What would it be like to feel that powerful? I got chills. I can't imagine doing anything that important. What if someday I had to save Grandy or something?
This gave me a reason to text Savannah. "Just saw someone get CPR. Looks like he'll be okay. I guess you save lives all the time at the pool, huh?"
"Ha, yeah, no biggie," she wrote back.
Amie went back to looking through the record albums and picked one up.
"Yes! I just found my name! This is the song I was named after. My first win for the scavenger hunt!" she said.
She took her phone out of her back pocket and started filming herself holding up the record. She kind of did a little touchdown dance move, but more like show choir.
“Good job,” I said. “Now text your video to us so we can keep track of all the ones we find.”
Dylan looked through a bin of DVDs. Some of these flea markets are a mix of real antiques and other stuff that’s not that old. He picked up one movie and showed it to me. It was Cinema Paradiso.
"Have you ever seen this movie?" he said.
I shook my head no.
"You should." He put it back in the bin. "It won Best Foreign Film of 1989. The ending is amazing."
Amie put the album back in the bin. She looked around at some other displays while I flipped through a crate of old magazines to see if there was anything that would work for the scavenger hunt.
“Hey, here’s a sign for your Grandpa. I mean, your Grandy,” Amie said.
“What did you just say?” I said.
“I mean, part of a sign,” she said. “There’s a stack of license plates over there. I found some that he can use to at least spell out ‘home.’”
She looked down at her phone.
"Mom says maybe we're going out to dinner with you and your mom tonight," she said.
"Sounds good," I said.
“Let’s get back to the scavenger hunt,” Amie said.
Dylan held up an old Marilyn Monroe poster.
“I think this might count for one of them,” he said.
I held up an old Life magazine showing John F. Kennedy’s wedding pictures.
“Nice try,” I said. “I got this one.”
I filmed myself holding the magazine in front of my face.
The three of us spent a long time walking around checking out all the displays. It was easy to find an old metal chandelier with greenish patina coating it. It didn’t take long after that to see painted cabinets with craquelure showing another color underneath. At one table we saw a big oil painting of two girls in old-fashioned dresses.
"The older one looks kind of like you," Dylan said to Amie.
I could see the resemblance.
Amie frowned. "I don't really think so."
"She’s pretty,” I said. “And I think it counts as a person who looks like one of us.”
Amie rolled her eyes. "I would never wear that dress with those shoes,” she said. “But okay, I’ll take that as a point for me.”
She took a video of herself with the painting.
Dylan found a penny on the ground so he got the Abraham Lincoln win. That was too easy. I found an ashtray shaped like a toilet that also had a palm tree on it, so that counted for two. Amie found a scary-looking Santa statue that had kind of a greenish face. She started chasing Dylan with it.
Then I found a whole case of glass eyeballs that were used for making vintage dolls. Amie ran away screaming when she saw all of the eyeballs. Dylan started filming the eyeballs from different angles.
Dylan had to look up what Fiesta ware was, but he found the first pitcher. I found a lamp base that was shaped like an armadillo so they let me win that one for the ugliest lamp. Amie found a weird toy called Clackers that apparently caused a lot of injuries back in the 1970s.
A couple of times it seemed like Dylan was filming me, but then when I looked at him he was just doing panoramic shots or something.
We got a little bored and took a break from the hunt. Amie had gone to the bathroom. Dylan went to their car to get something out of their cooler. I went back to my mom’s booth. I heard a man’s voice over the loudspeaker.
“Hey everybody, we sure hope you’re all enjoying your day so far at the fair, finding some bargains and treasures from our quality dealers. Be sure to enter our raffle today. Right by the front gate where you entered, we have a table with today’s prizes,” he said. “Tickets are only a dollar each, with proceeds going to the local food pantry. You can check out all three of the prizes. We have a silver platter with filigree engraving, a vintage Coca-Cola sign from the 1940s, and a pocket watch from 1925.”
Finding something from 1925 was on our scavenger hunt list. I knew I could get a winning point for this one if I hurried. I grabbed my phone and took off toward the front entrance.
After zigzagging around people who were blocking my way, I could see the prize table straight ahead of me. I started walking faster toward it, then I saw Amie coming toward it from the right. She looked at me and laughed and started running. Then she pointed and screamed.
Dylan was coming from the left about five booths away but someone blocked him with a double stroller.
Amie got there first with a big smile on her face. She tried to take a picture of the pocket watch then yelled “My battery died!” to me. I tossed her my phone. She laughed and tried to take a picture of it.
“It’s locked!” Amie yelled and threw the phone back to me. “Dylan’s coming!” she screamed, jumping up and down. “Don’t let him win!”
I unlocked my phone and took a picture.
“I got it!” I said.
Amie laughed and high-fived me.
Then Dylan came up to us. I held up the picture to him. “Amie got there first but I got the picture,” I said.
“We can share credit for that one,” Amie said. “I think we’ve found all of them now!”
Dylan looked up the list on his phone.
“No, there’s one more thing we need to find. Something with a secret hiding place,” he said.
My mom texted me, asking me to come back and help pack everything up. The fair was closing in an hour and she would offer discounts to anyone who was still shopping.
