pictured it—truly, I’d imagined wooden shacks in a cornfield, based on my limited knowledge of America outside of California’s golden hills. The homes in leafy downtown Atchison were stately Victorians, with turrets and stained-glass windows. Redbrick walkways led up to wide front porches. Many were honest-to-goodness mansions. I spotted a gargoyle perched on one particularly fancy stone house. It wasn’t the prairie backwater I’d expected, and I felt ashamed of my assumptions. I’d learned on this trip that places could, and often did, surprise you—just like people.

  “What happened to the Hotel Atchison?” Pidge asked as we drove through the downtown.

  “Oh, that’s been closed for a while.”

  Surprise flickered across Pidge’s face. “My. The world just keeps turning, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine Atchison without that hotel.” She pressed her lips together tightly. It must be strange, returning home after so many years—when the map of your memories is no longer accurate.

  The squad car rolled to a gentle stop. “Here?” Officer Wendell scratched his head, looking out the window at the nice homes on all corners of the intersection. It didn’t look like a place where you’d leave a random couple of travelers.

  “Yes, this is perfect,” Pidge said. To me, she muttered, “I want to do the last block on my own two feet.” She stayed in her seat, palm hovering above the door handle. I could see her throat bulge as she swallowed. After a few moments, she grasped the handle and pushed the door open, then climbed out. I bolted out on my side. It was time to find Meelie. I couldn’t understand why Pidge wasn’t already halfway to the house. Maybe she was nervous.

  Officer Wendell pulled our bags out of the trunk and stood awkwardly at the curb. “Are you sure you’re okay here? You two do have a place to stay and all?”

  “I’m sure,” Pidge said, struggling to control the waver in her voice. “Thank you so much, Officer. You have been too kind to us.” She stared down Santa Fe Street, a twisted look on her face.

  “Well, I’m grateful you ladies are safe and sound and that I could help you get home . . . or, get you wherever it is you’re going.” He furrowed his brows. “I don’t know that I like leaving you on a street corner, even a mighty nice one like this . . .”

  “We’re fine, really,” I said. Pidge was out of her trance and already walking away from us, dragging her suitcase. “Thank you again,” I said, swinging my knapsack over my shoulder. “And to Mrs. Wendell for the delicious breakfast.”

  Officer Wendell didn’t look convinced, but even so he tapped the hood of the car and swung himself inside. “I guess I’ll be on my way. Take care, now.”

  “Good-bye!” Pidge turned and waved. The police car had barely pulled away before Pidge started down the street again, so quickly she was almost running. I hurried to catch up to her, lugging my battered O’Nite. It didn’t look new anymore; it was covered in gunk and a few deep scratches split the exterior. But it looked like a suitcase that belonged to a real traveler. My mom would be proud when she saw it.

  Pidge stopped at the corner of a street named Terrace, where she let her bags fall with a thud onto the narrow sidewalk. Ahead of us was what I assumed to be the grassy banks of the Missouri River. In the corner lot in front of the river, a big house sat in the middle of a neat yard, surrounded by old trees. The white paint was peeling in a few places, but it was nice-looking, even if not quite as grand as some of the other homes we passed on our way in. The front porch looked out onto the bluffs, and so did the balcony on the second floor. Light from the afternoon sun glinted on the arched windows. An American flag fluttered in the breeze.

  It was exactly the kind of scene I’d pictured from the letters. Except it was missing a homemade roller coaster.

  I whirled around, looking for Meelie. She’s here, somewhere. But the yard was empty. There wasn’t even a car parked out front. It was hot and muggy, and the whole street stood still, except for the lazy buzz of insects.

  Pidge ran past the house, crossing the road and heading down the grass toward the river. I abandoned my knapsack and my suitcase next to hers but grabbed her pocketbook and slung it over my shoulder, just in case. Then I followed her down the bank, moving so fast that I thought I might tumble into a somersault. But speed wasn’t necessary—I could see from the top that nobody was around. Maybe Pidge knew of some special spot in the trees, a place where they had played as children, in which Meelie would be waiting. I pictured a woman, old like Pidge but with Amelia’s short hair, sitting on a smooth rock at the river’s edge, watching for us and smiling. I wished with my whole heart that she would be there. I squeezed the elephant bracelet on my wrist, for luck. I murmured her name aloud. I believed we would see her, at any moment.

