Janie Face to Face Page 11

  But in fact, TV was a large portion of Reeve’s life, and it was how he earned his salary. He had to see those games.

  He had the oddest sensation that he did not really know Janie very well.

  Maybe she didn’t know him very well either.

  Maybe all brides and grooms realized at the last second that in some ways they were strangers.

  Maybe all other brides and grooms postponed the wedding till they knew each other better.

  Reeve considered the forty-eight hours he had just spent with the girl he loved.

  No.

  He was not postponing the wedding.

  He said to his boss, “We want to get married on July eighth. Any chance I could switch my vacation to that week?”

  Bick’s face changed. In a different voice, he said, “Better come into my office, Reeve, and we’ll talk.”

  They’re firing me, thought Reeve.

  On the upside, I won’t have to tell Janie that my boss has copies of the janie tapes.

  Brendan hardly ever paid close attention to anything these days, but he was struck by the researcher’s nervousness. What was wrong with letting Brendan read some of the book? The man pivoted his laptop so Brendan could see the screen, but he kept a grip on it. Did he think Brendan planned to snatch the laptop and throw it down a crevasse in a glacier?

  Brendan used a thick stupid voice. “I don’t read a lot. This’ll take me a while.”

  The researcher seemed reassured.

  Brendan pulled the laptop away from the man and began to read.

  He had expected a sort of newspaper article. At eleven a.m. that day, etc. But instead he found a long, terrifying narrative about a mother and father who were sadists.

  It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Janie.

  He was swept into the story. By the fourth page, he hated this mother and father.

  The top of the fifth page began, Frank and Miranda Javensen bear full responsibility for damaging their little Hannah so severely that …

  The sadists were Frank and Miranda?

  But Janie loved them! And they loved her! And Jodie and his own twin, Brian, had spent tons of time in Connecticut visiting, and they loved Frank and Miranda! Even Stephen liked them, and Stephen had a pretty short list of people he liked. His own mom and dad thought highly of the way Frank and Miranda dealt with Janie.

  Brendan read on.… Hannah was forced to flee to the safety of a religious order.

  Religious order? Come on. She joined a sick, twisted cult whose leaders lived off the income their girls made being prostitutes. It wasn’t a convent. It was the opposite of a convent!

  Who could Calvin Vinesett be interviewing? Brendan didn’t want to read any more. He closed the document.

  Waiting behind it on the screen was the open application: a folder with the name The Happy Kidnap.

  That was the book title?

  The Happy Kidnap?

  A book that proclaimed Janie had enjoyed her kidnapping? That Janie was happier with some other family?

  It was a little bit true, a little bit of the time, thought Brendan, and it kills my parents. A book called The Happy Kidnap will destroy my mother and father.

  For quite a while now, Brendan Spring had regarded his parents as losers: people who settled for suburbia and weight gain and pointless trips to a meaningless church. Jodie was a loser too—a cheerleader without a sport, running off to Haiti so she could cheer away poverty. Stephen was a loser—the silent engineer type, thrilled by geology textbooks and a girl not good enough at sports to play any, so instead she biked around Boulder wearing expensive pseudo-sports gear. Brian was definitely a loser, holding out his brains on a platter to the admiring professors.

  Brendan saw his parents now as brave soldiers in a war they hadn’t wanted, standing guard over the four children left to them after Hannah Javensen seized Jennie.

  The book would be yet another enemy, piercing their armor.

  Because it wasn’t a book portraying an evil Hannah who must be captured. It was a book jeering at the families who had suffered. He couldn’t begin to imagine how the book would portray Janie herself.

  He had vaguely thought his mother could be behind it, in her zeal to have the kidnapper brought to justice. But his mother would never say things like that. She would certainly never cooperate with a book with that title.

  Where was Calvin Vinesett getting his information?

  Maybe it was not information. Maybe it was all made up. Calvin Vinesett might be writing stuff that would sell, instead of the actual sad truth.

