Trophy Kid (17 page)

We had just gotten out of Andro’s van when a thin, middle-aged priest began walking toward us from the rectory.

He spoke only Croatian, so Andro did the talking for our little group.

The priest told Andro that he had been expecting us the next day, but he seemed unfazed by our early arrival.

We followed him across the grounds; there were gravestones dating as far back as the sixteenth century. There were chipped statues of saints, some without arms, other missing noses or even their whole heads.

Andro pointed to one of the statues and said, “That is Saint Blasius. He is the patron saint of Dubrovnik.”

“What did he do?” asked Martie.

“He was beheaded.” Andro said flatly, as if that alone qualified him for sainthood.

“Why is he a saint?” asked Jessica.

“One story says he was a doctor who became a bishop and he cured a young boy who had a fishbone stuck in his throat,” Andro explained.

“Those can be nasty,” Tom said. “I caught one of those in my throat at dinner the other night.”

“That was when it was not good to be a Christian,” Andro continued. “And to do anything that might be thought of as miraculous. So, the Romans took off his head. Same old story, you hear all the time.”

The priest led us to some gravestones beneath an olive tree. There were markers for my mother and sister along with ones for my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. They had lived in the nearby village but had died many years before I was born.

“We’ll give you some time alone,” Tom said. “Take as long as you need.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking at my friends. “But stay close by, okay?”

“Whatever you need,” Tom said reassuringly.

I looked at the graves of my mother and sister. For the first time since we had arrived in Dubrovnik, I truly felt like I was home. I had seen their graves when they had been buried ten years earlier, but this time was different. I stared at the headstones, feeling a slight breeze from the nearby ocean on my face. The images of my mother and sister appeared before me—and my dad was with them. I wanted to make his image go away. I wanted him to be alive somewhere, waiting for
me
to appear before
him
. But he stayed where he was: with them, his arm around my mother’s waist and his hand resting gently on my sister’s shoulder.

nineteen

Andro dropped us off at the entrance to the old city that was closest to our hotel. When I got out of the van, I invited Andro to come to Vladimir’s party that evening. They were the first words I’d spoken since we’d left the cemetery. The image of my family had remained vivid in my mind on the drive back.

“I will bring my wife and little boy,” Andro said. “He is the same age as you were the last time we met.”

When we got back to the hotel, Robert was seated alone in the lobby reading the
New York Times
.

“We’ll go upstairs,” Jessica said, leaving Tom and me to face Robert.

We walked over to where he was seated.

“I haven’t been ditched since high school,” Robert said. He set down his paper and stood up. “There’s a little café just down the street we can go to. Greta will join us when she gets back. Gregor,” Robert said to the tall, thin desk clerk with his head shaved. “Can you please tell Ms. Powell that we’re at the café a couple of doors down?”

“I certainly will, Mr. Francis,” the clerk said politely.

Robert, the true politician, knew most of the hotel staff’s names, along with some bit of personal information he could chat with them about.

“Gregor is studying to be a marine biologist,” Robert said as we walked out the front entrance.

I was sure Gregor was a great guy and would make a super marine biologist, but at the moment, he wasn’t all that important to me.

“This really is an amazing place,” Robert said. “Did you know that when George Bernard Shaw came here, he wrote: ‘Those who seek paradise on Earth should come to Dubrovnik and see Dubrovnik’?”

“Did Greta tell you where we were?” I asked as we walked down the street.

“She did, but don’t be angry with her. She did it for a good reason.”

“What reason?” I said, feeling a little betrayed.

“Why don’t we wait until she gets here. What was it like for you when you went to the cemetery?”

“It was hard,” I said.

“I’m sure it was.”

“It was my idea,” said Tom.

I stopped walking, causing Robert and Tom to do the same. “You can’t fire Tom,” I pleaded.

“Who said anything about firing Tom?” Robert looked genuinely surprised at my assumption.

