Authors: John A. Heldt
"I think I'm set. I have a studio apartment in the Benson complex and that's all the space I need for now," Michelle said, recalling a time when even 5,000 square feet of lakeside living in Bellevue, Washington, had not been enough.
"Fair enough," Fred said. "I always like to help."
Apparently distracted by someone in the distance, Fred lifted his head and glanced over Michelle's shoulder. He looked at his watch and held up an index finger before returning his attention to Shelly's new friend.
"Is something wrong?" Michelle asked.
"Oh, no," Fred said. "We're just running a little late for a lunch date. We hit the Bull Rider at least one Sunday a month with the Petersons. They're Shelly's godparents."
"I see. Well, don't let me keep you."
"Perhaps we'll have you over for dinner some night," Fred said.
"We'd love to have you," Evelyn added with a neighborly smile.
"I'd like that," Michelle said.
"How about Thanksgiving?" Shelly asked. "If you don't have plans, maybe you can spend it with us."
Fred looked at Michelle and nodded.
"I don't see why not. Even with all the kids coming we'll have plenty of space and plenty of food. You are more than welcome to join us. In fact, I insist."
Michelle glanced at Shelly who smiled and nodded and then at Evelyn who smiled and grimaced. She loved the idea of seeing her siblings and two of her nieces as babies. But she did not want to impose on someone else's family holiday, even if that family was her own. She took a breath and looked at Shelly again before giving Fred an answer.
"I don't want to impose. Thanksgiving is a time for family. It's your time to be together."
Shelly frowned and looked away.
"But if you insist . . . "
CHAPTER 26: MICHELLE
Thursday, November 22, 1979
Michelle Preston Richardson Jennings had learned many things in life, including how to change the oil of a car, create a web site, and speak three languages. She had even learned how to play pinochle, grow prize-winning orchids, and navigate a small sailboat through the recreationally treacherous waters of Lake Washington. But in forty-nine years on God's Green Earth, she had never learned how to cook like her mother.
From her vantage point at the end of a linen-covered oak table for eight, she could see the entire bounty of Evelyn Preston's kitchen: rosemary roasted turkey, mushroom and walnut stuffing, white-wine gravy, maple-whipped sweet potatoes, and an assortment of fresh fruits, vegetables, and relishes in ornate porcelain bowls. Two apple pies, made from scratch, sat atop a small hutch near the entrance to the living room.
"This meal is incredible, Evelyn. Thank you for having me," Michelle said.
"You are most welcome. We'll have to send some leftovers with you," Evelyn said. "I imagine you don't do much cooking for one."
Michelle smiled and chuckled to herself. No one in Unionville more deftly bundled kindness with a dig than Evelyn Preston. Mother was just as she had remembered her.
As she helped herself to more potatoes, Michelle looked around the table and saw faces she hadn't seen in one place in decades. Shelly sat to her immediate left, followed by brother Freddie and his wife Carolyn. The 29-year-olds had driven to Unionville from Portland, where they worked in a bank and raised daughters Tina and Gina. The year-old twins sat in high chairs behind their parents. Fred Preston sat at the other end of the table, next to his wife. Their oldest daughter, Angela, 26, and youngest son, Eddie, 24, occupied the next seats. The two lived in San Francisco and Austin, respectively, where they worked as graphic artists.
"So how did you two meet?" Eddie said.
He looked at Michelle and then at Shelly as he cut up a chunk of turkey.
"She fixed my ticket on the first day of school," Shelly said.
The diners broke into laughter as Shelly blushed. It was clear that she had long overcome the fear of any consequences that might follow her tardy arrival on the UHS campus on September 4. Even Evelyn apparently found the comment amusing.
"I must confess that Shelly made it easy," Michelle said. "She brought the right mix of humor and humility to the attendance office. She won me over in fifteen seconds."
Fred beamed.
"I've always said that that combination is the key to any successful relationship. It's how I built my business. It's how I won Evelyn, isn't that right, dear?
"Yes, it is, Fred, but I don't think our company wants to hear ancient stories."
