Footsteps tramping down stairs. Screaming. Cries of joy.
“Char?”
“Yeah” sneaks out between sobs.
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte answers, but I hear the weariness in her voice.
I wait a beat, because I have already waited too long. I say a silent goodbye to the woman, the girl, who bore the burden of this secret for so long.
So I confess to Charlotte the sin that consumed Janie Willow.
I tell my best friend that eighteen years ago I had a baby girl. I tell her that she was made of light and pure happiness and all things perfect, and I abandoned her in the Nelsons’ corn maze.
I tell her that somehow, after losing her, I have her back now, and how will I ever be able to repay the universe for this gift?
I wait for my choir director friend to say amen or something equally godly, but instead, she speaks as a new Charlotte, reborn in the glow of hope. “The universe doesn’t charge for the hope of tomorrow, Janie, just as long as you don’t squander today.”
We both digest that, and my gut tells me it’s as much about her as me. Together, in silence, we sing a thousand hallelujahs for yesterday, for today, and for the second chances that await us both tomorrow.
Love is patient, they say. Out of the ashes, they say. Fire before rebirth, they say.
Yep.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I don’t leave her side for the next three days. I watch her sleep. I watch her breathe. I watch the way her eyes light up when she tells me about her puffy red snowsuit and her first memory of snow, and when in kindergarten she was Tinkerbell for Halloween and gave all her classmates the ability to fly. Of all the babies in all the world, I got the best one.
The world stops so I can breathe her in, then it starts again, spins with intent, in honor of what the future holds. That is to say, the world stops for love.
She is awake. She is fine. She is mine.
It is time. My life isn’t really real until he knows about it, so I pick up the phone.
“Sid,” I say to the man who took care of me during my lost years, who taught me to do the hard work, to sometimes edit with care instead of delete with abandon.
“Jane.” I hear so much in his voice. Relief. Restrained impatience. Acceptance.
The two of us sit in silence for a moment, so far apart, so together.
He saves me like he always does, speaking first because he can tell I’m on the verge of vulnerability. “Your little Groundhog Day piece was a hit. Maybe you should write from the middle of a cornfield more often.”
“I’m considering it.”
He leaves this alone, pretends I never said it, because he hopes I don’t mean it. We both know that Cinegirl will go on. I am Cinegirl, wherever I end up, but we both know there has been a shift. Sid presses on like editors must. “You and Phil Connors have a lot in common.”
“Is that so?”
“Hello…emotionally unavailable.” Sid laughs. “You’re arrogant, charming, and shockingly unwilling to change.”
“Aw. You think I’m charming?”
Sid lets a moment of silence pass by before he reveals something he seems to fear and hope simultaneously. “You could use a good, old-fashioned time loop and an endless Groundhog Day from which to start anew.”
I know exactly how I’d like that day to go.
“So did you do it?” he asks after a heavy pause. Doubt, or maybe fear, oozes from the outskirts of his question, and I can tell he’s unsure of what my answer will be. “Did you do what you needed to do?” He takes another pause, for himself as much as me. “Did you fix what needed to be fixed?”
Sid is the closest version of my father I’ll ever get—the one person who knows about the soft inside I keep under wraps; that alone could turn me into a blubbering mess, but there is something in the way he asks, the way he is rooting for me that makes me take pause. I want to say yes: what needed to be fixed is fixed, she is okay, and as it turns out, she is the only thing that could possibly have fixed me.
“Well?”
“I’ve been given”—I try to swallow the words, but they deserve better—“a gift, Sid.” A cry-gasp escapes without my consent. “Can you fucking believe it, Sid? Me!”
“There it is.”
“Jesus, don’t give me shit about cursing right now, Sid. This is my goddamned close-up. Against all odds, I am the lead in a story so unbelievably beautiful I’d have to write a scathing review of it just to maintain my reputation as an unsentimental critic.”
“Done yet?”
