A Farewell to Yarns

listening. Maybe he just sounded like someone else. It would drive her crazy for days if she didn’t figure it out. Somebody famous, maybe. She started mentally perusing a list of her favorite vocal tapes she had all over the house and car.
    “...to touch their harps of gold...“ Suddenly Jane knew. He sounded just like Richie Divine!
    But how absurd! Why would—how could Fiona’s second husband sound so much like her illustrious first husband? Had he worked for years at sounding that way or—!
    Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, Jane studied those nondescript features. The hair was the wrong color, but that didn’t mean a thing. Hair could be dyed or bleached. The pot belly? Age. The receding chin? The mustache added to the impression, which might have had help from plastic surgery. The mustache itself completely concealed the upper lip.
    Albert Howard didn’t sound like Richie Divine.
    He was Richie Divine.
     

Twenty-three
     
    It took all the self-control she had to keep from turning and saying, “I know who you are! I love your records.“ Had they not been on stage in front of a lot of people, she would have.
    As the last piece dragged on, however, she started having second thoughts. It was impossible. Richie Divine had been dead for years and years. He died when Katie was a baby. Fifteen years ago this month. Everybody knew that. But did they? Everybody knew his plane had crashed. She remembered her conversation with Mel about it. He’d said the plane and passengers were blown to so many pieces that nothing was identifiable. Was it possible that Richie Divine hadn’t been a passenger on that plane?
    If the man standing beside her actually was Richie Divine, he obviously hadn’t died over the ocean when the plane exploded.
    But why? How?
    She almost missed her cue to step down. Albert Howard jiggled her arm, and she came to with a start and followed him down the risers. Trailing him, she noticed he was getting a bald spot on the top of his head. How sad that this golden idol of youth should have become paunchy and middle-aged in the obscurity of his own shadow. That was what he’d done--lived all these years as the pitiful second husband of Richie’s wife. How terrible that must have been for him, to go from being an international superstar to an unknown nerd.
    She almost spoke to him in the robing room, but didn’t know what to say. It crossed her mind, too, that she had no business questioning him or even revealing that she’d inadvertently caught on to a very private secret. As she hung up her robe and went to repack the sample sale items, she recalled something Fiona had said about someone trying to get Albert to contribute to a project. The gist of the story was how insulted Albert had been at the implication that it was really Richie Divine’s money, not his. Jane now understood the painful irony of the incident. Poor Albert must have felt the insult doubly.
    The minute she got home, she phoned Shelley. “I made coffee cake this afternoon,“ she said seductively. “If you’ll come over and eat some with me, I’ll tell you something that’ll knock your socks off.“
    “I’m not dressed.... Both socks?“
    “Both socks,“ Jane assured her.
    A moment later Shelley came in the kitchen door with a long car coat on over her nightgown and robe. She was wearing a pair of Paul’s big snow boots, and there were curlers in her hair. “This had better be good.”
    Jane peeked around the corner. Mike was watching MTV over the top of his chemistrybook. Todd was building a Lego space station. She knew Katie was upstairs on the phone. She put the coffee cake and plates on the table, and when they were seated, she said, “The National Enquirer would set me up for life for this information, which neither of us are ever going to tell anyone. Agreed? I don’t think anybody but one other person in the world knows.“
    “Has this bazaar baked your brain? What are you babbling about?”
    Jane lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Richie Divine didn’t die. He’s Albert Howard.”
    “What!“
    “Shhh. I mean it. I stood next to him in the choir tonight, and since I wasn’t supposed to sing, I just listened. Suddenly it hit me that I’d heard him before. I swear it’s true, Shelley.“
    “Jane, as your friend—“
    “I know, you think I’ve gone bats. But I haven’t. Listen, that plane crash he was in—the plane blew up in midair, and the bodies were never found. Mel