Upstaged

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  I heard Camille calling Boris’s name. The other voices were fainter, but persistent.

  Between the sunflowers, errant groups of goldenrod had sprung up and the warm air was heavy with the sweet smell of earth. Bumblebees buzzed about the weeds, landing on frilly golden heads in search of nectar.

  We'd been walking and calling for Boris for about ten minutes, when the roar of a four-wheeler came from the west, headed in our direction. Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored the sound, assuming a neighbor boy was speeding along the sides of the field or down one of the wooded pathways. But circumstances had been far from normal over the past few weeks. I froze, hoping it wasn't the same rider who’d vandalized my property a week ago .

  The rumbling increased as it grew closer. Now there was no question, the vehicle was definitely headed in our direction. Adrenaline coursed through my blood and crazed thoughts raced through my brain.

  Is it the same crazy guy? Does he know we're in here? Was he watching us, maybe waiting to attack when we were separated, alone, and vulnerable?

  All the while I wondered who “he” was. Could Armand still be angry? Was it he who broke into Camille's house? Or was there some other predator out there, hiding in the background and hoping we'd attribute his misdeeds to the suspended teen?

  The noise stopped. The engine idled, and it sounded close to the point where we’d entered the sunflower forest.

  The growling resumed and accelerated. From the sound of it, the bastard was crashing through the sunflowers, getting closer by the second.

  I ran toward Camille's row. Sprinting through the flowers, I called her. “Camille!”

  I pushed aside the heavy stalks, smashing flowers underfoot. I heard her calling me back and finally reached her row. She froze about fifteen yards from me. We both saw the tops of the flowers going down beyond her.

  He’s coming.

  “Watch out!” I raced in her direction.

  The engine growled louder. I ran with all my might, pushing my legs until they burned. I grabbed her arm, pivoted, and dragged her away from the sound of the approaching monster. We flew along the row of flowers; the noise became deafening. I turned and pushed her behind me just as the vehicle crashed through the flowers and into view, heading straight for us.

  The man in the black nylon jacket and the shaded helmet came at us at full throttle.

  Temporarily paralyzed, I watched as the gap narrowed between us.

  My God. He's going to run us over.

  At the last second, I shoved Camille aside and leapt after her just as the vehicle flew past. Acrid exhaust filled the air.

  The rider kept going, flattening the crop in a straight line. He didn't stop, or turn around. I lay across Camille, my arms and legs akimbo and my face mashed into the dirt. I pushed myself off her and shook my head. She sat up and rubbed her forehead.

  “Is he gone?” she asked with a shaky voice.

  I helped her up and glanced down the wide trail he'd left behind. “I think so. Are you okay?”

  She brushed herself off. “No. I'm far from okay.” Her face crumpled and she began to cry into her hands.

  I wrapped my arms around her.

  She sobbed and her shoulders heaved. Her breath came in great, gasping gulps. “What if he comes back?”

  I smoothed her hair and rubbed her back. “He's gone now. It sounds like he's very far away. Listen.”

  The roar had become a faint buzz.

  She raised her tear-stained face to mine. “What's he trying to do, kill us?”

  I hushed her. “He couldn't be really intent on it, Camille, or he would've circled back. I think he's just trying to scare the heck out of us.”

  She sniffed and looked in the direction he'd fled. Reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulled out several worn tissues and wiped her eyes. “Well, it's certainly working.”

  Several of the teens had reached us, babbling questions with fear stamped on their faces. She calmed them down, then pocketed the tissues and linked arms with me, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Boris isn’t out here, Gus. Will you take me home? I just want to go home.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  O ne week later, Boris still hadn’t been found. In order to handle it, Camille had thrown herself into her work. But it hadn’t really helped, and from what she told me, she spent many a night crying herself to sleep.

  On this first Sunday in October, Maddy—ever the rescuing angel—had offered to take Camille shopping to help her forget about Boris and the unsettling events that’d plagued us over the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure it would help, but hoped for the best.

  A frost was predicted for the coming night. At ten in the morning, I stood at the edge of the garden with Max at my feet, watching Johnny chase a fat toad around the garden.

