Call me when you’re about five minutes away. I’m going to station myself at the window, and if you’re still good-looking, I’m not coming out. I’ve got some problems in the hair department, lost the main attraction there. The mane attraction. I’ve got some problems in the physique department, too. Think I won’t elaborate too much there. Suffice it to say I know you’ve gotten older, but I’ve really gotten older.
When I go into the kitchen after having taken a shower, I find Lise at the kitchen table. Something looks strange about her, and then I realize it’s that she doesn’t have her glasses on.
I get some coffee and slide into the booth with her, and she says, “What do you think?”
“About what?”
She points to her face.
“You mean no glasses?”
“Contacts.”
“You got contacts?”
“Yesterday.” She pushes her plate toward me. “Want half of an English muffin?”
I take a bite of muffin, look at her more carefully. “You look good. But you look good with glasses, too.”
“I just thought, you know, when we were together, I didn’t wear glasses.”
She blows some air out of her cheeks. “You know, maybe I … I’m thinking of not going. It’s probably a bad idea.”
“No it isn’t.”
She looks sharply at me. “Do you really think you’re the one to decide that?”
I shrug. “Guess not.”
She gets up to refill her cup. “I’m sorry. It’s just that …” She turns around, leans against the counter with her arms crossed. “I mean, as of now we’re … cordial. And if I go to see him, I could do something that could screw things up and he could end up not talking to me at all.”
“Or you could make things better. At least in terms of your daughter.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t have to see him. You could just come along for the ride. It’ll be fun; we’ll stop at every funky thing we find. Nobody ever had a bad time on a road trip; it’s been well documented.”
“Yeah,” she says, but I can tell she’s not really listening.
“How about if you don’t decide about seeing him just yet? See how you feel when we get closer. You’ve taken time off from work for a vacation; take a vacation.”
Riley hears the newspaper land on the front porch and runs to the door, barking. “Riley, NO BARK!” Lise yells, and runs to get him. “I don’t want him to wake up Renie,” she tells me, pulling him into the room with us.
“I don’t know if he’ll wake her up. You might.”
“I wish she were coming,” Lise says. “She was up late last night, I heard her banging around in her room and then she went downstairs for a while. I think she’s really conflicted.”
“Maybe we should make noise,” I say. “What if she wakes up later and wishes she’d come with us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Joni, let’s GO!” I yell.
“Shhhhhh!” we hear Joni say, and then her suitcase comes bumping down the steps before her. “Damn it!” she says, chasing after it.
“Well,” I say, “she’s certainly had her chance to wake up.”
We go out into the pale colors of dawn to my SUV. We stash our bags in the way-back and take our places. I’ll drive first, Lise will ride shotgun, Joni will be in the back with Riley. And with Renie, too, apparently, because just as I’m pulling away from the curb, we hear Renie calling, “Wait for me, wait for me, wait for me!” She’s running after us in her hunting-dog pajamas and sneakers, her briefcase over her shoulder and banging into her hip. She jumps in the backseat and says, “What.”
“You’re coming in your pajamas?” Joni asks.
“I’ll change later.”
“Into what?”
Renie looks at her. “Into what I buy to wear.”
“You’re going to buy everything you need?” I ask.
She straightens the collar of her pajama top, pushes her hair off her face. “Didn’t you ever want to do that? Take a trip without packing one single thing?”
Silence. It seems that yes, we all have.
“First purchase, toothpaste,” she says.
“You can borrow mine,” Joni says, and Renie says, “Nope, I’m getting a kind I never had before. I’m doing that this whole trip.”
“What kind of toothpaste have you never had before?” Lise asks.
“Licorice kind, there’s a licorice kind.”
“There is?” I ask.
“See?” Renie says. “Also, I’m getting a light-up toothbrush.” Then, before we can ask, “Target, kids’ section.”
“So … Winona is two and half hours from here …” I say.
