Missing Pieces Read online

  Bob Doolan raised his hand. “What’s unique?”

  “It’s singular, it’s distinctive. You’re not looking too happy with that, Mr. Doolan. Think of it this way, what’s unique is yours, it can’t be anybody else’s, like your famous Huh?”

  That was a signal for everybody to laugh and move around, yawn some more.

  “Okay, calm down,” Mr. Novak said. “Let’s get back to this now, it’s important. Your half-term mark is going to be based on this report. You have six weeks, plenty of time, so no excuses about the canary ate your computer. Remember, every family has a story and every story is different.”

  He was giving me the eye, as if he knew my family story. Fleeing father. Abandoned child. Heartbroken mother. Dramatic stuff. The Oprah show. Geraldo. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Novak, but I’m not writing about that stuff. Especially not about the human being who is or was my father. How much can you say about an absence, an emptiness, a vacant space?

  “Each family has a different makeup,” Mr. Novak was saying, “a different history. Remember that word unique?”

  I was fading out again. Wasn’t every moment in life unique? How did you know which unique moments made a unique family history? Suppose sitting here in this classroom was unique. Suppose seeing Aunt Zis depressed this morning was unique. Suppose James Wells’s deserting us was unique. Were they all equally unique?

  “Did you say something, Miss Wells?” Mr. Novak asked.

  I shook my head. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to repeat the last thing he’d said. Something about how the report could be written, verbal, visual … or whatever.

  I stuck my legs out into the aisle and wrote my mother’s name, mine, and my aunt’s in my notebook. Maribeth, Jessie, Elizabeth. Could I tell the unique story of how “Elizabeth” got to be “Aunt Zis”? How my baby brain figured out that she had appeared as a replacement for my father, and when my mother reminded me that she was my aunt, I said stubbornly, “No, Ma, sister,” only I pronounced it zister. I insisted on zister, my mother insisted on aunt. At some point, I said “Aunt Zister,” and my mother gave in. It was one of our favorite family stories.

  Great, but what did that have to do with history? Not much, dummy. Another D word.

  I’d been collecting them. D words were dominant in doom and gloom. Dismal, dreary, disappointing, discouraging, disheartening, dispiriting, depressing. Had enough? Discard, disappear, destroy, destruction, dead, death, disease, decay … Welcome to the D zone.

  I was still thinking about the assignment when I was setting the table that night. Aaron was coming to dinner and I was using my favorite dishes, which were cream colored, with a design of tiny blue flowers. What I especially liked was how they were crisscrossed with spidery lines of age, as if they had been with us forever. Faithful dishes. I could write about them. My great-great-great-grandmother was given these dishes on her wedding day in faraway Hungary. She was seventeen years old. When her seventeen-year-old daughter married, my great-great-great-grandmother passed them on to her. And when her daughter married, after World War I, she brought them with her to this country.

  It sounded like a unique concept to me—history through plates and cups. There was just one problem—my mother and I had bought the dishes at a garage sale. I went into the kitchen for napkins. The front door slammed. “I’m home,” my mother yelled. She came in and dropped her packages on the counter. “Hi, sweetie. What’s up? Where’s Zis?”

  “She’s still in bed. Ma, she’s so upset about that gas bill—”

  “I know.” My mother sat down. “I wish I’d caught it before it was shoved in her face.” She rubbed her calves. “My legs are like spaghetti. Brenda had me chasing up and down to the attic all afternoon with boxes of files.”

  “She should pay you more. You work so hard for her.”

  “One of these days.” She put an unlit cigarette in her mouth. She had that sunken look around her eyes that meant, Help, I need my nicotine fix.

  “Don’t smoke in the house,” I said.

  “I never smoke in the house.”

  “You do too.”

  “Only in my room, with the windows open.”

  “When are you going to quit?”

  “Not today! I have enough stress. Look, my pockets are empty! I cleaned us out paying the gas bill.” She pulled out the pockets of her jeans, in one of her dramatic gestures, and paper clips and coins rained over the floor.

