The Language of Sycamores

Chapter 19

I sat down at Ben’s computer and clicked the icon to log on, drumming my fingers impatiently on Joshua’s Barney stickers beside the keyboard. When the computer finally made a connection, I punched up a search engine, typed in Sadie Walker singer, then waited, holding my breath for what seemed like forever.

The page timed out and then the computer promptly logged off the Internet with a cheerful “Good-bye.”

“Darn,” I grumbled, glancing at my watch. Time to go. Logging on again, I reentered Sadie’s name into the search page, then sat there while the computer was hung up, a tiny electric hourglass flowing endlessly in the center of the screen. Finally, I gave up and hurried down the stairs.

“I left the computer searching for something,” I said, as I whizzed through the kitchen, gathering Dell and a cup of coffee. “It probably won’t find a match. I think it’s hung up. Remind me later—I might be able to adjust the software to help that problem.”

“That would be great.” Kate stopped to hand Rose her sippy cup. “Sometimes it sits like that for five minutes, then either logs off or goes on just fine. Ben said it could be software, but hasn’t had time to tinker. I’ll check later and see if anything came up.”

Rose waved her arms and said, “Mmm-mmm-mmm,” then smiled at me with oatmeal running down her chin. “Ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba!” She waved enthusiastically. Over the past week, she had come to know who I was, and every time I came into a room, she made me feel like a queen.

“Bye-bye, pretty girl,” I said, and she smiled wider, cereal oozing between her baby teeth as she raised her hands and covered her eyes.

“Oh, where’s Rose?” I lamented. “She disappeared. Where did she go?”

Rose giggled, squealing hysterically, but didn’t come out of hiding.

“I can hear her, but I can’t see her.” I stomped closer, my feet echoing on the wooden floor, so that it sounded like the Jolly Green Giant was coming. “Where is she?” Leaning close to her, I smelled baby powder and oatmeal. Sweet, soft smells.

Letting out a gleeful, ear-piercing screech, Rose threw out her arms and slapped cereal-covered hands on my cheeks.

Kate and Dell burst out laughing.

Joshua squealed and pointed. “She got you! Wose got Aunt Ka-wen.”

“A-a-a-ahhhh!” I screamed like a crazy lady, touching my face. “I’m melll-ting!” Grabbing a napkin, I kissed Joshua, Rose, and then Kate on the top of the head. Kate reached up and held my hand, and I stayed there for a moment with my chin resting on her hair. I had the strangest urge to confide in her about the biopsy, but I knew it would be incredibly wrong to tell her without telling James.

“It’s so good to have you here.” Kate’s voice trembled with emotion.

“It’s good to be here.” Standing up, I wiped off Rose’s oatmeal deposits, feeling gushy and warm like the stuff on my cheeks. “I guess we’d better get going.”

Kate seemed a little embarrassed, too. It was the first time we’d shared a hug that wasn’t the kiss-kiss, tap-tap kind used by foreign dignitaries and Hollywood stars, the kind that didn’t mean anything.

“See you this afternoon,” she said. “Maybe today we can finally make it out to see the mermaid pool and the sister sycamores.” All week long we’d been trying to find time to go, but I’d been tied up with extra Jumpkids practices, or one of Kate’s kids was napping, or supper needed to be cooked. We hadn’t yet made it round the mountain.

“That sounds good. I definitely want to take you there before I leave.” Time was running short. This was Monday. Next Monday, Jumpkids would be over, and I would be heading home. The biopsy would be behind me, and the cancer question answered.

Kate glanced away, like she didn’t want to acknowledge my eventual departure. “All right. Have a good day, you two.”

“See you this afternoon.”

By afternoon, it was clear that I probably wouldn’t make it to the mermaid pool tonight. Our first full rehearsal was looking more like an exercise in firefighting than a musical theater production. Keiler and the other counselors were showing Herculean patience as they tried to herd noisy, excited little bodies to the correct places. I had been elected director because nobody else wanted to be. Shirley usually did the job. She called from the hospital to wish us good luck, and to give me a few pointers.

“Keiler says you’re really good,” she said. I had a feeling Keiler hadn’t really said that, and Shirley was just trying to butter me up.

“I don’t know about that, but I’m doing the best I can. Right now it looks like mass chaos.”

