“I used to be,” I answered, returning his smile. “I’m afraid right now I’m pretty out of condition.”
“How about hitting a couple of balls for fun?”
“I’d like to,” I said, “but I don’t have my racket with me.”
“You can borrow Kim’s since she doesn’t want to play anymore.” He turned back to the girl. “You wouldn’t mind lending it, would you?”
Kim picked up a towel from the sidelines and wiped her face. She was perspiring heavily, and her hair was plastered to her head in tight, damp ringlets.
“Be my guest,” she told me. “That is, if you’re a glutton for punishment. I warn you, though, you’d better be prepared for the slaughter. My cousin Larry is captain of the tennis team. The rest of the guys are out of town or have full-time jobs, so he drags me here every morning so he can practice slamming balls at me. I’m scared to death I’m going to get decapitated. If you’ve got a death wish, take my racket and go for it.”
“I’d like to give it a try,” I said, trying to sound casual, although it was all I could do to keep from hugging her. It had been two months since I’d had a chance for exercise and every muscle in my body was screaming for action.
When I first walked onto the court, Larry set me up with a few easy balls to see if I could return them. It took only a couple of minutes of rallying for him to begin to realize that I was not the Sunday player he had expected.
“Hey, you’re not bad for a girl!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Do you feel like playing for points? I promise to go easy.”
Not bad for a girl! I hated that condescending compliment! Steve would never have dreamed of saying such a thing.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? Can you keep score? I’m afraid I haven’t reached that chapter in the rule book.”
I served the next ball with all my strength and watched it zing past him like a bullet. He looked so astonished, I could hardly hold back my laughter.
“Fifteen-love!” I called. “Are you ready for the next one?”
Larry moved back a few steps and squared his shoulders and suddenly started to play with true intensity. He was fast and strong and had a killer of a backhand, and when he pulled out all the stops he played like a maniac. After three close sets (I lost two but won the third) my heart was pounding in triple time and my legs were trembling, but I felt more alive than I had since leaving Norwood.
“You’re good!” Kim said admiringly when I collapsed on the bench, as breathless and sweaty as she had been an hour earlier. “I’m Kim Stanfield, and my cousin is Larry Bushnell. You can’t be from around here, or I’m sure we’d know you.”
“I’m Val Weber,” I told her, impulsively creating a nickname for myself. “We just moved here from Durham, North Carolina.” Rita had told us to say we came from a state that was near Virginia so our accents would seem appropriate for our fabricated background.
“Are you going to be going to school here?” Larry asked me. Although he was trying not to show it, he was winded also.
“For the fall semester,” I said. “I don’t know about after that. Does secondary school mean middle school or high school?”
“It’s both,” said Kim. “Grove City has only two schools, the elementary school and the secondary school. There aren’t enough kids who live here to fill up a middle school, so those grades are thrown in with the high school.”
“You’ll like it here,” Larry said. “This will probably surprise you, but we have the best high school tennis team in the state. We don’t have enough big guys to make up a football team, so everybody who does anything plays tennis.”
We sat on the bench for a while, resting and chatting, until I suddenly realized how high the sun was. The cool of dawn had given way to the heat of morning, and I could already tell that the day was going to be a scorcher.
“I’ve got to get going,” I said. “I took off while my parents were still asleep, and I didn’t leave a note for them.”
“I have to go too,” Kim said without enthusiasm. “A relative’s visiting, and I’ve been handed the job of entertaining her.”
“Do you want to play tennis again tomorrow?” Larry asked me. “I’m working part time this summer at my father’s lumber yard, but early morning is the best time to play anyway. Any later than ten and the heat’s too heavy.”
My heart gave a little jump of surprise and pleasure.
“That sounds great,” I told him. “Let’s meet here at seven.”
“Can I get your cell number?” he asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“No,” I barked and he looked startled. “I mean, I don’t have one,” I said, thinking fast. “I was texting too much back home, so my parents took it away.”
