The woman looked shocked at first, but then nodded fervently. I could tell she agreed.
“When will they put it up?”
“They have another one to do on that wall, so it should be done by the end of the day.” She reached into a file drawer and pulled the placard out. They’d probably had it sitting in there for eight months, all because of forty-seven cents. She showed it to me and I was suddenly taken back to the days after Rose’s death, when I’d had to make the decisions about her funeral. I had chosen to include her name and birth and death dates, like on most gravestones and placards, but I’d also had them add the simple word “Beloved” at the top, because she was.
“Is this the one?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have them put it up.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly and then shuffled out the door. It was getting dark as I headed back to the L station. I felt cleansed, as I always did after visiting my mother and Rose. On the train that night, I decided I would walk into the Chicago Crier the next day with my head held high. I had a job, an apartment, and a few devoted friends. I feared the general reaction to my article from R.J. and the public would be that it bordered on libel or defamation, but I had written nothing more than my observations, which would be impossible to refute, and I knew that the crowd at the Crier would appreciate the risk I had taken. I told myself there would be no more article pitches for fruit-flavored gum. I was going to be a serious journalist.
The next day I hit the Brown Line and searched for Just Bob. I needed a heavy dose of the inspirational self-help mumbo jumbo, but I couldn’t find him. I searched the entire length of the train twice, but he wasn’t there. I even missed my stop looking for him. I had to walk three extra blocks to the Crier, so I didn’t roll into the lobby until well after ten. I knew by that point in the day that everyone would have seen the article, so my nerves were on extra high alert. The security guy held up the paper as I walked past.
“Pretty bold one, Kate.”
“Thanks, I think.”
As I entered the Crier bull pen, as we called it, the music went off the overhead speaker. Jerry’s voice came on.
“She’s back, people.” Slowly, each head rose above the cubicle partitions to face my direction, and then the clapping began. I heard someone shout, “Glad to have you back, Kate!” and someone else yelled, “Great article this morning!” Beth grinned at me as I entered my cubicle.
I stood on my chair to thank everyone for the warm welcome back. It tipped and I almost fell, but I quickly regained my composure. Everyone laughed. “Yes, I’m still clumsy!” I shouted. I was known as the office klutz. People would see me coming and move things out of my way. I laughed at myself for a few seconds longer. “Okay, I just want to say thank you, I’m glad to get back to work.”
I stepped down as Jerry came toward my desk, rolling my suitcase behind him. “I guess there was nothing in here you needed too desperately,” he said.
I glanced at the suitcase. “I’m actually terrified to open that thing.”
He leaned against the cubicle wall and peered over me as I sat at my desk. “What happened out there?” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Beth’s chair roll a little ways into the aisle. She was eavesdropping.
“Just get in here, Beth. I know you’re listening.” She came in and leaned her backside against my desk. I huffed, “Nosy journalist.”
“Well, I need the details so I can have your back.”
“I fell hard for this guy, Jamie, who worked at the winery. I guess it was just a fling. He acted dodgy when I asked him personal questions, and then he slipped out in the middle of the night.”
“Why do you think?” Beth asked.
“I thought maybe R.J. or Susan, the general manager, put him up to it as a buffer between R.J. and me, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it wouldn’t have helped. I don’t know. We really clicked. I don’t get it. It was only a few days. Maybe it was too much, too soon.”
Jerry had a slightly penitent look on his face. “I’m sorry, I feel responsible.”
“Why?”
“Because I told you to go for it. I guess you have to kiss a few frogs first, but I think you deserve to find your prince.”
“Do I?”
Beth reached down and gave me a sideways hug around the shoulders. “You absolutely do,” she said.
“I think I need to get you working right away. Start coming up with some pitches, Kate. Let’s meet in my office tomorrow morning.”
“You got it, Jer.” They both left my cubicle just as Annabel, the young research assistant, came in.
“I guess you won’t be needing any of this. Congrats on the article,” she said as she plopped a stack of research on my desk.
“Thanks. Sorry you did all of that for nothing.”
“Yeah, this guy’s info was seriously buried. It took me forever just to find a picture of him. Someone must be a little paranoid.”
“He probably invented some super amazing computer gadget to protect his identity. I really am very sorry.”
“No worries, Kate. I like the angle you took on the piece, and if we ever want to run another article on him, we have a couple weeks’ worth of research here.”
“Thanks.”
After she left, I glanced down at the stack. My intention was to slide it entirely into the trash, but something caught my eye. It was an obituary from the Saturday before. The headline read: R. J. LAWSON SR., FATHER OF FAMED TECHNOLOGY INVENTOR, PASSES AWAY AT 68.
I skimmed past the section on Sr.’s contributions to the world of aviation engineering to his relationship with R.J. It said he was survived by his only son, Ryan James Lawson Jr., an extremely private technology inventor and philanthropist. Just over a week after his father’s death, I was libeling him in a worldwide publication. I moved the article aside. The next piece of information was a spreadsheet of the organizations R.J. had donated to. It was in order from the largest donations to the smallest. At the top of the list, under his own foundation, was the American Diabetes Association, and underneath that was the GLIDE homeless shelter.
My stomach began turning, but it completely dropped through the floor when I moved the spreadsheet to reveal a picture glued to a piece of paper. At the top, Annabel had written, R.J.’s graduation from MIT. Pictured here with his mother, Deborah.
Underneath the picture there were more notes.
It’s public record that R.J. was adopted as an infant. His adoptive mother, pictured here, was killed in a car accident four years ago. After reuniting with his biological parents, they tried to extort money from him. Both were given jail time. He has a biological sister in Boston, and even though he went to college and spends some free time there, he does not have a relationship with her. She testified in her parents’ favor at the short, unpublicized extortion trial.
I looked at the picture in disbelief. It was the same picture I had seen on Jamie’s nightstand in the barn. Suddenly, I remembered the picture I had seen before going to the winery, the one of R.J. as a young boy at the science fair. That boy at the science fair and the young man at his college graduation were clearly the same person. Jamie. Even now, I had a hard time seeing them in the man I had spent several intimate days with. Jamie couldn’t be a computer genius—he didn’t fit the stereotype. And I had seen R.J. with my own eyes in an interview . . .
I stood up on shaky legs and pushed my chair away. It can’t be. The room started spinning.
Beth spotted me over the partition. “You okay?” I nodded and then sunk to my knees on the floor. I tore open my suitcase and began rummaging through all of the notes and papers I had shoved in there from my room at the winery. I looked at the sheet where I had taken notes from R.J.’s e-mail to me. When I thought back to what Jamie had told me about his life, it matched or somehow fit into the outline R.J. had given me.