“Yes,” Renie says. “I’m going to try. I just sent her an email that I would be at the Acoustic Café at noon.”
“Where is it?” Lise asks.
“You’re not coming. Nobody’s coming. I’m going alone. I’ll just go there and wait for one hour and see if she comes.”
“We have to get you there,” I remind her.
“I’ll have you drop me around the corner,” Renie says. “It’s at 77 Lafayette.”
“How will you recognize each other?” I ask.
“I said I’d put a rose on the table. It’s stupid, but it’s all I could think of. I’ll find a rose somewhere.”
“That’s not stupid,” I say.
We stop to gas up, and Lise puts the address in the GPS. Then we’re all quiet, listening to NPR, until Renie says, “You know that saying Be kind, for everyone is carrying a heavy burden? It’s not true.”
“Yes, it is,” I say.
“Not necessarily,” Joni says.
“Depends on how you define burden,” Lise says. And then, “Oh, look, cows. Riley, look! Look at the big dogs!”
I pull over and Riley stands to look out the open window and regard the cows. He wags his tail slowly.
“Let’s see if they’ll let him sniff them,” Renie says.
“We’ve gone seventeen miles,” I say. “Do you really think we should stop again already?”
“Stopping for gas doesn’t count,” Joni says.
Renie says, “And then after this, I need to pee.”
“I told you not to get that huge-size coffee at the gas station!” Lise says. She snaps on Riley’s leash.
“Oh, okay, I won’t,” Renie says and takes Riley’s leash from Lise. “I’ll take him. You won’t let him get close enough.”
“Don’t let him get hurt,” Lise says. “He’s an old dog. Be careful. Don’t let him get hurt.”
“They’re not bulls,” Renie says. She brings Riley over to the fence and he takes a leisurely pee, pointedly facing away from the cows. Then he walks over to the one nearest him, his tail low and still.
“Riley, this is Elsie the cow,” Renie says.
Elsie lowers her head and Riley sniffs her, then licks her nose. The cow’s head jerks up and Lise leans out the window to say, “Okay, that’s enough, back in the car. Come on.”
Renie turns around. “How about if I just take his leash off and let him stampede a little bit?” But she gets back into the car, and after I pull onto the road, she says, “Seriously, though. About the burden thing? Some people have no more burden than an avocado going bad.”
“That’s not true!” I say, and so we pass the time until we come to a truck stop–type gas station, where Renie says she’ll find some clothes and change in the ladies’ room. The rest of us walk Riley. Again.
“I can’t believe she walked into that store wearing pajamas,” Joni says.
Lise shrugs. “Everybody wears pajamas outside now. When Sandy was in high school they had to ban kids showing up for class in their sleepwear.”
“Yeah, well, Renie’s not a kid,” Joni says, and Lise says, “Oh?”
“I’M THE PERSON YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT?” Joni says, when Renie gets back in the car, about what’s emblazoned across the front of the T-shirt she’s wearing over
a pair of surprisingly not-bad jeans.
Renie shrugs. “It was this or HOW CAN I LOVE YOU IF YOU WON’T LIE DOWN?”
“See, you’re just being provocative right off the bat,” Lise says. “This is how you get when you’re scared.”
“What?” Renie says. I tell her I’ve got a plain white blouse and a black blazer she can wear, and she goes back inside to change. I’m nervous for her. I wish she wasn’t the first stop. I wish I could know that her daughter would show up and give her a chance. But I suppose that’s what this journey is about for all of us: finding out.
ABOUT TEN MINUTES outside of Winona, there’s a sign for homemade pie. It’s tacked onto a rural mailbox in shaky handwriting. “Ohhhhh, look, look, look, look!” Joni says. “Let’s go!”
I pull into the driveway and Renie says, “No, no, don’t stop. We have to get there.”
I look at my watch. “We practically are there. And it’s only ten-forty.”
