The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

  “What did Boehm say when you went back?”

  “Nothing. I was too ashamed to face him. When I got back to LA, Maestro was teaching. I snuck inside, gathered my things, snuck out again, and headed to Seattle. I found a job, a place to live, and a new life. As soon as I had enough money, I sent him a check for my expenses and a letter saying how sorry I was to have let him down.”

  “Did he write back?”

  “I didn’t put a return address on the envelope. He never cashed the check, though.” Joanie paused, took a long drink from her barely warm tea. “He still had my picture on the wall?” she asked doubtfully. “Even after all these years?”

  Hal nodded. “He was proud of you.”

  “Blinded by affection still. But there are worse things to be blinded by. And it’s good, thinking someone can care even after you’ve disappointed them.”

  “You should write to him, Joanie. Or call. I don’t think he has a lot of time left and I’m sure he’d like to hear from you before it runs out.”

  “I should,” she murmured, but the furrows in her brow revealed her apprehension. “I wouldn’t know how to begin, or what to say.”

  “Start with hello,” he advised. “And see where it goes from there.”

  “Maybe,” she said softly. “Maybe I will.”

  She lifted her head, gazing frankly at Hal. “So, now you know the story, the real story, of how I stopped playing and why I don’t now. It wasn’t Minerva’s fault, not really. Her only sin was trying to convince the world that her oh-so-ordinary daughter had the spark of genius. Mine was believing her, or wanting to.”

  “Is that what you think you are? Ordinary?”

  She tipped her head to one side, shifted her shoulders, a grudging admission. “Maybe not ordinary. I mean, I was conceived in a test tube, which practically makes me a human lab experiment. And my mother is crazy.”

  “Pfft. Big deal. Whose mother isn’t?” Hal said, smiling, responding to the touch of sarcasm that returned to her voice.

  “Darn. So I struck out there too? Okay, but my sister is a mermaid.”

  “Sure, but only part-time,” Hal said.

  “Good point. Okay. So I’m not ordinary, but I’m not extraordinary either. I’m just . . .” She lifted her gaze upward and then around the room, as if searching for a word. Finally, she found it.

  “I’m that.” She pointed to a framed photograph sitting on the sideboard, the old picture of herself and Gerhardt Boehm. “I’m a third-place finisher. Better than most, not as good as some.

  “And that’s why I decided to invite you to dinner. When you said that thing about ending up as a math professor in some middling liberal arts college, I knew we were kindred spirits.” She lifted her tea mug and held it out to him. “You, sir, are a bronze medalist.”

  “And happy about it,” he said, clinking the edge of his mug against hers.

  “You are, aren’t you? Really happy.”

  “Yes, and I never could have done it without you. You were my role model.”

  “Huh. Well, that’s good. Now maybe you can be mine.”

  They talked for a while about happiness, what it was and wasn’t, and how Joanie had tried to convince herself that “happy enough” was enough and having no comparative cause for complaint meant she was content, or should be.

  “It was the music,” she told him, “that helped me realize I’d been kidding myself.

  “It was incredibly hard to make myself listen to my old audition CD that first time. You have no idea. But once I started I couldn’t stop. I must have played it thirty or forty times. I was obsessed. It started to feel like that was the moment, even more than the talk show, when I could have made a turn to the left or right and changed everything.

  “I started to fantasize about the CD as some kind of magical time portal, like in one of those time-traveler novels.” She gave Hal a wry smile. “See? Avery isn’t the only one with an overly active imagination.

  “I spent a lot of time imagining what I would say to twelve-year-old me, how I could warn her without robbing her of hope. Finally, I realized that was impossible. She wouldn’t have listened to me anyway. She wanted it too much. And was that such a bad thing? Wanting? And I wouldn’t just have been robbing her of hope, I’d have taken the music from her too. The more I listened, the more I knew I could never, ever do that. It meant too much to her. To me.

