C
HAPTER
14
All four of us were headed for lunch at a Mexican place near Times Square. I directed everyone down Forty-seventh Street, wanting to at least walk by a store that held good memories for me. Eli's Jeweler's, the sign still read. I peeked inside the small shop, where I could see the little man busily attending to the wants of a happy couple. I smiled, glad that Eli was still in the business of selling dreams. As I was about to leave, Eli looked up and for the briefest of moments our eyes locked. I raised my index finger and spun it through the air, a handmade windmill. He nodded once in acknowledgment before returning to his customers and I returned to my friends. It was an innocent remark on Eli's behalf that had introduced me to the concept of tilting at windmills, though how prophetic his words had been only I knew.
We continued down Sixth Avenue, settling into the restaurant on West Forty-third Street. We placed our lunch orders. Janey announced to everyone, the waitress included, that all of the walking had made her very hungry. In time, chips and salsa, along with our drinks, were before usâwine for John and Anna, iced tea for me, hot cocoa for Janey.
“What, you're still not drinking? Thought the doc gave you the A-OK?” John said to me as I sipped my iced tea.
“Yeah, well, I've got responsibilities. Who needs it?”
“Brian, you own a bar.”
“I run a bar. Very different from going to one.”
“Semantics,” he said.
I apologized to Anna. “Sorry, old news.”
She informed me that John had given her a full debriefing of my new life and how it had come about. She asked about the windmill and what it looked like, and suddenly Janey jumped into the conversation, relating the story of how the Van Diver family had come to build the windmill out of necessity, how the Sullivan family had inherited the old farm and done their best to restore the great old mill to its former glory. I was surprised at the depth of knowledge Janey had, marveled, too, by her grand sense of storytelling. For an eight-year-old, there was lots of talent bursting out of those images. Who knew? Maybe we had a writer in our midst. Janey, though, was particularly modest when I complimented her skills.
“You really have to see the windmill yourself,” she told them.
“Yes, I've only seen the postcard,” Anna said.
“Oh, so you've been to John's place?” I inquired, halfmocking.
John shot me a look of surprise, but Anna just laughed it off. “Several times, Brian,” she said, unapologetic.
“Wow, I never thought I'd see the day John Oliver was embarrassed about having a woman over to his place.”
“Hey, Bri, there's a kid here,” John stated.
That produced further laughter, even from Janey, who thankfully didn't understand why we were laughing but wanted in on all the fun. I was having a great time, and I was glad that Janey had been willing to make this trip. I loved my life in Linden Corners, don't get me wrong, but once in a while the open road called to me, that sense of wanderlust that had first captured my soul nearly a year ago. Or maybe my former life wanted me back, the city's raw energy calling to me. As much as Linden Corners was a morning kind of town, New York was quite the opposite, gaining strength with each passing hour of the day until the sun was down and the neon lights kept it awake all night. The switch in lifestyle had been a literal experiment in night and day for me.
Speaking of switches, the conversation took a major one. And not a good one.
“So Maddie left town,” John informed with me with his customary lack of grace.
“Uh-huh,” I said with more than a hint of indifference.
“Who's Maddie?” Janey asked.
There was silence at our little table for four.
“What, are we not allowed to talk about her?” John asked. “Come on, Brian, that's water over the bridge, I thought.”
“Under the bridge,” I said. “And I know all about Maddie. She's living in Seattle, she's happy, she's moved on with her life, and I'm glad for her. She's got a job with Microsoft and is making a mint. Just what she always wanted.”
“That's not all she ever wanted.”
“John, there's a reason why they call it the past.”
“Okay, I'm sorry. I just wasn't sure, you know, if you were . . . over her.”
“Who's Maddie?” Janey asked again. “And why do you need to be over her?”
Anna said, “She's just someone Brian used to know, it's not important now. Why don't you and I go pick out a couple of songs on the jukebox, Janey, what do you say? Maybe something with a good beat. Maybe we'll even get Brian dancing. Does your dad dance?”
Again, there was an awkward silence at the tableâanother sensitive topic broached, but there was no way Anna could have known that Janey never used the word
dad
when it came to me. Katrina Henderson and Thanksgiving all over again. But before I had a chance to explain, Janey simply said, “Not very well.”
Then they went off to make their musical selections. Me, I selected John as my target and hit him on the arm, hard.
“I guess I deserve thatâfor bringing up Maddie,” he said, his sorry way of apologizing. He'd always been sensitive to her side of what had happened. So she fell victim to corporate ambitions, he'd once said, it could happen to anyone. Anyone, that is, with the drive to get to the top and the willingness to sink to the bottom to get there. “You okay, though, you know, about that dad stuff?”
