Retro Road Trip

by Caroline Kendall

  I texted Aunt Linda and asked if she had a picture of Beverly.

  “I think maybe somewhere,” she replied. This family is so not helpful.

  Someone knocked on the screen door and let themselves in.

  “Look who’s back again!” my mom said. I looked up and saw Amie and her mom walking in.

  “Ta da!” Amie said with her arms out.

  “Hi. Are you here to help work in the attic?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll hang out with you here while my mom is taking your mom to get an X-ray,” she said.

  “Okay, good,” I said.

  “You girls can use your judgment on bringing down what you think will sell,” Rosemary said. “I want to clear out as much as possible today. I’ll put price tags on everything tonight. But have some breakfast first.”

  Jan got some coffee before she left with my mom. Amie ate a waffle while I sat at the table with her. Rosemary was busy in the kitchen. Paloma rubbed against my legs. I picked her up and started a staring contest with her. Then I blinked at her to see if she would blink back, which is my favorite thing to do with a cat.

  When Amie finished eating, we headed up to the attic. I didn’t ask what Dylan was doing. Probably sleeping.

  “Maybe we can find our last scavenger hunt thing up here. We could win before Dylan even wakes up,” she said. There was the answer. Not that he would make any extra effort to hang out with me or anything.

  Amie found a baton and she started twirling it, then doing a song-and-dance routine with it as if it were a cane. When she swung it around her head and almost hit a lamp, she put it down.

  We brought end tables, a coat rack, paintings and chairs down to the back porch. There was a pile of stuff blocking a Victorian dollhouse back in a corner. I knew that could attract a lot of attention from people driving by the yard sale. I wanted to get a look inside the dollhouse, but we had to clear a lot of space first.

  After a while, we got closer to the dollhouse. The open side was facing the wall, and I needed to free up some more space to turn it around and look into the rooms. A big trunk was jammed up against it.

  I moved a couple of boxes off of the trunk and tried to open the lid. Locked.

  Amie looked through one of the boxes and found a bunch of loose glass marbles and a shiny black purse. She looked inside a little jewelry box and pulled out a glass prism on a string.

  “Who were these people and why is there no logic to how they threw this stuff up here?” she said.

  I picked up the purse. Nothing in it but a nickel dated 1961 and a crumpled-up piece of paper. I smoothed it out. Blank. I sighed. What a waste of time.

  “I want to get a look at that dollhouse, but it will probably just have mouse poop in it and then it'll be my job to clean it out,” I said.

  “Too bad mouse poop wasn’t on the scavenger hunt list,” Amie said. “Speaking of that, what are we looking for again?”

  “Stuff Rosemary can sell,” I said.

  “No, I mean what was our last scavenger hunt thing that we haven’t found?” she said.

  “Something with a secret hiding place,” I said.

  She picked a spiderweb off the back of her leg.

  “You know, maybe you can get to the lake house even if your mom can’t drive you because her ankle’s all messed up. What if you took a bus? Or a train? Or maybe even Dylan could drive you and I could come too,” she said.

  “I don’t know, maybe. I just want to get there. I keep having dreams about Beverly, and what she saw before she fell. Or jumped. Or was pushed.” I said. “I can’t see her face but I know it’s her anyway.”

  “Like multiple dreams about her?” Amie said. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, even when I fell asleep on the hammock yesterday,” I said. “Actually, I guess it’s been happening ever since the day I met you and Dylan. I had the dream that night in the hotel about where Olivia Jarrett would be found and I was right. Rosemary told me that she thinks the spirit of people who have died sometimes hang around us and give us messages. I know that might not even be true but it’s almost like I’m getting signs shown to me in my dreams. What if Beverly’s spirit wants me to find out what happened? Maybe it could help Grandy heal a little.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that spirit stuff,” Amie said. “But I hope you find some answers for him.”

  I grabbed the handle on one end of the trunk and tried to pull it out of the way. I moved it just enough so I had space to turn the dollhouse around and Amie and I could look into the rooms.

  The dollhouse had a living room and kitchen on the bottom floor, a bedroom and a baby’s room with a little crib on the second floor, and an office with a rolltop desk in the attic. I had to admit, it was really cute. I almost felt like playing with it.

  I looked inside the little desk. There was a tiny book with blank pages in it, and a mini framed picture that probably was supposed to hang on the wall. I held up the picture to check out the detail in better light. It was a tiny picture of a bird.

  Amie was still holding the prism in her hand. She held it up by the string and looked at it sparkling in the light. The sunlight reflected off of the prism and shined a rainbow into the corner of the dollhouse attic.

  Rosemary yelled up from the bottom of the stairs.

  "Robin! We’re back. Can you come down and talk to your mom?"

  "Um, yeah, coming!" I yelled.

  “I’ll keep working,” Amie said.

  I set the desk and the little painting in the attic of the dollhouse. Amie pulled a box off of a pile and onto the floor. She started digging through it. I climbed over the trunk and headed downstairs.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text from Aunt Linda.

  “Here she is.” She had found a black and white photo of Beverly.