  Because the sad truth was, Frank and Miranda had done their best, but Hannah had not.

  Like me, thought Brendan, shocked.

  THE SEVENTH PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE

  A year after all that publicity when the Jennie/Janie recognized her face on the milk carton, a made-for-TV movie was advertised. Hannah was thrilled. She was supposed to work that night, but seeing a television movie about herself was way more important.

  She had lunch at the soup kitchen that day and took three desserts, even though that was not allowed and they glared at her, but who cared about them, anyway? This was supposed to be a charity. They were supposed to be nice about things.

  She wrapped the little squares of cake in paper napkins and took them home so she would have a special snack for the movie.

  She had popcorn, too. She was so excited. How would they portray her? Who would play her role? Some famous beautiful willowy blonde?

  The movie began in a high school cafeteria with a pretty little red-haired teenager about to recognize her picture on that milk carton. Okay, Hannah understood. She would appear in flashbacks. The teenage girl would remember that beautiful golden woman with whom she had had ice cream and a ride.

  But in the movie, the teenage girl did not remember!

  What the teenage girl remembered was her first family! That lineup of red-haired Spring people. The girl in the movie even remembered the dog! But she did not remember Hannah.

  The movie was about the girl’s agony when she found out that the parents she loved were not her parents.

  And the movie was about Frank and Miranda! The movie felt sorry for Frank and Miranda. The movie dealt lovingly with the Spring family. The movie did not even name Hannah!

  The next day, when Hannah showed up at her job, they said she had let them down. They had needed her last night and she had not even bothered to phone. She was always letting them down, they claimed, and they were letting her go. “Here’s what we owe you,” they said, handing her a skimpy little bit of money.

  A few months after that, Hannah Javensen was featured on America’s Most Wanted. The point of that TV show was for somebody out there to recognize the criminal. It still puzzled Hannah that anybody could think of her as a criminal. But they loved that word, and she had to prepare herself for their ugliness.

  The good thing was, the show would be entirely about Hannah and could not feature the Jennie/Janie or Frank and Miranda.

  Hannah didn’t stock up on snacks this time. She wrapped herself in a blanket because her hands were icy. The first minute was very good. The reenactment had been filmed in the actual New Jersey mall. She recognized it.

  But the woman playing Hannah was plain and whiny. In this version, the woman walked around the mall, eyes roving, looking for a victim. In this version, the woman snickered to herself when she spotted a cute little girl. The woman cooed and fussed over the little girl, which had not happened! They were making all this up!

  They did get the ice cream right.

  They had even located the actual clerks, who were fatter and dumber-looking after almost seventeen years. And the clerks said, “We mainly noticed the little girl. She was just adorable, with all those auburn ringlets.”

  Well, sure, when you had some dull stupid woman playing Hannah.

  Frank and Miranda had not given interviews. The Jennie/Janie had not given interviews. Even the red rabbit people had not g
iven interviews! The TV people were obviously annoyed. So was Hannah. She would have liked to see them, and hear their lies and fabrications as they blamed everything on her.

  At the end of the show, Hannah’s last known photograph was “aged.” “Have you seen this woman?” the announcer demanded sternly.

  They had gotten it so wrong! She was not plain and thick and gray. Well, maybe a little gray. And missing a tooth, because how could she afford a dentist?

  Hannah looked in the bathroom mirror, which she generally avoided. I’m not pretty anymore, she thought. I’m not anything anymore.

  She tried to comfort herself with the childhood daydreams. When she could have been a ballet dancer or a high-fashion model, a poet or an ice skater. When she could have written a novel or captained a yacht.

  But she wasn’t even going to be a waitress in a good restaurant.

  She was going to bus tables in a scummy little diner.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the plane, Janie worked on her to-do list.

  Had anybody ever packed so much into a three-day weekend? Tonight, Sunday, she’d be in New Jersey. Tomorrow, Monday, she’d go up to Connecticut, tell those parents, and hurry back to the city for her last final on Tuesday.

