The Quiet Girl

by S. F. Kosa

  “Now do you remember what you said?” he asked. “I asked you what your name was. And you said it was Layla. Right as the song was playing. I asked you if you were for real, but I knew you were just making it up.”

  “But that is my name.” Her voice was thick with irritation.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Layla watched the scenery go by; the dunes and cottages by the bay had disappeared, leaving scrubby forest on either side. “I want to go home.”

  “And where is that, exactly?”

  “I want to go back!”

  “Calm down. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He reached to pat her thigh but drew back, and she pressed herself against the passenger door. “Jeez.” His thick fingers were white-knuckled as they gripped the steering wheel. “I should have asked more questions. Earlier,” he said after several tense seconds.

  “Why are you giving me such a hard time?”

  “I’m trying to be your friend. Why can’t you believe that?”

  Her vision was hot with tears that she instinctively knew she wasn’t supposed to shed. She turned in her seat. “Amber said you were just looking for a blow-up doll.”

  “Jesus Christ. Amber is a first-class bitch.”

  “But an honest one?”

  “What the fuck?” He leaned his head back and bumped it against the headrest several times. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “Did we sleep together?” Her whole body had gone tense. She clutched the seat like it was about to jettison her.

  He rolled his eyes and muttered a curse. “And now you’re going to tell me you don’t remember that either? That’s fucking convenient.”

  “Is that a yes?” she asked, her voice little more than a squeak. There wasn’t enough air in the car. She rolled down the window and let the wind yank at her hair. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Breathe.” He sounded so sad. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Just tell me what happened!”

  “I thought you were into it, okay?” he said. “You seemed like you were cool with me. And sober. I mean, I don’t take advantage of drunk girls. I’m not some frat boy rapist if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  There was a dead stinkbug, legs up, caught between the dash and the windshield. Only five legs.

  “I stopped when I realized you were just…gone,” he continued. “Okay? That’s what happened. You stopped responding and just lay there like a corpse, and I don’t take advantage of those either. I tried to talk to you about it, and you just gave me this blank, dead stare. I know something happened to you.”

  “Nothing happened to me!” shouted Layla, her voice filling the whole car, her whole head. She reached for the door handle.

  His hand closed around her wrist as the car swerved. “You want to kill both of us?”

  “Let me out!” She struggled against his grip, but he was using his whole arm to press her back into the seat. She tried to reach for the button to release her seat belt, but he jammed his elbow against her upper arm, making her shriek with pain.

  “Calm down,” he bellowed as he steadied the wheel. A car passed them on the other side, speeding up to get around them before the dotted yellow lines became solid once more. She caught a flash of wide eyes and white faces. The car was going over fifty miles an hour on this two-lane highway, scenery whipping by, wind gushing through the open car window.

  She slumped in the seat, her muscles going slack, her eyes on that dead stinkbug.

  “If I let go of you, are you gonna do something stupid?” he asked, breathing hard.

  She shook her head.

  “Good.” He moved his arm. “I didn’t want it to go like this.”

  “You thought we’d just go out on a date and then I’d hop into bed with you?”

  “This wasn’t how I wanted it to go.” He almost sounded like he was pleading with her. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. Believe that.”

  She didn’t believe a single word he said.

  Ten minutes later, his gaze flicked to an orange rooftop up ahead. “It’s right here.” He slowed the car. Then he looked at his phone, where the lock screen displayed the time.

  Everything inside her pulled tight. “It looks nice,” she said, focusing on getting every word out the right way.

  “Everything’s gonna be fine,” Esteban said as he turned off the road. The car’s tires crunched over the white shells that graveled the lot of Moby Dick’s Restaurant—For a whale of a meal.

  Before he reached the parking area, she had unbuckled her seat belt and thrown the door open. As she leapt from the car, she stumbled but kept her footing, and then she was running and running and running, panic drumming in her ears and tears bursting loose.

  “Layla, no,” he shouted.

  His footsteps sounded off behind her, and she screamed, terror exploding inside her, up from the lightless recesses of her mind, bringing with it a torrent of images and sounds and words and faces. Her feet pounded against the ground. One of her flip-flops was gone, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting away. Escaping. Outrunning the monster behind her, the one bellowing and roaring and snapping at her heels. She didn’t know where she was going, but as long as it carried her farther from him, it was salvation. Confusion squeezed at her lungs and billowed inside her head.

  How had she gotten here?

  Where the hell was she?

  She screamed again. The sound merged with that of other voices, all raised high and loud and yet not enough to penetrate the din of memories inside her head.

  She didn’t hear the skid or the horn. There was only a blast of pain, the whoosh of air, and then nothing at all.

  Monday, August 3

  Do you think someone abducted her?” I ask the detective. The sky is such a bright, heartbreaking blue, and it’s making my chest hurt. For days, I’ve been thinking she probably did this on purpose, trying to punish me. Suddenly, in one devastating moment, I realize I was wrong. And I know she’s in trouble.

