He was leading them through a maze of people as he talked. Lori almost wished she were young enough to get away with holding someone’s hand, so she wouldn’t get lost. She caught snatches of other people’s conversation—“caught the twelve-thirty flight” . . . “get to Atlanta before my meeting.” A woman was making an announcement over the public-address system, and it didn’t even sound like she was speaking English. Lori wished Emma were along so she could hold her hand and pretend it was for Emma’s sake.
Suddenly the black man stopped. Lori was trailing him so closely, she almost bumped into him.
“Oh, I didn’t even think,” he said. “I’m sure one of the shops here would carry those bracelets. Do you want to look for them now, before we get your luggage?”
There were shops all around. Just walking from the gate, they’d already passed more stores than were on all of Main Street in downtown Pickford.
“That’s all right, John,” Mom said. “We can always pick that up later. Our next flight isn’t until late tomorrow.”
Omigosh. Mom was even on a first-name basis with this black guy.
The black man—John—went on to other topics. He patted Mom’s hand.
“I hope we’ve managed to convey how thrilled we were that you were available to speak at our convention,” he said in a hushed voice. “Roger Palfrew heard you in Dallas last March, when you were at the NJR, and he came back and raved. He said there was no way he’d support us hiring anyone else for our June meeting.”
“Thanks,” Mom said. “I hope he didn’t make me sound too wonderful—I’d hate to disappoint you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you won’t,” John said reverently.
Lori watched with narrowed eyes. John was treating Mom like she was a celebrity or something. Famous. Lori felt like saying, Come off it. She’s just my mom.
Lori had never paid much attention to the groups Mom spoke to, but now she wondered. What was NJR, anyway? And what group was she going to be talking to here in Chicago?
They went down an escalator into a tunnel of sorts. Bizarre, Asian-sounding music was playing and a sculpture of lighted tubes swayed over their heads as they stepped onto what appeared to be another escalator. Only this one stayed flat, carrying them past arcs of changing colors on the walls. Lori turned to Chuck, finally stunned enough that she had to say something to somebody. With Mom and John up there chattering away like lifelong buddies, Chuck was her only choice.
“Is this weird or what?” Lori muttered.
Chuck didn’t even respond, just stood there staring with his mouth open. He looked mesmerized. Lori couldn’t stand it.
“Catching flies?” she asked. That was one of Pop’s expressions. She missed Pop suddenly. He’d be the first to agree with her that this tunnel was weird. He was all the time saying, “Never can tell what some fool will come up with next,” while he was watching TV or reading the newspaper. Lori could just picture him, announcing that while he shook the newspaper for emphasis, in disgust. If Pop saw even a picture of this tunnel, he’d laugh his head off.
Chuck mumbled something just then, and Lori leaned in closer to hear him. You couldn’t expect words of wisdom from Chuck, but after what she’d said on the airplane, she owed him.
“Huh?” she asked.
“It looks like the future,” he repeated.
Weird, Lori thought. Definitely weird.
By the time they got to the hotel, Chuck was in a total daze.
Already, it seemed a million years since he’d made a fool of himself, throwing up on the airplane.
At least the landing had made him only slightly queasy. And he’d been so worried about throwing up again that he’d forgotten to worry about dying.
The plane had dipped to the side a little, landing, and he’d caught a glimpse out the window. An ocean sparkled in the sunlight—no, it wasn’t an ocean, just a lake. He knew that much. But he’d never expected a lake to be so big. The downtown was just as amazing—all those enormous buildings. If they looked enormous from the air, what would they look like from the ground?
The sight made him feel big and small, all at once.
Then there was the airport.
He felt funny just thinking about the tunnel they’d walked through, going to get their luggage.
Lori had called it weird.
Maybe he was supposed to think it was weird, too, but he got mad hearing her say that. Didn’t she see? All those lights and colors, and the music—it was crazy and wonderful all at once. It made him feel like dancing or something, not that he had ever danced.
