Janie Face to Face

by Caroline B. Cooney

  He wouldn’t write Let’s not get married.

  But he might write Let’s wait.

  Please, no. I’m the one who can’t wait now.

  She tore the flap on the long white envelope.

  Brendan and Calvin Vinesett were in a narrow hall, behind the greenery at the back of the elegant foyer. Brendan could see the package room and the mailroom. He and the author sat on a narrow bench. In spite of its thick leather cushion, it was not soft.

  Brendan’s brain was soft. For the third time Brendan said, “You’re telling me that you are not writing any such book?”

  “Correct. And you’re telling me that at least three men have been interviewing your family and using my name,” said Calvin Vinesett. “I write about murders. They have to be complex and the killer has to be in prison. I deal with the drama that brought the victims and the killer together. I write about the lives of the survivors and how that played out during and after the trial. Of course I followed the Janie Johnson case. Who didn’t? But even if that kidnapper were caught, her story isn’t what my readers expect from me. I’m furious that some writer is hiding under my name. I’m even more upset that it worked. May I read the emails that this Michael/Mick gave you? Supposedly from me?”

  Brendan handed them over. “I have a chapter too.”

  Calvin Vinesett read the pages carefully, slipping each page under the other until he was back at the beginning. “Whoever wrote these, Brendan, is not much of a writer. Poor phrasing. Odd choice of words. A lot of repetition. This person gets a thought and sticks with it. I’m going to guess this person is a beginner who hasn’t published a thing.”

  It’s Mom, thought Brendan, absolutely sick. I so don’t want Mom to be the one doing this. But why would Mom call her book The Happy Kidnap? Is it Janie she’s been mad at all these years? We’ve all been mad at Janie some of the time. But I thought we loved her too.

  “And why,” Calvin Vinesett continued, “would any author tell a researcher to use a fake name and lie to the person he’s interviewing? You can’t use information obtained like that. It’s just gossip.”

  If only his twin were here. Brian was so quick. Brian would figure this out; find the clues in the writing and the title.

  “And finally,” said Calvin Vinesett, “this chapter? It’s practically hate mail. There’s something radically wrong here. I’m going to follow up. It is unacceptable that some third-rate writer is using my name.”

  “How will you follow up?” asked Brendan.

  “First, we want to find the computer where these emails originated. We need a subpoena to do that. But I’m not sure that a few pages of lousy writing will impress a judge. I have contacts with the FBI. This situation is distantly related to an unsolved kidnapping, so they might look into it. But it wouldn’t be high on their list.”

  Brendan remembered suddenly that he had his own contact with the FBI.

  When each of their children first got a cell phone, Mom and Dad had already filled the contact list: relatives, neighbors, and the three officials who had dealt with the kidnapping—the local police, the state trooper, and the FBI agent.

  The Spring kids detested those entries, living inside their precious phones as if they might need the police again. Brendan knew that Stephen had deleted them all the minute he moved to Colorado.

  But even though Brendan was on his fourth cell phone, having updated whenever he had the money, he always kept the numbers. Not because he cared, but because he and Brian were the youngest, and Mom, who paid their bills, kept tabs on their cell phone use, and that included knowing the contact list.

  Brendan was reeling. If it really is my mother writing it, or Brian, I don’t want a judge or the FBI talking to her about her bad writing, or anything else. “Mr. Vinesett, wait a week, okay? Janie’s wedding is Saturday. In fact, I have to get home for all this stuff that my mother wants me to get done. I don’t want anything to hurt Janie’s wedding.”

  “I couldn’t get anything done that fast anyway,” said Calvin Vinesett. He was grinning. “That is so great. After all that poor child suffered, she’s grown up and getting married? I wouldn’t have said she was old enough. I’ve lost track of the story, I guess.”

  “She’s twenty. My parents don’t think she’s old enough either,” confided Brendan.

  • • •

  From the ESPN envelope, Janie Johnson drew out a single sheet of plain white paper, folded crisply in thirds. She unfolded it.

  Out fell a single green maple leaf.

