Journey, The (14 page)

"What did you tell him Thursday?"

"I told him the truth. I told him that a friend of mine had a very strong feeling that he was about to have a very bad weekend."

"What did he say?

"He didn't say a thing. He laughed."

"He laughed?"

"He laughed . . . until I told him that I would never speak to him again until he acted on your very strong feeling."

Michelle stifled a laugh and smiled.

"It looks like you hedged your bets."

"I took your warning seriously."

Robert added a packet of sugar to his coffee.

"As it turned out, though, I didn't have to twist any arms. David had already concluded his business. He had planned to leave by the weekend anyway."

Michelle took a sip of her cola and looked around the room. Three teachers sat at two other tables but appeared to show no interest either in the intense conservation by the pop machine or the intimate glances the math teacher and the attendance secretary gave each other.

"Please tell me he took others with him."

"He did," Robert said. "He managed to convince a business acquaintance to join him. He promised the other man an afternoon on his sailboat."

"So only two got out?"

"It was just those two. They were lucky too. Both had difficulty getting plane tickets but finally caught a flight to Zurich Saturday morning. Had they waited even a few more hours they would still be there."

Michelle lowered her eyes and frowned. She had hoped that her warning would have saved more. Though most Americans now knew about the takeover of the U.S. embassy by students and militants, most seemed to believe that the crisis would be resolved quickly. Even the media were treating the incident as a political stunt that would likely end peacefully once propaganda objectives had been achieved and the host government intervened. But she knew better. Except for a handful of Americans who would escape Iran through the Canadian embassy in January, those now in the country would remain there for more than a year.

Apparently sensing her disappointment, Robert again reached out and touched her arm. Two teachers at another table turned their heads, but Robert seemed undeterred. He looked at Michelle and spoke in a soft but firm voice.

"You mustn't think you let anyone down," he said. "You saved my brother and another man. That's more than anyone else can say. David sends his profound thanks. His wife, Penny, thanks you too. They want to meet you when they come out this summer."

"I'd love to meet them," Michelle said.

Michelle glanced across the room and saw three sets of eyes quickly return to books and magazines. She frowned for a few seconds but brightened when she looked back at Robert.

"Thanks," she said.

"Thanks for what?"

"Thanks for making this easy."

"You mean for buying the explanation that you're some sort of Jeane Dixon?"

"Yes, that," she said, "and also for how you are handling yourself around me in this room."

Robert smiled and brought his hands together on the table. He appeared ready to speak but instead looked away as the three others got out of their chairs and headed for the door. When the last one exited the lounge, he put his hands on Michelle's.

"I believe in tact and propriety and setting examples for others," he said. "There is a time and a place for everything. But I also believe in being myself and, right now, I am a math instructor who is very fond of Michelle Jennings. I hope the feeling is mutual."

Michelle smiled and squeezed his hands.

"It is," she said.

When she wrote in her journal later that evening, Michelle noted her deepening feelings for a man who had once been the object of a high school crush. The feelings were different than the ones that she had had for Scott. She didn't just have a romantic interest in Robert Land. She liked him as a person. She liked virtually everything about him.

But Michelle also wrote that her presence in Robert's world had impacted more than his social life. Though she felt good about filling a void in the life of a lonely widower and keeping his brother from harm, she felt uneasy about effecting change on a larger scale. The networks had reported that night that fifty-one Americans had been taken hostage, not the fifty-two that Michelle and millions of others had always associated with this ordeal. David's business friend had been one of the original fifty-two.

Michelle thought about the man as she pulled her bed covers to her chest and retired for the night. She thought about his family and those who mattered in his life. She had saved them from months of torment and possibly worse. She had played a critical role in the lives of people she did not even know. That was arguably a good thing. But by putting events into motion at dinner Thursday night, she had done something else. She had interfered with history. Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.

CHAPTER 25: MICHELLE

Sunday, November 18, 1979

Michelle had heard the song a hundred times and heard the voice a few. But nothing had prepared her for April Burke's rendition of "Amazing Grace" at the late service at St. Mark's.

For nearly four minutes a girl who couldn't grab the attention of half the boys in her senior class held a congregation spellbound and brought more than a few adults to tears. Michelle tried to remember whether she had heard this kind of depth and range even at an opera. The rich vocals belonged in Radio City Music Hall and not simply in the sanctuary of a small Lutheran church in Unionville, Oregon. It was a voice Michelle wanted to hear again and again – a voice, she vowed, that would not be silenced by a drunk.

When April finished the beloved hymn, she smiled at two hundred parishioners and returned to a pew she shared with Shelly, Brian, and a few other teenagers. The Prestons, the Johnsons, and Delores Burke sat two rows back.

Michelle wiped an eye as she recovered from April's moving performance and yet another trip down Memory Lane. She had spent hundreds of Sundays in this modest little church, located a few blocks east of the high school on Riverside Drive, and made many a good friend. She asked again what had possessed her to leave the friendly embrace of this community for a life offering limitless riches but precious little fulfillment.

She had come to the church for two reasons. She wanted to reconnect with a congregation that had meant a lot to her growing up and also to finally approach people she had avoided for weeks. Fred Preston had not returned to the Unionville Women's Home since the day Michelle had fainted and Evelyn Preston had not visited the attendance office to see if the new girl in town was properly doing her job.

Sitting in a pew four rows back, Michelle studied her parents as if they were exotic animals in a zoo and not the people who had created and nurtured her for decades. Neither apparently had taken notice of the guest parishioner in their midst. Nor apparently had April or Brian. But Shelly had. Not two minutes into a sermon that had elicited an actual snore from a scraggly looking man in a threadbare suit, Shelly had glanced in the direction of the noise and made eye contact with her favorite attendance secretary and math mentor and offered a small wave. Michelle knew that formal introductions after the service were as likely as the next sunrise.

