Julia Conover is a retired attorney living in Center City Philadelphia, where she enjoys the culture and the great restaurant scene. She has had stories published in numerous publications, including The Philadelphia Lawyer, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and SLAB. She is currently working on a book of linked short stories about the lives of women at the end of the 20th century. 

Glitter

In the early ‘80s, before kids and marital meltdowns, Mark and I would sometimes go to New York to see a show and stay over at one of the big tourist hotels in midtown. One night after a late dinner, we stopped at the piano bar off the hotel lobby to listen to the sultry chanteuse who was singing Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. She wore a shimmery red sheath, offsetting the short cropped dark hair that framed her pixie face.

“Isn’t she extraordinary, Kit?” Mark asked after she sang “I Get a Kick Out of You.” I had to agree, although I wasn’t sure if he was referring to her singing or her face.

But there was something about her voice that felt familiar. I checked out her name—Grace O’Hara—and it rang no bells at all. No doubt, I thought, she sounded familiar because she was trying to imitate Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald. We left the bar after midnight and headed to our room.

At 2 AM, I bolted straight up in bed and shook Mark awake. “I knew that singer,” I said, my voice shaking. “That was Connor!”

In 1969, the summer before my senior year of high school, I lived with a family in Amsterdam for a month as part of an exchange program, studying art—Van Gogh, Vermeer, Rembrandt. At the last minute, my parents almost decided not to send me. Until the publicity over John and Yoko’s nude “lie in” at the Amsterdam Hilton, they hadn’t realized what a wild scene Amsterdam was. They thought it was blonde people in wooden shoes, putting fingers in dikes. Then they realized: Hippies from all over the world. Legalized pot. By the time they figured this out, I was already accepted into the program and excited to go.

“Don’t do anything foolish, Katherine,” my mom warned me, using my full name for emphasis. The warning seemed superfluous—I was rarely foolish. But Amsterdam was a heady environment for a sixteen-year-old. Even though I was in an established art program and allegedly “supervised,” I was able to spend hours each day hanging out near the Nieuwmarkt, meeting young people in embroidered bell-bottoms and leather headbands trekking through Europe.

That’s where I met Connor Grace, the dazzling girl with the golden hair playing guitar and singing folk songs to the young crowd. I was impressed not only by her haunting voice, but by the emotion and artistry in her songs. She didn’t sound like Joni or Judy, or anyone else I could think of—just her own unique style. One day, she noticed me listening to her. We struck up a conversation, and soon a close friendship.

I was never clear exactly why she came to Amsterdam or what she was doing there. She told me she’d just graduated from Wellesley and headed for Europe to “find herself.” She’d certainly found her way around Amsterdam—she knew all the best cafes, the best kiosks to buy pickled herring, the best student freebies. Sometimes we’d just get on the streetcars and see where they took us, through the tiny neighborhoods hugging the canals. Her sense of adventure was contagious, and I developed a bit of a girl crush. She was exactly the type of brilliant and adventurous girl I yearned to become.

When the program ended in early July, I was supposed to go on a four-day bus trip with my class through West Germany. Connor convinced me to take a ferry to England and spend the time with her instead. “London is fantastic, Kit,” she promised. She assured me I’d be back in Amsterdam in plenty of time for my flight home at the end of the week. “No one will be the wiser.” And when I told her I couldn’t afford the ferry or the hotel in London, she said “Don’t worry! I’ve got money. And I can always get someone to buy us a meal.”

I had to admit that was true. Connor had a knack for getting folks—mostly guys—to buy her food and drink. She dazzled them with her long blonde hair that almost touched her waist.

Five days with Connor in London sounded a lot more appealing than a bus trip. So, I told the program that I was going on holiday with my Dutch family knowing the chaperones would never suspect conscientious Kit of lying, and early on a sunny Monday in July, I headed off with Connor.

As soon as we got on the ferry, Connor and I ran up the shaky stairway to the open deck. A few minutes later, we were leaning over the rail as the ferry pulled out of Hoek van Holland.

“Everything just sparkles in the morning sun in Holland, doesn’t it, Kit? The way the water shimmers and the tiny houses glow. It looks like…Vermeer!” 

“I guess,” I said. Maybe I’d had too much Vermeer. The art I’d studied in Amsterdam had been amazing, yet genius can intimidate an aspiring artist. “You’re sure we’ll have some place to stay in London, right?”