"What stories would those be?" Freddie asked. He smiled and rested his chin on folded hands. "I thought we knew all the sordid details about you two."
"You see what you've done?"
Evelyn Preston looked at her husband as if both amused and annoyed.
"Oh, come on, honey, I think they'd get a kick out of it," Fred said.
Evelyn threw up her hands in resignation.
"Well, now you have to tell us, Dad," Angela said.
Fred smiled at his daughter.
"It's nothing earth-shattering," Fred said. "It's more a testament to the power of persistence and bringing the right attitude to the right situation."
"This sounds interesting," Michelle said.
"It is. At least I think it is," Fred said. "Evelyn was quite a prize when we met as counselors at a church summer camp near Mount Hood. It was right after we had both graduated from high school. I was a fresh-faced buck from Vancouver and she was the beauty queen from Unionville, an engaged beauty queen."
"Engaged?" Angela asked. She looked at her mother and put her hands on her hips. "You were
engaged
to someone else? How come I never heard this story?"
"I suppose because I thought it was none of your business," Evelyn said with a smile that no doubt masked growing irritation.
"As I was saying," Fred said, turning toward Michelle, "Evelyn was quite a beauty and very much out of my league. She had the attention of every boy in camp, not to mention her betrothed. Her fiancé was the son of a prominent attorney here and a sophomore at Stanford."
"A junior," Evelyn said.
"I stand corrected. He was a junior and a very nice-looking man. He looked a lot like a young Gary Cooper," Fred said. "But he was not at the camp that summer, and I was."
"Let me guess," Freddie said. He grinned as he extended his arm around Carolyn. "You hit on Mom every day until you finally wore her down."
"You could say that," Fred said. He laughed. "The point is that I wore her down the right way. Every morning I left a humorous poem on the door of her cabin and every Saturday, when we were allowed to go into Hood River, the nearest town, I humbly professed my love with flowers and ice cream. I must have spent every dime I made that summer, but, looking back, I can see it was the best investment I ever made. By the time camp was over in August, she was engaged to someone else."
"That's a beautiful story," Michelle said.
Michelle already knew the gist of the tale, where her poor but dashing father saved her debutante mother from a life of riches. Grandma Preston had filled her in one Christmas in junior high when she had complained about the futility of pursuing "seriously good-looking boys." Nothing, Nana had told her, was impossible if you put your mind to it.
"It's one I don't tell often enough. Evelyn's a very beautiful woman," Fred said.
Evelyn rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"I think you've had too much wine, Fred."
Freddie laughed and lifted his glass.
"He's right, though, Mom. You
are
a beautiful woman."
"Thank you, honey."
"Of course, at this table, I seem to be surrounded by beautiful women. I must say, Michelle, that you bear a striking resemblance to my mother. It's astonishing. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you two were identical twins," Freddie said.
Several at the table chuckled at an observation that they themselves had surely made.
"Join the club, Freddie," Shelly said matter-of-factly as she played with her peas. "When I first saw Miss Jennings at school, I thought Mom was stalking me."
More laughter.
"I'm serious, though," Freddie said. "The resemblance is remarkable. Even your name is familiar. Did my folks tell you that I had an aunt named Michelle Jennings?"
"No. They did not," Michelle said. "But Shelly has told me a few things about her. I understand she was a very accomplished woman and a remarkable skier."
"She was one of the best skiers in the world when she died," Evelyn said. "If you are interested, I'd be happy to show you some memorabilia from her career. I've compiled a few things that I keep in our den."
Michelle contained a smile as she thought about the understatement of the century. The invitation reminded her that the Olympic flame still burned brightly in her mother's mind and also that she needed to return a certain birth certificate to the Eastern Oregon Historical Society.
"Thank you for the offer, Evelyn. I'd love to see them."
CHAPTER 27: MICHELLE
Thursday, November 22, 1979
Michelle didn't wait for a guided tour. When the dishes were done and most of the family drifted to the living room to see the Cowboys play the Oilers, she walked down the hall and through an open door to revisit a memorial to the patron saint of downhill skiers.
