All Your Pretty Dreams (25 page)

He didn’t look
back.

——

Isabel didn’t sleep this
time. She was being driven along the same route, in reverse,
returning to Red Vine. By a different man. His car was a lot nicer—
and faster. A late model BMW with leather seats.

Duncan Ellicott was slight
with a spiky haircut and a girlish mouth. She’d taken an instant
dislike to him. A frat brother of Will’s, loaded. Duncan had just
returned from a job in Paris in banking, taking some time off. Or
fired or downsized. More important, he was available. Daria and
Will were hoping she’d fall for this playboy with the hot car,
unbuttoned designer shirt and no-need-for-a-job. Her family still
did not understand her at all.

Isabel pulled her notebook
from her backpack at her feet. She could at least spend this time
getting ready to lecture for the first week in Professor Mendel’s
freshman biology class. The professor had emailed the syllabus and
her notes. The thought of lecturing in front of two hundred
freshmen made her palms sweat.

She’d hoped to get a ride
to Red Vine Saturday or Sunday. Her father had talked her out of
it. There would be no mechanics open on the weekend and she’d just
spin her wheels in that dumpy motel. She was going to rent a car
but found she wasn’t quite old enough.

At least Duncan wasn’t much
of a talker. No wonder he hadn’t charmed any French women. When he
did say something it was about himself or his car, his two favorite
subjects. He claimed he missed the BMW so much he quit his job in
Paris. As if no one had one in France.

At the turnoff on the
Interstate she opened her phone. In seconds the auto club had
connected her to a towing service and recommended a mechanic in
Mankato. By the time they reached Red Vine the driver from Jimmy’s
Jiffy Service was waiting.

As the driver rigged up the
towing mechanism Ozzie came down the ladder from the roof of the
motel. He wore a painter’s suit, his hair greasy and uncombed,
several days of salt-and-pepper beard on his chin. Wiping his hands
on his pants he greeted Isabel with a smile.

“
Been quiet here without
you kids,” he said, looking up at his house, pensive. “It was a fun
summer for us.”

Was he still fooling around
with whatshername? Already Isabel was forgetting their names, the
people she’d spent months with. She hated that. “Has everyone
left?”

“
We’re empty. There’s a
rumor of an Elks convention but nobody’s booked.” He sighed. “Soon
the snow’ll be flying again. O’course we get a few snowmobilers
over the holidays. An ice fisherman or two.”

She looked up at the roof.
Almost finished. “Has Jonny left too?”

Ozzie nodded. “Came back
for his accordion on Saturday.”

“
But Wendy still has
another year of school, right?”

Ozzie frowned. “Right.” Had
he forgotten about Wendy?

“
The name Wendy always
makes me think of Peter Pan,” Isabel said then bit her tongue. Why
had she said that? She looked back at the mechanic, wiggling under
the Volkswagen. Duncan hadn’t bothered to get out of the
car.

“
Margaret was reading that
to the boys before she was born,” Ozzie said, looking at the house
again. “That’s why she …” His voice trailed off.

Isabel hesitated then said
softly, “If you talk to her— I bet she’d forgive you.”

Ozzie’s head shot up, his
eyes narrow. Was he going to tell her to mind her own business?
That his life was perfect, thankyouverymuch? She took a step back.
She’d gone too far.

“
Well, I better get this
thing to Mankato so I can go home.” Ozzie’s face softened. He
looked tired. She forgave him for his surly lectures and moldy
bathrooms. She would move on, but he was stuck with the Rainy Days
Motor Inn and Red Vine. “Thanks for everything, Mr. Knobel. You’re
right. It was a fun summer.”

“
I hope the bees come
back,” he said, almost wistful.

The tow truck guy hit the
switch to activate the hook. She strapped herself into Duncan’s
car. Red Vine vanished in the rear view mirror.

For all the angst and
bother the repairs to her Bug were simple. Someone had stolen the
distributor cap. With a new one in place, a little tweaking of the
idle and an oil change, Isabel slipped back behind the wheel and
waved Duncan off. He disappeared down the highway.

The road signs flew by. She
wouldn’t be available for Duncan or anyone on the North Shore. She
was going back to the University. It would be a great year. She
would show Professor Mendel how well she could lecture. She would
help her fellow students and create good will with other lecturers.
She would compile her data and begin her dissertation.

She would look forward.
Life would go on, and be marvelous. Or not. Either way, it would go
on.

Chapter 18

The late morning sun shot
through the cedar in the courtyard and made patterns on the window.
In the cubicle behind Jonny’s, Sven rattled on. He loved to talk
and in truth he was a pretty good storyteller. This yarn involved
his trip to Sweden with his grandparents, the fjord cruise, the
pilgrimage to the north, weird food and endless cousins. Jonny was
glad for the distraction— he’d missed wacky Sven— but he was having
enough trouble concentrating on the pile of work in his in-box.
He’d been back to work three days and already his neck felt knotted
in a twist.

At eleven the new junior
partner stopped by. She’d joined the firm while he was gone. All he
knew about her was her name, Jill Martel. From the looks of her,
square designer glasses, slender, dark hair pulled into a ponytail,
she was hip and new in town. Code for lonely. Thus this third visit
in as many days.

“
How’s the Hefflin project
going?” she asked.

“
Barely. You want a look?”
He punched a button on his keyboard and up popped the CAD file, or
the sketchy beginnings of it.

