He looked alarmed. “Is this because of this morn…?”
She was quick to shake her head. “No, I no longer need it,” she assured him.
He immediately looked relieved as he accepted it at face value. “If there is anything else I can do for…”
“Retrain,” she said abruptly and turned to go, smiling once more at the glaring Kim.
Mueller looked down at the key he was still holding and then up at the stylish blonde leaving his lobby. He didn’t like the omens. She’d not said much, but taking her possessions out of the safety deposit box didn’t bode well. He looked around the lobby at the tellers and spotted the one named Kim. He began to walk behind the counter towards her…
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Joy found a one-hour photo and had reproductions of her photos made. While she was there, she had another passport photo made, a current one. She also stopped at a department store to get frames for the copies of her photos; the extra copies she would keep separate. The originals she’d prefer to keep somewhere safe since this was the only link she had with her parents. With that in mind, she went down to the First Bank building and opened another safety deposit box account, tucking them away along with her paperwork. She kept her birth certificate as she headed down to the federal building and applied for a new passport before returning to the bank, returning the paperwork, and opening a new checking and savings account. The manager hurried over to help with these accounts when she wrote a million-dollar check without even blinking.
“I will be wanting to use the bank address for a few things,” she informed him. She noted he had no problem keeping his respect, calling her Ms. Parker instead of Joy. She teased him with, “I may want to open more accounts,” but it was not the accounts, it was the amount that had him salivating. After spending the rest of her morning in the new bank arranging a further transfer of funds and accounts, she concluded her business.
Feeling a little nostalgic after enjoying the cool spring Wisconsin day, she decided to head to the hotel, get her car, and head up to Bayshore. It would be interesting to see how it had changed.
* * * * *
“I swear to you, I saw Joy!” Patricia was on her cell phone to Randall.
“What the hell would she be doing in Milwaukee?” he asked. He’d pretty much given up on the idea that she would return. Those damned private investigators had cost them a mint and Stu hadn’t paid his full share.
“I was window shopping in Bayshore and I know I saw her!”
“It’s probably someone who looked like her,” he argued.
“Then Mom is alive and well, about thirty-seven years younger, and shopping in Bayshore!” she retorted sarcastically.
“She looks like Mom?” he asked, suddenly interested…and a little hopeful. If they could just…talk to her.
“I swear I did a double take when I saw her. She looks just like that picture Mom took at Christmas the year before she had Joy,” she assured him.
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m following her. I couldn’t let her get away.”
Randall knew he couldn’t get away from work to go see himself or to follow her. “Can you call Cece or Stu?”
“Why?”
“So they can help you follow her?” he said in a tone that implied she was stupid. This was the first lead they’d had in years. Now they knew she looked like Mom, it would be easier to find her. That had been one of the things that last P.I. had pointed out—she had changed and they didn’t have a current address or picture.
“Oh, yeah, right,” she answered, realizing that would have been obvious. “I’ll call Cece. She doesn’t do anything, she’s only a housewife,” she said in a disparaging tone. Had Cecelia heard her, she would have given her a piece of her mind over that remark.
“Call her and I’ll call Stu. Maybe he can catch up with you,” he sounded excited for the first time in a while. The thought of getting their hands on some of that money always excited them. That’s why the disappointment was always worse.
They soon hung up and both called their respective siblings. “Oh, c’mon, I think you are wishful thinking,” Cecelia told her when she heard the story.
“No, I swear it’s her,” Patricia tried to convince her. “I love that picture of Mom and she looks just like her!”
“I don’t know. We have baseball…” she began, sounding whiny.
“What’s more important? Another friggin’ boring kid’s baseball game or…” she let it hang. They all knew they wanted to find Joy to demand their fair share of the money she had come into. They deserved it. After all, they were her sisters and brothers and she should share. The thought of millions had all of them dreaming from time to time.
“Oh, all right. I’ll meet you at the…”
“I can’t meet you, I’m following her! You have to find me!”
“Oh, yeah, right,” she said, disappointed, used to commanding her little sister. “This better not be a false alarm,” she threatened warningly.
“It isn’t. I’ll wait until you get here before I confront her, um, I mean approach her,” she amended quickly. She shouldn’t have called them. It might have been better if she had approached Joy on her own. They had been friendlier at one time than the rest. She was only fourteen years older than her. She glanced at the blonde woman again…she had never looked like that.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll call you back,” Cecelia told her and hung up the phone, pulling herself up from the couch so she could put on some clothes to go out. ‘Bayshore! What the hell was Patty doing there? Pretentious shit!’ she complained to herself as she changed out of her food-stained sweats and into something presentable. It took her nearly half an hour to get out of the house and another hour to get across town to Bayshore.
* * * * *
“What? Are you sure that’s what Patty said?” Stewart asked disbelievingly.
“Yes, she said she was window shopping at Bayshore and saw someone who looked just like Mom!” He sounded more excited than he had in a long time.
“Well, they both had the same blonde hair,” he answered musingly as he thought. “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, go there. I can’t get away from work,” he hissed angrily. He should know what was at stake.
