A Million Little Lies Page 9

  “Grandma! Guess what?” Without allowing Ida time to answer, she spat it out. “Mister Patterson is gonna live with us, and he knows how to make puzzles!”

  “Maybe live with you,” he said correcting her. “If your grandma is willing to have me.”

  “Yes,” Ida nodded, “and that’s yet to be decided.”

  “I do hope you’ll allow me to rent the room, Mrs. Parker,” he said. “I’m quiet, clean, and pretty much keep to myself, so I assure you I’ll be no bother.” He went on to explain that his parents were killed in an automobile accident two years ago, which left only him and his younger brother, Philipp. “Phil and Ginger are expecting a baby in December, and I’d like to be there for them. That’s why I left Villanova.”

  “Villanova University?”

  He nodded. “I was an assistant professor at the school of engineering.”

  With a look of suspicion tugging at her eyebrow, Ida asked, “Why would you leave Pennsylvania and a job like that to be a substitute teacher in a small-town junior high school?”

  “Family,” he said and smiled. “Like many people, I never really thought about how much those relationships mean. Then I lost my parents, and it was devastating. Without Mom’s Sunday dinners and Dad sitting beside me to watch a football game, I felt such emptiness. I realized no amount of prestige or money takes the place of family. So I sold my house, put my stuff in storage, and took this job so I’d be here when my brother’s first child was born.”

  His words settled in Ida’s heart as gently as a feather falling to the ground, and she knew what her answer would be. The influence of such a man would be good for Annie and possibly even for Darla Jean.

  That thought was still floating across her mind when Gregg asked if her could see the room.

  Looking across at Suzanna, Ida gave a wave and said, “Darla Jean, take Mister Patterson upstairs and show him the blue room. It’s bigger and has a nice size desk in there.”

  Suzanna and Gregg disappeared up the stairs then returned in a matter of minutes.

  “It’s a lovely room,” he said. “I’d be delighted to live here.”

  “Then live here you shall,” Ida replied.

  As he sat there writing a check for the first month’s rent, Ida invited him to stay for dinner. Not surprisingly, he said yes.

  Earl

  Searching for Suzanna

  ONCE EARL GOT IT IN his head that Suzanna was most likely with the guy who was Annie’s daddy, nothing was going to dissuade him. The Monday after his meeting with Tom Duff he drove over to the high school, determined to find a copy of her high school yearbook. It was after ten when he arrived, and school was already in session.

  He came through the door and wandered along the hallway, occasionally peeking into a classroom window then moving on. He figured they’d have copies of the 1952 yearbook at the principal’s office and if not there the school library for sure.

  For ten minutes, he walked up one hallway and down the next looking for someone to ask, but other than the people in the classrooms there was no one and no signs pointing the direction to an office or guidance counselor.

  “What kind of a dumb ass school is this?” Earl mumbled as he neared the end of the third hallway. “How’s a person supposed to find their way around?”

  He took a left, circled past an empty gymnasium, spotted a room marked Teacher’s Lounge, and pushed the door open without bothering to knock. No one inside. He stood there for a few moments looking around, then started toward the bookcase opposite the sofa. The top section of the unit was shelving, the lower portion cabinets with closed doors. Starting with the middle shelf, which was eye level, he fingered through what was there; mostly novels, Advise and Consent, Hawaii, Anatomy of a Murder. Stacked alongside the books was a bunch of paperbacks. He stretched his neck and browsed the top shelf. More of the same plus a few on psychology and health. On the bottom shelf nothing but stacks of papers.

  “Waste of time,” he grumbled, then squatted down and pulled the cupboard doors open.

  Boxes of stationery, staplers, some coffee cups. He was reaching further back when the bell rang and startled him. Almost instantly, he heard doors swing open and voices echoing through the previously empty hall. He bolted up, hurried out of the room, and latched onto the first kid he saw.

  The boy, a head taller than Earl but skinny as a beanstalk, turned with an angry glare. “Who the hell—”

  Earl let go of the kid’s arm and held his hands up palms out.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I ain’t looking for trouble, just the principal’s office.”

