How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (24 page)

“Damage?” I echoed. “I'd think an embassy car would be specially reinforced.”

“It is,” he said, “but that's against assassin's bullets. It's not reinforced against
you.
”

Ouch!

But try as he might, no matter how hard he hit the gas, even harder than I'd hit it when I'd hit the side of the embassy, he couldn't get it out of the snowbank.

He climbed out of the car, ran his hand through his hair.

“There's probably snow and debris caught in the tailpipe,” he said. “There's probably so much…
shit
in there.”

I'd never heard him swear before!

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“We?”
he asked. “
You're
going to go find me a shovel and then
I'm
going to spend the rest of the day shoveling all the snow away. Hopefully, if I relieve the outward pressure, I'll be able to finally move the car, filled tailpipe or no filled tailpipe, and take it for repairs.”

“I always thought my learning to drive was a bad idea,” I said.

“Ha!” he laughed bitterly, surveying the work ahead of him. “Well, I guess you thought right.”

 

At dinner, I was so subdued, even Annette commented upon it.

Young children are supposed to be almost completely self-absorbed and yet, as with so many other things, she belied that stereotype.

“Why so blue, Miss Bell?” she asked, a worried frown furrowing her pretty little brow. “You have barely eaten anything. Usually, you eat like Captain!”

Nothing like having one's appetite compared to that of a very large dog to cheer a girl's spirits.

“Thanks for your concern,” I said. “I'm fine, really. I guess I just lost my appetite a bit after the incident with the, um, car.”

“Don't give it a second thought,” said Lars Aquavit, who had regained his cheerful equilibrium since that afternoon. “As soon as we get the car back from the shop, we can resume lessons.”

“You can't be serious,” I said.

“I couldn't be more serious,” he said. “I refuse to have you be my first failure as a driving instructor.”

I suppose it should have cheered me, that Lars Aquavit refused to give up on me after what I'd put him through, but it did not.

Pleading a slight headache—“Perhaps you injured yourself more than you thought!” Annette said, “Perhaps we should call the doctor!”—I assured them that I was otherwise fine and just needed an early night.

I had not put in much time on my writing lately. Now I pulled out the short stack of sheets, looked to see where I'd left off. It was at the point where I was about to tell Buster I was pregnant, after which he would show his true colors. I started to write the scene, got halfway through it before realizing my heart wasn't in it.

Somehow, now, those events felt very far away, as though they'd happened to someone else. In the past, when I'd sat down to write my story, the pain had been fresh all over again. And, in a way, that had been cleansing. But now there was a new pain that eclipsed the past.

All day long, since working with Annette on making the scrapbook, as I moved through my day, I'd pushed the memory of her words aside: that she wanted a new mother to fill up the vacant space in the family-album pictures of herself and her father, and that she hoped that new mother would be Bebe. As I put aside the book I no longer felt like working on, as I dressed for bed, I let the feelings of sadness and loss fill me; I no longer tried to fight it.

If I were Nancy Drew, I thought, placing my head on the pillow, I'd be a lot more resilient. Nancy never gave up. No matter what outlandish thing happened, she bounced back, as if she had springs in her. One time, after the ceiling literally fell on her head, and after sweeping up the debris, she'd been filled with good cheer once again. Well, that was no surprise, since she came from such good and sturdy stock. Her father, Carson Drew, was a hero, too, after all.

Maybe if my father had been more like Carson Drew, he'd never have left me with Aunt Bea in the first place. Maybe if my father had been more like Carson Drew, I'd have been more like Nancy. It seemed to me that there were times when a person should just give in to their feelings, let the tears flow. But I didn't feel resilient like Nancy Drew.

I tried to stop, tried to fall asleep, but it was no use. All I could remember was the dream I'd previously had, where first I was with Ambassador Rawlings and then my place was taken by Bebe Iversdottir as his bride.

I had to move, had to get out of the bed. But I didn't want to go downstairs. Even though it was the middle of the night now, I didn't want to run the risk that someone else in the house might wake and run into me in my present condition. Even Steinway was nowhere in sight to offer comfort.

Sliding into my slippers, I crossed to the chair in front of my writing desk, where I'd been sitting earlier. Positioning it so that it was under the trapdoor I hadn't used since the day Mrs. Fairly showed it to me, I climbed on top, pulled the door down and ascended the stairs. At least the air would feel fresh up there.

It was freezing!

But who really cared?

I could have gone back down and got a coat to warm me or at least a hat to protect my head from getting wet by the light snow that was falling, but it would have required more energy for self-preservation than I had at the moment.

As I looked out at the night sights of the city, unseeing, tears blurring my vision, I remembered how even while hanging on for dear life on a steep roof, Nancy took the time to balance against a chimney, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside: the picturesque panorama, the lazy river sparkling in the sunlight, the white daisies sprinkling their way across the green fields.

Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I was glad no one could see me. I could be as brash and intrepid as I was capable of being, I could be clearheaded enough to sit up here and, while miserable, count the stars in the sky or muse about what wonderful things might be going on in the tidy houses below me; it wasn't going to change a thing. I would still have my heart broken.

I couldn't even drive a car.

I heard the tread of slow steps on the pull-down stairs before I heard the voice.