“Janey handled it very well. Better than I might have.”
“I take it something like that's happened before? Can't be an easy thing to deal with, the poor kid. Makes me realize exactly what you've taken on with Janey. And don't get me wrong, Brian, Janey's great, and from what I can see, she's nuts about you. Is that enough, though, to get through, uh . . . this? I know it sucked what happened this fall. But you know, I keep thinking that maybe if you and Maddie had worked things out, maybe the two of youâ and Janey ? Hey, maybe it's not too late, since your old boss Justin Warfield and that dumb stunt from the spring are long gone. That's the thing about the past, you can leave it there, but people have to move forward, they need to make futures. Imagine it, Bri, you and Maddie and Janey?”
“I wouldn't do that to Annie's memory,” I said rather forcefully. “Maddie is . . . Maddie's in a different time zone; hell, John, a different life zone. Let's leave it at that, okay? Enough couch-talk today. I'm fine, Janey's great, and we've got a great thing going. Let's talk about you insteadâspecifically, you and Anna. She's amazing.”
“That she is, my friend, she's changed my life. Women, they can do that, in an instant.”
Finally John was talking my language.
“Uh, can I ask you about something else?” John said.
“Something other than Maddie? I'd welcome it.”
“You okay, you know, money-wise? And before you get yourself in a snit, I'm asking because I'm worried. Look at you, Brian. You're taking care of this little girlâand from what I can see, doing a great job. But that's a lot to take on; Janey's gonna need more than just your love; she's going to need security. And I mean financial security. Now, this is probably nothing that you haven't thought of, but, hey, can the two of you really survive on a bartender's salary? Especially considering you've had to hire part-time help so you can spend more time with her. You had your savings, but your six-month sabbatical from the world took care of a lot of that. So, I guess I'm asking, is everything being met? You know, end to end?”
As much as I didn't wish to discuss this with John, I knew he meant well. Just as he had when he mentioned Maddie. So I reassured him that everything was fine.
“At Thanksgiving, my father actually handed me a check for twenty-five thousand dollars. I endorse the check; he endorses my change in life plan. That ought to help for a while.”
“Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure.”
What I didn't tell John was that the check still was hidden away in a desk drawer. So much for endorsements.
As he took a sip of his wine, he assured me he'd covered all of the serious topics.
“At last,” I remarked.
Our food arrived, and the four of us settled in for a grand old Mexican feast, quesadillas and burritos and rice with beans, the kind of meal that was scarce in the meat loaf and potatoes menu that Linden Corners subsisted on. Martha should have a fiesta day at the Five-O. There was lots more chatter, John and I dominating the conversation but only because we had so much history, so much to catch up on and to share with these new people in our lives.
Afterward, John insisted on grabbing the check, and I let him. We grabbed another cab that took us up to Central Park. From there, we ventured to the much larger Wollman Rink. The four of us rented skates and took to the ice. I had never been very agile when it came to skating, but Anna floated on the ice like a natural and Janey was a fast learner, and soon the two of them were whizzing by me and John, laughing and smiling the whole time, no doubt at our clumsy expense.
A while later, John and I gave up and we just hung out by the railing, talking. Though we talked often on the telephone, there was nothing like face-to-face contact, the conversation flowing much more naturally, the shifts from topic to topic less obvious. Luckily he said nothing more about Maddie. We talked mostly about holiday plans. John wasn't going home; instead he was headed to Anna's family for a traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast.
“What about you? You bringing Janey to your parents'?”
So I told him about my parents' plan to take a cruise.
“New beginnings in the Duncan household.”
“You okay with that?”
“I'm thirty-four, John, I've spent more Christmases than I ever thought I'd have with my parents. I think Philip would understand. Our tradition lives on, just in another form.” He let the subject go, and then I told him about the annual party at the tavern.
“The social event of a Linden Corners Christmas,” I said. “Why not stop by? See the cows for yourself.”
“I hope that's not your way of referring to your clients . . .”
“Ha ha. I'm serious, come to the party.”
“Brian, your little fantasy town is three hours away. Can hardly âstop by.' ”
“So, stay overnight at the farmhouse,” I said. “You and Anna.”
“You gonna wake me in the morning to milk the cows?”
“Hey, John?”
“Yeah?”
“You're such a jerk.”