Evelyn's shrine was as impressive as she had remembered it. Medals and ribbons shared space with plaques, trophies, and photographs, including one of Michelle Jennings with President Eisenhower. Three notebooks sitting atop a small pine desk contained newspaper articles reporting the particulars of the skier's extraordinary life and her tragic, untimely death. Michelle's namesake aunt had, indeed, been an amazing woman.
"Freddie's right."
Michelle turned around. Evelyn stood a few feet away with a sleeping girl in her arms.
"The resemblance is remarkable. We
could
be sisters."
Michelle started to reply but decided to let the comment go unanswered. She had no idea if there was anything more behind it than a simple, honest observation. She opened a notebook and commented about a woman who seemed to jump off the pages.
"Your sister had an incredible life."
Evelyn smiled at Michelle but said nothing. She instead walked past her guest to the notebook and thumbed through several pages to a yellowing newspaper article from August 1949. A grainy photograph next to the story showed Michelle Jennings, then eighteen, receiving a citizenship award from the mayor.
"Most people who remember my sister remember her only as a skier, but, as you can see, she was so much more. She was a role model and an advocate for causes and the kindest person I have ever known. She was my best friend. She made every room she entered a better place."
"I believe that," Michelle said.
"She would have been forty-eight this year, about the same as us. I imagine she would have been as lovely as ever. She would have looked a lot like you."
Michelle frowned.
"I hope my presence here hasn't caused you discomfort," she said. "I got the impression that you were less enthusiastic than your husband and daughter about having me for dinner."
"You're very perceptive, Michelle," Evelyn said. "I admit I didn't know what to make of you. I still don't. I barely know you. I know only that my daughter worships you."
"Don't you think you are overstating things?" Michelle said.
"No. I don't. Shelly has told me quite a bit about you, including your talk the other day."
"The one in the classroom?"
"Yes."
"I was just trying to help. I didn't mean to interfere or take your place."
"There's no need to justify your actions," Evelyn said. "You accomplished in a few minutes what I have been unable to do in eighteen years."
"You're being too hard on yourself."
"I'm being truthful. I'm sure Shelly has told you many things, like how domineering I can be and how we never communicate and how I meddle in her life. I've heard it all a thousand times and I must admit that most of it is true. But it's the way I was raised, Miss Jennings. It's what I know. It's the way I have mothered my four children."
Michelle took a hard look at the woman who had birthed her and raised her, the woman with whom she had had an extraordinarily difficult relationship. For the first time in years, she looked at Evelyn Preston empathetically. She was not a control freak who wanted to dictate her daughter's every move but rather a concerned and loving parent who simply lacked the skills she needed to guide a particular young woman through adolescence. Michelle resisted the temptation to give her mother a hug that was decades overdue.
"Shelly means a lot to me," Michelle said. "When I met her in September, I knew right away that this was a girl who could go places if only given the proper encouragement. You have an incredible daughter, Evelyn. You and Fred have done an exemplary job in raising her. I want only to be her friend and to help guide her through a difficult year. I remember how tough it can be to be eighteen."
Evelyn started to speak but stopped when Tina woke up. The toddler yawned, looked at her grandmother, turned away, and extended an arm toward Michelle. Evelyn laughed as she tried to keep the girl from spilling out of her arms.
"It seems that you have won over my granddaughter as well. Would you like to hold her?"
"I'd love to," Michelle said.
The time traveler took the sleepy child from Evelyn and held her high with outstretched arms before bringing her to her chest. The last time Michelle had seen Tina Preston she had been a multimillionaire's wife and Tina had been a cap-and-gown-wearing graduate of Arizona State University. She cherished the moment, a moment she had never had as a mother.
"Do you have any children?" Evelyn asked.
"No. Scott and I were unable to have any."
Michelle kissed her niece's head as the child nestled into her shoulder.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I long ago accepted that my role in this world was not to be a mother but rather to be a loving aunt and a mentor to promising young people like your daughter. I would love nothing more than to be an important part of her life."