Janie Face to Face Page 12

  It occurred to Jodie that Reeve was not the only one who had betrayed Janie. The minute Nicole told her cousin Vic about Frank sending money to Hannah, it wasn’t a cold case anymore. It would be red hot.

  Nice betrayal of your own, Jodie congratulated herself. The FBI will interrogate Janie while she’s trying on wedding gowns. She might even be guilty of a crime for not telling them about the checks. It might be aiding and abetting a criminal. They might charge Janie with something!

  How clearly Donna Spring remembered that day five years ago when she had answered the kitchen phone in the old house. It was a rectangular plastic box fastened to the wall and it had a long curly cord you could twirl as you paced the room.

  The Springs didn’t even have landlines anymore.

  A girlish voice had said to Donna, “Hi. It’s … your daughter. Me. Jennie.”

  She remembered how cold and white the telephone had been. She remembered steadying herself on the kitchen counter, whispering, “Jennie?”

  In those days, they ate in the kitchen. She remembered how all the faces turned toward her. Her big broad bear of a husband gasped. Petite pixie Jodie’s mouth opened in a silent cry of excitement. Stephen frowned and looked skeptical. Brendan and Brian weren’t listening.

  If it happened today, she would have her iPhone, and the missing child would send a photograph of herself, and they would all know instantly that she was one of them. Donna would do the same, and Jennie would have proof that she had called the right number.

  Donna still remembered every digit of that old telephone number, the one they had kept year in and year out, hoping for such a call. Knowing in her heart that little Jennie had not had the phone number by memory when she was three, so it was pointless to hope that Jennie at age four or six or eight or fourteen would remember it.

  Little Jennie never really came home. Instead they had the difficult, sometimes delightful, infrequent presence of Janie Johnson.

  Janie had gotten closer to them during her freshman year in college, and Donna and Jonathan Spring had taken advantage of New Jersey’s excellent access to Manhattan, going into the city to visit Janie a number of times.

  The summer between her freshman and sophomore years at college, Janie spent most of each week with her real family. It had been friction-free. They attributed this in part to Janie and Jodie having bedrooms of their own. Neither girl shared well with anyone, but they really hated sharing with each other.

  Donna and Jonathan had been busy getting the twins ready for college. Brian was accepted at his long-shot choice. Brendan’s hopes were dashed. Last August, Brendan had been dark, silent, and stomping while Brian was light, laughing, and eager. They took Brian to Harvard first, and Brian hardly noticed when his parents drove away, his excitement was so great. They took Brendan to his school the following week, and Brendan couldn’t wait for his parents to leave either, his humiliation was so great.

  Stephen had not come home from Colorado at all last year, and Jodie had been busy planning for a mission year. The trip to Haiti had come through at the last minute, and there was a flurry of paperwork, purchases, and plans.

  Janie had been the quiet member of the family.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Donna said one day. “It’s crazy around here. I haven’t spent the time with you I wanted to.”

  “This is the best visit I’ve ever had. I feel as if I really know everybody, and I’m happy or sad for them. Proud and hopeful. I helped pack. I was at every send-off. I was just one of the crowd, instead of that annoying interloper.”

  “You were never an annoying interloper,” said Donna, although Janie had been that and worse.

  And that year, all five of Donna and Jonathan’s children were away from home. The Springs repainted rooms. They took carloads of stuff to Goodwill. They paid humongous tuition bills. Janie’s sophomore year began with a lot of family time, but visits dwindled as her college schedule swept her up. In the spring she began dating somebody, but they knew very little about him.

  Donna was afraid that Janie would marry somebody from some distant place. An Australian boy with a ranch in the outback, say. Janie would vanish just when Donna was starting to know her, and they would visit by Skype and say only pleasant things. Her father said to Janie, “Your mother and I want to meet this young man you’re seeing.”

  “His name is Michael,” said Janie.

  “How about we come into the city and have lunch together? Nothing demanding.”

