Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (6 page)

She was looking at me but seeing something
far away now as I waited for acknowledgement of my important
findings. Refocusing her eyes on my face she offered, “I
gueeessss.”

Her tone added the “Whatever sweetheart. I
wish for your sake that you weren’t so strange.”

That conversation had taken place before
Grandpa died. I chuckled to myself imagining how different her
response would have been if I had brought it up more recently.
She’d be totally zoned in, and ridiculously enthusiastic. She’d
probably even throw me in the car and run me to the post office to
arrange a tour and a ride-with.

I snapped back to the present.

Was that the doorbell?

As if in answer to my question, there was a
quiet knock downstairs. I jumped out of bed, fully dressed—from
yesterday. I didn’t go anywhere or sweat, so what’s the
difference?

He must have known I was in there. I thought
for sure he’d be heading back to his truck on the street. But he
was still patiently waiting for me on the porch when I got to the
door after what seemed like a long time to me.

“Good mornin’,” he began. “I have a
certified letter for uh…” he looked down to read it, “Eee…lary
Mayne?”

He seemed to question his pronunciation,
rightly so.

“Um, yes. That’s me,” I replied.

“All righty then.”

He secured the envelope to a clipboard and
handed it to me. There was a pen with a dirty looking string duct
taped to its top that secured it to the board.

“I just need your signature right here,” he
said as he pointed to the line on the green form that was affixed
to the front of the letter.

I made a mental note to be sure to wash my
hands first thing; no telling how many germs were on that pen.

Once I signed, he tore the form off along
the perforations. Then he handed me my letter and slipped the green
form with my proof of delivery signature into an envelope taped to
the clipboard.

“You have a good day now,” he offered
cheerfully and headed to his truck.

He got back in and though my door was closed
now, I could tell when he stepped on the gas.

My eyes turned to the upper left corner of
the envelope.

“The Bank of Louisville?”

I checked the address line. Sure enough, it
was addressed to “Ms. Ellery S. Mayne, 2300 Epton Lane,
Louisville…

“Huh.”

I went to the kitchen to open it. First I
washed up. Then I opened the knife drawer. It was one of my many
and oddball pet peeves to see people (well, primarily my mother)
rip open and destroy perfectly good envelopes when it was so much
neater to just use a letter opener. We didn’t have a letter opener,
however, so I guess I could understand my mom’s method, to an
extent. But we did have knives, and they worked remarkably well for
this purpose.

Inside this intriguing envelope was a single
sheet, more Bank of Louisville letterhead. It notified me of a
trust that had been established in my name and that now I was of
legal age I needed to meet with the trust administrator to discuss
my rights and obligations.

Obligations?

It was signed by Dwight Matthews, Legal
Counsel, Trust Administration Department.

“Huh.”

I picked up the phone and started dialing.
The number connected me with his pleasantly efficient sounding
assistant. I told her my name and she put me through directly.

“Hello Ms. Mayne. Thank you for calling so
promptly. I’d like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss
your trust. And I’m sure you have a number of questions for
me.”

He had a very friendly and relaxed manner,
which put me at ease.

“Uh…yes sir…I suppose I do.”

He didn’t know it, but I was still cruising
in shy mode.

“Well that’s completely understandable. Now
how soon can you meet with me?” he asked.

“Um…I’m available today, but I don’t drive,”
I informed on myself.

He chuckled a little, no doubt at my greedy
enthusiasm and said, “Oh, that’s not a problem. I can send a car
for you if you’d like.”

Although this had the feel of legitimacy, I
decided to use common sense and some caution. After all, how hard
would it be to fake some important stationery and use my own greed
against me to lure me in? I certainly didn’t want a repeat of the
‘perfume’ incident, though it might be interesting to see who would
rescue me this time.

“No, that’s okay. I can get a ride. What
time should I meet you?” I countered.

“I’ve got an opening from noon to two
o’clock today. I was going to order in some lunch for my staff
today. You can join us, if you’d like, then we can talk after
that,” he offered, putting me at ease again.

