The Last Grand Adventure

by Rebecca Behrens

  “Hi, Julie. I’m calling to say hello,” I said. “Is my dad there?”

  “Beatrice! I tried to phone you this afternoon. So the line is fixed now?”

  Next to me, Pidge shook her head emphatically and mouthed, “Neighbor’s phone.”

  I cleared my throat to prevent my voice from taking on a white-lie squeak. “There’s still trouble with it. I’m actually calling from the neighbor’s. We didn’t want you to worry,” I added for embellishment.

  “Hmph. I should call down to the management office and let them have a piece of my mind—or call the phone company. This is not acceptable, considering what it costs . . .” Julie trailed off as I heard the kitchen timer ding in the background. I closed my eyes for a moment, picturing the cupboards and countertops. Julie had redone them after she and Sally moved in, and honestly I liked the new colors better—everything was cream and blue, and real homey-looking. When it was my mother’s kitchen, the cupboards were a pea green that made all the food look unappetizing. Maybe that’s part of why Mom had hated to cook. As I pictured the kitchen, I could almost smell the food Julie might be making right then. I had a yearning to be sitting in one of the dining room chairs, waiting to eat even if I would rush through the meal so I could hide out in my room with a book. “What’s for dinner?” I asked, before realizing what I was saying into the receiver.

  Julie laughed. “Chicken Kiev. Why, isn’t your grandmother feeding you enough?”

  Other than two Twinkies, the turkey sandwich, and the frybread, I hadn’t eaten all day. I was subsisting mostly on the memory of a champagne dinner, and I was starving. But I couldn’t admit that. “Of course she’s feeding me well; I was just curious. Could I speak to my father?”

  “One second.” I heard Julie place down the phone and call for my dad. In between pangs of hunger, I felt an unexpected one of homesickness. I scanned the bus station waiting room. It was clean and safe, but I didn’t want to sit in a hard plastic seat and eat snacks out of a vending machine or the battered banana in Pidge’s purse. Now that the brilliant Southwest sun had gone down, the artificial light inside looked dingy and sad. I longed for a bed—my bed. In my room. Even if Sally would likely be banging on the door and bugging me while I was in it. I took a few deep breaths and tried to swallow the lump in my throat, before my father came to the phone. I didn’t want him to hear the longing in my voice—although I wasn’t sure he’d notice. He hadn’t picked up on hardly any of my feelings since the wedding.

  “Hello? Bea?” I turned away from Pidge, not wanting her to see the tears welling at the corners of my eyes. Suddenly, I felt so far away from everything and everyone familiar. Hearing my father’s voice made me consider telling him the truth about where we were. I had to clench the elephant charm in my palm, to remind myself of all the reasons not to. Amelia. Adventure. Did I really want to slink back to the safety of home? I knew if I were there, I still wouldn’t feel quite right.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, smiling to convince myself I was happy. “We wanted to say hello.” My voice cracked a little on that sentence.

  “Are you having fun?”

  “Mm-hmm.” The fewer words, the better—until the lump left my throat.

  “I took Sally for a spin on your old bike with the training wheels today. She did great on it! Gosh, she reminded me of you as she wobbled down the street. Here I was sad that I thought those days were over, now that you’re almost a teenager.” And now you’re happy, because you have Sally. Meanwhile, now that I’m past training wheels, you don’t know what to make of me.

  “Do you want to talk to your mother?” I whirled to face Pidge and held out the receiver. She tried to shake her head no, but it was too late. The lump in my throat was not going away. She grabbed the phone.

  “Hello!” she chirped. Pidge sounded far less exhausted than she looked. “We are having a lovely time, visiting with each other.” I tuned out while she talked, looking at the rack of road maps and pamphlets advertising things visitors could do in the area, like check out a dude ranch or pan for gold. I took deep breaths and convinced myself that I was simply tired and hungry. My father wasn’t really replacing me. I didn’t actually miss home. No way did I miss Sally. I tried to think of every single annoying thing she had done to me in our short history as stepsisters, to shake off my melancholy. Sally ripped a page out of the book I was reading when I wouldn’t put it down to talk to her. She listened in on my telephone conversations with Barbara. She convinced Julie to buy her clothes to match mine. She always put the shampoo bottle back on the edge of the bathtub when it was empty—so the next person to try to use it wouldn’t realize it was all gone until she was already wet in the tub.