Who was it? I wondered, rubbing at the tears in my eyes. Mrs. Fairly, wanting who knew what in the middle of the night? Annette, needing comfort after a nightmare?

“Miss Bell?”

Oh no! That familiar deep voice was the last voice I'd expected to hear!

And then he was there in the rectangle made by the open trapdoor. How handsome he looked to me. How just out of reach, no closer to me in spirit than the stars I'd been unable to care about a moment before.

“When I called earlier in the day,” he said, sounding breathless, as though he'd been running for hours, “Mrs. Fairly told me you'd been in an accident with the car.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “You can take the repairs out of my pay.” I stopped, thinking of all the damage I'd done. It was a lot of damage. “For however many weeks is necessary,” I added.

I'd probably never see another cent of pay.

“I don't care about the stupid car!” he said.

“You don't?” I was surprised.

“No,” he said. “I care about you.”

“You do?” Now I was really surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “I came rushing home because I was worried, took the first available flight, caught a cab from the airport, since, well, the car is in the shop.”

He smiled ruefully at that last statement.

“But didn't Mrs. Fairly tell you I was fine?” I asked.

“Of course she did,” he said. “But I was still worried. Mrs. Fairly always tells me that things are fine when I'm on the road, no matter what has happened. She has this bad habit of not wanting to concern me with things. Sometimes I think she thinks I'm incapable of doing my job properly, if I have too many things on my plate.”

Now it was my turn to smile ruefully. I had often had the same instinct about Mrs. Fairly's thought processes, only in relation to myself. Since coming to learn the truth of Annette's mother, I had concluded that the only reason Mrs. Fairly had kept it from me was that she believed if I knew it, I would be too distracted with sympathy for Annette to ever discipline her properly. Not that needing to discipline Annette was ever an issue.

“Well, sir,” I said, “now that you are here, you can see for yourself that things really are fine.”

“But they are not fine, Miss Bell!”

“How can you say that?”

“I come rushing home, I run up to your room in the middle of the night, naturally expecting to find you sleeping safely in your bed. Instead, I find your bed empty, the trapdoor to the roof gaping open. And, as I start to come up here, I hear you.”

He reached out then with one finger, gently traced the path of one dried tear down my cheek.

“You were crying,” he said softly, “weren't you?”

It seemed ridiculous to lie, when the evidence was right at his fingertips.

Dumbly, I nodded.

“And that last time,” he said gently, hand beneath my chin now, making me look at him, “after the party, when I came to visit you. You were crying that night, too, weren't you?”

Again I nodded.

“Why, Charlotte? Why were you so sad? Why are you so sad?”

The words came out of me in an unbidden rush.

“Because you are to be married!” I said. “And when you are married, it will change everything!”

“Yes—” he smiled in the dark, carefully drawing out the word as though it might contain more than one syllable “—I hope to be married one day, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. But how will that change everything?”

I could not let him see my real thoughts.

“Because Annette will be sent to boarding school!” I said, unable to stifle a sob from escaping me, not even thinking of him now but thinking of the real pain, the other pain, that being separated from Annette would cause me.

“I hadn't thought that far ahead,” he said. “I had only thought of the marriage. Of course, I would have to give the matter grave consideration, if that is what my bride wishes.”

“Of course that is what your bride wishes!”

“It is?”

He seemed surprised.

“Yes!” I said. I couldn't seem to help myself from making every statement I uttered an exclamation. I was exclaiming all over the place. And now my anger had replaced sadness. “Of course it is! I heard her say it with my own ears! You were there, too—
you
heard her say it!”

“Charlotte, if I may be so bold as to ask, just what in the world are you talking about?”

“Bebe Iversdottir,
your bride,
” I spat the words out, “wants to send Annette away!”

“What?” he said. “Bebe is not—”

But I no longer could hear him. The words were tumbling out of my mouth, as though my brain, my heart, were pushing them out into the air.

“The two of you are to be married and Annette will finally have the mother she has always wanted, but then you will send Annette away because that is what Bebe wants you to do and then I will never see Annette again!” I shouted. “And I will never see you again,” I added, almost in a whisper.

At last, I had stopped exclaiming.

He grabbed my hands, surprising me.

“You're freezing,” he said. “Come inside.”

“No,” I said obstinately.

“Then let me give you my jacket,” he said, moving to remove it.

“No,” I insisted. “Then you will be cold.”

“Then let me get you
a
jacket. Will you at least let me get you a jacket, Charlotte?”

I reverted to type. “I guess,” I allowed.

He descended the stairs. The night was so silent, so few cars left out now, I heard his every step downward, heard him open my wardrobe door. A moment later, he was back up again, a dark blue jacket draped over his arm.

“Funny,” he said, “I found this crumpled in the bottom of your closet.”

He held it up. I knew what it was, of course: his favorite blue blazer, the one I'd used to beat out the sparks around his bed. It was still scorched in spots.

“How do you think it got there?” he asked, an amused smile on his face. “And in such condition?”

He held it out for me and I slid my arms into the too-long sleeves. I was sure I looked ridiculous, but I had finally started to feel the cold and the jacket was at least some protection.

“I always knew I should have just let you burn,” I said, recovering some of my spirit. “If you're going to whine about the ruin of a measly jacket—”