Scrappily Ever After Read online

  Junie Bee played with the phone cord and Vera picked the cat up and placed her on the bed, shaking her finger at her. Junie Bee’s head tilted and she blinked.

  Vera gave the man her credit card number and said good-bye before she went back to sitting in the window seat, with Junie Bee at her feet. She pulled a quilt around her as a chill crept over her. So many things she needed to do and wanted to do. Something whispered to her to stay where she sat. And so she did.

  She was awakened to the sound of the phone. Another phone call! She struggled to awaken but didn’t make it to the phone on time. She listened to the message.

  “Jon Chevalier? Monsieur?” said a voice, followed by a bunch of French words that Vera didn’t understand. Even though she knew French ballet terminology, she couldn’t speak the language—or, as it turned out, even understand it.

  She pushed the button to return the call.

  “’Alloo? Jon?” the voice said.

  “No, not Jon,” Vera said. “English?”

  “Yes, a bit. Who is speaking please?”

  “My name is Vera Matthews. I’m Beatrice’s daughter.”

  “Beatrice? Yes, yes, yes. I would like to speak to Jon. This is his sister, Eva,” the woman on the other line said.

  “Jon’s not here. He’s in France,” Vera said, confused. She had thought Eva was one of the people on their list to visit.

  “No, no, no. They left here,” said Eva. “I told them to call when they returned. No call! I am worried.”

  “They are not scheduled to be home for a few days. Please don’t worry.”

  “No,” Eva insisted. “They left here already.”

  Oh, maybe they left her house and moved along.

  “But they are still in France, somewhere. I’ve not heard from them,” Vera said.

  “No, they are not in France.”

  Vera’s heart sank. If they weren’t in France, where were they?

  Eva must be mistaken. No point in arguing with the woman.

  “Okay, well, when I see Jon, I will tell him to call you,” Vera said.

  “See Jon? He should be there,” she said, sounding exasperated, then muttering something in French.

  “Okay,” Vera replied. She didn’t know what else to say. Beatrice and Jon were not home. But according to this woman, his sister, they should be. Her stomach twisted. Had something happened to them? Where were they? “Are you certain, Eva?”

  “Absolutely!” she said. “I’ve been trying to call his cell phone. No answer.”

  The woman sounded near hysterical.

  “There has to be an explanation. Maybe their plane was delayed or something,” Vera said. This conversation is absurd. If her mother and Jon were back in the U.S., they’d come to this house, their home. The older woman must be confused about the dates.

  Eva sighed. “Okay, please have him call me when you see him,” she said and hung up.

  Rude.

  And ridiculous. If her mother was in the U.S., she’d be at home with her family.

  Sheila could not be happier than she was at this very moment. Her entire family had come together for Sunday dinner. Donna might be leaving soon to go back to Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied design, and next year her son would be studying business at community college. He planned to work with Steve, who owned and ran an outfitting and tour company, leading groups through the mountains. Dusty was going to be very busy. The other two children were just as busy. Jonathon was so involved with music and Gerty, well, she had to buckle down this year a get those grades up. Sheila took it all in and knew these moments were going to be more and more rare.

  “Pass the mashed potatoes please,” Steve said to Dusty, who handed them to his dad.

  Sheila loved the smell of roast chicken that was wafting through her dining room. She didn’t, however, like the dark circles beneath Donna’s eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “I can’t seem to get enough sleep,” Donna said.

  “Are you sleeping okay at school?” asked Steve.

  “When I get a chance to sleep, I sleep,” Donna replied and then took a drink of water. “I want to do well. I don’t want to lose this opportunity, so I work hard. Sometimes that means no sleep.”

  Sheila shot Steve a look of concern.

  “Taking a semester off sounds like just what the doctor ordered.” Steve smiled.

  “I’m all for it, if it doesn’t mess up my scholarship,” said Donna.

