by Lisa Yee
“Hallie!” I said, too loud.
The librarian shushed me, but his eyes had sparks in them. “That’s her?” he asked, showing Abby and Camila, too. We compared the two photos and agreed it was definitely Hallie.
“Harriet Emmeline Leland,” I read. “There’s even an address.”
“It may well be out of date,” the librarian said. “However, we have access here to the public city records. If you like, I can do a search under her name.”
I nodded, still in disbelief. A few days ago when I’d found Hallie’s photo, she’d seemed so far away. It was thrilling to think there was a chance that she could still be right here in St. Louis.
Twenty minutes later, we met my dad outside. We all started telling him what had happened—at the same time. “Hold on!” he laughed. “Pick a spokesperson, please.”
“We found Hallie!” I said. “Her name’s Harriet Leland—and that’s not all. We have an address for her! Well, we have an address for a Harriet Leland Dumond,” I said, handing him the slip of paper where I’d written it down.
Dad looked at it, impressed. “It’s in the Central West End,” he said. “That’s close to here.”
“Can we go see if it’s her?” I begged. “Please?!”
Dad grinned. “Why not? Maybe Hallie will be at home.”
I’d been to the Central West End before, but as we drove through the neighborhood, the homes looked bigger than I remembered. Mansions with marble columns sat on wide rolling lawns. Some had wrought-iron gates that looked as if only a giant could move them, while other houses hid behind enormous pine trees. Our old Victorian on Hickory Street seemed like a playhouse by comparison.
“Here it is, 453 Lenox Street,” Dad said, as we pulled up to a gray stone mansion with long windows.
A cobblestone path wound past a pair of granite lion statues up to a dark blue door. Is this really Hallie’s house? I wondered. I might be about to meet a long-lost friend of my grandmother’s! Nervous butterflies started fluttering in my stomach.
Before I could say anything, Abby threw open the car door. “Come on!” she said. “We have to see if she’s home!”
I held my breath as we raced up to the front door.
“Lea, you knock,” said Camila.
I took a breath, trying to calm the butterflies. I was a little scared, but more than that, I felt excited. I knocked on the door. After a long moment, the old-fashioned brass peephole opened. A blue eye squinted out at us.
“Yes?” said a man’s voice.
“Hello,” I said. “We’re looking for Hallie? I mean, Harriet Leland Dumond?”
The door opened abruptly. A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit stood before us. “May I help you?” he asked, frowning.
“I hope so,” Dad said. “I’m Mike Clark,” he said, offering his hand. The man didn’t shake it.
“Justus Dumond,” he said instead, as if we should know that already.
“Right!” said my dad. “Good! Yes! Now, let’s see, Mr. Dumont—”
“Dumond,” the man corrected him.
“Dumond, yes,” Dad stammered. “My daughter Lea has a theory—mind you, a theory based on actual research—that my late mother-in-law knew Mrs. Dumond—”
“Hallie,” I interrupted. “They were classmates at the Coventry School.”
While we talked, Justus Dumond crossed his arms, taking in Dad’s baggy shorts, worn loafers, and the black socks he wore pulled halfway up his shins. Finally he broke in.
“Harriet is my mother, and she’s quite frail. It wouldn’t be suitable to bother her with this right now.”
“But we wouldn’t really be bothering her—” Abby started to say.
“Yes, you would,” Justus replied sharply. And before anyone could say anything else, he stepped back—and shut the door in our faces!
We stood there, shocked. My dad let out a little surprised laugh, but stopped when he saw my face.
I felt like a balloon that had suddenly popped. All the hope and excitement flooded out of me. Abby put a hand on my shoulder as I took a ragged breath, feeling tears rise. I knew Ama wouldn’t want me to cry. But I didn’t know what else to do.
couldn’t quite believe it. It didn’t seem possible that even though I’d tracked Hallie down, I wasn’t going to get a chance to talk to her. Abby and Camila each put a comforting arm around me.
“Well,” said Dad sadly, “I guess that’s that.”