Then I jogged away with a wave before he could ask more.
Once I was out of sight, I slowed to a walk and breathed easier. Suddenly, the world seemed brighter. I’d still have given anything to be back in Norwood, but at least I’d met some people and lined up a tennis game. Knowing that tennis was a popular sport in Florida definitely made the thought of spending a semester there more tolerable.
When I got home another surprise awaited me. A second car was parked beside the Plymouth in the driveway, and when I entered the house I was greeted by the smell of coffee.
I found my parents and brother at the table in the kitchen, eating a take-out breakfast from McDonald’s. With them was a suntanned man in walking shorts who looked as though he’d just strode in off a golf course.
“So there you are!” Dad exclaimed when I appeared in the doorway. “Tom, I’d like you to meet our daughter. Apr—” He caught himself. “Valerie, this is Tom Geist from Sarasota. He’s our Florida contact with the U.S. Marshals Service.”
CHAPTER 9
“The main thing you have to learn is to blend in with the scenery and avoid doing anything to attract attention,” Tom told us as we sat like students in kindergarten, munching hash browns and absorbing rules of survival. “Even your minor activities may be significant, such as three of you going together to apply for driver’s licenses. There shouldn’t be any problem with Valerie getting hers in Grove City, but the rest of you should take your tests somewhere else.”
“You mean people notice things like that!” asked Mom.
“Small towns like this one are hotbeds of gossip,” Tom said. “It’s a common thing for a teenager to take a driver’s test, but for a pair of adults it’s more unusual. People might wonder why you’ve waited so long, especially since it’s obvious you own a car. The same thing goes for getting Jason fitted for contacts. There’s probably not an optometrist in Grove City, but if there is, it’s better that you don’t use him. We don’t want word about Jason’s eyes to start circulating. They’re too distinctive and make him too easy to identify.” It was weird to hear him talk about my brother using his new name. I had to remember there wasn’t a Bram anymore—just Jason.
“Tell us about this man Mike Vamp,” Dad said. “I don’t understand how he found my family in Richmond. Max guaranteed they’d be safe there. The fact that Vamp found them anyway must mean there was a screwup.”
“Max said he can follow the scent of blood,” I said. Just repeating the words was enough to make me shudder.
“That was only a figure of speech,” Tom said. “The point he was trying to make was that Vamp is a pro. We’ve made every effort to cover your tracks to Florida. We think we’ve succeeded, but you can’t afford to take chances. Did you leave behind any relatives in Virginia?”
“My mother,” Mom said with a touch of bitterness. “Max offered her the chance to come with us, but she turned it down. I have to admit that hurts, but it doesn’t surprise me. I know I was never the daughter Lorelei hoped for.”
“She hasn’t forgiven you for your choice of a husband,” Dad said. “Your parents wanted you to marry a college graduate, someone who had your social and economic background.”
“It wasn’t just that,” Mom said. “I was always a
disappointment to Lorelei. Eloping with you just sealed the deal. She’s never been able to accept that I’m not a joiner and haven’t become the community leader she is. A person who spends her life putting words on paper is my mother’s idea of some sort of weird recluse.”
“In your current situation, that’s a blessing,” Tom said. “The last thing you need right now is an active social life. Choose your acquaintances carefully and don’t get too close to them. For the present, at least, leave the old tenant’s name on the mailbox. Have only a landline installed in the house, and I’ll give you my unlisted number, but it’s better that you not call me except in an emergency. No cell phones for now. Once a family is functioning under new identities, we find it’s best to cut the apron strings quickly.”
Before he left, he handed Dad an envelope of money. He also gave him the key to his new place of business, a fast photo processing shop on Main Street called Zip-Pic.
That afternoon our family went shopping at Penney’s. My parents tried to make it seem like a game, and Mom kept saying, “It’s like being newlyweds again.” We worked our way from one department to another, buying everything from silverware to bed sheets. I even talked Dad into buying me a tennis racket, since my old one had been left behind in my gym locker. Then we went to the grocery store and stocked up on food. The woman at the checkout counter asked Mom if we were new in town. Mom said yes, we had moved there from North Carolina, and asked her the best insecticide to use on roaches.