Shirley laughed. “It always does the first time you put them all together in one room. By the end of the week, you’ll be surprised.” She didn’t say whether it would be a good surprise or a bad surprise.

“I hope so. I’m way out of my league here.”

She chuckled again. “I don’t know. Keiler thinks you ought to take the job full-time.” For just an instant, I thought she was serious.

“Oh, no.” I said it so as to make sure she knew we were only joking.

“The counselors say you’re really good. . . .” She trailed off on an up note, her voice teasing. She was obviously a woman with a good sense of humor.

“Oh, no-o-o,” I said, playfully but more emphatically. “I’m a networking consultant, not a pint-sized production manager.”

“Hey, I was a thirty-two-year-old lawyer when I started with Jumpkids.” She laughed. “Now I’m forty-five years old and pregnant with twins, so anything’s possible.”

I gave her a sympathetic groan. There was probably a good story behind her transformation from lawyer to Jumpkids director to pregnant with twins at forty-five, but I didn’t have time to ask. Onstage, the zebras were running amuck. “I’d better go-o-o-oh-no. The zebras just stampeded and knocked down three wildebeests.”

Shirley burst into giggles. “Sounds like things are right on schedule. Hang in there, Karen.”

“I am.”

“Have fun.”

“I am. Take care, Shirley.” Setting down Brother Baker’s cordless phone, I rushed to the stage to assess the damage to the wildebeest herd.

The counselors had it fairly well under control by the time I got there. Keiler was doing a good job of straightening out the rowdy zebras.

“Somebody needs to whup John Ray’s butt,” Sherita said from where she was skulking on the stage stairs. “He don’t listen, and he keeps takin’ his tail and swingin’ it at people.”

Onstage, Tina was holding the tail in one hand and John Ray in the other, giving him a solid talking-to. “Looks like Tina has it figured out.”

“Needs his butt whupped,” Sherita grumbled, giving John Ray a murderous look. It was more interest than she’d shown in anything all week, so I decided to go with it.

“Well, we aren’t going to whip anybody’s butt here, Sherita, but if you’d like to offer a suggestion as to how to control the zebras, please feel free.”

“They need their . . .”

“Without whipping any butts,” I finished, and she curled her lip at me. I figured the conversation was finished.

“Take their tails off,” she said after glaring at the zebras for a minute.

“They have to learn to work with the tails on.” Although at the moment, collecting the tails was a tempting thought.

Sherita huffed. “Take John Ray’s tail off. Nobody’s gonna notice that. If he ain’t gonna behave with it, take it off, and he’ll just be a zebra without a tail.”

Turning slowly, I pointed a finger at her, trying not to seem too pleased lest she realize she’d accidentally said something constructive, and pull back into her shell. “That’s not a bad idea.” Stepping onto the stage, I waved at Tina. “Tina, take John Ray’s tail off for now.” The kids stopped what they were doing and looked at me. A zebra with no tail? What was Miss K thinking? I gave them my best poker face. “A few tails seem to be misbehaving this morning. If any of you are having a problem with your tails swinging around in circles or swatting other people, please raise your hand.” There was suddenly a mass dropping of tails, all hands went still, and the room became silent. I felt . . . pleased with myself. “All right, then let’s try the opening number again. Any tails caught swinging around will be confiscated and returned to you tomorrow.” I stepped off the stage as the kids moved to their places. I’d never seen a group of little bottoms so still.

“Good job, Sherita,” I muttered as we waited for the music to cue up.

Sherita crossed her arms and stood up, trying not to look pleased or involved or interested. Leaning against the wall next to me, she tapped her toe as the first notes of music came on and “Nants ingonyama!” blared through the auditorium while the monkey medicine man lifted our fake baby Lion King high into the air.

“The baby lion looks stupid,” Sherita groused, loud enough for the nearby giraffes to hear. “It’s supposed to be a real baby. I read the script.”

“We don’t have a real baby.” Lord, all we needed now was a baby to manage on top of everything else. Although Sherita did have a point. The stuffed one didn’t lend much drama to the opening scene.

“Myrone could do it. I could bring him with me tomorrow. I’ll watch him real good so he don’t mess with anything. We could dress him up and put whiskers and a nose on him.” It was more than Sherita had said all week. Suddenly, she looked enthusiastic. She had sparkle.

Unfortunately, there was no way we could keep up with a toddler for the next five days. I shook my head and she crossed her arms again, shoving herself against the wall.

