Janie Face to Face (17 page)

“That’s impossible. I just saw him.”

“Either he hopped the next plane or the author has more than one researcher. Calvin Vinesett is really sinking money into this. Or the publisher is. So tell me. What’s the problem?”

“There’s just something off about the whole approach,” said his brother.

Brendan was aware of approaches in book writing? Stephen began laughing.

“I feel like Calvin Vinesett doesn’t care about the crime,” said Brendan. “Like he’s picked out some other crime. The crime of being a lousy parent. True crime books—well, I haven’t read any, actually. I’ve hardly read any books ever. But they have to be about the crime, don’t they?”

“I’ve never read a true crime book either,” said Stephen. “I can’t even watch police and attorney TV shows because we lived inside a crime for so many years. Crime rots you. A piece of me is rotten because of Hannah Javensen. I’m always fighting the rot. I’m always afraid it will spread.”

Brendan would have said that his older brother had few emotions. He would have said Stephen was a sort of human tire iron; that Stephen could race right up to any kidnapper, shoot her dead, walk away, and party. “I bet Kathleen wants you to get all emotional and say stuff like that to
her
,” Brendan told his brother. “I bet you don’t, either.”

“I’ve never said it to anybody. Even myself. Quote me and die,” said Stephen.

They laughed. Brendan thought that maybe going home
this summer wouldn’t be so awful after all. Of course, Stephen wouldn’t go home. He’d moved his life west. People who wanted to see Stephen had to go to Colorado.

Stephen said, “You coming to the wedding?”

“Wedding?”

“You read your email, Bren?”

“Now and then.”

“July eighth. Janie and Reeve. Our church. Our house. Go to Reeve’s Facebook page and check it out.”

“I’ll look later. I gotta tell you something first. Why I called. The title of the book Calvin Vinesett is writing? It’s
The Happy Kidnap
.”

Reeve watched as responses to the video popped up on his Facebook page.

—Yeah, dude, like you’d compromise working at ESPN (whoever thought you’d be the one to get that job!) by getting married!

—Marriage? Like I believe you want to start taking out the garbage and unloading the dishwasher. Next you’ll claim you’re going to graduate school!

—Come on, man, Reeve hasn’t proved to my satisfaction that he ever graduated college to start with!

—I’ll believe it when I get the engraved invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Johnson
.

—Reeve. A, You’re too young. B, You’re immature
.

—But she IS the prettiest girl on earth. Congrats. Or is this April Fool’s?

—Love what your high school friends are writing. And just as a sidebar, maybe this’ll bring the kidnapper out! Maybe she’ll want to come to the wedding and drink a toast to you. And you’ll toast her back! After all, you wouldn’t know Janie if it wasn’t for the kidnapper
.

• • •

Jodie need not have worried about what to say on the phone to her sister. Janie talked enough for a dozen girls. “… and we’ll get married in your church. My church. It’s the only church I’ve ever been to. Mom’s made an appointment for me with Father John. Mom says you can’t put a formal wedding together in seven weeks. But at least the gown will be formal. And can you get here soon, Jodie? Mom says there’s a really wonderful bridal mall. When exactly are you getting home? What color do you want for your dress? You choose.”

“You’re not asking Sarah-Charlotte?”

“Yes, but she’s a bridesmaid, and probably also Reeve’s sisters, Lizzie and Megan, and his sister-in-law, Lindsay, but maybe they’ll have to buy their own dresses separately, just in whatever color you pick. We’ll invite everybody we can think of to the reception, because Mom and Dad say that in a backyard we can be pretty basic. Chips and salads, and Dad will grill hamburgers and hot dogs. You should see Dad. He just can’t stop grinning. He actually picked me up and whirled me around in the air. ‘Father of the bride!’ he kept shouting. And laughing.”

Their father was a bear of a man—big, broad, wide, sometimes with a great bushy red beard and sometimes clean-shaven. His voice was the same size as his body—even his whispers were shouts. Jodie couldn’t wait to get a bear hug from Dad. She knew just what it was like to be lifted up and swung in a circle.

“And you know what else?” said Janie. “Dad said that Frank can be father of the bride too. He thinks we can have Frank
in his wheelchair, and we’ll rent him a tuxedo, and Dad can have me on one arm, and push Frank in the wheelchair with his free hand, and both my fathers will walk me down the aisle.”