“Yes,” I say, then revise. “No. Sid, I have a…” The words just stop. I know the rest of the sentence, hear it in my head, but the words won’t come out. Instead, they dance around like they know better. And they do. No words can possibly do her justice. “Sid, I have someone I want you to meet.”
He takes a beat, then says, “Always wanted to visit Iowa.”
“Really?”
“Nah.”
He hears me laugh, but the tears I keep to myself. So here we are, Sid and I, in our third act, not yet ready for the closing credits to scroll by, yet hesitant to see the next scene. True cinephiles know that most beginnings are really just endings in disguise. I wonder if it’s happening to him right now too—the movie reel of our minds playing those movie endings that make us all feel a little bit more alive—big Cuckoo’s Nest Chief freeing himself, freeing us, by crashing through the mental hospital window, Truman leaving his fabricated world and taking his first steps into the beautiful unknown, Butch and Sundance going out in style, the only way they know how.
“So…”
“So…”
We both know we’ve got to stop this sentimental train wreck, yet I can’t bring myself to do it.
“Look,” I say, “it’s not like we’re riding off into the sunset just yet, Sid. We have a whole career before we live happily—”
He hangs up before I can deliver the line that we both know comes next, the cliché of a line that fairy tales dare to repeat at will, that critics like me laugh off the page, and that Hollywood is downright addicted to.
“Damn you, Sid,” I say to no one, but what I really mean is Thank you, Sid. Thank you for everything.
Music cue.
Fin.
Credits roll.
Epilogue
Six Weeks Later
True City Community Theater
Harold Hill has waited for her. Of course he has. Believe so. All of them—Mr. Linart, Connor, the whole cast and crew, all of True City—have waited while Bliss slept, dreaming dreams that none of us will ever know, and now, Harold Hill and Marion Paroo will take the stage together. True City’s Main Street is alive and bustling with people waiting to see the miracle of a girl who was willed back to life, the same girl who will now act out the story of a con man, a librarian, and a small-town miracle that was no miracle at all.
I wear for the first time the black silk gown I’d bought for the hope of walking the red carpet with Mom and Dad. Sidney had it sent it to me, no questions asked, which is quite a miracle in itself. Even though it’s too formal for the occasion and will prompt comments about putting on airs, about catching a cold, about “What would Jack and Mary think?” I don’t care, because Mom and Dad wouldn’t care. It’s yet another chance to right a wrong, to revise a missed opportunity. That is to say, it’s our red carpet do-over. They would be so proud of Bliss, and they would sit with me, front row, smiling at her on stage just like they smiled at me while I sang and danced until it rained.
It is true that I look ridiculous with Mom’s country-blue winter coat over my gown, but nobody seems to notice any more than they’d notice a parka over church clothes or a snowsuit over a Halloween costume. In my left pocket, I have two butterscotch candies. Pick one out, kid; the butterscotch ones ar
e good. In my right pocket, I have the patch I cut from Bliss’s blanket of stars. I imagine the years it spent under our willow tree, wondering if it would ever see the light. So tonight I embody us all—Mom, Dad, Sid and all things Hollywood, and my Bliss.
On the sidewalk outside the theater, I see Melinda Stephens walking her new, white Akita puppy that was given to her—anonymously, of course. It sure feels good making things right.
I walk in the theater’s main doors, carrying a dozen roses that I’ll give Bliss when she bows later and the crowd cheers for a performance beyond her years. I am nervous. This makes giving a critic’s acceptance speech seem like a Saturday matinee. But we have practiced. Every line. Every facial expression. Every gesture. We’ve got this. She’s got this.
I am still nervous. Guess this is how it is for mothers.
Charlotte sits next to me, wearing her new holiday sweater that she claims she found in the back of her closet. But I know better. Midwesterners always downplay a celebration, even when they find themselves engulfed in the very fanfare they’ve designed. Next to her sits Julia, her high-flying lover, dressed in a black chiffon skirt pulled over her black leotard, and as the overhead stage lights bounce off the tiny little sequins in Julia’s skirt, I am struck by the wonder of it all—the will of life, the will of love, and the inevitable show that must go on.