  “Dad, Michael doesn’t know anything about me. It’s so peaceful and serene, to be with a person who doesn’t know anything. He thinks I’m just another pretty girl. I’m scared to have him meet you or Frank and Miranda, because he’ll want explanations. And then it won’t be the same. He’ll be interested in the kidnapping instead of me.”

  “You have to tell him sometime,” Jonathan pointed out.

  “I know, Dad, but sometime isn’t here yet.”

  “Can we meet under false pretenses?” asked Donna.

  They had passed a silly pizza dinner planning how to meet Michael without Michael knowing.

  Donna was thinking about all these things when her cell phone rang with its Janie code. They had had the children record their own voices and trill their names, instead of having ringtones, so Donna’s phone sang, “It’s Janie-Janie-Janie-Janie-Janie-Janie!”

  “Hello, darling. Did you have a nice weekend in Connecticut?”

  “Mom, I didn’t spend the whole weekend there after all. I just stayed for lunch on Friday. You won’t believe what happened. Michael followed me onto Metro-North. All of a sudden, he was just there—sitting down next to me. And you won’t believe who Michael turned out to be.”

  “A Hungarian prince?”

  “That would have been nice. No, he turned out to be a researcher for that true crime writer. Calvin Vinesett. Michael was hired to get information from me.”

  “Oh, sweetheart! How slimy!”

  “But it turned out perfectly, Mom! I flew down to Charlotte instead. Reeve bought me a ticket. I spent the weekend with him. And guess what! We’re getting married. He proposed! Look on Facebook. You can see the video. He proposed in the airport. The other people in the security line filmed me when I was saying yes.”

  Donna Spring was speechless.

  “So I’m back from Charlotte. My plane just landed at Kennedy, and I’m taking the airport bus out to New Jersey. Can you pick me up? We can start sorting out wedding details. It’s going to be July eighth with Father John, although I haven’t talked to him yet and I don’t even know if the church is free. And then tomorrow, Monday, I’ll scoot up to Connecticut and tell them.”

  Donna was reeling. “July eighth?” she said weakly. “This July eighth? You mean a year from now, don’t you?”

  “No. Seven weeks. I think we can pull it off, Mom. And on the plane, I made a decision.”

  Donna pulled herself together. I’m the mother, she reminded herself. Janie has to finish college. Reeve is a sweet boy, but they’re way too young. July 8! I can hardly do a load of laundry by July 8!

  “My decision is,” said her daughter, “that I will get married as Jennie Spring. Because that’s who I am. I want to say in church, before God and in the presence of my family, that I, Jennie Spring, take thee, Reeve.”

  Donna Spring wept. My daughter is home at last. She spoke over the lump in her throat. “I think we can pull it off too, darling. Let’s have the reception in our backyard, because it’s too late to book a hall now.”

  “Mom, I can pay for it. I have money from Miranda’s mother.”

  Donna’s tears were unstoppable. She was the mother. The Connecticut parent was “Miranda.” “We’ll pay for the first wedding in our family, Janie. You’ll save that money for college, because you are not to drop out. You are just going to enroll in a different school in Charlotte. Right?”

  “Sure,” said Janie. “When does Jodie get back? It’s in a couple of weeks, isn’t it? Do you think she’ll be bac
k in time to go wedding gown shopping with us, Mom?”

  Stephen had a minute of peace while Kathleen borrowed clothes. Tamped down? he thought. Walled up? Protecting painful spaces?

  You bet.

  He opened the door to his very small closet while he checked his messages. He took out a shapeless dark linen jacket he had probably never worn, because it didn’t have a single wrinkle. He had a vague feeling this had been a birthday present from some relative. He draped it on his shoulder and thought he looked quite metrosexual with it hanging there, implying that any moment he would transform into a model.

  From Haiti, Stephen received a text. Go to Reeve Shields’s Facebook page, Jodie had written.

  Reeve had the most impressive Facebook action of anybody Stephen knew. Not only did Reeve have more friends (actual and virtual) than Stephen by a hundred to one, but he was always putting some photo or sports information there, and his friends, riveted by his fabulous job (or at least, his fabulous employer), checked his page constantly.

  Reeve was a nice guy, but Stephen did not care what Reeve might post on Facebook.

