“What were Mr. and Mrs. Aldridge like?” Laura took a sip of the tea. It had a mild orange flavor.
“Cold,” Miss Thompson said immediately. “Not people one could know easily. Not like their daughter. Victoria was shy but everyone liked her. She was friendly and kind. And how she loved Shakespeare. Her favorite play was As You Like It. Oh, and she was crazy for the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Shelley and Emily Dickinson, all those great writers.”
“Did you keep in touch after she graduated?”
Miss Thompson’s animated manner was gone as suddenly as it had come. “I lost track of her when she went off to college that September of 1984,” she said, her voice softer. “We had agreed to write to one another, but she never answered my letters. I always thought that odd. I wrote her the most glowing recommendation.” Miss Thompson smoothed her skirt over her knees and sighed softly. “I don’t mind telling you I was hurt. I credit myself with being her mentor. Then again, the young can be fickle.”
“Yes,” Laura said gently. “They can be. When did you next see her?”
Miss Thompson’s expression grew even more melancholy. “I never did. She came back to Port George at the end of the academic year—not for the Christmas holidays or spring break, which I thought was odd. I was waiting to hear from her but she never called. Next thing, she was off somewhere in about mid-June I think it was, and then on to school in the fall. And she never came back. Not once that I know of.”
“What was the name of the college she attended?”
“Blake College. In those days, it was very prestigious, though in my opinion—and I shared my opinion with Mr. and Mrs. Aldridge—it wasn’t academically challenging enough for someone like Victoria. But her parents had their minds set.” Miss Thompson sighed. “Not a year goes by when I don’t think about my star pupil and wonder where she is now, if she ever achieved her dreams, if she is happy, or . . . Well, if she ever does decide to visit Port George, I’d love to say hello. I hold no grudge.”
Laura believed her. “Would you say that Victoria was at all socially awkward or stuck-up?”
Miss Thompson chuckled. “She was the least stuck-up young person you could ever ask to meet. As for socially awkward, well, as I said, she was rather shy, but she was thoroughly pleasant and well-liked.”
So much for Renee Wilson and her backward theory, Laura thought. “Did you know Rob Smith?”
“Ah.” Miss Thompson sat forward. “Now I see. You really want to know about that young man who went missing.”
Laura smiled awkwardly. “Well, yes, but it often helps to know all sorts of things like who the missing person was friends with and—”
Miss Thompson put up her hand to silence Laura. “I understand all about thorough research,” she said a bit archly. “Still, why would you be under the impression that Victoria was friends with Rob?”
“I don’t know for sure that they were friends. It’s just that two people have mentioned to me that Victoria and Rob might have been romantically involved.”
Miss Thompson raised an eyebrow. “I know nothing about that, I assure you. As for Rob himself, I didn’t know him personally, but I knew him by sight and by reputation. He attended the public high school, you see, and the community college after that. He was a nice young man through and through. It was such a terrible shame when he went missing. And we never knew what happened to him. Some people said X and others thought Y, but nothing was ever concluded. A terrible shame.”
Laura noted the sudden weariness on Miss Thompson’s face. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Laura said, rising. “I’ll be on my way now.”
“Will you take a few cookies with you? I made them myself.”
Laura smiled and felt a prickling of tears. “I would love to. Thank you.”
Miss Thompson walked her to the door and waited until Laura had buckled her seat belt and started the engine of her car before going inside.
Laura drove back to the Lilac Inn, her mind only half on the road. There was far more to the story of Victoria Aldridge than what was currently apparent. But there was still absolutely nothing to make Laura think that Victoria Aldridge, the girl who looked like a Viking princess, was Laura’s birth mother.
Because, Laura reminded herself, Victoria Aldridge hadn’t been the only teenage girl living in Port George the summer of 1984. What about the others? Kathy Murdoch—once one of those teens—might be able to help even more than she had already. Laura decided she would approach Kathy again as soon as possible.
What a day it had been! If only she had met with Miss Thompson first . . . But she still would have needed to meet with that horrid Renee Wilson and that obnoxious Jack junior, just in case either had any vital tidbit to offer.
