Just Like a Musical Read online

  “Her name is Sarah,” I said, remembering once again the breeze of the night when Mrs. Wheeler told me about her long lost daughter. “I’m sure her phone number or address is in Mrs. Wheeler’s phone book. Joanna gave me her keys, so I can go there and check it out.”

  “Oh, but wouldn’t that be inappropriate,” my mother said, “to snoop around her house like that while she’s not there?”

  My mother was talking about appropriateness. I unconsciously laughed.

  “But I’m sure it would be,” she said in her distinctive high-pitched voice. It’s her alert voice – red and sharp. “We can’t be that rude.”

  I know my mother much better than she knows me. Despite her clumsy and not-at-all-convincing arguments, I knew that she was trying to spare me the suffering. I was certain that she would do anything to repress the image of Mrs. Wheeler to some dark, far-away piece of my brain, so I would be less affected by her death.

  “No, I won’t approve that kind of behavior,” she said. “Now, how about some french fries and a movie marathon?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Oh, Mother, french fries cannot heal a broken heart!

  “I think I’ll have dinner later,” I said.

  ***

  It was 7 p.m. when I decided to call Joshua. I told my mother that I was going to take a look at Tanya’s prom dress, just to avoid silly questions.

  He was waiting for me on the street corner, across the hospital. The sky was fiery red, just like in Gone with the Wind. But I wasn’t Scarlett O’Hara. I wasn’t determined. I wasn’t strong.

  “Look, that’s Mrs. Wheeler’s window. And she’s dying… she’s dying.” I burst out crying, feeling rather sheepish about my blubber. “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping away the tears.

  “Your hands are shaking,” Joshua said.

  I looked at him wordlessly. Grabbing my hand, he took me to the coffee shop. He said I needed sugar and ordered two big hot chocolates with marshmallows. He never looked and sounded so grown up before. The place was half empty and the sound of rockabilly music was wafting from the speakers. I told Joshua everything about Mrs. Wheeler, including her daughter.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m not,” I said. “Maybe it would be trampling on her wish since she never wanted to interfere in her daughter’s life, but still… that woman’s birth mother is lying there, dying… I could at least call her. Or not. Oh, I don’t know, Joshua, I don’t know!” I leaned my elbows on the table, pressing my palms over my ears and closing my eyes. My mother told me that I used to do that when I was little. It was my way of shutting the world down. After a couple of colorless, noiseless seconds, I let go of my ears and looked at Joshua.

  “Okay, let’s go to her house,” I said, still a bit reluctant.

  ***

  “It feels strange being here… considering that I’ve never met her,” said Joshua.

  Mrs. Wheeler’s front door creaked behind us.

  “I’m the one who feels even stranger, believe me,” I said, turning on the lights. “And I’m still not sure whether we should do this.”

  I tripped over Mrs. Wheeler’s yellow sandals.

  “Old people’s homes always smell a little bit… I don’t know how to describe it exactly. Bleak, I guess.” Joshua said.

  “Smell?” I frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re an ageist!”

  “A what?” he asked, dropping the magazine he was holding and winking irresistibly.

  “You know, someone who hates old people.”

  “Of course not.Hey, don't get grumpy! Let's get to work. Where should we start?”

  I guided him to the living room.

  “I hope my mom won’t go to my room or the upstairs bathroom and see the lights in here,” I said.

  “Your mother seems to be very strict.”

  I don’t like to be reminded about my mother’s upbringing methods. It makes me feel weak. Besides, everyone would like to have cool parents, right? I believe that once upon a time, in another life, my mom was cool, too. She named me after the Rolling Stones song years before I was born. What’s cooler than that? That was before all the mess with the mysterious man, though. She’s much different now. I wish I had known her when she was my age. Maybe we would have been best friends, who knows.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said, pushing the thought away. “Let’s start our search now.”

  I took a little faded phonebook from Mrs. Wheeler’s coffee table and turned the pages until I found the letter “S”. She had three Sarahs – Sarah Meyer, Sarah Campbell, and Sarah Dobrowsky. No addresses, only phone numbers.

