Janie Face to Face

by Caroline B. Cooney

  And Mrs. Shields was dying to tell. She started with Alençon lace and elbow-length white gloves, moved on to the veil and the train, and spoke fondly of the little crown of lilies of the valley. “The gown,” she added proudly, “was specially designed to show off my tiny waist.”

  Jodie tried to imagine Mrs. Shields with a tiny waist.

  The saleslady brought six more gowns for Janie, and again Jodie took pictures and sent them to Brian and Stephen. She briefly considered being fair and sending them to Brendan, too, but it was difficult to imagine Brendan caring.

  That’s Brendan’s problem, she thought. He doesn’t care about anything right now.

  • • •

  At Pearl Street Mall, Kathleen and Stephen were sitting together on a bench, but he was not communicating with her. He was staring at his cell phone.

  Okay, fine, she’d stare at hers. She had downloaded Calvin Vinesett’s biggest seller and was trying to get interested. But for Kathleen, reading was a big deal. She didn’t choose a book easily. She needed lots of recommendations before she embarked on a project like a book. She disliked fiction. If forced to read, she chose outdoor stuff—books about people who trained sled dogs for the Iditarod or hiked across Africa and waded past crocodiles.

  Stephen offered her his phone. “I’ve been holding out on you. Jodie sent me a slew of photographs from the bridal mall.”

  In her previous life, Kathleen would have looked at each photo and screamed, “Oh! My! God!” But the Springs did not swear. Therefore, she was on a swear diet. She had read a million times that you could not make your boyfriend into something else, so fine—Kathleen would make herself into something else. “Janie is beautiful,” Kathleen pronounced. “This gown is perfect. This is the most romantic thing I have ever seen.”

  “Janie is beautiful,” he agreed. “I mean, Jennie.”

  It struck Kathleen forcibly that even Janie’s birth family did not know who this girl was. Even her brother couldn’t remember her real name. It was not a joke that the groom planned to have the best man hold up a sign so he could read off the name of his bride. “Jodie, Janie, Jennie,” she said. “I hope you’re giving the guests scorecards.”

  “Luckily, I have no function in this wedding except to show up.”

  And me? asked Kathleen silently. Do I have a function? Do I get to show up? Out loud she said, “Every dress is gorgeous!” Her throat filled. What if I never get married? thought Kathleen. What if nobody really truly ever loves me that much?

  She had never suffered. It was one of the gulfs between her and Stephen: the Spring children had suffered.

  She had never lacked love or safety. Never been hungry, never been scared, never fended for herself.

  There was only one thing Kathleen had not gotten in life: Stephen’s affection. He half loved her. Half wanted her.

  In her heart and mind, she replayed the amazing video of Reeve and Janie, who fully loved and fully wanted each other.

  “I think I’m going to Mass,” said Stephen casually.

  Kathleen could not have been more amazed if he had said he was going to Russia. She herself was a lapsed Catholic, and Stephen, who had rarely missed church during his childhood, had been on break since the first week of freshman year at college. “May I come?” she asked.

  Clearly he was trying to think of a way to refuse permission for her to go to church. There wasn’t one. “Okay,” he said gloomily.

  “We could light a candle for Janie.”

  “We could,” said Stephen. “But Janie will be okay. It’s Miranda who is doomed.”

  The gown Janie chose was shimmery, with small cap sleeves and a double row of ribbon roses along the neckline. A hundred tiny silk-covered buttons ran down her back. The dress fit tightly and then flared below her waist into a tulip of satin. The skirt was very long in back, making its own train.

  She looked so fragile and romantic that Jodie wanted to cry. She remembered the ghastly day more than five years ago when Janie had been forced to live with them and the FBI came to the house to interrogate her. Janie had been like a cornered animal. Dad had ordered the FBI to leave. “But the girl may have crucial information!” they protested.

  “She was three,” said their father roughly. “She doesn’t have information.”

  “She was living with the parents of her kidnapper!”

  Janie had been trying to turn into upholstery.

  Their father escorted the FBI to the door. It had felt right when he did, and it had felt right all these years, because the most important thing was to prove to Janie that she was back inside her loving family.

