Chapter 16
“You’re flying where on Monday?” McKenna’s boss, Mr. Sullivan, stared at her in horror as if she’d just suggested they take on every wedding job offer within a hundred-mile radius.
“Tennessee. An emergency came up.” McKenna double-checked her flight information on the laptop she kept at the studio.
She’d been hoping for a flight today or tomorrow, but early Monday morning was the best she could do.
With a sigh, she closed the screen and stepped away from the large wooden double desk they shared.
Sometimes she liked to pretend they were two old-time detectives working a case, because the photography studio had originally been the town’s first police station years ago.
McKenna loved saying “Book ’em, Danno” to Mr. Sullivan whenever someone called about scheduling a photo shoot.
He always responded by giving her the same concerned look he was giving her now.
“What sort of emergency could you possibly have in Tennessee?” His trepid footsteps followed her across the scuffed wooden floors to the little kitchenette area in the back.
“Nothing serious,” McKenna said, trying to reassure herself as much as her boss as she filled an empty coffee mug with water from the sink. “Just something I need to take care of as soon as possible. No need to worry.”
He trailed her from the kitchenette back to their desks. “Then why are you watering the cactus plant? You hardly ever water the cactus plant. Are you going to be gone so long that you need to water the cactus plant?”
He wrung his hands the same way he had twelve years ago when he stood on her doorstep a week after Momma J’s death.
While most people were dropping off casserole dishes and desserts and offering generalized “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help” condolences, Mr. Sullivan had been the only one to show up, wearing his standard button-down shirt and bow tie, and ask the question nobody else had the courage to ask.
“Do you know how you’re going to manage all of this? ”
This as in the disastrous financial situation Momma J had left behind as well as a ten-year-old sister who needed raising when McKenna was supposed to be leaving for college in two weeks?
All McKenna could do was quietly shake her head back at him. No. She had no idea how she was going to manage all this.
“Well . . .” His bow tie bobbed up and down while he swallowed. “What do you know about photography?”
McKenna shook her head again.
“Well . . .” His eyes squinted like he was being forced to look directly into the sun. “Would you be interested in learning?”
McKenna showed up to his photography studio the following Monday and had continued showing up without fail ever since. Probably why he was so baffled that she was taking such an impromptu trip now.
She offered Mr. Sullivan the abridged version in hopes it would smooth some of the wrinkles out of his brow.
“All for a ring?” Mr. Sullivan said, the grooves on his forehead pooling with even more worry.
“Not just any ring. The ring Momma J received when she got engaged, a ring that’s been handed down for generations.”
“Why can’t Mr. Lambert just mail the ring back to you?”
“Because I don’t trust something that valuable to go through any sort of mail service. Even if I did, I can’t get Mr. Lambert to talk to me.”
“Why won’t Mr. Lambert talk to you?”
“Because Mr. Lambert’s a pain in the posterior.” He was. Fair assessment. Nobody these days should be this difficult to contact. Why was he being so difficult?
Between using the info she’d gleaned from the ER and a little detective work online, McKenna had found a possible cell phone number. But so far, despite leaving several voicemails and texts, she’d gotten zero response from him.
Same thing when she tried reaching out through social media.
Considering he hadn’t posted anything for years, she doubted he’d seen her messages.
His profile said he was a literature teacher at some high school in Brooklyn, but of course school was out for the summer, so it wasn’t like she could just ring him up at the office.
Further digging and googling led to a possible address in Bugle, Tennessee, a small dot on the map south of Murfreesboro.
Since McKenna could only find one bed and breakfast in the area, she assumed it was the one his mom ran.
But the website hadn’t been updated in years, and every time McKenna called the number listed on the website, a befuddled man named Gus answered.
The first time he’d seemed helpful, confirming that yes, he knew Nate Lambert, and yes, he’d be happy to give Nate a message to please call back.
But then when hours passed without Nate calling back, and McKenna tried reaching out again, Gus was . . . well, less helpful—to the point that she wondered if he suffered from some sort of dementia.
Who did you say you were looking for again?
Nate Lambert. You said you knew him. You said he was there. Remember?
Nate Lambert? Hmm . . . Name does sound familiar. Pretty sure I went to school with a Lambert. You’re not looking for the Freddy Lambert I went to high school with, are you?
Is there anyone else I can talk to?
About what?
A ring. A very important ring. One I desperately need returned to me. He’ll know what I’m talking about if you could just—
Well, honey, I can’t say for certain that Freddy’s still alive, but saying he is and saying I see him, I’ll certainly tell him to give you a ring. You take care now.
After he hung up, she’d panicked. Who wouldn’t? She’d never forgive herself if she lost Momma J’s ring. She didn’t even want to think about explaining the loss to Oliver.
So when his follow-up chest X-ray had shown a little congestion—nothing bad and deathlike, just enough that the doctor wanted to start antibiotics and monitor his lungs a bit longer—McKenna decided to bite the bullet and fly to Tennessee to track down the ring herself while Oliver was still none the wiser that it had gone missing.
“You should call the police.”
“Huh?” McKenna realized she had zoned out on Mr. Sullivan’s ramblings. “The police?”
“Let them handle everything.” He lifted the handset from the office landline.
“And what exactly would I tell them? Hi officers, I shoved a ring down a man’s pants and now he won’t take my calls.”
“Police deal with things like that all the time.”
“I am not getting the police involved,” McKenna said, gently taking the handset and returning it to the phone cradle.
“Well, you can’t just run off to Tennessee. Not by yourself. Not on a plane. It’s too dangerous. What if the plane crashes before you get there? What if he’s a criminal when you do get there? Maybe he stole the ring on purpose.”
“The plane won’t crash. And he’s a ponderer, not a criminal.”
“That sounds even worse. Have you forgotten the triplets’ birthday party next Saturday?
Triplets, McKenna. That means there’s three of them.
” He held up three shaky fingers in case she apparently still wasn’t clear on the definition of triplets.
“And then there’s the bar mitzvah in less than two weeks. ”
“I’ll be back in plenty of time for all that.”
“These are some of our biggest bookings of the year.”
“I know.” One of the reasons she was bored and dreaming of working for a wedding photography business in LA. “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t think I’d be back in time. But don’t forget, we have Kristi too.”
McKenna had finally convinced Mr. Sullivan to hire part-time help for the summer. She hadn’t told him this yet, but she was hoping he’d train and mentor Kristi the same way he’d trained and mentored her, so that Kristi could slide right into McKenna’s position after she left.
Well, assuming McKenna’s application got accepted and assuming her sister got engaged and assuming she found the ring so that her sister could get engaged and McKenna could submit her portfolio so that her application could get accepted.
Even McKenna would admit that was an awful lot of assumptions.
“My flight leaves Omaha early Monday morning. I should get to Tennessee early afternoon. Once I have the ring, I’ll find the earliest available return flight to bring me back home. Bada bing, bada boom.”
“Bada bing, bada boom. I suppose that will do. Back by Tuesday?”
“At the latest.” Hopefully.
He nodded. “Because the Fultons’ fiftieth anniversary photo shoot is on Wednesday. The entire family is coming. All the kids and grandchildren.”
“And it’ll go fine, just like it always does.” She must’ve given Mr. Sullivan this pep talk at least a thousand times since she started working for him. He’d always been a worrier, but the older he got, the more he seemed to worry. By now McKenna was a professional pep talk giver.
Now if someone would just give her a little pep talk about this quick trip to Tennessee.