“You fired Cal because he didn’t do what Larry told him to do,” I said, “and now you’re going to fire Tom because of what we’ve written about you and Greta in the book.”

“Joe, I didn’t fire Cal because of what happened yesterday. Well, maybe I did, but not for the reason you’re thinking. After everything that happened yesterday I realized that I was ruining this experience for you…. Why don’t we sit down in the café over here and talk, okay?”

We walked a little further and sat at a table outside of a small café. Robert and Tom ordered beers and I ordered a Coke.

Once we were settled in, Robert said, “I let Cal go because I finally listened to you. You didn’t want a bunch of cameras and microphones in your face. I’m sorry it took me so long to get the message.”

I was stunned to hear Robert make this confession. “Thank you,” I said after a few minutes. And then I felt like revealing something truthful to him. “The year before last I found the letter about my father.”

“I know,” Robert said.

“You knew? Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you do anything?” I said angrily.

“I just found out this afternoon. Hana called me.”

“Hana?”

“Here’s your mother,” Robert said, looking relieved, as Greta approached us.

“Hey there,” she said, a little too brightly, before taking a seat between Tom and Robert. I could tell that something wasn’t right and she was compensating with good cheer.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What did Hana tell you?”

“Hana called me from Zagreb this afternoon,” Robert slowly explained. “She was very upset—you know how Hana can get. She told me you knew that your father had been reported missing in action, and that she’d gone with her brother to find out what happened.”

“You should have told us, honey,” Greta said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “We thought it was best not to say anything. We didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

I pulled my hand away. “Did you even try?” I asked harshly. “Did you try to find out what happened to him?”

“We did everything we could think of,” Robert said calmly. “I talked to everyone I knew in Washington, but it was always the same answer: no. The Yugoslavian government, the Serbs, the Croatians, and other countries involved in the Balkan wars were still withholding information on MIAs for their own purposes.”

“Until recently,” Greta said, her eyes starting to water.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice tense.

“Well,” Robert resumed, “what Hana and her brother found out this afternoon was that an agreement was recently reached between all the parties to, among other things, release information on MIAs.” Robert took a deep breath. “They wouldn’t give any specific information to Hana because she wasn’t a relative…so she called me. I immediately called our embassy in Zagreb, and they were able to get the defense ministry to release the information about your father.”

“What did they find out?” I asked, knowing and dreading the answer.

“Your dad died on August third, just inside the Croatian-Serbian border. He was buried there along with other Croatian soldiers. I’m sorry, Joe.”

What I had known in my heart at the cemetery I finally knew to be true in fact: my father was gone and he would never come back, nor would any other member of my real family.

Greta, who was now sobbing, came around the table and hugged me.

I looked at Tom, who had placed a hand on my shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

Robert put his hand on my other shoulder. I didn’t mind. I was glad he was there. The four of us stayed that way for a long time.

The rest of the afternoon was kind of foggy. I know we went back to the hotel and ended up in Robert and Greta’s room, where we were joined by Jessica, Martie, and Guava. I know we played Scrabble on the bed, but I can’t exactly remember who was playing. I know Tom left to take a walk with Jessica around sunset.

Tom must’ve told Robert about the party that evening at Vladimir’s hotel, because after he left, Robert said, “I’m sorry I messed up things with this Vladimir fellow. I was rash trying to protect you. I’m so used to people wanting things from me.”

“He wasn’t in jail,” I said.

“I know. I’ve already run into two other Vladimir Petrovics since we’ve been here,” Robert said with a little laugh. “Larry and I were idiots. I’m sorry.”

Hearing him say he was sorry and had been wrong about Vladimir caused any resentment I was still feeling toward Robert to slip away.

After a while Tom and Jessica came back into the room. Both were smiling, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why: Jessica had an engagement ring on her finger.

“Congratulations.” I said, shaking Tom’s hand.

“Thanks. When it came down to it, that was pretty easy.”

