Clouds (9 page)

“Wonderful,” Dad said.

“You’ve both done a fine job fixing it up,” Mom said. “Is it mostly Meredith’s furniture and things? You didn’t seem to bring very much back with you from Pasadena. Except this table.”

“It’s a combination of both of our things,” Meredith said. She reached over and grabbed Shelly by the wrist. “You’ll never guess what! I have some fantastic news.”

“Can’t be the job of your dreams; you already have that. Can’t be the house of my dreams because we both already have
that. What’s left?” Shelly slipped out of her dark brown flight jacket and noticed her dad’s smile. He must already know the good news.

“I’m going to Frankfurt next month!”

“Germany?”

“Of course Germany. The publisher is sending me to the International Book Fair in Frankfurt to scout out new products. Isn’t that great?”

“Terrific!” She tried to sound delighted for her sister, but it was hard. Shelly was the one who had always dreamed of exploring the ends of the earth, and yet somehow that had never happened. Either she would get time off from work and have no one to go with her, or she would have a friend going some place fun, but Shelly couldn’t arrange her work schedule so she could go along.

“There’s more,” Meredith said.

Shelly wasn’t sure how much more good news she was up for tonight. “Remember Jana, my old roommate from my freshman year? She and her husband live in Heidelberg. They oversee some kind of youth mission there. I called her today, and she invited us to come early and stay a couple of days with them in Heidelberg.”

“Us?”

“Yes, us. You want to go, don’t you? I mean, isn’t that the advantage of working for an airline? You can fly free?”

“Well, almost free. When is this?”

“In two weeks. The book fair starts the first Wednesday in October so I thought we could leave on the Thursday before and have the weekend through Tuesday with Jana. She says Heidelberg is beautiful this time of year. There’s lots to do there, too.”

“You know,” Mom said, “you girls could rent a car and find the town my side of the family is from. I’ve never been there,
but I understand it’s right outside of Heidelberg. I’ll have Mother write down the information for you.”

Shelly’s mind was spinning with all the details of how to pull this trip off in only two weeks. The last thing she was worried about was spending a day looking for her ancestor’s grave site.

“Do you have a passport?” Shelly asked Meredith.

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I guess we’re all set!” Shelly smiled broadly at her sister and then at her mom and dad. “This is going to be fun. It could be the biggest plus of being on the reserves list. Now I don’t have to find someone to trade hours with when I want to take vacation time.”

“Your mother and I are glad to see you two taking advantage of these opportunities when they come along. It sounds as if your new publishing company has already put a lot of faith in you, Meredith. We’re glad to see that,” Dad said.

“I think I’m going to like working for them very much. I fly back to Chicago for meetings four days next week. I’ll only be home a few days before we take off for Germany.” Meredith pushed her half-empty dinner plate away and leaned back. Her lilting laugh filled the room. “I still haven’t told you the most interesting thing I found out today.”

They waited.

“You’re not going to believe this. Especially you, Shelly.”

“What?” she asked impatiently.

Meredith drew them all in with her giggle and sweeping glance. Her eyes sparkled with her secret news. “I know where Jonathan Renfield is.”

Chapter Eight
 

S
helly swallowed hard, trying with all her might to hide the way her heart had just leapt into her throat. She didn’t dare speak lest her words or even her tone of voice give away her thoughts.

“Did he call you?” Mom asked.

“Where’s he living?” Dad asked.

“I haven’t heard from Gayle and Ted since two Christmases ago. I think they moved again. Is Jonathan with them in the Bahamas?”

“No,” Meredith said, cutting into her parents’ speculations. “He’s in Belgium.”

Shelly’s heart flew from her throat to her ears, where it pounded so loudly she was sure the others would turn to stare at her.
Jonathan is in Belgium? How far is Belgium from Germany?

“Belgium!” Mom stated. “Whatever is he doing there? I thought he was going to become a forest ranger.”

“He’s a youth director with the mission that Jana and her
husband oversee. When I called, she said she had been thinking of me because a few weeks ago they were visiting Jonathan in Belgium and it came up that he was originally from Seattle. She told him her old Bible-college roomie was from Seattle and did he happen to know the Graham family, and there you have it. Small world, huh?” Meredith’s eyes were on Shelly.

“A youth leader,” Dad repeated. “For a mission, no less. My hat goes off to him. It has to be a challenge working with teens in a different culture.”

“Actually,” Meredith said, “this organization works with American kids who are living on the military bases all over Europe. It’s a gigantic mission field since the teens are kind of stuck over there with their families. The mission has huge turnouts whenever they run a camp or a special event that combines all the groups from the military bases around Europe. Jonathan apparently runs the youth club for the teens on a military base in Belgium. He’s been there for more than a year.”

Shelly felt her pulse returning to her neck, where it must have made her veins throb noticeably.
Jonathan has been in Belgium for more than a year working with high school students. I never would have guessed it
.

Shelly’s parents went on to discuss Jonathan’s parents and what good neighbors they had been. Her parents mentioned how they were planning to visit Jonathan’s folks someday in the Bahamas. Maybe next spring would be a good time to do that.

“When you’re in Germany,” Dad said, “be sure to look up Jonathan. Even if it’s only by phone.” He looked directly at Shelly. “Okay? Promise me?”

She nodded.

“Tell him we would love to hear from him.”

“And tell him to give you his parents’ address. I don’t want to lose track of them,” Mom said.

Shelly nodded again.

“We may even, ah …” Meredith paused. “We may even get to ah … get in on an Octoberfest somewhere while we’re over there.”

“That could be interesting,” Dad said.

Shelly felt that everyone was waiting for her to say something. Their quick, sideways glances were painfully obvious.