  “Mr. Zarabian, right now there’s no way of knowing—”

  “No way of knowing? Isn’t that your job? Who leaves their wallet and keys locked in their car voluntarily?”

  Detective Correia lets my question hang between us for a moment before asking, “Has your wife been under any stress lately? Has she been feeling depressed?”

  “No, why?”

  “She got any emotional problems? Was she taking any medication?”

  “Why?”

  Detective Correia sighs. “I have to cover these bases, sir. We’re trying to figure out what’s happened. Does she receive any mental health care? Has she been—”

  “She’s got a therapist, just to talk.”

  “Just to talk.”

  Irritation flashes hot across my skin. “Are you guys actually looking for her?”

  “We’ve got Provincetown and Truro force here, along with National Park Service and State Police. We’re combing the perimeter of the park. Have you been here? Pretty big pond right in the middle.”

  “I know,” I say, remembering. “Mina took me on a walk there earlier this summer.” There’s a trail around the pond, and the whole thing is thick with trees and scrub right to the edge of the water. If you hold out handfuls of birdseed, a bunch of adorable little birds will come down and alight on your fingers. Mina said we’d get ticketed if we were caught, but she couldn’t help herself. She called it magic. She couldn’t stop laughing as those little birds pecked at her palms.

  “So she’s familiar with the place,” Detective Correia says.

  “What exactly do you think happened, Detective?”

  “We’re trying to suss that out, Mr. Zarabian.”

  “Have you gone through the car? Are there signs of a struggle?”

  “None that we can see. Her wallet’s there, cash and cred
it cards inside.”

  “Don’t you guys have a forensic lab or something?”

  “It’s a little early for that.”

  “A little early? If someone has her, every minute counts!”

  Another sigh. “Mr. Zarabian, have you considered the possibility that no one else is involved here?”

  I stare out at the traffic. Watch an Uber pull up and spit out a guy in a suit and sunglasses.

  “Are you in Provincetown, Mr. Zarabian? I think it would be good if we spoke in person.”

  “I can be there later today,” I mumble. We arrange to meet at the cottage at six, then I listen to the call cut off.

  I hadn’t considered suicide. The thought hadn’t even entered my mind. But now, as I once again wonder why Mina left her rings behind, there’s yet another awful possibility.

  But I’ve never met anyone so alive.

  I drive to Caitlin’s in a daze. My ex-wife is smiling when she answers the door, but the look fades soon as she sees me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you keep Devon tonight?”

  “Daddy!” My little girl squirms past her mom and wraps her arms around my legs. “Sushi night!”

  I look up at the eaves of the house where I used to live, on this quiet Brookline street where tragedy is a stranger and nobody disappears into thin air. Caitlin really needs to have the gutters cleaned. My hand is on Devon’s head, and my throat is so tight. But I manage to say, “Something’s come up, kiddo.”

  Devon starts to whine, but Caitlin already has her by the shoulders, gently prying her arms off my legs. “Daddy needs some space, Dev.”

  “I have to get Mina’s present!” Devon whirls around and disappears back into the house.

  I bow my head. It feels like I’m going to throw up. Caitlin touches my arm.

  “It’s Mina,” I whisper.

  “Oh my God, Alex. Is she—”

  “She’s missing. I have to go to Provincetown.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Ryan and I were headed to Portland, but we can stay—”

  “Don’t tell Devon, okay? I don’t want her to worry.”

  “Should she be worried?”

  “Don’t you think I’d tell you?” I snap.

  “I didn’t know your mom had cancer until you told me she’d started chemo,” Caitlin murmurs. “I didn’t know your dad was in the hospital until you told me he’d passed away.”

  “I don’t need this.” I take a step back. “Last thing I need.”

  She takes a quick look over her shoulder and moves onto the porch. She’s got her chin up like she always does when she’s royally pissed. She doesn’t yell, though. She hisses. “I’m not trying to make this harder for you, Alex. I’m trying to take care of our little girl.”

  “Then take care of her. She doesn’t need to know anything until there’s something to know.”

  Our eyes meet, and I can’t read Caitlin’s face. Suddenly, I remember loving her, though. I remember when her arms were a refuge, when the sound of her voice smoothed my edges, and I don’t know why, and I shouldn’t be, but I’m wishing for that comfort now, when it’s years past and long since dead.

  She tilts her head. The chin is down now. “I don’t know everything that’s happening, and I don’t need to,” she says. “But you have to believe me—I hope Mina’s okay. And I’m here if you want to talk.”

  She was always talking about magic, my wife. The first time she met Devon, Mina knelt down so they were at eye level, and she pointed to the book my daughter held cradled against her chest. “I haven’t read that one,” Mina said, then poked at the image on the cover. “That pigeon looks like he’s up to no good, though.”

  Devon accepted Mina’s request to read it with her, and a few hours later, after they’d become fast friends, after my daughter insisted Mina tuck her in, and after watching Mina do exactly that had filled my head with fantasies of our future children, we sat in the living room and shared a bottle of wine. “Devon is so much fun,” Mina said. “She told me a whole story about this pigeon in her book, and how he wanted so badly to learn how to drive the bus so he could go visit his grandma in New York.”

