Andi Unexpected (7 page)

After church, we ate
lunch in the university’s cafeteria. In the large dining hall, summer students shouted to each other across the room. We sat at a long table beside a huge window. On either side of our table, students ate, studied, and laughed at equally long tables. The window gave a clear view of the campus grounds and the church. The pastor stood on the front steps of the church, locking the doors.

I took a big bite of my pizza.

“Colin just told me about your run-in with Miss Addy,” Bergita said.

A piece of cheese lodged in my throat, and I gulped down half of my Coke.

“I hope that’s okay,” Colin said quickly. “Bergita knows Miss Addy better than we do, and she might know why Miss Addy reacted that way.”

I swallowed and gave Colin a pointed look. “What do you think about it, Bergita?”

“Don’t know. But it makes me think you’ve stumbled onto something. Miss Addy is a straightforward kind of lady. She says what she thinks and doesn’t care who hears her. I bet she knows all about your Andora.”

The screech of a chair scratching across the linoleum floor caught my attention. I looked behind me and saw Dr. Girard leaving a table packed with students.

I glanced at Colin, but he was digging into his cheeseburger and hadn’t noticed.

Bergita started telling us a story about the time when my dad was fourteen and fell off the roof of our house. “He was always getting into or climbing onto something—”

My eyes followed Dr. Girard as he threw away his trash and dropped off his tray on his way out of the dining hall.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I interrupted.

Bergita blinked. “Sure thing, honey. You go right ahead.”

Bethany, who was bent over her sketchbook, sighed. “Andi, you’re not in preschool. You don’t have to make a public service announcement when you have to use the potty.”

I jumped up from my seat and followed Dr. Girard. Outside the cafeteria, I spotted him walking toward the church. If I followed him, I’d need to cross directly in front of the big window where my family and the Carters were eating lunch. Dr. Girard had almost reached the steps of the church. I hoped Bergita kept the group occupied with more of her stories.

I tailed him, not sparing even one glance behind me. What was Dr. Girard up to, and why had he left so quickly when Bergita said Andora’s name? Was it a coincidence? Something told me it wasn’t. He’d reacted to her name. I knew it.

Instead of going up the church steps, Dr. Girard followed the brick sidewalk on the left side of the building. He walked with long, confident strides and breezed right past the church and headed toward more academic-looking buildings. Passing students greeted him along the way; whenever he stopped to talk to them, I ducked behind a nearby bush or trash can.

At last, he arrived at a stone building with the name W
HIT
H
ALL
carved in stone above the door. I hid around the corner of the building, with one eye peeking out and watching his every move. Dr. Girard used a key card to enter the hall. He threw the door open with a flourish and waltzed inside. I sprinted for the door and caught it just as it was about to close.

Whit Hall’s main entryway
had a vaulted glass dome for a ceiling and polished marble floors. I shivered. The thick stone walls and marble floors kept the building a chilly temperature.

Dr. Girard was long gone. I stumbled forward, unsure of which way I should turn. Then I saw the building directory bolted to the wall. Under H
ISTORY
D
EPARTMENT
it read, D
R
. A
NTHONY
G
IRARD
, D
EPARTMENT
C
HAIR
, R
OOM
102B. A friendly arrow pointed me in the right direction. How convenient.

The rubber soles of my sneakers squeaked on the glossy marble floor. So I took them off and carried them in my hand. Walking on the cold marble barefoot felt like tip-toeing on ice. I moved stealthily down the hallway.

When I reached the history department suite, the
outer door was standing ajar and the lights were on inside. I slipped inside. A generic-looking reception area with two large connected desks dominated the front of the suite. On both desks sat computers and stacks of files. A hunter green sofa with two matching armchairs sat in one corner. A fake dusty palmetto plant sat between the chairs. The room possessed about as much appeal as a dentist’s waiting room.

Dr. Girard’s voice floated down the hall that led deeper into the department. I couldn’t make out any of his words. So I moved around the reception desk and peeked down the hallway. Counting four or so doors down the darkened hallway, my eyes settled on the only one with light streaming under it.

I inched along the wall, hopping from doorframe to doorframe and working my way toward the lit office. The door stood open just a crack. When I was two doors away from my target, I could hear Dr. Girard clearly.

“I’m telling you, Miranda, this has all the makings of a small-town exposé.” He paused. “I know I need more proof. But I’m on it. We could turn this into a series on children from the Great Depression. Tom Brokaw made a mint off of
The Greatest Generation
, so why can’t I?” Another pause. “Yes, yes, you’re right. I won’t get carried away. Have you heard any word?” Pause.

Dr. Girard had to be talking on the telephone.

“Excellent, excellent. So they’re interested.” Pause. “I can have the full proposal to you by the end of the month.” His voice sounded angry. “Well, you want me to check out the facts, don’t you? That will take time.
All I have are rumors and old newspaper clippings.” He sighed. “I don’t want to approach the family just yet. But I will in good time. All right. I’ll be in touch.” I heard a soft click as though he’d just replaced the handset. Then I heard the soft squeak of body weight shifting in a chair. My heart leapt into my throat.

