Please Remember This (16 page)

She was not seeing a full cross section of the town. She knew that. The people who had moved there to work at Kmart couldn’t afford to visit the Lanier Building, and the people who disliked change, who wanted everything to be as it was before Kmart and the tourists, gathered at Mrs. Cavender’s bakery. But the people who accepted, even liked, the changes, who would have voted for Phil Ravenal even if his
own revered father had come back to life to run against him—that crowd came to the Lanier Building.

All was not perfectly smooth, of course. She lost some earrings to shoplifters. Someone wrote something in one of the little blank books that made one of the high school girls gasp and stumble out to her car, struggling with tears. Children pulled the Scrabble game off the shelf and emptied all the tiles onto the floor. Espresso drinks were time-consuming to prepare. If several groups came in at once, a line developed.

The early-morning line was getting to be a problem. High school students were sauntering into school late, with Lanier Building Coffee Company carryout cups in hand.

The high school guidance counselor called Tess, first saying what good things she had heard about how the Lanier Building looked and that she really hoped to stop by someday soon. “Unfortunately, you’re making the kids late to class in the morning.”

“
I
am?” Tess would have thought that the kids were making themselves late.

“So we were hoping,” Mrs. Fornelli continued, “that at seven-ten or so, you could make an announcement and stop serving the kids. You could serve adults, of course, but not the students.”

Tess wondered if this was legal. “But isn’t being on time their responsibility?”

“Of course.” The answer was smooth. “But it’s the community’s obligation to provide children with the structure they need. It takes a village to raise a child.”

Tess didn’t recall that she had ever been raised by a village. “It does take a long time to make espresso drinks, especially the elaborate ones the kids order.”

“Good, then,” the counselor said. “I’m glad you see it our way.”

Tess stared at the phone. What had she said to make the woman think that? How quick people were to hear what they wanted to. It had obviously never occurred to Mrs. Fornelli that Tess would not do exactly as asked.

This was what Ned had been talking about last summer—the pressure on people in a small town to conform. You either went along or were like Sierra, determinedly resisting and rebelling at everything.

Growing up, Tess had never been able to conform. She couldn’t dress like the other girls—her grandmother couldn’t bear to spend money on store-bought clothes. She hadn’t been allowed to stay out as late as the other kids or hang out at the mall all day. But she wasn’t interested in being a rebel either; her mother had been a rebel. She simply wanted to be herself and do what she thought was right.

And that did not include enforcing the school’s rules.

“I do suppose we have an overprotective mentality,” Phil acknowledged when she told him about it later in the day.

“Maybe that’s why there are so many divorces.” Tess had expected small-town Kansas to be the home of old-fashioned values, but marriages failed here just as they did anywhere else. “People aren’t allowed to make little mistakes, just big ones.”

“You aren’t going to find many people who agree with you,” Phil said mildly.

Tess didn’t need to have people agree with her, but, unlike Sierra, she also didn’t need to be difficult. So she hired more counter help, and on one of the pine sideboards she set out pour-it-yourself drip coffee, to be paid for on the honor system. There was one size of cup, one price, and a little locked Lucite box with a slot. This allowed the kids who didn’t mind getting to school on time to do so. The kids who wanted to be late were going to be late regardless of anything Tess did.

Phil and everyone in the crew kept reminding Ned that this coming Thursday was Thanksgiving. No one in the crew was working, and he shouldn’t either. “Okay, okay,” he mumbled.

He woke up as early as ever that morning, and as long as he was up, he went out and checked on a few things at the site, but he was back well before noon to shower before going over to Matt and Carolyn’s. When he got out of the shower, he couldn’t find a clean towel, or any towel at all. He was pretty sure there were some in the dryer, and it probably would have been a really great idea to have checked before he had gotten in the shower, but he hadn’t. So he lay down on the bed to air-dry which was stupid, since the next thing he knew, the phone was ringing. It was Caitlin, the oldest of his sisters, telling him that it was four o’clock, and Mom was planning on serving dinner at five.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Phil and the girls had parked their cars in the driveway at Matt and Carolyn’s, so Ned parked on the street and entered the old Victorian house through the rarely used front door. The door was original to the house and had a three-quarter-length oval glass window. Carolyn had never covered the window before; there was never anyone hanging around in the front hall doing anything that required privacy, but now a lightly shirred linen panel with little diamond-shaped lace insets had been carefully fitted into the oval. It was pretty. Carolyn had probably gotten it from Tess.