“Stop worrying! I’ve got this. Just relax.” Connor turned on her luminous smile, as if it could erase my doubts. “Trust me—you won’t regret this.”

“I know,” I said, part of my internal pep talk. I was trying to ignore my uneasiness at deceiving my parents and my Dutch host family by setting out on this caper. My excitement at seeing London was at war with my innate caution. “Maybe we can see the Rosetta Stone. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Sure, great. I love ancient ruins! I spend winters in Greece. We could go there together this year. What do you think, Kit?”

“I can’t Connor. It’s my senior year of high school,” I said, feeling as young and timid as I probably sounded. And as much as I had been looking forward to my senior year all my life, I could not help wondering how thrilling it would be to follow the sun with Connor. “Want some breakfast?” I had Gouda cheese and fresh rolls in my backpack.

“Go ahead if you’re hungry. I’m standing here until I can’t see land anymore.” She threw her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sea air blow back her long blonde hair.  

By late morning, we had situated ourselves on one of the rows of seats out on the deck in the fresh air. The breeze off the North Sea partially offset the July heat. Connor tilted her head toward the sun to catch some rays. At last, I was beginning to feel more settled and excited by the adventure of it all. I pulled out my sketch pad and gray charcoal pencils and began to draw the people I saw around me. The ferry was mostly filled with laborers, returning to jobs in England, with young people with backpacks mixed in for good measure. No one wore wooden shoes.  

I’d always loved sketching, but the program in Amsterdam had filled me with doubts. Was I just a talented draftsman?  

I began sketching a group of guys with British accents lurking on the other side of the deck. I was trying to capture their body language: their slouches as they leaned against the railing, their hand gestures as they smoked a morning cigarette. For a minute, I thought they might be gesturing toward us. Then one of them turned and walked in our direction; I suspected he was angling to talk to Connor.

“You girls from America?” he asked, looking straight at Connor. Suspicion confirmed.

“Maybe,” Connor said in an exaggerated Southern drawl. I started to laugh, but Brit boy stepped closer, enchanted. He had a leather thong wrapped around his neck with a long gold tooth hanging down.

“Quite the news from America this morning,” he said.

“Yeah, we know. Moon walk. Big deal.” Connor fingered the teardrop pearl hanging from a gold chain around her neck. I’d noticed she touched the pearl when she was nervous or excited. She must be attracted to this guy, I thought.

“No, I mean about Ted Kennedy. He may have killed a girl.”

“What?” Connor said. “Where’d you hear that?”

I pulled out the International Herald Tribune I had grabbed early that morning and stuffed in my backpack. Below the fold, I read the following headline: “Kennedy Faces Charges After Fatal Accident.” I scanned the article. “It says the accident happened at Chappaquiddick Island. Where’s that?”

“It’s an island off the Vineyard,” Connor said. “Martha’s Vineyard. I used to vacation there with my family.”

We crowded together on the bench to read the article. My hands were shaking. Although my family was Republican, I loved the Kennedys. Teddy was the only one left.

“You vacationed with the Kennedys?” the Brit said. 

Connor shrugged; her fingers grazed the pearl. “Well, usually they were on Cape Cod, but sometimes they would come to Martha’s Vineyard. I’d see them at parties.”

“Wow,” the Brit said. “I’m Jamie, by the way.” He held out his hand to Connor, ignoring me. Then he squeezed in next to Connor and they continued to talk about the Kennedys—how doomed they were, and how terrible the Vietnam War was. I went back to my paper and tuned them out.

I moved to a nearby bench and sketched with my collection of gray pencils for most of the long trip across the North Sea. This was my favorite way to pass time and try some of the new techniques I’d learned that summer. Jamie and Connor sat and talked, voices low, heads bowed together with an intensity that puzzled me. I sketched the two of them, leaning in with heads almost touching.

“That’s fantastic,” Jamie said when he saw what I had drawn. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always done it,” I said. His praise warmed me, even though I knew the sketch was nothing to brag about. Not like Goya’s sketches or Rembrandt’s. I tore off the picture and handed it to him. “Here—keep it.” Eventually, Jamie offered to go to the snack bar and get us some lunch.

“Kit,” Connor said in that voice she used before she asked for a favor. “Could you braid my hair, please? It keeps blowing in my face.”

