Girl Gone Missing

by Marcie Rendon

  She put one cup down in front of the Army guy and the other down for herself. She hesitated, unsure what to do next: he was sitting in the chair she always sat in. She finally sat down opposite him.

  He blew on the cup of steaming coffee before taking a cautious sip. “Best coffee I’ve had since getting stateside. S’pose you’re wondering how I found you?” He lit another cigarette. Cash thought she smoked a lot but this guy was chainsmoking, lighting one cigarette off the butt of the other one. “I got back a couple weeks ago. Got kicked outta the family that adopted me. Went and fought to keep America safe. Became a man! Came home and the first time I got drunk, they kicked me out. Told me to never come back. Been doing that old man’s shit work since I was eight years old. Goddamn adopted me, too. Told everyone in church I was their kid. Just like one of theirs. Shit. All my hard work is going to go to that pansy-ass kid of his, not to me, like he had me believing all those years, hoping and dreaming all them years, telling everyone I was his, just like a real son. Fuck!”

  He took a big swallow of the coffee. “Ah, heck.” He grinned over the coffee steam. “Easy come, easy go.” He looked at her. “Damn, if you don’t look just like Ma. ’Cept your hair is straight, not curly like hers was.”

  “She put it up in pin curls.”

  “That’s right.”

  Silence.

  “The people that adopted me told me you were moved from home to home and they’d heard that the sheriff had kinda taken you under his wing. I stopped by the jail in Ada and his secretary said you lived in Fargo. So I drove up here. I got me a Pontiac, a silver grey Grand Am, with money I been saving. It’s a sweet ride, sitting right out front here. Faster than a cop car.”

  “How’d you know where I live?”

  “I stopped at a couple bars here on NP Avenue to shoot some games, drink some beer. At the Casbah the folks were talking about this Indian chick that could really shoot pool, but folks haven’t seen her in awhile. I told ’em I was looking for my sister, and one of the guys—think his name was Jim—said the pool shooter didn’t have no family, or that the family had all been killed in a car crash years ago. Said he thought your real name was Renee. That got me thinking, maybe it was you. But we aren’t all dead.”

  “No?”

  “Hell no. Like I said, I was adopted by the farmer up by Crookston. Chi-chi, our sister, I heard she was adopted by some family out in Delaware or some shit.”

  Cash felt her chest tighten. A blackness formed in the pit of her stomach and began to move slowly up to her diaphragm.

  “Hey!” The Army guy jumped out of his chair, pulled her chair back from the table, and pushed her head down between her knees. “Breathe…”

  She gulped air and sat up. “Jeez girl! Your eyes started to roll back there. I’m a medic. Was a medic. Am a medic. You okay? Take a drink of your coffee. Didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t know where our mom is. Or our dad for that matter. Last I heard she was in Oklahoma, shacked up with some oil-rich Indian, drinking themselves to death. But I don’t know what’s true, what’s not true, about that one. You gonna live?”

  Cash drank coffee. Nodded her head yes. He was sitting across the table from her again. Lighting another cigarette. Offering her one. She took it. Even though it was Camel straight. She took a big drag and felt the smoke burn her lungs. Bits of tobacco sat on her tongue. She picked them off with her fingertips. She eyed his nametag on his army shirt. Lt. Sivertson.

  “Yeah. Sivertson. Not Blackbear,” he said through a haze of smoke. “Might change my name back now that I’ve been disinherited. When they adopted me, they changed my first name from Fred to Paul. Needed a “Christian” name. Shit don’t matter. Folks now just call me Geronimo. Mo for short. Folks think I joke like Mo on the Three Stooges. Then they get to know me. Ger-ro-ni-MO!” He laughed. “I came by after closing time but you weren’t here.”

  “I drive beet truck.”

  “Parked my car in some park down by the river. Woke up with a cramp in my leg and needed to piss. Came back by here and decided to see if you were home.”

  “I go to school. I gotta get ready to go to school.” Cash drank the last of her coffee, standing up.

  “Mind if I crash here?”

  Cash looked around her small apartment, which was only a kitchenette, bath and a living room she used as a bedroom.