Laura parked in the small lot next to the bed-and-breakfast. What she needed now was wine to go along with Miss Thompson’s sugar cookies. Good thing a bottle was waiting in her room.
Chapter 19
It was Brent’s day off. Zach was on duty but he was a quiet worker, entirely focused on the tasks at hand. Arden might as well have been alone in the bookshop, an experience she usually enjoyed, but this morning she yearned for Brent’s sarcasm or Elly’s ebullience. Anything to take her mind off the memory of the dream.
It had come again, but with differences. The enigmatic figure, neither man nor woman, human or otherwise, but maybe all at once, had seemed to make some advancement toward her. The sky had not been sickly yellow-gray but a medley of dark and dusky blues, and there had been no lurid glare of light to frighten her. The words she had heard spoken aloud in the first dream were now repeated several times in a singsong way. Pale ribbons of sand. Dim and murmuring sea. Rather than attempting to scream, her dream self had opened her mouth to call out to the dark figure, when suddenly, she had woken with a start.
Only later, over breakfast, had Arden allowed herself to face a possibility she had been denying since the occurrence of the first dream. Could the enigmatic figure coming toward her with such difficulty represent her long-lost child?
The idea had immediately produced a wave of sadness. Arden—Victoria—had been allowed only a tiny glimpse of the baby before she had been taken away. She was never to know what color eyes her daughter was to have, what color her hair would turn out to be, if she would grow to be tall like her mother, or broad shouldered like her father. Not a day had gone by when Arden hadn’t thought about the daughter she had lost. Passing little girls in the street—babies, then toddlers, grammar schoolers and middle schoolers, teens—she would wonder, Could that be my child?
That morning, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee growing cold, Arden had tried to dismiss the idea of being reunited with her child as wishful thinking, the pathetic fantasy of a lonely middle-aged woman. The chances that someone could find her after thirty-six years were remote. Whoever had adopted her child had been told absolutely nothing about the birth mother’s identity. Nothing. Herbert Aldridge had made sure of that.
Besides, the thought of being discovered frightened her. A reunion would not be a reunion but a first-time meeting between two strangers, related by blood and bone, but not by so many things that mattered as much if not more. Daily rituals of loving behavior; long-standing family traditions; mutual friends; common interests. What if the child born to Victoria Aldridge had become a woman her mother wouldn’t much like? Narrow-minded. Hateful. Cold. Anything was possible.
And what if her daughter should appear with a score to settle? Arden would be called upon to beg her daughter’s pardon, to defend a decision that had not freely been made. In theory, Arden would have the choice to engage or not to engage. In actuality, she could never turn her back on her child. No. She would have to steel herself to withstand whatever slings and arrows her daughter chose to hurl at her and work to build a good mother-daughter relationship for the future.
But could she succeed at such a monumental undertaking?
That question had led Arden to get up from
the kitchen table, go into her bedroom, and open her copy of Villette. It hadn’t taken her long to find the line she sought.
With self-denial and economy now, and steady exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you.
Self-denial. Economy. And always, steady exertion. Arden had returned the book to the shelf, heartened. Like Lucy Snowe, she had succeeded in making a life for herself, and until she met Margery Hopkins, she had done it entirely on her own. She would make yet another life for herself if she had to—a life with her child?
“Ms. Bell?”
Arden returned to the moment to find Zach standing before her. He explained that the shipment of new blank journals they were expecting had still not arrived. “I’ve tried tracking them online, but I got nowhere. I could make a call to the supplier if you want?” Zach’s eyes fairly shone with excitement.
Zach was the most responsible young man Arden had ever encountered, and while responsibility was all well and good, Arden hoped he occasionally found the time to let go and be a teen—illogical, irrational, even reckless.
As she had once been, if only for a brief moment. But that brief moment had radically changed her life.
Arden smiled. “Thanks, Zach, I’ll take care of it. But I want to thank you for the excellent work you’re doing here at Arden Forest.”