  “Once I was able to separate the memory from the music, I realized what I’d been denying myself all these years—that incredible joy—the exhilaration, and ecstasy, and unfiltered happiness I experience when I listen to a great piece of music.

  “It makes me wonder,” she told him, “if I haven’t been stifling joy in other parts of my life too. I’m not sure. It’s possible. Maybe it’s time to go back and take another look at . . . well, at a lot of things.”

  They talked for a long time. Hal could have talked longer. But when the beeswax tapers began to sputter, he knew it was time to go.

  * * *

  Hal felt sober-ish, but decided to take an Uber back to his apartment anyway, just to be safe. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he saw that Lynn had called several times.

  “It’s about Minerva,” she said when he asked what was up. “I’ve been working through some of the background information you gave me after you met with her and . . . something’s just not right.”

  “What do you mean, not right?”

  “I wish I knew. Look, some stuff checks out—she was born in Georgia, moved to the UK, then LA, raised the girls here. She says she came to California in 1982, but I can’t find any records and it’s all kind of vague. And that music academy she told you she graduated from? They don’t have any record of her.”

  “So, you think she made it up?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. But there could be more to it than that. I just have this feeling.”

  “That’s it? A feeling? We’re going to need more than that.”

  “I know. That’s why I’d like to go out to Georgia and do a little sleuthing.”

  “Sleuthing?” he chuckled. “What are you now, Nancy Drew?”

  “Hey, don’t dis Nancy Drew. She was my childhood hero. But, seriously, the only way I’ll be able to figure out if I’m right or wrong is to go out there.”

  “So? Go out there.”

  “Have you looked at the bills lately? Shooting on location is expensive, especially since you’re funding the production. And I’m just not sure—”

  “Oh. I forgot to tell you. The expenses are about to take a dramatic decrease; I sent Brian and Simone home for a couple of weeks.”

  “What? You mean you suspended filming? You’re kidding. Why?”

  “Because I wasn’t getting anywhere!” he snapped, irritated by her tone. “I’m never going to get Joanie to talk honestly on camera until I earn her trust off camera. So I sent the crew on hiatus. No point in paying them if we’re not getting anything usable, is there? I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks just getting to know her better, talking off the record.”

  “And you think that will work,” Lynn said, her words a statement rather than a question.

  “It’s already working. I’m on the sidewalk in front of her house right now.”

  “Which is exactly where she left you cooling your jets for weeks before you ended up coming back to LA with your tail between your legs. So how is this progress?”

  “Because,” he said, matching his sarcastic tone to hers, “she invited me to dinner. We talked for hours and she really started to let me in, told me some things I’m not sure she’s ever told anybody.”

  “That sounds good, but if you didn’t get it on tape—”

  “I will, okay! It takes time! Why does everything have to be so black and white with you? We’ve been dead in the water for weeks and now, at last, we’re getting a little wind in the sail. Plus, I’m saving a ton of money. Can’t you at least give me credit for moving this thing in a better direction?”

&
nbsp; “Hooray,” she deadpanned. “Good for you. I’ll send you a medal.”

  “Make it bronze,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” He sighed. “Go to Georgia, Miss Drew. You have my blessing.”

  Chapter 30

  When Avery got to work on Saturday morning, only her second Saturday on the job, she arranged ten pint-sized plastic chairs and four beanbag cushions in a half circle in front of an adult-sized wingback chair, then stood back to examine her handiwork.

  Maybe it was a bad idea, putting out every chair they had. This was the first meeting of the Saturday Shenanigans Society, an idea she’d pitched to Adam. What if he came to check on her and saw that only a handful of kids showed up?

  She put four of the plastic chairs and two of the beanbags back into the storeroom. Twenty-five minutes before they were due to start, she had to bring them out again.

  “I didn’t think there’d be so many kids,” she said, turning to Elsa, a coworker in the children’s department. “I’m not supposed to start until eleven. Where are they going to sit?”