  I looked at the picture in the text and I got chills. Something seemed familiar about her. Maybe because she was already part of my family. She looked a little like Grandy around the eyes. It felt like she was looking right at me.

  “Beverly,” I whispered. “Please tell me what happened to you.”

  Chapter 16

  The windows were down. I watched the road going past in the side-view mirror. When I leaned my head back and closed my eyes and breathed in, I could smell lilacs and hamburgers on someone’s grill.

  We were finally almost at Grandy’s. We drove past the old florist, the little bridal shop, the Mexican restaurant and the gas station. We pulled up to a stoplight. The water tower was painted like a basketball because the high school team won the state championship fifty years ago. I looked at the ice cream shop on the corner. I remembered waiting in there with Grandy when my nose barely reached the counter.

  I got a text from Savannah. “When are you coming home?”

  “Not sure, but I’ll be at Grandy’s soon,” I answered. “How are you and Cameron?”

  “I think he makes a better friend than boyfriend,” she replied. “I think we’re finished. I’m at band practice. Gotta go line up again.”

  I couldn’t wait to go up to the attic. I knew there was hardly any chance that I'd find anything, but I couldn't wait to look. My stomach was jumping.

  Would this red light ever change?

  "We’ll be there soon. Can you pick up all this garbage?" my mom said.

  The light turned green and I put the empty cups and wrappers into a McDonald's bag.

  “Good thing I didn’t need a cast after all or we’d still be at Rosemary’s,” she said. “I feel a little bad that we left right when the yard sale started, but at least you helped her get everything set up this morning. You did a good job. I was proud of you. It was nice of Rosemary to pay you for your work.”

  “I’m glad you’re skipping the next antique fair so we can go to Grandy’s,” I said. “But you know, I could totally have taken the bus by myself and you could have gone to other fairs by yourself if you hadn’t messed up your foot. Or Dylan and Amie could have driven me here. That would have been more fun,” I
said.

  She shrugged.

  “Well, if your dad wasn’t off on a cruise, maybe he could have driven you, but that’s not the way it worked out. I wouldn’t let you take the bus by yourself anyway. Not this far away. At least there’s no rain coming for the next few days, so the stuff in the attic should be okay. It would have been good weather for an antique fair,” she said.

  Four blocks to go. I unplugged my phone from the charger. My feet were twitching to get out of the car. It felt like we’d been on the road forever. Knowing that there might be something in the attic that could make a difference to Grandy, if only I could find it, was driving me crazy.

  She turned into the driveway. "Home sweet home," she said, even though it's not actually our home.

  "Let's go in and say hi right away," my mom said. "We can go back out to the car later and bring our stuff in."

  We got out. I stretched and stuck my phone in my back pocket, and we headed up the walk to the front door.

  I saw the tire swing lying where it had fallen in the side yard. The tree looked like its arm had been ripped off violently. I felt like I was looking back at my childhood on the ground. My mom looked at the tire and just shook her head.

  The screen door was unlocked. My mom opened it and we walked in.

  "Hello, we're here!" she called.

  "Well, well, look who finally made it," Grandy said. He was watching a baseball game on TV. He got up from his chair and held out his arms.

  “Hey, Grandy,” I said, giving him a hug. “How’s your ankle?”

  “Oh, it’s better today, I can walk all right. I could probably start dancing at any time,” he winked at me.

  He pointed to my mom’s foot. “What about you?” he said.

  “I’m getting better too. Thank God I didn’t need a cast or I wouldn’t be able to drive for weeks,” she said.

  “Good, we’re both healing,” he said. He sat back down.

  “I’m sorry about your tree,” I said.

  “You know, I’ve already been thinking about it. It’s not the end of the world. I think I can use the wood from the tree to make a porch swing or something for you and Lauren,” he said.

  “That sounds nice,” I smiled.

  I sat down across from Grandy. I couldn't wait to go into the attic and start looking. First we had to talk about the traffic on the way here, the price of gas, how tall I've gotten, how much Rosemary charges at the B and B, if I've read any good books lately, and how someone at the grocery store like Princess Diana. I wondered if she really looked like Princess Diana, or if he meant Kate Middleton or Meghan Markle. Or if he thought Diana was still princess now.

  My mom went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

  “Dad, I thought you said you went to the grocery store. There’s nothing in here except sardines and mustard,” she said.

  “That’s what I got at the store,” he said, winking at me. Again, I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or covering up that he didn’t even go.

  “I’ll go pick us up something for dinner,” my mom said. “Dad, I’m taking your car. Mine still has the trailer attached.”

  She grabbed Grandy’s car keys and went out to the driveway. She still limped a little. I stood up and stretched. I didn’t want Grandy to feel like I was ditching him, but I was dying to get upstairs.

  "I know we just got here, but I want to go up and look at the attic now," I said to him. “I just want to see where the tree crashed in.”

  "Okay, Robin. Just don’t get up on that stepladder. We don’t need you joining the injured list,” Grandy said. “Two of us is plenty.”