  On the other hand, he didn’t hear from Jodie much, and a person who texted from Haiti was serious.

  He went to Facebook.

  And there before him were photographs and a video in which Reeve Shields asked Stephen’s little sister to marry him. Their embrace was something out of a movie.

  Was Reeve insane? He was twenty-three, with a world-class career ahead of him.

  And he wanted to fill up his life with a wife?

  They didn’t get more high-maintenance than Janie.

  Reeve wouldn’t just be getting a princess.

  He’d be getting a kidnap princess, which was the worst kind.

  Stephen sure didn’t want Kathleen seeing this. She wasn’t going to get movie-level romance out of Stephen. She wasn’t going to get a proposal, either.

  Stephen was watching the video for the third time when the ringtone on his cell announced his mother. She could only be calling about this video. He had a lot more thinking to do before he could talk about this development, but he could not let his mother down. He answered.

  All these years, Donna Spring had waited, praying that her baby girl would come home. Even after Janie came home, Stephen’s mother had to go on waiting and praying. And now Stephen heard her voice as it should always have been; the voice Hannah Javensen’s crime had destroyed. “Stephen! Did you see the video? You did? You won’t believe this! Janie’s back from Reeve’s, and she’s staying overnight here! And not only is she going to marry Reeve, she wants to do it here. In our church! With Father John! And Dad will walk her down the aisle. And Jodie will be maid of honor. On July eighth! This very July! On the eighth!”

  Stephen didn’t care about any of that. But he choked with joy for his mother.

  “You’ll make it, won’t you, Stephen?” she said anxiously. “You’ll be here? I know it’s short notice, but you’ll come? You have to come!”

  “I’ll be there,” he said, although the timing was terrible. But that had always been one of his sister’s most notable qualities: the ability to destroy everybody’s daily life.

  “Only seven weeks to put a whole wedding together!” she cried happily. “And I have a hundred people to call!”

  “I’ll let you get started,” said Stephen.

  His mother had stepped out of the years of pain, which he was unfair to blame on Janie, because the blame rested solely and squarely with Hannah Javensen.

  I will work with the researcher, he decided. Any chance to bring Hannah Javensen down is worth it. And if Kathleen or anybody else is giving material to the author, so what?

  I want that book to exist. I want to capture Hannah Javensen. She’s going to pay for how she hurt my mother.

  “Janie, you’re calling me before you called your parents?” shrieked Sarah-Charlotte.

  “Well, I told my New Jersey parents. Frank and Miranda don’t go online much. They don’t use Facebook. They’re not going to check Reeve’s site. They don’t live next door to Reeve’s parents anymore either. So my New Jersey parents are meeting me here at the airport bus drop. I’ll spend the night with them, and then Mom’s loaning me her car to go to Connecticut so I can tell Frank and Miranda in person.”

  “And you’ve really and truly set a date only seven weeks away? What’s the rush?”

  “Reeve doesn’t want to be apart.”

  “You could live together and have the wedding next year.”

  “I don’t want to,” said Janie. “I want to make those promises. For better or for worse. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. I want to be just like my real parents, and Reeve’s real parents, and my other parents.”

  This isn’t pretend, thought Sarah-Charlotte. We’re not seventh graders, lying on the floor cutting pictures out of brides’ magazines.

  “I want to say those vows in front of God and my family and I want to say them as the person I really am. No more pretending. I will really be Jennie Spring when I walk down the aisle and I will really be Jennie Shields when I walk back out.”

  “I don’t know if I can call you Jennie,” said Sarah-Charlotte. “Let me try it on for size. Jennie? Nope. Doesn’t work for me. Jennie is somebody else.”

  “You are absolutely right,” said Janie. “Jennie has always been somebody else. I never let Jennie come back. Today’s the day.”

  Seven weeks, thought Sarah-Charlotte. How on earth are we going to choose, order, and receive my maid of honor gown that fast? With me in Boston and the action in New Jersey?

  Janie’s voice changed, as if she were turning into Jennie Spring during this very conversation. “Sarah-Charlotte?” she said, in that asking voice; the one that comes before bad news. “You’re my best friend. No one will ever be as good a friend. But a wedding is a profound thing.”