  She had not studied over the weekend. When the plane landed in Charlotte, she clung to Reeve for a few minutes, and then, as always, the two of them started laughing. For years, that had been the pattern. Janie would tell him the latest (upsetting) news of her history and her families. He would listen. He would lighten her load with a smile. They would kiss. It would recede.

  But now her past really would be history.

  She would live in a city about which she knew absolutely nothing except that Reeve was there. All difficulty would stay in Connecticut or New Jersey. What a lovely thought.

  #2, she wrote. Tell Sarah-Charlotte.

  Even in elementary school, they had had such fun planning their weddings, in which they would be each other’s maid of honor. Janie could hardly wait to tell Sarah-Charlotte that it was coming true. She was going to go walk down an aisle and say “I do” to Reeve Shields. Was there time to order bridesmaids’ dresses? Or did Sarah-Charlotte have to bring her own?

  She knew what Sarah-Charlotte would think about getting married at twenty. Sarah-Charlotte was always pushing Janie to have ambition. “You could be a brilliant lawyer or a fine doctor or change the world in some significant way,” Sarah-Charlotte would argue. “You shouldn’t plan for some guy to have a life while you tag along.”

  “I’ll have a life,” Janie would defend herself. “But I don’t want to be an attorney or a doctor. If I have a career, I want it second, not first. I want a family. One that isn’t broken and kidnapped and hurting. Where nobody is angry or separated or feuding.”

  “There aren’t families like that,” Sarah-Charlotte would say.

  “I’ll make one. And that’s how I’ll change the world.”

  She knew that Sarah-Charlotte would be disappointed by Janie’s choice to marry young. Sarah-Charlotte would feel that Janie was throwing away something important, while Janie felt she was taking on something important.

  Janie visualized the inside of a church and the bridesmaids lined up. Eve! Her roommate and best friend at college. Eve had to be in the wedding!

  She thought of more details and wrote

  #3 bridesmaid gowns

  #4 money

  Somebody has to pay for this. Of course, I have my inheritance from my grandmother, but it was meant for college. I don’t know what else I can use it for exactly.

  She had never asked her real parents for money. She felt timid about asking now. Weddings cost a lot, even last-minute, thrown-together weddings.

  A shivery panic rolled over her.

  More important than money was how her parents would feel about Reeve. What if they said, “Reeve? The creep on the radio?”

  She wanted her brothers and sister to be happy for her too. But she had made a lot of mistakes with her real family. She had not been a rewarding sister or daughter.

  If I want my Spring family to love me, she thought, I have to put them first. It doesn’t matter what Sarah-Charlotte and I planned all those years.

  The maid of honor has to be my sister, Jodie.

  “Siddown,” said Reeve’s boss.

  Reeve sat.

  Bick leaned back in his chair, which he never did. He was all forward motion, a living projectile, hurling himself into the next project.

  Reeve waited.

  “ESPN headquarters is in Bristol, Connecticut, Reeve. You’re both from that area. With you getting married now, I was thinking. Would that be better for her? You know—given her situation? Stay near her family? You want me to look into a transfer for you?”

  To work at ESPN headquarters. It was a staggering thought. He had not even dreamed of that, because working here was such fun he couldn’t imagine anything better.

  But the moment Bick spoke, Reeve knew Janie was partly marrying him because he wasn’t in Connecticut. She could distance herself from both sets of parents and from all confrontations and sorrows of the last few years. Distance was what he had to offer.

  “Sir, that’s a great offer. But I love it here. And Janie—maybe a thousand miles is a good thing.”

  “It’s a thousand miles?” said his boss.

  “It’s seven hundred. Janie calls it a thousand.”

  “I guess we won’t hire her to handle stats. Congratulations, Reeve. I’m happy for you. I’ll fix the vacation.”

  Reeve made it to his cubicle.

  He looked at his watch.

  Janie should have landed.