  I’d managed to get promises of help from the family. We needed to harvest the last of the tomatoes and peppers, and if I had help, we had a chance of getting it done before the frost hit. I looked out over the rows of red Russian kale, Swiss chard, and lacey dill that stretched forty feet along the short end of the garden, bordered by full rows of collard greens and Brussels sprouts. Most of these plants would be fine in the cold, and some—like the collards—would sweeten with the frost.

  We’d picked the last of the Silver King sweet corn weeks ago. Wheat-colored cornstalks stood upright in neat rows, their leaves rustling with a papery-brittle sound in the breeze.

  I stepped over the vines and fruit of the knobby Blue Hubbard squash, on the way to the tomato patch. We’d have enough green tomatoes to last for a few months. Wrapped in their nests of newspaper, they’d ripen slowly, deep in the cold cellar. As the season progressed, I’d eventually be forced back into buying hothouse tomatoes.

  I planned to stock the ripe tomatoes in the freezer for use later in the winter in spaghetti sauce, chili, soups, and crispy dishes of tomato scallop .

  Siegfried ambled out of the barn wearing a red and black checked woolen jacket and a tranquil expression on his face. Sheba, his adopted golden retriever, frolicked close behind. She licked his hand and ran circles around her savior.

  “Guten Tag .” Siegfried waved, causing Johnny to shriek his name.

  The boy raised his head from a bushy plant, plopped a cherry tomato in his mouth, and ran to his great uncle, arms outstretched. “Up, up, up!” he squealed, dancing up and down impatiently.

  Siegfried feigned ignorance, casting his gaze around the garden. “Do I hear something?” he teased in his strong accent. “I hear something, but I think it must be a bumblebee.”

  Johnny locked his arms around Siegfried’s tree-trunk legs and continued with the familiar game. “It is a bumblebee, it’s me, your kleine bumblebee!” he rhymed, never tiring of the game they invented together.

  Siegfried pretended to be surprised, lowering his arms to swoop the tiny boy into the air. “Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz—”

  He held Johnny horizontally, like a miniature airplane, twirling around and around while Johnny alternately giggled and buzzed with glee. Finally, Siegfried lifted the child onto his shoulders and approached me.

  “I’m up, Opa. I’m up high!”

  I reached up and squeezed his pudgy hand. “Yes, you are, you little bumblebee. You made it, didn’t you?”

  Siegfried gently lowered the boy to the ground, ruffled his honey-colored hair, and looked around the garden. “Professor?”

  “Yeah, Sig?”

  “I think you planted too many tomatoes this year.”

  “Sig.” I locked eyes with him. “You know you can never have too many tomatoes.”

  When he rolled his eyes and laughed, I chuckled too, knowing I’d overdone it. A hundred and twenty plants was forty more than my usual, but I’d been unable to resist the lure of the great varieties our local garden store had offered like Purple Cherokee, Brandywine, Papa Joe, Yellow Pear, and Beefmaster. We started to pick, and gently placed them in baskets and ultimately into the tractor cart parked on the side of the
garden.

  Freddie trotted out of the house without her coat, braving the cold with her arms wrapped around her stomach. She’d missed her last three ultrasounds, saying it was a waste of time and that she felt perfectly fine. We still didn’t know the sex of the baby, but were told it was still expected around Thanksgiving.

  She’d expanded much faster than predicted, and still experienced difficulty accepting the fact that her flexibility was impaired. Her doctor insisted she needed to slow down, and she’d reluctantly hired an assistant so she could reduce her hours at the clinic.

  “Dad?”

  I placed a plump Brandywine tomato in the basket and looked up. “Hi, sweetheart. Aren’t you cold?”

  She brushed off my concern. “I’m fine, Dad. Will you stop worrying about me?”

  I chuckled. “Not likely, hon.”

  “Oh, Dad.” She blew up a wisp of hair. “Do you know where Mrs. Pierce keeps the freezer bags?”

