What You Wish For

by Janet Dawson

  A crack appeared in Tess’s controlled façade, revealing turmoil underneath. “How do you think this makes me feel? A bomb, right in front of me, ripping apart everything I thought was certain. A mother, a father. Now I’m the odd one out. I don’t have a place in my family anymore. I can’t go back to the way things were. I have to find out who my father is.” Tess stood, ready to leave. “Please think it over.”

  After Tess left, Gretchen shook her head. “That was unexpected. Annabel and Hal have been married for such a long time. They’ve had a good marriage.”

  “Have they?” Lindsey studied the contents of her cup, as though she might find answers there. “Tess was born seven months after the wedding.”

  “Hell’s bells, it’s not like any of us were virgins,” Gretchen said. “Doug and I lived together before we finally got married. So Annabel was pregnant when she walked down the aisle. I figured she and Hal were sleeping together. They saw a lot of each other that spring. Her father was pushing the relationship, grooming Hal to take over the company eventually.”

  “They were dating other people. I don’t know who else Annabel was seeing.”

  “Neither do I. That was about the time of my split with Doug. I was wrapped up in my own problems until we got back together. I don’t know anything about Annabel’s love life at the time. I wouldn’t tell Tess if I did. Annabel wouldn’t want us prying into her life, especially at a time like this. The past is past. Leave it that way.”

  The past has a penchant for getting in the way of the present. Lindsey thought about Nina’s resentment at not knowing the identity of her father. She wished she could wrap both Nina and Tess in cotton wool, like delicate ornaments, never to face dings, scratches and breakage. But she couldn’t. They were adults, forging paths for themselves in the larger world. She recalled what Gretchen had said earlier, about not being able to put guards around their children. Sometimes people did, to no avail.

  9

  Berkeley, California, February 1974

  Lindsey set her book bag and the metal pan on the bottom step and turned to lock her apartment door. As she tucked her keys into her jacket pocket, Claire came down the stairs, buttoning a tweed coat over sweater and slacks.

  “What have you got there?” Claire picked up the pan and lifted the aluminum foil covering the contents. “Brownies? You made brownies and didn’t tell me? Ooh, you bad girl.” She stuck her fingers into the pan and pulled out a brownie, eating it with relish.

  Lindsey grabbed the pan. “Leave it to you to help yourself.”

  Claire licked frosting from her fingers. “You weren’t going to eat all of them.”

  “Neither are you. I’m taking them over to Art’s place. He’s fixing dinner.”

  “I remember him. Tall, wears glasses. Do I smell romance?”

  Lindsey shrugged. “Not really. We’re research assistants for a project in the history department. Art volunteered to cook dinner, so I made dessert. Where are you off to?”

  “Dinner with a friend. Sure I can’t talk you out of more ­brownies?”

  Lindsey hid the pan behind her back. “I’ll bake another batch, just for you. I promise.”

  “I’ll count on it,” Claire said. “Have a good evening, sweetie.”

  Outside, Claire got into her red Mustang and headed south toward Derby Street. Lindsey walked north, turned right on Parker Street and right again onto Benvenue, which paralleled Hillegass. A blue Volkswagen Bug, engine running, was parked under a street lamp just past the corner. The two people inside had their heads together, but they quickly drew apart when Lindsey glanced at them. The passenger was a woman. Lindsey couldn’t see the driver.

  Art Smithers lived in a ramshackle house converted into student apartments. A Rolling Stones number boomed from one of the units. She climbed the stairs to the second floor and knocked on Art’s door. When he opened it, a rich aroma of garlic and tomatoes seeped out into the hallway. “Smells wonderful, whatever it is.”

  “Spaghetti with meat sauce.” Art pushed his glasses up his nose. “You do eat meat, don’t you? I forgot to ask if you were a vegetarian.”

  Lindsey draped her jacket over the back of a chair. “I’m an omnivore. I brought brownies. There’s one missing. I had to wrestle Claire for them.”

  “All I have left to do is cook the spaghetti.” Art poured glasses of red wine. The table was set for two and a bowl held a salad. Art put the spaghetti into the pot of boiling water and stood over it while Lindsey tossed the salad with dressing. Then Art heaped spaghetti and sauce on plates. They ate, mopping up sauce with hunks of garlic bread.