After our parents had left to drive home with our purchases, Jason and I explored the town, strolling along the sidewalks and looking in store windows. The “new” summer clothes in the stores were last year’s fashions, and the movie theater wasn’t even showing new movies—they were showing old Disney movies for the afternoon.
Jason wanted to see them, so I bought us tickets. Time hadn’t stripped the lovely old films of their magic, and Jason was just as enchanted as I had been at his age. All the way home he kept talking about buying the DVDs.
The next day we drove to Sarasota, where Jason was fitted with brown contact lenses and my parents took their drivers’ tests. That afternoon I took my own test in Grove City and got a license for Valerie Weber.
Those first two days in Florida, though they couldn’t have been called eventful, were nevertheless the high point of the month for us. After that life went on a downhill roll that madeeven our stint at the Mayflower seem exciting by comparison. I got up early each morning to play tennis with Larry, but aside from that there was nothing to do but vegetate, and in less than a week I was mired in self-pity and loneliness. Larry had to be at work by 9 a.m., and Kim had family in town, so the only two friends I had weren’t available to do things. Mom spent her days scribbling in a notebook, while Dad spent his at Zip-Pic, going over the books and learning to run the equipment. I didn’t even have my kid brother for company, because Jason made friends with two little boys down the road, and although he continued to complain about missing Chris, the three of them spent all of their time together.
Another depressing part of our life was our finances. Back home I’d never thought of our family as wealthy, since most of my classmates at Springside had comparable lifestyles, but we’d lived in a comfortable home in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, and if there was something I wanted, we usually could afford it. Now Dad wasn’t even able to give me an allowance. The cash supply Tom had given us hadn’t been replenished, and we couldn’t withdraw money from our bank in Norwood. My parents kept talking about how challenging it was to “learn to make do,” as though it were some sort ofgame and we ought to be enjoying it. Personally, I found nothing fun about scrimping, and I hated being unable to buy the things we needed. Despite Mom’s efforts to spruce up the house, she couldn’t get rid of the roaches, and we didn’t have a garbage disposal or a dishwasher. Worst of all, we couldn’t afford a television, something I considered more a necessity than a luxury.
Three interminable weeks dragged by in that manner. Then my parents broke the monotony by having a fight. It started when Mom went down to pick up an electric typewriter that had turned up in a storage cabinet at Zip-Pic, and Dad told her he was too busy to bring it out to her. That typewriter had become a bone of contention between them. Every morning when Dad left for work, Mom reminded him to bring it home, and every evening he had some excuse for not having done so. First he said he had to order replacement parts for it. Then the repair shop didn’t fix it right.
After that he just kept “forgetting” about it, until Mom got fed up and went to get it herself.
“Too busy!” she exploded at dinner. “How could you say such a thing! Zip-Pic is hardly doing any business! Everyone now is using digital cameras. You’re lucky if you develop three rolls of film a day. How could you be too busy to look for the typewriter?”
“All right, so I wasn’t too busy,” Dad admitted. “The truth is, I was trying to postpone this very conversation. I knew that once you had access to the typewriter, you’d want to start working on your book again.”
“Well, of course,” said Mom. “Why shouldn’t I work on my book? I can write as well in Florida as I could in Virginia. I already have the first draft written in longhand, but I can’t go any further until I can type it. Since we can’t afford a computer, a typewriter’s better than nothing.”
“It isn’t the writing itself that’s the problem,” Dad told her. “It’s fine if you want to write for your own enjoyment. What you can’t do is submit the manuscript. You can’t do that without giving away where we are.”
“I’ll swear my editor to secrecy,” Mom assured him. “I’ll explain what’s happened and warn him not to tell anybody.”