He had a really nice sounding voice. If he
looked anything like he sounded he would be very handsome.

I agreed and he gave me detailed directions
to his downtown office on Broadway, and his direct line in case I
got lost. I thought about calling Hoyt and asking him to drive me
down there, and then maybe we could stop over and see Mom at the
library afterwards. Hoyt could come and go from work as he pleased
unless he had a specific meeting on his schedule. He was always
pleasantly willing to help me out on spur of the moment
chauffeuring requests. And that was even before I became so mental.
Now he and Mom both practically tripped over each other to comply
whenever I asked to be taken somewhere, which admittedly, was rare
these days.

But then my thoughts took a different tack.
This business about me being of legal age must have started a
mental ball rolling up there. It seemed like this was something I
should go and see to all by myself.

There was only about an hour and a half
until noon.

A game plan began to take shape in my mind.
I hopped in for a quick shower. Then I blew dry and fussed with my
hair until it was perfectly smooth and twisted into a braid down my
back. I decided that this occasion called for better clothes than
what was available in my closet. So I picked out an ensemble of my
mom’s that had looked great on her. Once I had that all in place I
decided that I was going to have to put on some makeup, too. Since
I didn’t have any of my own, I picked through her cosmetics drawer
until I had made the amateurish improvements I thought I required.
Then I did something very grown up—something I’d never done
before—I called a taxi.

I felt absolutely ridiculous wearing a hat,
but at the same time I didn’t think I could pull off the outfit
without it. It looked best with the hat, I assured myself, and I
purposely turned the volume down on the internal critical
commentary that was beginning to sound alarmingly like an episode
of “What Not To Wear.”

Besides, a hat helped to obscure and offset
my extremely youthful face and hairstyle—in fact that had been the
point of the whole ensemble and the motive for raiding Mom’s closet
in the first place.

I pulled out five twenties from the stash in
my dresser, not certain what it cost to be driven back and forth
downtown, and wished that I would have gotten my license two years
ago like a normal teenager—I even had a perfectly good Jeep waiting
for me in the garage! Well, it was too late to lament my stunted
development today.

It was unusually mild, probably after so
much rain this week, so I spent the last few moments anticipating
the arrival of the taxi on our front porch, stepping out into the
sun to warm up a little. As I lifted my face to the warm rays of
sun, I had to smile when I thought about what my mom’s face would
look like if she saw me at this moment, especially dressed in her
outfit and then riding away in a cab.

Just then the taxi pulled in and I moved off
the porch and out to the drive, hopping in the back, only to face
more uncertainty.

“You headin’ to Churchill Downs?” asked the
cab driver, an older gentleman, who apparently was retired from his
stint in the band ZZ Top.

If I could have chosen my own cab in which
to ride, based on the appearance of the chauffeur, this one would
not have made the cut. It was a clear case of pognophobia (fear of
beards).

“No. Downtown. Five hundred Broadway,
please.”

He shrugged, as if disappointed, and backed
the car out of the driveway. I smiled to myself when, as we were
getting on the highway, he turned his music back up and sure
enough, ‘Legs’ was vibrating out of the speakers.

The ride downtown went fast. I wondered what
my watchers were making of this. It was completely off the charts
as far as activity went for me. I’d purposely stayed out of sight
in the beginning, self-conscious about being observed, and certain
my awkward embarrassment would tip them off that I knew I was being
surveilled. Unfortunately, they didn’t give up because I was
boring, and cabin fever finally won out over stage fright. It
occurred to me that since they had saved my life, I probably owed
it to them to be a little more interesting. That being the case, I
enjoyed a bit of satisfaction thinking that today’s adventure would
have multiple benefits.