“Too close,” Renie says. “These roads aren’t nearly as fast as the freeway. And what if we run into a train crossing? Plus I have to buy a rose. And I have to comb my hair and put on some … I don’t know, ChapStick. I have to get centered, take a walk by myself, I’ll take a walk before I go in. I have to calm down. I really have to calm down and think about what I want to say to her, I have to get ready, you guys, come on!” She sighs. “Sorry.” She closes her eyes, rubs her forehead. “I’m obviously … Sorry.”
“It’s homemade pie,” Joni says. “Let’s at least see if she makes her own crust. I’ll bet she does. I’ll bet she puts vinegar in it, too.”
“Okay, listen,” Renie says. “Why don’t you drop me off and then come back? And then you can spend as much time as you like with Betty Crocker. You can come and get me anytime after one o’clock. I’ll just wait for you.”
Joni looks up at the house. “Let me just see what kinds she has. Would that be okay?”
“Can we just go?” Renie says.
“All right, but remember where this place is,” Joni says. “We’re coming back.”
“Isn’t there a way to bookmark it or something on your GPS?” Lise asks.
“I’ll remember where it is,” I say. “Although I guess I could figure out how to do it. It might be this button. Or no, wait, I think it’s—”
“Go!” Renie says, and I do.
We ride mostly in silence to the café, and I pull over to the curb about half a block away from it. Renie gets out of the car, straightens her blouse, tucks the yellow rose she swiped from someone’s garden beneath her blazer. It was a crime mitigated by the fact that she left a five-dollar bill in the mailbox.
Not one of us says “Good luck,” or anything else for that matter; but I can feel the hope we all have for this to go well. Renie walks quickly away from us, turns back and waves, smiles, and goes on.
“Oh, this is awful,” Lise says. “It’s like your first kid’s first day at school. I’m so anxious. I think I need a beta-blocker.”
“Have mercy on her, Haley,” Joni says. “Give her a chance.”
“Amen,” I say.
BETTY CROCKER IS a man. After we knock on the door, it’s opened by a tall, hefty guy, maybe early eighties, wearing a T-shirt, baggy pants, suspenders, and brown leather slippers that have seen their better days. He has what looks like a few days’ growth of white stubble on his face. He stares at the three of us standing there and finally says, “What do youse want?” His upper torso jerks when he speaks, as though someone’s pulled the string to make him talk.
Joni says, “Pies?”
He leans in closer, cups a hand around one ear. “What’s that?”
“Pies!” Joni says, louder.
“What about ’em?”
“You have a sign on your mailbox saying HOMEMADE PIES,” I say.
“So what?”
Lise begins to laugh, but stops herself. She says loudly, “So we thought you sold homemade pies.”
He straightens. “Youse going to buy some? I ain’t got time otherwise.”
“Well, we’d like to see them, first,” Joni says.
“Ain’t nothing to see, they’re pie, only littler. Little pies. You want ’em or not?”
“I guess not,” I say, and start to leave, but Joni takes my arm.
She steps closer to the man. “What kind you got?”
“What kind you want?”
“What kind you got?”
Lise and I look at each other. “I think we should go,” she says, low.
“Oh, I got what you want,” the man says. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“Okay, that’s it,” I say, and take off toward the car, Lise behind me.
But Joni stays. “How about apple?” we hear her say, and we turn around, waiting.
“Stay right there,” the man says, and he comes back with a small pie that he hands Joni.
She smells it. “How much is it?”
“How much you want to pay?” the man asks.
“Three dollars,” Joni says.
“Three dollars it is.”
Joni opens her purse and Lise puts her hands over her mouth and says, “Oh no, don’t open your purse, don’t open your purse.”
But the man stands there and does nothing until Joni hands him three dollars. Then he gives her back one. She turns to look at the two of us, poised for flight, and makes a face I can’t decipher. No one says anything. Joni turns back to the man and says, “About your crust.”
“What about it?”
“What do you put in it?”
“I put in it what needs to be in it.”
“Flour, sugar …” Joni says.
