A Farewell to Yarns (20 page)

“No, I think I've got it. Albert, I'm so grateful. This isn't going to be half as complicated as I thought.”

They retired to the robing room with the others. Ed Shurran was talking to someone about c ol l i sio n a nd li ab il i t y, and Alb er t Ho wa rd winked at Jane. When it was time, they lined up, and Jane had a momentary urge to han g onto the back of Albert's robe so she wouldn't lose him. "I'll get Suzie for this," she muttered under her breath. Despite stage fright, Jane made it down the aisle and onto the risers without disgracing herself or the choir. Once they were into the second piece, she had calmed down. By the fourth, she was actually enjoying herself. As little talent as she had, she loved music, and it was downright thrilling to be standing in the center of all those lovely, powerful voices. It was especially nice that she was next to Albert. He had an awfully good voice. She'd always enjoyed his singing. What a silly thought that was, she realized. She'd never heard him sing alone. Only as an anonymous part of the choir. And yet, there was something so familiar in the tone, it was as if she'd listened to him many times before. How perplexing. When would she have heard him?

Perhaps he'd had solos in church —no, she couldn't recall one.

“For unto us a child is born...." the choir sang.

Jane was growing more puzzled. It was al most like knowing something once well understood but not being able to quite reach out and mentally grasp it. She concentrated on listening. The slight throatiness on the low notes, the infinitesimal quaver in the higher range, the continuity of the notes, without any obvious breaking for breath.

The choir paused between songs. The director, his back to the pews, grinned hideously, reminding them to smile. Jane grinned back.

“It came upon a midnight clear....”

She stared at the back wall of the church, the better to focus her sense on listening. Maybe he just sounded like someone else. It would drive her crazy for days if she didn't figure it out. Somebody famous, maybe. She started mentally perusing a list of her favorite vocal tapes she had all over the house and car.

“... to touch their harps of gold ..." Suddenly Jane knew. He sounded just like Richie Divine!

But how absurd! Why would—how
could
Fiona's second husband sound so much like her illustrious first husband? Had he worked for years at sounding that way or—!

Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, Jane studied those nondescript features. The hair was the wrong color, but that didn't mean a thing. Hair could be dyed or bleached. The pot belly? Age. The receding chin? The mustache added to the impression, which might have had help from plastic surgery. The mustache itself completely concealed the upper lip. A l b e r t H o w a r d d i d n ' t
s o u n d
l i k e R i c h i e Divine. He
was
Richie Divine.

Twenty-three

It took
all the
self-control she had to keep from turning and saying, "I know who you are! I love your records." Had they not been on stage in front of a lot of people, she would have. As the last piece dragged on, however, she started having second thoughts. It was impossible. Richie Divine had been dead for years and years. He died when Katie was a baby. Fifteen years ago this month. Everybody knew that. But did they? Everybody knew his plane had crashed. She remembered her conversation with Mel about it. He'd said the plane and passengers were blown to so many pieces that nothing was identifiable. Was it possible that Richie Divine hadn't been a passenger on that plane?

If the man standing beside her actually was Richie Divine, he obviously hadn't died over the ocean when the plane exploded.

But why? How?

She almost missed her cue to step down. Albert Howard jiggled
her
arm, and she came to with a start and followed him down the risers. Trailing him, she noticed he was getting a bald spot on the top of his head. How sad that this golden idol of youth should have become paunchy and middle-aged in the obscurity of his own shado w. That
was
what he'd done --lived all these years as the pitiful second husband of Richie's wife. How terrible that must have been for him, to go from being an international superstar to an unknown nerd. She almost spoke to him in the robing room, but didn't know what to say. It crossed her mind, too, that she had no business questioning him or even revealing that she'd inadvertently caught on to a very private secret. As she hung up her robe and went to repack the sample sale items, she recalled something Fiona had said about someone trying to get Albert to contribute to a project. The gist of the story was how in sulted Albert had been at the implication that it was really Richie Divine's money, not his. Jane now understood the painful irony of the inci dent. Poor Albert must have felt the insult doubly.

