But my euphoria was short-lived. After all the players but Kyle had gone home, Dusty and Sophie found me sitting in my car, sobbing over the steering wheel.
“Hey, Mom, is everything okay?” Sophie asked me.
“You feeling all right?” Dusty said solicitously. I rummaged through my purse for a tissue. “Need this?” he asked, offering me a pristinely folded hanky. “Rosa never let me leave the house without one,” he said sheepishly.
“Mom, we won! Just one more win, and we could end up headed to the postseason! It’s the best news the team’s had in years.” She leaned over the car and reached out to stroke my hair. “Dude—you’ve taken a train wreck and turned it around. Why’re you crying?”
It took me a minute or two to pull myself together, because Sophie’s words of encouragement had made me sob even harder. “Why am I crying?” I echoed. “Because I really wish my dad had been here to see it.” For months, the sportswriters had inked up the place with their incessant litany that ever since I’d taken control of the Cheers, old Augie was spinning in his grave. Well, if they were right—if he was still spiraling his way toward China—tonight I hoped he was whirling with delirium.
Top of the Eighth
The following morning, I knocked on the door to the guest room. “Hey, Soph, want to go out and celebrate? Brunch is on me. No dairy products, meat, or caffeine—which might be a bit difficult,” I added, muttering that last part to myself. “But heck, we’ve proven pretty dauntless in the face of challenges before, right?”
There was no answer. I knew she must be in there; I’d wished her a good night. And I’d learned my lesson about just barging in, so I knocked louder. When there was no response, I opened the door.
No Sophie. The bed had been neatly made. There were no clothes left out. Ever since our little contretemps about picking up after herself, she’d become pretty organized, so that didn’t surprise me. Maybe she’d gone running. I looked in the closet. Her Nikes were gone. Okay, I was right, she’s gone running, I told myself.
Three hours later, when she hadn’t returned, I phoned her mobile. My call went straight into voice mail, so I left her a message. “Hi, Soph, it’s me. Not important. Just wondered where you are—that’s all. Give me a call when you get this. Love you!”
By the early evening, when she still hadn’t returned the call, I grew concerned. I phoned her cell again, and once again I got her voice mail. “Hey, kiddo, where are you? I mean, I know you’re an adult and you don’t want your mother keeping tabs on you, but I’d just like to know that you’re not under a bus or something. And even if you are—call me.”
I dug out my contact sheet for the Cheers roster and called Kyle.
Lyle picked up the phone. “I haven’t seen my bro, or Sophie, all day,” he told me. “Did you try his cell?” He confirmed that I had the right mobile number.
Kyle’s cell went right into his voice mail box as well. “Hey, Kyle, it’s Livy. Have you seen Sophie? Please call me ASAP. Bye.”
I couldn’t sleep all night, hoping that at any moment, the phone might ring. Carleen McLure hadn’t heard anything from Sophie, either, and volunteered to text her right away. I paced the living room; I climbed the stairs from the guest room to my bedroom so often I wouldn’t need to hit the Stairmaster for a week. I watched the evening news to see if there had been any accident or disaster. I tuned my radio to 1010 WINS, figuring that at some point during their “You give us twenty-two minutes—we’ll give you the world” broadcast, I might hear the news I most feared. But at least I’d know something.
Several times during the day I’d considered calling Glenn and Joy. Maybe Sophie and Kyle had zoomed up to Westchester for the weekend. After all, he’d just pitched a game; he wasn’t due to take the mound again for another few days.
Then, of course, I thought that if Kyle and Sophie hadn’t gone to visit the Ashes, I’d scare them shitless by phoning them to ask if they’d seen our daughter. If she and Kyle had taken his bike…and then I was hit with another zigzag of panic—what if they’d been in a motorcycle accident? Every motorcycle owner I’d ever known had been in a crash. Hell, I’d even been knocked off my Vespa by a Fresh Direct truck. No doubt a lot of online grocery shoppers received broken eggs that day.
