Book 3 – A Little Shoppes Women’s Friendship Fiction

Chapter One – New Year, New Quest

Waking up on New Year’s Day, I’m filled with hope and determination. I’m devoted to fighting for my new town and my Little Shoppes family. I have enough footage at this point for my documentary. From this moment on, I have a new mission. I’m putting my camera down and every breath I take will be spent searching for Jane’s baby. Randa says if we have any proof of an heir, we can file an injunction against Splash Inc. to buy us more time and stave off the evictions at The Little Shoppes.

It’s the best way to stop Mayor Clark bar’s plan to lease The Little Shoppes to Splash Inc. for a water park. Otherwise, some of the shop owners will be out on their ear and the rest will be under the thumb of a major conglomerate. We need to keep our Little Shoppes family together. They’ve all been so good to me. I have to help them and time is not on my side.

“Ellen,” Pamela says in her “come and get it” mama voice.

Hurriedly, I get dressed and rush down the stairs, where a waft of Pamela’s sugar French toast grabs me and lures me into the kitchen.

“Welcome to the New Year, sleepyhead. Ready for some New Year Sugar French Toast waffles? Surprise! I bought myself this new French waffle maker for Christmas. I deserve it!” Pamela smiles as she holds up a tray of powdered sugar–covered French toast, dripping with butter and syrup.

I can’t resist—Pamela’s cooking is next level, especially her breakfasts. She’s always trying to find a way to build a better mousetrap with her recipes. And she’s had a few clunkers, but mostly everything she satisfies my stomach with wonderfully tasty food and fills my heart with the warmth and comfort of home. It’s no wonder I’ve gained 10 pounds since I moved in a couple months ago. But more than that, for the first time in my life, I’m at home.

I take a seat across from her and happily dig my fork into the scrumptious confection.

My first bite in, I recognize something is different.

“Pamela, why did you call this New Year Sugar French Toast waffles? Did you change the recipe?”

She beams with excitement and leans toward me in anticipation. “Yes. What do you think?”

“I like it. It’s good. Let me see if I can guess what’s in it,” I say, puzzled.

“Here’s a hint. It reminds me of snow cream. On a cold winter day, you mix cream and vanilla with snow in a bowl and have yourself a fine winter treat. It’s a southern tradition, you know,” Pamela explains. She takes another bite.

As I try to digest the concept of eating snow off the ground, all I can picture is the dirty, sooty snow left by the plows in the city. Nearly nauseated, I clear my head and take another bite. This time, I really concentrate on the sensations filling my mouth.

“Is it creamier?”

“Dang. I can never pull the sheep’s wool over your eyes. Yes, I wanted to make a cream filling, but couldn’t think of how to fill a piece of toast, so instead of eggs, I coated the toast in buttermilk and vanilla pudding mix. Do you like it?” As she leans further forward in curiosity, she almost dips her cute white angora sweater into the buttered syrup.

“I like it a lot—it’s like a French pastry. Your mind is truly one of a kind. I don’t know how you invent all these new recipes.”

“Me either. After all the hairspray I’ve used over the years, you’d think the toxic fumes would have fried my brain for good!”

Looking again at the toast, I have a stray thought and fold it in half like a taco. “Imagine it this way, with vanilla pudding inside.” I marvel at my idea.

“Now dang it all, why didn’t I think of that?” Pamela crinkles her face.

“I’m terrified that I did think of it. You’re a bad influence on me,” I laugh.

“Honey child, we have not even scratched the surface,” she says.

I finish my food and anxiously help her with the dishes, but I’m eager to begin my quest.

“What’s your rush? You remember that this is a holiday, right?” Pamela asks.

I stop in my tracks and gently slap my forehead.

“That’s right—I forgot!”

“Where were you off to?” Pamela asks.

Hesitating for a moment, I’m unsure how much I want to reveal about what Randa shared. There’s the slimmest chance that Jane’s heir could be the answer to the town’s problems. I don’t want to get Pamela’s hopes up and I’m afraid to burden the biggest gossip in town with any more information before it’s certain.

“Oh, nothing, just itching to get some research done for my documentary. I have some papers to read.” I fake a smile and stroll out of the room.

“Boring. Boring. If you want to play cards in a while, I’ll be lounging with my magazines,” she says.

Pamela must hold the world record for magazine subscriptions. Fashion, cooking, interior design, books, arts and crafts, sewing, needlepoint, crocheting. She has enough periodicals delivered to put some kid through college in magazine sales alone. She methodically tears out the articles she likes and keeps them in binders in a closet labeled by category. I wonder if she ever re-reads them.

Since nothing will be open today, I quietly creep down to the basement to review the scrapbooks Walter gave me. Maybe I missed something.

I settle in and get comfortable. Studying the photographs of young Mary and Jane about town in the Windy City for a few hours, I’m certain Jane was pregnant. She’s always wearing flowy dresses or big coats, but her face looks fuller and there’s a glow about her. Even with the faded color pictures, it shows through. She looks happy. But why would a happy woman give up her baby?

She was unmarried and that could be problematic in those days… but it was the late seventies, not the fifties. And she had a support system with Mary and Sarah.