  After washing up, Art made coffee to go with the brownies. They went over their notes, identifying gaps in their research as they worked on the latest draft of the report they were writing. It was after nine when they stopped. Lindsey stuffed books and papers into her bag, declined Art’s offer of leftover spaghetti sauce, shifted the remaining brownies to a plate, and left with her bag and the empty pan.

  In the downstairs apartment, the Rolling Stones sang about standing in the shadow. The street was dark, pierced here and there by porch lights and street lamps. As she walked toward the corner, Lindsey saw the blue Volkswagen Bug, its engine still running. That was odd. She’d arrived at Art’s apartment sometime between six-thirty and seven and it was after nine. Had that car been sitting there all this time? When she got closer to the VW she noticed something else that didn’t seem right. The front license plate was covered with mud, obscuring the numbers. The rest of the car looked clean, and it had been days since the last rainfall.

  They’re waiting for someone, Lindsey thought. For more than two hours, with the motor running? Maybe they had splashed through a puddle somewhere. A puddle that only got mud on one little rectangle in the front of the car?

  The woman in the VW was looking across the street. Lindsey looked in the same direction, seeing another car, a white convertible, in the driveway of an apartment building directly across from the VW. The convertible faced the street and its engine was running, too. Was that a car backfiring? No. That was gunfire.

  A woman screamed. Three figures dragged a woman toward the white convertible. She struggled, screaming all the while. She wore nothing but a robe. It slipped from her shoulders, revealing bare flesh. “Let me go!” the woman cried. One of her captors opened the trunk of the white convertible as the other two lifted the struggling woman off her feet. They shoved her into the trunk and shut the lid.

  Lindsey didn’t realize she was moving until she stepped out into the street. She didn’t realize she had dropped the things she was carrying until the metal pan clattered on the pavement. One of the kidnappers swung toward her, raising a rifle. Lindsey fell to her knees, onto something sharp, but she ignored the pain as she scuttled between two parked cars. Shots whined over her head like angry bees. She trembled, heart pounding, gasping for breath. The gunfire ­continued but it seemed to have shifted direction. She raised her head so she could see what was happening across the street. The people who’d run out onto the porch of a nearby rooming house scattered as the kidnappers fired at them. The white convertible screamed out of the driveway onto Benvenue, then around the corner onto Parker. Another car, a station wagon, streaked by, someone inside the car firing a gun. The blue Volkswagen Bug peeled away from the curb.

  The people from the rooming house shouted, all talking at once, joined by others who lived on Benvenue Street. Lindsey sat on the curb and scrabbled inside her bag for pen and paper, writing down everything she could remember. White convertible. Three kidnappers, one smaller than the other two—a woman? What color was that station wagon? White and something else, blue or green maybe. Blue VW Bug with the muddied license plate, parked outside for more than two hours, engine running. The woman in the passenger seat had short blond hair partly masked by a scarf.

  Someone loomed over her. She gasped.

  “Lindsey?” Art knelt beside her. “I’m sorry I scared you. What the hell happened? I heard gun
s. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Call the police.”

  “Somebody already did.”

  Sirens screamed, getting closer, as Lindsey got to her feet. Her slacks were torn at the left knee. She reached down, felt dampness, then lifted her fingers and saw red. “I’m bleeding.”

  “There’s glass all over the pavement,” Art said. “Looks like a broken beer bottle. Let’s go to my place. I’ll doctor that.”

  Lindsey shook her head. “I’m a witness. I have to give my statement to the police.”

  Police cars turned onto Benvenue Street, lights flashing. Art took Lindsey’s hand and stayed with her while she talked with one of the police officers. She overheard the police talking. The woman who’d been kidnapped was a fellow student, Patricia Hearst. She was the granddaughter of famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Her father, Randolph, was the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and her mother, Catherine, was a conservative member of the University of California Board of Regents.

  Art stuffed the pan into Lindsey’s bag and walked her home, holding her arm as she limped along beside him. The cut on her knee had stopped bleeding but now her knee ached. Claire had just returned. She unlocked the front door as Art set down Lindsey’s bag, said good night, and left.