  “How could I possibly know which one is her daughter? Or is she even one of these?” My enthusiasm suddenly subdued.

  “Did she even say that she had her phone number?” Joshua asked.

  “No. But even if she had it, I doubt she would keep it in her phone book,” I said. “No, she didn’t mention a phone number; she only said she had her address, or at least the address of the family that adopted her. But that was more than a half century ago.’

  I collapsed on the floor. Mrs. Wheeler’s home did have an unusual smell – Joshua was right. I wondered whether it was the smell of incoming death or just a heavy dreg of memories. I looked at her belongings. For the first time, they didn’t disclose anything of Mrs. Wheeler’s alluring personality and her exciting life. Her distressed Victorian desk was just an old, battered piece of furniture. Her gilded lamp shade appeared kitschy. Even the paintings on her walls looked boring. And her pink feather slippers! Oh, her pink feather slippers made me want to run headlong! They still held the shape of her knotty feet! I couldn’t wait to get out of that house. But we still had to find Sarah’s address.

  I wrote down the three phone numbers, and then we searched among the books hoping to find some clue. We looked through every one of them and found nothing but two beaded bookmarks and a recipe for key lime pie. I turned her drawers topsy-turvy, feeling like a thief. Nothing. Her lonely hairbrush made me wistful. She was away from her home for less than a day, but everything looked sadly frozen in the distant past. I even checked the bathroom, frowning at my silliness. Who keeps an address of a long lost daughter in a bathroom? It wasn’t there, of course.

  “I guess that’s it,” I said after we’d ransacked the whole house. It was 10 p.m. and I felt dismayed.

  Joshua suggested that we call those phone numbers the next day from his house while his father was at work.

  “My mother is a ghost, anyway,” he said. “Even if she sees us, she won’t bother to pay attention to us.”

  ***

  When I got home, my mother was sitting at the kitchen table. Taking a bite of cheese pie, she asked me something about Tanya’s boyfriend. She saw them in the shopping mall a couple of day ago. Although he seemed nice and polite, she couldn’t help thinking that Tanya was just too young to have a boyfriend. According to my mother, a girl should have her first relationship about five minutes before menopause.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say that a girl your age shouldn’t go out and meet boys,” she said, “but a steady relationship – that seems a little too much.”

  I tried to ignore her bizarre words. A vivid picture of Joshua’s face popped up before my eyes. What was he to me? Certainly not a boyfriend, although I was hoping that he had felt at least a microscopic part of the fever and captivation that I was feeling when I was near him. Was he a friend to me? Sure he was, but was our relationship dead-ended at friendship? Or is that where it started?

  With thoughts like these, I went to bed. I was lying covered with my marigold blanket when a blurry picture started to become clearer under my closed eyelids. It was something flowery, old, and precious. “Of course!” I said to myself, “The trinket box!” The “S” on Mrs. Wheeler’s trinket box wasn’t for secrets – it was for Sarah, I realized. Or secrets relating to Sarah at least. I have inherited so little of my mother’s social perspicacity; otherwise
I would have been better prepared before I went to Mrs. Wheeler’s home to dig around her things so shamelessly.

  ***

  My hands were shaking as I inserted the key into Mrs. Wheeler’s door the next morning. Unlike the day before, I was sure I had the clue that would lead me to her daughter. The certainty strengthened my formerly loose decision to call Sarah. I tried to see the whole situation from Sarah’s point of view. Although it was difficult to be her even for a couple of moments, I knew that I wouldn’t want to be absent from my biological mother’s last days on Earth. So that was it – I was determined to find her phone number and call her.

