There are a finite number of things I believe in.
I believe that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right, of the people peaceably to assemble, and petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I believe that the Minnesota Vikings will raise our hopes many times, but they will never win a Super Bowl.
I believe that James Taylor and Carly Simon, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum should all get back together.
And I believed that Janelle Ross could not have been pregnant in 1969 when she disappeared from Delphi.
Neil and I stared at her. Openmouthed.
"Really," Janelle said softly.
"You couldn't have been," I said flatly. "I was there, remember? You got your period just before the assembly announcing the homecoming royalty. Del was there. All the cheerleaders were there. I loaned you a nickel for the Kotex machine because you didn't have any money or supplies with you. They all remember exactly the same thing."
Janelle shrugged and smiled. "Nevertheless, I was pregnant. Three months, as a matter of fact."
"But how can that be?" I asked, confused.
"Tory, it was an act. I didn't get my period for another six months. But I wanted a cover for when I had to go away, so I deliberately staged that scene knowing the story would be spread. And believed. The cheerleaders would tell the school mainstream, and Delphine would tell the wild crowd. Everyone knew she hung out in the girls' can."
"Why put me in the middle?" I asked.
"It was just your luck to be there at show time," Janelle said, smiling softly. "But I realized immediately that you'd be an unimpeachable asset when it came to defending my honor. Since you didn't actually belong to any crowd, you'd be an independent witness. One that everyone would believe."
I was instantly embarrassed that my former self had been so easily duped. And angry that Janelle had read me so correctly—that I had defended her honor for more than a quarter of a century.
Neil stood behind me and placed a warm hand on my shoulder. "But why bother?" he asked. "By the time you delivered, your senior year would have been over. Or nearly so. What difference would it have made if everyone had known about the baby?"
"Ah Neil," Janelle said. "You're too young to remember what it was like in those days. Girls in my situation were immediately expelled from school. They were outcasts, regarded as used and dirty." She looked to me for confirmation.
"Things are more enlightened now," I said to Neil. ''There weren't any 'single mothers' back then. Just good girls and bad girls."
"And I wanted to stay a good girl. I figured people would think that I had cancer. Or mono." She shrugged. "Or something without any stigma attached, anyway. Even though I didn't plan to come back, I wanted to be remembered well. It's sort of a personality failing of mine."
Among others, I wanted to add. Like the ability to lie so convincingly that I was not sure she was telling the truth, even now.
"So you disappeared completely. But why then? And why leave it such a mystery?" Neil asked, pouring himself a glass of wine. He sat on the couch next to me.
"I thought it would be a hoot to pull a big one on the whole town," Janelle said, reaching for the wine bottle. "And that Friday seemed as good a time as any to make a grand exit. Homecoming was over, I went out in a blaze of glory. Besides, I would have to have left soon, I was starting to show."
"But didn't your parents go crazy worrying?" I asked.
"They knew I was in a home for unwed mothers in California," Janelle said, looking down. "I didn't tell them where, and they were so horrified by the truth that they were content not to know any of the particulars."
"And what were the particulars?" Neil asked quietly.
"That I gave birth to a healthy girl. That I gave her up for adoption immediately, and then went on with my life. No one in Delphi ever knew about the child. And I rarely thought about her myself, until a few months ago."
"What happened then?" I asked, finally pouring myself some wine, before it was all gone.
"My daughter grew up, and found me," Janelle said simply.
"How?"
"I can thank Benny for that," she said bitterly. "Even though he is no longer representing me, his name is on all the old press clippings and bios. The private investigator my daughter hired tracked Benny down and he was more than happy to capitalize on the situation. They corresponded for quite a while before I was told.
"And of course, she wasn't content just to find me. She wanted to establish a relationship. And she wanted me to help find her father." Janelle got up and walked to the window and said, with her back to us, "I refused."
"Why?"
"A discovery like that can be wrenching for anyone," she said, still looking out the window. "But for someone even as marginally famous as I am, this sort of revelation becomes tabloid fodder immediately. I decided that her right to discover the identity of her father did not outweigh my right to protect him, and his identity." Janelle turned to us. "Unfortunately, I forgot about Benny.
"He stole my senior Delphi annual and sent it to the girl. Late last summer, she wrote to the school, asking to be in contact with someone from our class, figuring to trace her father down that way. And the school just happened to have the 1969 homecoming king on staff."
"Oh jeez," I breathed. "Doug."
Doug, who Lisa Hauck-Robertson had been sure was getting, and keeping hidden, mail from somewhere. Doug, who'd had Janelle on the brain. Doug, who claimed to be responsible for bringing Janelle back to Delphi.
Janelle emptied the last of the wine into her glass and sat the bottle on the end table. "Yes, Doug. He was elated by contact with the girl, more than happy to assure her that he was indeed her father. And while he was writing to her, and while Debbie and Gina Adler were writing polite letters inviting me to make an appearance in this year's homecoming parade, Doug found me too. Through Benny, of course."
"Is that why you decided to come back to Delphi?" Neil asked. He'd quietly gone into the kitchen and returned with another open bottle of wine.
"By then I didn't have any choice. I was doing my best to forestall the happy reunion. It took everything I had to persuade my daughter to let me come to Delphi first, to scout the territory, so to speak. Doug was already threatening to sell the story to the tabloids himself, though he hinted that he might keep quiet. For a price," she said, disgusted.
"He was blackmailing you about his own daughter?" I asked, horrified.
"That's what he thought, anyway," Janelle said, with a small smile. "I agreed to an appearance here, but my real reason for returning was to make a damage control assessment. That was when Doug informed me that all of Delphi thought we'd run away together in 1969. And to appease him, I went along with his ridiculous story.
"In the meantime, 'our' daughter insisted that Doug take a blood test to prove paternity, which he did happily."
"So now Debbie has to deal with this, on top of Doug's death," I said. Enlightened times or not, surprise illegitimate children are still something of a shock.
"No, actually, she doesn't." Janelle grinned. "Because the test proved conclusively that Doug was not the father."
Neither of us said a word, waiting for Janelle to continue. The wine bottle sat sweating and ignored.
"He was enraged at first, of course. But being Doug, he figured he could turn it to his advantage. Without, as he said, having to worry about back child support payments."
Instinctively, we knew that Janelle would refuse to name her child's father for us. But by then, she didn't have to.
I knew who the father was.