  “I thought you got paid from the stable the other day.”

  “It all went on the car,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Well, did Brenda pay you?”

  “She will, she’s having some problems of her own right now. Her son—”

  “Ma! You’re not a charity bureau. Does she owe you a lot? I’m going to call her and tell her to pay you.”

  “Jessie, don’t you do that.”

  “I’ll ask Aaron for money when he comes.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She started putting food away. “Find out if Aunt Zis is coming down for dinner. And call Aaron, see if he’s on his way.”

  “How did you decide on your life work, Aaron?” I said later, at dinner. He’s a real estate broker and works for himself in a little office that looks like a dustbin.

  He tapped his breast pocket, where he kept his pipe. “My life work?”

  Hearing the pompous little phrase repeated, I winced. “I meant, how did you get going in real estate?” I’m always fascinated by how people decide to do whatever it is they do. Why do they make this choice and not that? How do they know if it’s right or wrong? Did my father think about it before he walked out that morning, or did he just go?

  “… wasn’t something I actually chose,” Aaron mumbled.

  When Aaron speaks, he hardly moves his lips. It’s kind of distracting. At least I’m not distracted by his appearance anymore. Now I think he just looks sort of comfortable, like a big easy chair.

  “… dreams of being an architect,” he was saying. “I wanted to design buildings and—God bless,” he interrupted himself to say to Aunt Zis, who’d just sneezed. Then he mumbled something else that sounded like “wanted to leave my park on the furled.”

  “Mark on the world,” my mother translated.

  “What Aaron really means—,” Aunt Zis said, and we all turned to look at her. She hadn’t said a word all through the meal. “—is that when he dies, he wants a big, fat obituary in the newspaper.”

  My mother and I looked at each other and laughed. Aunt Zis sounded like herself again.

  I sat on the window seat with the phone book in my lap, opened to the Ws, actually to the Wellses. It was snowing again. Outside, it was dark and light: dark night, dark houses, white snow, light-filled windows. I started counting the J Wellses.

  J. Wells, Jacob Wells, three Jameses, Jayne, one Joby, one Jody, a bunch of Johns, and one Jules. Thirteen people with the initials JW. What if one of them was related to James Wells? But why stop there? There were another hundred and fifty Wellses. Maybe one of them was related to James Wells and even knew something about him. Such as, where he was. Which meant I could know, too.

  In the dark window my reflection seemed to float in the falling snow. I could know, too. I was stunned by this idea, and even more stunned that I’d never thought of it before.

  SIX

  My Little Secret

  I like to memorize things. I like studying maps. Things like that don’t make a difference in your life that you can feel or eat or see, but I think it helps you have an idea about the world. Helps me, anyway. I like knowing England is an island and Italy is shaped like a boot. It’s knowledge, something else that’s your own, even if it doesn’t have a practical use. That weekend, I memorized the phone numbers of all the J. Wellses. That wasn’t practical, either.

  I wasn’t planning on doing anything with the phone numbers, but Monday after I came home from school, I sat down on the window seat in the hall and dialed the first number on the list. Our house was quiet. A
unt Zis was out for a walk, and Ma wouldn’t be home from work at the diner until late.

  J. Wells’s phone rang ten times, and then I hung up. Jacob Wells was next, but as I was starting to dial, I thought, Why don’t I just begin at the beginning?

  A. R. Wells didn’t answer, either. Nor did A. W. Wells. I wrote DA in tiny letters next to their names and dialed Andrew Wells. The phone was picked up right away. “Byrnes Vacuum Service. What can I do for ya?”

  “Is Andrew Wells there?”

  “This is Byrnes Vacuum Service.”

  “Is this 555–3421?”

  “Yes. What can I do for ya?”

  “Is Andrew Wells there?”

  “Hey, what is this, a prank call?” Bang. I was cut off.

  After that, it was Mrs. Burl Wells, who answered on the second ring with a cheerful “Hel-lo!”