  My heart started beating a little faster. I just didn't want to explain my plan yet. I didn't want to get his hopes up as high as mine were.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  I opened the door to the attic and ran up the stairs. When I got to the top step, I reached for the ceiling light and pulled the string. I took a deep breath. I hoped that I was going to find something important here. I had a corazonada about this like I'd never had before. I knew Beverly had been dead for almost seventy years, but I felt like she was standing right there with me, waiting for me to find something that could explain what happened to her.

  Grandy had propped a big piece of plywood up by the broken window with black plastic garbage bags duct-taped around. Strips of yellow insulation dangled from the ceiling. The attic was dark except for a window on the other side of the room.

  The scavenger hunt I did with Dylan and Amie was nothing compared to the hidden treasure I was looking for now in Grandy’s attic.

  I stood there and closed my eyes.

  "Come on Beverly, show me where to look," I whispered.

  I opened my eyes. I looked to see where the light was coming from, just like I learned a long time ago. A cloud must have moved because a bright ray of light suddenly shined through the window right into the space below the boarded-up window.

  I walked over to the spot the light was shining on. I could see a gap between the wooden studs and the floorboards, where the floor meets the wall. It wasn't very wide, but just like you would use one finger to pull a book out of a packed bookshelf at the library, I stuck one finger in the gap and I felt the spine of a book. I pulled it up and lifted a diary out of its little cubbyhole in the floor.

  I opened the cover and looked at the first page. It said "Private! Property of Beverly Haines" written in an artistic cursive handwriting.

  I got chills.

  Was this actually Beverly’s private journal? I couldn't believe it. No one else knew that this diary had been there since Grandy was five years old, stuck in his sister's secret hiding place. I held it to my forehead for a second and whispered, "Hi, Beverly."

  I turned to a page in the middle where a ribbon bookmark was holding a place, and I read the first words I saw:

  "Hello Robin!"

  Chapter 17

  I almost died right there. Then I got a wave of chills going through me from my forehead down through my shoulders and arms. Did Beverly write that for me? No, that's impossible.

  I held the diary up to the light, and I started reading.

  I'm sitting here in the attic looking out the window, and I'm watching a robin on her nest today. The eggs are such a pretty blue, maybe even prettier than a blue sky. Soon they’ll hatch and start their lives. Just for a moment, the robin stared at me, and I stared back. I asked it a question. What are you looking for, Robin?

  I looked up from the journal and closed my eyes. Did she actually just say "What are you looking for, Robin?" I felt like she was sitting right there next to me. I felt almost afraid to keep reading. These were her final words, whether she knew that ahead of time or not.

  I took a deep breath, exhaled and looked back down at her neat handwriting in faded blue ink. I could just picture her sitting right here in this attic, next to the window writing in the diary.

  Andy’s at the library with his friend William from down the street. William's mother said she'd bring him back home in a few hours.

  He likes listen to stories and he likes to sit with me and draw while I draw. He's too young for me to tell if he'll be a good artist. Sometimes these things run in families.

  Like weak ankles, I thought. What if Beverly had weak ankles and that made her slip and fall off the cliff?

  I just looked out the window again. The robin has flown away and one of the baby birds is starting to peck through the blue eggshell! I can't wait to see Andy's face when I show him the robin's nest this afternoon.

  Doorbell is ringing, more later.

  The rest of that page was blank. I turned to the next page.

  Diary, I’m back. I’ve been sitting here for a long time. I don't know how to describe the way I feel right now.

  George just came here to the house and said he didn't want to marry me after all because he's met someone else, a girl at who works at his sales office. He told me I should keep the ring he gave me because he didn't spend much money on it any
way. The other girl was waiting in the car for him.

  I’m no longer getting married. I can’t believe this has happened. If no one else knows about it yet, maybe it’s not really true.

  There’s no one around. Andy’s going to be gone for a while. I’m completely alone. I’m going to hike up to Rainbow Falls. And I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get there.

  Oh no, maybe she really did jump, I thought. What a horrible way to die. My hands started shaking.

  That's where George proposed to me last summer. I want to throw the ring off the cliff and be rid of him forever. He would probably say that I'm being overly dramatic, but I think it will be very satisfying, especially since he told me the ring wasn't worth much anyway.

  I can totally respect that, I thought. I felt like throwing his stupid ring off a cliff too.

  To be honest, I guess I’m supposed to feel heartbroken, but I’m relieved. He is too judgmental, too quick to anger. I knew this didn’t feel right, but I wasn't sure how to break it off with him without enraging him.

  I looked up from the book. She wasn’t devastated at all. She was actually happy that day. Has Grandy spent his whole life thinking she might have killed herself? And it's not even true? I kept reading.

  I am stunned. I'm a little embarrassed but at the same time. I feel like I've just emerged from a cave and I'm seeing the sun and breathing fresh air for the first time in months. Or more like hatching out of a nest, ready to fly.

  I should have been the one to end it. It hasn’t felt right for a while now. I guess I was too afraid to face it. But I’m grateful.

  This is a new beginning for me. I can make my own choices now. I knew George wanted us to move away if we got married, and I never wanted to leave Andy behind. Mom and Dad could always find someone else to work at the store, but I know Andy would miss me too much if I ever went away.