As the day wound down and night fell over the city, we walked back to the Upper East Side. It was not too far from the skating rink. The beautiful day we'd been blessed with had turned noticeably cooler, and I made sure Janey was bundled up. I was proud of her today, her resourcefulness, her willingness to try new things and to meet new people. And to walk, walk, walk. As worried as I had been about once again taking her from the known comforts of Linden Corners, I think with John and Anna we had given her an experience she wouldn't soon forget. They were warm and friendly and had taken to Janey like Santa takes to elves. The magical world that is Christmas in New York had gone perfectly.
C
HAPTER
15
A dark night had fallen, stars sparse as clouds moved in over the region. We were exhausted from our full day's excursion that had seemed to take us through the busiest neighborhoods of Manhattan. It was in front of John's apartment building that we said our good-byes with hugs and handshakes, good wishes for a happy holiday. Then, as Janey and I made our way down the street, she turned back. Anna and John were locked in a tight embrace, kissing like teenagers. I watched Janey's wide-eyed expression, wondering just what she was thinking. When the two lovebirds finally broke apart, they saw Janey gazing up at them.
“You forget something?” John asked.
Janey shook her head. “I just wanted to remind you, you know, to come and see the windmill,” she said. “You'd be very welcome.”
We left them with big smiles on their faces, hopped into the car, and sped away from the city. Traffic was light. The smile on my face didn't seem to want to dissipate either, not until a half hour into our trip, when Janey, who'd been quiet and obviously mulling over something in her complicated little brain, blurted out, “You never answered the question, Brian.”
“Which one was that?”
“About the woman named Maddie. Was she your girlfriend when you lived here?”
“Yes, Janey, she was.”
She was silent a moment, as though trying to absorb that information. Then she asked, “Were you going to marry her?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“Well, at Thanksgiving, your sister talked about that woman Lucy, and she said you wanted to marry her. And you told me that you were going to marry my momma. So, I just wondered . . . you know . . . about this Maddie woman.” She hesitated, which was unlike her. Janey was the type to just attack a problem head-on, she tended to just blurt things out. And then she did, as she asked, “Did you also want to marry Maddie?”
I thought about Maddie, her platinum-blond hair, the way her voice would slip into its natural Southern tones whenever she got mad. I thought about that wonderful afternoon when we had strolled down Forty-seventh Streetâthe Diamond Districtâand how we had cooed together over a ring that absolutely sparkled in her crystal eyes. How the next day I had returned to purchase it, and how circumstances had brought me to return it without even having had the chance to present her with it. But on that return visit, good old Eli the Jeweler, he had had words of advice for me. All of us, he said, must tilt at windmills. And I had, literally and figuratively, as those words had taken me straight into Linden Corners, straight into the welcoming arms of Annie Sullivan, and the gently turning sails of the windmill. Had I wanted to marry Maddie? That had been my plan. But that had not been life's plan. And as much as I understood this, I reflected that Janey wouldn't understand the grays in life. Answers to her came in black and white, yes and no.
“I suppose, Janey,” I said, “that yes, at one time in my life I did want to marry Maddie.”
“Before you met Momma?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper in the darkness of the car. Outside only the headlights guided our way home on the blackened roads. Janey didn't bother to correct my grammar this time. She merely quieted down again, her face scrunched up in thought. This adventure had yielded such deep discussions between us, and that was good because I wanted to encourage Janey to ask questions whenever she was curious. It was the only way for us to get to know each other fully, the way to keep the peace in the house. The reason for these trips, both to Philadelphia and to New York, was for Janey to get to know a bit about me, to know where I had come from and why being in her life meant so much to me. And maybe, if she began to feel closer to me, she wouldn't have pulled the stunt she had with the ornament. Perhaps we'd return to the farmhouse and she'd go running to her bedroom, take the box out from under her bed. Maybe a simple apology would come from her. Maybe it would suffice.
“Brian?”
“Yes, Janey?” I replied, concentrating on the road up ahead.
“You never told me about your family. I mean . . . your mom and your dad and Rebecca were at Thanksgiving, but why wasn't your brother, Philip, there? Why don't you call him? Maybe he can visit for the Corner Christmas party. You showed me his picture up on the wall, remember? I bet he's still so handsome.”
I felt adrenaline rush through me and had my foot been more firmly on the accelerator we might have crashed into the car ahead of us. I eased back, took a deep breath. I felt a tear dampen my cheeks, emotion winning out over instinct. I pulled to the shoulder, flicked on my hazard lights. In the silence of the car, Janey looking up expectantly with her curious eyes, I turned to her, my voice a near-whisper, and I finally spoke the words I hated to say.
“Philip was sick, Janey, and . . . and he died.”