From Here To Paternity

On the short drive back to town she came to a decision. Instead of turning for home, she headed for the diner. Might as well get it over with, let folks have a look at her niece.

After all, this was the Flat. Everybody knew everything about everyone else. Seeing Redonda and Emmy back there by Brand’s house had brought it home to her that there was absolutely no sense in trying to keep the baby hidden away.

Uh-uh. Smarter to play the proud auntie. Let them all know she had absolutely nothing to hide. The building loomed up on her left, the big black-and-white sign with red lettering over the door proclaiming it Dixie’s Diner.

At seven-thirty, when Charlene entered with Mia in her arms, the counter was full and so were the booths. Lots of folks liked to come in early for breakfast, and Saturdays were no exception.

Teddy was flipping pancakes on the grill and Rita—the waitress who’d agreed to come in at the last minute—was taking an order from the Winkle family at the back booth. Nan and George Winkle had three boys: twelve, eight and six. They were a rambunctious crew and prone to talking over each other. The boys would order more than they could possibly eat, while Nan and George vetoed and bargained and eventually allowed them to get whatever they wanted.

George, Jr., who had something of a crush on Charlene, waved wildly at the sight of her. “Hey. Charlene. Hi!”

Stevie, the youngest, started bouncing up and down, announcing in a loud sing-song, “Charlene has got a baby, an itty-bitty baby…”

“Shh, now,” said Nan. “Just you settle down.”

Matt, the middle son, demanded, “I want OJ and hot chocolate. I’ll drink ’em both, promise. Swear it. Please, I want both. Please…”

“Son,” said George. “Settle down now…”

Rita turned. “Hey, Charlene.” By then everyone in the place seemed to be staring.

“What’s that you got there?” demanded Old Tony Dellazola from his usual seat at the counter, three stools up from the door.

Charlene put on her widest, friendliest, happiest smile. “This is my niece, Sissy’s little girl. Her name is Mia Scarlett and she’s going to be staying with me for a while.”

Did it work? Charlene asked herself that night, as she was putting the baby to bed in a nest of pillows. Had her bold move of waltzing into the diner and introducing Mia right up front like that thrown a wet blanket on the gossip mill?

She wished.

Uh-uh. It had, however, let them all know that Mia’s “visit” was Charlene’s story and she planned on sticking to it; that was all she was saying on the subject and they might as well get used to it.

But just because it was all that Charlene was saying, didn’t mean everyone else would keep their big mouths shut. In the Flat, people talked. About each other. A lot. If you lived there, you had to learn to accept gossip as a given.

And some people were simply more interesting as grist for the gossip mill than others. Troublemakers and victims of terrible tragedies topped the list of the gossipworthy.

Sissy and Charlene’s parents had died in a car accident when Sissy was only nine. She’d been sent away to live with an aunt and uncle in San Diego, though Charlene had sold the family home to finance her failed suit to get custody of her sister. That was the tragedy part. And when Sissy returned to town last year, she’d been nothing but trouble. She was a gossipmonger’s dream. Since she’d vanished last summer—no doubt with the contents of Brand’s petty cash drawer in her pocket—the talk about her had never died down.

It didn’t take a genius or a psychic to know what people would be saying. Charlene could just hear them…

“Sissy has a baby?”

“A baby poor Charlene never so much as mentioned until today, when she shows up at the diner with the sweet little thing in her arms…”

“Isn’t that just like that crazy girl, to drop off her baby with Charlene out of nowhere like that?”

“You’re right. Just like her.”

“And I can’t help but wonder, where has Sissy got off to now?”

“Yes. And the big question, the most important question, is who might that little one’s father be…?”

Enough, Charlene chided herself. No good would come from obsessing over all the hurtful things that people might say.

She needed to take action. She needed to find her sister. But how?

Charlene got out her address book. She had two San Diego phone numbers her sister had given her way back when Sissy was in junior high. Charlene dialed the first one, for a girl name Mindy: no longer in service.

The second was for a Randee Quail. A woman picked up after it rang three times. Maureen Quail, Randee’s mother. She remembered Sissy, vaguely, but said she thought that Randee and Sissy had drifted apart in high school. Randee was a freshman at UCLA now. Maureen gave Charlene her cell number.

Charlene reached Randee on the first try. She said she hadn’t spoken to Sissy since her sophomore year in high school and had no idea where she might be now.

Next, Charlene looked through the junk drawer in the kitchen and every nook and cranny of her desk in the living room. She found two phone numbers scrawled on sticky notes, no names attached, and she was feeling just desperate enough to try them both.

The first was a chimney-cleaning company. A machine greeted her and told her to leave a message. She didn’t.

When she dialed the second number, a man answered. “This is Bob Thewlis.”

“Uh. Hi. I’m Charlene Cooper and I wonder if—”

“Charlene. Yeah. At the diner up in New Bethlehem Flat. Well. Gave you my number how many months ago…?”

“Oh.” She vaguely remembered—or she thought she did. Now and then a guy would ask for her number. She’d always tell them, Why don’t you give me yours? “Well. Hi, Bob…”

He chuckled. “I thought you’d never call. Because you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

Bob reminded her that he lived in Nevada City and he asked her if she’d like to have dinner Friday night. She almost said yes, just because she was so embarrassed to have called him and not even known who he was.

But then Mia started crying from her makeshift bed of pillows. Charlene apologized and said she couldn’t and explained that she was trying to reach someone and had found his number on a sticky note…

“Bye, Charlene,” he said, and hung up before she was through making excuses for her bizarre behavior.

She changed Mia’s diaper and then sat in the rocker in the living room with her for a while, thinking bleak thoughts.

Not only had she totally misplaced her own sister, she also never had a date. Not lately, anyway. She used to date. She’d go out now and then when some guy would ask her.

But somehow, it just never went anywhere with anyone. A couple of dates and they’d stop calling—or she’d make excuses when they asked her out again.

There was just never a…fit. There was never that excitement, that special thing that happened when you met a guy who was the right guy. There was never the thrill she’d known all those years ago.

With Brand.

By Sunday afternoon Brand wanted to shoot someone. Or better yet, punch somebody’s lights out.

Shooting and brawling did not fit the image he’d so carefully cultivated over the years. But too damn bad. A man—even a levelheaded man—can only be pushed so far before he had to start pushing back.

He’d picked up his uncle Clovis—who was also the senior and soon-to-be fully retired partner in their two-man firm—at five that morning. They went down to play golf in Grass Valley. Brand wasn’t a great lover of golf. But it pleased his uncle if he played with him now and then.