  He tried to catch his breath. Maybe I shouldn’t turn the Bristol offer down without talking to Janie first, he thought. If we’re partners in life, we should be partners in decisions.

  In his little cube, surrounded by all his stuff, amid a life led completely without Janie, he could not believe they had decided to get married.

  With shaky fingers, he called her.

  “Hi!” she said excitedly. “I’m off the plane. I’m looking for airport transportation. I’m so excited I don’t think I need a bus. I’ll just levitate home.”

  “Janie, did we really decide we’re going to do it?”

  “We really did. You panicking?”

  “I’m something. I don’t think it’s panic. I think I’m realitying.”

  “Oh, totally. Reality is always a shock. All our parents will scream, ‘You’re too young!’ ”

  He always felt better when Janie was talking. There was something buoyant and unstoppable about her voice. Some of his younger colleagues rested their elbows on the rim of his cube and grinned at him. He grinned back. “I’m in the office, Janie, so it’s hard to talk. But vacation is arranged, so I hope the church is free on July eighth.”

  “What church did you have in mind?” she asked.

  “That and most others are your decisions, Janie.”

  “Love when that happens. And I love you, too, Reeve. Practice saying Jennie.”

  “Jennie,” he said.

  They hung up.

  He had not told her about the janies. Or the Bristol offer.

  I’m like Frank, he thought. I’m planning to hide stuff from her.

  Jodie never left her cell phone on because she didn’t want to drain the battery, in case she had no way to charge it again. She went into the little chapel, open to the sky since the earthquake had destroyed the roof. In a terrible way, it was still beautiful. She stood in the shade of a remaining wall so there would be no glare on the screen. She wanted to study the phone’s calendar again and confirm that she had only ten days to go.

  She had messages waiting. There was even one from Janie. Janie preferred to text, because it was somewhat removed, a perfect way for a somewhat sister to stay somewhat in touch.

  Jodie read that first.

  Dear Jodie, Reeve asked me to marry him. Now. We will live in Charlotte. Wedding July 8. Jodie, will you
be my maid of honor? Please? Will you be home in time to come shop for the gown? We’ll be shopping in New Jersey. Love love love Janie

  Reeve? Jodie had thought that was over.

  Jodie had never forgiven Reeve for betraying Janie on the radio. Even though her faith emphasized forgiveness, Jodie found forgiveness an annoyance and hardly ever wanted to participate.

  Wow, thought Jodie. Now I have to forgive Reeve. He’s going to be my brother-in-law.

  She found herself holding her hands up to the sun and dancing. A wedding! Her little sister in love! And Jodie would be the maid of honor.

  Jodie was extra pleased because she knew that Sarah-Charlotte expected to be maid of honor. Jodie would rather hang out with a litter box than Sarah-Charlotte.

  Shopping in New Jersey, Janie had written. It was code, the way everything involving Janie was code. It meant Janie was going with Mom—hers and Jodie’s mother—the real mother—to buy that gown. How thrilled Mom would be! Not just because of the fun of wedding gowns, but because she was the mother Janie had chosen.

  Janie was always going back and forth between her two families, apparently never realizing that every departure was a slap in her real mother’s face.

  Jodie admitted to herself, not for the first time, that she had fled the continental U.S. partly to distance herself from her ambivalence toward the kidnapette.

  Kathleen’s word. Jodie had not warmed to Stephen’s girlfriend. But Kathleen had a way of seeing to the center of things. That little syllable “ette” included the spoiled-brat part of Janie Johnson.

  Jodie took a break from the amazing text that Janie had sent and opened her other messages. Everybody wanted her to watch the attached video. The video was full of shadows and half faces as a cell phone swung its little eye over a crowd.

  There was Reeve—looking as young as ever; definitely not old enough to get married—and there was Janie—as beautiful as ever.

  Will you marry me?

  Jodie saw Janie stumbling out of the crowd, people parting to let her through, a guard beaming, Janie burying her face against Reeve. It was what every girl on earth wanted—to be loved so much that the man could not bear to part.