No, it’s not, I thought to myself, feeling my temper rise. Impulsively, I reached up and knocked on the door, hard. Dad, Camila, and Abby looked worried, but I kept my eyes glued to the brass peephole. After a moment, it clicked open and Justus Dumond’s eye appeared. Summoning my best manners, I plunged ahead.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Dumond,” I said to the peephole. “We didn’t mean to disturb you and your mother. Can you please let her know that Amanda Silva’s granddaughter is here?”
Behind the door, Justus coughed, annoyed.
“Please?” I said, pleading. “If she doesn’t want to see me, we’ll go away and never bother you again.”
“Fine,” Justus muttered through the door after a moment. The peephole clicked shut.
“Great save, Lea!” Dad said.
I allowed myself to resume breathing. We stood there for what felt like an hour. Right as I was beginning to think that maybe Justus wasn’t coming back, the door opened abruptly to reveal him in the doorway, red-faced and awkward.
“Right this way,” he said, and just like that, he let us in.
We followed Justus down a hallway lined with oil paintings. He pushed open a dark wooden door and we entered a large room with a Persian rug. Antique maps of different sizes and colors crowded the walls from floor to ceiling. There was a map of Africa as tall as a grandfather clock, and framed photos of strange, beautiful buildings and landscapes I didn’t recognize. Even though the room was unfamiliar, oddly enough I felt right at home.
“Wow,” Dad said, glancing around.
A rustling noise made me turn. Across the room, a pair of glass doors opened onto a sunny garden. Sitting just outside at a tiny wicker patio table was a white-haired woman. I knew it was Hallie because when she looked at me, her eyes and mouth curved in the same warm, secret way as they had in her photo. She was wearing a silky navy dress and cardigan. As she rose to greet us, I saw the compass necklace hanging around her neck.
My heart began to pound. I felt Camila’s hand slip into mine, and I gave it a grateful squeeze.
“Hello,” said Hallie, her gaze drifting from Dad to Abby to Camila to me. “Which one of you is Amanda Silva’s granddaughter?” Her eyes caught mine, and she smiled. “I’m guessing it’s you,” she said. “You look very like Amanda.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling tongue-tied. I’d been so focused on finding Hallie, I hadn’t really ever thought about what I would say if we finally met.
Luckily, Abby didn’t have that problem. “I can’t believe we found you!” she said in a rush.
“Yes,” said Hallie gently, as Justus helped her over to a leather chair. “How did you find me?” I pulled out the photograph of her as a girl from my backpack and showed her.
“I found this at Coventry House,” I said, and launched into the whole story of how we’d managed to figure out who she was. By the time I was done, even Justus seemed impressed.
“Were you and my grandmother friends at the Coventry School?” I asked Hallie.
“Not just friends,” Hallie replied. “We were kindred spirits. I was so lucky to find her. She was the only person I liked at that horrid school.”
“Horrid?” I said, surprised.
Hallie laughed. “Well, that’s how I thought of it at the time. I hated that they made us wear uniforms and expected us to act like ladies all the time. We had to learn how to pour tea, fold napkins, waltz, and cross our legs in the proper way,” she said, shaking her head. “I found it all intensely boring. But once I met Amanda, things got better. Your grandmother was
never boring!”
Hallie described how she had met Ama in eighth-grade geography class. “She knew the names of every capital city in Africa, and she was interested in them. She kept a list of all the places she wanted to visit. I started doing that, too. Amanda was more talkative and daring than I was, but we both shared a desire for travel and adventure.”
“Where did you want to go?” asked Camila.
“Everywhere!” Hallie’s face lit up. “I wanted to leave and never come home, to live abroad forever. Amanda’s goal was to travel to every country in the world. Naturally, neither of our families approved.”
“Why not?” asked Abby.
“Oh, many reasons,” said Hallie. “My family had been part of St. Louis society for a hundred years. They thought I should become a debutante, then get married and have children. They had my life all planned out for me, before it had even begun!” She laughed, but I could see sadness in her eyes. “Amanda’s father just didn’t understand her. His family had worked hard to come from Brazil to America when he was a youngster, so he couldn’t see why she would ever want to leave, even just to travel.”
