Turnabout (15 page)

“Did you find out anything about the reporter? A. J. Hazelwood?” she asked Anny Beth.

“Is there anything to eat?” Anny Beth said instead of answering. “I’m starving.”

Melly pointed to the portable cooker.

“Darn. I thought you’d have a gourmet meal waiting for me,” Anny Beth said. She began punching buttons on the cooker. Melly marveled at Anny Beth’s ability to focus on basic needs—food, sleep—regardless of anything else. It was probably that survival instinct that had accounted for her long life. The first half of it anyway. Only when the cooker was whirring away did Anny Beth turn back to Melly. “What’d you ask?”

“About the reporter,” Melly said patiently. “What did you find out about her?”

“Funny thing,” Anny Beth replied as she lifted a synthesized turkey dinner from the cooker. “She’s the only private descendant you have. There’s almost nothing on her except the public records a person can’t prevent from being on-line.”

Melly called up the file marked
“A. J. Hazelwood.”
Virtually every line Melly clicked on said,
“Access denied at request of subject.”

Melly squinted in confusion at the screen.

“Why?” she asked Anny Beth. “Why would anybody do this?”

“Ever check what’s on public record for the two
of us?” Anny Beth countered.

“No,” Melly said.

“Not much more than that,” Anny Beth said. “And almost all of it’s false except our names.”

Melly shrugged, not interested in discussing their own decisions just then. “Did you find out anything else?”

“A little.” Between bites Anny Beth showed Melly what to click on. “She did work as a reporter, but it was just for a local Web site, not anything national. From the looks of the stories she did, the only exposés she had were about corrupt sewer boards and politicians who spent their money on gold-plated faucets in the statehouse restroom when they were supposed to be helping underprivileged kids. Nothing sexy.”

Melly stared at the list of headlines in front of her:
“Committee Funds Misappropriated,” “Congressman Smathers Denies Budget Flaw,” “Funds Held Up in Political Debate.”
In spite of herself Melly had to smother a yawn.

“Very old-fashioned of her,” she muttered. “But I don’t get it. Why’s she after me? I don’t see a single ‘Two-Headed-Baby-Born-in-Iowa’-type story anywhere.”

Anny Beth chewed thoughtfully. “Maybe she just wanted to get to know her great-great-great-grandmother.”

Melly rewarded Anny Beth with a frown and kept scrolling through the list. “Wait—there’s not a single story after September of last year.”

Anny Beth leaned over the electronic pad. “Hmm. You’re right. I didn’t notice that. Maybe they fired her for being too dull. Hey, did I walk twelve miles to find surrogate parents, or to investigate the person who’s investigating you? Come on, you know you don’t want that reporter as a parent.”

With a sigh Melly clicked back to the main menu. “Right now I’m not ruling out anyone.”

The next time Melly looked up, Anny Beth was sound asleep, her head slumped against the rock. Melly hunched over the electronic notepad and kept reading.
“Annabel Hazelwood,”
she read.
“Orthopedic surgeon . . . Chest size: 46D . . . ”
Well, that would fit. Must be one of her grandson Dexter’s grandchildren. According to the Memory Books, he’d married a woman who was ridiculously over-endowed. Melly looked down at her own fifteen-year-old nearly flat chest and decided she shouldn’t be prejudiced just because this Annabel had something she didn’t.
“Firm believer that astrology has been overlooked as a cause of recent human events . . .”
Now, that Melly could be prejudiced against. She zapped Annabel off the screen and went on to Anga Hazelwood. Melly read with growing amazement Anga’s list of interests:
“Waterskiing,
parachuting, parasailing, scuba diving, ecology, rain forest revitalization, native people’s justice, soothsaying, creative anachronism, computer Zen, virtual prehistoric travel . . .”
Life with Anga would certainly never be dull. Then Melly belatedly noticed Anga’s birth date. She was only thirteen. Oh, well.