“I’m looking forward to using some of my accumulated vacation time,” Shelly said, trying to keep her tone and words even. She had plunged her hands beneath the table to hide their trembling. The camouflage effort was wasted under the glass tabletop. She knew Meredith had noticed. Perhaps that’s what had prompted her sister to change her sentence to the topic of the Octoberfest and to move it off of Jonathan. Shelly appreciated that and told Meri so late that night, after their mom and dad had left.

The two sisters went for their nightly walk around the lake carrying flashlights and wearing matching white sweatshirts that Meredith had bought for them after their first trek around the lake in dark clothes. About twenty yards from the back of their cottage, where the trail wound under the cedar trees and led straight to the lake, Meredith began the discussion. “I hope you don’t mind my telling about Jonathan in front of Mom and Dad. It’s so amazing that his name would come up, especially after you and I had talked about him just a little while ago. I was going to say there’s a good chance we’ll see him, but I decided not to say that in front of Mom and Dad.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Shelly thought for a moment and then said, “Meri, I have to tell you something. Remember how you said I needed to find some key to unlock my past?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve thought about that, and you may have something there. I’ve been thinking a lot about Jonathan, and maybe … I don’t know. Maybe something is there that I wasn’t willing to see before.”

“Like maybe you’re still in love with him?” Meredith ventured.

Shelly released a spontaneous, nervous laugh. “I don’t know. It’s been so long. What we knew as love was so naive and incomplete. I don’t know what I think. All I know is that I’ve been thinking about him. A lot.”

“Do you want to see him?”

“I think so. I mean, yes, I want to see him. I don’t know if he wants to see me.”

“Oh, he’ll want to see you,” Meredith said. She shone her flashlight out on the lake where a startled duck took flight, causing the lunar reflection to ripple. Ahead of them, the fat butterball of a harvest moon slumped over the treetops, drunk on its own moonshine.

“Look at that,” Shelly said in a hushed voice, her chin tilted up toward the full, amber orb. “Is that the most gorgeous moon you have ever seen?”

“It’s incredible,” Meredith agreed with a sigh.

“It’s so beautiful here.”

“I know,” Meri whispered back. The glow from the moon reflected off the water and gave Meredith’s light blond hair an almost iridescent shine. “This is the best thing I ever could have done,” Meredith said. “It’s the best thing both of us could have done—to move here, I mean.”

“You’re right. Thanks for letting me move in with you.”

“Are you kidding? This is a treat for me.” Meredith stopped walking and touched Shelly on the arm. “I really appreciate your letting me into your life like this. I always wanted to be
your best friend when we were growing up.”

“I always thought we were good friends while we were growing up,” Shelly said, slightly defensive. “You and I got along with each other most of the time, which is more than I can say about how either of us fared with Molly and Megan.”

“But I wasn’t your best friend. Jonathan was.”

“Yeah,” Shelly said slowly and dreamily, her mood matching the fairy-tale world around them. “I guess he was.”

They kept walking, this time with their arms linked.

“We probably look like two little old spinsters,” Shelly said after some time.

Meredith played along, patting her sister’s arm. “We may look that way, dearie, but I have a very strong feeling that after our little trip to Germany, you’ll come home with a nice big diamond on your finger and an eviction notice for me.”

Shelly laughed. “That would never happen,” she said. “Jonathan and I wouldn’t make you move out. We would find our own place. As a matter of fact, we would probably build our own place. Right over there.” She shone her flashlight on the broad meadow owned by the neighboring camp.

“Sounds like something Jonathan would do,” Meredith agreed. “He always did want to build a log cabin or something, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Shelly said softly. She remembered the summer night she and Jonathan had begged their parents to let the two of them sleep out in the tree house. Their parents finally agreed only after Jonathan’s dad offered to spend the night with them. Shelly and Jonathan were both eleven. It was a miserable night. Mr. Renfield snored like a bear, and an owl kept echoing his every snore. Shelly’s sleeping bag wasn’t warm enough so she shivered till her teeth chattered.

“This is pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Meredith said.

“What? The lake?”

“Yes, the lake and the moon and all of God’s creation. But what I was thinking about was how amazing the last couple of weeks have been. Your moving back here, my getting a new job that sends me to Germany, and my friend Jana knowing Jonathan.”

“Is Jana going to tell Jonathan we’re coming?”

“No, I don’t think so. First of all, I didn’t know for sure if you could take the time off, and second, I didn’t feel it was my place to tell her that you had once been his girlfriend. All Jana knows is that we used to be neighbors and that I’m coming. She may mention that to Jonathan, or she might not.”

“That’s good,” Shelly said.

“Well, it’s good if you want to avoid seeing him, but if you want to see him, you might call him to make sure he’s going to be around. I have a very strong suspicion that you do in fact want to see him.”

“I do,” Shelly admitted.

“Should I get his number from Jana? I could call her tomorrow.”

“No,” Shelly said cautiously. “Why don’t you give me Jana’s number and let me call her? I want to think this through. It has been five years, you know. And I do have some apologizing to do before he might be willing to talk to me.”

“It’s up to you. I refuse to play the role of the pushy, matchmaking sister. It seems God has arranged all these connections fine so far without my help. All I ask is that you fill me in on the good stuff.”

“Agreed,” Shelly said. “That is, if there’s any good stuff to fill you in on.”

“Oh, I’m sure there will be!”

For days Shelly debated whether or not she should call Jana. There were only a few hours each day when it was convenient to call Jana with the nine-hour time difference.

Shelly never did make the call. She wondered if she had done the right thing as she stared out the plane window on their flight bound for Frankfurt. Meredith mercifully hadn’t bugged her about it, partly because Meredith had been in Chicago and then had frantically prepared for the trip. She and Shelly had had very little time to talk. Shelly had been called to report for three long flights and one half-day commuter flight, so the weeks had gone by fast for her as well.