Story Time (32 page)

The can man tried to tell her, "I don't know
why
I did what I did, June—"

But June cut him off. "I know why you did it. And so do you! You always had to have the best—the best ... laptop, the best golf clubs. And suddenly you had something that wasn't the best. Me. Your wife. There was something wrong with me, so you took off."

Kate slipped in next to June and took her hand.

The can man couldn't even look at her. He mumbled with his head down, "I understand, June. I don't deserve to be forgiven."

Kate stared up at June, dumbfounded. June finally said, "All right. Go on, Charley. Say hello to your daughter."

Charley Peters slowly raised his bearded face and looked at Kate. He spoke, with desperation in his voice, "Hello, Kate."

Kate stared at him for a long time, trying to sort out all the contradictions in her head. She finally babbled, "I-I thought you were in Japan or someplace. I wrote you a bunch of letters. I thought you were a teacher. Not a..."

Charley completed her thought. "Not a what? A homeless bum?"

"I didn't say that."

June spoke only to Kate, her voice filled with contempt. "He abandoned us, Kate. He turned tail and ran."

Charley stood there a moment longer, in abject shame, and then shuffled away.

"So?" Kate whispered. "Is that it? Will I ever see him again?"

June shrugged. "Do you want to?"

"Yes. I want to. I think."

June exhaled, long and loud. "Then maybe we can work something out. Maybe something at the library. Something that I can monitor, of course."

Kate then became aware of a bobbing presence ten feet in front of her. She looked up and saw Pogo waving and trying to get her attention. Kate waved back, so Pogo stopped bobbing. She smiled at Kate with all the gratitude she could muster. Then she told her:

"There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile."

Kate instinctively turned her head to look for Dr. Austin. She spotted him in the back of Rosetta's Town Car. He was sitting next to Bud, talking on a cell phone, and jabbing at the air with his hand. Kate swiveled back to see Pogo, but she was too late. Pogo was gone.

Rosetta Turner rolled down the front passenger window. She called over, "I'm off to the airport now. You folks take care!"

She pointed into the backseat, with its two eager occupants. "We have just a few more details to work out about those chipmunks. The other car will take you back to the library. Can you all get home from there?"

When no one else responded, Kate answered, "Yes, we can. No problem."

Rosetta signaled for the driver to pull out. She turned back to them with these final words: "Soon, all of your wishes will come true."

Kate was flying.

She took off straight up, secured by a bodice and a thin wire, as the audience in the Lincoln Middle School auditorium gasped in wonder and delight.

She hovered above the stage and sang "I'm Flying" dressed in the long Victorian nightclothes of Wently Darling, the eldest of the Darling children, and the possible love interest of Peter Pan.

Peter Pan was flying, too. He soared above and around her, sprinkling Wently and her two brothers with fairy dust, urging them to think beautiful thoughts and to rise up into the air. Derek Arroyo flew awkwardly as big brother John, while a diminutive sixth grader flitted through the air as Michael.

Below them all, behind the stage curtain, LoriBeth Sommers was running back and forth with a wire tied around her waist. The wire ran through a series of pulleys to the Velcro harness wrapped around Peter Pan.

LoriBeth strained to keep up with Peter's moves while avoiding collisions with the other stagecraft students. Among these backstage helpers was LoriBeth's hero, William Anderson. Although she still could not speak following her trauma at the Whittaker Building, LoriBeth's jaws had closed, and she was otherwise healthy. She had insisted on joining the backstage crew to be near William.

During three intense weeks of rehearsals, LoriBeth had spent every spare moment with her head cradled in William's shoulder. William, for his part, did not mind at all, and he ceaselessly reassured her with a litany of "There, theres" and "Now, nows."

At this moment, however, both LoriBeth and William were totally focused on the task at hand. They and the other "ballast" students were providing the backstage magic to keep Lincoln Middle School's production of
Peter Pan
soaring. And it had indeed soared, all week long, thanks to the virtuoso performance of its star, George Melvil.