  “Don’t forget about my concert on Wednesday night,” Jonathon said to his sister. “I want you to hear this new song I’ve been working on.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” she said, smiling and showing off her dimples. She had lost weight and her cheekbones protruded more than usual, giving her a hollow, gaunt look. She had always been so healthy looking, with a scattering of freckles across her nose and a pink tone to her skin.

  Sheila tried not to fuss. Her daughter was a young woman. The days of hovering over her and fussing about what she ate or how much she slept were over. But when Donna was home, Sheila made sure that they had plenty of her favorite food things stocked. And Donna availed herself of them.

  Sheila also tried to not fuss over their brooding middle-schooler as she moved the food around on her plate. But she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Gerty drooped over the table and barely looked at the rest of them.

  “What’s up with you, Gerty?” Sheila said and then bit into her chicken.

  “Nothing, Mom,” Gerty replied, giving her a slight smile.

  “Ready to go back to school?”

  “Not really. I hate it.”

  Donna laughed. ”I hated it too. I hear you.”

  “You have to get through it, whether you like it or not,” Steve said.

  “That’s exactly what Beatrice told me,” Gerty said.

  Beatrice had taken to Gerty. She was named after Sheila’s mom, who had been Beatrice’s best friend.

  “Bea is one smart woman,” Sheila said.

  “I miss her. When is she coming back?” Gerty asked.

  “I have no idea. Soon, I think,” answered Sheila.

  “Funny, I thought I saw her the other day in town. I must be losing my mind,” said Dusty.

  “You must be, son,” Sheila said. “Beatrice is still in France. “

  “She had that guy with her,” he persisted. ‘I’m pretty sure it was them.”

  “Nope, couldn’t be.”

  “Odd,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. “Can I have more chicken?”

  Sheila smiled. That boy had one hell of an appetite.

  “Whatever happened to that Cookie Crandall?” Earl asked Paige over dinner that night.

  “What brought that up, all of a sudden?” she asked, dropping her fork full of mashed potatoes on to her plate.

  “I was thinking about how people come in and out of our lives. This whole thing with Randy. I don’t know whether or not to be excited,” he said, as he lifted his fried chicken to his lips.

  “He’s our kid, Earl. It would be great to have him back. I’m sure he’d want to live in Harrisonburg or Charlottesville. I doubt he’d move in with us.”

  “Hell, I never imagined that he would,” he said. “But you didn’t answer my question about Cookie.”

  “Well, it’s sad, Earl. I don’t like to talk about it.” Cookie’s pale face, with the spark in her eyes completely gone, came to Paige’s mind. What had happened to her?

  She took a sip of wine. “The night she showed up at the crop? She had this guy with her. Some kind of doctor.”

  “Doctor? She sick?”

  “In a manner of speaking. She seems to have lost much of her memory and this man is helping her out. Supposedly. But I didn’t like him. He seemed like a cold son of a bitch. Hard to believe he’s a doctor or a healer. British accent and all that.”

  “How long did she stay that night?”

  “About an hour. She remembered us, wanted to
see us, and the guy asked a bunch of questions,” Paige said.

  “Will she be back?”

  “That’s a good question,” Paige said. She sat back and thought over that night.

  “I’m back,” Cookie had said, standing in Sheila’s basement. “I have no pictures or scrapbooks, though. Is that okay?”

  The room had gone silent until a strange sobbing gasp-like sound had escaped from Annie. The rest of the scrapbookers, as if on cue, rushed toward Cookie and the strange man that accompanied her. After the initial sobs and hugs, everybody sat down.

  To Paige, Cookie had always looked a bit unhealthy. Always a bit too skinny and pale. Now she looked even unhealthier as she sat at the scrapbooking table. She looked as though she could barely hold herself up in the chair.

  “Are you okay?” Annie asked. Annie and Cookie had gotten very close before Cookie had disappeared. They were both outsiders in Cumberland Creek, a place where most families’ histories stretched back for generations.

