Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  “Oh, don’t worry about Jim, we met on the plane.” Connie turned to the man and pointed, directing him. “You can go stand over there next to the carousel. I’ll come over when it starts moving and let you know which bags are mine.”

  I looked at Connie perplexed as Jim did exactly as he was told without complaint. “Did you adopt him?”

  Connie laughed. “You know how men are. He just wanted to be helpful. My bags are really heavy so ... you know. He’s adorable in that little puppy dog way, don’t you think?” She smiled and waved at him. He smiled back and I had to agree. There was something. The big, brown eyes reminded me of my dad’s old yellow lab.

  “You’re not planning to keep him, are you?”

  “No, you know they’re such a chore to take care of.” She winked at me naughtily.

  “You really need to teach me how to do that,” I said, laughing.

  Connie had four large suitcases at baggage claim for us to retrieve, and I wondered how many clothes one person could need just for a vacation. We headed out to my car and watched Jim wrestle two suitcases into the trunk and the other two into the back seat. Connie then dismissed her new-found friend who insisted he give her his phone number before leaving. She took it graciously and promised to call, but anyone not hypnotized by Connie’s charisma could easily tell that would never happen.

  “Isn’t it expensive to travel with four bags these days?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s worth a little extra money to always make a good impression,” she answered, looking at my clothes. Then we both burst out laughing.

  Since Connie’s flight was delayed, that meant we’d be right in the middle of rush hour traffic, which I hated. Nevertheless, I got back on I-494 and settled in for some white-knuckle driving as we made our way back to Grandpa’s old house in northeastern Minnesota. After stopping to pick up a few groceries and the much-needed bug spray and shower curtain, we headed to our new home together. When we arrived at the house, I pulled up behind a green Ford Escort parked in front. “Cool, my mom must have dropped off my car,” Connie said.

  “So are you really on board with this house idea?” I gestured toward the quaint little craftsman, its sagging gutters, peeling paint and warped shingles a testament to all the work ahead of us. “It’s going to be a ton of work and not glamorous. We will probably have to do a lot of it ourselves to save money.”

  “Oh, come on, Laney. It’ll be a blast. Just point me in the right direction and I’m working.” Then Connie paused and said, “You know, I’m not as worthless as I once might have seemed to you when we were kids.”

  I looked at my baby cousin, all grown up. When you’re a child, a few years between cousins seem like an eternity, but when you’re an adult, it means nothing at all. I always thought she was the vulnerable one. I could still see her in the My Little Pony t-shirt with her thumb firmly planted in her mouth, trailing after me and my friends on the playground. As a grown woman, she suddenly seemed more confident and in charge of her life than I ever was. In front of me was a woman who was making her own choices and doing her own thing. Had I always underestimated her? I’d never seen her let a man tell her what she should or shouldn’t do. It occurred to me that I was a little envious of her ability to be herself without caring what anyone else thought.

  I smiled. “All right then, let’s go. You’ve been warned. We have a bedroom to clear and clean before sleeping tonight.”

  Chapter Five

  As I walked in the front door carrying two bags of groceries, I almost tripped over several suitcases that were dropped just inside the door. “Hey, where did these come from?” I asked out loud, trying to push several expensive leather cases to the side so Connie could come in.

  “Oh, good. Those are here too. My mom said she would have some of my other suitcases brought over today.”

  “Didn’t you have your suitcases with you?” I asked. “Like four of them? Where did these come from?”

  “Only a few and that was just my vacation clothes. I can’t do housework wearing sundresses and swimsuits,” Connie answered. “These were just a few things I had my mom throw together so I could be more comfortable. We’re going to be here more than just a few weeks, you know. Where should I put them?”

  I mentally compared her eight suitcases to the one small box, single suitcase, and my flowered Vera Bradley overnight bag, and I realized she was far better prepared than I was. “Um, you can leave them here for now, I guess. You might want to store your vacation clothing at your mother’s. We hardly have any room here as it is. I took the master because I could walk around the bed, at least I almost can. We won’t be so lucky for you. Let’s go look at the two other bedrooms and you can have your pick.”

  Connie looked around the living room and dining room, staring at the mess. “I see what you mean. This is going to be a challenge. I didn’t realize how much stuff he had loaded in every room.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling woefully inadequate. At first I thought I could take on this project, but now I wasn’t so sure. This began as a silly favor to my mom that sounded like a fun venture to hone my remodeling skills. My cousin showed up with eight suitcases ready to settle in for the long haul. Who was the realistic one? I suddenly envisioned Connie and me as two crazy old ladies, living in this house forty years from now quite resembling my mother and hers. Maybe we should get a couple of cats.

  We trooped over to the staircase and Connie glanced into the kitchen before heading up. “Wow, it looks like you’ve already made some progress in the kitchen. This is actually quite darling in a quaint kind of way,” she said to me.

  “Well, vintage is in,” I answered. “But maybe not quite so worn vintage.”

  The steps made a comforting creak as we rose to the next floor. Peering in both bedrooms, Connie chose the smallest to use. “I’d pick the bigger room but it could take days to dig out to reach the bed. I didn’t realize Grandpa was such a hoarder. I haven’t been back here since that big blow-up between him and our moms all those years ago.”