“But you understood,” I said.
Hallie smiled her small, secret smile again, and nodded. “The year we were in school together, we talked about where we would go, and the adventures we would have.” She touched the compass around her neck, as if she was remembering.
“Where did you get that compass necklace?” I asked.
“One day, at a shop downtown, we found a pair of matching compasses,” she said. “We decided we would make them into necklaces and wear them forever. That way we would never forget our friendship and dreams. And when we first put them on, we promised to each other that no matter what happened, someday we would travel and explore.” Hallie gazed into the distance for a moment, the corners of her eyes crinkling at the memory.
“After Amanda moved away and the school closed, we lost touch. Still, I always remembered the promise we made—and I always wore this compass. It reminded me of what I really wanted—and gave me the strength to fulfill my dreams.” She looked up at me. “I hope your grandmother was able to do the same,” she said wistfully.
“She was,” I replied. I told Hallie a little about Ama’s adventures—and that no matter where she went, Ama always wore her compass necklace. Hallie smiled.
“Do you still have it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. When I told Hallie about how I gave the necklace away in Brazil to Yemanjá, the Goddess of the Sea, her eyes glistened.
“That sounds exactly like something Amanda would do,” she said, and put her hand lightly on mine.
“What about you?” Camila asked Hallie. “Did you have adventures?”
“Oh, yes,” Hallie said, and her face warmed with the memory. “After high school, I took the federal civil service exam and went to work for the U. S. State Department. I lived all over the world: Paris, Indonesia, Australia, Madagascar, and a few more places,” she said proudly. “Every time I moved to a new country I used to think to myself, maybe I’ll run into Amanda somewhere—in a cafe in Montmartre or perhaps on a beach in Sydney.”
“I had no idea your friendship was so special,” said Justus to Hallie. It sounded almost as if he was apologizing.
“It was,” said Hallie. “She inspired me—and I bet I’m not the only one she inspired. After all, Lea, you wanted to find me just because I was wearing Amanda’s compass necklace!” She squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers back, feeling a flood of affection.
Hallie’s eyes drifted to the old photo of herself. “Goodness, I was so young,” she said, sounding almost surprised.
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Sixteen,” Hallie replied. “It was my coming-out party as a debutante. My parents threw a big party at the Jewel Box to celebrate. I didn’t want one, of course. It seemed so old-fashioned and against everything that I believed in, but my mother insisted. Amanda wasn’t going to come, but I told her I could only stand it if she was there. So she borrowed one of my fancy dresses and she came.”
Hallie’s face clouded.
“That was the last time I saw her,” she said. “The Coventry School closed a few months later, and my parents sent me off to boarding school in Chicago.” She gazed at a vase of flowers on the mantel. Looking at the vase, I recognized the flowers.
“Copper irises!” I exclaimed. I pointed at the photo in Hallie’s hands. “You’re wearing a copper iris corsage here, and Ama mentioned them in her diary. She said they reminded her of your promise.”
Hallie’s face bloomed into a smile. “Yes. Amanda and I loved copper irises.”
“They’re on the mural at Coventry House, too!” said Camila.
“That’s right, I had forgotten that mural,” Hallie exclaimed. “I think that’s why we liked them so much. Also, the fleur-de-lis is patterned after the iris, so it reminded us of our friendship. In the language of flowers, you know, the iris symbolizes friendship.”
“Plus, you use the iris in your eye to see,” Abby chimed in, “and both of you wanted to see the world.”
“True,” Hallie said, chuckling, “although I don’t think we quite made that connection.” She smiled, and as she looked from Abby to Camila to me, she looked so happy, she almost seemed to glow. “Thank you girls for finding me,” Hallie said. “I’m so glad to know that Amanda fulfilled her dreams, just as I did.” Hallie sat back in her chair and sighed. She seemed tired all of a sudden.