“What, you want me to take my van and kidnap her?” he joked, but he was only half joking.
“No, you need to convince her to come to a family gathering or something. Make it up if you have to, but get her here so we can reason with her. There is no reason she can’t share all that money.”
Sighing heavily, Stewart had heard it hundreds of times. He was sick of it. There was no way they were going to get their hands on any of that money. It was Joy’s, and after seeing a copy of that will he was pretty sure she wouldn’t share. Still…if they could coerce her, maybe threaten her…she had been a crybaby. He was basing his memories on a little girl that he remembered, not the woman she had become. Still, he agreed to head across town to the mall, cursing Patty for having gone window shopping. She was probably delusional.
* * * * *
“I’m over by the department store,” Patty told Cecelia on her cell phone.
“Where? I don’t see you,” she whined, sounding out of breath.
Patty told her, but Cecelia still couldn’t seem to find her. They spent a fruitless fifteen minutes going back and forth as Cecelia tried to find her, finally figuring out she was at the wrong end of the mall, and heading towards the other end.
“Shit, it looks like she’s getting ready to leave,” Patty told her. “Hurry up, I want to confront her!”
“I’m coming as fast…’scuse me…as I can,” she panted. She was waddling as fast as her fat little legs could take her. Too many children in too many years and too little activity had caught up with her. She’d made no effort to lose the excess weight either. She was already sweating and not even halfway down the mall.
“I’m going to stop her in front of the department store.
You should spot us there.”
“Wait, don’t hang up! I don’t see…” but she was too late, Patty had hung up the phone.
* * * * *
“Joy? Is that you?” Patty asked in front of the store as Joy walked out, desperate to keep the tall, leggy blonde from leaving. She even managed to make it sound like she was surprised. She’d been nervous to approach her, but she was certain, after watching her all this time, that it was Joy. She looked too much like their mother for her not to be. She just wanted backup and wished Cece would hurry. Even Stu was on his way according to the text she had gotten from Randy.
Joy looked up. She had had a marvelous afternoon visiting the stores she had purchased from so long ago. She had even found a couple of things. None of these stores compared to the haute couture stores she had frequented with her friends in Europe, but good quality items were to be recognized and purchased when you found them. She had had a weird sensation similar to how she had felt in San Antonio when footage of her shopping here all those years ago was shown on the television…almost as though she were being filmed…or watched. She had looked around a couple of times as she shopped, but hadn’t seen anything and continued to enjoy herself as she looked around at how much everything had changed. As someone talked to her, asking her if she were Joy, the breath seemed to stop in her chest for a moment. She blinked uncomprehendingly for that moment, as though the woman was speaking a foreign tongue. The woman looked familiar, and yet, not. It was understandable that it took her a moment, several moments in fact, to realize who the woman was.
It had been twelve years since she had seen her older sister. Patricia had been fourteen when Joy was born and twenty-eight when she last saw her. Now, at forty, Joy saw the years had not been kind to her. As she realized who it was, she was taken aback. “Patricia?” she asked formally, her pearl tones evident in her voice.
Now it was Patty’s turn to be taken aback. Few used her full name and no one she knew sounded like this. For a moment she thought she had been mistaken. She was almost hesitant to continue her plan, but she knew she had to, even if it was fake. “Oh, my gawd, I’d have never recognized you! Look at you! You look just like Mom!” That was probably the only true thing she was about to say. “Do you live here now?” she got right to the question she had been wondering about. It was obvious Joy knew the mall and the stores she shopped in. Patty had been too overwhelmed by the prices to actually shop in many, but the window displays told her she could never hope to afford these boutiques.
“No, I’m in town on business,” she confessed, feeling uncomfortable. This meeting was unplanned and unwelcome. Still, she was in Milwaukee and she supposed it was possible to run into her sister. However, she was in Glendale, and she was certain by the clothes that Patty was wearing that she did not shop here.
“Oh, what kind of business are you in?” she asked falsely, not caring in the least. Anything to keep Joy talking and give Cece a chance to catch up, maybe detain her further, maybe get more information out of her so they could know how to proceed. Asking her for money right at that moment wouldn’t go over well.
Joy smiled. She had been pumped for information by some of the best people over the years. People were insatiably curious and always after information. She was not a novice at this. “Oh, this and that,” she answered noncommittally. “How about you? What are you up to?”
“I was window shopping actually and thought I saw you. It’s amazing how you’ve grown,” she thought she sounded sincere; it did to her ears. “When I saw your face, I thought Mom had come back to life,” she joked. She saw the flash of pain cross Joy’s face, but it was gone so fast she thought she had imagined it.
Joy had felt the pain of her sister bringing up their shared mother. She thought it inappropriate and crass. After all, the death of their parents had ripped Joy’s comfortable world apart.
“I’m meeting Cece for a late lunch,” she improvised. “Would you like to join us? Catch up, perhaps?” She thought it rather clever of her for coming up with that offer.
