Grand Avenue (22 page)

No, it was better to surprise her, to confront her directly, although what exactly she was planning to say to her, Vicki couldn’t be sure. She’d been trying out various speeches for days, ever since Bill Pickering had called her office with the news he’d located a woman named Rita Piper matching her mother’s description, and she wasn’t living off the coast of Spain, she wasn’t holed up in a rustic log cabin in Wyoming, she hadn’t fled to Canada. She was living right next door in Louisville, Kentucky, not more than a stone’s throw away from the daughter she’d abandoned thirty-six years ago. Close enough to keep an eye on her, to follow her accomplishments in the paper, to keep tabs on her. Close enough for her daughter to find her, should she choose to go looking.

“Hi, Mom. Remember me?” Vicki said out loud, pulling the car to a stop halfway down the block. She couldn’t very well park right in front of the house. Shiny new red Jaguars weren’t the least inconspicuous of cars. She didn’t want to alert her mother that someone was watching the house, give her the opportunity
to escape through the back door. Vicki put the car in park, breathed deeply, and watched a small square of the front window fog with her breath. “You probably don’t remember me,” she started again, then stopped. “Excuse me, are you my mother?” she asked with a roll of her eyes. Sure. Great. That’ll do it.

“What do I say?” Vicki asked the neat white house, not much different from any of the other homes on this decidedly working-class street. Why haven’t you tried to contact me? You have to know who I am, whom I married, what I’ve achieved. There’s no reason for you to be living in such modest surroundings when you could be living in the lap of luxury. Jeremy is a generous man. He’d do anything to make me happy. “And you don’t have to worry about
him
anymore,” Vicki said, knowing, as she had always known, that her father was to blame for her mother’s abrupt departure. Not that he’d been physically abusive, like Chris’s husband. Vicki doubted her father had ever had to raise his hand in anger to make his displeasure felt. All he had to do was look at you with those cold hazel eyes, and you knew you’d been judged and found wanting, that try as hard as you could, you would always be a disappointment to him.

No wonder her mother had left.

Vicki checked her watch. Almost one o’clock. Bill Pickering had told her that the woman calling herself Rita Piper volunteered every Sunday morning at a local hospital and was usually home by one. Of course, she might have gone shopping or stopped off for something to eat. Vicki felt her stomach rumble. Probably she should have stopped at McDonald’s for a Big Mac
and a strawberry milk shake. Maybe an order of fries. The very real odor of imaginary food immediately filled the car. “Maybe there’s time for me to get something,” Vicki said, about to put her car into drive when she saw the old-model, green-and-tan Plymouth round the corner and pull into the driveway of the small white house. “Oh, God,” Vicki said, holding her breath, watching as the car came to a stop and the driver got out.

“Mother …,” Vicki whispered, peering through the Jaguar’s front window at the small, auburn-haired woman who emerged from the front seat, laughing as she closed her car door. Why was she laughing?

And then the door on the passenger side of the car opened and another woman got out. She was taller, broader, bigger in every way than Rita Piper, her hair permed into a big blond ball on top of her head, and she too was laughing. Obviously someone had said something funny. Maybe told a joke. What kind of sense of humor did her mother have? Vicki didn’t know. Her father had refused to speak about her mother after her desertion. He’d destroyed all photos of her, except one that sat on the dresser in Vicki’s room, a picture of mother and daughter he’d probably forgotten about, and which Vicki later secured under her mattress, sensing it was in danger.

Vicki reached into her purse, extricated the small picture hidden behind her driver’s license, stared at the photograph of a beautiful young woman, only twenty at the time of her daughter’s birth, shoulder-length red hair pressed against her baby’s smooth cheek, joy and sadness present in equal measures behind luminous
green eyes. “I got my father’s eyes,” Vicki noted, tucking the red hair she’d inherited from her mother behind her ears. “Lucky me,” she said, watching as the two women entered the white clapboard house and closed the door behind them.

Now what?

She couldn’t just go knocking on the door to claim her birthright when her mother had company. She’d have to wait until the visitor left. Vicki leaned back against the black leather seat, wondering how long that would be. She turned off the car’s engine, closed her eyes, trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at her stomach, and quickly drifted off to sleep.