  Before he got his answer, two other boys stopped alongside the kid and eyed Earl suspiciously.

  The biggest of the three gave a nod toward Earl then turned toward Beanstalk and asked, “This clown giving you a problem?”

  Beanstalk shook his head. “He’s looking for Mr. Whisenant’s office.”

  The big guy sneered at Earl as if spoiling for a fight. “What business you got here?”

  For a split-second Earl considered giving the wise-ass kid a knee, just to prove he was somebody not to mess with, but he let go of the thought before it was fully formed. He wanted the yearbook more than he wanted to teach this kid a lesson. He couldn’t afford to be thrown out of the building before he got what he came for.

  Ignoring the kid’s attitude, he said, “I’m looking for a copy of the yearbook from when I graduated.”

  The big kid elbowed Beanstalk and guffawed, “They had printing presses back then?”

  “Knock it off.” Beanstalk turned back to Earl, motioned toward the side door then said, “Go through there, take the first hallway on the right. It’s at the far end.”

  Earl was in no mood for niceties; he turned and walked off without a word.

  As the door swung closed behind him, he heard the big kid yell, “Yer welcome.”

  The muscle in the back of Earl’s neck twitched.

  “Screw you,” he grumbled and kept walking. The kid didn’t know how lucky he was. If circumstances were different, he’d teach the idiot a thing or two, but right now he was more interested in getting what he came for.

  As he walked through the door marked Administrative Offices, Earl tried to hide the annoyance he was feeling. Pulling his face into a reasonably pleasant expression, he approached the front desk and asked, “Is this Mr. Whisenant’s office?”

  The woman behind the desk looked up. “Yes, it is, but I’m afraid he’s tied up right now. Can I help you with something?”

  “I need a copy of the yearbook from seven years ago.” He hesitated a second, then, remembering Annie was already seven, corrected himself. “Make that eight years ago.”

  “My goodness, that would be 1952, or did you want ’53? It really doesn’t matter, because I doubt we have any that far back.”

  Trying to sound affable, which wasn’t all that easy since he was already in a foul mood, Earl softened his voice. “Would you take a look? It’s kind of important. Sort of like a gift I promised her.”

  She smiled and gave a knowing nod. “The year your daughter graduated, right?”

  The pissed-off expression slid right back onto Earl’s face.

  “Wife,” he snapped. Suzanna wasn’t his wife or daughter, but to get that yearbook he had to say something.

  The woman’s face blushed crimson. “Oh. Of course. Why, you’re much too young. I wasn’t thinking… I hope you don’t think I meant—”

  “You wanna go check on that book?” Earl cut in, his patience growing thinner by the second.

  Scurrying off like a frightened rabbit, the woman disappeared into the back office and was gone several minutes.

  As he waited, Earl paced back and forth across the room. He didn’t like being here anymore than he did when he’d quit coming 20 years earlier. Just being in the building gave him the willies, made him feel like a loser. Having to back down to some smart-ass kid was like running a buzz saw up his back, and the thought of this old cro
w suggesting Suzanna might be his daughter made his skin crawl. He felt a rash rising up on his neck and was on the verge of walking out when the woman reappeared.

  “I’m sorry to be gone so long,” she said. “I called over to the school library to ask if they had any, but unfortunately they don’t. Mr. Whisenant has eight copies from 1958 and three from ’59, but that’s it. Nothing older.”

  “You know where I can get one?”

  “Not really,” she said apologetically. “You might try the county library. I can’t say for sure whether or not they keep the yearbooks, but it’s worth checking.”

  Anxious to get out of there, Earl gave a nod of thanks and was gone. As he made his way back to the door, he kept an eye open for the big kid but the hallways were now as empty as they’d been earlier.

  By the time Earl made it to the library, he was feeling a bit discouraged and starting to wonder if maybe there wasn’t some other way to find Suzanna. He walked up to the desk and asked if they kept copies of the Sun Grove High School yearbooks.