  But it had been the wrong thing to do. If the FBI had gotten any clues from Janie, if they had kept at Frank, they could have caught Hannah back then and closed the book on it all.

  Jodie thought of the book to come.

  Impossible to consider a silly interview when she was in Haiti, surrounded by desperate children, starving mothers, ruined tent cities, cholera and filth. And yet the church and its work had been filled with good cheer. Sometimes she even wanted to be one of the nuns, her life’s purpose so clear: help the poor; worship God.

  Other times she couldn’t even look at the nuns, and would tally up all they had missed in life—love and men and children and careers and competition and travel.

  She hoped she was marked by her months in Haiti as deeply as Janie was marked by the kidnapping. Jodie wanted knowledge of that little country’s suffering to stay in her soul and guide her.

  The saleslady cried, “Perfect perfect perfect for you, Jennie! A little loose in the shoulders. We’ll alter it immediately, and you can pick it up day after tomorrow. And how many bridesmaids do we have, dear?”

  Jodie was sick of this saleslady.

  Reeve’s mother was still discussing her wedding. “I had seven bridesmaids. Two flower girls. A maid of honor and a matron of honor. Of course, I spent a long time planning.”

  Jodie was sick of Mrs. Shields, too. But then it occurred to her that the poor woman would never be very important to Janie. Janie had two mothers in line ahead of a mere mother-in-law. And Reeve didn’t strike Jodie as the type to put mommy first.

  Janie said, “The maid of honor is my sister, Jodie.” She waved Jodie forward. “Whatever Jodie picks, we’ll get for the bridesmaids, too. So it has to be a style we can take away. We’ll have to phone everybody for dress sizes. Sarah-Charlotte. Eve. Reeve’s sister Megan can’t come. Lizzie will be here, but I don’t know whether Lindsay can come or not.”

  Jodie had never heard of a girl named Lindsay.

  “Reeve’s brother Todd’s wife,” explained Janie.

  “Of course Todd and Lindsay are coming,” said Mrs. Shields. “After all, Todd is the best man. He’s so pleased that Reeve asked him, since Reeve has about two hundred best friends he could have chosen from. Todd is very emotional about being best man. I don’t know Lindsay’s dress size. She’s gained weight. She’s self-conscious. We’ll have to be delicate when we ask. As for Lizzie,” she went on, “she’s an eight. But she would never wear the kind of thing hanging on these racks. She has a very individual style.”

  Whoo, boy, thought Jodie. Reeve, honey, stay in Charlotte. “Lizzie always looks smashing,” agreed Jodie, who had met the woman exactly once. “But in weddings, only the bride is an individual. The rest of us have to look alike. Janie, there are some just-above-the-knee sky blue dresses over there. See them? Simple, sophisticated lines. They’d look good on any figure.”

  “Okay,” said Janie.

  “And the gentlemen?” asked the saleslady. “Sky blue cummerbunds and so forth?”

  “Gentlemen!” said Jodie, snorting. “They’re my brothers. They’re not gentlemen.”

  “Ah, but they will be gentlemen during the wedding,” said the saleslady. “That’s what the clothing is for.”

  Brendan followed Michael Hastings to his apartment. It was a fifth-floor walk-up and very tiny. That was the New York conundrum: pay a fortune a
nd get practically nothing in return but the privilege of living in the city.

  Brendan would do it in a heartbeat.

  In the miniature living room was a futon bed that was supposed to double as a sofa, but Michael had not folded it up. The little dining table was also his desk. From the look of the kitchen—not a room, but a niche in the wall—Michael did not dine in.

  That was another of New York’s virtues.

  Restaurants.

  Brendan was suddenly at peace with his failure in sports. There were other things in life. There was New York.

  Michael was using a laptop computer in desktop fashion. He went to his emails and began printing. Brendan read each brief message as it printed out.

  Calvin Vinesett’s messages were the introductory one; the one congratulating Michael on meeting Janie; the one promising to send five hundred dollars; and the one fascinated by the trust fund story. Calvin Vinesett sounded like a creep. He and Michael had been a good match.