  “Caitlin’s parents live upstate,” I told her. “I hope Devon isn’t considering hijacking a vehicle to go visit them.”

  “I love that,” she said. “I love that she lets herself live through this character, even though it’s a pigeon.”

  “Have you spent a lot of time around kids?” I poured a little more wine for her as she turned to look at the fire I’d built. I knew we were both only children, and I wondered if growing up without siblings had done to her what it had done to me.

  Mina gave me a bashful smile. “I never even babysat.”

  “You seem like a natural, though.”

  She sipped at her wine and turned the conversation back to the pigeon. “Where do you think he wanted to go, Alex?”

  “I don’t know—joyride? Never thought about it, honestly.” I slid a fingertip along her shoulder. “What about you?”

  Mina held up her glass and gazed into the ruby depths of her wine. “Maybe he wanted to step out of his old life and go find the magic in the world.”

  “Is his current life so bad?”

  She shook her head. “And he knows he should stay put. But he always wonders what’s out there.”

  “Are we still talking about the pigeon?”

  She grinned. “I should slip him into the book I’m working on right now.”

  She’s a master at the art of changing the subject, and I fall for it almost every time. I’m so clueless sometimes—I don’t even realize until later that what we didn’t talk about might have been more important than what we did.

  I could take the ferry to Provincetown, but I want to have my car, so I drive south out of the city and along the South Shore. Even though it’s midday on a Monday, the Cape traffic is still enough to make me sweat. On the way, antsy as hell, I call Emily, Mina’s therapist, and I leave a message. She calls me back an hour or so later as I’m rolling along Route 6, past shops and restaurants with charming names like Lobster Shack and Moby Dick’s. I explain to her what’s happened, when I last saw Mina, how Mina apparently made a cake and took it to her parents’ for dinner, how she disappeared into the night and no one has seen her since. How her car was found at Beech Forest, and how there’s an ongoing search, and how they asked if Mina was depressed. “Was she?” I ask.

  “You must be so incredibly worried,” she says. “I’m worried, too.”

  “That’s a great way of talking and saying absolutely nothing.”

  “I can understand your frustration, Alex. But I hope you can understand my obligation to Mina and her privacy.”

  “Her privacy?” The center line of the highway is solid, telling me not to pass. I swerve around a minivan that’s going five under the speed limit. “What about her safety?”

  “Alex, if I had information that Mina planned to hurt herself, I would have taken action already. I can promise you that.”

  I hate this woman, even though she sounds nice. My wife has been going to her almost every week since before we met, and she probably knows all the most private moments of our lives. Feeling stripped bare and surly, I blurt out, “The last time I saw Mina, she was walking out the door after we argued. About having kids.”

  “You blame yourself.”

  “No,” I say, braking to avoid colliding with the back of yet another car that’s moving too goddamn slow. “I just want to know where she went. And why. I thought she was leaving me, and now I’m afraid something’s happened to her.”

  “Do you have anyone with you?” she asks. “It must be difficult to be alone with such stress and uncertainty.”

  I hang up on her. It seems better than shouting. I make it to the cottage with eight minutes to spare, but the detective is already out
front, waiting by a squad car. She’s a tall, slender woman, with cropped black hair and dark-brown eyes that size me up as I get out of my Lexus. We exchange terse greetings and head inside where she turns down water, tea, and coffee. I consider offering her a scotch because I’m badly in need of one myself, but then I wonder if she’ll think I’m a drunk and start making assumptions.

  We sit in the living room. I watch her scan the place and take in the wilted bouquet on Mina’s desk. “We haven’t found any trace of Mina yet,” she tells me. “If there’s nothing by tomorrow, we’ll call in the dive team.”

  I’m glad my stomach is empty. “You think she’s in the water?”

  “We’re doing all we can to find her.”

  “Including combing her car for clues?”

  “Yes, but there’s no sign of anything unusual in the car, Mr. Zarabian.”

  “She’s been missing for a week, Detective. Plenty of time for someone to clean it out or something.”

  “Right,” she says. “That’s possible.”

  “Was everything still in her wallet? Cash? Credit cards?”

  “You can give me a list of what you think should have been in there. I can tell you that there were a few credit cards. No cash.”

  “She took $400 cash out of our account late Monday morning.”

  The detective pulls out her phone and makes a note of it, but doesn’t speculate. When she raises her head, I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. I get up and get myself a glass of water in the kitchen.

  “Can you walk me through your understanding of where she might have been since you last saw her?” she asks when I return.

  I do, including her going to her parents for dinner on Monday. “Did you find a cake carrier in the car?”

  “Cake carrier?” She shakes her head. “Nothing in the cab or the trunk.”

  “She must have left it with her parents. Are you going to talk to them?”

  Detective Correia leans her elbows on her knees. “I will. I’ve also filed for a search warrant for her cell phone and local cell towers. Her phone wasn’t in the car, so wherever she is, the phone could be with her.”