  “Beatrice, your father wants to talk to you again,” Pidge motioned me back to her. The wave of homesickness had receded, so I picked up the phone and said with extra cheer, “Yes, Dad?” The line went quiet for a moment, and I could picture him scratching his beard. We didn’t have that many conversations at home—when my dad got back from work, he liked to watch television programs or have a drink with Julie. If I was at the table doing schoolwork, he’d pat me on the head and ask, in passing, what I’d learned that day. But that was about it. Since I started junior high, my father often got a deer-in-the-headlights look around me. Like an almost-teenage girl was the most mystifying thing in the world to him. It’s funny, but now that I was hundreds of miles away in the middle of an adventure, I wasn’t sure what to say to him, either.

  “I meant to tell you, your mother called earlier today. She wanted to know how to get ahold of you at your grandmother’s. Seems like she’s coming home soon—oh, hold on. I’m being interrupted. Here, Sally wants to talk to you.”

  “Wait! When’s Mom coming home?” I couldn’t wait to talk to her.

  “Be-ah!” Sally sounded so excited to speak with me.

  “Hi, Sally,” I said, my voice as flat as the desert we’d driven through. Of course she interrupted what my dad was saying about my mom.

  “Did you watch Lassie yesterday?” We usually watched it together.

  “No, I missed it. Hey, listen—can you put my dad back on? It’s important.” But Sally kept chattering on about the episode. The pay phone began making the warning noise that I either needed to add more coins or end the call. I couldn’t let it hang up on me midsentence—not when Julie was already fixated on Pidge’s supposed telephone problems. When Sally came up for air, I jumped in. “Wow, so glad Timmy is safe. Anyway, I have to go. Good night.”

  “Bye! I slept in your bed last night,” she said right as I was about to hang up the phone.

  “What? No! Don’t do that. You have your own bed.” I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn’t see me. Maybe my frustration would still transmit across the wires. “Good-bye,” I said, smacking the handset back in the cradle. Only then did I realize I hadn’t gotten to hear about my mom’s plans. This was the problem with my new household. You couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  “Sisters, right?” Pidge said to me, nodding knowingly. I let out a sigh. “I used to say—you can’t live with ’em, you can’t live without . . .” She stopped herself with a melancholy smile.

  My heart panged for her, and I was reminded of something Meelie had written—that she used her letters home to nag Pidge, like a “typical” big sister. Well. Sometimes big sisters couldn’t help but nag, when younger sisters did so very many annoying things.

  But Meelie felt regret for that. So much that she was filling the precious pages she sent back with apologies and promises to be a better sister when they were together again. Pidge was racing across the country to find her. They’d not always gotten along—but now it seemed like they’d stop at nothing to be together again. I scratched at the dirt crusted on my arm. Am I a caricature of a big sister? Am I being too hard on Sally?

  “Like I was saying,” Pidge continued. “You can live without sisters, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  TWELVE

  The People Left Behind
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  The girl who had been sitting inside the ticket counter, filing her nails, packed up her things around nine. By then we were the only people left in the waiting room. She stopped in front of us, awkwardly, before she fled. “I’m not supposed to let anyone stay in here for the night,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if it was uncertainty in her voice or pity. “You ladies don’t have anywhere to go?”

  “Um, no?” I glanced at Pidge—she hadn’t told me that the bus wasn’t leaving till tomorrow. In fact, I remembered her telling Margo it left tonight.

  Pidge blinked at the girl. “The Salina bus isn’t coming?”

  She shook her head. “That’s first thing in the morning, ma’am.”