  Reeve’s bad handwriting spread messily over the page. Remember the year we raked that huge pile of leaves? Remember how you fell down into the leaves and I fell down on top of you? Remember our first kiss?

  Remember!

  That year, the sugar maples lining their street in Connecticut had been a symphony of color. Yellow and red leaves had covered every blade of grass. She and Reeve had tumbled into the pile they had raked and, in the shelter of crispy color, had their first kiss.

  She kissed the handwriting.

  Jodie said, “Oh, blecch. You are so far gone, Janie!”

  Their father was laughing. “Reeve is pretty far gone too,” said Jonathan Spring. “It’s summer, so no leaves are falling. He had to rip that leaf off some innocent tree. In a million years, I would never have thought of doing that.”

  “Come in here!” yelled their mother. “I got the box out of the attic!”

  “You better come too, Daddy,” said Jodie. “This is your bride we’re talking about.”

  His face went all soft. “She was so beautiful,” he said.

  “Don’t say it as if her beauty is in the past,” Jodie warned.

  “Be right with you,” Janie told them, going into her bedroom.

  The bedroom was stuffed with boxes from college and boxes from the Connecticut house from when Janie finished moving her parents to the Harbor and herself down here. It looked like the room of an organized hoarder. She was glad she’d never unpacked. Now they could just ship the stuff on to Charlotte. She hadn’t even labeled the boxes, thinking she would open them immediately. She had no idea what was in anything or whether she wanted it.

  Most of the Johnsons’ books had been sold at the yard sale. There had been a huge old Webster’s dictionary that Frank had loved. For some craft project, Janie had once dried flowers between the pages of that dictionary. She mainly used an e-reader now.

  She spotted a paperback, set the leaf carefully in the middle of the book, and balanced a heavy cardboard box on top of it. Pressure was supposed to draw the moisture out of the leaf and into the pages.

  Maybe the leaf would dry out and she could frame it.

  “Janie!” her sister yelled. “We’re ready!”

  Jonathan Spring watched his girls. Such a treat to have all three of them together.

  He had gotten used to missing Janie, but Jodie’s absence had been hard. He had not had a moment to talk to Jodie and find out about Haiti. Jodie was his scrappy one, quick to anger. There was a difference in her now. She seemed easier, somehow.

  And Janie—he was at a loss to understand how Janie could have gone in literally two or three hours from that Michael guy to Reeve. Women were amazing. Michael turned out to be a sleaze, so Janie hopped a plane and took the old boyfriend back.

  Sealed the deal too. No more dating.

  Nope.

  Marriage.

  Jonathan Spring had studied that video. Reeve was the one who proposed. So there was no understanding men, either.

  Basically, love was insane.

  His eyes turned to his wife.

  How tenderly, how carefully Donna lifted the long pink cardboard box that held her wedding gown, as if her life would break if she dropped it.

  How anxiously and eagerly she peeled back the seal. Holding her breath, she eased the thirty-year-old gown out of its box.

  Jonathan remembered how in love he had been then. Not the soft old love of thirty years. But the pulsing, breath-stealing love whe
n every glimpse of your bride was treasure.

  He had been praying that Janie would have the love he and Donna had.

  Now he changed his mind.

  He wanted the love Janie and Reeve had.

  To Janie’s eye, the gown was a little tacky. It had too much tulle and too much sash. Too much ruffle around the neckline. But her mother was misty, soothing its lines with her fingers and caressing its satin with her palm.

  Carefully they unfolded the gown, shaking it gently. It didn’t even need to be pressed.

  We’re the same size, thought Janie. Because she really is my mother. I really did get my bones and my shoulders and my complexion and my hair from her. “May I try it on?” she asked.

  “For sure I can’t wear it anymore,” said her mother. “I’m back in shape, but I’m not that back in shape!”

  Janie slid into the gown.

  Her father gasped. “Oh, Donna! I’m gonna break down. She’s you.”

