Words Unspoken (43 page)

Her father opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch, right on his wife’s heels. Daddy walked with a little stiffness in his joints, but he still stood tall and erect, ever the soldier. Heavens, sixty-seven was practically young these days. Jane Fonda was touting the advantages of turning forty and wearing a bikini.

Janelle threw her arms around her mother and then her father.

“Sweet Nelli,” he said.

“It’s so great to be home, Mom and Dad.” She turned around and motioned to Gina, who was following at a safe pace.

“Gina! Look at you! You are gorgeous. How good of you to come!” Annie pulled her granddaughter to her chest, almost smothering her there.

Gina seemed perfectly content.

“It’s great to be here again, Grandmom, Granddad.”

Only Katy Lynn held back, still seated in the driver’s seat of the car. Janelle prayed for the hundredth time that day, “Lord, please, please let it go well. Please.”

________

Katy Lynn was sure she’d made a mistake in coming. Now, watching first Janelle and then Gina embrace her parents, she could barely make her body get out of the car. She fiddled with the ignition key and then put on some lipstick and her sunglasses. Her hands were shaking.

For heaven’s sake, get hold of yourself. It’s just your parents.

A full three years had passed since she’d seen them. They were not elderly, simply older. Her father still looked tall and thin, still wore a strange combination of business suit and tennis shoes. Her mother had on comfortable jeans and the bright colors for which she was known. Perhaps she had gained a few pounds, but not much. They looked good, casual yet elegant. As usual.

She continued watching them from the car as Gina hugged her grandparents and began talking animatedly with them. She seemed so happy to be back here. Imagine a fifteen-year-old wanting to spend a weekend with her grandparents! That girl was full of surprises.

Finally Katy Lynn took a deep breath, opened the car door, and stepped out. Her heels sank slightly into the soft dirt. A gust of wind swept her hair into her face, and she brushed it out of her eyes.

Good grief. I feel like I’m walking down death row. Get a grip, Katy.
Just smile and nod and look pretty. That’s all they expect anyway.

Her mother reached her first—as always. She liked her mother, her sensible ways, her quick humor. If not for her mother’s fierce loyalty to her father, she and Katy Lynn could have spent plenty of time together.

“Thanks for coming, Katy Lynn. We’re so happy to have you.”

She gave her mother a quick hug. “Thanks for having me.”

That was a nice, neutral comment. She could make sure everything looked all right, but she wouldn’t give her father the satisfaction of thinking she was actually happy about being there.

He came down the porch steps and looked at her with those intense pale blue eyes. He was trying to smile. He did not offer her a hug or a hand, but stood a few feet away, lost in awkwardness. “Hello, dear. Thanks so much for coming.”

Katy Lynn cleared her throat. “You’re welcome, Dad.” She felt the tension in her head ease a little, tried to smile, and said, “We have a few things to get out of the car.” She turned back to the car and let the others go ahead into the house.

It desperately needed painting. How could they let it get so run down? And that old blue Ford in the driveway—surely he didn’t teach the kids to drive in that outdated model.

At least Mother still planted her flowers. She had geraniums in window boxes perched on the sills of the second floor.

I always bring in the geraniums around the second week of November, before the first freeze.

Katy Lynn smiled involuntarily at the memory. The pansies and primroses were planted all across the front in their beds, their bright display of color interrupted for a few feet by the flagstone walkway. And there was the same old porch swing, its dark wooden finish faded by years in the sun.

She walked in the front door behind the others, and the smell of roast and potatoes hit her full in the face. The aroma of decades earlier. Mother had prepared her favorite meal from her growing up years. Katy Lynn felt a little prick in her eyes, blinked, rubbed a finger underneath them to make sure no mascara had smudged, and let the screen door close behind her.

They had moved to this house when Janelle was a toddler. Her mind floated back in time.

She sat in her father’s lap and he held her tight, rocking her back and forth on the porch swing while the doctor worked upstairs with little Janelle, sick with a high fever. Daddy set Katy Lynn down.