  Elsa scooped chocolate pudding into a plastic cup, topped it with a spoonful of crushed chocolate cookie crumbs, and handed it to Avery, who shoved three gummy worms halfway down into the mixture. The cups of “Dirt and Worms” would be the post-story snack, a fitting accompaniment to the first day’s theme: “If You Were a Bug.” After eating, the children would make insect antennae from pipe cleaners, keeping them occupied while their parents browsed and, hopefully, purchased some of the bug-themed books Avery set up on a nearby display table.

  “They’re kids,” Elsa said, and started filling another cup. “They’ll sit on the floor. Would you quit being so nervous? Geez.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m not sure Avery Promise is as good a storyteller as Avery Poseidon. Maybe I should have gone with an undersea theme. What if I suck?”

  “So what if you do? You’re reading bug books to a bunch of four- to eight-year-olds, not auditioning for a movie. It’s a free event with food. It’s not like they’re going to ask for their money back.”

  “I know, but if I do a good job, then the parents might want to actually buy the books. Adam ordered twenty copies each of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Diary of a Worm. What if we only sell five? What if we don’t sell any?”

  “You’re sure getting yourself worked up over a minimum wage job,” Elsa said. “You haven’t even been here two weeks. I’ve worked here for four months. You don’t see me volunteering any ideas.”

  “I just want to be good at this.”

  Elsa glopped pudding into another cup. “Yeah? Well, I’d rather be good at something that pays. The second I find a job that does, I’m out of here. Oh, good. More urchins,” Elsa muttered as another group of kids arrived. “I’ll go to the break room and get more cups.”

  Avery kept shoving gummy worms into cups. She knew Elsa thought she was a sap for caring so much about a job that was, to her, just a job, and not a very good one. She got it.

  Only the day before, Avery Poseidon had booked a TV commercial for a local seafood restaurant. That gig would pay more in one day than she’d make in two weeks at the bookstore. If that had happened a few weeks earlier, Avery knew that the manager at the coffee shop wouldn’t have had to fire her, she’d have quit. But the bookstore was different. She loved this job and was working hard to be good at it. Sometimes she even used her lunch break to read children’s books.

  “Why?” Elsa asked the first time she saw Avery sitting in the break room with a copy of Who Broke the Vase?, a picture book by a new author, Jeffrey Turner.

  “Because when a customer comes in looking for a suggestion on what to read or give as a gift, I want to be able to recommend the perfect book.”

  Elsa rolled her eyes. “Please. Just sell them something based on a cartoon or TV show. They won’t know the difference.”

  Elsa didn’t like her. She thought she was a suck-up. But Elsa was one of those people who lived to pee on other people’s parades. Who cared what she thought?

  Avery could only imagine what her disgruntled coworker would say if she knew Avery had spent her whole day off reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Diary of a Worm aloud in front of a mirror, practicing with different gestures, facial expressions, vocal delivery, and even accents. (Worm, she decided, needed to have his adenoids out and sounded like he had a head cold.)

  But what was so wrong with wanting to be good at something you loved doing anyway? After all, Avery thought as she stuffed another gummy worm in the last cup of dirt, if something was worth doing it was worth doing right!

  Wait . . . Had she really just quoted her big sister? Thankfully, it was only her inner monologue. But she’d have to watch herself. If she ever said that within earshot of Joanie, she’d never live down her sister’s “I told you so’s.”

  “Wow! You’ve got quite a crowd here. How’d you get the word out so fast?”

  Startled by the sound of Adam’s voice behind her, Avery accidentally jerked her arm, knocking over three of the dirt cups. Cookie crumbs and chocolate pudding spilled all over the white tablecloth.

  “Oh, no!”

  She grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe up the mess, but that only made it worse. It looked like a St. Bernard had wiped his muddy paws on the table after taking a romp in a mud puddle.

  “Hang on,” Adam said, “try this.”

  He quickly unfolded four of the green paper napkins that were sitting on the table and used them to cover up the stain. It wasn’t wonderful, but it was better.

