Finding the Way Back (5 page)

Turning towards the escalator I saw Connie
floating down to my level. She was wearing a long, printed, silky
dress, and her golden hair hung in soft ringlets past her
shoulders. She was wearing an assortment of necklaces that looked
as if she had just flung on whatever was available, yet on her they
looked totally charming. It always took me by surprise how
beautiful she was. She didn’t even have to try. I smiled when I
noticed a young man next to her, staring with a bemused look on his
face. Another one bites the dust, I thought. But who could blame
him? Connie had a delightful way of making the most mundane event
fun and exciting. You couldn’t help but fall for her. Perhaps my
catty comments were more out of envy than I cared to admit. As she
walked towards me her smile lit up the room.

“Cuz!” she exclaimed gathering me into her
arms for a tight hug, as if we were still the best of friends.
“What a treat to have you pick me up. I can’t wait to tell you all
about my trip. It was crazy!”

The man who had been gaping at her stopped
next to us. I started to feel uncomfortable as he stood there
listening to us while Connie didn’t even acknowledge his presence.
I looked at him and snapped, “What?”

“Oh, don’t worry about Jim, we met on the
plane.” Connie turned to the man and pointed, directing him. “You
can go stand over there next to the carousel. I’ll come over when
it starts moving and let you know which bags are mine.”

I looked at Connie perplexed as Jim did
exactly as he was told without complaint. “Did you adopt him?”

Connie laughed. “You know how men are. He
just wanted to be helpful. My bags are really heavy so ... you
know. He’s adorable in that little puppy dog way, don’t you think?”
She smiled and waved at him. He smiled back and I had to agree.
There was something. The big, brown eyes reminded me of my dad’s
old yellow lab.

“You’re not planning to keep him, are
you?”

“No, you know they’re such a chore to take
care of.” She winked at me naughtily.

“You really need to teach me how to do that,”
I said, laughing.

Connie had four large suitcases at baggage
claim for us to retrieve, and I wondered how many clothes one
person could need just for a vacation. We headed out to my car and
watched Jim wrestle two suitcases into the trunk and the other two
into the back seat. Connie then dismissed her new-found friend who
insisted he give her his phone number before leaving. She took it
graciously and promised to call, but anyone not hypnotized by
Connie’s charisma could easily tell that would never happen.

“Isn’t it expensive to travel with four bags
these days?” I asked.

“Yeah, but it’s worth a little extra money to
always make a good impression,” she answered, looking at my
clothes. Then we both burst out laughing.

Since Connie’s flight was delayed, that meant
we’d be right in the middle of rush hour traffic, which I hated.
Nevertheless, I got back on I-494 and settled in for some
white-knuckle driving as we made our way back to Grandpa’s old
house in northeastern Minnesota. After stopping to pick up a few
groceries and the much-needed bug spray and shower curtain, we
headed to our new home together. When we arrived at the house, I
pulled up behind a green Ford Escort parked in front. “Cool, my mom
must have dropped off my car,” Connie said.

“So are you really on board with this house
idea?” I gestured toward the quaint little craftsman, its sagging
gutters, peeling paint and warped shingles a testament to all the
work ahead of us. “It’s going to be a ton of work and not
glamorous. We will probably have to do a lot of it ourselves to
save money.”

“Oh, come on, Laney. It’ll be a blast. Just
point me in the right direction and I’m working.” Then Connie
paused and said, “You know, I’m not as worthless as I once might
have seemed to you when we were kids.”

I looked at my baby cousin, all grown up.
When you’re a child, a few years between cousins seem like an
eternity, but when you’re an adult, it means nothing at all. I
always thought she was the vulnerable one. I could still see her in
the My Little Pony t-shirt with her thumb firmly planted in her
mouth, trailing after me and my friends on the playground. As a
grown woman, she suddenly seemed more confident and in charge of
her life than I ever was. In front of me was a woman who was making
her own choices and doing her own thing. Had I always
underestimated her? I’d never seen her let a man tell her what she
should or shouldn’t do. It occurred to me that I was a little
envious of her ability to be herself without caring what anyone
else thought.