For the next several hours Melly crept through descriptions of mechanics and millionaires, sport fishermen and religious zealots, ordinary computer programmers and extraordinary entrepreneurs. With some entries she felt a thrill of pride: “This is one of my descendants!” On others the feeling was abject shame: “How could my blood be beating through the heart of a serial killer?” Most of the people she found seemed fairly normal—for the twenty-first century, anyhow—and potentially good surrogate parents. But how could she be sure? These people had publicized everything about themselves; there was so much public information, Melly kept trying to read between the lines for some hint of the private individuals. But maybe there was nothing more to them. Maybe they had no private thoughts, no private selves.

Melly had only got as far as Harold Hazelwood when she stood up and stretched and went to the front of the cave to watch the sunrise. Unlike yesterday—had it only been yesterday?—this morning she sat and watched the whole extravaganza from beginning
to end, from the first faint glow on the horizon to the whole ball of sun, fully hatched, too bright to look at. She was still staring off into the distance when Anny Beth crept out beside her and handed her a plate of food.

“Bet you didn’t eat all night,” Anny Beth said.

“No,” Melly said vaguely, and absentmindedly took a bite of synthetic eggs. “Too much to do.”

She took another bite and chewed in silence. Anny Beth wasn’t much of a morning person, so Melly knew not to expect a lot of chatter. After a long while Melly asked, “Did you watch many sunrises the last time you were a teenager?”

“Nope,” Anny Beth said. “I was a sunset type of kid. Always believed dusk was when the excitement started.”

“Yeah,” Melly said. “I used to love sunsets too. And I remember right after we left the agency, eighty years ago, I went through a sunset fixation. But if my Memory Books are believable, I loved sunrises when I first went in the nursing home. And I love them now.”

“There’s no mystery to that,” Anny Beth said. “People crave what they don’t have. When you were at the beginning of your lives, you were fascinated by endings. And one hundred years ago you thought you were nearing the end, so you liked beginnings. And now—”

“Things are ending again,” Melly mumbled. “What is that, Psychology 101?”

“No, that’s from my doctorate studies,” Anny Beth bragged. “And you thought all those social sciences we studied were useless.”

Melly rolled her eyes. She took a deep breath.

“I found a surrogate parent for us,” she announced.

Anny Beth looked over at her expectantly. “Oh?” she said. Melly could tell she was forcing herself to sound casual. “Anyone I’d know?”

“Actually, yes,” Melly said. “Sort of. It’s the reporter. A. J. Hazelwood.”

Anny Beth laughed without much mirth. “Very funny. Who is it really?”

“I’m serious,” Melly said quietly. “I’ve been thinking about it all night. She’s the only one who isn’t in the habit of telling everything she knows to the entire world. She’s the only one who could keep us secret.”

Anny Beth frowned. “But she’s a reporter! She—” Anny Beth stopped, finally considering the suggestion seriously. Melly waited patiently, as though Anny Beth were a computer working through a complicated problem.

“Okay,” Anny Beth said finally. “Your logic is twisted but not entirely insane.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “Still—we don’t have to do anything
right away. Let’s hang low for a while. Think some more. We’ve got, I don’t know, years before we’ll need someone taking care of us. We can line up our first and second and third choices, maybe spy on them to check them out. Then when we’re absolutely sure, we can spring our little surprise.”

If there hadn’t been so much at stake, Melly would have laughed at the role reversal: Usually she was the one urging caution, Anny Beth the one ready to follow any impulse. But Melly didn’t feel much like laughing right now.

“We don’t have years to make a decision,” Melly said. “I’m not sure we even have many more hours.” Briefly she told Anny Beth what had happened the day before at the Wal-Mart Universal.

Anny Beth punched a rock in frustration. “Ow! Melly! How could you have risked blowing our cover like that? Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid? You paid for the gum—they’re not going to try to track you down just because you don’t show up to get your change.”

“I don’t know,” Melly said. “I know they were suspicious. They probably are checking up on me. And anyhow—don’t you think there are satellites watching these woods? Someone’s probably on their way to arrest us right now.”

Anny Beth grimaced. Melly could tell she didn’t want to admit Melly was right.

“It just won’t work,” Melly went on. “You just can’t hide out in this century. The only reason we could keep out of the tabloid Web sites before was that we had the agency helping us. How many records and tapes do you think they had to erase and doctor? If we don’t go find a surrogate parent now, we’ll probably be arrested by nightfall. And when they check us out, either the agency’s going to have to rescue us again—if they can—or our secret’s out.” Melly heard her voice go high and squeaky near the end, like a little girl begging for help.