Were he and Lori looking at the same thing?
He liked all the different people around them, too. The man who met them had skin with the sheen of homemade chocolate pudding. The color was so rich and deep that Chuck had to keep telling himself not to stare. He thought about the box of crayons he’d had when he was a little kid. There’d been sixty-four in the box. Had that chocolate pudding color been in there, too? He couldn’t remember.
He didn’t know why it mattered so much, a little kid’s crayon. But it did.
The taxi driver was black, too, or what people called black, but his skin was a different shade entirely. When he talked, Chuck couldn’t understand him at all.
He bet Lori could, though.
“It’s the one on the left,” the man, John, was saying. “You can pull in at the circular drive.”
The taxi driver said something, and Chuck couldn’t make sense of a single syllable. But somehow, he knew the taxi driver was complaining. Don’t treat me like an idiot. Don’t you think I know what I’m doing? Who gave you the right to boss me around? Chuck was suddenly filled with deep respect for the taxi driver. If only Chuck could stand up for himself like that. He wished he could repeat the words the taxi driver had said. It’d be nice to toss out some foreign phrase the next time the kids picked on him at school or Pop yelled at him for forgetting to lock the barn.
They stopped and the taxi driver began pulling their luggage out of the trunk. Chuck went over and picked up his own suitcase—still looking as new and unused as the picture in the Penney’s catalog Gram had ordered it from. Then he reached for Mom’s, which was a little more battered. Seasoned. Mom turned around and saw what he was doing.
“Oh, Chuck, you don’t have to worry about those. Leave them for the bellhop.”
“Huh?” Chuck said.
“Someone from the hotel will carry our bags for us,” Mom explained.
Face flushed with embarrassment, Chuck dropped the bags. Both John and the taxi driver were looking at him. Chuck retreated to the curb, wishing the sidewalk would swallow him up. He could live in the sewers of Chicago for the rest of his life, if only he didn’t have to see the look of scorn on Lori’s face.
It wasn’t fair. If Pop had been along and Chuck had stood aside like Mom said he should, Pop would have yelled at Chuck for being lazy. That was one of Pop’s favorite complaints about Chuck; how many times had Chuck heard, “You’re not carrying your own weight!” hollered at him across a barn or a hay wagon or a cornfield? The words always seemed doubly cutting, considering that Chuck’s weight would be a lot for anyone to carry.
Chuck watched the taxi driver take their suitcases to a man in a uniform, who stacked them on a rolling rack and pushed them through the automatic doors.
It was nice not having to carry his own suitcase. But he could hear Pop’s voice growling in his head. Why should someone else carry your suitcase for you, when you’re able-bodied and perfectly capable of doing it yourself?
Was it Pop’s voice or what Chuck thought himself?
Lori leaned toward the huge wall of mirror to apply lip liner. She had to admit, it was a lot easier to see to put on makeup here in the hotel than back home, looking at Pop and Gram’s cracked bathroom mirror. The crack went right through the middle of her face, so she either had to stand on Emma’s old bathroom stool to see her face whole or duck and weave to look around the crack.
Mike and
Joey had broken the mirror a month ago, throwing a football inside the house. Gram and Pop hadn’t fixed it yet, as a reminder to them all not to play so rough indoors. Lori didn’t think that was fair. She hadn’t broken the mirror. And it didn’t punish Mike and Joey at all, because they didn’t even look in the mirror to wipe their faces. Lori thought Gram and Pop were just being lazy. They didn’t care about the bathroom mirror because their bathroom, the only one their company ever saw, was downstairs, newly remodeled.
Mostly, Lori got along with Gram and Pop, so it was weird that she was resenting them now. Usually, she reserved all her ill feelings for Mom. Okay, here it was: Lori thought Mom was the one who’d paid for Gram and Pop’s remodeled bathroom. Once again, everything could be traced back to Mom.
Lori stuck her tongue out at the gleaming hotel mirror. Take that, Mom.