  Finding the trinket box was an easy task. It was hidden under Mrs. Wheeler’s bed, a place I hadn’t even thought of the night before. Who was she hiding it from, I wondered. Maybe herself. Finding the key to the padlock, however, was a bit harder, but I finally found it in the inside pocket of her white cashmere coat. I unlocked the trinket box feverishly. What I found there was heartbreaking: a soft lock of golden brown hair, a yellowish love letter signed by Thomas Slade, and a folded piece of paper with an Oklahoma address. I carefully put the precious piece of paper into the safety of my pocket, knowing that I was holding the whole history of one tragic romance in my hands.

  Chapter Seven

  Joshua’s living room door was slightly open.

  “Who’s there?” I heard a weak, grainy voice.

  “It’s just me, Mom. I’m here with my friend Ruby.”

  Joshua’s mother invited us to come in. He shrugged his shoulders, giving me an apologetic look.

  “Oh, look at that hair!” she said when we entered the room. “It looks just like the sunset.” She looked at me with an absent smile. There was a closed book in her lap. The radio was playing some old, sentimental tune. Despite the deep wrinkles around her eyes, she was giving off the impression of a vulnerable girl.

  “Will you sit with me for a while, sweetheart?” she said, tilting her head to meet my eyes.

  It wasn’t a question; it was a plea.

  “Later, Mom, I promise,” Joshua said. “We have some important things to do now.”

  “Oh, you and your screenplays,” she waved her hand and opened the book with her trembling fingers.

  Joshua’s room was just as I imagined it. I felt at home the second I crossed the door sill. The green-painted walls were covered in movie and indie bands posters, and his shelves were crammed with CDs. An open book was lying face down on the bed: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

  “I found another address this morning,” I said, sitting on the bed, my hand smoothing the creases on the striped black-and-white bed cover.

  “Will you call the others?” he asked, sitting beside me.

  “Let’s call with this one first. Maybe she still lives there.”

  “Okay, let’s try to find the phone number,” Joshua said, opening his laptop.

  According to the White Pages, Gordon Chase from Oklahoma was still living at the same address as sixty years ago.

  “He must be ninety,” I said. “Maybe he’s even dead… What do you think?”

  Dumb question, Ruby.

  “I certainly hope he’s alive enough to pick up the phone,” Joshua laughed. “Okay, here’s the phone. I expect you to sail through this.”

  “Well, I don’t want to dampen your excitement,” I said, “but I’m kind of nervous. I’m not sure I will exactly shine.”

  All the way to Joshua’s home, I was hoping that he would offer to call Sarah himself and set me free from that atrocious agitation I was going through. But he suggested nothing like that, and I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself by asking him. Who in the world has a fear of telephones, you might ask. Well, I do. It’s called telephonophobia, and it’s not that rare, in fact. Of course, it’s still weird, no matter how many people have it. Joshua and I… well, we are the proud owners of an amazing arsenal of weird conditions. Together, we’re invincible. So… I don’t like anything about phones, but what I hate the most is talking to unknown people. I always imagine them sitting in their homes carefree, without a hint that the phone is about to ring, and then I speak into their sleepy ear, just like that, out of the blue – a stranger abducting their peace. And this time my anxiety was doubled; I was about to make the most important call of my life. My numb fingers picked up the phone.

  “Hey, isn’t it late in Oklahoma now?” my cowardice spoke through my dry mouth as I dialed the number.

  “No, they’re actually only two hours ahead,” Joshua said, smiling at me.

  For a second, I almost hoped that no one would answer. But that wasn’t the case.

  The voice on the other side was bone dry and wheezy. I felt like the old man’s lips were scratching my eardrums through the telephone receiver. He told me that Sarah didn’t live there anymore. I asked him if he happened to know her new phone number.

  “Of course,” he said, coughing, “She lives just down the street and her phone…”

  I nodded my head, smiling silently.

  “Moron!” Joshua groaned at the top of his horrible Tourette’s voice.

  “Did someone just say ‘moron’?” the old man asked.

  I looked at Joshua, terrified. He was standing in the corner of the room, his palm pressed against his mouth.

  “No, sir,” I tried to sound convincing, “I mean, yes, but it was my parrot; my brother gave him a really bad education.”