Anny Beth buried her face in her hands.

“Okay,” she finally muttered. “You’ve convinced me.” She rubbed her temples hard and looked up at Melly in despair. “But if you’re sure that reporter’s the person we want, we’ve got another problem. Her address is classified. We don’t even know where she lives.”

“I do,” Melly said, shooting a look of triumph at Anny Beth. “She lives in my old house.”

For a long time Anny Beth could only gape at Melly.

“How . . . how do you know?” she finally sputtered. “Are you sure?”

Melly bit her lip. “Well, not one hundred percent,” she admitted. “But it makes so much sense—”

“I think I’m missing something, then,” Anny Beth said. “You’ll have to explain it to me.”

Melly used her fork to draw designs in her eggs. Was she right? What if she convinced Anny Beth and was wrong?

“This is someone who writes about sewer boards and financial appropriations and political scandals that don’t involve sex. She’s obviously longing to live in the past. So what do you do when you want to live in the past? You move back into your ancestors’ house and live the way your great-great-great-grandparents lived.”

Anny Beth shook her head. She stabbed some of the eggs on her plate with unnecessary force. “Psychologically speaking, maybe you’re right. But that’s just a guess. We need to be one hundred percent sure.”

Melly crumbled her toast and threw it out into the woods. She wasn’t worried about detection now. It felt good to throw something.

“Come on, Anny Beth,” she said. “You’ve been
alive for one hundred and eighty-seven years. Haven’t you learned that nothing’s one hundred percent sure?”

Anny Beth gave Melly a long look. Then she abruptly stood up.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

She started walking down the hill but stopped after a few steps to look back over her shoulder. “Aren’t you coming?” she called back to Melly.

After eighty-five years Melly should have been used to Anny Beth’s split-second decisions. But she couldn’t help sitting still for a while longer, totally stunned.

“What are you waiting for?” Anny Beth repeated.

“I—there . . . there’s something else you should know,” Melly stammered. “Something else that makes A. J. Hazelwood the right person to take care of us.”

“Oh?” Anny Beth said impatiently. “What is it?”

“She’s your great-great-great-granddaughter too.”

“What?”

“One of your great-great-granddaughters married one of my great-great-grandsons. A. J. Hazelwood is their only child.”

Anny Beth started laughing. “You’re kidding! Some of our descendants actually mated? And someone related to me managed to stay out of jail?”

“Jeez, Anny Beth, one of your descendants is president right now. You’ve got a whole branch of incredibly rich and famous—and, by all accounts—morally upstanding descendants. That’s the only reason I know about A. J.’s parents. One of her cousins was really into name-dropping, and traced the entire connection on her Web pages.”

By now Anny Beth was laughing so hard she could barely stand up.

“It can’t be,” she gurgled. “President?”

“Yep.” Melly got carried away by Anny Beth’s laughter. “And you know Riley Standish—the woman they call the Mother Teresa of this century? The one who ended starvation in the third world? She’s one of yours too.”

Anny Beth had to sit down after that one.

“This is too rich,” she said between peals of laughter. “All these years I thought I’d unleashed a pack of liars and cheats and murderers on the world. Why do you think I did all that social service all those years? I was trying to make up for my offspring—dang! I could have been out partying!”

Melly couldn’t help laughing at that.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There are probably some murderers among your descendants too. I know I had some.”

That only made Anny Beth laugh harder.

“I don’t care what happens to me now,” she said.
“My life is complete. I know now that I spawned a saint and you spawned a murderer. Hey—race you down the hill.”

Anny Beth had a head start, but Melly dashed after her.

They were like that the rest of the way to Melly’s old house—giddy, loud, exuberant. It was as if, having finally made a decision, they felt free, regardless of how things turned out. They crashed through the brush, not caring who heard or saw them. Melly had run that way through these woods a million times with her brothers and sisters, all those years ago. All she needed was to dash up the porch steps and bang the front door and she’d feel entirely, completely at home.

But when they got in sight of the house, both of them stopped. Suddenly deadly serious again, they froze by the forsythia bush Melly had hidden behind the day before.