I had done this service for Connor many times that summer. I stood behind her and brushed the tangles out, then started to weave a tight French braid. It was tedious until I got to the end, where her golden Rapunzel hair almost seemed to braid itself.

“How long did it take you to grow your hair this long?”

“I started when I was a freshman. I’m never cutting it again, though. Never.”

“Do you really know the Kennedys?” I asked.

“Not really. But my family runs Grace Publishing, so I’m sure one of my uncles or cousins does.”

“Why did you make it sound like you did?”

She stood up and flipped her long braid down her back. “It amused me,” was her laconic response.

We had to go through customs in Harwich before boarding the train to London. Based upon my experience with European customs, I expected this to be quick and easy. Connor hoisted her backpack and then insisted that we go through the lines separately and meet on the other side near the train. “Single girls get through faster,” she explained.

I didn’t like being separated from Connor, but I deferred to her expertise and experience. I picked the long line on the far side of the port exit; Connor walked toward a shorter line nearby. When I looked over, Connor’s line was moving quickly. Then she disappeared in the crowd.

British customs was as perfunctory as I expected. They inspected nothing and stamped my passport. I rushed toward the exit where the lines to the train started, expecting to see Connor already through customs. But she wasn’t there. I checked my watch—there was about a 45-minute layover to get everyone through customs and on the train. I was hoping to get good seats.

Forty minutes passed and still no sign of Connor. I was pacing back and forth, anxiety creeping back into my body like an insistent fog. Then I saw Jamie, dashing toward me.

“Connor got held up,” he said, panting. “She said that you need to go ahead. She’ll meet you in London.”

“That’s not possible!” Panic gripped my body like a python. I had no idea where to go when I got to London, no money and no place to stay. I had trusted Connor to make all the plans. “I don’t understand. What’s going on? Where is she? Can’t I just wait here for her?”

“I don’t know exactly what’s going on—I didn’t get to talk to her for long. She just said that you should go ahead, and she would meet you there. She gave me this.”

He handed me a folded sheet of paper. Inside, Connor had written:

Kit—meet me at The Black Raven Pub on Carnaby Street. I’ll take the next train and be there by 8. Don’t worry. There’s been some silly mix up. See you there, I promise. Connor.

I read the note with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had $40 in traveler’s checks and some Dutch Guilders.

“Swell, just swell,” I said. “Maybe I should just go back to Holland.” Then I remembered—Connor had the return tickets in her backpack. “Or I’ll just wait here for Connor. We’ll go to London together when she clears customs.”

Jamie looked down as if he was weighing what to say. “That’s not a good idea, Kit. Connor was quite insistent that you go to London.”

“I’ll never find this pub. I don’t know anything about London. I can’t do this.” I’m only sixteen, I thought to myself. I could hear the panic in my voice. All the doubts I’d had about this crazy trip came rolling back in.

Jamie grabbed my arm. “Look, you really cannot stay here alone,” he said, his voice insistent. “I’m going to London—I’ll travel with you and help you find this pub. I think I know about where it is. All I know is that Connor was very firm that you follow her instructions.”

The train whistle blew. I looked around me—once the platform emptied for the train, the station would be full of seedy locals hawking goods and begging for loose change. I didn’t want to stay there alone for one minute longer. But could I trust Jamie? Connor apparently did. I nodded to Jamie, and we got on the train.

Jamie and I found seats in an empty compartment, and we started the two-hour train ride to London. On the way, he peppered me with questions about Connor—where did she come from in America, what was she doing in Europe, did she have a boyfriend, and so on. I realized how little I knew about Connor. I didn’t even know where Connor lived in Amsterdam—she always just appeared at the Nieuwmarkt about the same time I did.

“She’s from New England, Massachusetts I think,” I said. “She’s pretty flirty, but I don’t think she has a regular boyfriend. At least, I’ve never seen one.”

He also filled me in on what happened at customs. When Connor handed over her passport, something was triggered and two customs officers pulled her aside for questioning. Jamie saw her arguing with them. Then she waved toward Jamie, who was watching just beyond the customs booth. He walked closer and she gave him the note. “I’m counting on you to get Kit to London,” she shouted before the customs officials could pull her away again.

“Have you ever seen something like that happen before?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “They’re generally very lax. I mean, the ferry is coming from Holland, not the Soviet Union. And you’re Americans. So I don’t get it. Maybe they are just trying to scare American hippies.”

“Connor’s not a hippie.”