  Cookie nodded.

  “We aren’t certain what happened,” the man beside her said. “All of her symptoms point to a lightning strike.”

  “This is my doctor, Dr. Dupree,” Cookie explained and introduced them.

  “You were struck by lightning!” Vera exclaimed.

  “We’re not sure,” Cookie said.

  “But he just said—”

  “What I said,” he said with emphasis, “was that it looked like she’d been struck by lightning. But we don’t know. Where she was found, there were burns. There were also signs of mild cardiac arrest and temporary paralysis. And a complete amnesia, which we’ve been working on. She’s been remembering a few more things lately. And that’s why we are here. We need your help.”

  “We’ll do anything we can to help,” Annie said. “What do you need?”

  “We need you to answer a few questions,” the doctor said.

  “And I need my book back,” Cookie said. “My scrapbook of shadows.”

  “She’s been talking about this book—any idea what that is?”

  “Yes,” Annie replied. “I have what’s left of it.”

  Beatrice had taken it to a cave, which is what Cookie had asked her to do at the time. Detective Bryant had then found pieces of it scattered through the forest over the next few days.

  Cookie beamed. “I thought you might have it.”

  The doctor sat back in his chair fast, as if he was surprised. “So there really is a scrapbook of shadows?”

  Cookie had grinned, as if to say, I told you so. Paige hadn’t been so sure that Cookie liked that guy either.

  “What kind of a doctor is he?” Earl asked, interrupting the story.

  “I don’t know and there’s been no word from her since that night,” Paige said to Earl, as she started to clear away the dishes from the table. “But Annie did get an e-mail address where we can write to her.”

  “Have you?”

  “No,” Paige said. “I really have nothing to say. I mean I’m glad she’s kind of okay. That she’s still alive. But we weren’t that close. Not like she and Annie. And I’m a little bit pissed about the situation.”

  “What? Why?” Earl said handing her the last dish from the table as she stood by the sink and began rinsing the dishes.

  Paige thought about it for a few beats. “I really don’t know. I’m just angry.”

  “Are you mad because she broke the law and escaped from jail?” Earl asked.

  “Well. We’re not too sure about that. This doctor claimed that someone took her from the cell, helped her to escape, but she was essentially taken against her will,” Paige said. “I’m not sure how much of this I buy.” She opened the dishwasher and began placing dishes on the racks. “I just hope that Annie and the others don’t get hurt by her any more than they already have been.”

  The Cumberland Creek scrapbookers didn’t get together very often, outside of their Saturday night crops. But it was DeeAnn’s birthday and so they decided to take her out to lunch in Charlottesville. They all rode together in Vera’s minivan.

  They’d planned to go to a Thai restaurant that DeeAnn had selected. She was bound and determined to expand her culinary horizons these days.

  “I want to travel,” DeeAnn said as they traveled over the mountain to Charlottesville. “My poor old mother didn’t get to eat anything exciting or travel or anything before she became sick and died. What’s the point in holding on to all your money just for the hospital to get it?”

  “That’s the truth,” Vera said. “I want to travel, too.”

  “Where do you want to go?” DeeAnn asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know if I have any particular place in mind, but I’d like to see more of this country.”

  “Not France?” Sheila said.

  “Sure,” Vera replied. “I told Mom and Jon that the next time they go, I want to join them. I think it would be nice for Lizzie to go in another couple of years.”

  “Speaking of your mom, Dusty thought he saw her the other day in town,” Sheila said.

  Vera felt a strange pinging moving through her body. Was her mother in Cumberland Creek? Why hadn’t she seen her?

  She pulled into the parking lot of Thai Garden and parked her van.

  “Earl thought he saw her, too,” Paige chimed in.

  “You know, the strangest feeling came over me. How can it be that people think they saw my mother?”

  “It must be someone new in town that resembles her,” Annie said. “You live with her. You’d know if she were home.”

