The Missing Girl (15 page)

Because of her, he lost his freedom for five years. Five bad years. He pulls the plug on the sink, yanks it up hard.

He doesn’t like to think about that, or what happened when he got out, either. How he was supposed to report in constantly. How no one wanted him to live near them. How
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they put signs on his car. How he couldn’t get a job. A miserable, miserable time. It’s all behind him now,
like a bad
dream
. He came through it, though. Took himself away from that poisonous atmosphere, and now he has a new name, a home, a job, and, best of all, he’s not lonely. Thanks to her! After all, it’s her doing that she’s here. He didn’t do anything to make it happen. She came to him, walked right up to him, didn’t she? As good as invited herself into his life.

He picks up a blue plastic mug. Hers. She’s coming along, getting used to things, not like the first day when she would hardly speak, just kept crying, her face all snotty and wet. And the sounds she made! Cat sounds. Piercing, mewling cries that sent shivers into the palate of his mouth.

The cats regard him, one from under the table, one from the top of the refrigerator. Violet’s a climber. The male is exactly the opposite, always under things. To each his own, the man thinks. Every cat, every man, wants something different. And what does
he
want? He holds the blue plastic mug to his lips. He wants her to be his. To sit on his lap. He wants to stroke her hair, her face, her arms and legs. He wants her to be happy that she’s here.

He holds the mug against his lips a moment longer, then places it carefully in the dish rack.

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WEDNESDAY EVENING: BLOODY

HELL

THE SPRAY OF THE headlights briefly lit up the ditches, the rutted road, the sprawl of trees. Beauty’s eyes ached from peering into the thick darkness. Next to her Mim was a small, solid presence, leaning close, looking out the window with her. The truck hit a rock or maybe a dead animal and lurched to one side of the narrow road. “Bloody hell,” Nathan said for at least the third time. “These roads are worse than New Hampshire.”

“But this is a good old truck,” Mim said, patting the seat. She was sitting between Beauty and Nathan. “What’s its name?”

“Name?” Nathan said, as if the word were from a for-eign language.

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“You didn’t name it?” Mim said. “When I get my pickup truck, I’m going to name it.”

“Crazy,” Nathan said, and laughed.

Beauty shifted. She knew Mim was trying to keep Nathan calm. Already, twice, he’d said they should give up this “crazy search” and go home. And now he said it again.

“It’s getting late. How about we call it a night?”

“No!” Beauty said, and then more quietly, “Please. Not yet.”

Four days had passed since Autumn disappeared.

Vanished, as if she’d been swept up and off the face of the earth. Beauty had little hope that this needle-in-a-haystack search, this trawling from the truck and praying for
something
, would produce the miracle of finding her sister, but it was unbearable to stay in the house, hour after hour, day after day, night after night, and do nothing.

Nathan slowly steered the truck down the dark country road. They might have been anywhere—or nowhere. The road curved, went uphill, then down again. They approached a lit farmhouse, passed it and the looming shape of a barn, then darkness descended again. The road grew narrower still, ruts grabbed the tires, and suddenly Nathan pulled over to the shoulder and cut the engine.

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“You know this is stupid, don’t you?” he said. “Beauty.

I’m talking to you. This is your idea, and I respect it, but it’s stupid. I’m sorry, but it is. We have no idea where she is, or what we’re doing on this road. She could be across the country for all we know, she could be—”

“Stop,” Mim said. “Don’t.” Beauty felt her huddling closer.

“We’re just wasting our time,” he said quietly. He took off his cap and put it back on. “Come on, you girls know the cops are doing the real work. Am I right?”

Beauty didn’t answer, just kept peering into the darkness. Was something moving there on the side of the road? She pressed her face harder against the cold window. Bushes. A few trees. Nothing else, not even an animal, but down the road, everything could change. It could happen. They could find her. Maybe stumbling along, lost.

Maybe lying by the side of the road, left there . . . “Let’s go,” she said.

“Wait a second. Just tell me why we’re here. I mean, why are we on this road?”

When Beauty was silent, Mim said, “It’s something to do.” She slid her hand into Beauty’s. “It’s something, isn’t it, Beauty?”