Then Lori giggled at her own reflection. She felt too good now to get all bent out of shape about a stupid mirror. She had control of herself again. She could handle this trip. She’d even—almost—had fun today.
They’d had lunch in an outdoor café, walked along some river, looked at skyscrapers. They were going to go up inside a building that was or used to be (or something) the tallest in the world. But then Mom got worried that the elevator might upset Chuck’s stomach again.
It figured that Chuck would ruin things. But Lori didn’t care. The first day of the trip was almost over. She had only thirteen more days, and then she’d be home again planning swim parties with Angie and Dana, discussing boys with Courtney and Bree, going to movies and 4-H meetings and all-county dances.
That was the way to think about this trip.
Mom knocked on the bathroom door.
“I need to be down there in a few minutes. Want me to go ahead? Someone at the door can tell you where to go.”
Lori decided her lips looked good enough.
“No, no. I’m ready.” All her resolutions aside, something about this glitzy hotel made her want to stick close to Mom and Chuck. It was so big, Lori thought she’d never find herself if she got lost.
She didn’t want to have to ask anyone for directions.
Lori came out of the bathroom, then it was Chuck’s turn. He didn’t have to do anything but wet down his hair (which made it look greasy) and tuck his shirt into his dress pants. It was untucked again in five seconds, because the material had to strain so hard to make it over Chuck’s stomach.
Lori looked away, toward Mom.
Even Lori had to admit she looked great.
Mom was the sort of tiny woman who could look like a little girl dressing up in her mother’s clothes if she wasn’t careful. Lori had said that to her once.
“What am I supposed to do? Draw wrinkles on my face?” Mom had said.
Mom had practically the same pixie haircut as in the first-grade picture of her Gram and Pop still kept hanging in their living room. But tonight she’d used strategic amounts of gel on it. Her dark eyes were highlighted with a precision that Lori’s fashion magazines would praise. Her purple suit was classy—not too prim, not too outrageous.
Lori practically approved.
Not that you’d ever catch her saying so.
“Let’s go then,” Mom said. She looked both kids up and down, then turned on her heel for the door.
You might have told us that we looked good, Lori thought. Or at least me. She’d crumpled the homemade sundress into the bottom of her suitcase hours ago (maybe explaining why she’d felt better all afternoon). Now she wore one of those ankle-length floral dresses just about everyone owned. Pure polyester, Gram would have said, but who cared?
Lori followed Mom and Chuck onto a glass elevator overlooking a lobby many floors below. Even through the elevator, they could hear tinkly music being played on the grand piano, right next to an indoor waterfall.
Fancy-schmancy, Pop would call it. In spite of herself, Lori liked it. She remembered a song Pop had sung for her once when she was doing a family history project for school: “How Are They Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm Once They’ve Seen Paree?” Pop’s own grandfather had sung it to him, because he’d fought in World War I. “Paree” was really Paris, and Pop’s grandfather had really gone there during the war, but he’d hated it. “Filthy people, filthy houses, filthy food, and nobody can talk right. Plus, all those so-called French beauties ain’t any prettier than spit,” had been his report on the city, according to Pop. “Give me the farm any day.”
Lori had always been inclined to side with her great-great-grandfather. Chicago wasn’t Paris, of course, and it wasn’t so bad to visit. Just so you got to go home afterward.
They got to the huge banquet hall, and Mom showed Lori and Chuck their seats.
“I’ll have to be up at the speakers’ table during the meal, too, but you’ll know where to find me if you need me,” she said, just like they were Emma’s age. Lori rolled her eyes. Mom didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll come and get you afterward,” she finished.
The other people at Chuck and Lori’s table were business-people who gave them “What are you doing here?” looks and then ignored them. Lori picked at her dinner: stringy chicken, lumpy rice, and tough pellets of zucchini. Lori tried to imagine what a 4-H cooking judge would have to say about the meal, but that was a boring game. Lori didn’t even like 4-H cooking projects. She just took them because everyone else did. You had to win your blue ribbons somehow.
