“Hush, don’t get ahead of me,” she scolded.
“So I go to the restaurant, and I see an incredibly handsome young man with a blue jacket and a maroon tie. And I think, Men are terrible at colors, he probably thinks that’s red, poor thing. And I sit down and we start talking, and we’re having a lovely time, and we’ve just started our entrées when we realize that there’s another couple, not two tables away, who look just like us. The woman has black hair and a dress with a flower pinned to it, and the man’s wearing a red tie.” Grinning, she slapped the coffin for emphasis. “I’d sat down across the table from the wrong fellow! Oh, it was so embarrassing. Because by now they’d seen us too! I didn’t know what to do. Were we supposed to switch? And Bob says—”
“I said I’d sooner marry her that very minute than give her up to the guy she was supposed to meet,” Bob said.
Kit beamed at him, and Bob reached out and took her hand.
“That’s incredible,” I said.
“Oh, it’s a wonderful story,” Kit said. “And it led to a wonderful life.”
Bob arced his cupcake wrapper into the trash can. “Tutankhamun was a minor king,” he said pensively. “A total nobody back in the dynastic days—but today everyone knows his name. I guess it goes to show you that life is full of surprises.” He paused. “Or maybe I should say death is.”
Kit shook her head, smiling. “Bob, really. Enough with the pharaoh business.”
Bob shrugged and then gazed down the driveway out toward the street.
“Would you like another cupcake?” Kit asked.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I should get going.”
When I looked over at Bob again, I saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“Look at that cardinal,” he said. “That same guy’s been coming to sit in my Japanese maple for three years now. And I planted that tree when we bought the house. My favorite dog’s buried over there, by the mailbox. And see where the grass looks lumpy? Our kids dug a big tunnel under the yard one summer, and it’s never looked right since. They’re all grown up now. Only one lives nearby.”
Kit moved to his side and put her arm around him. “Hush, darling,” she said.
“The world is so beautiful,” he said, softer now. “How am I supposed to leave it?”
It wasn’t a question anyone could answer.
Chapter 17
OH MY darling Annie,” Pauline said, pulling me in for a hug, “you look just like your mother.”
Then she stepped back, wiped her eyes almost angrily, and said, “I’m sorry, dear, I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry.”
I was feeling a little on the weepy side myself thanks to Bob, so I tried to smile as I said, “That makes two of us.”
Watching Pauline as she bustled about in her kitchen, pouring us mugs of mint tea, I tried to imagine what my mom would look like if she were alive. Would she have Pauline’s silver hair and crows’ feet? Would she be slightly stooped, and just a bit soft around the middle? It was impossible to imagine her as anything but what she’d been—strong and lovely, and then suddenly pale and sick.
“Don’t mind the dog,” Pauline said, stepping over the prostrate form of an ancient-looking Labrador lying in the middle of the living room carpet. “He’s a good old thing but he only wakes up for dinner.” She sat down on a brocade couch and patted the cushion next to her. “I got out all my old photo albums for you,” she said.
“How did you know?” I asked excitedly.
She smiled. “Daughters always want to see their mothers,” she said. “I know you’re actually a professional, though, so I’m afraid these pictures won’t look like much.”
But Pauline was wrong—the pictures were perfect. In an album with a fake leather cover, I found a photograph of my mother, smiling at the camera and holding a bouquet of wild violets so big she had to clutch it with both hands. My breath caught in my throat. She was so young—much younger than me—and so beautiful.
“That was in Barcelona,” Pauline said, looking over my shoulder. “The night before, we’d gone to see the opera, and Queen Sofía was there, in a box seat. We could see her glittering crown from all the way across the room. But we were so jetlagged—we missed the ‘O mio babbino caro’ aria, because we both fell sound asleep in our seats.”
When I turned the page, I saw my mother and Pauline, their arms around each other, posing in front of a café.
Pauline laughed. “Oh boy. I remember your mother ordered a bean soup there, and it came with something that looked like part of a human finger! We both just about screamed. ‘Oh, no, el cerdo,’ the waiter said. ‘La piel!’ It was pork fat, with some skin attached, and apparently she was supposed to eat it. But Annie, it looked like a knuckle. So your mother, always polite, took it out of her bowl and hid it in her napkin.”
We went through two more albums, with Pauline narrating everything she could remember about their adventures. There was something both beautiful and sad about these pictures from four decades ago. Their colors had faded, and the contrast had lessened, and so everything seemed bathed in a kind of soft golden light.
The color of nostalgia, I thought.
When we’d finished, Pauline turned to me and said, “So that’s your mother and me in our youth. What’s your story, dear?”
“Well actually,” I said, “I’m sort of collecting stories. Pictures, too. For what I hope will be a book.” I pointed to my camera, resting on an end table. “It started when I realized I wasn’t really in touch with anyone from my life—not in any real or meaningful way. So I decided to visit people who mattered to me and see what they were up to.”
I decided not to add the part about not having a home anymore.
“I’m glad I passed the mattering to you test,” Pauline said, smiling. “Your idea sounds like This Is Your Life, except that you’re in control.”
I looked at her blankly.
She laughed. “Oh, you’re too young, aren’t you?” she said. “It was a TV show where they surprised a person with folks from their past.”
“It sounds like reality TV version one point oh.”
“It was certainly better than The Bachelor,” Pauline said dryly. “By the way, that’s a fancy camera you’ve got.”
“It’s new, and I barely know how to use it,” I admitted.
“Have you printed out any pictures?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Though my brother gave me a portable wireless printer.”
“Well, let’s!”
“Do you know how?”
She clucked her tongue at me. “Darling, ten-year-olds are making parkour movies on their iPhones. You and I can work a small printer.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said, grinning.
I went to retrieve my car and brought in the printer, still in its box. With some trial and error, we managed to set it up, and at Pauline’s kitchen table, we printed out all the pictures I’d taken so far. Here was Josh and Kate; there was Ben and my ex.
I shook my head in dismay: the colors weren’t right, and I could see pixilation where I should have seen nothing but smooth pigment.
But the compositions were strong, and the power of the faces was undeniable.
“I think you’ve really got something here,” Pauline said.
“Good stories, and the good people who told them,” I said, nodding.
Pauline smiled at me. “I’d buy that book,” she said.
Chapter 18
BUT WHERE would I go to find the next story? That was the question.
Early the following morning, I closed my eyes and pointed my finger at a map of the United States. I’d decided to let fate guide me.
“Denver,” I said when I opened my eyes. “That seems as good a place as any, right?”
“And a good bit better than some,” Pauline agreed. “I thought you were going to land in the middle of Lake Superior at first, and I doubt you’d get good stories from lake trout.”
I traced my finger along the curving blue line of I-70. Denver was probably nine hours west—which meant it was nine hours closer to a place and a person I’d kept in the back of my mind ever since North Carolina.