  Claire smiled. “He walked you home? How chivalrous. Say, what’s happening on the next block? There are flashing lights and sirens everywhere.”

  Lindsey’s voice sounded as though it came from someone else, far away. “A kidnapping. I saw it.”

  Claire grabbed Lindsey’s arm and pounded on Annabel’s door. “Gretchen! Annabel!”

  Annabel opened her door. “What?”

  Gretchen appeared on the landing. “You yelled? Say, there’s something going down on Benvenue. I can see cop cars from my bedroom window.”

  “A kidnapping,” Claire told them. “Lindsey saw it.”

  “Oh, my God.” Gretchen hurried downstairs. “What did you see?”

  Annabel propelled Lindsey into her apartment and made room on the book-piled sofa. “Lindsey, you’re hurt.”

  Lindsey looked down at the angry-looking cut on her knee. “I fell on some glass.”

  “Where’s your first-aid kit?” Claire demanded.

  “In the medicine cabinet,” Annabel said. “Peroxide and iodine, too.”

  The housemates spun away, then returned. Gretchen set a small basin of water and a handful of washcloths on the coffee table. Annabel uncapped the peroxide, poured some into the water, and dropped in one of the cloths.

  Claire sat in the desk chair, tilting the table lamp, casting a harsh spotlight on the injured knee. She took scissors from the first-aid kit and cut away the torn fabric, then she bathed the wound with a damp cloth. “It looks clean,” Claire said. “I don’t see any glass. It’s a nasty cut, though. You might need stitches. I’ll wrap it really well but just to be safe you’d better get this checked out in the morning.” She dabbed iodine on the cut, then bandaged it.

  The knee hurt like hell. Lindsey took four aspirin and washed them down with a glass of water Gretchen fetched from Annabel’s kitchen. “You’ve got something on the stove, starting to boil,” Gretchen told Annabel.

  “I was making cocoa. I hope it’s not burnt.” Annabel went back to the kitchen and returned with a tray, handing out mugs of cocoa. “Now, tell us what happened.”

  Lindsey fought back tears. She held the mug with both hands, taking comfort in its warmth, and the strong, sweet taste of cocoa.

  * * *

  The Hearst kidnapping—the news was filled with little else, particularly after the missive received on Thursday from some group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. The communication declared that Patricia Hearst was a prisoner of war, and made demands in exchange for her release.

  The following day, Friday, Lindsey started her first load of laundry and went outside to check the mailbox, but the postman hadn’t delivered yet. A large black Cadillac pulled into the driveway. The driver’s-side door opened and a big man got out—Max Brinker, Mr. Dunlin’s assistant. Then Mr. Dunlin got out of the Cadillac. Annabel’s father was tall, bulky through the middle, though his well-cut gray suit hid it well. His face was lined under his thinning iron gray hair. Mrs. Megarris, Claire’s mother, emerged from the car’s backseat. In her navy blue suit, gloves, and hat, she looked completely out of place in this south-of-campus neighborhood.

  “Hello, Lindsey. I hope your knee is healing. Claire told us what happened Monday night. How dreadful for you.” Mrs. Megarris seemed genuinely concerned. Mr. Dunlin, on the other hand, looked through her with frosty blue eyes.

  “Thanks. I’m fine.” Lindsey had gone to the campus clinic Tuesday morning. Now the stitches in the cut tugged and itched under the bandage.

  “Claire and Annabel are expecting us,” Mrs. Megarris said as she and Mr. Dunlin came up the front walk to the porch, followed by Max Brinker.

  “Indeed we are,” Claire said from the front door. She looked solemn, but a smile played around her lips. “Come in.”

  “Wait for us outside, Max,” Mr. Dunlin said as he and Mrs. Megarris entered the house and went into Annabel’s apartment.

  Lindsey stole a sidelong glance at Max Brinker, then she went inside. Gretchen sat on the top step of the stair landing, her knees drawn up, arms folded over the front of her blue-and-gold Cal sweatshirt. Lindsey joined her. “What’s going on? Annabel’s father and Claire’s mother are here, and that man Brinker is outside.”

