Hello Loved Ones (21 page)

“Please stop talking about him,” she said. “It’s upsetting me.”

The sound of a siren wailing in the distance made them all look quickly at each other.

“You don’t want to be upset, you better hope that’s not what I think it is,” Richard said.

Lenny whipped his head around to get a good look behind them. “Nell! What did you get me into?” he said.

Nell turned and saw a Michigan State Police car approaching. The dumb luck! A Holland cop wouldn’t be so bad. One of her own. But a state cop!

“Pull over!” she cried. She’d surrender willingly. Lock me up! I masterminded the whole sordid affair. Even the inadvertent use of that word—
affair
—delivered a quick stab of pain, like touching a raw nerve.

Lenny cursed as he brought them to a stop. A squad car pulled up behind, flashers pulsing in the sun.

“What’s wrong?” Mandy asked.

“Nothing,” Nell said. “Just a misunderstanding.” Her heart was beating so loudly she was sure everyone could hear it. Lenny’s eyes flitted nervously in the rear view mirror. Richard’s thumb danced wildly on the back of the seat. They waited but the officer didn’t get out of his car. Nell looked again and saw him talking on his radio.

Richard sighed. “Kids, you may as well know. Trouble follows me. This situation here, it’s just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect.” He sucked his teeth. “But goddammit!” he cried, slamming his hand on the dashboard.

Finally they heard a door slam and the crunch of boots on gravel. The officer loomed large next to Lenny.

“Afternoon, son. I’ll need a driver’s license and registration, please.”

Lenny had neither, but he made a show of patting his shirt pocket and the pockets of his jeans.

Richard cleared his throat. “These here are my kids,” he said. “They’re taking me to see my mother.”

The officer leaned over and squinted at him. “Is that right?”

Nell knew she should say something, if only to shut Richard up. The truth! Tell him the truth!

“These three kids are yours?”

Nell squeezed Mandy’s hand. She’d be charged with kidnapping too!

“We’re headed to Kalamazoo. I let my son drive for a spell.”

“I’m legal,” Lenny said quickly.

“Well son, maybe you are. Maybe you’re not,” the officer said, rubbing his jaw. “But I’ll tell you what’s peculiar. I’ve got a report that this car is stolen. It belongs to the Reverend Phillip Voss.”

Nell had missed her moment to come clean. Now she’d be called uncooperative.

“You see...” Richard said. “Voss loaned it to my son. Lenny works for him.”

The officer turned his stare on Lenny. “He reported it stolen.”

“The pastor gets bad headaches,” Nell blurted. “From the heat.” She was in it now. Was this how criminals were made? With a series of missteps, split second lapses of judgment? When you see how hard it can be to do what’s right, is it with relief that you say
oh well, may as well go whole hog?

Richard said, “What she means is that he may have forgotten. Right honey?”

His eyes, wide and kind. His voice, soft, forgotten.
Honey.
Yes, just like that, sticky and sweet, pulling her toward uncertainty. She was nodding before she realized it.

But she caught herself. “The truth is,” she said. The
truth
. “I borrowed the car. I had to. My sister ran away and we’re going after her.”

The officer looked at her, unimpressed. He turned back to Richard. “You got an ID?”

Nell waved her hand at him. “It was me! I took the car!”

The officer ignored her.

Richard sighed and pulled a battered wallet from his back pocket. He rifled through it, then handed a license over.

“Sit tight,” the officer said. He ambled back to the squad car.

“Man!” Lenny exploded. “Should I take off?”

Richard laid a hand on his arm. “Cool it. Just keep it cool, cat.”

“Are we going to jail?” Mandy asked.

“One of us is,” Richard said.

Lenny sneaked Nell a look. All right, all
right
. So this wasn’t their dad’s fault. But then you
could
argue that everything was his fault. How dare he spread such lies about Pastor Voss! And with that cock-sure way he had that made her nearly believe him. She hated him! He started
whistling
, as if a run-in with the cops was such a lark. It didn’t make sense. And neither did this thought, sudden and unwelcome: this time with her dad, was it all she was going to get?

“I wonder what they’re doing in Bible School,” she said wistfully.

“Probably singing,” Mandy said. “You want to sing, Nell?”

Nell gave her a thin smile. “Maybe later, honey.”

The cop came crunching back. “All right. I think I understand the situation.”

“Of course!” Nell said, relieved. “It’s all just—”

The officer’s hand shot up, silencing her. “Step out of the car, Mr. Van Sloeten. I’m taking you in.”

Richard groaned. “What for?”

“Mr. Voss wants to press charges.”

“Listen, I’m just along for the ride here. You can’t pin this—”

“You can tell me all about it at the station. Come on. All of you.”

“Where are you taking us?” Nell asked. “Back to Holland?”
Hello Sergeant, no I’m not late for the orientation. Yes, these are handcuffs
.

They climbed into the squad car, unshackled, which was a relief. She was packed in tight between Lenny and her dad, with Mandy on her lap, but she was able to turn enough to see the pastor’s Galaxie 500 out of the corner of her eye. Already it had a lonely, abandoned look. Had she really been riding away with her father? She felt a pang, empty and needy, like hunger. He’d called them
his kids
. She couldn’t say why such simple words should come echoing back like a voice bouncing off a canyon. Or why she felt the urge to answer.
You were wrong about me.

“What about...?” She stopped, her finger floating uselessly in the air. Never mind the car. It shimmered in the heat, a shrinking speck on the horizon. It hurt her neck to watch it disappear. She turned to the highway stretching ahead, a silver rope pulling her back. Back again. To the only truth that mattered: she wasn’t going anywhere. Forget the new job, the joyous reunion, heroic rescue, or redeeming love. She’d let herself get carried away. Too late she felt the thrill of it. Too late common sense returned. This is your place, it said. Stop hoping for more.