  As for Michael’s messages, Michael had been a failure as a researcher or Janie had been brilliant as a protector. The only faintly interesting information he had passed on was the name of the grandmother who set up Janie’s college funds. Other than that, the best Michael could do was the layout of Frank’s rest home.

  Like a reader of a true crime book cared about slow elevators.

  “Calvin Vinesett wrote you a check for five hundred dollars for this?” said Brendan. It looked like fifty cents’ worth of information to him.

  “He paid cash.”

  “So you got together with him?”

  “No, I told you. We’ve never met. He sent cash in the mail. It was weird. But writers are eccentric.”

  “Did he tell you to interview Mr. and Mrs. Johnson?”

  “No. My job was Jane.”

  Brendan walked down the stairs after Michael Hastings. He was thinking of that shivery chapter where somebody had followed Miranda Johnson around. Those pages had included Miranda’s thoughts. To know a person’s thoughts, you’d have to interview that person, and she’d have to tell you. Otherwise, you’d have to make it up.

  Were Calvin Vinesett’s books made up?

  Brendan thought about his mother’s creative writing class. Would Mom ask Calvin Vinesett to write a book? Or help her write one? If it was Mom, she was filled to the brim with wrath, and Brendan had never noticed.

  But how much have I noticed in my family? he asked himself. I always figured it was their job to notice me. I wasn’t supposed to notice them.

  He so didn’t want his mother to be the employer of a man who said, “My job was Jane.”

  First, rule out Brian, he told himself.

  Back on the sidewalk, Michael Hastings flagged a cab. Thoughtfully, Brendan watched him disappear. Then he called his twin. They were not the kind of twins who were on the same wavelength. In fact, Brian sounded astonished to hear from him. “Hey, Bren! What’s up? I’m getting wedding gown photographs from Jodie on my cell phone, in case I want to vote. You into that puffy one?”

  “She isn’t sending me photos,” said Brendan, and realized that he was hurt.

  His twin said, “Wait a sec. I’ll forward them.”

  “No, this isn’t about dresses. Bri, you talking to this researcher?”

  “No. Are you?”

  Brendan skipped over that. “What’s that writer want, do you think?”

  “A bestseller, I guess. Money. Fame. TV interviews.”

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” said Brendan.

  “Me what?”

  “I’m your twin, Bri. You can’t fool me. You’re behind this. You’ve always wanted to be a writer. You’re exactly like Reeve at that radio station in Boston. You’ve got a story you can tell forever. And you’ve hired guys to get material for you.”

  “Brendan, if I wanted to write our story, I’ve got all the material I could possibly need. The exact same material you’ve got. But why would I want to? Nobody in our family needs more of this nightmare. We need less of it. Anyway, Calvin Vinesett is writing it.”

  “You’re supposedly going to summer classes, Brian. But I bet instead you’re writing your novel.”

  “Calvin Vinesett doesn’t write novels, Brendan. He does true crime. It’s fact.”

  “It’s fiction. It’s stuff. It’s people’s thoughts. Nobody can know what anybody else is actually thinking. So it’s made up, and you made it up, Brian.”

  His twin sighed. “Bren, let’s not fight.”

  “Let’s not sell out, either,” snapped Brendan, fully aware that he had sold out more than anybody during his three interviews.

  “I’m not the writer,” said Brian. “I’m the fellow sufferer. But I’m in favor of a book. Might turn up Hannah. I just wish the timing weren’t so tricky. I want Janie and Reeve to have a safe wedding.”

  People never wish a bride and groom a safe wedding, Brendan thought. Except in my family. “Safe” is our big word. He said, “We’re groomsmen.”

  “Yup. Gotta wear tuxedos. I’m kind of excited. I didn’t ever go to a prom. So I’ve never worn one.”

  “What’s our job? Seating the guests?”

  “Yes. Plus lining up at the altar behind Reeve. We catch him if he faints.”

  “I’d sure faint if I found myself at the altar,” said Brendan. Then he added, hoping his twin would talk about it, “Mom seems really happy.”