I realized it had grown late. The sunset’s light was filling the room. Dad cleared his throat and said we should get going, but as I picked up my backpack, an idea struck me. “May I take your picture?” I asked.
Hallie nodded, pleased. I pulled out my camera from my backpack and showed Hallie where to stand, in front of the glass door so that she was backlit by the golden light of the setting sun. She didn’t even seem to mind when I adjusted her position a little.
“Lea,” said Dad, “we don’t want to take up all of Hallie’s time.”
“It’s fine,” Hallie said gently as I turned her another smidge. “I can tell that Lea is an artist.”
I switched on my flash, then stepped back and found Hallie in the viewfinder. The angle, the light, the compass necklace, and her expression…it was all exactly right.
I held my breath and took the picture.
n the last day of camp, I got up early to check my e-mail. The night before, I’d written to Zac and told him all about finding Hallie. I’d even e-mailed him the photo I’d taken of her, along with a scan of the original photo. I was betting he would think the whole story was pretty incredible, but when I checked my inbox, I had no new messages.
I tried not to let it get me down. Zac was really busy working at the animal sanctuary in Brazil. I knew he felt personally responsible for protecting the animals in the area, so I figured he was spending most of his time in the rainforest and probably just wasn’t going online much.
I was worried about Zac, but I tried to put it out of my mind as we drove to camp. The class was spending all day in the photo studio at COCA, printing and framing our two favorite photos to show at the end-of-camp exhibit that night. First, Ms. Garcia helped us all crop and adjust the color and saturation of our photos so they looked exactly the way we wanted. Then she printed the shots we’d chosen on the giant photo printer in the corner. The images were different sizes, but each one was printed on satin-smooth photography paper and laid out on a long table to dry.
“Wow. This looks amazing!” said Abby, staring at her photograph of the Clydesdale horses at Soulard Market. She was right: The horses looked as if they were going to jump off the paper at any moment, snorting and tossing their manes.
“Abby, we’ll start with your photo,” said Ms. Garcia. She selected a cream-colored mat board. As everyone gathered around, Ms. Garcia put the board facedown on a mat cutter. She set the razor-sharp cutting tool to the right width and length and sliced out an exact square from the middle in a
few quick strokes. She handed the finished mat frame to Abby, who fit the opening over her photo of the horses. It looked perfect.
One by one, Ms. Garcia cut different-colored mats for everyone’s pictures. My photo of Camila and Abby looking at the Coventry House mural got a pale lavender mat frame. Camila’s picture of me in front of the Arch got one in dove gray.
While Ms. Garcia supervised, we centered the photos in their mat frames and then secured them with tiny pieces of double-sided mounting tape. As I worked, Abby peeked over my shoulder. Now that the photo was blown up, you could see every detail. Camila and Abby tilted their faces up to the girls in the mural, as flakes of plaster swirled around them.
“Wow,” said Abby, in wonder. “I can’t believe I’m a part of such a beautiful picture.” My cheeks turned pink with pride.
The second photo I had selected to display was my portrait of Hallie wearing her compass necklace. When I’d shown it to Ms. Garcia, she’d suggested that we put the original photograph of Hallie from 1956 beside it. She even cut me a double mat for both pictures! When I lined up the mat frame over the portraits of Hallie, you could really see the similarities. Hallie at seventy-six stood the same way she did at sixteen, with her hands clasped at the waist. In both pictures her lips curved in the same warm, secret smile. She was beautiful at any age.
As my eyes moved from the older portrait to the one I’d taken, I felt a surge of pride that I’d been able to capture Hallie’s expression exactly the way I’d hoped.
“How’s it going?” Ms. Garcia asked, coming up to me.
I shrugged. “Okay, I think.”
Ms. Garcia looked over my prints with a sharp eye, and then gave an approving smile. “You’ve really grown this week, Lea—both your skills and your eye. Your work is beautiful. I’d like to submit both of your photos to be published in the COCA magazine, if that’s all right with you.”
I felt dazed. Behind her, Camila and Abby were nodding and giving me two silent thumbs-up.