Ned closed the door behind him. Dr. Matt was coming down the dark-wainscoted hall from the back of the house. He would have been in the library watching football with Phil and Doug McCall. Doug was a medical student and Caitlin’s boyfriend.

“I’m late,” Ned said, probably unnecessarily. “I shouldn’t be living in Great-uncle Bob’s house. I’m going to turn into as odd a recluse as he was.”

“Caitlin said you fell asleep.”

As a little girl, Caitlin had been a bit of a tattletale. Ned had thought she’d outgrown it. Apparently not. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No, of course not. But I’m glad you’re here. I need to talk to you.” Dr. Matt gestured for him to go into the front room. It had been a playroom for a long time, but once Emma and Brittany were in junior high, Carolyn had packed up the electric trains and the Barbies and furnished it according to the period of the house. Now it boasted rich velvets, marble-topped tables, and stylized carvings on the arms of the chairs and the doors of the cabinets. Ned sank down into one of the wing chairs.

“When did you last have a decent night’s sleep?” Dr. Matt asked. “I have no idea.”

“Then it wasn’t recently enough.” Dr. Matt was sitting on the other wing chair. He had his elbows on the chair arms and was tenting his fingers together, making a little bouncing motion with his thumbs. This was what he did when he had something medical to say. “Listen here, Ned, you’ve got heavy equipment. You’ve got generators, power lines, and water everywhere. And you aren’t getting enough sleep. That’s nuts. Someone’s going to get electrocuted or crushed or something.”

“We’ll be okay, Dad. Really we will. We’re being very careful.”

“Maybe everyone else is, but you’re too tired to be careful, and you’re in charge. You take better care of yourself, or I’ll find some loophole in the public health laws or OSHA regulations to shut you down.”

“Dad!” Ned stared at him. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

“You bet I am.”

“But with the cargo exposed to oxygen—”

“I know all that,” Dr. Matt interrupted. “And I know what your fuel costs are running, and guess what? I don’t care. You have to get more sleep.”

“I have my whole life to sleep.” But this … the digging up of the boat, it would probably be the high point of his professional life. How could he sleep?

“I wouldn’t count on anything if I were you,” Dr. Matt countered. “Look at your parents. You know why they died, don’t you?”

His parents? Why bring them up? What did their
death have to do with anything? “Wasn’t there a problem with the plane? Something on the instrument panel?” Ned was sure that he knew the details, but he couldn’t seem to remember.

“Yes, but an alert pilot could have handled it. Phillip—your dad—hadn’t had enough sleep. He was all caught up in trying to set up that farm co-op, he was as excited as you are about the boat, and he was running himself into the ground. His reaction times were off.”

“You mean it was his fault?” Everyone had always talked about Phillip as if he had been perfect. How could his death have been his own fault?

“We never made a big deal of it to you boys, but we also didn’t sue the plane manufacturer either. Everyone talks about your dad as if he were Apollo, the sun god driving his flaming chariot across the sky, but part of him was Icarus, the kid who flew too close to the sun and crashed when his wings melted.”

“But Phil’s the one trying to be like him, not me.”

“You’re the one putting your life on the line. I lost my brother and I don’t care to have Phil and the girls go through that. As bad as losing you would be for them, it would be worse for Carolyn, and you owe her way too much to do that to her.”

Dr. Matt never talked like that; he never tried to make Phil and him feel guilty about Carolyn’s raising them.

“I’m not asking you to quit,” the doctor continued. “All I am asking you to do is get more sleep.”

How could Ned say no to that? “All right, Dad.”

“Do I have your word on it?”

“You do.”

“Good.” Dr. Matt stood up. “Now go out to the kitchen and say hello to your mother and the girls, and then come watch the rest of the game with Phil and Doug and me. Or rather, with Phil and me. Doug keeps drifting off. He’s not getting any more sleep than you are.”

