The Yearbook (8 page)

Dr. Barton nodded.

“Then one day a truant officer found Lola wandering around in a park in the snow—she was about five—and when they investigated they saw the condition Janine was in. She'd nearly forgot she even had a daughter. They took her over to Hillside and put her on medicine.”

Dr. Barton noticed a few students eavesdropping outside his office. He got up, glared at them, and shut the door. “What then?”

“Janine improved until she stopped taking the pills. A neighbor saw her in front of her trailer, planting capsules in a row in a tiny garden patch, very carefully, like they were seeds, and then watering them with a watering can and everything.”

Dr. Barton stared into his coffee cup.

“In the end she was ringing doorbells around the trailer park and trying to collect donations in a cereal bowl, wearing only a bed sheet. She said she was an angel.”

“And Lola?”

“Poor kid. She became a ward of the court then. That's when I came into the picture. I took Lola to her first foster home. She cried so hard the day we left the trailer. Janine was raving, incoherent, but Lola loved her anyway. She didn't understand why they couldn't stay together.”

The bell rang. A herd of students stampeded by, changing classes, laughing and shouting. Then all was silent again. Mrs. Hershey chewed another antacid tablet.

“Go easy on those things,” Dr. Barton said. “You'll get a kidney stone. So then what?”

“Well, Janine was in and out of Hillside for about a year, and once, when she was out—”

“That's when she jumped?”

“Right off the Jefferson County Bridge. There was one witness, an old guy who was fishing under the bridge. He said Janine was perched on a railing with a bunch of seagulls, and when the flock jumped, she jumped, too. He said she was wearing a white nightgown, and for a second or two she really seemed to be flying.”

Dr. Barton brushed away a tear. He couldn't seem to develop the kind of protective shell Mrs. Hershey had. He often wondered if he'd chosen the right occupation.

“We moved Lola to the other end of the county. The idea was to get her away from the memories, the notoriety, to take her someplace fresh. That was about ten years ago. We'd never intended to bring her back, but we got cornered. Nobody would take a girl who'd run away so many times. The only place left was Wrigley.”

Dr. Barton stared down at the papers in the file. “Was Lola asked how she felt about coming back here, to a place so full of bad associations?”

Mrs. Hershey looked uncomfortable, guilty. Dr. Barton had hit a sore spot. “We did sit down and talk it over,” she said. “I was afraid of the effect it might have on her, coming to Ashfield. But you know what? She said she doesn't remember living here. Doesn't remember it at all.”

“Or doesn't think she does,” Dr. Barton said. He closed Lola's file and handed it back to Mrs. Hershey.

“Thanks,” she said, and stuffed it into her oversized purse. “I've got to go.”

“Ever think about changing your line of work?” Dr. Barton said as Mrs. Hershey opened the door.

“Nah. This is it for me. Twelve more years and I'll get the gold watch.”

“Social Services gives out gold watches?”

“That was a joke,” she said, and was out the door.

Lola unlocked the reserve room and the familiar smell of mold and smoke met her nostrils. She climbed onto the
YOU SUCK
table and opened the window. A cold draft blew in. First she did away with an entire set of spongy encyclopedias, chucking them in alphabetical order into the bin with a barrage of good, loud
CLUNKS
. Then she went about gathering spines, covers, scraps, tables of contents, all mixed together on the boggy floor like some kind of word stew.

Hour after hour she read scraps of text as they passed through her hands and into the garbage:
At any time—one must be prepared—for the unexpected, the incredible—turn of events.
It hit her that a message was coming across in these bits and scraps, like an old-fashioned telegram; it was that voice again, the voice of her own subconscious, struggling to communicate.
Prepare yourself
, it seemed to be saying.
Prepare yourself because there is a way back.
There is.

An image flashed into her thoughts: It was her, tangled in a long, heavy rope like the kind used in tug-of-war. On one end was the present, and on the other the past that she had visited, and both were exerting a force on her. The present had won for now. But the pull was still there. She could feel it. Maybe there was hope. And if she found herself in that place again she'd hold on tight somehow, and not let go.

She paced up and down through the garbage for a long time, thinking the matter over. She tried to be sensible, practical. It came to her then that what she needed, what anyone in any time would need, was a home, a place to cling to. Where could she call home in 1923?

By the time the final bell rang, she knew. With planning, and a little careful subterfuge, she could make it work. She stuck her head out of the reserve room. The library was empty. Dubois had never come to check on her. Not once. She was beginning to like Dubois. School was just letting out when she jumped on her bike and pedaled back to the Yesterday Boutique.

Miss Bryant stood in the lobby, oiling the vintage cash register in the foyer of the defunct theater. She greeted Lola with a boiling-over of historical trivia.

“This cash register is older than the first bowl of Wheaties, yet eight years younger than the parking meter,” she said, extending the oilcan. “Can you hold this a minute?”

She punched the
NO SALE
key and a loud
ding
burst from the machine. The newly oiled drawer flew open, and she slammed it shut with satisfaction. “Now then,” she asked. “What can I do for you? A pair of dancing slippers, perhaps?”

“Not exactly,” Lola said, handing back the oilcan. “I was thinking I'd like to know more about the Wrigleys. Since I live there and all. The history, I mean.”

Miss Bryant's head snapped up so fast that her wig lurched forward over her eyebrows. At last she had found a young person interested in local history, a potential protégé. She had scarcely dared hope such a person existed.