“No, thank you,” Joy shut her down. She was not going to apologize, she was not going to explain. She also had no desire to associate with her sisters. Questions were inevitably going to be asked and she could tell that her sister was dying to pump her for information. Having seen the TV news about her ‘beloved family’ looking for her, she was sure they wanted money from her. She wouldn’t be buying them even a lunch.
“How about dinner then?” she was starting to feel desperate. Where the hell was Cece? She could sense that Joy was dismissing her, about to leave.
“No, I’m sorry,” she mentally kicked herself for apologizing, even to be polite. “I have a meeting,” she made an excuse, again berating herself for even bothering.
“I’m sure Cece would like to see you too. She was to meet me…” she began, just to delay Joy’s leaving. She made a great show of looking around. “Oh, there she is! Cece!” She began waving her down.
* * * * *
As Cece waddled as fast as she could through the mall, she kept having to excuse herself as she bumped into people. People were looking at her haste and annoyed by her behavior. She was really out of breath and dying to stop her rush. Still, she kept on gamely, the prize not too far away. She could see the large department store sign at the end of the mall and hurried towards it. Seeing Patty talking to a tall leggy blonde, she was furious. She had rushed for this? That was not Joy! There was no way that could be their little sister. Patty had played an awful trick on them all! Randy was going to be pissed. As she got closer, Patty spotted her and started waving madly, calling to her and creating a spectacle. Cece flushed, not only from her exertions, but from the embarrassment and anger she was feeling. She charged up, ready to give her ‘little’ sister a piece of her mind. Had anyone realized that was her intent, they would have cautioned her against it, she couldn’t afford to lose any of her mind. “Dammit, Patty…” she began, puffing up in her need to chastise her sister.
“Cece!” Patty interrupted with feigned delight. She recognized the light of battle in her older sister’s eyes, she’d seen it often enough over the years. “Look who I ran into,” she faked that too, as if neither of them knew. “It’s Joy!” She gestured at the tall blonde that looked nothing like her two shorter, and one much larger sister.
Cece stopped her tirade before she even had a chance to voice it as she looked at the tall blonde straight on. It was their mother reincarnated…only…more beautiful and definitely more poised. Her jowly jaw dropped open in surprise. “Joy?” she asked disbelievingly, at least her surprise was not feigned. She blinked several times, stunned at what she was seeing.
“Hello, Cecelia,” Joy responded politely, but she wouldn’t add, ‘it’s nice to see you’ since she couldn’t mean it. She was feeling even more uncomfortable. She had thought the years had been unkind to Patty, but to see what Cece looked like was really sad. She had turned into the snide, piggish person she had been when Joy was a child. It was obvious in her body, even her face reflected her personality. She looked so decidedly…bovine. More cow than pig, she analyzed sadly. Joy wondered how quickly she could get out of the mall and away from these unpleasant people. She realized she was related to them, but had no desire to continue that association in any way.
“My God, you look just like Mom!” she finally brought her jaw up to gasp. She stared, an unblinking big-eyed stare that was uncomfortable to look at. Joy towered over her.
Joy smiled and answered in a modulated tone, unlike Cece who had practically shouted at her. “That seems to be the common consensus.”
“Doesn’t she though?” Patty gushed, trying to convey something with her eyes to Cece, but not able to catch her attention. She was again staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the tall woman.
There was an uncomfortable silence and no one was apparently willing to fill it. Someone bumped into Cece, probably someone she had knocked out of her way in her attempt to rush. She was still breathing ha
rd and said nastily to the person, “Well, excuse me!”
The person mumbled something, but kept right on going. It gave Joy an opening and she used it to finally speak.
“Well, I’ve got to be going. My meeting,” she glanced at Patty to confirm. Normally she would have added, “Have a nice day,” or “See you again,” but since she did not mean either of those two things, she did not add them at all. “Goodbye,” she said rather abruptly and turned to go, her packages in her arms. She hadn’t held out her hand to shake either of the two women’s hands and it played in her mind momentarily, but she mentally shrugged it off. They wouldn’t understand bad manners anyway.
“Wait!” Patty said, alarmed. She went to reach for Joy’s arm, but stopped short of doing so. She looked at Cece desperately, hoping her older sister could come up with something to keep Joy there longer.
Joy looked back, distressed, first at the tone and then at the volume. She glanced around at the people now staring. She kept her face carefully schooled, not letting on about her alarm or her annoyance. “Yes?”
“Well, how do we reach you?” Patty scrambled for something to ask.
“Yes, it’s been too long. We should have dinner at least,” Cece recovered enough to ask. Her fake tone belied the words and Joy was quick to pick up on it.
“No, thank you,” she said pleasantly, but there was a steel in her voice that told them in no uncertain terms not to ask again. She turned and simply walked away, leaving the two women gasping like fish out of water.
“We have to go after her,” Patty gasped.
“And say what? It’s obvious she doesn’t want to have anything to do with us. The nerve, that stuck-up…” she began and a torrent of unflattering terms came out of her mouth. She didn’t realize how her voice carried, didn’t see the startled glances of other shoppers.
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