  I’m not in the wedding, thought Sarah-Charlotte.

  It hurt so much she couldn’t breathe.

  “Now that I’m Jennie Spring,” said Janie, “I have to have my sister, Jodie, as my maid of honor.”

  This is what it is to grow up. In one minute, it all changes and you can’t use your childhood plans. “Of course,” said Sarah-Charlotte.

  “And you’ll be one of my bridesmaids? Please? Will you accept being a bridesmaid?”

  “Oh, Janie, you know there’s nothing I want more!”

  “And I just thought of it this second, but it’s also Reeve’s wedding! I totally forgot. He has two sisters and a sister-in-law. Maybe they have to be in the wedding.”

  The girls were giggling now.

  Sarah-Charlotte said, “Have you ever even met the sister-in-law?”

  “Yes. But I forgot her instantly. I’m sure she’s a fine person.”

  “Do you think she’s a fine person who’s going to be free in seven weeks? Perhaps she’s a fine person with a commitment. That’s what happens when you jam a whole wedding into a minute.”

  “Sarah-Charlotte, the bus is taking the exit. I can see my dad. He’s standing next to his car. He’s jumping up and down! He’s blowing me kisses! Oh, good! At least one person thinks my wedding is great.”

  “Then quick, we have to plan the bridal shower. I’m giving it. It’ll be in Connecticut. I’m already thinking of the theme and the colors.”

  “Everybody’s scattered all over the country,” said Janie doubtfully.

  “Planes? Come across one lately? Got a marriage proposal while waiting for one lately? Think your high school friends are bright enough to board one?”

  “But who would come to a shower? They have to fly to the wedding, which matters more.”

  “Everybody will come. People will drive all night or hock their ten-speeds for plane tickets. I’ll call Katrina and Adair and you’ll bring Jodie and your New Jersey mother and you’ll send me a list right now of your girlfriends at college. I only know about Eve and Rachel and Mikayla. What kind of stuff do you want for your shower? What does Reeve alrea
dy have?”

  “Reeve has some plastic forks from Chick-fil-A.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Sarah-Charlotte. “That means you get to design his whole life while he just stands there. Don’t ask him for an opinion because it would just be clutter. Are you thinking modern, classic, frilly, French, stainless steel, silver …?”

  “I haven’t thought yet.”

  “Come on, girl. You and I spent middle school listing stuff like this. We even chose your kids and their names. Remember Denim and Lace?”

  “Reeve wants to get me puppies and we’ll call them Denim and Lace.”

  “Straighten him out. You’ll be living in two rooms in a mountain of gift boxes and ribbons. You do not have room for puppies. Be firm. This is an important precedent.”

  Reeve’s sister Lizzie got through to him next.

  Reeve had no choice. He answered the phone.

  Lizzie was a piece of work. She was a lawyer for a corporation that did nothing in particular Reeve could figure out, but they sure had a lot of litigation. Lizzie loved it. She strode around in her stern, sober suits as if she were being filmed or else facing the Supreme Court. Lizzie said, “Reeve, what is this nonsense about getting married? You are too young.”

  Reeve never argued with Lizzie. “I am young,” he agreed. “So is Janie. But we’ve set the date. July eighth.”

  “That’s too soon,” said Lizzie. “That’s ridiculous! At least wait until she’s graduated from college. Give her two more years, Reeve.”

  “It is too soon,” he agreed. “But can you come? We want you there, Lizzie.”

  There was silence. Lizzie was never silent. Then there was an odd snuffling sound.

  “Lizzie? Are you crying?”

  “Oh, Reeve,” said his sister shakily. Lizzie was never shaky. “I want you to be happy, Reeve. But Janie Johnson? Reeve, Janie is high risk. Don’t do it.”

  THE EIGHTH PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE

  Fourteen years after that day in New Jersey, Hannah was working in a coffee shop. The owners of the Mug were all chummy and gushy. Everybody pretended to be friends. They never pretended to be friends with Hannah.