  “Thanks,” Avery said.

  “No problem. Really, this is a great crowd, Avery. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m impressed.”

  “I don’t either,” she admitted. “All I did was print up some flyers and put a notice in the online calendar. I pulled it together pretty quick. There wasn’t even time to get an article into the newsletter.”

  “Well, good job. I’ve been thinking we should start a book club for middle-grade readers, nine- to eleven-year-olds. Would you be interested in leading it?”

  “Really? I’d love that.”

  “Good. Let’s talk about it next week. What time are you supposed to start? Your audience seems a little restless,” Adam said, looking across the room.

  He was right. The squirmy children were getting squirmier, and louder. A little girl was trying to shove a little boy off a chair. Another little boy, whose mother was too involved in conversation with another mother to notice, was pulling book after book off the shelves and piling them on the floor.

  “Not for ten minutes. Maybe I should start reading now?”

  “No, it wouldn’t be fair to the people who arrive on time. But I think you’d better do something to keep them entertained or we’re going to have to re-shelve the whole department. Do you know how to make balloon animals?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  Balloon animals? Was that part of the job description?

  “That’s okay. I do.” Adam reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of long, skinny balloons. “Something I picked up to impress my nephew. And girls.”

  Grinning, he bounded up to the front of the room. “Hey, gang!” he shouted to make himself heard over the din of chattering children and a crying baby. “Welcome to the first Saturday Shenanigans Society at Bayside Books! In a few minutes, Avery, our newest management trainee, will be here to read two creepy, crawly bug-a-riffic books. But right now—let’s make a balloon stegosaurus. What color should it be? Orange? Or red?”

  Little hands waved in the air, voting for their favorite color. Elsa, carrying a sleeve of plastic cups, came up and stood next to Avery.

  “Wait. Did he just say he’s moving you into management? I’ve been here four months and you’ve been here two weeks, but now you could be my boss? You’ve got to be kidding me.” She swore, dumped the cups onto the table, and stomped off.

  Avery was too stunned to say anything, almost too stunned
to move. In fact, she hadn’t really heard what Elsa said, or Adam’s surprise announcement. The only thing she heard were the words Adam said just before he ran up front, now playing over and over in her mind....

  Something I picked up to impress my nephew. And girls.

  Girls? As in girls in general? Or did he mean . . . No. That was just something he’d said to be funny. He wasn’t flirting with her.

  Was he?

  She didn’t have time to decide. Adam finished making his balloon stegosaurus and introduced her. The sound of applause broke her concentration. Hearing it, she shoved aside every stray thought and focused on the only thing that mattered at that moment—doing her job. Doing it right.

  As thirty children and their parents put their hands together, Avery Promise, costumed with nothing more complicated than a pair of black jeans, a white blouse, and a smile, walked confidently to the front of the room, picked up a book, and began her story.

  As soon as she started to read, the children stopped squirming and started listening, laughing, and sometimes—as The Very Hungry Caterpillar was well-known to so many of them—jumping up in the middle of a line to tell the others what was going to happen next. Avery didn’t mind; it meant they were so engaged with the story that they needed to participate in it. That’s what she’d hoped would happen.

  She looked at the faces of her young audience. Some were familiar. In fact, most were. Probably three quarters of them were children she’d read to before, at the hospital. How had they found out she was working at the bookstore? There was some movement near the back of the crowd. Parents standing in the back stepped to one side or the other, parting ranks for the late arrival.

  Lilly gave a little wave as her mother pushed her wheelchair nearer to the front so she could see. Avery winked, turned the page, and kept reading.

  * * *

  The event was a success. Avery knew that even before she finished reading. That didn’t mean there weren’t improvements to be made. For one thing, if they decided ever again to serve a goopy snack—and she wasn’t sure they should—she needed to have plenty of wet wipes on hand. For another thing, she needed more help. Or maybe just better help.