She sighed. “Sorry. You’ve
only getting started. I’ll get out of your hair. It’s my first big
thing. I’m anxious.”

Jonny and Sven leaned out
to watch her walk away. The fabric of her gray slacks stretched
tight across her backside, which bounced nicely. She had to know
they were watching. Sven gave him a swat on the shoulder as they
rolled back into position in front of their computers.

“
Watch out. Gary’s already
had her out for drinks. More than once.”

“
Gary can have her,” Jonny
said. Gary Johnson was a senior partner. “I’m on the
rebound.”

“
How’s that
going?”

“
Got my stuff out of the
apartment.”

“
How’s she taking
it?”

“
Who knows.”

Artie had gone with him on
Sunday night to pick up his things. His key still fit in the door
but he knocked first. He half-expected to find her with somebody.
Or lying in wait for him. But only Freckles greeted him, and
eau de Freckles
. Had the
apartment always smelled like overripe tomcat?

“
Yes,” Artie answered.
They brought in a few boxes, and began throwing his clothes and
books and CDs into them. Winter coat, boots, clock radio. It didn’t
take long. Freckles hissed as they left.

“
You should have taken the
stereo. Or at least the toaster,” Artie said in the car.

“
We bought them together.”
Neither of them had a stick before they got married. Everything had
been chosen by her, and bought by him. The stereo was from
Wal-mart. The toaster was a wedding present, its functional
settings reduced to burn or tepid. A pretty good description of
their life together.

He had an appointment on
Friday with the divorce lawyer. Cuppie hadn’t filed, at least not
that he knew of. She’d called him Sunday night to let him know that
she was changing the locks now. Sonya took the message.

So life, stage three,
progressed. (1: Childhood. 2: Cuppie. 3: Whatever.) He was going to
be someone new in this stage. Changing everything was impossible.
Maybe you could do that when you were young. He didn’t feel young
anymore. He felt worn down. He would settle for not making the same
mistakes.

He went back to the CAD
file for the Hefflin project. An office and retail complex, it was
huge and full of challenges. There would be many coffee cup
meetings with Ms. Junior Partner. Well, it could be worse. When the
senior partners got down to this end of the building somebody
usually got chewed out. And they didn’t dress like
that.

Later, at Artie’s, the
phone rang. Jonny was shaking his head as Sonya answered. If it was
Cuppie, he wasn’t home. With steel blue eyes and gangly limbs,
Sonya was blond with premature wrinkles from coaching high school
track and all the adolescent drama that entailed. She handed the
phone to Artie. They were watching a documentary about shrinking
polar ice caps. Jonny was glad for the interruption.

“
Hi Mom.” Artie listened,
glancing at Jonny. “When was this? None of her friends know
anything? Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

“
What is it?” Sonya
asked.

“
Wendy. No one’s seen her
since Friday. She told Mom she was going camping with Elaine
Timboldt and she’d be back Monday or Tuesday. But she didn’t come
home.”

“
Let me guess. She wasn’t
camping with Elaine,” Sonya said. She had a low opinion of Wendy’s
parental oversight.

Artie looked at his
brother. “Do you know where she is?”

“
Can’t remember when I saw
her last. Wait. I saw her in the kitchen, eating cereal. That was
Friday, I think.”

“
How was she?”

“
Distracted. Tired. She’d
been staying out late.”

Artie stood up. “We’ve got
to make some calls.”

“
That boyfriend. Zachary,”
Jonny said, following him up the stairs. “What’s his last
name?”

In the next hour they
worked the phones, calling police departments and the county
sheriff, locating friends of Wendy, interrogating Zachary and the
manager at the Tastee Freez. No one knew where she was. Seventeen
was prime runaway age. Zachary claimed they’d broken up. Her best
friend Andrea sounded a little too pat with her ‘no clue’ and
Elaine Timboldt was definitely covering.

Artie said, “No way could
she pull this off without Elaine knowing something about
it.”

They sat at the kitchen
table, drinking coffee. Jonny said, “Elaine was at church camp all
week.”

“
Mom might have called the
Timboldt’s before.”

“
Don’t blame your mother,”
Sonya said in her teacher voice. “If she didn’t run off with
Zachary, who did she run off with? Does she have a new boyfriend?
Because a girl of seventeen doesn’t just run off by herself unless
something really terrible is going on at home.”

“
Nothing’s going on at
home. Dad’s not even living there, if that’s what you’re getting
at,” Artie said.

“
And Mom isn’t beating
her.”

“
Okay, fine. So who did
she run off with? A coach, a teacher? The guy from the gas
station?”

A moment of silence. They
stared at their coffee. “Does she have a coach? She hasn’t gone out
for volleyball for a couple years,” Jonny said.

Artie shrugged. “What about
a male teacher?”

Neither brother was very
involved in their sister’s life. She was so much younger, a child
when they left home. A flower girl in both their
weddings.

“
What did the sheriff
say?” Sonya asked.

“
That they’d put her into
missing persons tomorrow morning. It’s still too soon.”

“
But she’s been gone
almost a week.”

“
You can call him if you
want.” Artie rubbed his eyes. “A week. Christ. She could have
hitched to Alaska by now.”

Jonny peered into his cup.
“But why? Where does she want to be?”

“
You’ve been with her most
of the summer,” Sonya said.

“
Think, man,” Artie said.
“Did she talk about going somewhere?”