Zach nodded almost solemnly. “Thank you, Ms. Bell. I do my best.”
Chapter 20
“I met with Renee Wilson, Jack junior, and Miss Thompson yesterday.” Laura had returned to the North Star Diner in the hopes of speaking with Kathy Murdoch. Luckily, she found Kathy on duty. “Jack senior, by the way, is suffering from dementia.”
“I’m sorry to hear that about Mr. McDonald. He’s a nice man. Jack junior is a bit of a jerk, though. I kind of remembered that after I gave you his name.” Kathy was holding a pot of coffee in one hand and a customer’s check in the other. “Was anyone of any help?”
“Miss Thompson was charming. Renee Wilson was, well, never mind. Look, do you by any chance still have your high school yearbook? The one from 1984?”
Kathy nodded. “Of course, I do. That’s not the sort of thing you get rid of, is it, not unless you had a terrible time in high school, and that wasn’t me. In some ways, those years were the best of my life. Hey, I’m getting off my shift in fifteen minutes. If you want to hang around and have a cup of coffee, you could come home with me and take a look at it. Gosh, I haven’t cracked it open in years. It’ll be fun.”
Laura agreed. Half an hour later saw the two women seated in Kathy’s living room. The house, within walking distance of the North Star, was small, with, as far as Laura could see, nothing exceptional about it other than its extreme tidiness.
They sat side by side on a couch that was upholstered in a pleasant shade of green. Kathy had opened a bottle of white table wine and poured them each a generous glass. With the yearbook opened on her lap, Kathy began to chatter on, telling Laura more than she would ever need to know about the graduating class of 1984. Some of the information, however, was potentially relevant, such as that three of Kathy’s classmates had gotten pregnant in senior year. Two of them married right after graduation; the other had had the baby on her own. “Luckily,” Kathy said, “her parents were cool about it. I mean, as cool as you can be when your seventeen-year-old kid gets pregnant and refuses to name the father.”
“So, she kept the baby?”
“Oh, yeah. Little Mikey will be in his late thirties by now. He never married either, just like his mother. He’s a terminal charmer, always got a woman hanging off his arm. But he’s okay. Always leaves me a good tip when he comes into the diner. And here’s Victoria Aldridge, the girl on the far right. I almost forgot how pretty she was.”
Though the group shot—it was a photo of the Honors Society—was a bit blurry, Laura could see that Victoria Aldridge was indeed pretty. More than that really, she was beautiful, with good bone structure and even features. But such beauty could put people off; they might see it as intimidating and prejudicially suppose it went hand in hand with arrogance.
One hundred students were in Kathy’s graduating class, and Kathy seemed to know what had happened to each and every one of them. Who had died. Who had moved away. Who were grandparents now. Who had gotten divorced. Who had never married. Who had been arrested; who was currently in jail. Who had made it big, or relatively so. Who was always out of a job because he had the worst luck in the entire world. Whom Kathy had made out with a few times. Her ex-husband, Kathy explained, had been two classes ahead of her, so his picture wasn’t in the 1984 yearbook.
Kathy turned another page. “Here are the formal portraits. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good one in all of my life.”
So many forced smiles from kids too aware of the camera, uncomfortable in their cheap caps and gowns. Laura thought of Rob Smith’s graduation photo. These photos, those of the class of 1984, shared that same air of blandness, of sameness, and yet, behind each and every one of these faces there had been a real, three-dimensional kid with hopes and dreams and plans.
Laura noted an interesting thing. Under every graduate’s portrait was his or her full name as well as a nickname in quotes. A girl with flyaway hair had been called Breezy. A large boy had been dubbed Moose. “Our class president came up with the idea of a nickname for everyone,” Kathy explained. “If you didn’t already have one, you could choose one or he made one up for you. Silly.”
Kathy flipped forward in the yearbook. “Here are the portraits of the teachers. Look, here’s Miss Thompson.”