The sound of something smacking against the side of the car woke her up.

“Sorry, lady,” a small voice called out as Vicki bolted upright in her seat. A young boy darted in front of the car to retrieve a blue rubber ball from the road, then threw it to the other young boy waiting across the street.

What was happening? Where was she? What time was it?

The answers came as quickly as the questions. She was sitting in her car in Louisville, Kentucky, waiting to confront her mother, and it was almost four o’clock in the afternoon. “Four o’clock!” It couldn’t be four o’clock. She couldn’t have been asleep for three hours! It was impossible. She never took naps in the middle of the day. Something must be wrong with the clock. Damn Jaguar. Something was always wrong with the stupid thing.

She checked her watch. “No, this can’t be. It can’t be.” Her head shot toward the white clapboard house. “No, I don’t believe this. Please just let this be another crazy dream.” But even as she was saying the words, Vicki understood it wasn’t a dream, that the green-and-tan Plymouth was no longer sitting in the driveway of the white clapboard house, that her mother was gone. “Where did you go? Where did you go?” she screamed, banging her hands against the steering wheel so that the horn blasted into the surrounding air, drawing the unwanted attention of the two boys playing ball across the street. She quickly waved away their puzzled looks, and they returned to their game, although they kept stealing guarded glances in her direction. “Idiot! How could you fall asleep?”

Can’t you do anything right?
she heard her father say.

“Now what?” she asked again, out loud this time. What do you do now? “Okay, okay,” she said, speaking into her hands in case the boys were watching her. “Where could she have gone?” Maybe she was just driving her friend home, which meant she’d be back soon. Except Vicki didn’t know what time she’d left. “Maybe they went to a movie,” Vicki moaned. “Oh, God, I can’t stand it. How could you be so stupid? You had her. She was right here.”

She checked her watch one more time. After four. She had to be back in Cincinnati by eight. Eight at the very latest. She’d promised Kirsten. How long could she afford to wait? “I’ll give it one more hour,” she said. Surely Rita Piper would be back by then.

* * *

It was ten minutes to five when the green-and-tan Plymouth pulled into the driveway and Rita Piper climbed out of the front seat, her arms full of groceries.

“Thank God.” Vicki closed her eyes with relief, then opened them immediately, lest the woman disappear again. Okay, so she was home. Time to get this show on the road. “What am I supposed to do? Run out and help her carry her groceries inside the house?” Wouldn’t that be cozy? Mother and daughter getting reacquainted while restocking the refrigerator. No, better to let the woman get inside the house, give her time to get everything put away, time to catch her breath. “And mine,” Vicki said, opening her door and gulping at the outside air.

Five minutes later, Vicki was knocking on the woman’s front door.
Hi, I’m Vicki Latimer. Your daughter. Remember me?

“Just a minute,” came the response from inside the house. A nice voice, Vicki thought, searching for echoes of her own voice in the sound, hearing none. “Who is it?” the woman asked without opening the door.

“Rita Piper?” Vicki asked, her heart pounding.

The door opened a fraction. Curious dark green eyes peeked across the threshold. “Yes?”

“My name is Vicki Latimer. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

“You’re not selling anything, are you?”

Vicki shook her head. “No,” she said, and almost laughed.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

Even before the door was fully open, Vicki understood,
that the attractive, sixty-year-old woman with dark red hair and questioning green eyes standing in front of her was not her mother. “I’m sorry. I’ve made a big mistake.” Then she burst into a flood of bitter, angry tears.

Without another word, the woman who was not her mother wrapped her arms around Vicki’s shaking shoulders and led her inside the house.

B
arbara’s arms were shaking.

And I haven’t even started exercising yet, Barbara thought, lowering the heavy bags she was carrying to the green marble floor and struggling with the imposing glass door at the entrance to Bodies by Design Fitness Center, located on the sixteenth floor of the Sylvan Tower Complex on Mercer Street in downtown Cincinnati.

“Somebody’s been doing some serious Christmas shopping,” the blond and bronzed receptionist chirped from behind her similarly colored desk as Barbara passed by on her way to the machine room at the very back of the center.