Janelle sits to my left and in a fit of excitement—for the show, for her best friend, Bliss, for the holiday spirit that makes people stop being assholes for a minute—she grabs my hand and gives it a little squeeze. So, in turn, I grab Charlotte’s hand to form an undeniable trifecta of family, friendship, and a childhood not forgotten. Audrey Hepburn starts to strum “Moon River” somewhere in the recesses of my mind, telling me what the future holds, but my heart is heavy with the world Charlotte and I have already seen together in this lifetime. She is my forever friend. Nothing could be more right.
Well, it could be a little more right. I look for Rob, who is meeting us here because he is coming straight from the station. He will arrive in uniform, so handsome that he looks like he’s merely playing a cop in a movie, and he will arrive on time, because he’s a good father. He will by now have read the letter I left for him earlier—the letter in which I tried to do the right thing.
It really is the right thing to do, but this time, the critic hates being right, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t written it at all. I wish I hadn’t told him that he’s the only man I’ve ever known who can shoot a gun and write a poem in the same day. I wish I hadn’t told him that the last two months have been the best days of my life, that when I’m with him I have no words. I wish I hadn’t told him that it’s unfair to assume that he’ll love me back, because the alternative would mean saying no to this perfect family that was thrust upon us, and maybe he was just playing along because it might be the best for Bliss. Maybe I was being selfish wanting it all. I wish I wouldn’t have given him the ultimatum of showing up at my door tonight when he brings Bliss by after the show. I wish I wouldn’t have said any of it now, because if he doesn’t show up, for Bliss and I that means it’s just us again, and while that is enough, God knows it is, it’s not quite the complete us I imagine in my dreams.
In the letter’s closing, after revising several horrible, nerve-induced lines like We’ll always have the tractor and Frankly, I do give a damn, I settled for the truth. I love you. And then I recalled the line of poetry I’d seen in his journal. When love shows up like an afternoon thunderstorm, give it shelter.
As the show is about to begin and I hear Connor warming up his trombone, I feel a tap on my shoulder. When I turn around, I see a familiar face, the same face I saw when I pulled up to the outskirts of True City several weeks ago. He is cleaner, but it is he, the farmer who greeted me back home, gave his heartfelt condolences for my parents, and who insisted on calling me Janie like he knew who I was. How could I not have recognized him? Was it my LA-induced vanity that erased my ability to remember people, or had there simply been too many years in between?
“Mr. Stephens,” I say, taking his hand. “When I saw you a while back, I… I’m sorry I didn’t remember you.”
“No apology necessary, Janie. It’s been a long time.” He holds on to my hand a little longer, like he’s got something to say, and he does. “So many memories. You and your folks at the coffee shop; you, the Corn Queen who made it rain; and all your trips to the corn maze. Especially your last one.”
I stop breathing for a moment. Pieces of the puzzle come to me frame by frame. Mr. Stephens’s farm was the adjoining land next to the Nelsons’ corn maze. He saw me. He saw me on that fateful day.
Ours eyes lock in a type of solidarity most people can never understand. “I saw you when I was doing fieldwork that late afternoon, didn’t think anything of it, but when I heard the news about the baby being left there, well, I put it all together.”
“And you never told.” All the crowd noise falls away; everything falls away.
“Wasn’t my place.” He smiles, squeezes my hand a little tighter. “But after you left, I made sure your folks got to know her. Fixed it up so your dad was her Elks sponsor. She swung on your tire swing, and when she was older, he made her watch James Bond movies with him. That’s why she wants to be an actress, you know.” He laughs. “You can blame your dad for that.” He stops for a moment. “He missed you a lot. But Bliss took your spot for a long while there.”