  “Mrs. Wells, my name is Jessie Wells.” My knee began aching. “You don’t know me, but I wanted to ask—that is, I was hoping you could help me. That is, either you or Mr. Wells. That is—,” I heard myself saying for the third time, and I stopped and took a breath. “Mrs. Wells, I’m trying to find out if Mr. Wells could be related to my, um, to James Wells.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure he’s not, and I’ll tell you why. There is no Mr. Wells.”

  “He’s gone?” I blurted.

  “There is no he to be gone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s my little secret, but I’ll share it. I am Mr. Burl Wells and Mrs. Burl Wells. I think a lady living alone is safer if people believe she’s not living alone. You understand? My name is Beryl, so Burl is very close, you see.”

  “Do you think James Wells is related to you?”

  “Oh, no, Wells isn’t my given name. That was so hard to pronounce, I shortened it years ago. I can hardly even remember it myself anymore,” she said happily.

  Next I got C. J. Wells’s son, who said he knew for a fact they had no relatives named James. Casper Wells was an old man with a hearing problem. When he finally understood what I wanted, he said, “Barking up the wrong tree,” and hung up. Corrine Wells answered on the second ring. “What?” she kept saying in a soft Southern accent. “Is this a joke, honey? Is this a new way to raise money? You just tell me if it is.”

  “No, really, I’m trying to find out about my father.”

  “Well, I’ll trust you, honey, but I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. My husband’s a colonel in the army, and we just got posted up here. We’re both from North Carolina, that’s where all his Wells relatives live, honey.”

  Crane Wells’s number rang twice, then a mechanical voice informed me that the number had been disconnected and the listing removed from the directory. I couldn’t speak to Dr. Curlene Wells, but her nurse promised to put my question to her. “I doubt it, though,” she said. “Dr. Wells just moved here two years ago from Chicago, where I understand her family has always lived.”

  I’d hardly made a dent in the list, and I was getting bored or tired. Something. Maybe just another D word—discouraged. One more, I told myself. I drummed my fingers on the windowsill. Three rings. Four. Five. Here we go. “Hello, you don’t know me, my name is Jessie Wells, and I was wondering …”

  SEVEN

  Unmentionable Acts

  Meadow wanted to call Jack Kettle. That is, she wanted me to call, but not say who I was or who I was calling for. “I’m past the stage of making anonymous calls to boys, Med, and you should be, too.”

  “Jessie!” Her pale face flamed. “You know how I am.”

  “Shy.” I sighed.

  “Massively shy.” She opened my closet and took out a pink shirt. “Did I give this to you?”

  “A million years ago. It’s too small for me now. You want it back?”

  “No. Throw it away.”

  “Nothing doing. I’ll save it for my daughter.”

  “You probably will, too.”

  “Listen, Med, if you go on the Save-the-County Walk with me next month, I’ll call Jack Kettle for you today.”

  “Nothing doing. I’m not walking twenty miles, or whatever it is, for one measly phone call.”

  “Okay, call Jack Kettle yourself. You just think you can’t do it, but you can. It’s all in your mind. You’re the one who’s so big on disciplining your mind.”

  “This is different, Jessie!”

  “You could talk to him at the clubhouse, you know.”

  “Do what?” She sounded as if I had recommended she commit an unmentionable act.

  “How about I call, but you talk to him?”

  “Jessie, I can’t.”

  “Right. The dread three-letter word. S. H. Y.”

  “It’s not a joke. It’s the worst thing in the world.”

  “The worst thing in the world? How about being hungry? How about not having a home?”

  “Are you going to make the call or not?”

  “How about I break the ice, then—”

  “No.”

  “How about you just say hello?”

  “No.”

  “How about you grow up?”

  “That’s not funny. You don’t get it, because you’re not shy.”

  “I do get it.” I did, I was sure I did. Still, after all these years, how come she hadn’t figured out how easy it was to talk to people? Talk, and they talked to you. All you had to do was say what you wanted to say and do what you wanted to do. Like James Wells did? Wanted to walk out, so he walked out. Wanted to leave, so he left. Didn’t want to know you, so he didn’t.