Dr. Girard began whistling an unrecognizable tune, and suddenly the light went out in his office. I looked up and down the hallway for somewhere to hide. Nothing. I quietly ran back to the reception area clutching my sneakers to my chest. Scooting under one of the massive reception desks, I tucked the rolling desk chair in after me just as Dr. Girard’s whistles filled the hallway. His melody passed overhead, the whole room darkened as he flipped off the light switch, and I heard the soft click of the suite door as it closed.

I relaxed as I peek out from under the desk. I would wait a few minutes just to make sure Dr. Girard was really gone before I left.

Then, to my horror, the door handle moved and the door cracked open again.

“Good morning, Joan. What are you doing here on a Sunday afternoon?” Dr. Girard asked.

“You know a secretary’s work is never done. I thought I’d just finish up some projects while the office is quiet. I leave for Hawaii on Friday.”

“I hope my book proposal is one of those projects,” said Dr. Girard.

“It is,” she said.

The secretary?
That meant I was probably hiding under Joan’s desk. I had to move. The doors lining the
hallway were all closed. I prayed one of them was also unlocked.

The door to the suite opened a little wider, and I could see Dr. Girard through the crack. I had to move now. I ran to the first door at a low crouch and tried the handle. I was in luck, the door was unlocked. I slipped inside the room just as Joan turned on the lights in the reception area.

I leaned against the closed door and listened to the muffled sounds of Joan moving around the main office. I had to get out of here. Who knew how long she planned to stay? I looked around and found I wasn’t hiding in a professor’s office but a workroom. An enormous copier stood on one side of the room, and the other side was filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves holding reams of paper in every color I could imagine.

Outside the workroom, rock music started playing. That was good because it would be harder for the secretary to hear me, but it was also bad because I might not hear her if she decided to make copies.

My eyes fell on a window.

Duh! A window.

It was conveniently located for pesky kids and cat burglars alike. A long table covered with office supplies like tape dispensers, staplers, and stacks of legal pads sat underneath it. I climbed onto the table, taking care to be as quiet as possible. I placed my sneakers beside me on the tabletop and unlocked the window. It opened easily. With care, I popped out the screen and stuck my head through the opening. Luckily, the history department was located on the first floor of
the building. Below me, I spotted a bed of flowers, but I didn’t see anyone around. The secretary must have opened her window too because the rock music seemed to be even louder outside. I wouldn’t have to worry too much about being quiet. Which was good.

I threw my sneakers onto the lawn and shimmied leg-first out the open window, taking care to grab the screen as I fell. I landed on my rear in a patch of pink sweet alyssum. Jumping up and off the flowers, I grimaced when I realized that I’d accidentally ground many of them into the red mulch. I wiped the mulch and dirt off my backside, closed the window, and replaced the screen. That would have to do.

I sidestepped around the building and away from the secretary’s open window. When I was several yards from Whit Hall, I broke into a run back to the cafeteria. Inside the dining hall, I stopped to catch my breath. After calming myself down with several big gulps of air, I walked up to our table where Amelie waited alone.

“What took you so long?” she asked. “Are you feeling okay? I sent Bethany to look for you, but she said you weren’t in the bathroom.”

“I …” I bit my lip. I didn’t want to lie to my aunt, but I didn’t want to tell her about chasing Dr. Girard across campus and being trapped in the History Department either. “I went to a different bathroom,” I said.

Amelie looked relieved. “As long as you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry for holding everyone up.”

She smiled. “It’s all right. But I hope you didn’t want dessert because everyone else is waiting out by the van.”

I didn’t tell Amelie that I wanted to go to the bathroom first because now I really did need to use it.

When we got home, Bethany went straight to our room and packed up her paints, charcoals, and brushes for the weekend art class she promised to take with Bergita.

I sat on the edge of my bed and watched her.

“I don’t need an audience,” she muttered.

I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t Mom and Dad’s favorite, but I closed it again. How could I tell her that without revealing that I’d overheard her and Bergita talking yesterday?

Amelie poked her head in the room. “I’m so happy you’re taking this class, Bethany.”

“It’s just one class. If I don’t like it, I’m not going back.”

“Fair enough,” my aunt said.

Bethany and I both stared at her in surprise. We were used to being told that we had to participate in things and see them through to the end. We weren’t allowed to quit if we didn’t like something. Our parents had never given us a choice.

“So what are you up to this afternoon, Andi?” Amelie asked.

I shrugged. My thoughts were still jumbled from my near-escape from the History Department.

She smiled. “That’s okay. You don’t have to be up to anything. Sundays were made for being lazy.”

After Bethany left for her class, I wandered around
the house until I ended up in my aunt’s study—the one that had once been a dining room. She’d lined the walls with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Bookshelves were even installed above the two large picture windows.