  “What?” My grandmother could be hard to read. I’d seen her talent at manipulating other people—including me, probably—which had gotten us this far. But Pidge wasn’t faking this. She was really confused, pulling out the timetable like she could convince the girl otherwise and the bus would magically appear. She ran her finger down the times, her brow furrowed with the determination of being right, until she found the listing. “Oh. I—I must have misread the schedule.” She sank back in her chair, looking defeated. And worried.

  “Well, I can pretend I didn’t see you still in here when I left. You don’t seem like the type to cause any trouble.” The girl bit her lower lip and reached a hand into her bag. “There’s hardly anything decent to eat in the snack machine. Here.” She held out a packet of aluminum foil. “Take my sandwich.”

  “Thanks,” I said, beating Pidge to action, because I was afraid she’d be too prideful to take it and then I’d be hungry all night. The girl hurried out, like even going into desert chill was preferable to staying in the brightly lit waiting room with sad cases like us.

  “Pidge, when does the bus to Salina actually leave?”

  She took out the tickets and squinted at them, then studied the timetable again. “Not until six oh five tomorrow morning, I’m afraid.” I didn’t even bother to ask if we had enough money to find a motel for the night—clearly we would be camping out in the bus station.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, if I had found myself in the same situation, I would’ve been a wreck. I probably would’ve raced back to that pay phone to call my family and beg them to rescue me from Pidge’s crazy plan. But in the span of a day, something in me had changed. Camping out in the waiting room might not be comfortable, but it was a real, unique experience. I didn’t entirely know what was ahead of us on this journey. But perhaps the nervous anticipation was part of its fun.

  Pidge rubbed at her temples. “Headache. I thought getting out of the sun would fix it, but I guess I was wrong. I suppose it doesn’t help that I forgot to pack some of my pills when we took off.”

  She’d already told me that. “Were those important pills?” She’d been without them for two days. Was some of the wear and tear Pidge was showing—circles under her eyes and trembling hands, and her confusion about the bus schedule—because of that?

  “Oh, I’ll be fine. They’re mostly vitamins, I think. I don’t need them.” I wasn’t sure I believed her. “More water should cure this headache.” She took a sip from the paper cup she’d filled at the bubbler. “You know who really suffered from them,” she continued, “was Meelie. She had sinus pain so bad she even had surgery for it. I asked her why she kept going up in the air, because the pressure made it worse. But she said flying was sometimes the only thing that made her feel better—despite the discomfort. Her attitude was always, if you want something, you go all out and get it, no matter the cost. But boy, were the costs high for her.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, the fact that she’s been missing for thirty years, for starters.” Pidge chuckled. “Other things too. She lost all her privacy. And she lost any time she ever had for me.” Pidge looked down at her hands. “It’s hard being someone’s little sister, Beatrice. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “It’s hard being an older sister too. I mean, not that I really know.”

  Pidge looked up at me, her expression stern. “Of course you know.”

  “Sally isn’t really—”

  “Pish! She’s your sister. I don’t ever want to hear you say otherwise. I can think of few things more important than my one and only sister.”

  She’d said that before. Or I’d read it. I nodded, feeling bad for having upset her. But it was different with Sally and me. Right? Using my dirty foot, I slid the valise out from underneath her seat. “Can I read more about Meelie?” We had all night to kill.

  “Sure. Read one aloud to me, why don’t you? It’ll refresh my memory for when we see her. I’m counting the hours.” Eyes still closed, Pidge smiled.

  I opened the flap and pulled out the next letter, carefully separated it from its tattered envelope, unfolded the thin paper, and began to read.

  December 24, 1957

  My Dear Pidge,

  It’s funny how time doesn’t heal all wounds. It remedies some, for sure—but the scars of others will ache decades after you thought they had faded. It’s Christmastime, although it doesn’t feel like it where I am (Santa would be dripping sweat in that red suit). Christmas is about family, and I am lonely without mine today.