  I looked at my daughter shivering in the crisp autumn air with the child of a murderer growing inside her. A pang of sympathy rushed through me. Over the past few months she'd gradually begun to show small signs of recovery. The soft nightly crying had diminished in frequency, and color had started to come back into her cheeks.

  “They’re under the sink, sweetheart. Next to the trash bags.”

  “Oh! I didn’t even think of looking there.”

  I laughed, slipping my arm around her shoulders. Freddie was a brilliant veterinarian and a good mother to Johnny, but she was lost in the kitchen. The last time she tried to cook for us, we had eaten charred grilled cheese sandwiches and lumpy tomato soup.

  “We’ll be in soon, sweetheart. Just hold on and we’ll all pitch in, okay?”

  She smiled, nodded in relief, and hurried back to the house.

  My attention was drawn to the garden, where Max and Sheba raced noisily through the pepper plants, chasing each other. “C’mon you guys! Out of the garden!” I groaned. “At least wait ‘til we’ve picked the peppers.”

  Both dogs flew over the asparagus bed, oblivious to my commands. After several more rounds of tag, they both collapsed on the yellow leaves under the maple tree with their tongues lolling and eyes shining.

  Siegfried, Johnny and I piled the vegetables into baskets in the back of the tractor cart. When it was done, Johnny climbed onto my lap and enjoyed his ride back to the house. Siegfried walked beside us with long-legged strides.

  Once we moved the production into the kitchen, each person was assigned a job. Johnny sat on the floor, wrapping green tomatoes in newspaper and carefully placing them in a wooden crate. Freddie stood at the sink, washing the ripe tomatoes. I dropped them whole with their skins into freezer bags with sprigs of oregano and basil. No blanching for me. It entailed so much work, and I’d probably not freeze if I had to go through all that trouble. Luckily an old farmer down the road had given me this tip, and I’d popped them fresh into freezer bags for years now, with great success in later months when I made chili, tomato soup, or scalloped tomatoes.

  Siegfried carried the last of the heavy cartons down to the freezer and to the cold room, and we adjourned to the great room to watch a family favorite, Corrina, Corrina . Mrs. Pierce returned at four-thirty from her weekend stay at her sister’s home in Syracuse and sat beside the fireplace with her knitting, updating us with the latest gossip. At five-thirty, we dined on corned beef and cabbage. It had been simmering since early afternoon and was melt-in-your-mouth tender .

  The phone rang just as we finished. Mrs. Pierce resumed her housekeeper duties and answered with her typical greeting. “LeGarde residence. How may I help you?” She paused for a second. “Hello, Camille. I’m fine, thanks. ‘N you? Are your ribs better? Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. Yes, he’s right here.”

  She handed me the phone and I placed it to my ear. “Hello?” I was surprised to hear from her since she planned to spend the day shopping with her mother.

  “Hi, Gus! How did your freezing go?” She sounded like herself for the first time in a week.

  “Just fine, sweetheart. We finished up around three-thirty. How about you? Have fun shopping?” I smiled into the phone when she answered enthusiastically.

  “Oh gosh, yes! We found everything we needed and even stumbled onto a few incredible sales.”

  My attention wandered when she started to reel off each item, in painstaking detail, with original price, marked down price, and final slashed-to-the-bone price.

  “Gus? Are you there?”

  I tried to recoup. I had tuned her out for the last few items. “Of course, honey. That’s nice. Um, what were you saying?”

  “Oh Gus, you’re hopeless!” she laughed. “I asked if you’d like to come visit Shelby with me tonight? I think it’s time you meet her, don’t you? Rehearsals will begin running every day pretty soon, and I won’t have much time to see her during the next few weeks.”

  I agreed readily. I’d been thinking a great deal about Shelby, and was anxious for an introduction.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  T he long brick building sat primly behind well-manicured shrubs. Bronze and burgundy chrysanthemums lined the walkways in neat triads. Strategically placed pumpkins smiled from the middle of each floral group. Young maple trees, cloaked in yellow leaves, bordered the parking lot in straight rows. In the gloomy gray afternoon light, they resembled pop-up book figures.