“She looks almost the same as she does now,” Laura said in surprise. “Some people really do look old before their time. Kathy? You mentioned the other day that your sister was under the impression that Victoria Aldridge and Rob Smith were a couple. Miss Thompson said she knew nothing about a relationship, and Renee Wilson swears Rob would never have given Victoria a second look.”
Kathy laughed. “Renee’s just jealous. Everybody knew she had it bad for Rob, but he never gave her the time of day. Anyway, I never saw Victoria and Rob together, so, who knows? One thing I do know, those Aldridges wouldn’t have been happy their daughter was spending time with the son of a truck driver. They were the most stuck-up people in Port George, still are, I suppose. Not that anyone sees much of them these days.” Suddenly, Kathy’s expression turned serious. “Last time we talked you said you asked all sorts of questions when you’re getting ready to do a story because you never know what might be important in the end. I think I get it now. You’ve been asking all these questions about Victoria because you think she might have had something to do with Rob’s disappearance, or that maybe she knew something about it, like maybe that someone hurt Rob, and that’s why she never came back to Port George after going off to college because she was afraid.”
Laura was impressed. Kathy Murdoch had a keen intelligence. “Something like that, yeah. Do you think I could borrow your yearbook for my research? I promise to return it.”
“Sure, I’m glad to help. So, do you think I could be interviewed if this podcast really happens? I’ve never been quoted before.” Kathy laughed. “That’s probably because I’ve never said anything very interesting!”
Laura felt that too familiar twinge of guilt. She hated lying to this smart and openhearted woman, self-effacing and hardworking and generous with her time.
“Would you like to have dinner at that Italian place one night?” Laura asked, sidestepping the idea of a formal interview. “My host at the bed-and-breakfast told me it’s the best Italian food in miles. My treat,” she added hastily.
“Do you have an expense account?” Kathy asked excitedly. “You must, working on a podcast and all. Sure, I’d love to go to Enio’s. I’ve been wanting to go forever!”
Laura—who did not have an expense account—arranged to meet Kathy at Enio’s two nights from then at six thirty, and, yearbook under her arm, she left Kathy’s pleasant home.
Chapter 21
; Thank you again for providing such an enjoyable shopping experience. The next time my husband and I are passing through Eliot’s Corner we’ll be sure to stop in!
Arden smiled and closed her laptop. It wasn’t terribly often that customers sent e-mails via the Arden Forest website, but when they did, the messages were always positive and confirmed—as if it needed confirming!—that Arden was exactly where she was meant to be. Surrounded by books.
Oh, the countless hours she had spent as a child reading alone in her room or under a shady tree on the Aldridge property! Every penny of her allowance had gone toward books, and her library card—paper in those days—was soft with use. Once she had even walked into a wall while reading a well-worn copy of Oliver Twist. “She was too fond of books, and it turned her brain,” her nanny had intoned afterward, putting a cold cloth on young Victoria’s forehead to help prevent swelling.
Books were one of the many things she and Rob, two kids from opposite sides of the track, had had in common.
“My family teases me about being a bookworm,” Rob had told her not long after they had met. “I’ve got stacks of them in my room. Neither of my parents went to college. In fact, my father didn’t even finish high school. But they both love to read. My father has a subscription to Reader’s Digest. And my mother likes Good Housekeeping for the recipes. We also have a Bible that belonged to my great-grandmother. She got it as a wedding present, and it gets passed down to the oldest child of each generation when he or she gets married. That means Frannie will get it pretty soon. She’s tying the knot next year or the one after that, as soon as she and her fiancé have saved enough money.”
Victoria hadn’t told Rob that her father’s study held leatherbound sets of the novels of Charles Dickens, the plays of Shakespeare, and poems of Longfellow, along with a set of encyclopedias and a massive dictionary. She thought the information might sound like a brag, given the lack of books in Rob’s home. She had no idea if her father had bought the books himself, had inherited them, or even if they had come with the house. He never protested when his daughter borrowed a book; sometimes she wondered if he even noticed a gap in the rows of dark blue and maroon leather stamped with gold writing.
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