Jan texted my mom the address of a pizza place we could go to. All of the dealers were packing up. I had my backpack on and I was carrying the last wooden crate out to the parking lot. I had the artist’s case propped on top of the crate, bouncing against my stomach while I walked.
Amie ran up to us. Her mom and Dylan were loading their car a few rows over.
"Can Robin ride with us? Dylan can drive us to the restaurant," she said.
My mom shrugged and said, "Fine with me. Your mom can ride with me."
"Yay. We're parked over this way," Amie said. "We have snacks, too.”
I put my backpack and the art case in the back seat of our car and walked away with Amie. We got in their car and I sat behind Dylan. Amie opened up a bag of pretzel rods and held them out for me. I took one. On our way there, Dylan handed Amie his phone and asked her to take a video of the road going past us in the sideview mirror.
At the restaurant, our moms talked about Olivia Jarrett being found, and about every scary case of girls disappearing that has ever happened. Then they talked about going to some of the same antique fairs later this summer.
“You know what?” Jan said. “My friend Rosemary has a bunch of antiques to sell. She told me I can come and buy whatever I want. I don’t actually have the money or the room to take on anything else. But why don't you and Robin go take a look tomorrow? You might like some of her stuff. It's not that far from here. We live pretty close to her place. It’s a Bed and Breakfast that she just bought, and she needs to sell some of the stuff in her attic.”
“That sounds amazing,” my mom said. “We could stop over there any time tomorrow, right Robin?”
I shrugged. Then an old song came on the jukebox and they both started singing along. So embarrassing.
They gradu
ated from high school in the same year, so they keep talking about their favorite music from when they were in high school.
"This song just brings me back to driving around with my friends right when it was getting dark," my mom said.
"Yes! It was really popular around the Fourth of July before senior year. I saw them in concert that summer," Jan said.
“You’re kidding me, so did I!" my mom said.
Amie looked at me and rolled her eyes.
We finished eating and got up to leave the restaurant. Our moms were paying and asking the owner about antique shops in town. Dylan, Amie and I reached into the candy bowl by the cash register and walked out the door. We all popped peppermint candies in our mouths.
"How irritating is it when your mom had more fun than you in high school?" I asked, the candy clicking against my teeth while I talked.
"Seriously, talking about going to concerts and driving around with their friends at night?" Amie said.
"Super annoying," Dylan said.
Chapter 10
That night I dreamed that I was playing hide and seek with Lauren at the lake house. I saw a girl in jeans running down a stairway but I couldn’t see her face. She ran out the door and I tried to follow her but she disappeared.
The next morning we checked out of our hotel and started off toward the Bed and Breakfast.
When we're driving through these small towns, I look at the houses and wonder what it's like to live there. What kind of people are inside those houses and what are they doing at that moment? Some places have a lot of swimming pools you can see in the backyards right along the highway, but I never see anyone swimming in them.
This Bed and Breakfast was an old Victorian house with five bedrooms and an attic filled with old stuff that Jan’s friend Rosemary wanted to clear out so she can turn the attic into another bedroom for guests. My mom couldn’t wait to go through stuff in that attic to see what she might want to buy. I had a feeling I was going to be put to work.
We were going to stay at a hotel nearby because my mom looked up the B&B website, and the rooms cost way too much for us to stay there.
We pulled into the gravel driveway. "The Hometown Inn," my mom said. "How cute is that name?"
“It's not that cute, they should think of another name,” I said.
“Well, this house is beautiful,” she said.
“Why would people come to a Bed and Breakfast here anyway? Is it a vacation place or something?” I asked.
“There are a couple of lakes nearby for boating, and two different colleges,” she said.
I hoped she would forget about the colleges. We got out of the car. The house was painted light gray with dark green wooden shutters. There was a huge front porch with white railings that wrapped around the front and both sides of the house. I saw a hammock on the porch I wouldn't mind trying out. We went up the front steps and rang the doorbell.
We could see a woman walking toward the screen door from the back of the house, drying her hands on a dishtowel. A gray cat was racing ahead of her to get to the door first.
"Hello, hello! You must be Julia and Robin! I'm Rosemary. Come on in!" she said.
"Get back in here, Paloma," she said to the cat.
Rosemary held the door open for us and we went into the house. I liked the way the screen door slammed after us. I kind of felt like letting it slam again.
There was a stairway on the right with a dark, curving railing. On the left was a small living room with a fireplace. Down the hall I saw part of a fancy dining table, and beyond that I could see into the kitchen.
We stood there looking around. Everything looked rich and dark and about a hundred years old. All the walls were covered with patterned wallpaper.
"This is just beautiful," my mom said. "I feel like I just stepped back in time."
Rosemary smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I’ll be honest with you, it's a ton of work. People tell me all the time that they wish they could retire and open a Bed and Breakfast. I don't want to burst their bubble, but I swear I've never worked so hard in my life. Even with a cleaning crew once a week, I'm constantly cleaning bathrooms, changing sheets and washing dishes. The truth is, I love to cook, not clean."