“It’s so pretty,” Martie said, examining Jessica’s outstretched hand.

“Let me see, let me see!” Guava yelled.

“So you finally stepped up to the plate,” Greta teased Tom.

“Yep, probably jinxed the whole thing,” Tom said.

“I don’t think so. You two will be together forever,” Greta said. She looked over at Robert, who was already gazing at her.

“What?” she said to him.

“Nothing,” Robert said, but the way they were looking at each other made me feel like they, too, had been changed by the day’s events.

twenty

That evening all of us, even Larry in his leg and thumb casts, went to Vladimir’s hotel, the Pearl.

Andro and his family were there, along with twenty or thirty people I didn’t recognize who had known my father and mother, or were friends of Vladimir.

Robert apologized to Vladimir, who generously said, “I hold no hard feelings.”

When Hana and her brother, Luka, arrived, I immediately thanked them for helping find out about my father.

“I didn’t know what to do, so I called your other father,” Hana said. “He is a good man.”

I was beginning to see that what Hana was saying was true. Robert had helped me to learn the truth about my father, and he’d done it without making it about himself, or his run for the Senate, or any other reason than that it was right for me. Not only that, but on Greta’s advice, he had decided to wait until we were finished with the book before reading it—a very un-Robert-like thing to do. Just when you think you know a person, they surprise you.

As for Greta, now that she had successfully needled Tom into proposing to Jessica, she was focusing on needling me into telling Martie I liked her.

“You’re turning red. You look like that punch you’re holding,” Greta teased.

“Greta, stop it,” I said.

“Well, if you don’t tell her, maybe I will,” Greta said, feigning a move toward Martie.

“No!” I protested, a little too vigorously, causing Greta to laugh.

“Maybe when we get back home,” I said.

“Excellent,” Greta said victoriously. “I’ll tell you exactly what to say and how and where to say it. I’m thinking the gazebo.”

“Fine,” I said dismissively, but actually happy to have her help.

We were interrupted by a trio of men who said they knew my family, but I think they really just wanted to meet Greta.

I left them with her and wandered over to where Tom, Jessica, and Martie were standing.

“What was Greta saying to you?” Martie asked. “You were all red.”

“Nothing,” I said, willing my face to stay its normal color.

Luckily, Robert walked up to us. “I invited Vladimir to come to L.A. and stay with us,” he said.

“Really? That’s great,” I said happily. I looked at Tom, who seemed to be as pleased as I was. Something suddenly occurred to me. “Can Tom have his name on the book?”

“What?” Robert said, not following me.

“Can the book say, ‘by Josef Francis, with Tom Dolan’?”

“That’s nice of you, Joe,” Tom said, “but the contract says—”

“Say no more,” Robert said. “Done.”

“Thanks,” Tom said to Robert and me.

“No problem,” I said, knowing we wouldn’t be standing here in Dubrovnik without his help.

“Daddy, Joe, come here!” Guava shouted from the other side of the room. She was standing with Greta and a woman with a small digital camera.

“Shall we?” Robert asked.

While walking across the room, I spotted Martie and Jessica standing with Hana. “Come on,” I said. “You guys should be in the picture, too.”

Before we could get ourselves organized for the photo, Vladimir tapped his glass with a fork and asked everyone to be quiet in both English and Croatian. “I would like everyone to raise their glasses,” Vladimir said. He then looked at me. “Josef, we are so happy that you returned to your home, and proud to see what a fine young man you are. To Josef.”

Everyone toasted me, and I felt their warmth. I looked at these people I’d just met, and at Vladimir, who had tried so hard to meet me once before and was now throwing me this party; I looked at Robert, Greta, and Guava, holding their glasses up to me, and I thought that no matter how many movies, TV shows, or campaigns they starred in, they would always be my family—and that wasn’t an act. I looked at my friends who’d made this journey with me to find my family, and I realized they were my family, too: Hana, Martie, Jessica, and most of all, Tom.