“It will leak,” Dad said. “You know that as well as I do. There are too many different departments that will need to be in touch with you. They’ll be sending you galleys and copy for the jacket, and the publicity people will want to discuss promotion. There’ll be no way you can keep our address secret.”
“I could write the book under a pen name,” Mom suggested. “Or better still, I could write it as Ellen Weber, a person who has no connection with Elizabeth Corrigan. Later on, a new edition can be brought out under my real name.”
“Stop talking like an idiot,” Dad said impatiently in a tone I had never heard him use with Mom. “You’ve done enough reading to know how ‘missing people’ are located. They’re usually found because they can’t resist the temptation to incorporate parts of their old lives into their new lives. The bowler joins a bowling league; the bridge player joins a bridge club; the skier vacations at Crested Butte or Aspen. Do you really think you’re going to bring out a book with your regular publisher, and nobody’s going to catch on to who it is who wrote it? Suddenly this brand-new author surfaces who writes exactly like the missing Elizabeth Corrigan, and nobody even questions it? Come on, get real!”
“My work makes me real!” snapped Mom. “I’ve spent my whole adult life establishing myself as an author. You can’t expect me to give up everything I’ve worked for. By the time all this is behind us and we’re back home again, I’ll have to start my career all over from scratch!”
Dad turned to Jason and me.
“If you kids are through eating, why don’t you go play cards in one of the bedrooms? Your Mom and I have things we need to discuss, and I think it would be better if we did it in private.”
So Jason and I went into my room and played gin rummy, while our parents continued to battle it out in the kitchen. By the following day they appeared to have reached a truce, but the air between them was chilled with icy hostility. At Mom’s insistence Dad did bring home the typewriter. From that point on, she typed, just filling up paper, because, she said, it kept her from going stir-crazy. The pounding of the rusty old keys was deafening, and there was no place in the house to escape from theclatter. The noise level was increased by Jason and his cronies, who discovered trapdoors in the ceilings of all our closets and established a “secret hideout” up in the at
tic. They bumped and thumped around until I thought the ceiling would fall through, and by the end of the day my head felt ready to explode.
On the other hand, at night there was too much silence, for the road in front of our house was void of traffic, and we were not close enough to neighboring houses to have any sense of contact with other people. I would ease myself into sleep by thinking about home with the same sort of hungry longing that Dorothy felt for Kansas. I would picture our house as I had last seen it, framed by the window of Max’s car, with the yard filled with flowers and my grandmother standing in the driveway. It won’t be long, I would tell myself reassuringly. If there’s going to be a new hearing, it will have to be soon. People can handle anything if it’s temporary. By Christmas, at least, this nightmare is bound to be over.
One evening while we were eating dinner the telephone rang with the first call we’d received since our phone had been installed. We all exchanged startled glances, and nobody moved.
Finally Dad nodded at Jason and said, “You get it. Your voice is the one least likely to be recognized. If it’s somebody asking for ‘George Corrigan,’ say he has the wrong number. If he’s asking for Philip Weber, call me to the phone.”
Jason went over and gingerly lifted the receiver.
“Hello?” he said. He paused. “You want who? Oh, sure.” He turned to me. “It’s some guy asking for Val!”
My heart leapt into my throat, and my mind screamed, Steve! Ridiculous as it sounds, I felt sure he had found me, spurred on by the power of love to accomplish the impossible. I jumped up from the table and grabbed the receiver from Jason.
“Hello?” I said eagerly.
“Hi,” said Larry. “How’s everything going? Feel like living it up and going to a movie?”
Disappointment descended upon me with a sickening thud.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I really don’t think I’ll be able to. I promised my parents I’d spend the evening at home tonight.” I knew I sounded ungracious, but I couldn’t help it. It was one thing to have a platonic male friend to play tennis with, but another thing entirely to go out in the evening with him. I was still Steve’s girlfriend even if we had to be apart for a while, and I wasn’t about to cheat on him by dating someone else.