  Her mother did break down. “I was so happy that day. When I walked into the church and I saw your father wearing a tuxedo for the first time in his life, so nervous and standing so straight and swallowing so hard—oh, Janie! I wanted to fly down the aisle and hold him tight. It was all I could do to walk the way we did then. Hesitation step, it was called. I’ve always wondered about that. If you hesitate to walk down the church aisle, you better not go.”

  “My name is Jennie,” she said, “and I don’t hesitate.”

  Jodie wanted to laugh. The wedding gown was so dated. It was a dress an unsophisticated teenage girl would pick if she wanted to look like Cinderella. It fit Janie perfectly, and of course Janie would be cute in anything, but the dress was hopeless.

  Next, their mother lifted from the box a circlet of gold leaves and beaded flowers from which a vast puff of tulle sprang out. It looked like a halo imploding.

  Lovingly, she tucked Janie’s hair back, and adjusted the tulle around Janie’s head and shoulders. Donna Spring was weeping.

  Jonathan Spring was wiping his eyes.

  Jodie rolled her own eyes.

  “I’m going to wear this instead,” said Janie.

  “When?” said Donna. “Instead of what?”

  “For my wedding. I’m going to wear your gown.”

  Jodie was appalled. “But you chose such a lovely gown! Number seven was perfect. We pick it up tomorrow!”

  “I can cancel that. I want my marriage to last. Mom and Dad’s marriage lasted. I’m going to wear the dress that started the good marriage.”

  Stephen was dumbfounded by Jodie’s most recent message and photograph. Janie was going to wear their mother’s old gown?

  Even to him—and his knowledge of fashion hovered around zero—that gown was from some other century.

  But then, everything about a wedding was from some other century. Stephen tried to think only of weddings and flight plans. He might have just taken the biggest flight of his life, riding away from Kathleen.

  He felt sick and shaky.

  He thought of going to the Mug, because it was nearby and because coffee always settled him down. But he and Kathleen usually went together. The waitress would bring Kathleen’s mug to the table along with his, expecting them to meet.

  He headed to Starbucks, feeling like a traitor.

  Two times in an hour: traitor to Kathleen, traitor to the Mug.

  Kathleen wandered in various boutiques. Considered various kinds of food. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face the photos of Stephen and the silly sweet souvenirs of dating.

  After a while, she returned to the home of the second Hannah, the one thin enough to seem right, with the New York accent that seemed wrong. Stephen had not shown this woman the photographs. He had just asked if she knew Tiffany Spratt.

  This time, the woman was standing in her doorway. She was very tall. She could not be Hannah, who was five foot five.

  I am so stupid, thought Kathleen. The list of possibles really was just bait. There’s no link anywhere to anything.

  She felt sick and embarrassed. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “You back?” said the woman. “What kind of scam you trying to pull?”

  “Somebody is trying to pull off a scam,” said Kathleen. “I just don’t know who or why. I need your help.”

  “I don’t know nothing.”

  “But somehow, I think you are connected. May I show you a few photographs? Could you tell me if you’ve ever seen these people?”

  The woman lit a cigarette. She barely glanced at the two photos.

  Kathleen said timidly, “Could you really study them? In case maybe you worked with one of these women once, or lived nearby, or—I don’t know—were in a club with her or something?”

  “A club?” repeated the woman contemptuously. “I never been in any club.” But she did take the photographs and she did study them.

  Time passed.

  The woman stood staring at Hannah young and Hannah old. Her cigarette burned by itself and the ash fell. Slowly she raised her eyes and stared at Kathleen.

  The woman didn’t blink, didn’t even seem to breathe.

  The glittering eyes looked crazy.

  “I’ll keep these,” said the woman.

  Kathleen was suddenly aware that it was late, and dark, and she was in a bad neighborhood. “Thanks for your help,” she said, and leapt onto her bicycle and fled.

  Reeve was at home, sprawled in front of his television. He had muted the game and dozed through the wedding gown discussion, barely managing to match each photo on his cell with Janie’s verdict.

  “Jennie,” she reminded him. “This is the third time tonight you forgot.”