For it was George who was currenty gliding through the air, dressed in green tights and singing lustily in the lead role of the boy who never grew up.

George had surprised everyone by trying out for the role of Peter Pan and bowling over the director, Mr. Kagoshima, with his powerful voice, smooth dancing skills, and superb comic timing.

Kate didn't mind losing the part to George at all, especially since she got to do scenes with Derek Arroyo. Kate and Molly spent hours discussing the ramifications: Here, Kate was playing a scene with the boy she loved, who was pretending to be her brother, while her character was in love with Peter Pan, who in real life was her uncle.

As Kate's ballast, her slight uncle had been replaced by the sturdy William Anderson. He ran beneath her during the rehearsals and the shows, serving Kate as dutifully as LoriBeth served George.

Now, on the fifth and final night of sold-out, wildly successful shows, Kate was very sorry to see it all end. But she was overjoyed to be back at Lincoln Middle School. And her performance as Wently Darling was universally acclaimed as a triumph, second only to the performance of the remarkable sixth grader who played Peter Pan.

At a backstage celebration, Mr. Kagoshima congratulated Kate and George heartily. Then he said, "Kate, I have to get used to your new name. What is it again?"

"Melvil, Mr. Kagoshima. I'm Kate Melvil now."

"I'm happy to get you back from that crazy Whittaker School, no matter what your name is. And you and George are finally getting some color back in your faces."

June appeared behind them with Molly and Mrs. Brennan. Mr. Kagoshima included them in the conversation. "I was very pleased when the County Commission decided to change the school district lines. We gained some excellent musicians. I bet the commission would not have done that if Susan Singer-Wright hadn't left the country. I hope she stays in Korea, or wherever she is, for a long, long time."

Kate, George, June, Molly, and Mrs. Brennan exchanged furtive looks.

After the celebration at school, June invited Molly and her grandmother back to the house. The children rode with June in her new Honda Accord, while Mrs. Brennan and Molly followed. They pulled up in tandem before the freshly painted duplex.

June had repainted the exterior, choosing a snowy white for the shingles and royal blue for the trim, porch, and railing. The house cheerily reflected the light of a full moon on this cold October night.

The group gathered on couches in the living room as June served mugs of hot cider. She told Mrs. Brennan, "I am sorry that we haven't gotten together in so long."

Mrs. Brennan waved away the apology. "I can see how busy you've been, June. The house has been transformed! It's lovely."

"Thank you."

"I've been doing some remodeling myself, you know. Evenings and weekends, down at the Palace Theatre."

June sat between Kate and George. "We've been anxious to hear about that. And about any news you can share from the library."

Mrs. Brennan sipped the cider. "All right. Let's see. Pogo is my new head librarian. She supervises two others, mostly through example." Mrs. Brennan looked right at June. "And you know that I hired Charley Peters, too."

June answered civilly. "Yes. I know. He told Kate, during our last visit there."

George quickly changed the subject. "So what about the president's visit? What's the news there?"

"Believe it or not, the president of the United States
is
coming tomorrow, October thirty-first."

"On Halloween!"

"Yes. Although that appears to be just a coincidence of scheduling. We have more Secret Service agents in our stacks now than we have book browsers."

Kate asked, "So what's left of the school, Mrs. Brennan, after the redistricting?"

Mrs. Brennan set down her cup. "Officially, twenty-eight children, when given the opportunity, transferred out of the Whittaker Magnet School. This was despite Dr. Austin's warnings to their parents that the children would never get into an Ivy League college."

"Dr. Austin is still rising, though?"

Mrs. Brennan glanced at June. "If you want to call it that. Dr. Austin is now actually living in his office. His own home is under quarantine by Dr. Cavendar to assure that Cornelia, Whit, and Heidi do not appear in public during the president's visit.

"Dr. Austin has been rehearsing for his big Story Time every day. He will perform the
p
sound for the president."

George said, "I heard a news commentator say that the president is coming here 'to lay to rest the crazy rumors surrounding the First Lady's visit.'"