  Mo was watching her look around. “Look, I’ll just throw my stuff on the floor against the wall over here in the kitchen. Drier than a rice paddy and way fewer mosquitos. Not used to this cold anymore. Sleeping inside will be good.”

  “Sure.” Cash went into the bedroom and grabbed some clean jeans and a T-shirt off the easy chair she used as a closet. From the dresser drawer she got undies and socks. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. When it didn’t quite shut, the wood swollen from years of summer humidity, she realized she had probably never shut it before. She pushed it a bit until it stuck although there was still a crack of light. She dressed quickly. Brushed her teeth and hair and finally looked at herself in the mirror.

  Why’d you almost pass out? She stood staring at herself, scared brown eyes welled with tears staring back. Fuck that. She splashed her face with cold water. She grabbed her bath towel and scrubbed her face dry. Get your ass to school.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Mo was stretched out on the floor against the north wall. His mattress was an army blanket on the floor and his rucksack was his pillow. He barely opened his eyes, “Just checking my eyelids for holes,” he said before closing them again.

  Cash grabbed her books off the table and ran down the wooden stairs. The cool autumn air filled her lungs and she got a bit light-headed again. Knock it off. She jumped in the Ranchero, drove a block down the street and parked face in at the Casbah. Shorty saw her coming and gave her a stern look. “Don’t start,” she told him. “Just give me a Bud. I’m going to test out of my English and maybe my science class. I don’t have to be there right now.”

  Shorty pushed a Bud across the bar. “You can’t make this a habit. I’ll quit serving you.”

  Cash laughed. She took a big gulp. “Where’s Ol’ Man Willie?”

  “You beat him in this morning, girl. You can’t be doing this.”

  “Two mornings… two mornings out of my whole damn life, not gonna turn me into Willie.”

  “You’re just a kid, Cash—you don’t have a ‘whole damn life’ to be talking about. Some Army guy was in here asking for you last night.”

  “I know. He found me.”

  “Your brother?”

  “I guess. I gotta go to class. Pretty sure I passed the test to get out of my English class. The sooner I can get back to drinking nights, you won’t have to serve me in the mornings.” Cash put her money on the counter and left.

  The beer had gone down on an empty stomach but at least it had settled her nerves. She drove from Fargo, across the Red River into Moorhead on the Minnesota side of the river. She was too early for classes, especially since she was sure she passed the English test. She headed north on Highway 75, drove the speed limit. Passed through the small towns of Kragnes, Georgetown, Perley and Hendrum, each town an orange and yellow tree-filled oasis on the flat prairie that was now mostly black, plowed fields. The trees along the river were golden. They shimmered in the morning sun. When she got to what folks called the four-mile corner, four miles before the township of Halstad, she made a U-turn and headed back toward Moorhead at the same snail’s pace, speedometer right on the speed limit.

  She lit up a cigarette and rolled down the car window a bit so the smoke blew out behind her. She didn’t know what to think. The last time she had seen him was when they were riding in the car just before their mother rolled it in the ditch. Back then, he was a scrawny, underfed kid. His baby teeth rotted before his six-year front teeth could fall out. His crew cut was never cut soon enough so it always looked like a rooster’s head. She vaguely remembered her sister—Chi-chi, they called her. Chi-chi had been scrawny too,
but her hair had been long and curly, always matted in back because it never got brushed.

  Cash had long ago given up wondering where they were, how they were, why no one ever came for her. Hope itself became a burden too big to bear. With no family and left alone to endure the constant abuse of foster homes, there were nights she went to sleep hoping to not wake. Other times she almost convinced herself that dream time was real time and wake time was dream time. But then reality would hit. As young as she was, she grasped the idea that each day was as good as it was going to get. And so she gave up the hope of rescue, of family returning, of something different. With hope gone, at eleven years old, she had taken to furtively smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, both of which seemed to make it all a bit more bearable.