She tore off the work apron that covered the familiar psychedelic pantsuit, strode to the theater exhibit, moved the velvet rope aside, and beckoned Lola to join her in the salvaged seats. Side by side they sat in the exhibit, as if waiting for the house lights to dim, a screen to flicker on.

“Now then, what would you like to know?” Miss Bryant asked.

“Did they have any relatives? The Wrigleys, I mean.”

“Cousins and such,” Miss Bryant said. “Various. Rather spread out, I think.”

“You mean far away?” This was promising. “Tell me about the faraway ones.”

“Eunice Wrigley had a brother, an older brother. He went out west to join a mining operation. Maybe it was in Denver,” Miss Bryant said. “But he wasn't heard from again. They figured the cholera epidemic got him.”

“What's cholera?”

“A disease caused by bacteria in the water. Deadly bacteria. They couldn't cure it back then. Today, of course, with treatment—”

“What was his name?” Lola interrupted.

“Who?”

“Eunice Wrigley's brother.”

Miss Bryant left her seat and headed into the theater. Lola expected another trip to the fruit drawer, but this time Miss Bryant angled down the slope. Lola followed.

A moment later the two were seated on the edge of the stage, their feet dangling into the orchestra pit, with Miss Bryant leafing through a volume she had dug out of a cardboard box. The book reminded Lola of the ones that had been ruined in the flood.

“Here it is,” Miss Bryant said. “Waldron Larch Vance. Born in Ashfield County, Jan. 18, 1887.”

Lola leaned over her shoulder and took note of the spelling.

“The Wrigleys, didn't they like kids?” she asked, because this point worried her.

“My goodness, yes, they did. That's why they left their house to the county for youth programs. Didn't have any children to leave it to. Just couldn't have any. Who knows why.”

Better and better
, Lola thought. She nodded toward the orchestra pit. “Can I use one of those old typewriters down there? I could rent it. I'm interested in antique writing tools.”

“Borrow one if you like,” Miss Bryant said. “Free of charge from one historian to another.”

Lola steered her bike with one hand and held the heavy typewriter with the other. Twice she lost her balance and almost crashed on the way home.

Lola was pleased to see that Danielle was out somewhere so she could work in private. If she finished fast enough she might avoid an interrogation about the strange machine she'd brought home and the stack of encyclopedias she'd borrowed from the common room downstairs.

She rolled a piece of paper into the machine, just like she'd seen people do in old movies, and hit a few keys. The letters came out faint but legible. It took Lola a while to get the hang of the thing, to get used to its loud
chonk
with each keystroke, the silly
ding
at the end of each line, and its maddening inability to erase. Apparently there was some kind of goo to cover mistakes, but Lola didn't have any of that so she proceeded slowly. The first several copies were a mess and went straight to the wastebasket. She marveled that the human race had once tolerated such clumsy, primitive gadgets.

By dinnertime Lola's letter was complete and she had returned the borrowed encyclopedias. She pulled the letter out of the machine and read it out loud to see how it sounded:

Lola re-read the letter and found it pleasingly authentic. She stuffed the typewriter under her bed. Then she decided she needed an envelope. You couldn't hand somebody a letter of such critical importance without an envelope. She raced to the drugstore on her bike and bought a box of envelopes. When she got back to the room she was unpleasantly surprised to find Danielle lying in bed staring at the wall. She wanted to address the envelope but didn't want her prying roommate to see the typewriter. Then she remembered, glory hallelujah, that it was Monday.

“Don't you have pottery tonight?” Lola asked.

Danielle's face looked even whiter than usual.

“Danielle?”

The girl didn't answer or even turn her head.

“You're going, right?” Lola demanded, picking up the digital clock from the nightstand and waving it in Danielle's face. “You'll be late if you don't get going.”

“You'd like that, I bet,” Danielle muttered. “So you and Brent Gaynor can be alone.”

Lola took a step back. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Where'd you come up with that?” Lola set the clock back on the table and stared down at her roommate. Danielle was stiff with anger and almost as white as the sheet.

“So now you're gonna play all innocent,” the girl hissed.

“I am all innocent,” Lola protested.

“Brent Gaynor stopped me outside the Dairy Queen an hour ago and asked me what you thought of him. Like, what was your opinion of him. Like, do you think he's hot and all.”

Lola laughed but instantly regretted it. To Danielle nothing about Brent Gaynor was a laughing matter.

“What? You think you're too good for him? So you're too good for Brent Gaynor, but he's all right for me?” she demanded, sitting up in bed.

“I'm not too good for Brent Gaynor. I just never thought of him at all.”

“You and Brent Gaynor are totally checking each other out. That's the reason why he's been sucking up to me. He wants to get closer to you. How close has he been, Lola?”

“You're acting like an idiot,” Lola said.

“I don't get you at all, Lola,” Danielle went on blindly. “I thought we were friends. I help you get a job at Golden Recipe and then you do this.”

“I haven't done anything.”

“You did something. You must have done something to get his attention. This didn't all come from Brent Gaynor himself. Come to think of it, I still don't know where you were the night of the dance—you or Brent Gaynor.”

“I was not with Brent Gaynor.”

“You were,” Danielle said. “God, I'm so blind. How did I not see it?”

“I have never been with Brent Gaynor,” Lola said, pronouncing each word as clearly as she could. “I can't stand Brent Gaynor.”

“There's a thin line between love and hate,” Danielle quipped.

“That's crazy, Danielle.”

Lola looked at the clock. She wished Danielle would shut up, get out of bed, and go to pottery.