“They think all American kids are hippies. Except you, I guess.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

As we got closer to London, I got more and more worried. What if Connor got delayed even longer and never made it to the pub on Carnaby Street? What if I had to find a place to stay by myself in London? I wished I could figure out how to get in contact with my parents, even though I knew that they’d be furious about what I had done. At least maybe they could wire me money and help me figure out how to get back to Amsterdam.

But then I roused myself. Connor would not let me down. She had always met me when she promised in Amsterdam—late sometimes, but she always came. She would be there. Everything would work out fine.

We arrived in London mid-afternoon. Jamie helped me find a place where I could get my travelers’ checks changed into pounds. Then he got me a map and showed me how to use the Tube.

“Aren’t you going to take me to the pub?” I asked.

“Sorry, Kit. I know I said I would, but I forgot that I have some things to look after. You can find it yourself easy.” He drew a big circle around the Piccadilly Circus tube stop and an arrow to Carnaby Street. “Trust me, you will find things to amuse yourself until it’s time to meet Connor.” Then he left me alone at the station.

I took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus, then wandered around. True to Jamie’s prediction, there was more than enough to amuse me for several hours. The streets were full of young women in miniskirts who looked like Twiggy and men in bell-bottoms who looked like Paul McCartney. I wandered in and out of shops full of tie-dye clothing and the smell of incense. “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones blared out of every pub. I sat on a bench and worked on my sketches.

Finally, at 7:30, I found The Black Raven. To my surprise, the pub was so crowded with people I could not get in.

“Is it always this crowded?” I asked the bouncer outside.

“No, doll. They are still covering the moon walk from this morning. You know about that, don’t you? Place is full of Americans watching it on the telly.”

“Oh, right.” I looked up at the sky. I had almost forgotten, amid all the day’s craziness, that early this morning an American walked on the moon. “I’m supposed to meet someone here.”

“Just wait outside. They won’t be able to get in either.”

By 8:45, Connor had still not arrived. I stood in the street, gazing at the moon that was just beginning to be visible in the summer sky. I was trying to imagine that two of my countrymen were up there, exploring. It seemed impossible.

“It’s a waxing crescent moon,” said an older man with an American accent standing beside me. I looked at him, startled. “That’s the phase between the new moon and full moon.”

“Wow, how do you know that?” I asked.

“Look up ‘Jack and Jill’ in the encyclopedia,” he said, chuckling. “Are you Katherine McLeod?”

I nodded. In a flash, I knew Connor was not coming and this man—for reasons I couldn’t fathom—was her substitute. “How’d you know?” I asked.

“She said you’d be here. She said you were wearing a red peasant blouse. I’m Clyde Campbell. I promised Grace I would find you and make sure you were ok.”

“Who’s Grace?”

“Grace Connor. I guess you call her Connor.”

“I don’t get it. Where is she?”

“By now, she’s probably in an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean, returning to her family in West Virginia.”

“West Virginia? Wait, she’s from Massachusetts.”

“I’ll bet a lot of things you thought about that girl were wrong.” Campbell lit a cigarette.

“Who are you again?”

“I’m a retired FBI agent with my own detective agency. I was hired to find Grace and bring her home. We got a tip when she went through customs this morning in Harwich. The Brits were kind enough to detain her until I got there. Her parents have been sick with worry.”

“Her name is Grace Connor?” He nodded. That explained why she wanted to go through customs separately—she didn’t want to risk that I might find out she had a different name on her passport. “But her parents knew where she was.”

“Nope. She ran away from home six months ago. Took her passport, the one they’d just gotten for a family trip to Ireland. They tracked her to Holland a few months ago, but she seemed to disappear again.”

“I’m sure if Connor ran away, she had a good reason,” I said. “Just because her parents have a lot of money, they can’t force her to go home. They can’t buy her love.”

“Money?” he said. “Her dad’s a steelworker.”

“Yeah right. So how’d they hire you?”

“The entire community—their Church, the union, everyone in Wheeling, West Virginia—got together to help pay for the Connors to get their only daughter back. They had raffles at the Church, bake sales at the high school. Everything you can think of. Her parents were devastated.”

I thought of all the times Connor picked up the tab. “But she always had money! Where’d it come from?”

“Not sure about that. Wouldn’t tell you if I was. Anyway, she’s a minor, so the authorities just wanted her to leave.”

I began to shake. “But…she’s not a minor. She graduated from Wellesley.”