“I’ll tell you what,” I heard myself say. What was I doing? “Why don’t you and Meleka practice with him at home this week, and then bring him on Thursday and we’ll try it with the whole group.” She straightened, standing away from the wall, her bright hazel-gray eyes searching my face. She wasn’t sure if I meant it. She was waiting for the catch, the letdown. The usual rejection. “You don’t think he’ll be afraid to be out there with all the people and the costumes?”

She gave a confident chin bob. “He ain’t afraid of anything.”

“Good.” I hope it’s good. I might be having a moment of Lion King insanity. “Why don’t you take the mother lion’s part so you’ll be all set when Myrone comes? Kimmy’s mom called this morning, and she has the stomach flu. She might be back by the Friday dress rehearsal, and she might not.”

“O.K.,” she said, and marched onto the stage to show them all how it was done. Despite the fact that she hadn’t practiced all week, she was the best one in the group. Dell was right—Sherita knew the production backward and forward.

The church’s cordless phone rang at my seat just as the first number was finishing. No one picked up in the church office, so I answered.

Kate was on the other end. “Well, hi there,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to answer this number. I tried your cell phone, but it just gave me your voice mail, and, by the way, your voice mail is full.”

“Huh,” I replied. I hadn’t had any voice mail all week, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder why. That in itself was an anomaly for me. Normally, I couldn’t live a day without voice mail. “I haven’t been keeping the cell phone on. I guess the voice mail has piled up, but for some reason it’s not showing up on the screen. So what’s up? Did you need something?”

“Your Internet search turned up a clue.” Her voice rose and she stretched the last word with unmistakable excitement. “The search engine found a link to an article from a little St. Louis arts newspaper. It’s called ‘Eighty Years of Jazz,’ and it’s about a woman named Sadie Broshier, who was a dancer and a jazz singer back in the twenties and thirties, and up through World War II. The article is about her marrying an old gent named Broshier in some retirement home in St. Louis, but it also talks quite a bit about her life and the things she did—entertaining in the USO and whatnot. I can’t find anyplace where it says Sadie Walker, and the article doesn’t mention where she was originally from, but it came up on your search. Do you think it could be our Sadie? The article was written seven years ago, and it says she was eighty-two at the time. That wouldn’t really be old enough to be our Sadie, but it could be a misprint.”

I thought about that for a minute, trying to decide whether to get my hopes up. I was surprisingly emotionally invested, and obviously Kate was, too. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t be the first woman to lie about her age.” A memory trickled through my mind, and I chuckled. “Grandma Rose used to do that sometimes, remember? Of course, she was usually bumping it up so people would make a big deal about what good shape she was in for her age. Remember the time the church contacted us about having a big eightieth birthday party for her, and she was only seventy-seven?”

Kate laughed. “I had forgotten about that.” Rose fussed in the background, and Kate hurried to wind up the conversation. “Well, anyway, I tried to get in touch with the newspaper that had the article, but it doesn’t exist anymore. I e-mailed the article to Ben and asked if maybe he could check into it while he’s in St. Louis this week. The retirement home wouldn’t give me any information over the phone, but if Ben goes there in person, maybe . . .”

“That sounds good.” I wondered, suddenly, why she had called instead of waiting until tonight to tell me all this. She hung on the phone like there was more to say. I could hear her moving around, trying to quiet Rose. “Anything else?” Onstage, Dell was just beginning her solo in the waterfall number. She was singing quietly, so timidly I could barely hear her voice. “Dell’s singing right now.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Kate’s focus seemed to be elsewhere. “Aunt Jeane’s coming for our little Memorial Day family gathering.”

“That’ll be fun. We haven’t gotten to visit in a while.” I watched as Tina stopped Dell, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. Dell nodded, pressed her lips into a determined line, and straightened her body with a deep breath. When she started to sing again, her voice rang through the sanctuary, pure and sweet and perfect.

“Dad’s coming for Memorial Day, too,” Kate said, then she sucked in a breath like she was waiting for a bomb to explode.

“O.K.,” I heard myself reply, and I suddenly knew I didn’t care. I didn’t care if Attila the Hun was coming to our family gathering. All I cared about was that Dell, who had been so shy a few days ago that she wouldn’t even raise her head and talk to people, was onstage, singing. She hit a long, high note, head falling back, eyes closing, dark hair tumbling around her, arms unfolding into the air, stretching out like wings.