  “Claire told me her mother and uncle are spooked by the Hearst kidnapping,” Gretchen said, an edge to her voice. “They know they’re targets. Dunlin’s rich, a classic ruthless robber baron, like Jay Gould and Andrew Carnegie.”

  “At least Carnegie built libraries.”

  “He also locked out his workers and had people killed during the Haymarket Riots. Anyway, they want Annabel and Claire to leave school. Either permanently, or at least until this whole kidnapping thing blows over.”

  “What?” Lindsey’s first thought was purely selfish. What if she had to leave her nice cozy apartment and find another place to live? Then she considered what leaving school would mean for Annabel and Claire. “That’s crazy. They graduate in May. They can’t put that on hold.”

  “That’s what Claire and Annabel said. The phone calls have been flying across the bay for days,” Gretchen said. “Annabel has a will of iron, when she wants to. When she was ready to start college, her father wanted her to go to one of those fancy women’s colleges back east. She insisted on Cal. But her father manipulates whatever he can, which is why we’re living in such a cushy place. No residence hall for Annabel. Claire wanted to go to Stanford. But her uncle said no, she had to go to Cal, with Annabel. Since he’s paying for it, he had the last word. Claire’s mother doesn’t have much money, even if she is a company director. Dunlin pays, so he calls the shots.” A phone rang in one of the upstairs apartments. Gretchen got to her feet. “That’s mine. See you later.”

  Lindsey went back down the stairs to her apartment. She looked out the window. Max Brinker was at the curb, talking with a young man with a dark handlebar moustache. Lindsey realized she’d seen the man before, standing at the window of his second-floor apartment in the old house next door. That window faced Claire’s windows, with a good view of this house and the backyard. Suddenly it hit her. The man worked for Brinker. He was a guard, watching the house. It felt creepy, somehow, to know that he’d been keeping an eye on them.

  She headed to her bedroom, scooped towels into the wicker basket and carried it to the laundry room at the back of the house. The washer was still in its spin cycle. Then it shut off. As Lindsey transferred her wet clothes from washer to dryer, she heard voices and looked up. A wire mesh rectangle covered the opening to an air duct near the ceiling, where the dryer was vented. The laundry room shared a wall with Annabel’s kitchen. Lindsey knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  �
�It’s three months till graduation,” Annabel said. “I’m not leaving school.”

  “You’re overreacting,” Claire said. “We’re perfectly safe here.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the Hearsts thought,” Mrs. Megarris said. “The things that go on in Berkeley make me wonder if anyone is safe living here.”

  “How about the Zebra killings in San Francisco?” Claire countered. “It’s a dangerous world, everywhere.”

  Mr. Dunlin spoke, his voice cold, demanding. “I want you to leave school at once. I didn’t want you here in the first place.”

  “I know that,” Annabel said. “But I’m here, and I’m staying.”

  Now they argued, all talking at once. Lindsey strained to differentiate words, her hands moving automatically as she scooped detergent into the now-empty washer and dumped in the towels. Then she heard Annabel’s voice. “I know you’ve got men watching the house. I’ve seen them.”

  “How could we not?” Claire said. “Their apartment window is about ten feet from mine. The guy with the moustache is cute. My compliments to Max Brinker.”

  Now Mr. Dunlin spoke again. “Since you won’t leave school, I’ve had Max put on two more bodyguards. They’ll watch the house and escort you everywhere.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Claire said. “Does that include when we go to the john? That’s overkill. We won’t have any privacy.”

  “Take it or leave it,” Mr. Dunlin snapped.

  “We’ll take it,” Annabel said. “But I don’t want them to look like bodyguards.”

  “I’ll leave that to Max,” Mr. Dunlin said. “This will have to do, for the time being. But if anything else happens, we’ll revisit this.”

  Lindsey felt ashamed of herself for listening. She started the washer. Water whooshed, drowning out the voices. She went back to her apartment, thinking about bodyguards and change.

  10

  It was too early for peaches and apricots, but there were plump ripe strawberries at the Berkeley Farmers Market. On this sunny April Saturday, people crowded Center Street. Lindsey tasted a strawberry offered by a vendor, then chose three baskets, counted out bills, and tucked the berries and her wallet into her tote bag.