Michelle nonetheless did not rush the matter. When Pastor Heinrich Schmidt gave the benediction and encouraged his flock to follow their noses to the coffee, cookies, and sweet rolls in the church basement, Michelle headed first to a restroom near the narthex. She wanted to look her best and mentally prepare for an encounter that likely offered as many complications as potential rewards. When she finished splashing her face and walked down a flight of concrete stairs to the public gathering, Shelly Preston was waiting.

"There you are," she said. "I wondered where you had gone."

"I just needed to freshen up a bit. It's good to see you, Shelly."

"It's good to see you. Have you been here before?"

Michelle smiled and laughed to herself. Talk about a difficult question.

"No. This is my first time. I had heard some nice things about the minister and wanted to check this place out."

"Well, I'm glad you came."

"Hi, Miss Jennings," April said as she approached with a cup of coffee. "Shelly said that you were here. Did you hear me sing?"

"I did. You were phenomenal. I hope you appreciate the talent you have."

April laughed.

"You and my mother should get together. She wants me to send tapes to record companies. She wanted to meet you but had to run to get a roast in the oven. We have company coming."

"Maybe I'll meet her next week. I like this church and plan to return."

"Have you met Shelly's parents?"

"Not yet. But I'm sure I will shortly."

"Yes, you will," Shelly said. She smiled at Michelle but looked at her friend for only a few seconds before glancing over her shoulder toward the back of the room. "In fact, we're going to do that right now. They just pulled themselves away from the pastor."

Shelly put her cup of coffee on a nearby counter, waved to Brian and his parents as they approached the stairs, and returned to April and Michelle. She handed the former a set of keys.

"Go ahead and drive yourself home. We might be a while."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I'll catch a ride with my folks and pick up the car tonight."

April grabbed the keys, smiled, and waved them in front of Michelle.

"She trusts me!"

Michelle laughed.

"That's the mark of a good friend. It was nice seeing you again, April."

"You too."

Michelle waved goodbye to April as she watched her walk up the stairs and disappear. She then smoothed the wrinkles from her green dress, turned back to Shelly, and extended an arm toward the other end of the room.

"After you, Miss Preston."

Michelle followed Shelly past several people she remembered by face, but not by name, to a corner of the basement that doubled as a Sunday school classroom for first and second graders. Silent auction items competed with themed banners and pictures of Jesus on the walls. When the two approached a middle-aged couple admiring a hanging quilt, Michelle felt her stomach twist into an all-too-familiar knot.

Shelly cleared her throat in a manner clearly intended to draw attention.

"Mom and Dad, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

When Michelle saw Fred and Evelyn Preston turn to face their daughter and the stranger standing at her side, she noted two decidedly different smiles. Fred's was wide and warm. Evelyn's was stiff and formal.

"This is my friend Michelle Jennings," Shelly said, picking up where she left off. "She's the new attendance secretary at school. She moved here this summer from Seattle."

Shelly turned to the woman in the green dress.

"Michelle, these are my parents, Fred and Evelyn Preston."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Fred said as he offered a hand.

"The pleasure's mine," Michelle said.

Michelle shook two hands and stepped back to more closely examine the people who had raised her. Wearing a brown suit and a polka-dot tie Shelly had given him for his forty-fifth birthday, Fred Preston looked like a man who could combine business and pleasure without shortchanging either. Wearing a dark blue dress and a white sweater, Evelyn Preston looked like a no-nonsense housewife who could juggle family responsibilities and community obligations as effectively and effortlessly as a circus performer tossing tennis rackets.

"Shelly has told us a lot about you," Evelyn said, her expression warming a few degrees. "You've made quite an impression on her – and several others, from what I hear."

"Well, you know how people exaggerate," Michelle said.

Fred cocked his head and put a hand to his chin.

"You look very familiar. Is this your first visit to St. Mark's?" he asked.

"Yes," Michelle said, wondering how many more times she'd have to answer that question.

"Hmm. I'm sure I've seen you before, but then I say that to half the people I meet," he said with a slight chuckle. "I'm a lot better with names than faces."

"I understand that you came here often as a young girl," Evelyn said. "Do you have family in Unionville?"

Michelle again laughed to herself and immediately thought of John 8:32, her favorite Bible verse. The truth might have set her free in other conversations, but in this one it would have been downright imprisoning. She yearned for the day when she didn't have to check every word and utterance through a time-travel filter.

"Not anymore. My grandparents used to live in the area but moved away when they retired. I visited them every summer as a kid, usually for a week or two. But they passed many years ago. My other relatives live elsewhere. They're spread all over the country," Michelle said, telling the truth as it applied to 2010.

"What brought you here?" Evelyn asked.

Michelle thought she detected a bit of bite in the question but quickly dismissed the notion. Her mother could be hard-edged and suspicious, but she was also inquisitive. She had become a force to be reckoned with in the community by garnering a lot of information about everyone she met and not forgetting a single detail, no matter how small.

"When my husband died last June, I just wanted to start over. I had lived in Seattle most of my life and wanted to try something different, something a little simpler. I had always liked this town and decided that Unionville was as good a place as any to begin again."

"I admire that," Fred said. "It takes a lot of courage to move to someplace new. Most people who live here were born here and will die here. Once people get used to something they don't want to try something new. But I'm glad there are still some folks willing to branch out. Wayne Dennison tells me you've done wonders at the high school."

"I love helping kids out. That's definitely a perk of the job."

"Have you found a permanent place to live? If not I'd be happy to recommend a realtor. I know quite a few through the barbershop."