Tears filled my eyes, and I realized I was on my feet. “Listen to this!” I said into the phone, then held it in the air.

At that moment, Dell looked like she could fly.

I barely remembered saying good-bye to Kate. All I could think about when Dell finished her song was getting to the stage to give her a hug. I nearly trampled three gazelles on my way. I was dimly aware that I was interrupting the performance, showing favoritism, and I probably looked ridiculous dashing across the set with my arms flailing at my sides, squealing, “That was great! That was great!”

Dell launched into my arms with a force that knocked me back, and we tumbled onto the floor, landing among the warthogs, who, as warthogs will do, jumped on top of us and created a pig pile.

Pinned underneath the mass of squirming, giggling bodies, I closed my eyes and laughed until I ached, tickling feet and kissing little body parts. It was a moment I knew I would never forget. A moment of the pure and complete joy of childhood.

“This looks more like a scene from Hair,” Keiler joked from somewhere overhead when the frenzy died down and the warthogs lay exhausted.

“It feels like a visit to the chiropractor.”

The kids slowly unpiled, leaving Dell and me to disentangle ourselves and get up. I gave her one more quick hug, and then Keiler called for everyone to hit their marks for the next number. The kids bounded into place with only a modicum of pushing, shoving, and tail swinging. I went back to my place offstage, and Mojo Joe clapped his hands, saying, “Positions, everybody. Positions. Hold it! Where is the rotten log with the gummy bugs in it? We need the rotten log for this one!”

The set crew appeared with the rotten log, which looked suspiciously like an old packing barrel covered with brown paper, and the show went on.

By lunchtime, we had more or less made it through every number. The kids were tired but surprisingly cheerful as they split into core groups for lunch, after which they would spend the rest of the day working on their specific parts. I sprung the news on Keiler that I had an appointment in town and would be gone over lunch, and probably for a half hour or so after that.

He didn’t ask any questions, just said, “Take your time. I’ll hold down the fort,” then continued to the lunchroom with the kids.

I went to Brother Baker’s office and took my purse from the closet, searching for an ibuprofen. It had been a great but very noisy morning. I wished James could have been there to see it. He would have been so proud of Dell, and so amazed at how much the kids had accomplished in the week since he left. He would have been astounded to see Sherita perfectly dancing the part of the mother lion.

He would also have been asking why I had an appointment in town, and I wouldn’t have had an answer. All the same, I wanted to talk to him, just to hear his voice for a minute before I left. Grabbing my cell phone, I clicked it on, hoping to catch him between flights and deliver an early update on the morning’s practice. He’d surprised me by calling the farm almost every evening to see how things were going. It felt good to be interested in something together, even if our conversations were littered with undertones about heading home and tending to the business of unemployment.

When I told him my father was coming for Memorial Day, he would really be worried. He knew that mixing Dad and me was like combining baking soda and vinegar—it was bound to foam up into a mess. We always ended up hashing over the past, who was right, who was wrong, whose fault things were. We never solved anything, which was why I avoided visits with my father. When he heard about my job layoff and the fact that I’d stayed for two weeks at the farm instead of rushing back to pound the pavement in Boston, he’d be all over the issue like a dog on a fresh steak.

James would never believe me when I said I absolutely didn’t care. I wasn’t interested in dissecting the past or the present with my father anymore. Dad was Dad and I was me. I was all grown up. And that was that. Hakuna Matata, as they say in The Lion King. No worries.

James would think I’d lost my mind, been possessed by some alter-Karen, who could forgive and forget and accept the fact that nobody’s perfect.

The cell phone rang, and I pressed the button without even looking at the screen.

“Hello?” I said, expecting to hear James.

“Where the bleep have you been?” It wasn’t James. My mind rocketed back to my old reality. It was Brent Giani, from Systems at Lansing Tech.

“Brent?” It seemed like a year, not just a little over a week, since I’d talked to him. “Hey. How are you? How are things there?”

He barely waited for me to finish the sentence. “Where are you?” He sounded irked, which was unusual. Normally, Brent just slouched and shuffled along in his rumpled khakis and his plaid shirts, moving at his own relaxed pace. He didn’t get excited unless the system was down.

“Well, I’m . . .” A line of kids went by in the hall, squealing and making animal sounds, drowning out what I was going to say.

