Words Unspoken (17 page)

Katy Lynn thought back to the brief visit she and Hamilton had made nearly ten years ago. Hamilton thought the beaches were divine. He could have packed up and moved to France in a second. Katy Lynn had simply rolled her eyes. Men. Perhaps she should have been paying more attention to Hamilton’s roving eyes. She pushed the unpleasant thought away, got out of the car, placed her sunglasses back in the purse, and stood up straight.

“Okay, Katy-Kate”—that was her mother’s nickname for her—“time to pack your bags. You’re going to France!”

________

Nothing put Ted in a better mood than twenty minutes on the phone with Kenny White. The guy was a genius! Never mind that he worked for the competition. They’d been trading information on junk bonds for two years now, and they had both come out ahead. A true partnership, he chuckled to himself. The Million Dollar Club. His smirk spread all the way across his face, remembering his romantic evening with Lin Su, his surprise announcement, her delight. Now he had the icing on the cake. Three new companies that Kenny had researched issued junk bonds. Business was soaring, and Ted knew exactly which clients would love to hear the news.

He picked up the phone and whispered to himself, “Okay, fellas! I’m about to make your day!”

________

Lissa enjoyed the Friday afternoon tutoring sessions. Seated by the picture windows in the library with the stunning view of the river and mountains just outside seemed to inspire the girls to try harder. At first it had been only the junior high girls and simple things like reviewing Latin vocabulary or discussing
Romeo and Juliet
. Then Mrs. Rivers had suggested that Lissa tutor the senior high girls who were struggling with fourth-year Latin and AP history. This she found a bit more challenging— not the schoolwork but the “student work”—figuring out how to help each girl succeed.

Chattanooga Girls School was famous for sending its students into depression. One of the top girl schools in the southeast—some said
the
top school—it had money, money, money from the alumni, from the parents, probably from the governor himself. It all spelled one thing to the students:
You’re the cream of the crop; you must succeed
.

Plenty of the girls had the brains to make it through, but perhaps not the nerves of steel to face constant pressure, constant competition. Freshman Holly Jenkins, for example, should not be at CGS. But here she was, and she needed help in beginning Latin.

“Okay, Holly, can you name the seven cases?”

“Nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative …” Holly blanked.

“Good. It was kind of a trick question. Locative is only used in special cases. But Mrs. Gruder will ask you about it, so tuck it away for good measure. Now the endings for the first declension?”

“
A, ae, ae, am,
and
a
.”

“Fine. Now can you decline the Latin word for
girl
?”

Holly obediently began reciting, “
Puella, puellae, puellae
…”

Very, very simple stuff that Holly should have memorized the first week of school. But by the end of the hour-long tutorial session, Lissa felt a bit more hopeful. “We’ll meet a few more times together, and you’ll be right on track.”

“Thanks, Lissa!” Holly beamed at her. “See ya next week.”

Lissa waved to Holly, then reached down and picked up the thin, hard-backed volume.
First Year Latin
. Just looking at the textbook brought a sudden pang to Lissa. She loved Latin. It made sense. It fit together. It was a puzzle, a lovely, ancient puzzle. What she would give to travel back in time, before college visits, to be sitting in Mrs. Gruder’s fifthyear Latin class.

Eleventh grade. The Latin Festival. First Lissa had won the city-wide contest, then the regionals, and finally she had gone to the national tournament. After her performance, she was chosen as one of twelve students from across the country to spend two weeks in Rome. She had fallen in love with the ancient city. Every college she applied to, she determined, must have one thing: a study abroad program in Rome.

Lissa felt a chill and a pinching and an excitement, all mixed together in her heart. She longed to study again. She
longed
to! Why was she so afraid? Maybe this was just salt in the wound, these tutoring sessions. She herself should be studying.