  “That’s what you’d think,” Vera said. “But we’re talking about my mother here. Half of what she does never did make any sense to me. And she’s ornery. Is she playing a joke on me?”

  Sheila laughed. “Anything’s possible.”

  “But that’s not much of a joke,” Paige said as they left the van and walked through the parking lot. “If your mother is home and hasn’t told you and is staying somewhere else, that’s not funny. That’s just strange.”

  “I can’t believe you haven’t talked to her,” Annie said.

  “She asked me not to call her. She said she’d call me,” Vera said.

  “Why?” Annie asked.

  “She said she didn’t want to be bothered and they were going to be very busy in France,” Vera said and opened the door to the restaurant. A spicy scent greeted them.

  Vera and Annie had had Thai food before, but the rest of them hadn’t. So Vera looked forward to introducing them to the cuisine.

  After they were seated and ordered, Vera remembered that strange phone call she’d received from Jon’s sister. Could they have already come back to the States like she had tried to tell Vera? If they had, where were they?

  “Forget it,” Vera said out loud after a bit, her friends looking up at her. “I’m calling her. She doesn’t get to tell me not to call. She’s my mother, for God’s sake. She’s almost eighty-five years old. Of course I’m going to worry.”

  She pulled out her cell and dialed her mom’s mobile phone number. Her voice mail was full. Vera threw her phone back into her purse in a huff. The pad Thai that had just been set before her suddenly didn’t seem appealing.

  “What’s wrong?” Sheila asked.

  “Her voice mail is full. She’s not listening to her messages at all.”

  “Well, she said she didn’t want to be bothered. She must mean it,” Annie concluded.

  “I hope she’s okay,” Vera said. “I figured Jon would take care of her, but what if something happened to both of them?”

  “Calm down. You’re scaring yourself,” Sheila said. “This noodle stuff is good.”

  “It’s pad Thai,” Annie said. “Good stuff.”

  “There’s something I haven’t told you all,” Vera said, switching back to the topic of Beatrice. “It didn’t make sense then, but now I’m beginning to wonder.” She told them about the phone call from Jon’s sister.

  “Okay, look, if your mom and Jon came back early for
some strange reason—if—we can find out, right?” Annie said. “You can call the airline. Do you have the return flight information? Call to confirm that they will be on the flight.”

  “Is it that simple?” Vera said.

  “It should be,” Annie replied.

  “Good,” she said, taking a deep breath and noting that her appetite had come back.

  She had a plan, now. She’d call and check on her mother. Surely this was all some big misunderstanding. She would ignore the pangs of suspicion and worry.

  DeeAnn suddenly gasped, her face turned red, and she reached for her water. “Shit!” she said after she drank it down. “When they say hot and spicy, that’s what they mean.” Her eyes teared up.

  “You didn’t eat one of those little peppers did you?” Annie asked.

  DeeAnn nodded, tears steaming down her face.

  “Eat rice,” Vera said. “Water is not going to help you.”

  A few minutes later, DeeAnn shook from laughter. “I’ve never eaten anything like that in my life.”

  “Well,” Paige said, “you said you wanted to expand your culinary horizons. There ya go.”

  “Won’t be eating one of those things again,” DeeAnn said, in between coughs and patting her chest.

  “Are you ready for some pie, then?” Paige said, grinning,

  They paid the bill and filed into Vera’s van to head to Pamela’s Pie Palace.

  “I always feel funny about coming here,” DeeAnn said to Sheila after they were seated in a large booth with red vinyl seats. DeeAnn and Pamela were friendly competitors, even though they served different types of baked goods.

  “Does she ever come into your place?” Sheila asked.

  “Yes,” DeeAnn said. “She comes in for scones.”

  “Well, see? No worries, then,” Sheila said.

  “I’ll be right with you ladies,” said Judy, one of their favorite servers, as she walked by with a tray full of pie slices.