  Camille and I walked along the predictably boring walkways. I thought of my own chaotic gardens and the satisfaction I’d found in the sprawling, spontaneous plots of color. The tidiness and rigid designs of corporate landscapes made me yawn.

  We passed through polished glass doors and stood in the front vestibule, entering a world of gleaming antique furniture and Oriental rugs. Original oil paintings of forests and fields covered the walls, feeling oddly familiar. Pastel colors glimmered from the dark walls. I wondered if Lillian Watson, my new favorite artist from Hammondsport, had painted them.

  We approached the front desk and checked in. The pretty black woman who assisted us had a voice as soothing as the rich décor. Camille introduced her as Amelia. I shook her hand and murmured an appropriate greeting.

  Camille chatted with Amelia for a few minutes. I continued to admire the paintings on the wall while I waited for her, wondering how much this upper class place charged to house a comatose patient.

  We headed down a marble-floored hallway toward the west wing of the facility. Camille stopped in front of the closed door for Suite 201 and slowly pushed inside. Lights blinked from the bank of elaborate devices that dimly illuminated the inside of the room. She flipped a light switch and headed for the bed .

  The girl lay in a narrow hospital cot attached to various monitoring devices. Her hair had been recently brushed. She wore a clean nightgown and her delicate hands lay still on the crisp white sheets. The room was comfortably warm. I realized in a flash why Camille had chosen this particular facility. The place was immaculate.

  She pulled two chairs to the side of the bed. I sat beside her, noticing the striking resemblance between mother and daughter. Shelby’s heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, dark curly hair, and the pretty little mouth were nearly identical to her mother’s. The likeness was remarkable. I wondered if she had Camille’s chestnut eyes, but didn’t have the courage to ask.

  “Shelby,” Camille said. “I want you to meet someone. This is Gus. You know, the one I told you about?”

  I glanced at Camille, not sure what she wanted me to do.

  “Go ahead, Gus. Just talk to her. It’s part of her arousal therapy. I’m convinced that she hears us.” She took my hand. “It’s been documented that some people in comas can hear and feel everything, they just can’t respond.”

  I smiled uncertainly and turned to her daughter. “Um, hello, Shelby. Your mom’s told me a lot about you.”

  Camille took my hand and placed it on Shelby’s hand. “Go ahead, honey. They say touch is an important part of making contact with the person
locked inside.”

  I nudged my seat closer and picked up Shelby’s warm, limp hand. What did one say to a fifteen-year-old who had only experienced six years of life on this earth? I hesitated, and then went for safe ground. “Well, Shelby, what should we talk about? Would you like to hear about my grandson, Johnny?”

  I glanced at Camille.

  She smiled encouragement, and rose to switch on a CD player. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony filled the room.

  I spoke for fifteen minutes, relating funny stories about the two-and-a-half-year-old tornado who lived in my house. I patted the back of her hand as I spoke, squeezing it gently every so often .

  Camille nodded toward the equipment. “She’s breathing by herself now, and has opened her eyes and blinked occasionally. I’ve researched her condition online, Gus, and there are actually several documented cases of patients reawakening after many years of being comatose.”

  I saw Camille’s hopeful expression and was saddened. It had been nine long years since the accident. Siegfried had come around three months after his childhood catastrophe. I couldn’t imagine anyone emerging from a coma after such a long period of time, and I wondered about the integrity of the hospital staff that encouraged such hope, particularly when substantial sums of money were involved.

  I sighed and turned back to Shelby. Her angelic face looked peaceful. The resemblance to Camille was so strong, I began to feel a connection to her. I sat quietly watching mother and daughter together, and the cynicism playing in my mind began to fade. The girl looked so alive, so real, so very much in the present. I realized if the decision had been mine to make, I would have waited for her to wake up, too. If there was the slightest possibility that Shelby could recover...

  After an hour of reading from a Nancy Drew mystery, repeating multiplication tables, and giving a filtered synopsis of current events, Camille bent over and gave Shelby a long, warm embrace. She kissed her snow-white cheeks and lovingly rearranged her hair. I heard her whisper in Shelby’s ear. “Come back to me, baby. I miss you so much .”