  “No, me neither. I only saw grandfather at the few Christmas’s and other celebrations he deigned to attend. Did your mom ever tell you what the big fight was about?” I asked.

  “No. Apparently it wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for me to hear. I tried to hide and listen in when anyone was talking about it but they were so careful, I was always caught before the juicy stuff,” Connie answered. “I wonder if they’d tell us now? Maybe it was about sex?” She laughed.

  “Eeww. He did have a bevy of beauties hanging around all the time. He was so mean I wonder what they saw in him.”

  “Dollar signs,” Connie answered laughing. “Maybe he had a pile of cash stuffed in a mattress. There had to be some money to buy all this junk. Who knows? I’m going to put some scudgie clothes on so we can clear this out before bedtime.”

  The room had two single beds with a nightstand between them but all the remaining space was filled with boxes of stuff, some open, some closed. I tried to squeeze around a few things to reach the bed and tripped, nearly spraining my ankle in the process. “I’m not sure which is worse—the claustrophobia from all the clutter, or the danger of falling and breaking my neck on all this crap.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Connie said, looking around. “Hey, this was our mothers’ room wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, looking around at the charming pale gray wallpaper with pink and white flowers dancing down the wall. I remembered seeing a picture of my mother as a child with the same wallpaper behind her. Two prints of a boy and a girl praying hung on the wall, one over each bed. I imagined two teenagers, their childhood room unchanged even as they outgrew it.

  We started stacking the boxes and loose items in the other spare bedroom, but since it was already full to start with, it didn’t take long before we couldn’t even pull the door closed. The last of the boxes we carried downstairs and piled in the dining room in the little space remaining. That took care of that problem and cre
ated a new one. Now there was no more walking space in the dining room.

  “I guess we’d better get our mothers over here tomorrow to start deciding what we are going to do with the stuff in all these boxes. Most of it is probably just junk. Maybe we should just get a dumpster and start going through them one by one,” I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead and sneezing twice.

  “Bless you. We should also have a pile for eBay, Craig’s List and maybe a garage sale pile, although garage sales are a lot of work for very little money,” Connie answered.

  “Do you think anyone’s going to want this old stuff?” I asked. “It looks like it’s been sitting here for years.”

  “You never know what we’re going to find in all those boxes. You’d be surprised at what you can sell on eBay. Most of the items are vintage after all. It’s amazing what you can pick up from garage sales, estate sales and the like, which is probably where he got most of this stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start. Do you really think someone will buy old cards and Halloween decorations from forty years ago?” I asked Connie, that sense of despondency returning. “We’d have to figure out what stuff is going for, take pictures, guess on shipping charges, post it. Then if someone buys it we’d have to actually send it to them. Do you think it will be worth all the time and energy?”

  “Laney,” Connie said abruptly, crossing her arms and giving me a very annoyed look. “This is what I do. I’ve been doing it for years. How do you think I pay for my vacations? People pay real money for cardboard Halloween decorations from forty years ago. It’s nostalgia. People are into nostalgia and will buy stuff that reminds them of their childhood. Stuff they used to have but got rid of, now want again. Laney, we can do this.”

  I looked at Connie dumbfounded. I wondered where she had gotten the money for her vacations. I had assumed her mother gave it to her. I was thinking I’d have to do everything and drag her along, when in reality she had her own skills and abilities to bring to the table. My talents lay more with decorating and remodeling, while Connie had other practical strengths that I hadn’t realized until now. I hadn’t seen Connie for several years except at family functions where you can’t really have a meaningful conversation. Maybe I’d been so self-absorbed I hadn’t even listened. I’d been jumping to conclusions with no basis in fact.

  “I thought you moved home because you couldn’t find a job,” I answered lamely.

  “I couldn’t find a job in my field when I first got out of college and then my dad got sick. I moved home because my mom needed my help. Afterwards, I started this little side business and it’s been working well for me. I also repurpose items and sell them in a consignment store a friend of mine owns. It gives me a creative outlet I find rewarding. The arrangement has worked well for me and my mom for quite a while now, but we’re both ready to be on our own now.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve really misjudged you, Connie,” I said, feeling more than a little humbled by my self-centeredness. “You know, that’s a great idea, and we could probably finance some of the redecorating and remodeling with the money we make.” I smiled at her. “For now, maybe you can go strip the sheets from the beds in your new room and throw them in the washer while I get started on making our pizza.”

  “How about you start the sheets and I’ll make the pizza?” she teased.

  * * * *

  After wolfing down our pizza, Connie and I walked into the living room, each of us holding a glass of red wine, and then we both sighed simultaneously. Nothing was going to get done by itself. Setting our glasses down on one of the more level piles, we started moving the boxes and things off the couch, piling it on the other boxes surrounding it.

  “I am so tired of this mess and we’ve hardly even started,” I said, only a little embarrassed that it sounded like whining again. “You’ll notice, though, that he left a path from the recliner to the TV.” I retrieved my glass and sank into the couch while Connie chose the recliner. Connie switched on the TV and started going through the channels. There was no cable or satellite receiver in sight, and we were dismayed to find we only had the four channels the antenna picked up.

