Janie Face to Face (28 page)

She spotted a paperback, set the leaf carefully in the middle of the book, and balanced a heavy cardboard box on top of it. Pressure was supposed to draw the moisture out of the leaf and into the pages.

Maybe the leaf would dry out and she could frame it.

“Janie!” her sister yelled. “We’re ready!”

Jonathan Spring watched his girls. Such a treat to have all three of them together.

He had gotten used to missing Janie, but Jodie’s absence had been hard. He had not had a moment to talk to Jodie and find out about Haiti. Jodie was his scrappy one, quick to anger. There was a difference in her now. She seemed easier, somehow.

And Janie—he was at a loss to understand how Janie could have gone in literally two or three hours from that Michael
guy to Reeve. Women were amazing. Michael turned out to be a sleaze, so Janie hopped a plane and took the old boyfriend back.

Sealed the deal too. No more dating.

Nope.

Marriage.

Jonathan Spring had studied that video. Reeve was the one who proposed. So there was no understanding men, either.

Basically, love was insane.

His eyes turned to his wife.

How tenderly, how carefully Donna lifted the long pink cardboard box that held her wedding gown, as if her life would break if she dropped it.

How anxiously and eagerly she peeled back the seal. Holding her breath, she eased the thirty-year-old gown out of its box.

Jonathan remembered how in love he had been then. Not the soft old love of thirty years. But the pulsing, breath-stealing love when every glimpse of your bride was treasure.

He had been praying that Janie would have the love he and Donna had.

Now he changed his mind.

He wanted the love Janie and Reeve had.

To Janie’s eye, the gown was a little tacky. It had too much tulle and too much sash. Too much ruffle around the neckline. But her mother was misty, soothing its lines with her fingers and caressing its satin with her palm.

Carefully they unfolded the gown, shaking it gently. It didn’t even need to be pressed.

We’re the same size, thought Janie. Because she really is my mother. I really did get my bones and my shoulders and my complexion and my hair from her. “May I try it on?” she asked.

“For sure
I
can’t wear it anymore,” said her mother. “I’m back in shape, but I’m not
that
back in shape!”

Janie slid into the gown.

Her father gasped. “Oh, Donna! I’m gonna break down. She’s you.”

Her mother did break down. “I was so happy that day. When I walked into the church and I saw your father wearing a tuxedo for the first time in his life, so nervous and standing so straight and swallowing so hard—oh, Janie! I wanted to fly down the aisle and hold him tight. It was all I could do to walk the way we did then. Hesitation step, it was called. I’ve always wondered about that. If you hesitate to walk down the church aisle, you better not go.”

“My name is Jennie,” she said, “and I don’t hesitate.”

Jodie wanted to laugh. The wedding gown was so dated. It was a dress an unsophisticated teenage girl would pick if she wanted to look like Cinderella. It fit Janie perfectly, and of course Janie would be cute in anything, but the dress was hopeless.

Next, their mother lifted from the box a circlet of gold leaves and beaded flowers from which a vast puff of tulle sprang out. It looked like a halo imploding.

Lovingly, she tucked Janie’s hair back, and adjusted the tulle around Janie’s head and shoulders. Donna Spring was weeping.

Jonathan Spring was wiping his eyes.

Jodie rolled her own eyes.

“I’m going to wear this instead,” said Janie.

“When?” said Donna. “Instead of what?”

“For my wedding. I’m going to wear your gown.”

Jodie was appalled. “But you chose such a lovely gown! Number seven was perfect. We pick it up tomorrow!”

“I can cancel that. I want my marriage to last. Mom and Dad’s marriage lasted. I’m going to wear the dress that started the good marriage.”

Stephen was dumbfounded by Jodie’s most recent message and photograph. Janie was going to wear their mother’s old gown?

Even to him—and his knowledge of fashion hovered around zero—that gown was from some other century.

But then, everything about a wedding was from some other century. Stephen tried to think only of weddings and flight plans. He might have just taken the biggest flight of his life, riding away from Kathleen.

He felt sick and shaky.

He thought of going to the Mug, because it was nearby and because coffee always settled him down. But he and Kathleen usually went together. The waitress would bring Kathleen’s mug to the table along with his, expecting them to meet.