Ned crossed the hall into the dining room. The table was already set with the Haviland china from the Shelbys and the heavy silver flatware with the scrolling
R
monogram. Ravenal men tended to do pretty well for themselves in the marriage department. Grandmother Ravenal had come from Kansas City meat-packing money; Carolyn was a Shelby, and Ned’s own mother, Polly, had inherited a share in a couple of cement factories near Abilene. In fact, it was the cement checks that Ned and Phil were living on now.

As he approached the kitchen, the swinging door eased open, and through it came Tess, carrying a platter of cinnamon apples. The platter was large, and she had pushed the door with her elbow and was trying to keep it open with her hip. Ned hurried across the dining room to hold the door for her. She thanked him and set the platter on the table. She was wearing a dark, longish sort of dress with pretty silver buttons.

He was surprised to see her. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“You did too,” Carolyn called out from the kitchen. “I told you at least twice.”

Ned thought he would have remembered something about Tess. Maybe he did need more sleep. He stepped into the kitchen and waved to his sisters.
Caitlin was at the stove, whisking the gravy and trying to step out of the way while Carolyn checked the turkey. Emma was at the sink, and Brittany was at the table, arranging a relish tray.

“I’d offer to help,” he said, “but Dad is worried that I’d get hurt.”

Carolyn smiled at him. “We’re in fine shape, and you need to talk to Tess. She has something to show you.”

Ned let the kitchen door swing back shut. The scent from the cinnamon apples was sharp and sweet. Tess had placed the platter at an angle on the dining room table. She stepped back and looked at it, then adjusted its position a bit before she was satisfied. She did pay attention to details.

“Mom says you have something to show me.”

“I do.” She picked up a manila envelope off the sideboard. “Apparently you don’t return phone calls.”

That was true. “Phil does it for me, and he’s so much better at it than I am. A reporter calls with a few quick questions, and it doesn’t matter how quick the questions are, my answers are always long-winded and boring. Phil has this sound-bite thing down cold. But I would have returned your calls … if I had known about them.”

“It wasn’t me calling. If I had needed you, I would have gone out to the site and grabbed you by the ear.”

“That would have worked.” Ned followed her into the front room. “At least I hope so.” She sat down on the sofa. He scooped up a couple of the throw pillows, dropped them over the back of the
sofa, and sat down next to her. She started to open the envelope. He spoke quickly; he wanted to talk about her, not the manila envelope.

“Phil says your business is going great.” He paused, trying to remember exactly what Phil had said. “Your weekend trade is in the mid- to upper range of the projections, but your support from the local community is far beyond expectations.”

“You sound like you memorized that for a final exam.”

“No. If I had been trying to memorize it, I would have done a better job.” He had always been a crackerjack test-taker. Now he was remembering more. “And you’re making all the high school kids late to class.”

“I’m
not making them late.” Her voice was pleasant but firm. She had said this before. “They are making themselves late.”

“It takes a village to raise a child, Tess,” he said, hoping to sound like the voice of Fleur-de-lis’s protectionistic, paternalistic culture.

“That doesn’t mean—” She stopped. “You’re teasing me.”

“ ‘Teasing’ is a strong word, Tess. If you tease another kid on the playground these days, you’re called a bully.”

“Okay, whatever.” She lifted her curly mass of hair back off her shoulder. She looked rueful, not because she minded being teased, but she minded not getting his joke. “I need you to be serious.” She switched on the lamp that sat next to the sofa. The light glinted off the silver buttons of her dress as she slid some papers out of the envelope. “The author of this is going
out on a limb and wants some confirmation from you that she isn’t totally wacky.”

“Someone wants
me
to confirm that she isn’t totally wacky? That’s like putting the inmates in charge of the nuthouse.”

“Would you be serious?”

He would try. “Lay it on me, babe.”

She made a face at the “babe”—as he had intended her to—but opened the envelope and explained. This had to do with Nina Lane’s
Riverboat Fragment.
When her publishing company had been looking through their files for a copy of a contract, they had discovered the original manuscript for
The Riverboat Fragment.
It was a typescript, covered with handwritten corrections. So the company was publishing a facsimile edition of the manuscript. “Which is fabulous,” Tess said cheerfully, “because I’m going to get all kinds of money.”