  It had been such a long day, yet still Connie looked glamorous. She had pulled her hair back in a bun, with curly tendrils falling loosely about her face and neck in perfect form.

  “My God, do you always look like that after a day like today?” I asked.

  “Like what? I don’t look any better than you.” She sighed, leaning her head against the back of the chair.

  “Yes, you do,” I answered, annoyed. “Any time you appear, you look like you just walked off a movie set. Every male in the vicinity falls at your feet, thrilled to be walked on. You never even have to try. You can have any man you want, and no one would ever want to leave you.”

  “Is that what you really think? That it’s just so easy for me? Yes, some men seem easy but it’s rarely the right ones. You know, most just want to sleep with me, and that’s it. They don’t see me for anything real, and they sure don’t want a real relationship. The one man I’ve always wanted has never even looked twice at me,” she admitted, then looked away. I actually saw tears before she turned from me. There was someone immune to Connie’s charm? That was sure a surprise to me. Apparently beauty did not make you immune to heartache.

  “I hate it when you put yourself down,” Connie turned back to me and continued before I could answer, regaining her composure. “You’ve always done that, it’s like you never see yourself the way others see you. Then you marry an idiot like Simon and allow him to define you and control you.” She took a deep breath and we just stared at each other.

  “He didn’t define me,” I snapped, annoyed.

  “Sure he did. We watched you bend over backwards trying to be what he wanted. ‘Laney, you can’t write that in an email, don’t you know how that sounds?’ ‘Laney, you can’t wear that, that’s frumpy.’ ‘Laney, you know you can’t do that’ and on and on. Those are quotes, Laney. In the short amount of time we’ve spent together these last several years I’ve heard these exact words myself. And at public gatherings in front of a lot of other people. What kinds of things did he say to you when you were alone?”

  My anger slipped away as if it had never been. Connie knew me better than I knew myself, and I didn’t know her at all. I remembered the things Simon used to say that I didn’t even think were mean—I just thought they were true.

  “I’m not saying these things to hurt you, Laney. I just don’t want to see you hurt that way again.”

  I rubbed my face with my hands and ran my fingers through my disheveled hair. I looked up at Connie. “It’s okay. You’re right. How about we make a pact? You always be straight with me and I’ll always be straight with you.”

  “You got it,” she said. “By the way, you know yellow really isn’t the color for you. It makes you look sallow.”

  I made a face and stuck my tongue out at her. We both laughed.

  “Hey, why don’t we walk down to the drugstore and pick up some things and have a makeover like we used to do when we were younger. We could color our hair, do our nails.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a great idea. Remember how mad our mothers were when we dyed our hair black that one time? It was supposed to be wash-out color but it didn’t quite wash out completely even after several shampoos. Our hair ended up being gray until we bleached it blonde again.”

  “No, that was when we dyed it blue.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. I got in so much trouble because I was supposed to be the older and wiser one.”

  “And how about the time we dressed like vampires for weeks just to freak them out!”

  Connie laughed. “That was awesome. Actually, that’s just another reason we should do it today.”

  After a couple of glasses of wine I didn’t need any more persuasion.

  Chapter Six

  It was still light outside and there was a comfortable breeze blowing when Connie and I walked th
ree blocks over to the drug store. The village of West Acre, Minnesota was one of those little towns not far from the Twin Cities that was far enough away from the suburban areas to be considered ‘in the country’, yet still close enough to be conveniently near the amenities and entertainment of the metropolitan area. Two blocks of Main Street and one stop sign defined the ‘downtown’ of West Acre. A grocery store, drug store and two gas stations made up most of the available shopping district. There was an industrial park with three small manufacturing companies providing enough jobs for the locals, but the rest was farmland.

  We walked into the drug store and there was good old Mr. Cooper, the store proprietor and pharmacist. He was a little more stooped and gray than when I had seen him last, but his ever-sharp eagle eyes darted our direction when the bell hanging on the door announced our arrival.

  “Hello, Mr. Cooper,” I said trying to smile innocently, remembering that perhaps Mr. Cooper had a reason for being watchful of Connie and I.

  “Ladies,” he responded with a cocked eyebrow. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Here was another reason I moved away from the town I grew up in. I hadn’t even done anything, yet I felt guilty as Mr. Cooper’s eyes followed us through the store. As kids, it was true, Connie and I could be a bit mischievous. I talked her into shoplifting a pack of gum with me when we were in grade school, and Mr. Cooper has never trusted us since.

  He scowled as he peered at us from around the pharmacy counter and yelled out, “You two young ladies better behave yourselves.”

  “Apparently he hasn’t forgiven us,” Connie whispered, blinking at me with wide innocent eyes. “Perhaps, we ought to split up so we can get out of here quicker. You pick out your hair color, I’ll get the fingernail polish.”

  “I don’t know if I need fingernail polish,” I said looking down at my hands. The nails were uneven and ragged. “Scratch that. I suppose I probably do.”