The minute she got home, she phoned Shelley. "I made coffee cake this afternoon," she said seductively. "If you'll come over and eat some with me, I'll tell you something that'll knock your socks off."

“I'm not dressed.... Both socks?"

“Both socks," Jane assured her.

A moment later Shelley came in the kitchen door with a long car coat on over her nightgown and robe. She was wearing a pair of Paul's big snow boots, and there were curlers in her hair. "This had better be good.”

Jane peeked around the corner. Mike was watching MTV over the top of his chemistrybook. Todd was building a Lego space station. She knew Katie was upstairs on the phone. She put the coffee cake and plates on the table, and when they were seated, she said,
"The National Enquirer
would set me up for life for this information, which neither of us are ever going to tell anyone. Agreed? I don't think anybody but one other person in the world knows."

“Has this bazaar baked your brain? What are you babbling about?”

Jane lowered her voice and leaned forward. "Richie Divine didn't die. He's Albert Howard.”

“What!"

“Shhh. I mean it. I stood next to him in the choir tonight, and since I wasn't supposed to sing, I just listened. Suddenly it hit me that I'd heard him before. I swear it's true, Shelley."

“Jane, as your friend—"

“I know, you think I've gone bats. But I haven't. Listen, that plane crash he was in—

the plane blew up in midair, and the bodies were never found. Mel told me. His sister had been to the last concert, and he remembered the details.”

Shelley leaned back, nonplused. "But why pretend to be somebody like Albert Howard?"

“I've been thinking about that. There was a story that the mob was after him for testifying against them. Mel told me that, too. I'd either forgotten that or never known it."

“That's why they planted a bomb or whatever on the plane," Shelley said. "I read about it in a magazine."

“Well, if he'd missed the plane for some reason, it would have been logical to go along and play dead. It was the Only way to be safe from them in the future. If they'd known he'd lived, t he y'd ha ve j us t kept a fte r hi m unt i l t he y succeeded."

“Oh, Jane. I don't know—"

“Shelley, if you'd heard him singing, you'd believe it. His voice is deeper now that he's older, but I swear it's the same man."

“But they don't look a thing alike.

“No, but neither does Sharon Kellick look like herself."

“Who in the hell—? Oh, yes. That woman down the block who had the face-lift, and somebody called the police on her for housebreaking in her own house."

“Remember that show we saw on PBS a year ago about the plastic surgeons who work on severely malformed children? They made perfectly grotesque faces look normal. Imagine how easily someone like that could make a handsome face look ordinary. Richie Divine could have paid for the best doctor and bound him to secrecy. Maybe there was even a federal witness pro gram then."

“I don't know, but they're not authorized to blow up planes."

“I didn't mean they did, but after it happened, he could have asked for help getting a good plastic surgeon."

“Okay, I'll give you that. But what about his hair? It doesn't look dyed, and I've never heard of a way to make your hair grow a different color."

“But it sure looked bleached when he was a star. Nobody who isn't an albino has hair that'snaturally that blond. Maybe this is the color it was all along.”

Shelley nibbled some cake thoughtfully. "Say, this is good. What about build? Albert Howard is sort of dumpy."

“Come on, Albert Howard is fifteen years older than Richie Divine was. Anybody can put on weight, even if age doesn't do it for them. Especially if there's an incentive like saving your own life. I could look like a blimp in a month without nearly as good a reason.”

In spite of herself, Shelley was coming around to believing it. "Think about poor Fiona. All the horrible things the press said about her for marrying again so soon after Richie's death. And she took it all in silence. Now we know why. She wasn't marrying somebody else. She was remarrying Richie. She knows that, doesn't she?"

“She must. They married only a year or so after Richie 'died.' “

They sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, Shelley said, "That's why Albert doesn't seem to mind that room you told me about. T he shrine to Richie. It's a shrine to him."

“Of course! I'd forgotten about that."

“Do you suppose anyone else knows?"