“Damn right,” Barbara called back, then laughed. Wait till Ron got this month’s Visa bill. Yes, sir, Santa Claus was being especially good to his former family this year. An Armani suit for Barbara, a Gucci jacket for Tracey, matching watches from Carrier. Leather bands, Barbara sniffed, passing a crowded mirror-lined
room filled with sweating, middle-aged white women trying to keep up with their tireless, young black aerobics instructor. She hadn’t had the nerve to buy the gold bands she preferred. Maybe next year.

1990 was almost over. They were inching toward the new millenium.

God only knew what surprises the decade had in store. “Can hardly wait,” Barbara muttered into the black fox collar of her green tweed coat, last year’s Christmas present from her outraged former spouse. Didn’t know you were such a generous man, did you? Barbara thought, and smiled, although the surface of her face remained still.

“Four more!” the aerobics instructor was shouting into the microphone around her neck, as she extended first her well-toned right arm, then her left, into the air. “Three more.”

“No more,” Barbara sang out, readjusting the packages in her arms, wobbling on high-heeled winter boots toward the rear of the facility, wondering if Susan and Vicki were here yet. Probably. She was at least half an hour late. Susan was always so punctual. And Vicki’s office was only two floors down. Even though it was Saturday, she’d undoubtedly spent the morning working. Just as she’d most likely return to her office when she was finished here. Vicki was always working.

She hadn’t even bothered showing up to her daughter’s school play last month. Working, she claimed. Some lame excuse about getting stuck with a client, not realizing the time, etc., etc. Was she having another affair? Barbara wondered, thinking that while
it wouldn’t be the first time Vicki had cheated on her husband, it would be the first time she’d decided to keep that information from her friends.

Not that Barbara had confided in either Vicki or Susan about her brief interlude with Kevin. Why hadn’t she? she wondered. Was she embarrassed? Ashamed? Afraid of being judged? Afraid of being pitied?

Things had changed, Barbara realized sadly, although the women tried gamely to pretend they hadn’t. The Grand Dames had somehow survived Vicki’s move from Mariemont to Indian Hill intact, but Chris’s untimely departure had dealt a fatal blow to the women of Grand Avenue. Slowly, subtly, inexorably, the group dynamic had shifted. This wasn’t altogether unexpected. There were, after all, three women now instead of four, but more often than not, Barbara felt like the odd woman out. Especially since her divorce.

Barbara recognized that neither Vicki nor Susan meant to exclude her. They were simply an easier fit, both well-educated women with husbands who adored them, with healthy incomes and successful, satisfying careers. They couldn’t understand what it was like to be in her position, to be uneducated, unloved, uncertain. Although Vicki and Susan never said it out loud, Barbara knew they were thinking it was high time she pulled herself together and started doing something constructive with her life. Ron was never coming back; it was time for her to move forward.

Except she couldn’t move.

She was stuck.

And she didn’t know how to get out of the mess that was her life.

If only she had Chris to talk to. Chris would understand. But Chris was gone, spirited off in the middle of the night by a monster who’d sold her Grand Avenue house out from under her and imprisoned her in a small rented house in the nearby suburb of Batavia. An investigator Vicki hired had quickly uncovered their whereabouts, and the women had driven to out to Elm Street and confronted Tony at the front door, then called the police when he refused to let them see Chris. But the police had informed them that nothing could be done in light of Chris’s refusal to file a complaint, and they lectured the women sternly about minding their own business.

Barbara had ignored their warnings and, for the next few weeks, continued driving to Batavia almost daily, parking in front of the tiny brown wood bungalow, hoping for a glimpse of Chris. But the curtains were always drawn. There were no signs of life. A month later, Barbara pulled up in front of the house to find the front door open and the house deserted. Chris was gone.

There were no further attempts to locate her. “There’s nothing we can do,” the women took turns saying over the ensuing years, although Barbara didn’t believe it, and she was pretty sure the others didn’t either. Over time, their unspoken guilt thickened, then hardened, like a coat of protective varnish. They no longer kissed each other’s cheeks in greeting, choosing instead to peck at the air. When they hugged, their guilt kept them an arm’s length apart.