"Well, whatever you're doing, I'm telling you it's working. This place is lovely and it's so inviting," my mom said.
"Thank you!" Rosemary laughed. "That's enough of my complaining. Come on, I'll show you around."
I looked at the little desk that was sitting under the stairs. It had a guest book for people to sign, and a little framed card with the Wi-Fi password written in calligraphy. I took a picture of it.
Rosemary put her hands on her hips and looked at my mom.
"You know what? Why don't you girls stay here tonight?" she said. "No charge. We don't have any customers because it's a weekday. That’s why I can never go to antique fairs on weekends anymore, even though I would love to. But I’m trying to get rid of things now, not add any more stuff. Then tomorrow morning I'll make you one of my special breakfasts before we take a look at the attic. I can also drive you to my friend’s antique shop to see her 1960s bar glass collection. She only wants mid-century modern dishware, so she's not interested in what's in my attic here. You'll love it. Can you cancel your hotel for tonight?"
My mom looked at me. I nodded.
"Actually I think I can still cancel my reservation without getting charged. We'd love to stay, as long as you're sure," she said to Rosemary.
"Yes, I insist! Come on, I'll show you your rooms," Rosemary said.
We went up a curving staircase with carved-out alcoves held little vases. Rosemary showed us two connecting rooms. Mine was probably supposed to be the kids' room, because it was a lot smaller than my Mom's, but it had a nice blue and white quilt on the bed and white eyelet curtains blowing at the window.
"There aren’t any TVs in the bedrooms, because I try to make the bed and breakfast seem authentic," Rosemary said. "But you can watch the TV in the den if you want. And we have movies and games and books in there, too. You can help yourself."
"Are you sure you want to give us both rooms?" my mom said. "We can share one and keep the other one clean for the next guest you have."
"I think Robin might want her own space," Rosemary said. "Anyway, you can stay together if you're more comfortable that way, but it's totally fine to enjoy both rooms. Now, I need to run to the store for a few things, but I'll be back in a flash. Do you girls need anything?"
We shook our heads no.
"OK, then, make yourselves at home," she said.
After she had left my mom said, "Isn't this a great old place?"
"Yeah, I guess," I said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.
"Let's bring in our stuff," she said.
Later we ate dinner at a table on the front porch. Rosemary made barbecue chicken sandwiches, with rolls that had cornmeal on the top. My mom asked Rosemary about the recipe and said she'll have to make it when we get home.
After dinner, Rosemary told me to feel free to hang out wherever I wanted. I got in the hammock. It wasn’t the kind that makes you feel like you're going to flipped over and fall on your butt. It was wide and comfortable and it even had a pillow. There was a little breeze blowing. I looked up at the porch ceiling. It was a light blue beadboard. Maybe I should paint my room that color. I took a picture of it.
I stretched and yawned and felt kind of sleepy, but it was still light out. I closed my eyes and relaxed, swinging a little in the hammock. It had cooled down since this afternoon.
You know how sometimes you just kind of "know" something? I get that sometimes. It's like I know it as if someone told me but nobody told me. It happens a lot.
And then the gut feeling kicks in. I know this is weird, and I'm kind of embarrassed to even say it, but right now I have a corazonada that maybe I'm stuck at this bed and breakfast for a reason, but I don't know what the reason is.
After a while, the mosquitos and moths started bugging me, so I we
nt inside. My mom was in the den across from the dining room. I could hear Rosemary washing dishes in the kitchen. I sat down on the couch next to my mom.
Rosemary came to the doorway and peeked into the room. "I'm going up to bed soon but I'll be awake reading," she said. "Just knock if you need anything."
We said goodnight. I looked up Amie’s Instagram and then I got curious and found that Dylan had a YouTube channel. His last video was from a year ago. He had made a video of a girls' soccer team. I could tell he had his eye on one girl when they came off the field.
He had put it into slight slow motion, and she looked over at the camera and smiled a little. Did she smile because she liked him? Or because maybe she just knew how cute she was.
I picked up the remote and turned on the TV. I flipped through the channels for a while and landed on a movie channel. Cinema Paradiso was starting. That's the movie Dylan said I should watch. Judging from the way my mom sighed and stretched her legs out, I knew she would be asleep in about five minutes.
I thought about texting Dylan that it's on but I didn’t want to seem weird. Plus if it was boring I didn’t want to commit to watching it to the end.
I watched the whole movie while my mom was sleeping on the couch next to me. Most of the movie was shown in flashback, going back in time.
The main character was a little boy, and at the end he was a famous movie director who got a gift from someone important to him from his childhood. Something that had to be hidden from him as a kid was discovered years later. I looked around the room. I could hear a clock ticking. I couldn't help but think about Beverly. If only I could go back in time and find out more about what happened the day she died. Then I could explain it to Grandy before it's too late for him to understand.
Chapter 11
The next morning I opened my eyes and stretched. That bed was so comfortable. The room was kind of empty, but it had a pretty decent painting of some flowers on the wall. It was like heaven to not have to be up early. I actually liked this house. It was better than staying in a hotel, even though here's no candy machine or pool here.
Retro Road Trip Page 5