Oh, her father was truly the best man, figuring out how to have the other father in their shared daughter’s wedding.

“Because I have the best parents in the world,” said Janie. “We do, I mean. You and me. Okay, so it took me a few years. But I’m proud to be Jennie Spring. Even if I’m worried about Miranda.”

“You’ll be in some beautiful white gown and everybody will be weeping and Miranda will be so happy for you, Janie. So you were at Reeve’s for the whole weekend? What’s Charlotte like?”

“Charlotte?” repeated Janie. “You mean the town? I think it had trees or something. Buildings. I’m sure I saw buildings. But who knows? I was looking at Reeve.”

“What about college? You dropping out?”

“I’ll register somewhere in Charlotte. Reeve says it has colleges.”

They laughed hysterically.

Jodie said, “Remember how intent we were on getting into the exact right college? And we worried about our essays and our SAT scores and we visited campuses and wanted the exact right place for our personalities?”

“Exactly. And now, I’m like, whatever. They have courses? You get a degree? I’m there.”

“I would have been horrified a year ago,” said Jodie. “But Haiti brought me to my senses. Wherever you go will be fine.”

“Probably, but I want to talk about dresses.”

“Reeve must not think dresses are important or he wouldn’t be scheduling your wedding in a minute and a half.”

“He wants
me
, Jodie. He wants me in his life, and he wants me now. I can look forever and I won’t find another guy who wants me to marry him right now, this minute, because he can’t stand living without me.”

Jodie had so much thinking to do after Haiti. What was sorrow in America compared to the suffering she had seen? And even living in Haiti, she only
saw
the suffering. She herself did not suffer. An American volunteer could always get on the next plane and go home.

Through Haiti, Jodie had caught a glimpse of eternity, and she did not want to lose her memory of it. When she got back to America, she would need to live alone for a while. Not at home. Not sharing a dorm room. Not sharing an apartment. Certainly not sharing a life. She would run from any guy who wanted her to marry this minute. If he couldn’t hang on for a few years, who needed him?

But a sister’s wedding, that was different. “I’m due to fly out in ten days,” said Jodie Spring, “but I haven’t saved the world here, and the new group of volunteers has arrived, and we’re short of beds. I’ll change my plane. Don’t go to the bridal mall without me.”

Kathleen had not worn high heels since forever. Mandy’s stunning yellow leather heels, with a frosting of yellow leather roses, were so high Kathleen could hardly stand
erect, let alone walk. But she conquered that in a minute and walked up to Stephen all slinky and sexy and grinned at him.

“Wow. Great shoes,” said Stephen. “You have the best ankles in America, you know.”

Kathleen was thrilled. Compliments from Stephen were rare. She might have to give up thick socks and Birkenstocks. “And the dress?”

“I like how it swirls.”

Kathleen had to start wearing dresses now? If only she knew Stephen’s sisters well enough to share this. Guess what! Every day I’m 1 percent closer to the girl Stephen really wants!

Stephen took her arm at the curb and held it. So romantic!

And then, to her amazement, a taxi stopped.

“I called one,” he said. “Because of the shoes. Girly girls never arrive all sweaty with blisters.” He opened the door for her, and she got in, taking care with the yards of fabric in the skirt.

“Don’t forget that I’m strong and silent, and you’re the talker, Kathleen. What are you going to tell him about yourself?”

“I’ll start with my own family. I’ll have to leave out what Dad does, since he’s with the FBI. I’ll have to leave out what Mom does, since she’s with the IRS. I think Dad could be a bus driver instead. I can see him taking the exact same route for thirty years, can’t you? And I think Mom might work a shift at McDonald’s. Yes. She adores french fries. It’s her calling. And she crochets a lot.”

“Sending you to this university is a great sacrifice,” said Stephen.

“Yes. They’re suffering, but they love me and the other nine children.”

Stephen stopped laughing. He said quietly, “Kath, this is the enemy. We can’t give this researcher anything. Not one word. And we absolutely have to get what he has on the possible Hannahs.” Stephen swallowed. “Because the title of the book this bestselling author has under contract is
The Happy Kidnap
.”

From the limousine depot, Janie’s father drove back to the house, while her mom was on her phone telling everybody she knew about the wedding, and Janie was on
her
phone telling everybody
she
knew.