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“Yes,” Beauty said. “It’s something.” That was it, exactly.

“Look,” Nathan said, “I understand. You want to contribute, but like I said, we’re just wasting time. Beauty, you listening? Why don’t we just let the cops get on with it?”

At that moment headlights appeared in the distance.

Slowly they grew stronger. Beauty stared, unblinking.

Now she could hear the sound of the engine. For over an hour they hadn’t seen a single car, yet here was this one, coming steadily on, straight toward them.

Beauty watched the hypnotically bright beams cutting the air, gripped by the thought that, at last, it was going to happen. Something momentous was about to take place.

That car was bearing Autumn toward her
. She threw open the door and leaped out of the truck. She ran down the middle of the road toward the car.

“What are you doing?” Nathan shouted. And she heard Mim, too. “Beauty, wait!”

She ran straight into the headlights, waving her arms.

The car stopped, and a man looked out the window. “You need help?”

Beauty leaned on the hood, breathing hard, bracing herself with both hands. “My sister,” she said. “I’m looking for my—”

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“Say what?” The man had a bushy beard, wore a red-checked cap. “Are you stuck? I have a cell, I can call a tow truck.”

“No, it’s not that.” He was alone. Or was he? She went around to the passenger side and peered into the car. A big dog slept on the backseat, his head on his paws.

Newspapers were piled next to him. Bottles littered the floor.

Beauty stepped back onto the shoulder of the road and waved the man off, but he didn’t go. “Who’s in that truck you just came barreling out of?” he said suspiciously.

“It’s okay. It’s my cousin and my sister.”

“That her coming?” Mim was making her way down the road. Beauty nodded. “You sure everything’s okay?” he said.

“Yes. I’m sorry I made you stop.”

He shrugged and slowly pulled past her. Then Mim was there and took her arm. “Come on, Beauty,” she said.

“Come on.” She walked her back to the truck, waited till she was seated, then got in herself and slammed the door.

“I guess it’s okay if we go home now?” Nathan said, but he didn’t turn the key in the ignition.

Beauty covered her eyes with her hands and rocked.

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Now they would go back to the house without Autumn.

And they would all go to sleep, and another night would pass without her littlest sister at home. “No. No.
No.
”

Nathan put his arm around her. “Take it easy,” he said.

Beauty pressed herself against him. “Oh, please. Oh, please, oh, please,” she heard herself wailing. She wanted
so much
. She wanted love, she wanted him . . . or someone. She didn’t know what she wanted . . . but oh, yes, she did. She did! She wanted Autumn safe home.

Mim’s hands were on her shoulders. “Beauty,” she said,

“Beauty,” and the sound of her voice brought Beauty back to herself. Abruptly she was sober and moving away from Nathan. “Sorry,” she gasped. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, “don’t worry.” He turned the key in the ignition.

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THURSDAY MORNING: NOTES

BEFORE SHE WENT downstairs to make

breakfast that morning, Beauty wrote in the journal she sporadically kept:
I acted like a total jerk with N. last
night. I don’t know what got into me. I grabbed onto him.

I don’t know how I’m going to face him this morning.

Nathan had been writing a note, too. She found it propped up on the kitchen table next to the cereal box.

Cousins, sorry to leave this way, but I’ll lose my job if I don’t get back. Thought it best to get an early start. It’s a long drive. Thanks for the hospitality. If you change your mind about sending Stevie (or
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anyone) to Aunt Bernie, let me know. Anyway, keep in touch. I’m praying for you. Nathan

So he was gone. Had she driven him away? She thought so, but she was relieved. Her nighttime confession to Mim about him seemed like part of a distant and absurd past.

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THURSDAY AFTERNOON:

THE DUCK POND

WHEN ETHAN SHOWED up at the front

door, Beauty stared as if she couldn’t quite figure out who he was. “Hey,” Ethan said, a half smile slipping on and off his face, as if he couldn’t quite figure out, not who he was, but why he was there.

