I checked social media, even my long since defunct MySpace account. Yes, I was that desperate for ways to keep myself busy.
I just wanted to get this whole thing over with, but I also knew I wasn’t strong enough to go on this crazy adventure by myself.
It was at that point a most excellent thought occurred to me. I could enlist the help of someone else to research my grandmother while I waited for my chance to go meet her in person. I had this thought on Wednesday—two days before Charles and I were scheduled to leave and three days before we’d actually get the chance to meet my grandmother, provided everything went well.
I had to do something to pass the long, anguish-filled hours, or I’d have found my grandmother but lost my mind.
Which brought me back to my would-be helper. She traveled a lot, but she was also the only person I knew with ties to the Katahdin area. And so I gave Sharon a call.
Sharon and her cat Chessy traveled up and down the coast in a luxury RV funded by their upcoming reality show. The cat was the real apple of the producer’s eye, but he and his human came as a package deal.
When I first met Sharon at the RV park just last weekend, I’d mistakenly assumed she was a killer. Hey, sometimes that happened in my line of work.
Once I figured out that she was just a busybody without a single mean bone in said body, I actually grew to like her a lot. She’d been kind and welcoming to Charles, Octo-Cat, and me when no one else at the campsite had taken any efforts to get to know us. That made her good people in my book.
Also, busybodies and private investigators were pretty much a match made in heaven. True, I needed her insights on a personal matter, but that just made me all the more eager to recruit her to my cause.
Sharon picked up on the fourth ring.“Hello? Hello! Are you still there?” she shouted into the phone. “Oh, please don’t tell me I’m too late! I just had to finish up in the bathroom, and— “
“Sharon,” I interrupted, having to shout so she could hear me. “It’s me, Angie. Do you remember meeting me last weekend?”
“Angie Russo, mother to one Octo-Cat and girlfriend to one of the most handsome fellas I’ve ever seen in all my life. Yes, hello, Angie. What can I do for you?”
“Actually, Charles and I are engaged now,” I said as a delicious smile spread across my face.
Sharon crooned happily at this news and then started recounting every wedding she’d ever attended.
I had to interrupt her again.“Yes, yes, we’re both very excited, and you’ll definitely receive an invite, but that’s not why I called.”
She sucked in a deep breath and then let out a long, belabored“Ohhh?”
“Well, it’s a long story,” I admitted.
“Do go on.” I could practically see her grabbing a snack and settling in at her RV’s booth seat. “Long stories are my favorite kind.”
And so I told her everything, leaving out any part that included talking animals, which was no small feat, let me tell you.
“So that’s why I’m calling,” I said after pausing only briefly so as not to invite any wild conversational tangents from her end. “To see if you can help me find out some info about my grandmother before I come out to meet her this weekend.”
“Now who’s this Bravo fella again? And why isn’t he helping to fill in these details, seeing as he’s the one who found her for you?”
“Just an old friend from… uh, Charles’s time in the service.” Well, that was almost true, except Charles’s service was to a militarized flock of seagulls rather than an actual government body. “He had to fly out of town for a bit, but I’m wondering if you’re still in Katahdin, maybeyou could—?”
This time Sharon was the one to interrupt.“Darling, you just leave it to me. Tell me her name and whatever info you have, and I’ll fill in the rest.”
“Oh, so you are still there? Good!”
“No, but I’m turning this RV around and heading that way right now.”
I loved this woman. Seriously, how had I ever seen her as anything but a friend?“Her name is Marilyn Jones,” I said, picturing the old birth certificate Pringle had unearthed from the attic. “She’s in her eighties and lived in Larkhaven, Georgia, at one point, but I don’t know much more than that.”
“You will,” Sharon promised. “Just give me forty-eight hours.”
“Perfect, because that’s just about as much time as we have.”
“You’ll let me pay you a visit once you’ve checked in at Katahdin, won’t you?”
“Sharon, thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
“Don’t fret it, honey. That’s what friends are for. Plus, Chessy and I always did love a good mystery.”
It was at this point I realized Sharon was basically me minus the boyfriend and plus a decade or two.
Honestly, I kind of loved that.
4
That Friday, I was like a kid at Christmas waiting for Santa. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I just sat on the living room couch, watching for Charles.
I knew he would pick me up between two and three so we could make it to the Katahdin area before rush-hour traffic hit, but I still planted myself on that couch as soon as I cracked an eye open after one very restless night of failed sleep.
Sharon and I played phone tag most of that morning. I was always it, trying to catch her. Even though she wasn’t that old, she hated texting—said it took away that human connection society so desperately craved. Yeah, it’s not what I would have expected to hear from an up-and-coming reality star, either.
She’d managed to unearth some info about my long-lost grandmother Marilyn Jones but was being coy about it. If conversations were meant for the phone, she reasoned, important ones should be had face-to-face. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her to reveal her findings otherwise. This meant our calls were solely about finalizing our plans for meeting up.
Once that was taken care of at last, I was left waiting for Charles with only Paisley at my side to stick it out. Nan, of course, had disappeared, as was becoming normal for her these days. Octo-Cat complained that he had not enjoyed his nightly feline excursions because of how restless I’d been. Apparently, whatever he did at night was completely ruined by the very thought of me blearily stumbling upon his antics. I didn’t want to touch that one with a ten-foot cat toy, quite frankly.
“Is it time yet?” Paisley ruffed, hopping off my lap and pressing her paws into the back of the loveseat to peer out the window; her little tail beat furiously.
“Not yet,” I said with a moan. This was at least the hundredth time she’d asked me that day, and every time I had to tell her ‘not yet,’ her ears fell back against her head and she let out a sad whine.
“Oh,” she squeaked before sinking back onto the couch and curling into a tiny, shivering ball. As much as I hated to wait, I hated seeing her like this even more.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, putting on the happiest voice I could manage, given the current circumstances.
Her deer-shaped Chihuahua head popped up, oversized triangle ears erect once again as she tilted her muzzle to the side.
“Let’s play fetch,” I said as I slapped my palms against my lap to make this declaration even more irresistible and exciting.
Paisley flew off the couch in an impressive display of athleticism, then slid across the hardwood floor until she found the small stash of toys she liked to keep tucked away. She pranced back over with a tiny stuffed lamb clenched proudly between her teeth.
“Good girl,” I enthused. Octo-Cat hated being talked to like a baby or a pet, but Paisley lapped it right up.
She dropped the toy at my feet and began to kick her legs back in excitement, my sweet little chicken.
I picked up the toy, faked throwing it once or twice, and then launched it across the room.
Paisley scampered after it, barking the whole way.
I waited.