Kate snorted. But then she added, sadly, "I just wish we could tell people the truth."

George warned her. "No way. That Rosetta Turner lady will undo everything, with a wave of her WebWizard X."

"He's right, I'm afraid," Mrs. Brennan said. "The Palace Theatre would be the Paintball Palace overnight."

"And she'd have the Coast Guard recapture Orchid the Orca," George added.

Kate clenched her jaws in utter frustration.

June spoke to her daughter. "Still, Kate, the truth has a way of coming out. Even if you have to wait for years." Then she and Mrs. Brennan exchanged another deadly serious look.

The following day, the day of the president's visit, saw the King's County Library Building once again surrounded by the flashing lights of police cars and the satellite trucks of the news media.

Far away from the tumult, one mile to the west, June was parking her Accord in the lot of the King's County Savings and Loan Building.

She had just taken Kate and George out for a Saturday-morning pancake breakfast. Both were enjoying the new car's roominess and its CD player; neither thought twice about this unannounced stop on the way home. All June said to them was, "Come inside with me. I have some old business to take care of."

Kate and George walked into the cool darkness of the marble lobby. The only sound was the echo made by their own feet. Kate said, "Listen to the acoustics in here. It's better than the Lincoln auditorium. Come on, Uncle George."

George smiled and joined her in an a cappella duet of "Never Never Land."

One weekend teller and one security guard looked up from their posts outside the safe-deposit boxes. June produced a key and two forms of identification. Then she and the children followed the teller into a vaultlike room lined with rectangular faceplates.

They stopped at a faceplate bearing the number that matched June's key. The teller unlocked the faceplate; June reached in and slid out a long, low box.

June then led Kate and George to a countertop against the back wall. She said, with utter seriousness, "I want to show you something, Kate. But to see it, you have to close your eyes."

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. June took Kate's hand and placed it on a document. "Feel this. And tell me what it is."

Kate smiled. "I don't know. Is it paper?"

"That's right. That's exactly what it is. And that's all it is."

Kate opened her eyes and beheld a document. It read
CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE.

"It is paper. Nothing more. There is nothing magic about it. If you want it to be more, Kate, you have to supply the magic yourself."

June then looked at George. "It's like a book. What is that made of?"

George answered, "Paper."

"That's right. That's all it is. But if you sit down with a book and you supply your imagination, it can become something more. It's like anything in life, you two. You get back what you put in."

Kate stared hard at the Certificate of Marriage. She thought about the father who had reappeared in her life. She thought about a frail, beaten man, so different from the one in her photos. She thought about their two awkward meetings together in the Whittaker Library lobby. They had sat and talked quietly, or not at all, for thirty minutes each time, while June stood at a distance and watched them.

June returned the Certificate of Marriage to the box. She then pulled out two manila envelopes—one large and one small—and slid them into her carry bag. She closed the safe-deposit box, returned it to its slot, and locked it with the key.

They left as they came in, tramping noisily through the corridor. But this time, Kate did not feel like singing. Her mood began to lighten, though, when they got into the sunshine and settled back into the comforts of the car.

"Today is the day!" June reminded them. "The president of the United States will be in our Utile town. Isn't that wonderful?"

"He's just coming to make Dr. Austin look good," Kate said. "How's that wonderful?"

June replied cryptically. "I don't know for sure. But I know this: A lot of surprising things have happened at the Whittaker Building."

As they drove east into the sun, the mood got lighter still. George announced, with mock sentimentality, "You know, I really miss the Whittakers. And the Austins. And the Whittaker-Austins."

Kate scoffed. "Yeah. Right."

"I miss Heidi. She was so gifted. And I miss Whit. He was like a brother to me."

"Please. You're bringing up my pancakes."

"And I miss CorneUa. I miss her kind words, and her generosity. Remember when she offered to give you those used milkmaid dresses?"

"I mean it, Uncle George. I'm going to hurl."

Kate and George laughed. Neither gave a thought to the items in June's bag, not even when she made a second unannounced stop.