“You stay here, angel. I’m going to check on your sister. I’ll be right back.”

Jealousy overtook her as she watched her daddy going through the door and up the steps. “He loves her more,” she whispered in tears.

________

By the time they left the barn, it was almost nine o’clock and pitch dark. On the way home, Lissa kept silent while Silvano talked on and on about several supposedly big-name authors whom she’d never heard of, an actor he had once helped on the set, and the latest fashions from Gucci. Silvano Rossi was, as they said around the barn, feeling his oats. Lissa wanted him to stop talking and let her think.

She surprised herself by blurting out the question on her mind in the midst of Silvano’s monologue. “How can I keep Dad from selling Caleb?”

He frowned momentarily and then said, “Look, Lissa, I don’t want to interfere, but I think you should talk with him.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? That’s what you think when you’ve seen for yourself how explosive he gets? I’ve tried, you know. Many times. It just doesn’t get me anywhere.”

“What other choice do you have?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to come up with another idea, but your incessant jabbering is making it very hard to concentrate.”

Silvano scowled.

She shrugged. “Sorry—I didn’t mean that. Let’s not discuss it—it makes me feel horribly anxious.”

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, Silvano said, “I brought you a surprise.”

“A surprise?”

“Yeah, take a look in the back.”

Obediently she glanced around. A small rectangular box was lying on the back seat. “What is it?”

“
Driving Lessons
.”

“The manuscript? You have it here?”

“Yep. I told you I’ve been helping with the edits. Now that they’re done, I thought you might like to have a peek.”

“Isn’t that illegal or something?”

“Not as long as I call you an assistant.”

She smirked. “An assistant? How could you call me that?”

“I want you to read some of the passages about driving lessons and tell me if Miss Green got it right.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. From what I’ve read of Miss Green and what you and others have said, she always gets it right.”

“No, I’m serious. My boss asked me to check out a few details. Could you describe for me what your driving school is like?”

Silvano’s questions annoyed her; she was not in the mood to talk. But she owed him something for driving all over creation just so she could tell her horse good-bye.

“Oh, it’s not really a school. The MacAllisters—that’s the couple who run it—have their office in their home in Fort Oglethorpe. You just call and make an appointment and then show up at the house. You barely drive at all for the first lesson. You just get in Ole Bessie—”

“Ole Bessie?”

“Sorry. The car. She has a name.”

“
Vedo
.”

“Anyway, the instructor, Mr. MacAllister, finds out how much you know about driving, why you’re there, stuff like that. And then he takes you out on a short drive; it all depends on your competence—how much you’ve driven before. He likes to have students drive through the Military Park—you know, Chickamauga Battlefield. I’ve done that a bunch of times. He’s working on getting me to drive up the mountain.”

“The mountain?”

“Yeah, Lookout Mountain. You know, where I live?”

“No need to get sarcastic.” Silvano blushed, then he recovered. “Yes, that makes sense. I guess you would need to know how to drive up and down that mountain.”

“Exactly. Anyway, when Mr. MacAllister thinks you’re ready, you go out on main roads and then the highway.” She hurried along. No need to dwell on her experience on the highway. “He caters to the need of the student. I think he’s a bit different from most driving instructors.”

The information seemed to satisfy Silvano, and for once he remained quiet until he turned his little sports car up the mountain road. Lissa reached back and picked up the manuscript.

“Go on. Take it and read it. Just promise me you’ll keep it safe and not let anyone else see it.”

“Are you crazy—I’m not taking the manuscript of the next great work by S. A. Green!”

“Relax—it’s just a copy. And no one’s going to come snooping around your house looking for S. A. Green’s new novel. It’ll do you good to read it—get your mind off your other problems. I guarantee you’ll like it; it’s profound and simple at the same time. My secretary calls it ‘poetry that makes sense.’ It’s about learning to drive a car, but it’s not about that at all. It’s about life. How to live life. I tell you, parts of it sound almost spiritual. Very e—”

“Ethereal.”