Prudy

There was a reason Prudy didn’t go rushing off half-cocked to the church to look for Sally. Only what was it? Shouldn’t she be running, shouting, searching,
moving
? Stay by the phone. That’s what Phillip told her. Like in the movies. But that was for kidnappings. Waiting on a ransom call. This was different. This was just a stupid teenage stunt.

Sally was making her point all right. And when she came home Prudy would make hers. I run this family, she would say.
Not
you.

Prudy dialed Sally’s best friend Frannie, rehearsing her words in case Mrs. Valkema answered.
By any chance have you seen Sally?
she’d say, apologetic. (Prudy doesn’t know where her daughter is? Doesn’t she keep an eye on her?) But there was no answer. Next she called the Texaco station, but that phone rang unanswered too. She thought about calling Flookie.
You won’t believe what Sally’s done!
And she ought to call Cash’s parents, but that would be awkward, considering what Lenny did to Cash’s nose. She’d never met the DeVries, and she didn’t feel like having to apologize for her son when she was worrying about her daughter.

Face it, it would be embarrassing, having people know. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t marching out the door. If Sally was at Bible School, Prudy didn’t want to look like one of those overbearing mothers by showing up hysterical. She didn’t want to be square. When Sally came home, right as rain, people would guess the truth: Prudy didn’t know what she was doing.

Oh, what was
wrong
with her? Why care what anyone thought? Her daughter was gone! She grabbed the phone and called the police. The officer listened to her like he’d heard this story too many times. Teenager? Last seen with a boy? Ho-hum. She tried to say all the right things to convey that this was The Real Deal. But was it? It didn’t matter. The report was made. Except that she wasn’t able to tell the officer what Sally was wearing. Asleep on the job. That’s what she’d been. Asleep for years. When she hung up and went to Sally’s room, the things she saw only proved it. There was a purple skirt that Prudy had never seen lying in a heap on the floor. And on the dresser a bottle of nail polish. Since when did Sally paint her nails? And three Nancy Drew novels stacked beside the bed. Prudy had no idea whether Sally had read them or not.

Well,
someone
had to work! There was no one else around to support them! And now she’d be late.
Dammit Sally!
What if she was in an accident? Or buried in a cornfield? Or worse, what if she just vanished, and they had to live out their lives never knowing
where
she was?

She grabbed her purse. She’d go to work. When her morning break came she’d call the church and Mrs. Regneres would tell her Sally was making faces at the grade school kids when she was supposed to be singing the Lord’s praises. Or she would say
Sally? No, she’s not here and I was just saying to Mrs. Droost, aren’t we missing Sally’s cheerful smile?

Prudy threw her purse back down and squeezed her head in her hands. Phillip said everything would be okay, but what did he know? Was he prepared to speak at Sally’s funeral?

She went to the kitchen and grabbed a dishrag from the sink. She wiped the table roughly. This would all turn out to be nothing. Just a crush. Sally sneaking off to see Cash before Bible School. The fact that Lenny hated him probably made him more appealing to her. Or Cash might have nothing to do with anything. Maybe Sally left early to visit Lenny in his new room. To rub it in. That would be like her. Except Phillip would have found her and called by now.

Could Sally actually get herself to Kalamazoo and locate Richard? If she did, she’d learn that he never wrote that letter. She’d
know.
And then what else would she discover?

Prudy had to find her!

Sally

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly the greeting she was hoping for. As odd as the whole European cheek-kissing thing had been, Sally had found herself reliving it a few hundred times during the long sleepless night. So when Cash leaned over and shoved the passenger door open the next morning, without so much as a hello, she was surprised. His face had the doughy, squinty look of someone who’s just rolled out of bed.

“Hey,” she said, instantly somber. The care she’d taken with her hair and her clothes seemed silly. It was her dad she wanted to impress. Not Cash.

He grunted and stepped on the gas before her door was shut.

“Not a morning person, huh?”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” he said, and his voice was gravelly. She couldn’t say why, but it set something fluttering in her stomach.

“I knew you would be.” A lie, but he seemed to need an encouraging word. She didn’t want him changing his mind.

Cash cranked up his radio. Sally recognized The Doors. She wasn’t allowed to listen to this kind of music at home, but she heard it around. She didn’t know enough to talk about it, though, so she said nothing as they headed for the highway. Instead she fidgeted with her purse, unzipping it to check the contents one more time. There was her dad’s letter, of course. And her ten dollars. A stick of gum, and the wadded-up wrapper of a Dum-Dum sucker. A flier from the skating rink about a high school skate-a-thon she’d never get to go to. And, the thing she was most proud of, her library card, with her name typed in bold ink. An identity.

Maybe she should have left a note. Soon her mother would realize she was gone and what would she do? Yell? Cry? Sally had never done something so drastic. She didn’t know what would happen. Anyway, wasn’t this all her mother’s fault? Keeping a child from her father, well, it must be a breach of civil liberties or some such thing.

At the edge of town she turned and took a quick look back. She was really doing it! She was on her way to Kalamazoo. She wasn’t surprised—she’d never doubted her determination—just a little stunned that it was happening so fast. Without a hitch. Her only regret was that she’d waited so long.

But. What was she going to say to her dad?
I know you said no to the banquet, but won’t you reconsider? I came all this way to meet you! Aren’t you glad to see me?

His face would break into a reluctant smile. Of course he’d be glad! Who could resist such a gesture?