Excerpt of Hot on the Trail by Jane Isenberg

Chapter One

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Papa
Date: 01/03 16:04:04

Dear Professor B,

I'm so upset about Papa. I have to remember to breathe while I'm typing. I know you were worried when he didn't show up yesterday. Papa really likes your memoir-writing class and there was no way he would have missed that session, not with it being his turn to read. Wait a minute. I have to breathe again. Okay, I'm okay now. You probably figured Papa was having one of his weak spells that he gets when his pressure goes down and that I decided to stay home with him. Let me tell you, professor, I almost wish that was true.

What really happened is Papa just disappeared. I swear to God, none of us seen him since he went up to bed Monday night. When I hollered to him yesterday to get ready for the class, he didn't answer. And he had made me promise to get him up early so he could practice reading his essay, you know? He wanted to read good in front of the class. So I went up to see if he was okay, you know? I have to take a deep breath when I get to this next part. He wasn't in his room. The gray slacks and blue plaid shirt I got him for Christmas that I put out for him to wear to the class were still on the chair. His galoshes and his navy blue down jacket with the hood were gone. He wasn't in the bathroom either. My brother Leo lives downstairs from me and my daughter, Mary, and Papa. Leo came up and we looked everywhere, even on the roof, you know, where his pigeons used to be. Remember I was telling you how sometimes he would go up there and just walk around. But Papa wasn't there. Papa wasn't anywhere. He was just gone. Like them damn pigeons.

Finally me and Leo reported Papa missing. I was crying the whole time we talked to the officer. He said Papa must have wandered off, so they're putting his picture in the paper and in stores in the neighborhood and sending out his description. That detective made it sound like Papa has Alzheimers. Like I told you Dominic Tomaselli can be a pain in the butt and he does get depressed sometimes. But demented he isn't. So anyway I'm supposed to stay home in case he calls or wanders back. I'm trying not to think about how cold it is outside. Anyway I'll be missing my Cultures and Values class with you today too. Hopefully Papa'll show up soon, and I'll make it to the next class. I'll let you know. Meanwhile, I have to remember to breathe deep and pray hard.

Flora Giglio

"Poor Flora. She has stress related asthma, but she hyperventilates even when things are going well. This might push her over the edge. Where could that sweet old man have gone?" I muttered. I had addressed this query to myself, but, seated at her desk not two feet away from mine, my officemate Wendy could not help overhearing.

"What sweet old man? Listen Bel, now that you've finally weaned yourself off estrogen, if you're going to start babbling to your computer, we're going to have to rethink this cozy arrangement." She looked up from the business section of the New York Times and gestured around her at the claustrophobic cubicle that she and I had shared since the seventies when we'd both joined the English Department at River Edge Community College in Jersey City, New Jersey. We also shared this "closet" with Thelma and Louise, two feisty philodendrons that thrived on our windowsill despite decades of sporadic watering and long outgrown pots. Their vines meandered over Wendy's cluttered desktop and would have encroached on the pristine surface of mine except that they knew better.

Ignoring her dig, I passed Wendy the jar of M&M's I kept on my side of the divide, and she helped herself to a handful. "Better than estrogen, right?" she quipped. "Maybe if I eat enough chocolate the fact that my IRA has been shrinking like cotton undies in the dryer won't seem so important," she said. The curve of her grin softened her drawn features. "Jeez, Bel, you've completely interrupted my efforts to calculate how old I'll have to be before I can retire on what's left of my portfolio." She pushed the newspaper away as she spoke. "So, what sweet little old man were you just ranting about?" Without waiting for me to answer, Wendy continued. "I hope nothing bad has happened to that old charmer in your memoir class, the one who was bragging about having been an extra in On the Waterfront." I'd invited Wendy to a session of "Tell It Like It Was," my memoir-writing course for senior citizens, because she was considering teaching it in the fall.

"No. That 'old charmer' is Sam Simon, ex-war hero and ex- convict." I was gratified to see Wendy's eyebrows lift as she registered Sam's criminal record. "He started his memoirs while he was in jail for taking bribes when he was head of Hoboken's ABC, you know, the Alcoholic Beverages Control Board. You're right, though. He's a sweetheart." I shook my head at the irony I saw embodied in Sam Simon. The man was undoubtedly a rogue, but a rogue who radiated comfort spiked with charisma. "But I'm worried about the other guy in the class, Dom Tomaselli, the one who wasn't there, the one whose piece about the pigeons I talked about, remember? I assumed he was sick, but actually his daughter just e-mailed me that he's missing." I pictured Dom's serious gray eyes and weather-beaten face blotched with age spots. I hoped that, like the racing pigeon he wrote about in his memoir, Dom would find his way home fast ...