  Reeve clicked the TV off. Even mute, it was sucking up too much attention. “Listen, Janie,” he said. “I’ve loved you a long time, and the girl I love is Janie. I was with Janie when she went to New Jersey for the first time and saw her real family. I drove Janie there. I knew the same minute Janie did that her true name was Jennie. And I was there when she fled being Jennie, and turned away from the fact and the family of Jennie. She came home Janie still. It tore her heart in half.” He paused for breath. “As for my heart, maybe someday in my heart you’ll be Jennie, but if I could engrave a name on my wedding rings, it would be Janie, cut deep into the gold so I could trace it with my finger. So if I get the name wrong, and sometimes I still say Janie instead of Jennie, it’s because I love Janie. I love everything about her. Including the fact that her name isn’t Janie.”

  When she and Reeve were finally off the phone, Janie repeated her names to herself: Janie Johnson. Jennie Spring.

  In that old horror of finding that she was a kidnap victim—She! Janie! Child of Frank and Miranda Johnson!—she had clung to her Janie name as if to a life raft.

  Slippage into the Spring family began the very first weekend she was there, and from the first she stomped it out, as if it were a spreading fire.

  The Springs had surrendered on the name front, and they too called her Janie. When she left them, they wrote to her and telephoned her as Janie Johnson. How glad they would be when Janie Johnson no longer existed.

  Perhaps there are actually two Janie Johnsons, she thought. There’s the creation of Hannah, a fiction born of crime. I never want to be that Janie again. But there’s another Janie Johnson. The happy girl who really was the daughter of Frank and Miranda. The good daughter. A person I’m proud of.

  And now, for a few days, I am Jennie Spring. A name like ice on a hot day. A name that will melt and be gone. I will have been my real self for less than two weeks when I become a third person.

  Jennie Shields.

  A stranger. We haven’t met yet, because she won’t exist until I’m married. Jennie Shields. Even if my husband calls me Janie.

  Janie found herself laughing and dancing.

  Husband, she thought. Such a beautiful word.

  Miranda Johnson and Mrs. Shields had left for Connecticut. Jodie and her mother were cleaning up the kitchen. “I�
��m afraid,” said Donna Spring.

  Although their lives had been ruled by fear, Jodie had never heard her mother say such a thing out loud. “Afraid the flowers won’t come?” she said flippantly. “Afraid the weather will be bad?”

  “Afraid for Janie. The theory is that a true crime book will shake loose information about the Javensen woman, but what if it actually shakes Janie loose?”

  “She’s not hanging on by a thread, Mom. And Reeve is one of those protective types. Janie will be fine.”

  “You know what amazes me?” said her mother. “Janie, with her tragic history, is not considering for one moment that tragedy could lie ahead. She sees nothing but joy ahead. It’s as if she didn’t learn anything from the past.”

  “She learned everything from the past,” said Jodie. “She learned to put it behind her. She’s rejoicing in the moment. It’s what I learned in Haiti, Mom. The children and the nuns were so wise. They could rejoice in any tiny thing—the joy of seeing a friend approaching eclipsed the tragedy around them.”

  Her mother was staring at her.

  “What’s wrong?” said Jodie.

  “Nothing’s wrong. You grew up, didn’t you? Haiti matured you.”

  “I wasn’t immature before,” said Jodie irritably.

  “Let’s not bicker.”

  “I love to bicker,” said Jodie. “It’s why marriage is going to be a problem for me. Janie will agree with everything Reeve says and go along with everything Reeve wants, but I’d be bickering the whole time.” She giggled. “Still, I’m hoping to meet Mr. Right at the wedding. I’m looking for a guy who is adorable, strong, smart, launching an interesting career, and never bickers, because bickering will be my job.”

  On his way home, Brendan drank in the city.

  The rush of people, the cacophony of voices and horns and engines and construction and music, was strengthening.

  He loved New York.

  He strode down the sidewalks the way everybody else did: going fast, with a plan. His only plan was to get the express bus to New Jersey while everybody else was probably planning to conquer the world, but still. However minor it might be, he too had a plan.