By two in the morning, I’d become afraid to fall asleep because I was so tired and tense I worried about being too zonked out to hear the phone ring or the key in the door. It was 4:00 a.m. when I called Dusty.
“Jesus, V, is everything okay?” he asked groggily.
“I can’t find Sophie,” I told him, then burst into tears.
“Oh, baby. Oh, Jesus…oh, shit. I…I don’t know what to say. Aww, baby, try to hold it together, if you can,” he soothed. “It’s never good to think the worst. It’ll only make you crazy. I’ll be right over. You just sit tight. I’ll be there before you can finish your coffee.”
“Bet you a dollar you won’t!” I sniffled. You’re twenty miles away.”
“Betcha double I will. Traffic’s kinda light coming down from the Bronx at this hour, and I know how you hate to drink coffee when it’s too hot. You could nurse a mug for a week.”
It was so sweet, the way he was trying to keep me from drowning in my fears, using humor as a buoy. “You’re an angel, Dusty. I love you,” I added softly.
“You do?” He sounded so touched. Even a bit surprised.
I smiled into the phone, even though my hand was shaking so much I could hardly hold it to my ear. “You’re very good to me, Dusty,” I whispered.
“All right, V, I’m heading out the door and I’ll be on my way in just a minute. Oh—I almost forgot. I love you, too. I’m just so amazed that you love me. Jeez—I meant to say it back when you said it to me just now, but just telling me you love me got me so flustered. Guys like me dream about women like you, but you know, lightning almost never strikes.”
“Then I’m glad you adjusted that metal rod atop your baseball cap,” I teased.
“Okay, sweet pea, I’m out the door for real, now.” Dusty hung up his land line.
True to his word, he phoned me from the car. “Remind me to visit you more often at this hour; the Cross Bronx Expressway is empty!”
“Are you sure you’re awake enough to drive?” I asked him.
“Too late now. Have you heard from her yet?”
I was so punchy I shook my head instead of speaking.
“I can’t hear you,” Dusty said.
“I said no, except that I did it with body language. Sorry, I’m running on fumes.”
“First things first: we locate Sophie. But, you know, as soon as we know she’s safe, I like to converse like that with you again. Body language, I mean. We never did make it to that bed.” I could almost hear him blush through the phone line. Dusty could be gruff and tough with the players, but when it came to interacting with the so-called fairer sex—or maybe it was just because I was his boss—I found him endearing, almost shy, with all the grit of a marshmallow.
When Dusty arrived, I fell into his arms. “I don’t know what to do—do I call the police? They’ll only tell me I have to wait twenty-four hours before I can file a missing persons report. But maybe she’s already been gone for that long—I have no way of knowing. All I know is that she wasn’t here when I woke up this morning—yesterday morning, by now.”
He let me cling to him like he was the only log floating down a raging river. “If it’ll make you feel better, let’s take a walk over to the precinct. I got a missing persons report I have to file, myself,” he added.
“Oh God—who?”
“Kyle Angel, of course,” he said grimly. “I didn’t want to tell you he missed practice today.”
“I—I need to have a cup of coffee before we go. Or I might fall asleep while we’re waiting. And those wooden benches are pretty unforgiving.” But as I grabbed the coffeepot it slipped from my grasp and shattered as it hit the kitchen floor. Shards of glass stuck up defiantly amid a giant puddle of java.
“How can you seem so calm?” I asked him, having a hard time accepting his directive to relax.
“I’m not. My insides are like my great-grandmother’s butter churn. But I figure one of us has to act that way. Or at least try to. Where do you keep the mop?”
“The tall cabinet next to the fridge,” I called to him. “Ever have a kid go AWOL before?”
“It happens more often than you think,” Dusty replied. “But never my best pitcher. And never the responsible kids. Kids with attitude—yeah, it happens. If Sammy Santiago had taken a powder and left no forwarding address, or if Ahab Slocum had gone missing, it wouldn’t have surprised me much. They’re rocky roads. But Kyle Angel—he’s about as close to vanilla as you can get and still have a personality.” I heard the sound of shattered glass tinkling into the trash. “Almost done here,” he called out. A few moments later, I overheard him muttering, “How did I fail him? I teach my kids the importance of personal and team responsibility. How did Kyle Angel miss the message?”