“Yeah, course.”
“Vinegar?”
“Course.”
“Butter?”
“Nah. Don’t need no butter.”
Joni nods. “Lard, then. Do you put lard in? I’ll bet you put lard in.”
“What are you, a reporter?”
“I’m a chef.”
The man stands there. Blinks. “Then what the hell are you doing buying a pie from me? Whyn’t you make your own?”
“We’re on a road trip,” Joni says. She points to Lise and me. “All of us.”
“Where youse going?”
“To see people from our past,” Joni says.
“That so.”
“That’s so.”
“Well, I might could give youse some more pies, then. Keep in the car, might get hungry.”
“Do you have any blueberry?”
“No. But I got some pecan ’bout lay you out flat.”
“We’ll take a few.”
The man smiles. “All right. Come on in.”
And Joni goes in. So what can we do? We follow her.
WE GET BACK TO the café at one after one. Renie is standing outside, holding the blazer. Her face is determinedly neutral. Joni, who is driving, pulls into a parking place across the street, beeps the horn, and Renie comes running over. She gets into the back and snaps her seat belt on. “Next stop,” she says.
Silence, and then I turn around and say, “So …?”
Nothing.
Lise, sitting with arm around Riley’s neck, gives me a look that says, Don’t push.
Then Renie says, “You know what, it wasn’t a good idea. But hey, I got something out of it. If someone writes to me now about whether or not to see the kid they gave up at birth, I’ll know what to do. I’ll say, ‘Either that or shove toothpicks under your nails. One by one. Slowly.’ ”
“What happened?” Lise asks.
“On to Cleveland!” Renie says.
“Des Moines,” Lise says, quietly.
“What?”
“It’s Des Moines,” Lise says. “That’s the next stop.”
“Oh. Right. Okay, then, on to Des Moines!”
“Okay,” Joni says. “But can I just run in that café and pee?”
“Sure,” Renie says. “They have great sandwiches. Also a great bathroom. I visited it a few times. That’s
mostly what I did. I sat at the table with really good posture and I went back and forth to the bathroom.”
“Did she come?” I ask.
“Oh, yes,” Renie says. “She was there the whole time, watching me. Then at about five of one, she dropped a note on my table and walked out. Yup. Dropped a note, gave me a look you might call withering, and walked out. She’s quite pretty. Really pretty girl, big brown eyes, heart-shaped face. Tall.”
“Read us the note,” Joni says.
“Can’t. I threw it away. It was mostly just her talking about what nerve I had, coming here and acting like we’d just pick up like old friends. Oh, and how stupid the rose was.”
“Oh, Renie,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “It was just a goof, really, I just wanted …”
But then her face falls and Lise moves closer to her, puts her arm around her. Joni pulls out of the parking place and starts to drive off, and a young woman comes running up behind us, yelling “Wait! Wait! Hey! WAIT!”
Joni stops the car and Renie undoes her seat belt.
“That’s your daughter, all right,” Lise says.
“I’ll be right back,” Renie says. “Go and get some lunch, I’ll be right back.”
Joni pulls back into the parking place and tells Renie, “Take as long as you want.”
The girl is pretty. And I’m so glad she came back. I watch Renie walk up to her and say something, and the girl nods. Then they walk off together. Renie’s head is down, her hands in her pockets; she’s listening.
“I’m getting the sandwich that takes the most time to make,” I say.
“I’m going to tell them to make the bread first,” Joni says.
None of us is hungry. We all ate pie for lunch, courtesy of Mr. Brooks Daniels, who turned out to be swell. He invited us in, put Chet Baker on his turntable, cleared a stack of books, magazines, and a coffee-stained Farmer’s Almanac off his kitchen table, and sat us down to sample his wares. He made good pie, every single kind was really good. Eating it, I had one of those punches delivered to the solar plexus: Penny would have adored this place.
“Who all youse going to see?” Brooks asked, and Joni told him.