  It wasn’t until Wheaton moved her into her own apartment in Fargo, rescuing her from an abusive foster dad, that Cash became more determined. She finished high school and kept working farm labor. Now Wheaton had signed her up for college. While he seemed to see a future for her, Cash still doubted the world was in her favor. She lived day to day, trusting no one, spending most of her time alone. Her closest friends were her cue stick and the Ranchero. And the river that flowed to the north. And the land that gave life to wheat and corn and sugar beets. The flat plains that gave her room to breathe.

  A hawk flew over the Ranchero, low enough for Cash to tell it was a red-tailed hawk. She flicked her cigarette butt out the car window and rolled it all the way down. The cool breeze helped clear her brain. She hoped she had passed the English test. And hoped she passed the science one too. She needed to not be worried about some folks who hadn’t been too concerned about her so far in her life. Mo needed a place to sleep away from mosquitos. She had a place for him. He was already asleep, not thinking about her at all. She needed to focus. Pass these classes. Get out of the brick classrooms.

  She pulled into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot in Moorhead. The store was open with a few station wagons scattered about the parking lot—farm wives doing some shopping. Cash ran in and bought four jelly-filled Bismarck donuts wrapped in plastic. Back in the Ranchero she tore them open and bit into one. In a habit developed in childhood, she started eating the Bismarck on a rounded edge away from the jelly, saving the jelly-filled center for last. She wiped her sticky hands on her jeans and took a drink of coffee from the Thermos she had left in the car.

  She found a parking spot near campus and walked to the Science building. Sharon was standing on the building steps, scanning the campus. When she caught sight of Cash, she came running over.

  “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. I met with Mr. Danielson yesterday for my extra credit. He was the perfect gentleman. He didn’t make any kind of pass at me at all. We were squished into his tiny office. I could barely breathe from being so close to him. I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”

  Cash raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m gonna die,” wailed Sharon.

  Cash shook her head. “Do you go to the school football games?”

  “No. Why? Everyone says he makes it with students. What’s wrong with me?”

  “Why don’t you go to the games?”

  “I don’t know. They’re like for jocks and cheerleaders. The sorority crowd. Do I look like sorority crowd? Aiiiiii—that’s what’s wrong. Maybe he likes the sorority type.”

  “Knock it off. Is there a game this weekend?”

  “There is every weekend, as far as I know. ’Til Homecoming anyways. We haven’t already had Homecoming, have we?”

  Cash stopped them up short on a bulletin board inside the Science building.

  “Look, Homecoming is this weekend. We should go.”

  “No, we shouldn’t. Teachers and jocks. Sorority sisters and old folks. Not our crowd, Cash. Not our crowd. Besides, tomorrow night we’re going to the Indian students’ potluck.”

  “Yeah, but the game is on Saturday. Come on, I’ll pay your way in? Maybe Mr. Danielson is going,” Cash bribed.

  “And you’ll tell the dorm I’m staying with you and your ‘dad?’ And I won’t have to sneak out to see Chaské?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good morning, Sharon. Morning, Renee.” Mr. Danielson greeted them as they entered his classroom. Cash immediately glanced to the back of the room to make sure her spot was empty. It was. Sharon sashayed to the empty seat in the front row. “I’d like a word with you after class, Renee,” he said before turning to write more notes on the board.

  Sharon turned around in her seat, eyebrows raised in question. Cash shrugged her shoulders. It was a long, boring hour. Cash doodled cattails and leafless trees as she waited for it to pass.

  When the bell rang, she gathered her books. Sharon waited for her by Mr. Danielson’s desk. “I understand you’ve asked to test out of my class.”

  Cash clutched her notebooks to her chest. Sharon raised her eyebrows behind Mr. Danielson’s back. Cash nodded her head yes.

  “Well, you’ve certainly had good quiz scores. You’re taking the test tomorrow?”

  Cash nodded yes again.

  “You know I teach the next level science class, also. If you pass, I hope you’ll consider taking it. Or maybe I’ll see you back here Monday.” He flashed her a charming smile.

  Cash nodded and hugged her books tighter. She looked at Sharon before turning and leaving the classroom. Sharon followed her out. “Why are you doing that?” she whispered loudly.