I smiled. “All right then, let’s go. You’ve
been warned. We have a bedroom to clear and clean before sleeping
tonight.”

Chapter
Five

As I walked in the front door carrying two
bags of groceries, I almost tripped over several suitcases that
were dropped just inside the door. “Hey, where did these come
from?” I asked out loud, trying to push several expensive leather
cases to the side so Connie could come in.

“Oh, good. Those are here too. My mom said
she would have some of my other suitcases brought over today.”

“Didn’t you have your suitcases with you?” I
asked. “Like four of them? Where did these come from?”

“Only a few and that was just my vacation
clothes. I can’t do housework wearing sundresses and swimsuits,”
Connie answered. “These were just a few things I had my mom throw
together so I could be more comfortable. We’re going to be here
more than just a few weeks, you know. Where should I put them?”

I mentally compared her eight suitcases to
the one small box, single suitcase, and my flowered Vera Bradley
overnight bag, and I realized she was far better prepared than I
was. “Um, you can leave them here for now, I guess. You might want
to store your vacation clothing at your mother’s. We hardly have
any room here as it is. I took the master because I could walk
around the bed, at least I almost can. We won’t be so lucky for
you. Let’s go look at the two other bedrooms and you can have your
pick.”

Connie looked around the living room and
dining room, staring at the mess. “I see what you mean. This is
going to be a challenge. I didn’t realize how much stuff he had
loaded in every room.”

I took a deep breath, feeling woefully
inadequate. At first I thought I could take on this project, but
now I wasn’t so sure. This began as a silly favor to my mom that
sounded like a fun venture to hone my remodeling skills. My cousin
showed up with eight suitcases ready to settle in for the long
haul. Who was the realistic one? I suddenly envisioned Connie and
me as two crazy old ladies, living in this house forty years from
now quite resembling my mother and hers. Maybe we should get a
couple of cats.

We trooped over to the staircase and Connie
glanced into the kitchen before heading up. “Wow, it looks like
you’ve already made some progress in the kitchen. This is actually
quite darling in a quaint kind of way,” she said to me.

“Well, vintage is in,” I answered. “But maybe
not quite so worn vintage.”

The steps made a comforting creak as we rose
to the next floor. Peering in both bedrooms, Connie chose the
smallest to use. “I’d pick the bigger room but it could take days
to dig out to reach the bed. I didn’t realize Grandpa was such a
hoarder. I haven’t been back here since that big blow-up between
him and our moms all those years ago.”

“No, me neither. I only saw grandfather at
the few Christmas’s and other celebrations he deigned to attend.
Did your mom ever tell you what the big fight was about?” I
asked.

“No. Apparently it wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for
me to hear. I tried to hide and listen in when anyone was talking
about it but they were so careful, I was always caught before the
juicy stuff,” Connie answered. “I wonder if they’d tell us now?
Maybe it was about sex?” She laughed.

“Eeww. He did have a bevy of beauties hanging
around all the time. He was so mean I wonder what they saw in
him.”

“Dollar signs,” Connie answered laughing.
“Maybe he had a pile of cash stuffed in a mattress. There had to be
some money to buy all this junk. Who knows? I’m going to put some
scudgie clothes on so we can clear this out before bedtime.”

The room had two single beds with a
nightstand between them but all the remaining space was filled with
boxes of stuff, some open, some closed. I tried to squeeze around a
few things to reach the bed and tripped, nearly spraining my ankle
in the process. “I’m not sure which is worse—the claustrophobia
from all the clutter, or the danger of falling and breaking my neck
on all this crap.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Connie said, looking
around. “Hey, this was our mothers’ room wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I answered, looking around at the
charming pale gray wallpaper with pink and white flowers dancing
down the wall. I remembered seeing a picture of my mother as a
child with the same wallpaper behind her. Two prints of a boy and a
girl praying hung on the wall, one over each bed. I imagined two
teenagers, their childhood room unchanged even as they outgrew
it.