Campbell snorted and shook his head. “She really fooled you. You know she’s only sixteen, don’t you?”

At that, my mouth gaped open. It seemed that everything I’d thought about Connor was wrong. Even her name. Connor was not the sophisticated free spirit I had imagined; she was a girl like me. Actually, worse—a teenage runaway.

He continued. “You look like a sensible girl to me, so let me tell you some things I’ve learned in my line of work. We deal with a lot of runaways these days—don’t know why. Nice kids from suburban families sneaking off to San Francisco, Greenwich Village, or Santa Fe. They are looking for something, I guess. At least that’s what they think. And I suppose some parents are a little old-fashioned, don’t really get this new generation at all. But I don’t think these kids understand what this does to their parents, okay? How much their parents worry, how much their parents are filled with absolute terror and despondency.”

I thought of my parents in Pennsylvania, apprehensive about my trip alone to Amsterdam. They had sacrificed so that I could have this opportunity. If they found out about my current escapade, as now seemed likely, they would feel betrayed and angry.   

“So, what are you going to do with me now?” I asked.

“Don’t worry—your parents aren’t my clients,” he said, reading my mind. “I don’t have to tell them about what has happened. But I promised Grace I would make sure you had enough money and the ticket to get back to Amsterdam. She was very emphatic. ‘Tell Kit I’m sorry,’ she said.”

“She was a great friend,” I said.

Campbell started to laugh. “Not that great. Remember, all that glitters is not gold.”

He then took me to a little bed and breakfast near Green Park and paid for a night there. He left me with fifty pounds sterling and gave me the tickets to Amsterdam.

“Check your backpack carefully, Kit, before you go back to Holland,” he said as he left.

When I got to my room, I opened my small backpack and dumped everything I had packed for my stay in London—some T-shirts, a sweatshirt, a few paperbacks, my art supplies, and a bag of toiletries. Then I saw it—at the very bottom of the backpack, there was a large square wrapped in layers of cheesecloth and cellophane wrap. Inside was a brick of hashish, probably worth several thousand dollars. It seemed obvious that Connor had slipped it in my bag at some point—maybe when I went to the bathroom or got snacks on the ferry. She must have known that I would fly through customs while she might be detained. I wondered if she had planned to sell the hashish in London, or if she had even thought that far ahead. In any event, she had put me in danger, knowing I might end up alone.

The next morning, before I caught the train to the ferry, I heaved the hashish into the River Thames. A week later, I flew back to Pennsylvania. I never told anyone else about my misadventures in London—certainly not my parents.

I turned over in my mind all the time I had spent with Grace Connor. Her glow radiated on my Amsterdam summer like the light in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, illuminating precisely what she wanted me to see. Her unique voice was the soundtrack of our time together. But her careless actions had placed me in great jeopardy. And the more I thought about it, the more her lies seemed obvious and my gullibility inexcusable. Then again, once you know the answer, it always seems obvious, doesn’t it?

After I’d been home about a month, a large envelope came in the mail addressed to Kit McLeod. There was no return address on it, but I knew it was from Connor. She was the only person who always called me Kit.

The envelope contained a blonde braid about a foot long. Real hair. Connor’s. Inside was a note:

Kit—I cut my hair in penance for everyone I hurt. Especially you. I’m Grace again. Maybe see you sometime? Grace

So, years later, in the middle of that night in midtown Manhattan, I told Mark the entire Connor story.

“Your parents never knew?” he asked, astonished.

I shrugged. “I don’t think so. They never let on, and I never told them. I never mentioned it to anyone—too embarrassed. It almost seemed like it never happened. But last night her voice reminded me that it really did.”

The next morning, I tried to find someone at the hotel who could tell me how to contact the mysterious chanteuse I now believed was Connor.

“I think last night was her final performance,” the concierge told me. “But we have an address to forward her paycheck. We could include a note if you like.”

I nodded, and he gave me a note card with the hotel logo. I wrote: “Connor—I see you’re now a brunette! But you still have the same beautiful voice. Would love to catch up! I’ll never forget you. All is forgiven. Kit”

I left my contact information with the note, hoping she would reach out. But she never did. I guess I now recognize that in a long life, there are often no storybook endings, no teary-eyed reunions. Sometimes people just want to continue living their lives and forgetting their mistakes. But maybe, just maybe, Connor has finally found grace.