Friday was the last time she had seen him. And now it was Thursday. Six days had passed. Six days which might as well have been six weeks or six months or six years. It seemed to her that she was no longer the same girl who had been in Ethan’s house and who had signaled him over his parents’ heads. How intensely that silly girl had felt the deprivation of not sitting with him! How much of her life
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that girl had wasted in false sorrow and self-pity. And even last night that girl had acted the fool with her cousin.

“Hey,” Ethan said again.

“Hey,” Beauty said.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” he said. “I read in the newspaper—”

“Yes,” she said.

“Is there anything I can—”

“No.”

“Do you know anyth—”

“No. Nothing.”

“No c-c-clues to—”

“No.”

“Sorry,” he said again. He touched her arm. “Want to go for a walk?”

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Wait.” She went back into the house to tell her mother.

“Walking? Who with?” her mother said. She had the ironing board set up in the kitchen.

“A friend from school.”

“What’s her name?”

“His name, Mom. Ethan Boswell. Remember I was at his house?”

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Her mother put down the iron. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know—maybe an hour and a half.” She ran her fingers over her mother’s forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Mom, it’s perfectly safe.” She handed her a rolled-up blouse from the basket. “I was thinking, we have to start living normally, even if—”

“I can’t,” her mother gasped.

Beauty nodded. “I know, but we have to at least try, don’t we?”

Her mother’s eyes filled. She unrolled the shirt on the board and picked up the iron. Then, after a moment, she said, “Go ahead. Go with your friend.”

Friend? Walking toward the park with Ethan, Beauty questioned herself. Why had she agreed to this? She had nothing to say to Ethan, and he seemed to have nothing to say to her.

In the park, though, sitting across from each other on the seesaw, he had plenty to say. “My mother had a h-h-heart attack last year,” he blurted. “It was terrible. You don’t think your mother’s going to land in the h-h-hospital, almost dying.”

“No, I guess not,” Beauty said. Why was he telling her this?

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“People kept saying to me not to worry, she was strong, stuff like that. Then they would just go off and talk about other things.”

Like you’re doing,
she thought, but didn’t say.

“It seems like nobody really understands when something bad happens, unless it’s happened to them. I mean, maybe they’re sorry, but it’s not them, it’s not their mother.”

“Or their sister,” Beauty said tersely.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. Take me, I’m real sorry about your sister, it’s an awful thing, but you’re living with it. I’ll just go home and do my regular stuff. I know how that sounds, callous, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to be h-h-honest,” he said.

Beauty’s perch on the seesaw was up. She stared down at Ethan. He sounded so pleased with himself, letting her know he was smart enough to understand that Autumn’s disappearance didn’t really affect him, though he was (of course) sorry about it. Her breath came fast. She wanted to scream. “Let me down,” she said.

“You okay?” he said, lifting his legs and going up.

“No!” She hopped off.

The seesaw bounced Ethan down. “Ouchers,” he said.

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She didn’t smile. “I’m going home.” She walked away, fast.

He called her name, but she kept walking, didn’t wave, didn’t look back.

Later she knew her anger wasn’t really at Ethan. It was at this limbo they were caught in, how helpless they were to do anything, to make anything happen, to change anything. Where was Autumn? Where? Where?
Where?
Later still she knew his honesty was a gift, which she wasn’t ready to accept.

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THURSDAY, LATE AFTERNOON:

THE COT

YOU’RE LYING ON the floor, under the cot.

Hiding? Not now, he’s not here now. Lying low? Sort of.

You stare up at the canvas and pretty soon you’re back home, and you’re in the garage hanging out with Poppy.

He’s stretched out on his army cot, being restful, his hands linked behind his head. You’re sitting on the stool, near him, telling him about your problems with spelling. Poppy says you don’t get that from him, that he was a whiz speller in school. “Whiz speller,” you say. “Wow.”

Your voice breaks the spell. You’re not in the garage anymore. You’re under the cot that’s
his
, in the locked room that’s
his
, in the house that’s
his
. Yesterday he told
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you his name. Wayne. Then he told you his secret name.

Nelson. He said, “Now it’s a secret between us. You and me.” He said that you were the only person,
the only one
, who could call him Nelson. “If you want to,” he said. “But maybe you like the name Wayne better?”