  “I already know most of the stuff he’s teaching. If I test out of this class and English, I won’t have to get up so early after working nights,” Cash whispered back.

  “Well, I’m staying in his class just so I can look at him.”

  “I’m going to the rec hall before my next class. Come on.”

  “No, unlike some folks, I have to study. I’ll see you tomorrow. And are you going to cook something for the potluck?”

  Cash looked at her, dumbfounded.

  “They said it was potluck. That means we’re supposed to bring something for everyone to eat.”

  “I don’t cook.”

  “Well, they said beer—or you could bring a package of cookies from the store.”

  Cash puffed her cheeks and blew out, frustrated. “I’ll see.”

  Instead of going to the rec hall, Cash went to her Ranchero. She rolled down both windows and sat looking out the window at the passing students and cars while she ate another Bismarck.

  She thought about the Tweed girl. About Gunner, the gunnysack dog rescued by Wheaton. She rewrote the English essay about Shakespeare and Langston Hughes in her head. When her mind circled around to the brother sleeping upstairs in her apartment, she sent it back to estimating her next pay from hauling beets. She licked her fingers and wiped them on her jeans, rolled up the truck windows and walked back over to the rec hall to shoot pool until her psych class.

  After school, she didn’t want to go back to her apartment. Not yet. She decided to stop at Piggly Wiggly and grab some cookies for the potluck. She stood in the cookie aisle for a good twenty minutes. There were so many choices. Which ones would the other students want to eat? Chocolate chip? Molasses? Sugar cookies? She felt sick to her stomach.

  Another woman came into the aisle pushing a cart brimming with groceries. Judging by the cereal boxes, Cash had to assume she had a bunch of kids. Well-fed farm kids.

  The overflowing cart pushed Cash back into a memory of sitting at a kitchen table in a foster home. All the other kids—the family’s “real” kids—were eating some new sugar-coated, berry-flavored cereal while arguing over which one was going to be the first to order the kite on the back of the box. They were laughing and teasing each other. The biggest one said he would send the smallest one up on the kite first as a test case. The second biggest one had said, “No, no, send Renee, not our baby.” They all laughed harder. A thin spray of milk shot from one or the other’s mouth as they laughed their way through their morning meal. Cash sat hunched over her bowl of Corn Flakes, the ch
eap cereal, the cereal she was allowed to eat.

  The mom pushing the cart interrupted Cash’s memory with a soft, “Excuse me,” and reached past Cash to get a package of wafer cookies. The pink, brown and vanilla ones—long, thin and crunchy.

  When she was gone, Cash grabbed the same kind of wafer cookie and headed to the checkout counter with the shortest line. The woman ahead of her and the cashier were in a hushed discussion with a lot of tsk-tsking going on. Cash moved closer to eavesdrop.

  “Gone. Just like that Tweed girl.”

  “How? From where?

  “They don’t know. Down south. Some little town, like Melon or Milan. Right on the border, I heard.”

  “She didn’t just run away? Kids these days are hitchhiking all around the country.”

  “No. A high school student. Top student. She just won some award or other and was in the newspapers all over the state.”

  “What’s this world coming to? Hippies. Anti-war protesters. We’re not safe anywhere anymore.”

  “You take care, Hazel,” the cashier said as the bag boy finished bagging the woman’s groceries and the cashier started ringing up the cookies.

  “Just the cookies?”

  “Yep,” said Cash, laying her money on the counter. Cash wished she had the nerve to chase after Hazel and ask her about the other missing girl. Instead she took her package of cookies and drove across the river to her apartment.

  She sat in the Ranchero outside her place, smoking a Marlboro, blowing the smoke out the window. Go on, girl, it’s your apartment. Go on. Leaving the cookies on the seat along with the two leftover Bismarcks, she got out of the truck and trudged up the stairs.

  Even before she opened the door, she could smell marijuana. She jerked open the door to find her brother sitting at her kitchen table, a joint burning in the ashtray along with one of his filterless cigarettes. And in front of him was a decent size pile of marijuana and about forty rolled joints. “Get that shit out of here,” she hollered at him.