“I'm sure they don't. Unless maybe a plastic surgeon. It's too big a secret to have been kept for so long by anybody but the two people most concerned with his safety. Albert and Fiona wouldn't dare let anyone know for fear they'd tell. It's like I said about
The National
Enquirer.
You and I won't say anything about it, but lots of people would."

“Oh, Jane. I'm almost sorry I know. It's going to kill me to keep this to myself. Just imagine, we
know
Richie Divine. It's like finding out your kid's guitar teacher is Elvis, risen from the dead."

“Good comparison. I guess Richie could leave all the fame behind but couldn't stay away from the music. That's why he's in the choir."

“That was taking a risk of discovery, wasn't it?"

“Not much. I don't think he ever does solos. And even though I'm absolutely bereft of musical talent, I've got an unusually good ear for it. I don't think many people could have made the connection. It's not as if the choir is ever going to do 'Red Christmas' and feature him. A different kind of music entirely must have seemed safe. And it has been."

“It's a shame we can't ask Fiona about it. Find out how they carried it off. Why Richie wasn't on that plane. How it feels to have a weird se cret like this."

“I know. I'd love to talk to her about it. But we don't dare. It would scare her to death that we'd shoot off our mouths to other people. She doesn't know us well enough to trust us."

“I don't know how I'll look at him again without gawking or accidentally calling him Richie."

“You'll manage, Shelley, and so will I. We have to. In a way, we have his life in our hands. And we have to start tomorrow."

“The bazaar! I'd actually forgotten about it for a few blissful minutes. Have you finished the afghan?"

“Yes, come look.”

When they went into the living room, Mike turned off the television and got off the sofa so Jane could spread out her work of art. After Shelley gushed for a moment, he said, "Mrs. Nowack, could I talk to you a minute? In the kitchen?”

Jane made a point of getting busy helping Todd pick up all the pieces of his project. Mike was undoubtedly asking Shelley about sizes for her. In the past, the kids had always consulted with Steve about shopping for her. Amazing how long a time it took to sort everything into new niches when one member of the family was gone. "Here I come!" she said as she headed back to the kitchen.

Mike, grinning, told them both good night and disappeared. "Shelley, do you want to take s o me o f t hi s c a ke ho me ? I ma d e a do ub l e recipe."

“I'd better. I need some reason to explain to Paul why I went tearing off in my nightgown. Other than the real one."

“Now, remember, we can't tell anybody in the world about Richie Divine."

“I promise," Shelley said.

Jane wondered if she could keep the promise herself.

Twenty-four

On Monday morning , the bazaar
began well.
It had been a risk, having it so late in the year. Most craft sales took place in September or October, when people started thinking about Christmas shopping. The church committee had decided to catch people at the end of their shopping, when they had only a few gifts left to buy and were desperate to complete their lists. When Jane pulled into Fiona's driveway at eight-thirty, there were already a few cars parked on the s treet with women waiting for the bazaar to open at nine-thirty. It looked like the marketing ploy might just work. Fortunately, it promised to be an extraordinarily balmy day. That would help a lot.

Jane and Shelley doled out the signs to the group who had volunteered to post them. They went around to the various rooms making sure all the items were properly marked. Jane was to take the first shift in what they'd dubbed the "Wreath Room" because that's where most of those items had ended up. It was astonishing the things people made wreaths of; grapevines were the most popular, next to real or plasticpine boughs. But there were also wreaths made from pinecones, dozens of tiny foil-wrapped packages, and even one kitchen monstrosity made of pastel sponges tied in bow shapes and interspersed with dried flowers and miniature kitchen utensils. Jane wouldn't have to actually sell anything. All sales took place at the long table by the front door where three women already waited. Everyone else did nothing more than stand around looking friendly and watching for shoplifters.

“It's amazing the things people will try to walk off with," Shelley said. "Last year I caught a woman stuffing a jar of potpourri into her coat pocket. It bulged like a horrible growth. I can't imagine she thought I wouldn't notice."

“It's astonishing to think people would take Christmas things from a church," Jane said.