  I looked at Joshua; his eyes grew wide. I could see he was chewing the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” asked Mr. Chase.

  I knew by the vibrations in his voice that he was ready to hang up. The whole thing was slipping through my fingers like sand. I made an effort to pull myself together and said in a most endearing voice, “I’m very serious, sir. I’m Julia Wrigley's daughter. You might not remember her, Mr. Chase, but my mother and Sarah went to middle school together. Actually, they were quite close friends. The skinny one with pigtails… sounds familiar? Anyway, I wanted to inform Sarah that my mother passed away recently. She left her some old photographs.”

  He swallowed it. How could he not swallow such a heartbreaking story? I watched my hand, my proud, steady hand, as it scribbled down Sarah’s phone number on the corner of the notebook that Joshua handed me.

  I hung up and sighed with relief.

  “Who’s Julia Wrigley?” Joshua asked.

  “How would I know? But she surely got her last name from a chewing gum,” I laughed, nodding toward the pack of Wrigley’s.

  “You were magnificent,” he said and shook my hand theatrically.

  The door slowly opened. Joshua’s mother entered, holding a big tray of brownies. She smiled at me, caressed my hair, and left without saying anything.

  “This is the first time she’s baked since we moved into this house,” said Joshua quietly, looking through the window.

  One more number needed to be called.

  “My tongue is dry,” I said, standing up. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

  “Of course. I’ll be back right away,” he said, stepping out.

  I glanced around the room. My eyes settled on a framed photograph on the nightstand. As I drew near, I saw it was a photo of a little girl with braces and auburn hair, holding a teddy bear.

  “Is this your sister?” I said when Joshua came in with a glass of water. “She’s so pretty.”

  “Was pretty,” he said, turning his back to the photograph. “And I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I told my mother not to put it in here, but she just won’t listen.” He took the photograph from the shelf and put it into a drawer without looking at it.

  “Sorry again. Let’s finish what we started, okay?”

  I took a deep breath and, guided by my previous victorious presentation, I dialed Sarah’s number. Six long signals, each of them fortifying the pounding of my heart, separated me
from an indifferent female voice.

  “Sarah’s not here, she’s out,” she said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was filing her nails or peeling an apple. She told me to call again in half an hour.

  Those were the longest and most discouraging thirty minutes of my life. Joshua was in such a bad mood that I even wondered whether I should just leave him alone and call Sarah from my own home. We barely spoke. When I took the phone again, my confidence was rather feeble.

  “Sarah speaking.”

  I felt my heart climbing up to my throat. I can’t remember what I said exactly. Now it seems to me like all the words commingled into one big, screaming word salad, and I’m pretty sure I sounded rather schizophrenic. I remember saying “birth mother”, “hospital”, and “say goodbye”. But what Sarah said was sobering. It slapped me in the face like a heavy, cold palm of rancorousness.

  “I don’t want to hear about that woman ever again,” she said in a perfectly cold voice.

  How foolish of me was not to take into account the possibility of Sarah not wanting to get in touch with Mrs. Wheeler. From the beginning of this venture, all I saw as possible hurdles were the inability to find Mrs. Wheeler’s daughter and my lack of confidence. I never thought that she wouldn’t be willing to even hear about her birth mother, let alone visit her while she was on her deathbed. What reckless romantic force made me think that we lived in a world where abandoned children shone the light of forgiveness on their parent’s last days on Earth? Too many movies perhaps?

  I called Sarah’s number one more time.

  “Just leave me alone, please.” That was everything that I heard before she slammed the phone down.

  I was defeated.

  “It seemed too easy; I knew it wasn’t going to end well,” I said, stretching my shaky hands to take the glass of water again.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Joshua asked, staring at his toes. Despite his question, he didn’t seem interested in Mrs. Wheeler’s destiny, her daughter’s destiny, or even mine.

  “I don’t think there’s anything more I can do.”

  “You’re just going to give up, right?” he said with a strange, bitter look on his face.