  At the bottom of the incline, I stopped and sank onto the grass, letting my grandmother look on her own. I didn’t want to be right behind her, breathless, adding to the pressure she must feel. What if we failed—what if we didn’t make it here in time to meet Meelie? After all that.

  Pidge emerged from the river’s edge, moving more slowly. I expected her to stop and sit with me, but she walked right past. She spoke to me over her shoulder in a clipped tone. “Meelie must be waiting inside. It’s so hot. It feels like it could storm.” Even though Pidge wasn’t looking at me, I nodded in agreement.

  I followed her up the redbrick walkway to the wide front porch. She stood, perplexed, in front of the door. Then she knocked. We both were holding our breath.

  Please please please please let Meelie answer.

  Waiting for someone to come to the door felt like an eternity. Finally, it creaked open. My heart hammered in my chest. Pidge braced herself with one hand against the worn wood beside the doorframe. We stared into the widening space inside the home, at the figure emerging as the door swung open. The figure of an old woman, with close-cropped white hair. She was wearing brown pants—and a brown blouse. Her eyes were bright. I felt like I was going burst into tears.

  I looked at Pidge’s face, and I knew.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There’s Still Time

  Her face was stricken. It wasn’t Meelie.

  “Can I help you?”

  Pidge’s mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish’s, but she was struggling for words, not air. I stepped up.

  “We’re looking for someone. A woman—about my grandmother’s age.” I didn’t know whether to tell this stranger the truth. Standing on her front porch, it suddenly sounded too unbelievable.

  “Well, I suppose I’m about your grandmother’s age.” The woman smiled. “You’re not looking for me, right?” I shook my head no. “Who are you looking for?”

  “My grandmother’s . . . friend, who used to live around here. She was going to meet us, but we’re late. Nobody else has been by, maybe earlier this morning? Around the time the sun came up?” I glanced nervously at Pidge. She leaned against the side of the house, slouching like she was trying to curl into a ball while still standing up.

  The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” She looked warily at Pidge, who was pale and sweaty. “It’s so hot and muggy—could I get you two a glass of water or lemonade? Maybe you’d like to cool off for a few minutes.” Lemonade sounded like a lifesaver.

  “No,” Pidge said, her voice trembling. “I’ll wait outside, thank you.” She whispered to me. “Meelie is so terrible about being late.”

  I flinched, worrying that she seemed rude. To the woman, I said, “We would love a drink, though, if you don’t mind.”

  “Come on inside, and I’ll fix you up two glasses. Ma’am, feel free to take a seat on the porch.” Pidge nodded wearily and before I fol
lowed the woman into the house, I made sure she lowered herself into a worn rocking chair.

  This can’t be happening. I rubbed some sweat off my temple. Where is Meelie? She must have been waiting for us earlier in the day. Maybe this woman just didn’t understand the situation. In the kitchen, I explained further, but cautiously. I needed answers—especially for Pidge. “The truth is, my grandmother used to live here, in this house.” The woman’s eyebrows raised as I continued. “She’s Muriel Earhart.”

  “Oh, my! I’m honored to have her visit. Why didn’t she say so?”

  “We’ve had a long trip, and I think she’s a bit overwhelmed.”

  “Did you say she was meeting a friend?”

  I nodded, remembering a detail from one of the letters about their childhood days in Atchison. “An old . . . cousin, actually, whom she used to play with here. Are you sure nobody else has stopped by? Maybe even yesterday.”

  The woman shook her head. “No, but my husband and I were in Kansas City visiting our grandchildren. We only came back this morning, around ten. It’s entirely possible she was here and we missed her visit.”

  A bud of hope bloomed in my chest. That’s it. Meelie must have arrived before they returned home. It was so hot out—she had to go somewhere to get a drink or rest. She was old, after all. But Meelie would come back.