We started stacking the boxes and loose items
in the other spare bedroom, but since it was already full to start
with, it didn’t take long before we couldn’t even pull the door
closed. The last of the boxes we carried downstairs and piled in
the dining room in the little space remaining. That took care of
that problem and created a new one. Now there was no more walking
space in the dining room.

“I guess we’d better get our mothers over
here tomorrow to start deciding what we are going to do with the
stuff in all these boxes. Most of it is probably just junk. Maybe
we should just get a dumpster and start going through them one by
one,” I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead and sneezing
twice.

“Bless you. We should also have a pile for
eBay, Craig’s List and maybe a garage sale pile, although garage
sales are a lot of work for very little money,” Connie
answered.

“Do you think anyone’s going to want this old
stuff?” I asked. “It looks like it’s been sitting here for
years.”

“You never know what we’re going to find in
all those boxes. You’d be surprised at what you can sell on eBay.
Most of the items are vintage after all. It’s amazing what you can
pick up from garage sales, estate sales and the like, which is
probably where he got most of this stuff.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start. Do you
really think someone will buy old cards and Halloween decorations
from forty years ago?” I asked Connie, that sense of despondency
returning. “We’d have to figure out what stuff is going for, take
pictures, guess on shipping charges, post it. Then if someone buys
it we’d have to actually send it to them. Do you think it will be
worth all the time and energy?”

“Laney,” Connie said abruptly, crossing her
arms and giving me a very annoyed look. “This is what I do. I’ve
been doing it for years. How do you think I pay for my vacations?
People pay real money for cardboard Halloween decorations from
forty years ago. It’s nostalgia. People are into nostalgia and will
buy stuff that reminds them of their childhood. Stuff they used to
have but got rid of, now want again. Laney, we can do this.”

I looked at Connie dumbfounded. I wondered
where she had gotten the money for her vacations. I had assumed her
mother gave it to her. I was thinking I’d have to do everything and
drag her along, when in reality she had her own skills and
abilities to bring to the table. My talents lay more with
decorating and remodeling, while Connie had other practical
strengths that I hadn’t realized until now. I hadn’t seen Connie
for several years except at family functions where you can’t really
have a meaningful conversation. Maybe I’d been so self-absorbed I
hadn’t even listened. I’d been jumping to conclusions with no basis
in fact.

“I thought you moved home because you
couldn’t find a job,” I answered lamely.

“I couldn’t find a job in my field when I
first got out of college and then my dad got sick. I moved home
because my mom needed my help. Afterwards, I started this little
side business and it’s been working well for me. I also repurpose
items and sell them in a consignment store a friend of mine owns.
It gives me a creative outlet I find rewarding. The arrangement has
worked well for me and my mom for quite a while now, but we’re both
ready to be on our own now.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve really misjudged you,
Connie,” I said, feeling more than a little humbled by my
self-centeredness. “You know, that’s a great idea, and we could
probably finance some of the redecorating and remodeling with the
money we make.” I smiled at her. “For now, maybe you can go strip
the sheets from the beds in your new room and throw them in the
washer while I get started on making our pizza.”

“How about you start the sheets and I’ll make
the pizza?” she teased.

* * * *

After wolfing down our pizza, Connie and I
walked into the living room, each of us holding a glass of red
wine, and then we both sighed simultaneously. Nothing was going to
get done by itself. Setting our glasses down on one of the more
level piles, we started moving the boxes and things off the couch,
piling it on the other boxes surrounding it.

“I am so tired of this mess and we’ve hardly
even started,” I said, only a little embarrassed that it sounded
like whining again. “You’ll notice, though, that he left a path
from the recliner to the TV.” I retrieved my glass and sank into
the couch while Connie chose the recliner. Connie switched on the
TV and started going through the channels. There was no cable or
satellite receiver in sight, and we were dismayed to find we only
had the four channels the antenna picked up.