He headed to Starbucks, feeling like a traitor.

Two times in an hour: traitor to Kathleen, traitor to the Mug.

Kathleen wandered in various boutiques. Considered various kinds of food. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face the photos of Stephen and the silly sweet souvenirs of dating.

After a while, she returned to the home of the second Hannah, the one thin enough to seem right, with the New York accent that seemed wrong. Stephen had not shown this woman the photographs. He had just asked if she knew Tiffany Spratt.

This time, the woman was standing in her doorway. She was very tall. She could not be Hannah, who was five foot five.

I am so stupid, thought Kathleen. The list of possibles really was just bait. There’s no link anywhere to anything.

She felt sick and embarrassed. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“You back?” said the woman. “What kind of scam you trying to pull?”

“
Somebody
is trying to pull off a scam,” said Kathleen. “I just don’t know who or why. I need your help.”

“I don’t know nothing.”

“But somehow, I think you are connected. May I show you a few photographs? Could you tell me if you’ve ever seen these people?”

The woman lit a cigarette. She barely glanced at the two photos.

Kathleen said timidly, “Could you really study them? In case maybe you worked with one of these women once, or lived nearby, or—I don’t know—were in a club with her or something?”

“A club?” repeated the woman contemptuously. “I never been in any club.” But she did take the photographs and she did study them.

Time passed.

The woman stood staring at Hannah young and Hannah old. Her cigarette burned by itself and the ash fell. Slowly she raised her eyes and stared at Kathleen.

The woman didn’t blink, didn’t even seem to breathe.

The glittering eyes looked crazy.

“I’ll keep these,” said the woman.

Kathleen was suddenly aware that it was late, and dark, and she was in a bad neighborhood. “Thanks for your help,” she said, and leapt onto her bicycle and fled.

Reeve was at home, sprawled in front of his television. He had muted the game and dozed through the wedding gown discussion, barely managing to match each photo on his cell with Janie’s verdict.

“Jennie,” she reminded him. “This is the third time tonight you forgot.”

Reeve clicked the TV off. Even mute, it was sucking up too much attention. “Listen, Janie,” he said. “I’ve loved you a long time, and the girl I love is Janie. I was with Janie when she went to New Jersey for the first time and saw her real family. I drove Janie there. I knew the same minute Janie did that her
true name was Jennie. And I was there when she fled being Jennie, and turned away from the fact and the family of Jennie. She came home Janie still. It tore her heart in half.” He paused for breath. “As for my heart, maybe someday in my heart you’ll be Jennie, but if I could engrave a name on my wedding rings, it would be Janie, cut deep into the gold so I could trace it with my finger. So if I get the name wrong, and sometimes I still say Janie instead of Jennie, it’s because I love Janie. I love everything about her. Including the fact that her name isn’t Janie.”

When she and Reeve were finally off the phone, Janie repeated her names to herself: Janie Johnson. Jennie Spring.

In that old horror of finding that she was a kidnap victim—She! Janie! Child of Frank and Miranda Johnson!—she had clung to her Janie name as if to a life raft.

Slippage into the Spring family began the very first weekend she was there, and from the first she stomped it out, as if it were a spreading fire.

The Springs had surrendered on the name front, and they too called her Janie. When she left them, they wrote to her and telephoned her as Janie Johnson. How glad they would be when Janie Johnson no longer existed.

Perhaps there are actually two Janie Johnsons, she thought. There’s the creation of Hannah, a fiction born of crime. I never want to be that Janie again. But there’s another Janie Johnson. The happy girl who really was the daughter of Frank and Miranda. The good daughter. A person I’m proud of.

And now, for a few days, I am Jennie Spring. A name like ice on a hot day. A name that will melt and be gone. I will
have been my real self for less than two weeks when I become a third person.

Jennie Shields.

A stranger. We haven’t met yet, because she won’t exist until I’m married. Jennie Shields. Even if my husband calls me Janie.

Janie found herself laughing and dancing.

Husband
, she thought. Such a beautiful word.