  Memories of that holiday dance are also making me melancholy. You know the one: the church Twelfth Night party when we were teenagers. We’d so looked forward to it—stringing up the Christmas decorations and making marshmallows for the hot cocoa, which we hoped some young fellas would enjoy after escorting us home. Wearing our nice dresses—did I sew them out of old curtains? I can’t remember now, although I do recall once turning old green silk curtains into a rather fine set of dresses for us. (A capable Earhart girl at work again!) We were simultaneously thrilled to go and terrified that once there, nobody would ask us to dance. At least we could count on a waltz with Father, after he escorted us to the church. He was such a fantastic waltzer—and maybe after seeing how effortlessly we floated across the dance floor with him, a boy or two would invite us out for a turn. The clock tick-tocked, occasionally chimed, and we waited. You twisted at the ribbon on your dress and I swatted your hand to stop. By then, we knew all too well what it meant when Father came home that late.

  You were already quivering in your seat when we heard his footsteps, stumbling at the door. It had barely swung open—too hard, banging the wall—when you raced up the stairs in tears. I couldn’t bear it either, Pidge, but I had a different way of showing it. I tore down our decorations. I threw the marshmallows into the trash. I ignored our father and the stench of drink. Even if it wasn’t too late for the dance, we couldn’t be escorted by him in such a lousy state. I went upstairs and lay in bed, trying to read. But later I could hear the sounds of the boys passing by our house on their merry way home from the party, and I thought about the marshmallows in the waste bin. My feelings overwhelmed me. I wanted to float up off my bed frame and into the sky. I wanted to be alone with the stars. I wanted to be free from that sadness and disappointment—truly, I wanted to fly away. Even if that meant leaving my sister.

  Our family was peripatetic in those days, but while the moving made us disappear from a string of homes, we did not escape from our problems. I know now that I shouldn’t have felt shame about Dad’s illness, but I didn’t know that then. That shame cast a shadow over everything else in my life. From the happy and fearless little tomboy who ran riot across the bluffs and riverbanks, I became “the girl in brown who walks alone.” Memories of our early Kansas childhood, truly golden, made the darkened corners of adolescence so much worse. Those were hard years, for us both.

  Yet I don’t know that I would’ve done the things I did in my life without the sense of yearning I felt at that tender age. I don’t mean to romanticize difficult times. But I always had hope that something better would come; another period of happiness must come. It was up to me to go forth and find it. I knew I had to dare to live.

  I’m sorry if to do so, I left you behind, Pidge. That’s why I
’m writing you today. I’ve had a lot of time to think—twenty years, now!—and many of my imagined conversations have been with you. I don’t want to waste too much time when we’re back together again, so in these letters I’ve been writing what I need to say to make things right. Maybe this way we can pick up where we left off. Ride our horses into the sunset. Play a tune on my ukulele. Fall asleep with books in our hands.

  For now—on a clear night, go outside and stare at the sky. Wait until after midnight. Stretch out your arms and lean back your head and look skyward. Then don’t imagine me alone with the stars—imagine us up there together. Holding hands. Running through the constellations like we raced the fields along the bluff. Breathless and young and bright-eyed and happy. Remember us like that.

  And  Pidge—my darling sister—remember I love you so.

  Meelie

  Pidge fell asleep midway through the letter, but I kept reading. Silently, though, because the letter seemed so personal, so private, that it felt wrong to give voice to her words—even in an empty bus station waiting room. I imagined Amelia’s voice in my head: direct and strong, like Pidge’s. They weren’t as different as I’d thought. Like Meelie had said—or had it been Pidge? Their words were blending together in my head—both were the capable type. Meelie had been determined to go forth and find her happiness. Now Pidge was showing the same determination to find her sister. They were both daring.

  I put it back in the valise, but that letter nagged at me. Meelie flew away, even though it meant leaving her little sister. She did so because she felt she had to. But what about Pidge? Left behind, left aching for her sister for three long decades. It wasn’t fair. I found myself wishing that Meelie had chosen differently, somehow. That she had found a way to be happy without abandoning those who loved her. What Meelie wrote about the Christmas party they’d missed as girls—that must have been what Neta and Pidge had talked about in the car, how their childhood wasn’t always easy and their father had “troubles.” My heart hurt for Meelie and Pidge.