Lori was actually reduced to daydreaming about whether she should take chicken croquettes or chicken divan to the fair for her cooking project this year when she heard an announcer say, “Our speaker for this evening . . .”
Lori turned around and started paying attention.
He seemed to be introducing some other person—some wildly successful businesswoman—but then he said, “Joan Lawson,” and Mom stood up to a burst of applause and even a wolf whistle or two. You could tell she was standing on a stool, but the man still had to bend the microphone down for her.
“Thank you,” Mom said firmly, making a motion with her hand that effectively ended the clapping. “I knew I could ‘count’ on a group of bankers for a warm reception.”
It was an utterly lame joke, but somehow Mom made it sound funny.
“People are always saying time is money,” she continued. “I figure that’s something you all would know about.”
For some reason, getting behind the podium made Mom sound different. Her vowels got longer, and the “you all” practically became one word. She sounded like she was from the Deep South, instead of southern Ohio. What was that all about?
“I just can’t see someone walking into your bank, strolling up to one of your tellers, and declaring, ‘I’ve got a little spare time on my hands right now, and I’d like to open an account. What kind of interest are you offering on deposits of three hours or more? Will it be up to four hours by the time I’m fifty-nine and a half?’” Mom was saying. “‘How many minutes will I have to forfeit for early withdrawal?’”
Lori didn’t get it. Sure, she understood that Mom was pretending that time really was money and that people could put it in the bank like dollars and cents. But why were the people around her practically falling out of their seats with laughter?
Mom went on and on, in that strange, folksy, down-home voice. Then she stopped and looked out at the crowd, waiting for the laughter to die down. When everyone was silent, she shrugged and said, “Now, that’s just silly, isn’t it?”
The whole room burst into laughter again, as if everyone was just waiting for another chance to be silly together.
These bankers must not get out much, Lori thought.
“But, you know,” Mom continued in a more serious tone. Even her drawl flattened out a little. “For all that we keep saying time is money, we all really know it isn’t. The problem is, we seem to have forgotten that money isn’t time, either.”
She paused, letting her words sink in.
“I have five kids. Back when I had three of them in diapers all a
t the same time—and usually all dirty at the same time, too, I might add—there were some days when I thought I’d need about five more of me just to take care of my own children. Money wasn’t in very great supply back then either, so I didn’t often have the option of hiring someone else to take care of my kids for me. I’m not holding myself up as some sort of saint here—there were times when I would have paid every penny I had just to have someone else get my daughter Lori ready for church. When she was two, she was an escape artist when it came to clothes. No sooner would I have the last button on her dress buttoned, and turned around to keep the baby from chewing the bow tie off his collar, than I’d turn around again and Lori would have stripped entirely. The dress, her tights, and even that frilly white underwear would be lying in a heap on the floor, and she’d be dancing around naked, ready to run out the door.” Mom grinned. “My husband was a little concerned about what sort of career possibilities she was getting inclined toward.”
The bankers laughed again, uproariously. The sound swelled in Lori’s ears. Her face burned. This was what Mom had been talking about, all these years, all across the country? Making fun of Lori? How dare she.
Lori couldn’t stand to listen to another word. She got up and rushed for the door. She was glad now that nobody at their table knew who she was.
The tears were already swarming along her eyelids, but she kept her eyes open wide so none of them would start spilling over until she was alone. She hurried across the glitzy lobby she’d been so impressed with before and stabbed the elevator button. Seventeen. They were on floor seventeen. . . . Only sixteen more floors to go.
Fortunately, the elevator was empty, and Lori let herself sniffle as soon as the door closed. Lori felt so ashamed. Had people seen her leaving? Did they know she was Mom’s daughter? Did anyone think, Well, there’s the little striptease artist now?
Probably they laughed even harder, if they knew.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Just a right turn and a left turn, and then Lori would be safely back in her room, and she could cry and cry and cry, all she wanted.