  We carried sweating glasses outside, and the woman set one down on a tray next to Pidge’s chair. “Your granddaughter told me you used to live here—I’m so pleased to meet you. May I call you Muriel? My name’s Viola.”

  That shook Pidge out of her daze. She took a sip of the lemonade. “Nice to meet you, Viola. Yes—this was my grandparents’ home. My sister and I spent a lot of time here as children. In fact, she was born here.”

  Viola attempted to ask Pidge questions about her childhood in Atchison—and Meelie—but Pidge only offered halfhearted answers with a growing undertone of annoyance. Viola didn’t seem offended. “It’s a tricky thing, to go home again,” she said before heading back into the house, telling us to sit as long as we liked.

  “Viola and her husband were gone this morning, Pidge,” I said. “So Meelie probably arrived then, and she’s taking a break from waiting in the hot sun for us. I’m sure she’ll be back.” Pidge nodded, not taking her eyes off the street.

  Eventually I went back to the sidewalk and dragged our luggage up to the porch. Pidge stayed in the chair, rocking slowly. Sometimes she’d stand up and shade her eyes to look far off in the distance, toward the muddy river down below. As we waited, she pointed to two maple trees in the yard, telling me how Amelia named them Philemon and Baucis, after the Greek myth. “Meelie was always so creative.” She took a long drink of water. “But she was not always punctual. You know, she was late to my wedding, among other things. She was fogged in, then suffered a busted propeller, and ended up having to catch a train. She barely made the ceremony.” Pidge smiled in a sadly optimistic way that made me feel like someone had taken my heart and squeezed it in their palm. “There’s still time, Beatrice.”

  • • •

  The time passed. As we rocked on the porch, the sun moved farther beyond us, dropping lower and lower in the sky. More clouds bunched together on the horizon. Viola’s husband, Walter, came home from the store and seemed somewhat befuddled by the two strange, tired ladies occupying his porch. Viola came out late in the afternoon with fresh cookies and generous slices of watermelon. I gobbled it all up, along with the sandwiches Louise Wendell packed for us, but Pidge only nibbled at her food.

  Please please please please let Meelie stride up the riverbank.

  I wrote more in my journals. I finished describing the crash-landing in my adventure one and could hardly believe it wasn’t fiction. My own words gave me goose bumps, in a good way. In my worry journal, I wrote about Pidge sitting next to me, and the way energy and hope was draining from her face as each hour passed. I took a bathroom break, thanking Viola profusely for her hospitality.

  Please please please please let Meelie walk down the street.

  Backlit storm clouds over the river turned a beautiful pink-orange, almost the color of the sherbet I ate at the Bon Voyage Diner, and the blue of the sky purpled. I wished Margo were there to paint it. I continued working on my letter to Ruth and wondered where her adventure had taken her. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog started barking. A light wind rustled the leaves on Baucis and Philemon. Two kids on bicycles raced down the riverfront street, dinging their bells. We waited, still. Crickets chirped. The sun went all the way down, and then Pidge started to weep.

  Please please please please let Meelie land a plane in the yard. Even I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  At first the tears fell softly, and I only noticed them because as I sneaked sideways glances at Pidge, I saw her quickly wipe one away. Then they fell faster, and soon her shoulders shook with sobs. She curled her body down until she was sitting in the brace position. This time, it was her spirit that was crashing.

  “Pidge,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” I knelt at her side and, after a moment’s hesitation, put my arms around her in an awkward hug. Tears formed at the corners of my own eyes as, holding onto her, I felt her ache.

  Eventually her sobs quieted, but she stayed hunched over. “Pidge, what should we do now?” I whispered. She didn’t respond. It was going to be night soon, and we had nowhere to go and nothing to race toward. “Pidge?” I stood. Taking care of us was now up to me.