I think I see his eyes moisten, but it’s hard to see through my own right now. “They knew her, Janie. They just didn’t know she was their granddaughter. Thought you might want to know that,” he says, and then, like it was no big thing, he brings absolution, redemption, right here in True City. “They’d be proud, Janie. Of both of you.”
He turns back around, like it was nothing, like he’s not the pillar of integrity that he is, because anything else would be less than humble. He chose respecting my privacy over a much easier path, and I am dizzy with what Do unto others looks like in real life. I’ve never been more proud to call this place home.
I am still reeling when the curtain opens. Still reeling after the “Rock Island” train opener, the “Iowa Stubborn” number, and the “Ya Got Trouble” scene, so by the time I see Bliss enter the stage and sing “Goodnight, My Someone,” just like Mom sang to me, the world melts away.
Bliss’s voice carries throughout the theater, but I imagine she’s singing to me.
It’s just us.
Her soft, blond hair falls in little ringlets around her face, and for a moment, I am looking at myself. She is looking out the set’s fake window at fake stars, but everything about her is real. When the song swells, she tilts her head slightly, and our eyes meet right as she sings.
She is real.
Soon, Harold Hill will peek his head out from behind the curtain, ready to peddle his personal brand of hope, trying to convince them the impossible is possible.
And we will all believe it.
“Miss you, ambassadors,” I say and blow a kiss to the sky.
Harold Hill is ready for the next scene, and so am I.
• • •
I am sitting in Mom’s recliner, eating the last portion of her heavenly corn casserole from the deep freezer, and I am surrounded by humility.
The last time I was in my LA screening room, a lifetime ago, I watched a grieving James Bond caress the love of his life and refuse to say goodbye. We have all the time in the world. My darkness, my world, impenetrable then, even on the brightest of days.
We don’t have all the time in the world. There is darkness. There will always be darkness.
But light finds a way.
I think of the first line of Hole of Schmidt, and it is suddenly illuminating. “You’re digging a hole to nowhere.” It’s a metaphor. I get it now, Nick. Gary Schmidt sees a young girl from Sierra Leone on a late-night documentary highlighting the extreme poverty there, and he
begins a quest in her honor. One man risks everything for a girl he’s never met. He attempts the impossible: to rewrite her story.
I owe Nick Wrightman a phone call, and a revision.
I take off my bracelet that, for years, had been both my punishment and my salvation. She is happy were the words I’d had engraved underneath, the secret part of the bracelet that touched my skin every day, always. Until today. Today I will take it off. She is now my reminder that love exists, in the flesh. Tomorrow I will bury this bracelet, bury After Jane, bury what was lost under the willow tree.
When Sid sent me my gown, I had him send me something else, something I’ve neglected for too long, and I see the perfect place for it. I take the framed poster out of its mailing box and hang it above the fireplace. Just thinking of the ringing bell and the stars talking to each other will keep me company. Jimmy Stewart’s getting out of this town. He’s gonna see the world right in front of him. This is what Mom and Dad wanted for me all along.
How could I have not seen it before? Movies don’t create magic, they reflect it. We are the real magic—our families, our friendships, our audacity to find hope amid dismal circumstances.
Outside, snow blankets the land. Christmas will be here soon. She will be here soon. Maybe they will be here soon. There will be a knock, and it will reverberate through the big wooden front door Dad fixed a dozen times, and the sound will travel through Mom’s kitchen, through Dad’s den, through the living room. It will breathe new life into this old house.
When I open the door, Bliss will smile and say, What did you think? Did you totally love it? Mr. Linart said we were really, really, really good. I mean, for opening night, you know. Thanks for practicing my lines with me; it totally helped so much. And what do you think? Do you totally think I can really do this? That I’m good enough to do this? I mean, you should know, right? This is totally your world, right? So, do you think I could be a real...? And she will take a break here from her excessive adverbs, from her excitement, but not her rhetorical questions, and bare her soul a little. Do you think I could be a real actor? What do you think?
The Lost Queen of Crocker County: A Novel Page 22