When they were both in high school, Janie had coaxed Reeve to skip school and take her to New Jersey. She wanted to find the house occupied by the unknown family who had put that face on that milk carton. Not so long ago, but another world. No GPS in that old car of Reeve’s. No cell phones in their hands.

Janie could hardly believe they had existed without cell phones.

On that long-ago day, she and Reeve had stopped at a phone booth and used the phone book hanging inside it. Janie probably hadn’t even
seen
a phone booth since that day.

As she talked with her parents, Janie bought a wedding app for her iPhone. It took little browsing to see that every other bride in America planned to spend a lot more time getting ready than Janie did.

For Janie, formal wedding invitations were out. No time
to get them designed, printed, addressed, or mailed. Spiffy receptions were out because reception halls were booked a year or two in advance. Caterers ditto. Special-order gowns were out. She had to get hers off a rack.

She texted Sarah-Charlotte.
Looking for eloping app.

Reeve’s mother kept calling her son until she got through. It took hours and used up her patience. “Marrying Janie is a lovely idea, Reeve,” she said brusquely. “And that video is so romantic. But she is young, young, young and so are you. You cannot get married in seven weeks. Seven years would be a better choice. You have just gotten started in your career, which requires a major time commitment and will involve travel as you are given responsibility for events at distant campuses. She herself has two more years of college. You must wait until she has her degree and has lived on her own and matured considerably prior to setting a date.”

“Actually the date is Saturday, the eighth of July. Are you free, Mom? Did you check your calendar? We’ll have the ceremony at the Springs’ church, and then have a big party—a picnic, really—at their house.”

“Better would be to wait, save money, have a lovely fashionable wedding, go on a wonderful honeymoon, and—”

“Mrs. Spring is reserving a block of rooms at a motel near the church,” Reeve said.

“Donna and Jonathan Spring cannot be in favor of a marriage when Janie is so young and facing so many intense situations for which she is emotionally unprepared.”

“Actually,” said Reeve, “she’s going to call herself Jennie from now on. She’ll be Jennie Spring for the next month and a half and then she’ll be Jennie Shields. It’s a nice name, isn’t it? If I can just remember it. Todd said, since he’s best man, he’ll hold up a cue card so I use the right name when I say ‘I do.’ ”

“You’ve already talked to Todd?”

“I’ve already talked to everybody, Mom. Your line’s always busy. So did you check your calendar?”

“Reeve, you do not have the money to do this.”

“That’s true. But we’re doing it. And financial decisions will be made by Janie and me. I mean, Jennie. Listen, is Dad around? Can I talk to Dad?”

Kathleen shoved her place setting over and scooted her chair elbow to elbow with the researcher. “I’m so excited to meet you, even though you’re not the author. Do you have any of the book with you? Tell me about yourself. How did you get this job? Did Calvin Vinesett do hundreds of interviews and you were the best?”

She was having difficulty thinking of this weedy grad-student-looking person as an enemy.

Anyway, Calvin Vinesett would have chosen the title. What did Calvin Vinesett care if it hurt anybody? He didn’t even care enough about the Springs to do his own interviews. Probably he was accustomed to hurting the innocent people in his books and it was easier if he never met them.

“I’m taking writing classes,” the man said, “and some of us applied to be researchers when we found an online request. I was the lucky one.”

“I’m so thrilled for you! Think of the doors this will open! And you are brilliant to have turned up three possible Hannahs. I mean, how did you do that?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Well, public records in Boulder.”

“Like ownership of houses? Do these Hannahs own a house?”

The researcher tried to take control. “Let’s get to that later. Right now, let’s start with you, Stephen. I guess what I find most surprising is that you and your brothers and sister became close to the kidnap parents. Frank and Miranda Javensen. I understand you visited them a number of times.”

“Aren’t you going to take notes?” said Kathleen. “You don’t even have your laptop on the table. Stephen will want to be absolutely totally sure that he’s quoted properly. I mean, that’s not negotiable. Here, let’s get your laptop open and powered up.” Kathleen handed him his briefcase. “I can’t quite see the screen,” said Kathleen. She tilted his computer. “Oh, look! An interview with Miranda! I thought she
never
gave interviews. And you got one? I am so so impressed.” Kathleen reached over the researcher’s arm to open the file.