“Precisely.” He smiled at her. “You’re reading my mind.”

Ethereal.
Why had she used that word? Lissa closed her eyes, trying to trace back to where she’d heard that word recently. Probably in another S. A. Green novel. “Okay, I’ll take it home. You’ve convinced me.”

________

Driving back to Atlanta, Silvano’s mind fairly exploded with information.

The driving school is just an old house; the car has a name; there is a mountain nearby.

Something felt very, very odd. Uncanny, almost supernatural. Could it be that this girl, Lissa, whom he had happened to run into in an old bookstore and who happened to like Rome and Latin and who happened to be taking driving lessons at this very moment in time, was another link to the novelist he was searching for? How probable was that? Surely there was some statistic that proved those odds to be less than ten to the hundredth degree. It actually left him feeling strange, like he needed to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was following him. He thought
he
was playing detective. Could someone else be spying on him? Know his intentions? Plant people in his path? He shivered.

And then it hit him full force. The novel! It was written in the novel.

When he got home he hurried into his bedroom, got down on his hands and knees, and slid an arm under the bed to where he had stashed another copy of the precious manuscript in a locked chest that held his most valuable and sentimental items: the rosary beads, his grandmother’s quilt, his father’s pocket watch, a thousand dollars’ worth of lira, the tape recording from Stella and Eddy’s conversation, the photos, and
Driving Lessons
.

Back in his little den he searched frantically through the pages. He vaguely remembered the place in the book; he definitely remembered the scene. Ah, there it was, on page 235.

The protagonist was talking to his driving instructor.
“Seems like so many things are all pointing in the same direction. I’d say it was coincidence, but it’s more. I can’t explain it. It’s like someone is reading my thoughts ahead of time, before I even think them. And then he’s following me around and making things happen. Random things that aren’t random.”

And the driving instructor said,
“When too many coincidences line up, when you feel there is someone looking over your shoulder, you are probably right. Someone big and unseen and all-powerful is orchestrating events in your life to get your attention. Not coincidence. Divine intervention. The question you must ask yourself is this: will I listen to this voice?”

Silvano set down the pages. He almost wanted to cry. He didn’t even know why. Yes, he did. He was scared. Was God looking over his shoulder? Worse, was God
orchestrating
events in his life? Was that what was happening?

Naw.
Ma sei matto, Silvano. You’re nuts.
If he followed that line of irrational thought, then God had given him the idea to steal the manuscript and search out the author and everything else. Impossible! But he wondered,
Could it be that this unseen Someone knew and saw everything?

Silvano felt a surge of irritation.
That’s insane! I’m imagining things. I’m tired and I’m putting too much pressure on myself. I just need a little sleep.

He hadn’t been to Mass in years, had not prayed in months, and had stuffed his mother’s rosary, the beautiful hand-carved one she had given him in tears as he left for the States, in the trunk under his bed. He knew his mother prayed and worried and prayed some more.
God our Father, watch over my child. Care for him… .

He supposed that at some point in his childhood he had believed in a powerful, punishing God, a God of good works and righteous judgment. But he didn’t fear God now—not in any sense of the word. No reverence, no healthy respect, no terror, like those Israelites had felt while staring at a glowing mountain.

“I am in charge of my destiny, and that is that.” There, he’d said it out loud. He thought back to Rome, Rome with the ancient Coliseum, Rome that persecuted Christians, Rome whose museums were filled with art proclaiming God’s majesty and splendor.

He did not have time to play mind games with God. He had to get the interview and publish it, and soon! Then everyone in the world could read the words of the author and decide for themselves. Coincidence or divine intervention.

As for Silvano, he once again got on his hands and knees, unlocked the trunk, took out the precious rosary beads, and slid the trunk, secured, back under the bed. He crossed himself and set the beads on his desk. What could a little superstition hurt? He was hot on the trail of Miss S. A. Green.

________

The porch light was on, and her father met Lissa at the front door when Silvano let her off.

“Where have you been? It’s almost ten o’clock!”