“He wasn’t there to hear your lecture on the first day of practice,” I groaned, only half kidding. I was thinking the same of Sophie. I couldn’t just lie on the couch; I was way too anxious. So I padded back into the kitchen, where I found myself impressed by Dusty’s housekeeping skills.
“Rosa,” he said sheepishly. “She was sick more often than not for so many months, I had to learn to pick up after myself. Not a bad skill set.”
I agreed. “More men should learn it, though preferably not for the same reasons.” I wondered what Dusty was like pre-Rosa, or when she was in the bloom of health. And then I worried that Rosa would always be in the room with us no matter where we were or how much time had passed. A look, a gesture, the most insignificant of incidents might trigger a buried memory, or—more awkward for me—one much closer to the surface. Would I ever get used to it? Because if I wanted to make a go of something with a widower, I’d have to. And not only would Dusty have Rosa’s ghost around, he’d have old Augie’s, too. I loved a man who knew my dad better than I ever did.
Dawn was breaking as we climbed the steps to the police station. The sergeant at the front desk couldn’t quite believe why we were there. “You mean you both have missing persons reports you wanna file?”’
“We each do, yes,” Dusty said, as my hand gripped his forearm.
The desk sergeant gave us another funny look. “What is this, some kinda club? Is there a full moon or something?”
We filed the reports, though neither of us knew what Sophie or Kyle had been wearing at the time of their disappearance. The cops said they’d try to trace any cell phone calls the kids made from now on, and suggested we do a little detective work on our own. “Scour your daughter’s bedroom for clues,” I was told. I didn’t know Sophie’s password, so I couldn’t break into her laptop to see if she’d sent any e-mails to anyone that might provide the answer to her whereabouts.
“And I’d also suggest you call Sophie’s adoptive parents and bring them in on this. How long have you known your biological daughter, Ms. deMarley?”
I was so emotionally exhausted that I had to count the months on my fingers. “About a year,” I admitted.
“Well, the Ashes have known her for over two decades; chances are, they’d be aware of some of Sophie’s behavioral patterns that you’d never recognize.” The detective addressed Dusty. “And as far as Mr. Angel is concerned, I think you should talk to the other Mr. Angel, and ask him the same questions Ms. deMarley is going to ask the Ashes. And, Ms. deMarley—if Sophie has a best friend, a girlfriend she confides in, I’d bring her up to speed as well. The more information we have to go on, the faster we can find your daughter and her boyfriend.”
Dusty and I went back to the duplex and began our round of telephone calls. Everyone was at my apartment within the hour. The Ashes must have been doing eighty on the parkway.
“They didn’t take the bike,” Lyle Angel told us. “It’s still in our driveway with the cover on it.”
Well, that was one anxiety I could eliminate. Only about two hundred thousand more to go.
“Ah texted her again, but she hasn’t replied yet,” Carleen said. It looked like she’d rolled out of bed and straight into her car. She’d thrown on a rumpled green track suit and hadn’t bothered to brush her hair.
Joy Ashe’s face matched her surname. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and with her red-rimmed lids set into her chalky complexion she resembled my second-grade class’s pet bunny rabbit, Snowball. Glenn looked grim, as if he’d already steeled himself to hear the worst when the news finally came.
“Can I trouble you for some coffee?” he asked me, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Dusty and I exchanged a look. “I’ll run down to the corner,” he said, and began taking orders. “Milk-no-sugar for Glenn; half-caff, no sugar for Joy; ‘black like my mood’ for Carleen; extra light and sweet for you, Lyle—”
“If you’re going down to the Korean deli—the one with all the fresh flowers in front—‘extra light and sweet’ is the way they make it when you order a ‘regular,’” I told Dusty, trying to be helpful.
He refused to take any money from anyone. “It’s good for me to have something to do,” he said. “Times like these—I need a task.”