She thought about this as Mrs. Rivers drove her home, taking the familiar route from the north shore across the Tennessee River and going through town on Broad Street. The words pounded in her mind as the car curved up the steep road to Lookout Mountain. When Mrs. Rivers dropped her off at her home, Lissa climbed the steps to her room and went to the desk where she had left the spiral notebook, tucked under several books. She took it out, and with the taste of Latin still on her lips, the memory of Rome fresh as new snow, she wrote:

How can I go to college when that act would mean moving on without her? College is the nail in her coffin. Even thinking about it reminds me of our last trip, the hail, the sliding, the fear, then terror, then relief. Then
death. Everything that has to do with college is agony! I cannot go there. I do not have the right to move in that direction. Another, perhaps. Perhaps a future, but not college. Never.

She reread the words like a prison sentence. In her mind, she knew her thinking was somehow very flawed. But in her heart she hurt, a literal, agonizing pain, every time she thought about college. How to get beyond it? She did not know.

________

Silvano studied the manuscript carefully, comparing it with the other novels—all five of them—that sat on the floor beside the little desk in his apartment. The workweek was over at last! But now the real work began, and he honestly had no idea what he was looking for, besides a clue, any clue that could direct him to the whereabouts of Miss Green. On a scrap of paper beside a small ashtray brimming with cigarette butts he had scratched:

Miss Green’s publisher: Youngblood

Miss Green’s editor: Edmond Clouse

Miss Green’s royalties deposited in a P.O. Box in Chicago

Miss Green’s new broker: Ted Draper at Goldberg, Finch and Dodge, an Atlanta brokerage firm

Miss Green’s former broker: Jerry Steinman, semiretired from Goldberg, Finch and Dodge

Miss Green’s bio:

Here he was stuck. Every dust jacket had the same three sentences written on the back flap, following the description of the novel.

S. A. Green is a novelist who prefers complete anonymity and writes somewhere in the United States. Previous novels include (and here, depending on the order of the novel, the titles varied). The novels have all been bestsellers in America and Europe, with
Eastern Crossings
winning the coveted Penn-Warren Award, and
Cautiously Optimistic
having been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Silvano drew in on his Diana and toyed with a pen. His best chance at nabbing information was the meeting with Ted Draper on Monday. Now what could he ask to glean a little more about Miss Green? Something the new broker wouldn’t think of as secretive. He wracked his brain for five minutes while in the background Tom Brokaw narrated a news story about the Reagan administration. And then he had it.

Of course! Of course!

He didn’t need any other information.

He had the post office box, and with that he’d provide bait to lure out Miss Green!

In Rome, the bait his family used was offering the cheapest postcards available next to St. Peter’s. Cheap but good quality, and the best gelato within a two-kilometer radius of the Vatican. A deal for those obnoxious Americans, overweight, loud, dressed in the strangest color combinations and even daring to wear shorts into St. Peter’s.

And now, here, the perfect bait was a letter sent to the post office box! Yes, that was it. A carefully worded letter—not threatening, exactly, but something disturbing, to make a neurotic writer shiver in her shoes and venture out of her little hole. Bait.

He smiled. He’d catch up on his reading this weekend. He felt confident that, after having reread all six of these novels, he would know just what was needed to coax dear Miss Green out of her hole.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5

“Okay, kids!” Janelle called up the stairs. “We leave for the airport in ten minutes.”

“Sure, Mom!” came Luke’s reply. At least he seemed excited to see his aunt.

Janelle sat at the table in her yellow and white kitchen and read the letter—one that she kept stashed in a drawer in her desk—for the hundredth time.

September 14, 1979

Dear Janelle,

I know that life does not feel fun right now. More like an oppressive cloud hovering, ready to spill its bad news like water from the sky. I know, dear. What you and Brian are doing is tough. And it takes time. You felt a calling, you obeyed, you are there. Don’t doubt the calling, sugar. You are in the ample and loving hands of our Father. Stay put, Janelle. Stay put.

You know it would be much easier for me to write other words: Come Home! in big, bold letters. Your mother and I need you. Please come home.
Honestly, this is how I feel much of the time. But I will not argue with Almighty God. He called you.

And about Katy Lynn. You cannot change your sister. Heaven knows, if prayers could guarantee quick changes, she’d be galloping down the straight and narrow path like a mare at feeding time. Prayer works, Janelle. Never stop praying. But let God decide on the timetable.