Further, Sarah had plenty of money. But what if Sarah didn’t want her to keep the baby? Would Jane have put it up for adoption then?

I scour the remaining albums and letters and find nothing. It’s so frustrating—I need something to point me in the right direction.

Then, while loading the albums back into Walter’s brown leather case, a small picture falls out. It is of a very young Walter and Jane at the prom.

Walter looks so different, dressed in a suit with a big bowtie and ruffled shirt. But I recognize him by his signature high and tight haircut. Even when many young men were growing their locks, Walter was prim and proper.

Gazing at the picture, I can’t help thinking how he and Jane look so sweet together, with their big smiles.

Placing the picture back in the case, I go upstairs and tell Pamela I’m heading to Walter’s place. Maybe he can fill in some blanks.

***

Walter lives on the outskirts of town, amid farmhouses and fields. I drive down the barely paved streets dusted with snow.

When I pull up, he greets me with gleeful amazement. Poor soul— I think he’s very lonely.

“Well, Flicker, this is a pleasant surprise. Come on in from the winter cold and set down.” He enthusiastically waves me inside.

“I’m sorry to just drop by, but I wanted to return these.” I lift the brown case up to show him.

“No rush in that. The past ain’t gonna change no matter how long you have those. But I’m happy to see ya.” He offers a seat in his living room.

The house is exactly what I would expect from Walter. Stark in terms of decoration, with very practical furnishings from a bygone era and neat as a pin. And yet, there are small feminine touches here and there, like yellowed doilies on the furniture and pictures of Mary everywhere.

Before I sit down, I pick up a tarnished silver frame containing a photograph of Mary. “She was stunning,” I say quietly.

After a moment, I carefully set down the frame. I settle in on the couch, across from Walter in his brown and beige tweed recliner.

“Yes, she was. And so full of life. She saw every day as a gift and filled each one with sunshine for all those around her,” he says.

Walter has a hard crust, stuck in his own ways. But more and more I’m seeing the gooey center he shows only to friends, especially when he talks about Mary. He beams. You can see the deep love all over his nearly smiling face.

“I could tell that about her from the pictures in the albums. She and Jane seemed so happy and carefree in those days.”

He stares at me, then his eyes narrow slightly. “OK, Flicker. Come out with it. Something’s on your mind—what do you want to know?”

Obviously, he sees right through my failed small talk. I’m still not sure how much I should tell him. I don’t want people to put all their eggs in the heir basket. Even so, he’s the only one who may have known about Jane during that time.

“Ok. You got me. Here’s the bottom line. I think Jane had a baby and may have an heir somewhere out there,” I blurt out.

Walter chuckles.

“I think you have a wild imagination. Where did you get such a crazy idea?”

I grab the photo albums out of the brown case and eagerly show him.

“No, really,” I argue. “Look at her in these pictures and then look at her face in these others a few months later.”

He closes the album and chuckles again. “She gained weight from working at a diner. That’s all,” he says.

“Possibly, but what about the passages in her letters to Mary when she went back to Chicago? They talk about a secret,” I press him.

“Nah. When she came back to take care of Sarah, she didn’t have a baby. What did she do with it?” he dismisses.

I look him straight in the face with full conviction. “I believe she gave it up for adoption in Chicago. And I have someone looking through the records.”

He pauses for a long silent moment and then waves his hand at me. “That’s nonsense,” he scoffs. “I knew Jane. She wouldn’t do that! Family was very important to her.”

“I don’t have all the missing pieces yet, but what if she met someone and accidentally got pregnant? Is it possible? Even a little bit?” I ask earnestly.

He furrows his brow. For a brief minute, I think I see a glimmer of possibility in his eyes, but then he easily rejects it. “No. Sorry. I knew Jane all her life and I just don’t believe that. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Flicker.”

Not wanting to force the matter, I nod and try to change the conversation by pulling the prom picture out of the brown case. “It was just a theory. But I’ll bet this smiling lad would have something to say to you now,” I tease and hand him the picture.

He grimaces and takes the picture out of my hand.

“Young Walter, you were a goofball of a kid filled with nothing in your head. But young Jane… now there was a wonderful person from the day she was born,” he says.

“I see a sweet young man with a lot of compassion in his eyes. The same eyes I’m looking at now.” I smile at him.

“You’re a charmer, Flicker, but you couldn’t be more wrong. This young boy was clueless. He had no idea what lay ahead of him in life. If he hadn’t been such a screwup, I wouldn’t be such a crotchety old codger today.”

“What did he do?” I point to the picture.

He waves his hand again. “Let’s just say he was foolish and didn’t have the sense enough to know when he had a good thing. He let Jane go to Chicago. Stupid sot.”

He looks disappointed, drifting off into space. Maybe he had a crush on Jane but was too shy to act? But it’s curious why he would lament her as a lost love, when he got Mary, the love of his life, out of the deal.

Standing up, he picks up a wooden chess set at the corner of the coffee table and places it in front of me.

“The past is the past. Let’s play chess,” he says and moves his pawn.

***

(C) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton 2024