Chapter 7
–
Legacy

Mr. Matthews was heavy and very tall—an
absolute giant of a person. He had a pleasant face, but he wasn’t
as handsome as his voice. Being vertically challenged as I was,
even normal people seemed tall to me. But when he stood next to his
assistant and several other members of his department, while they
made up their plates of catered in lunch food, it was clear that he
was big—perhaps the biggest person I had ever encountered.

I followed him along the table where a full
spread from a barbecue place had been set up. Containers of pulled
pork, coleslaw, corn pudding, baked beans and ten different flavors
of barbecue sauce filled up the surface area. I hadn’t eaten all
day, but my nervousness in a foreign environment filled with
curious strangers suppressed my appetite. As a result, I dumped a
mostly untouched sample platter into the garbage when lunch was
over. In contrast, the plastic cup full of ice and Cherry Coke was
completely empty when I pitched that.

After lunch, Mr. Matthews, Dwight, as I was
instructed to address him, guided me to a leather chair inside his
office, a place where clues about his past fit perfectly with his
body size. There was an impressive collection of OSU (The Ohio
State University) football memorabilia crammed into every available
square inch of wall and desk space. The sense of collegiate
affiliation-based kinship washed over me like a warm breeze. Dwight
was a big old Buckeye and a former national title winning offensive
linesman! My grandpa had been a Buckeye, too. This shed light on
the latter’s selection process as it related to the handling of his
estate.

I never did absorb his love for college
football, but time spent in Grandpa’s company had transformed me
into a very enthusiastic fan of The Ohio State University Marching
Band. I was hooked from the first time I saw them perform their
famous ‘Script Ohio’ routine, this amazing marching formation of
the word ‘Ohio’, in script style, versus print. Even though from
the stands it seemed like a small detail, what I loved most was
that a tuba player got to be the dot of the ‘I’, and he gyrated and
danced in the most diverting way. It seemed like a person who would
choose to play tuba wouldn’t be such an exhibitionist. I loved the
unexpected nature of the contrast I found in that. One of our
season ticket-holding neighbors said the guy was a dentistry
student named Steve. I don’t know why, but that made it even
funnier to me.

You could purchase the band’s recordings
(tuba solos and all) and Grandpa had set me up with an admirable
collection, once he’d ascertained my more than cursory interest
there. I liked to think that I was the only person in the world who
listened to the OSU Marching Band on my iPod.

A large photograph of the Script Ohio scene
took up most of the wall above the credenza behind Dwight’s desk,
and I gazed at it for an extended time frame, taking a mental
journey to Columbus. I was at a home game with my OSU Alumni
Grandfather, the first huge sporting event I had ever attended. It
was awesome. Over the blasts of music from the band and the roar of
the crowd, Grandpa’s voice yelled in my ear explaining what was
happening and pointing things out, like the extremely small
visiting team’s fan section of wimpy, hopelessly outnumbered
outsiders dressed in blue, completely surrounded by an army in
red.

The Buckeyes won, of course, and afterward I
was fascinated by the singular experience of walking among a huge
throng of such happy, satisfied people. Thank goodness for the
win.

On our three-hour drive home from Columbus
to Louisville, Grandpa and I fell easily into conversation about
the game and the stadium and the band and his days as a geology
student there. It was funny to think of him as ever having been a
young man. He’d had white hair since long before I was born. He
never acted old, though. Even as we flew down I-71, passing every
other vehicle like they were going backwards, he seemed youthful in
his enthusiasm for life and adventure. It made his comments all the
more anomalous (jarring).

“You know, Ellery, I’m getting up there in
years. It’s hard to say how much time I have left, though I know it
isn’t nearly enough. Lately I’ve been thinking about what I need to
do to make sure that you’re taken care of when I’m gone,” he said
as he glanced over at me before turning his attention back to the
road.

“Well, that’s very nice of you, but two
things. One: you’re as healthy as a horse, and two: I was planning
on taking care of myself. I may look like my mom, but I’d like to
think that’s where the similarities end.”

I didn’t like this topic, as my snappish
response must have clearly demonstrated. He chuckled and then
sighed.