  “We have archive copies,” the librarian said.

  Earl’s face brightened. “Do you have 1952 or ’53?”

  “Yes. All the way back to 1942.”

  Figuring that if he didn’t find Mr. Football in one book, he’d surely be the other, Earl asked to borrow both the ’52 and ’53 books.

  The librarian gave a tolerant smile. “As I said, they’re archive copies. We don’t lend archived reference books. You can read them here, but they can’t leave the library.”

  “What kind of dumb rule is that? Isn’t the whole idea of a library to lend books?”

  With her eyes fixed in an unflinching glare, she repeated, “Not reference books.”

  It was obvious to Earl that he was not going to get around this woman and her no-borrowing-reference-books rule, and it was almost as obvious that looking through the books on his own was not going to be of much help. The whole idea had been to get Suzanna’s dad to point out the guy she was dating; then he’d have something to go on.

  A feeling of frustration started picking at him, and his stomach churned. “Look, this is kind of an emergency. If I can’t borrow the books, then at least let me buy them.”

  “We do not sell our reference books,” she replied crisply.

  “I’m not gonna keep the damn books. Think of it this way: you sell them to me today, I show them to the guy who’s supposed to point out somebody, then tomorrow I give them back. You keep the money. Everybody wins. No harm, no foul, right?”

  “Wrong. I will repeat this one last time. Reference books do not leave the library. Not for you, not for anyone.”

  “You ever thought of sometimes making an exception?”

  “No, I have not. If you wish to look at our archived books, I will take you back to that section. If you do not, then leave. But if I see you trying to sneak one of those books out of here, I will call security.”

  Given no alternative, Earl begrudgingly said he’d go ahead and look at the yearbooks. He followed the librarian back to the archive room and sat at the table as he waited for her to give them to him.

  Once the books were in front of him, he started leafing through the pages of the 1952 book. He was looking for something but had no clue what it might be. Twelve pages in, he came across a picture of Suzanna. Younger, her face a bit fuller, her smile even more beautiful than he remembered.

  As he sat looking at her, the ache inside of him grew more fierce. It hurt as nothing before had ever hurt. More than the knee that had once been shattered, more than the time his daddy had taken a baseball bat to him, more even than the mama who’d walked off and left him with that very same daddy. He’d survived all those things, but he didn’t think he could survive losing Suzanna.

  Page by page he went through the book, scanning the faces, looking for something, anything, that might give him an idea of who he was looking for. He found it on page 34. It was a picture of a pep rally, and there in the background was Suzanna, gazing starry-eyed into the face of a blond kid wearing a Panthers football jersey with the number 23 on it.

  He flipped back to page 21 and found the picture of the football team. There he was, standing smack in the center of the lineup. Same face, same smart-ass grin.

  Earl moved to the bottom of the page and read through the names and positions. Sure enough, the kid was number 23. Robert James Doherty, nickname Bobby. Running Back.

  He flipped further back to the alphabetical listing of students and found what he was looking for: Bobby Doherty, Class President, Varsity Football, Debate Team.

  He moved on in search of something more, but there were only bits and pieces. A snapshot of Bobby standing at a podium, a few words about how his aspiration was to be a lawyer, and another picture with Suzanna. In the second picture, she had that same enraptured look as in the pep rally photo.

  Not once had she looked at Earl that way. Not once. That thought was bitter as gall and all but impossible to swallow.

  Earl closed the book, pushed back in his chair, and sat there thinking, first weighing the probability of Suzanna still loving Mr. Football and then wondering if he could make her realize what a mistake she was making. He thought about how he would promise to change, volunteer to adopt Annie, give up drinking, and correct the dozens of other things she’d complained about. If he did that, would she smile at him the way she’d smiled at Bobby Doherty? Earl was willing to chance it. But first, he had to find Suzanna.