  I went inside and explained to Viola that, sadly, Pidge’s cousin hadn’t arrived after all. “Thanks for letting us wait here. We’ll be on our way now.” We could walk down to the main street and try to find a hotel that wasn’t closed. Perhaps we wouldn’t have to pay up front. That would at least give me the night to figure out how to get money, and how in the world we were going to get home.

  “Forgive me for prying, but on your way to where? Do you have a place to stay?” My hesitation was all the answer Viola needed. “No, you’ll stay with us—I insist. This was once your grandmother’s home, and she should always feel welcome here. I’ll have Walter set up two beds.”

  “Th-thank you.” My impulse was to refuse—she’d already been so kind—but really, what other option did we have? If this journey had shown me anything, it was the unbelievable generosity of the people we’d met along the way. I made a silent promise to pay it all forward somehow.

  Out on the porch, I convinced Pidge to stand. Then I led her up the stairs and to a bedroom. “N-no,” she whimpered. “Not this one.” It must have once been Meelie’s. In the smaller second room, I helped her settle herself onto the bed. “Viola offered us dinner. Will you come downstairs for it?”

  She simply rolled onto her side, facing the wall and away from me. All the fight had gone right out of her. Watching that was more alarming than realizing that we were stowaways on the train, than wandering the desert road, than thinking Pidge had disappeared from the bus station. I supposed Pidge’s crash wasn’t really scarier than the Serendipity’s, but it was a different kind of scary. “I’ll bring up a plate for you,” I said to her back.

  Downstairs, I asked Viola if I could make a phone call, and if she minded if it would be long distance. She pointed me to the phone and even said that the cord would stretch pretty far into the hallway if I’d like privacy.

  I dialed the number I’d scribbled on a napkin, to some hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But when I asked the operator to speak with my mother, he said that the woman by that name had already checked out. I thanked him, then hung up with a sigh. I had no choice but to phone home.

  I dragged out dialing on the rotary, pausing after each digit. I let my index finger rest in the last hole almost until the dialing attempt would disconnect. Then I jerked my hand to finish the number. A few staticky clicks, and it rang. I closed my eyes and pictured what I would be interrupting in California.

  An anxious female voice begged, “Hello?” But it wasn’t Julie’s.

  I was so co
nfused I didn’t know what to say at first. “Mom?”

  “Bea!” I heard the clack of one of her rings hitting the mouthpiece as she covered up the phone, and then her muffled voice calling, “Ken, it’s her!”

  I asked her, “What are you doing there?”

  “I flew back to California yesterday, and I drove straight to Sun City to see you. When I got there, I found your stepmother and stepsister, hysterical—but not my daughter! Where are you? Are you all right?” I couldn’t believe it. My mom had come home? And Julie and Sally had been at Pidge’s empty house? “Bea! Talk to me. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. We both are. But we’re in Kansas.”

  “Kansas! What in the world?”

  “Pidge—I mean, my grandmother—wanted to go home,” I said.

  “Unbelievable. Can I speak with her? Or, hang on, I think your father wants to.”

  I shook my head, even though my mother couldn’t see me. “She’s . . . not okay. I mean, she’s not in trouble or anything. She’s upstairs resting. I—Mom, I want to come home too.” My throat tightened as I said it, and I had to take a few deep breaths not to cry. Home. I thought I’d lost that when my parents split up, but maybe I was wrong. I was standing in a place that had been home to Pidge for years and years, but it held little for her now, without her sister and the rest of their family. Hadn’t Meelie written that home, for her, became her memories of Pidge? Home could be a person, or a place and a time; it could be anywhere that held people who loved you or the memories of them. Maybe I was wrong about thinking I didn’t have a true home anymore.

  “Oh, baby. We’ll come get you.” She sniffed. “We’ve all been so worried.”

  I thought about the worry that Pidge had carried for the past thirty years. I’d given my family only a few hours of fear, but even that was too much. Voice cracking, I said, “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  Next my father came on the line and asked to speak to Walter so he could figure out how to make arrangements to collect us. I walked into the kitchen and shyly handed him the phone. Viola patted my shoulder and sat me down at the table for a sloppy joe. “It’ll all be okay, hon.” I hoped she was right.