“What was that?” he demanded, like he couldn’t imagine.

Probably, he couldn’t. “Kids making animal sounds.” I knew that would really confuse him, so I added, “I’m in Missouri . . . for a . . . visit. Since I didn’t have anything else to do this week.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. I’d hardly thought about Lansing all week. I hadn’t had time. Talking to Brent brought it all back. “How goes it on the Titanic?”

Brent didn’t laugh, which made me wonder again what was going on. Usually, he was right there with a sarcastic response. “Listen, there’s a lot going on. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a week.”

“We . . . who?” I stumbled backward, feeling for the side of the desk and sitting down. “What’s going on?”

He paused, and the moment seemed to stretch out forever.

“Brent, what’s going on?” I pressed, suddenly back in the reality of Lansing and corporate treachery.

When he answered, his voice was lowered. “Some of us are”—another pause, and then—“getting something together. We’ve got a plan, and we want you in.”

I tried to imagine what he meant. “A plan to do what, exactly?”

“Well, let’s just say I intercepted a memo last week between Vandever and his henchmen. On the day after Memorial weekend, Lansing is going to send out a memo to our custom-network accounts telling them we’re no longer offering custom-network services, and referring them to a third-party vendor. Care to guess who owns the third-party vendor?”

I gasped, everything suddenly clarifying like the pieces of a puzzle falling together—the closing of my department, the quick layoffs of everyone in Custom Networks. It wasn’t just a cost-cutting measure. It was part of a plan. “No. You’re kidding. Vandever and his bunch own it, don’t they? They shut down my department, and now they’re going to send the business over to their own little company.” My skin went flush and perspiration beaded up on my back, dripping slowly downward in hot streams.

“Ex-actly. Now it makes sense that they’re closing down a profitable department and leaving other departments untouched, doesn’t it? They’re taking this company apart like a junk car, keeping the good pieces for themselves.”

“They can’t do that!” I fumed, my indignation reverberating through the office. “That’s illegal.”

Brent groaned. “Technically, who knows? Anyway, it isn’t going to matter because we’re going to beat them to it.”

“How?” My mind revved like a dragster about to take off. “What do you have planned?”

A mad-scientist giggle trickled through the phone. “Heh-heh-heh-heh. Well, say a certain someone had the customer list and sent out a memo to all the customers that same day, offering them the services of a new start-up custom-networking company run by the very people who built their networks in the first place. Wouldn’t the customers find that more attractive than using a third-party vendor they’ve never heard of?”

“Of course they would.” The picture crystallized, and I stood there in awe of the possibility. “It’s perfect. It’s brilliant. We steal back the business Vandever stole from us, and right out from under his nose. Oh, my gosh, that’s priceless!” The sweet essence of revenge spiraled through me like wine, leaving me giddy and lighter than air.

“Yes, it is.” Brent’s voice was low, confident. “We give Vandever and his cronies what they deserve, and our new company starts out with a basis of solid accounts to build on. Almost no risk, and we go from watching the board of directors run our company down the tubes, to running our own company.”

Almost no risk. That wasn’t exactly true. “But there’s some risk for you. You still have a job at Lansing.”

“Not as of this coming Friday.” He sounded almost gleeful about it. “As of Friday, I’m telling them I’m out of here for good. Next Tuesday, we start up Geo Networking Solutions.”

“Geo Networking. Is that what you’re calling it?” I liked the sound of the name.

“That’s it. You in? We need you here to make this work, Karen.”

That heady sense of revenge wafted past, and every inch of my body tingled with excitement. “I’m with you. What do I need to do?”

“Get back here as soon as you can. Yesterday, if possible.” In the background, I heard him typing on his computer, and his voice took on a regular cadence that matched the keystrokes. “We’re working out all the details with the lawyers this week, and we sign the articles of incorporation next Tuesday, right after the Memorial Day holiday, just in time for the memo to go out to all of our old and dear networking customers.”

“I’ll be . . .” As if on cue, as if it had been planned by some great, cosmic force, the hallway door opened and I heard the kids at lunch, singing one of The Lion King songs.

“ ‘Hakuna Matata . . . it means no worries. . . .’ ”

“Oh, God,” I muttered, feeling my breath go out in a great, deflating gust.

“What?” It sounded like Brent thumped the phone. “Are you still there?”