  Before he left the library, Earl had a plan to find Bobby Doherty. There were only so many law firms in Sun Grove, and if he wasn’t working in town it was probably somewhere nearby. More determined than he’d ever been about anything, Earl made up his mind to leave no stone unturned until he found what he was looking for. If Mr. Football wanted his kid he could have her, but the only way Earl was giving up Suzanna was over his dead body.

  Suzanna

  Getting to Know You

  GREGG PATTERSON MOVED IN THE next day, and right from the start it was apparent that Ida had taken a liking to him. Before the week was out, she invited him to join them for dinner on three different occasions. Twice, he accepted. The third time they were sitting at the breakfast table, and he said he had plans with his brother.

  “After work I’m going to pick up a pizza, then Phil and I will work on the nursery. We want to get the painting done while Ginger’s visiting her mom.”

  The mention of family brought a smile to Ida’s face. “It’s nice that Ginger has her mom living nearby.”

  “Actually, she doesn’t. Ginger’s from Florida, and her mom is still there.”

  Annie gave a gapping tooth grin and said, “We lived in Florida too.”

  Gregg looked over at Suzanna and smiled. “Well, then, you need to meet Ginger. Perhaps one evening—”

  “We weren’t there long,” Suzanna cut in, “a few years maybe. My family moved around a lot.”

  “It’s the opposite for me. My parents lived in the same house from the day I was born until the day I left home.”

  “That’s so nice.”

  “Yes, it was,” he said, sounding a bit nostalgic. “But I was young and too foolish to appreciate it. I wanted excitement. The year I graduated, Phil and I set off on a cross-country trip in my old Plymouth. We made it as far as Florida; then the car fell apart.”

  Ida laughed. “Fell apart?”

  He joined in the laughter. “Yes, literally. It was a junker to begin with, so we left it on the side of the road, walked into town, and started looking for a job. That summer was when Phil met Ginger.”

  Talk of Florida was something Suzanna wanted no part of.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’ve got to get Annie off to school.”

  As she started up the stairs, she heard the lighthearted sound of their conversation continuing. Gregg was telling of how both he and his brother had worked as waiters that summer.

  In the weeks that followed, Gregg settled into the Parker house as if he w
ere a member of the family. Once or twice a week he had dinner with them, and when something was squeaky, loose, or broken, he was on it before anyone even realized it needed fixing. The high-ceilinged staircase light that had been dim for ages now had a bright new bulb, and the wobbly rail on the back porch stood straight and steady. He parked his car on the street, left the driveway clear for Suzanna to pull Ida’s car in or out, and seldom left the house without asking if someone needed something from the store.

  “Are you running low on milk?” he’d say or ask if he should pick up a fresh loaf of bread.

  After he’d put an end to the annoying drip of the kitchen faucet, Ida said, “I don’t know how we ever got along without you.” Then she glanced over at Suzanna with a sly wink.

  Although Suzanna said nothing, the many charms of Gregg Patterson were not wasted on her. She’d noticed. On evenings when he’d ask if they’d mind him joining them to watch television, she’d answer, “Of course not,” and scoot over to make room for him on the sofa.

  Not only did she not mind, she looked forward to those nights. Gregg was company, the likes of which she’d not known since Bobby Doherty. He was smart, fun to be with, and interesting, especially when he spoke of the years he’d taught at Villanova. As he told of how in the early spring, when the campus turned green, the students who had rushed from building to building all winter began napping under the shade of the oaks, she laughed and found herself wishing she too could have been there.

  On just such an evening, after they’d had dinner and settled in front of the television to watch The Price is Right, a loud clatter came from outside. There had been thunder and rain all evening, but this was more like metal smashing against metal.

  “What in the world…?” Suzanna jumped up and hurried to the door.

  Gregg and Ida were right behind. Halfway across the porch, all three of them stopped short and watched as Homer Portnick climbed out of his big black Buick and stood looking at the rear end of his car, which was now embedded in the side of Gregg’s Oldsmobile. As they stepped down from the porch, a clap of thunder sounded and the rain started up again.