In the middle of the room stood a huge dark wood desk and an old-fashioned wooden desk chair. Amelie’s laptop hummed in the middle of the desk. In the far corner, next to one of the windows, she’d placed a purple armchair and matching ottoman. A floor lamp with a black-fringed shade hovered over the back of the chair. Throughout the cozy room, I spotted little knick-knacks and trinkets from my aunt’s travels and adventures.

I curled up in the purple chair feeling an odd mix of guilt and apprehension. I knew I felt guilty because I hadn’t been completely honest with my aunt, and I was apprehensive about Dr. Girard’s phone conversation. What did it mean? Did he want to include Andora in his book? Who had he been talking to?

I left the study and found Amelie in the middle of the living room. Wearing a tank top and cotton yoga pants, she was twisted into a small ball. Her hands, pressed flat on her yoga mat, held her body in the air. Her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose. She opened one eye and spotted me watching her.

Slowly she lowered herself to the floor. “Do you want to try?”

I sat on the green plaid couch. “I could never do that.”

Amelie bent her body in half and held on to her feet. “Sure you could. It just takes practice.” She straightened.

“Do you know a person named Miranda?”

Amelie raised an eyebrow. “Miranda? No, I don’t think so. This isn’t another unknown relative, is it? Because one is plenty.”

“No, I just heard her name mentioned and wondered who she was.”

Amelie lifted her right leg behind her head. “Who’d you hear it from?”

“Dr. Girard.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “When was that?”

I played with the hem of my T-shirt. “After church when I said I was going to the bathroom, I didn’t really go. I followed Dr. Girard.”

Amelie dropped her body to the floor and sat up on her knees. “Spill it.”

When I looked at Amelie’s face, I knew this moment was important. I hesitated, torn between lying and coming clean. I opted for the truth.

Amelie went very still. “I know you’re a curious kid, but …”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I smoothed my T-shirt’s invisible creases.

“Why’d you follow him?”

“I don’t know exactly. He ran out of the cafeteria so quickly, I thought maybe he’d overheard Bergita talking about Andora and that’s what made him leave.”

Amelie’s eyebrows shot up again, and her brow wrinkled as if she were trying to come to some type of decision, like how many weeks she should ground me for lying. “Why would Dr. Girard care about Andora?”

I shrugged. It was the same question I’d asked myself
a dozen times while sitting in my aunt’s office. I didn’t know why; but at the same time, I knew I was right.

Amelie’s freckled brow smoothed. “Thank you for telling me the truth, but consider this a warning: I will not accept lying from either of you girls. And please, don’t go running after strange men you don’t know. Do you know how dangerous and stupid that is?”

I nodded solemnly.

She returned to her stretches. “What was the name of that woman Dr. Girard mentioned?”

“Miranda,” I said, feeling relieved that she wasn’t angry with me.

Amelie lowered her leg and rolled her eyes. “I know who Miranda is now.”

“You do?”

“Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve never met the woman.” She put her left leg behind her head.

“Who is she?”

“She’s Dr. Girard’s literary agent. He’s written a couple of books about Ohio history, and she helped him get them published. I have both of them in my study.” She flipped onto her stomach. “You can look at them, if you want. Actually, both of Dr. Girard’s books are well written, and he has some interesting theories on local history.” She rested her elbows on the floor.

I returned to the study and walked along the bookcases, tapping my fingers against the dusty spines. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much organization to the bookshelves. Russian authors rested next to Brazilian ones. Mathematicians stood close to philosophers. In my parents’ home office, each book subject was
divided and alphabetized within an inch of its life. Any time I’d taken a book from my parents’ collection up to my room, they’d known about it. I bet Amelie wouldn’t notice if I took a whole shelf of books from her library.

However, Amelie knew exactly where she’d left Dr. Girard’s books. They were on the bottom shelf of the third bookcase to the right of the door—right where she’d said they’d be.

I knelt in front of the shelf and plucked out the books to get a better look at their covers. The first book had a photograph of a brick farmhouse on it, and the title read, T
HE
M
IDDLE
C
LASS
P
IONEER OF
1800. Dr. Girard’s name was printed in big white letters at the bottom of the cover.

On the second cover, Dr. Girard’s name appeared in even bigger red letters above a picture of a woman wearing a red bandana on her head and leaning against a pile of black rubber tires. The book was called
Women in the Rubber Plants
. I read the dust jacket, which explained that it was a book about women working in the tire factories in Akron while the men fought during World War Two.

I was disappointed. I’d hoped to find a book like
Lost Children of Ohio
or
Family Scandals of the Great Depression
. Something that would tie Dr. Girard to my search for Andora. As much as I wanted Dr. Girard to have something to do with the Andora mystery, maybe I’d misjudged him. He could have been talking to Miranda about any local family. It didn’t have to be mine.

The doorbell rang.