Where'd You Go, Bernadette(63)
Thank God the captain kept his word and returned. The ship had been searched top to bottom with a carbon-detecting ray gun that checks for stowaways. But nobody who was not a crew member was on board. Elgie asked the captain if he knew of another ship that could take us (us!) to the places Bernadette visited, so we could search for her ourselves. But every ship with ice-breaking capabilities was booked years in advance. Adding to the sheer impossibility of heading out to find her, the Antarctic summer was ending, and the ice was closing up. So even the H&H Allegra, on this next trip, wouldn’t be going as deep into Antarctica as it had on the previous one.
Trust me when I say nothing could be done.
“Stop! Warten sie!” It was the purser, running toward us in her short skirt and ankle-high cowboy boots, waving a notepad. “This was found on the desk.” But there was no writing on it. “The pen is pressed down.”
Elgie took off his glasses and examined the paper. “It’s indented—” he said. “We can send it to a forensic specialist. Thank you! Thank you!” The pad of paper is now in the hands of a lab in Delaware that tests for such things, at huge expense, I might add.
They say hope for the best. But how can you, when the best is that Bernadette was left behind on an iceberg in Antarctica? It’s one thing to disappear from Seattle. It’s quite another to disappear in a land with no shelter and the coldest temperatures on the planet.
We returned to Seattle this morning in a state of shock. Elgie checked his voicemail and had a bunch of calls from the headmaster at Choate. It seems like something is now up with Bee. Elgie wouldn’t tell me what. He’s on a plane back east to see her, which seems a little sudden.
As for me, I’m trying to focus on the here and now: my pregnancy and furniture for the new house. So many bedrooms, and a full bath for each! We’re waiting until I’m safely in my second trimester to tell Alexandra and Lincoln about the new baby. Bee knows nothing of the pregnancy or our trip to Ushuaia. Elgie wants to wait for the captain’s report before he sits her down. Bee is scientifically minded, so he thinks it would help to have some facts in front of her.
Anyway, I told you this one would be a doozy. Oh, I miss you, Audrey. Come home soon!
Soo-Lin
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20
Fax from Audrey Griffin
Soo-Lin,
Don’t worry about that email from Ushuaia. I’ve been in much worse shape than that! Don’t believe me? I was actually arrested for disturbing the peace one night at the Westin! The charges were dropped. But still, you have nothing on me when it comes to being run amok by emotions. And I didn’t even have the very legitimate excuse of pregnancy hormones. Congratulations! You, Elgie, and the baby are in my prayers.
That is very unsettling news about Bernadette. I don’t believe for a second that she froze to death in Antarctica. Please do send the captain’s report as soon as you receive it. I am quite anxious.
Love, Audrey
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25
Fax from Soo-Lin
Dear Audrey,
Keep that last letter I wrote you, and frame it, for it is an artifact from a fleeting moment when I could call true happiness my own.
You know how I said Elgie was heading back east to see Bee? Which I found kind of strange? It turns out Elgie withdrew Bee from Choate. He just returned to Seattle with her in tow!
Remember what a sweet, quiet girl Bee always was? Well, the child is unrecognizable, I tell you, absolutely consumed with hatred. Elgie moved back into the Gate Avenue house to be with her. But Bee refuses to sleep under the same roof as him. The only place she wants to sleep is Bernadette’s Airstream. Saint Bernadette!
Elgie is so guilt-ridden, he’ll do anything Bee wants. She won’t go back to Galer Street? Fine! She refuses to step foot in my home for our weekly dinners? Fine!
You’d never guess the source of all this turmoil. It’s the most incredible “book” Bee wrote. She won’t let anybody see it, but from what little Elgie will tell me, it’s based on emails between you and me, Audrey, plus the FBI report, even handwritten notes between you and the blackberry specialist. I have no idea how Bee got her mitts on all of this. Not to point fingers, but the only person who could possibly have had access is Kyle. (The old Kyle.) Perhaps you can confront him during your next therapy session. I, for one, would like some answers. I’m even paranoid this fax will fall into enemy hands.
Elgie wants Bee to go to Lakeside in the fall. All I can say is she had better get over herself because there is no way we’re moving that Airstream over to the new house. Can you imagine? We’d be the hillbillies of Madison Park. “We”! As if Elgie would ever want to live together as a family!
I’m sure you think I’m being horribly selfish, but my life has been turned upside down, too! I gave up my job, I’m pregnant at age forty by a man whose life is in turmoil, plus I have terrible morning sickness. The only thing I can hold down is French toast. I’ve already gained eleven pounds, and I’m not even in my second trimester. When Bee finds out that Bernadette perished, not to mention about the baby, who knows what she’ll do?
Here’s a letter from the cruise company along with the captain’s report, plus the forensic analysis. And those gorgeous pictures I promised of the poppies from Ushuaia. I’m late for a VAV meeting, and boy do I need it.