“I know I should have called you sooner,” I told the Ashes after Dusty had departed. “But at first I thought she’d reply to her messages, or be home any minute, or maybe she was actually with you guys, so why worry you needlessly? And when I didn’t hear from her for so many hours, I became afraid to call you. I…I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. Especially after all that’s gone on this year.”
Glenn placed his hands on his knees and leaned toward me. “I confess it did go through our minds as we were driving down here that we’d lost Sophie once already—to you. And it hasn’t been easy for us to deal with that, Livy. After all, we gave her everything we had for all the years of her life. You gave her away.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair!” I said, feeling my face grow as red as my hair. “You can’t compare the circumstances. Don’t you think I’m hurting enough—that I’ve second-guessed myself enough, in the past twenty-four hours? It did occur to me that perhaps Sophie had decided to go back to you two in Larchmont. Now that she sees how expensive it is to live in Manhattan—and she hasn’t even gotten a job yet. She’d love to find her own apartment but the cost has kind of demoralized her. We weren’t exactly the most compatible roommates last fall, if you remember. A huge part of me wants to blame myself for Sophie’s disappearing act, but wherever—and why ever—she went, she didn’t leave in the middle of a fight. Because if you want to, we can all sit here and have a Mexican standoff of finger-pointing, Glenn. Who raised Sophie with the idea that it was okay to be irresponsible enough not to write a note, if she was leaving the house for more than a few hours?”
“All right, y’all, let’s not come to blows over this.” Carleen rose to her feet with a great sense of purpose. “Lyle, come with me, dude. We’re going to search Sophie’s bedroom for clues.” With one smooth movement, she pulled the tall blond man out of his chair. “Y’all ever have one of those days where you wished you’d washed your hair?” she whispered to me, as she and Lyle headed for Sophie’s room.
They were in there quite a while. Finally, they emerged, blushing and slightly disheveled. Carleen was holding Sophie’s portable radio/alarm clock. “Ah see she still wakes up to music,” Carleen said.
“It’s set to go off at four-thirty in the morn
ing,” Lyle told us. “Dude, even the most die-hard runner doesn’t get up that early.”
Dude. Everyone’s “dude.”
Joy looked hopeful. “So now we need to figure out why she needed to leave the house well before dawn.”
“Wait—I’ve got a text message!” exclaimed Carleen. “Maybe it’s Soph!” As she read the screen, her expression went from puzzlement to anger. “It’s from her! Oh, mah God! Ah can’t effin’-gee-aitchin’ believe it! Ah’m gonna kill her! She promised me!”
“What—what?!” we chorused excitedly. Everyone immediately sprang to their feet, suddenly energized. We were all yammering so loudly I hardly heard the doorbell. “Be right there!” I shouted, and let Dusty into the apartment.
He handed me two soggy brown paper bags. “Here—I think one of them’s leaking, maybe both, so watch your clothes. Better put them down in the kitchen—”
“Carleen’s just heard from Sophie!” I told him.
“Kyle, too?” he asked anxiously.
“Kyle, too?” I called to Carleen.
“Her and Kyle both!” she yelled back. “Y’all aren’t going to believe where they are—they flew to Las Vegas!”
“They what?!” I raced to her side.
Joy looked at Glenn with the same sort of inscrutable expression I’d often seen on Sophie’s face. “What are they doing in Vegas?”
“Couldn’t they have waited until the season ended?” Dusty demanded. “After Tuesday night’s game, for all we know the Cheers may be packing their duffels until next spring. Kyle could have all the time in the world to take a vacation with his girlfriend—sorry, Venus, but it’s the truth, and you know it as well as I do. Sophie loves the Cheers just as much as any of us, and Kyle knows how crucial his performance is to the team. So what the hell could have been so important?”
“Oh Christ!” I all but smacked my head with my hand. “They must have eloped!” I shouted.
The reaction, both individual and collective—was an explosive and simultaneous tangle of words.
Choosing Sophie Page 20