Just love her, sugar. Somewhere along the line, Katy Lynn decided I was against her, that I disapproved of everything that was important to her. That I considered her ideas liberal and rebellious and plain wrong.
How many nights have we stayed awake wondering what we could have done differently, why she shut me out?

I’m sorry to say I’m not surprised by the turn of their visit. Hamilton is so focused on his business and Katy Lynn is focused on getting everything out of life while being completely in control. Paradoxes. It can’t be very appealing to see all you have given up, especially when they don’t understand the reason.

Don’t be too hard on yourself, sugar. You never know what God has planned for the next chapter. You just never know.

Mother sends mounds of hugs, as she says.

          With love,

Dad

She folded the letter, placed it back in its yellowing envelope, climbed the stairs, and went into the office. She opened a drawer, slipped the letter inside, and gave Brian a peck on the cheek.

“Ready, Nelli?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

She grabbed her purse from the bedroom. Luke raced down the stairs, with Sandy following close after. The sound of pounding young feet on wooden stairs made Janelle smile briefly. Brian followed behind, and soon they were on the way to the airport.

________

She was completely exhausted. It had been years since she’d traveled to Europe, and Katy Lynn had forgotten what jet lag felt like. Thank heavens for first-class tickets. She pitied the poor people scrunched together like a bag of vacuum-packed Georgia peanuts in economy. But even so, she hadn’t slept a wink on the flight, and the food was atrocious. All she wanted was a nice bed and a bath.

Katy Lynn spied them waving at her through the glass doors as she waited to retrieve her luggage in the Montpellier airport: Janelle, Brian, Luke, and Sandy. My, the kids had grown! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even seen a picture of them.

She followed the other passengers to the metal luggage carts. She cursed under her breath as she rummaged through her wallet to find a ten-franc coin. Thank heavens she’d thought to change her money back in Atlanta! She struggled to drag the suitcases off the conveyor belt. Her feet had swollen on the flight and her beige pumps were killing her.

“Katy!” Janelle said as Katy Lynn pushed her cart through the sliding glass doors. Janelle gave her an awkward hug.

It was a shock to see her baby sister—Janelle had gained weight, and her hair was all wrong. And no makeup. Her little sister looked exhausted.

“Well, hello, gang! How marvelous to see y’all. Goodness, Luke, you are half grown! And Sandy! What pretty blond curls!”

“
Bonjour
, Aunt Katy,” Sandy said, planting a kiss on her cheek as Katy Lynn leaned down to receive a handful of wildflowers.

“How sweet.”

Brian took over the cart. “Good to see you, Katy Lynn. How was the flight?”

They stepped out into the sweltering heat.

“It’s hotter here than Atlanta! And what time is it? Barely noon!”

“Yes, we’re having a real Indian summer,” Janelle said.

Perspiring heavily, Katy Lynn limped behind them to the parking lot. “Oh, my goodness! How are we going to all fit in there?” she said with a nervous laugh.

She had never seen a smaller car. A Renault. But Brian didn’t seem ruffled. Maybe he was used to stuffing luggage into that tiny trunk. In the end, she sat up front with Brian while Janelle and the kids held the biggest bag across their laps. Katy Lynn searched in vain for the air-conditioning and, admitting defeat, rolled down her window and let the hot breeze blow across her face while rivulets of perspiration ran down her back.

“How adorable! Just like a dollhouse!” It escaped before she even gave her comment a thought. Katy Lynn wasn’t tall, but she almost felt she should duck to walk inside the little town house. She had forgotten how minuscule everything was in France.

She looked for something to compliment and found it. “Oh, I just love the tiled floors, Janelle. So practical. And that terra cotta color is perfect.”

She surveyed the downstairs: one modest-sized room, which seemed to serve the dual function of living room and dining room, a small kitchen, and this entrance hall—way too small for all five of them to be standing in at once.

“Aunt Katy, you get to sleep in my room!” little Sandy enthused. “I picked out the sheets for you. I hope you like them.”