  Heat ran up in my face. “Okay, let’s go call Jack Kettle,” I said. We went out to the hall for the phone. “He’s not going to be home,” I warned Meadow. “Not this time on a Saturday.” I’m so smart. One ring, and I heard a male voice saying, “Kettle house. Jack speaking.”

  Meadow made a victory sign and moved closer so she could hear everything.

  “How fortunate I found you in, Jack.” I dropped my voice to make it more interesting. “I have a message for you. Someone thinks you are trés interesting.”

  “You mean you?”

  “If I meant myself, I would say so.”

  “Who’s this someone?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Jack. I will tell you that you’ve seen her where you work.” Meadow drove her sharp little chin warningly into my shoulder. “You’ve seen her here, you’ve seen her there,” I added.

  “You sound cute.”

  I glanced at Meadow. “Jack, I’m not your type.”

  “I like your voice.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a good voice.”

  “What is a bad voice? Is this a voice we punish?”

  He laughed. “This other girl, what does she look like? Is she pretty?”

  “Is that all that matters to you, Jack? Don’t you have anything else on your mind? However, if you must know, yes, she’s pretty. Blond, big brown eyes, plus she’s smart and athletic.”

  “She’s blond? Why doesn’t she talk to me herself?”

  “What difference does her hair color make? Anyway, she’s not ready to talk to you yet.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Now, now, Jack. You know that’s a secret. I’ll give you her first initial. M.”

  “Meagan Farber?”

  “Don’t you wish.” Meagan was a senior who’d been prom queen last year and who, everyone said, was a shoo-in for valedictorian this year.

  “Mary Mercer? Misty Alzicia? Mavis—”

  “Three guesses and you’re out.”

  “—Kaplin?”

  “Bye-bye, Jack.” I put the phone down.

  “You shouldn’t have said that about the clubhouse,” Meadow said. “You gave him a big clue.”

  “You’re griping! That’s the thanks I get for doing your dog work?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Grovel at my feet. Say I’m a wonderful friend.”

  “You’re a wonderful friend.”

  I smiled modestly
. “I know.”

  Later that day, I went over to Diane’s. She was tired. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I kept waking up and thinking and feeling awful—”

  “What was so awful?” She did look sort of dragged out.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I feel weak, and I’m eating too much. I ate three bananas and a quart of ice cream, and I’m still famished. I want to eat the kitchen!”

  We got food to take to her room, and on the way up, I checked out The Stuff, which is what I call all the little interesting things that are everywhere in the McArdle house. Bowls and vases, and hand-carved boxes and strings of beads made from shells and stones. The Stuff. All the things Diane’s parents collected during the years they taught overseas. The first time Diane mentioned the places she’d been with her family—Morocco, Kenya, Indonesia—my arms broke out in welts from excitement.

  In her room, Diane collapsed on her bed. “My body is mad at me.” She dug into the bag of chips. “I have to eat to keep up my strength.”

  “Do you sleep with the window open?” I asked.

  Diane shuddered. “In this weather? I know, I know. You do. Not me! I’d never get any sleep that way.”

  Her brother, Charlie, poked his head in the door. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.

  “We guys are talking,” I said.

  “Girl talk?” Charlie smiled. Even though he was a year older, I always thought of him as younger. He had a sort of big-eared, little-boy look. Quite adorable.

  “Girl talk, right,” Diane said. “Get out.” She threw a pillow at the door.

  I examined the pictures on her bureau—snaps of her parents, her brother, bunches of relatives, and Kevin, her boyfriend. “Kevin’s cute, Diane, I love his big glasses.”

  “Me too.” She yawned.

  “Diane, what’s your theory on why I’ve never been kissed?”

  “Youth and immaturity, my child.”

  “Thanks, Mom. How many times have you been kissed?”

  “So many I’ve lost track.”

  She was yawning again. To wake her up, I told her about the call to Jack Kettle, and I complained about Meadow, which I shouldn’t have done, but I did. “I wish she’d get a crush on someone more worthwhile.”