Miranda Johnson and Mrs. Shields had left for Connecticut. Jodie and her mother were cleaning up the kitchen. “I’m afraid,” said Donna Spring.

Although their lives had been ruled by fear, Jodie had never heard her mother say such a thing out loud. “Afraid the flowers won’t come?” she said flippantly. “Afraid the weather will be bad?”

“Afraid for Janie. The theory is that a true crime book will shake loose information about the Javensen woman, but what if it actually shakes Janie loose?”

“She’s not hanging on by a thread, Mom. And Reeve is one of those protective types. Janie will be fine.”

“You know what amazes me?” said her mother. “Janie, with her tragic history, is not considering for one moment that tragedy could lie ahead. She sees nothing but joy ahead. It’s as if she didn’t learn anything from the past.”

“She learned everything from the past,” said Jodie. “She learned to put it behind her. She’s rejoicing in the moment. It’s what I learned in Haiti, Mom. The children and the nuns were so wise. They could rejoice in any tiny thing—the joy
of seeing a friend approaching eclipsed the tragedy around them.”

Her mother was staring at her.

“What’s wrong?” said Jodie.

“Nothing’s wrong. You grew up, didn’t you? Haiti matured you.”

“I wasn’t immature before,” said Jodie irritably.

“Let’s not bicker.”

“I love to bicker,” said Jodie. “It’s why marriage is going to be a problem for me. Janie will agree with everything Reeve says and go along with everything Reeve wants, but I’d be bickering the whole time.” She giggled. “Still, I’m hoping to meet Mr. Right at the wedding. I’m looking for a guy who is adorable, strong, smart, launching an interesting career, and never bickers, because bickering will be my job.”

On his way home, Brendan drank in the city.

The rush of people, the cacophony of voices and horns and engines and construction and music, was strengthening.

He loved New York.

He strode down the sidewalks the way everybody else did: going fast, with a plan. His only plan was to get the express bus to New Jersey while everybody else was probably planning to conquer the world, but still. However minor it might be, he too had a plan.

It made him grin, and suddenly he was happy.

Once he was back in New Jersey, he dutifully looked at Janie in some puffy dress and said hi to Nicole and ate leftover pizza. He retreated to his room when the girls began
a lengthy gown recap, and watched a game on his iPad on MLB.com.

I guess I’m going to be a spectator, not a pro, he thought. I think I can still be happy.

The word “happy” buzzed in his brain.
The Happy Kidnap
.

Brendan’s hair prickled.

His mouth dried out.

His heart raced.

From the very first reading, the writing had seemed female.

There were a lot of women to consider. His mother. Janie. Jodie. Miranda. Sarah-Charlotte. Lizzie. Kathleen.

None of them felt right.

But there was one other woman.

Hannah
.

All conditions were right. Witnesses, darkness, weakness—these tilted in Hannah’s favor. An older man, definitely not one of Boulder’s athletes, trudged up to the ATM Hannah was watching. He inserted his card, entered his numbers as if it took the last of his strength, took his card back, and counted the stack of bills.

He was afraid of Hannah’s knife. She was disappointed when he just gave her the wallet. He left the way he had come and she went the other way, peeling off her outer layer of clothing and her enveloping scarf. In a moment she was slim and beautiful and young again. Nobody could ever recognize her as the person at the ATM.

She was invincible.

Why had it taken so long to assert herself? Once she jettisoned that silly thing called caution, it was easy. She just had to act casual, as if she belonged, and of course, now that she was slim and beautiful and young again, she did belong.

When she got home, she counted the money.

She was beside herself. All that risk! All that planning! And the bills were just twenties. They hardly added up to anything!

She would have to do this over and over.

Which had a certain appeal.

She was not a person who wasted time. When she had a brilliant idea, she ran with it. By noon the next day, she had pulled off three more ATM events. People saw her knife and they gave her everything.

Safely back home, she counted her twenties again and again.

There were so many possibilities for this money. Yes, the original plan. But she was getting tired of the original plan. It was actually very hard to write all those pages. Each page seemed to say the same things she had said on the previous page. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t had the advantages other writers had. It was so unfair. But now she had new plans. She tried to sort out her plans, but they meshed and separated and wriggled around in her brain.