Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Lauren, Summer, 2009

Lauren sat almost rigid in the front passenger seat of the van, staring straight ahead while Joe drove, ignoring the squabbling of her children in the back seat. Poor Joe had to referee, giving her worried looks from time to time, because Joe's parents, in the row behind the kids, couldn't do much to intervene, or maybe wouldn't was more accurate. 

"Hey, kids!" Joe said too brightly. "Look, we're going over the bridge! Hey, there's Poplar Island over there. Your mom and I used to pretend we were pirates rowing our boat there to dig up buried treasure."

No interest from the children in their halcyon days. "Is that a Wal-Mart over there?" Naomi asked, referring to the giant superstore on the Queensborough side of the bridge, sitting like a portly, gluttonous king amid a court of smaller outlet stores in a section called Queensborough Landing. "Can we go there later?"

"We don't need to go there," Lauren said without turning to face them.

"Pleeeeease!" Naomi said, and Tosh got into the act too.

Now Lauren turned to them, and something on her face must have shocked them into silence. "We're going to a memorial today," she said. "It's going to be sad and exhausting. I don't know how long it will take, but I will not feel up to chasing you through the aisles of Wal-Mart later, and I don't think Nonno and Nonna will either."

"You mamma's right," Mr. DiTomaso said. "I think I go see Signora one last time, I pay my respect, I talk to some people, and then I go home and have a nap."

Napping seemed to be all he ever did nowadays, but at least his health needs took his wife's attention away from Lauren and her own inadequacies as a mother.

"Hey, Uncle Sunny's going to be there," Joe said to try and brighten things. "Maybe Harpreet and Ajit will be there too! There's a nice field outside the community centre, so maybe you guys can play while Mommy and Daddy meet with people."

Joe looked at her while he said this last part, and she knew he was acknowledging her case of nerves. Not only would Uncle Sunny and Aunt Tej be there; Al had told her he was coming, and Rachel had told Sunny she might be there.

After the unnerving phone call where Rachel had shouted into the ether at all of her unseen tormentors, Lauren had promptly given Sunny her number and then gone at reconnecting with her from a different direction: the Facebook friend request. She hadn't known how often Rachel checked her Facebook page nowadays, but hopefully it would inform her of the request.

Once she'd done that, she'd decided to make this an official reunion of the LSDC, and had looked for Al. He'd been even easier to find on Facebook than Rachel. The shy little boy had grown into a not bad looking man, his brown hair spotted with a little bit of grey, his smile soft and non-threatening. He was a Cataloguing Assistant at Vancouver Public Library. Lauren found that sufficiently bland and in keeping with the Al she remembered, not that she would have ever considered what her friends would do when they grew up, not back then.

Knowing Sunny was going to call Rachel, she'd thought it would only be fair to give Al the same courtesy. It had been easy enough to call the library, be directed to Cataloguing, and find Al on the phone. Hearing his voice, deeper now but still recognizably his, had felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and when they'd reminisced about the LSDC, she'd found herself close to tears. It had felt good talking to him again, almost as if no time at all had passed.

Then, to her delight, not only had he accepted her friend request, but by the next day Rachel had too, and her initial greeting had been much warmer than the reception she'd gotten over the phone.

Hi, Lauren. Wow, you look hardly a day older than you did when I moved away. I can't believe you and Joe actually got married and had kids! It's so nice to hear from you again after all these years. I heard from Sunny about Mrs. Anderson, and can you believe I ran into Al at the library downtown? It's like we're all coming together again. Will I see you at the memorial? I told Sunny I'd go, but I'm really nervous about it.