  “She is. Which is a relief,” said Brian Spring. “You know, Bren, I kept having this weird feeling that Mom was somehow behind the book.”

  Brendan remembered that they were twins. That they did sometimes think alike.

  “I read some of Calvin Vinesett’s stuff,” said his twin. “He does gruesome mass murders and analyzes the victims and how they happened to be there and how they contributed to their own death, and he analyzes the killer and how the killer turned out to be what he is, and then he starts in on the police and where they failed and how they succeeded, and the personalities of the attorneys. Our story is so gentle in comparison. Nobody shed blood. And shedding tears isn’t exciting. Calvin Vinesett is mainly fascinated by the bad guy, but our bad guy is offstage. This book will be a real departure for him.”

  “You think the book will hurt Janie?”

  “Nah,” said Brian. “Janie’s too busy with the wedding. I think if Hannah got caught this afternoon, Janie would say ‘Oh, good’ and keep juggling her two sets of parents, which in a few days will be three sets, and going to the mall to choose china.”

  Brendan thought, Let Janie have her wedding. Let Mom be the mother of the bride. Let all of us be together and let Reeve keep Janie safe.

  He realized that he was praying.

  Stephen and Kathleen walked to St. Thomas Aquinas. He did not explain why he suddenly wanted God.

  Kathleen’s parents had a list of reasons for her not to stay with Stephen, and his failure to communicate was high on the list. “You need somebody you can discuss everything with,” her father said.

  “I love Stephen, though.”

  “I’m not sure he loves you,” her mother said.

  Kathleen wasn’t sure either. On the other hand, he didn’t date anybody else and he always seemed glad to see her.

  They entered the church. At home, weekday Mass was very early. It was thoughtful of St. Thomas to have theirs at five p.m. Kathleen imagined being a bride here. Being a bride anywhere.

  She and Stephen slid into a pew. He put down the kneeler, got to his knees, closed his eyes, and bowed his head.

  Wow. He’s serious. Are my parents right? Is there too much space between what I believe and want and what Stephen believes and wants?

  The Mass began and she could feel the intensity of Stephen’s participation.

  The reading was the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. A man walking down the road was attacked by thieves who left him for dead by the side of the road. Two respectable well-to-do people walked on past, not wanting to get involved. The third person, a person nobody respected,
stopped, and when he realized the victim was still alive, he got the man to an inn and paid for his care. So no matter how respectable you were, you weren’t the good guy unless you stopped to help.

  Jesus did not address the problem of the robbers, who would shortly run out of money and want another victim. The next person who got attacked might be too old or too young to survive. The next one might die. Your truly good guy, in Kathleen’s opinion, would also have done something about the robbers.

  “The Mass is over,” said the priest. “Go in peace.”

  Kathleen was full of questions for Stephen, but she saw that he was going in peace. He had come here for something and he had found it.

  Kathleen had silenced her cell phone when she entered, and now, with relief, turned it back on, as did everybody else coming out of the church.

  Your truly good guy, she thought, would stop our criminal. Hannah. “Stephen, why don’t I call my father? I don’t think the three possible Hannahs mean anything, but they might, and my father—”

  “What?” Stephen swung around hard and glared. “Your father? Meaning the FBI? Is that what you mean? You’re so greedy for details you’d go that far? Throw the FBI back into this when Janie’s wedding is almost here?”

  When the surprise call from his twin ended, Brian Spring called Jodie. “So we’re closing in on gown number seven?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the reception is definitely in our backyard? That’s no fun,” said Brian. “When I get married, we are so not serving hot dogs in the backyard. We are reserving the country club, we are getting a great band, we will have a theme, there will be ice sculptures, we will dance till dawn, and people will get fabulous favors they cherish forever.”

  “You have a candidate?” asked Jodie.

  “No. Do you?”

  “No, but Reeve is inviting every single boy he ever went to school with, was on a team with, or sat in the bleachers next to. I figure a great guy like Reeve has great friends, and my plan is that one of them will fall in love with me across the room and follow me around the nation.”

  “You’re moving away already?” asked Brian. “You just got home. I haven’t even seen you yet.”