“Let’s see what you’ve got.” He led me back to the counter where I opened up the manila envelope and took the photo out from between the two sheets of taped cardboard. He glanced at it. “You want to know who these people are?”
“No…I…I already know who they are.” I put my hand to my mouth, forced myself to breathe, breathe, and get back to my all-business self. “Yes. Maybe I would like to know that. And I need to know, um, who took this picture and maybe what magazine it was in. This is the original. I want to know…I don’t know.” My voice broke. And at that point I realized that I really didn’t know what I wanted to know at all. Why was I here? What I wanted to know was if anyone in this entire city of Burlington could tell me about my parents, but I couldn’t tell him that. He was a stranger.
He picked up the photo and studied it, and his eyes lingered there a bit too long. I swear I could hear him softly gasp. Then just as quickly, he recovered. When he brushed his curly hair out of his eyes, I wondered if I’d only imagined that flinch.
He bent his head so all of his hair fell forward into his eyes. As he spread out the edges of the photo with his fingers, I unwillingly found myself looking at his hands. I always think hands tell a lot about a man. His were strong and articulate. I could imagine him fiddling with camera settings, adjusting a shot until he got it just right, not being happy until it was.
Stop that, Marylee, I told myself. This guy dropped Johanna without so much as a how do you do. He’s someone you definitely want to steer clear of. So, why was I here, trusting him with one of the most important things in my life?
From underneath the counter he got a magnifying glass.
“This picture looks old,” he said. “The styles. These two look like hippies. It’s artistically done, though. Nice. Romantic.” And he looked at me and winked.
“I think it’s around thirty years old.” I kept my demeanor as businesslike as I could. “I understand you do forensic work for the police department.”
He shifted his position. “Sometimes.” He put the photo down and looked at me. “Okay, here’s what we can do. We can compare it to data banks of stock photos,” he said. “Although if it was in a magazine thirty years ago that might pose a challenge.”
“You said ‘we’?”
“My assistant, Mose, is a whiz at dating old photos. He might be able to help. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas, in any case.”
“I would also like information about certain parts of the photo.” I pointed out some duskiness along one side. “I’d always assumed these shadow things to be trees or some sort of bushes or building, but I don’t know.”
“It’s quite faint,” he said. “It could be just something in the photo itself, or on the paper.”
I nodded.
“We could digitize this, maybe enlarge these shadows, see what we can come up with.”
“By all means.” I handed him one of my Crafts and More business cards. “I’m Marylee Simson.” I tried to sound as professional as possible despite my bleary eyes, bad hair and shaking knees.
“I already know your name.” And he winked at me. “And I already know your shop. It’s nice to finally meet you officially.”
And all the way back to Crafts and More all I thought about was I can’t believe it. I cannot believe it! What am I going to tell Johanna? What on earth am I going to tell Johanna?
That afternoon Johanna called me at the shop between her classes, as I knew she would. I was dreading this. How to tell her? What to say?
“So?” she said.
“So?” I answered.
“So, did you take the picture to Evan?”
“I took the picture to Evan.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And what? Isn’t he absolutely irresistible?”
“He’s…” This was going to be harder than I thought. “He’s, uh, he’s got the photo. He’s looking at it…”
“Well, duh, I figured that much,” she said.
I heard the bells chime at my door signifying a customer. “I gotta go. A customer arriveth!”
“You will come to my house tonight and tell me everything that happened.”
It was an order, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll bring my homemade pizza.”
When I hung up the phone I saw that I’d left my apartment key in the door. I pulled it out and pocketed it before heading back out to the store.
There is a back door to this place with stairs leading up to my apartment. I keep that door locked during the day. When you come in either the front door to the shop or the back door, you first have to unlock it with a key, and all the keys are different. Then you have to punch in the six-digit security code. When you get up the stairs to my apartment, there’s another lock, another key and another security-code pad.
All thanks to my paranoid aunt.
For the rest of the afternoon I chided myself. What kind of a friend keeps something like this from a best friend? I should have blurted it right out. Your Evan is the one who winks at me every morning! That’s the kind of guy he is. He breaks off an engagement and then goes out and drops someone after two dates with no explanation and then winks at someone else. What is he doing, just going down the line of available females?
I’d tell her all of this tonight. I started practicing ways to tell her.
We close at five on Wednesdays, so I had ample time to do up my special pizza from scratch. I’d make enough dough for two pizzas and put one in the freezer. As I was working on measuring the yeast and kneading the dough, it felt to me as if I were making a peace offering, something to make Johanna feel better when I broke the news. I’d add sliced tomatoes to the top because I know she likes fresh sliced tomatoes on her pizza.
I was just setting the dough to rise for a few minutes when I looked over at my balcony door and noticed something odd. The pull-across latch was pushed back. Had I unlocked this door? I couldn’t remember. It seemed unlikely, though. I stepped back, stared at it, thought of my key left in my door. Two key-related oddities in one day; I was turning into my aunt.
I opened the French doors and stepped onto my balcony and looked over the railing. My aunt would approve of this balcony. There was no way anyone could climb up here. No fire escape led to it. There weren’t even any balconies close by where you could jump across, if a person was so inclined. Theoretically, I should be able to leave it unlocked and be fine. You’d have to be Spider-Man to get up here. My wicker rocker was undisturbed. I sat in it for a few minutes before the chill evening air drove me back inside to where my crust was happily rising.
At seven sharp I was standing on the doorstep of Johanna’s cute house. She lives just north of the city on a little island on Malletts Bay. It’s only a few minutes from the downtown core where I live, but driving up Coates Island Road is like driving into another country. I drove past the marina on Malletts Bay, with its huge yachts, many of which were already shrink-wrapped in white. Soon, I was told, Lake Champlain would freeze so solid you could drive a truck across it.
Coates Island, where Johanna lives, is a private island of mostly summer cottages. Johanna lives here year-round in the last house, she says, before they quit plowing the road. It’s a place she could never afford on her professor’s salary, but it’s been in her family for many generations. The only downside is that her big family of brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts descends on her all summer long.
Johanna’s place is just like her—funky and cottagey and filled with mismatched dishes and chairs, all bought