Seth put his hands on Letty’s upper arms and squeezed, and she stood up right away.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, and Emily nodded, not saying anything to Seth, though to be fair, he didn’t exactly say anything to her or anyone else at the table.
There were fifteen minutes left of lunch, and they went out to the courtyard, slipping around the back to sit on the low wall by the parking lot. There used to be bushes and flowers and stuff in the planters, but now there were mostly cigarette butts and trash.
“So, I have to go up to my cousin’s place in Venice,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d go with me.”
“What? When?”
“Well, I figured you’d want me here for your birthday, even though I’m not invited to dinner, so I guess Thursday.”
“What about school?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have any tests or anything. It’s just for the day.”
“Seth? Can I ask you something, and just tell me, okay, don’t get mad?”
He looked over her head for a minute and didn’t answer, but then he finally looked at her and said, “Yeah, all right.”
“Why can’t you go home?”
He sighed, and she just wanted to hug him, to tell him everything would be okay, but if she did that he wouldn’t answer, so she just looked at him, and he finally told her.
“My dad, he let this other guy move in, like a roommate you know? He took my room, and we don’t get along so good, so I don’t want to go back there anyway.”
“He let him have your room?” she asked in disbelief.
“I was going to get out of there soon anyway,” he said.
“But you can’t keep staying at that house,” she said. “What if you get caught?”
“Where else am I supposed to go? I won’t get caught. Now, are you going to Venice with me or not?”
He leaned forward and kissed her, and she knew that she would go.
On her birthday her mom made pancakes for breakfast and was really nice when she dropped her off. When Aunt Cora picked her up that afternoon, her and Seth’s plans were all worked out. She was wearing the necklace he got her for her birthday, and she could tell Aunt Cora noticed it right away, but she didn’t say anything.
She’d taken her flying again the day before—an early birthday present, she’d said—and it was just as incredible as she had remembered it. She thought that maybe she could be a pilot when she got older, and she and Seth could have one of those houses in central Florida like John Travolta had, where you could keep your plane right by your house, like it was a car.
“Can we go by my house?” she asked. “Dad won’t be home for hours, and I need more clothes.”
She went straight to her parents’ room first, leaving Aunt Cora to find something to drink in the fridge. She looked everywhere, under the bed, in the dresser, and finally found her purse and cell phone on top of his gun safe in the closet.
Aunt Cora came in just as she left the closet and stood, leaning in the doorway with a soda in her hand, looking around the bedroom. She didn’t even seem at all suspicious of why Letty was in her parents’ room.
“I’ll grab some clothes,” she said as she rushed past her.
Aunt Cora was still in her parents’ room when she came back, staring at the framed articles and pictures on the Miracle Wall. She was standing really still, looking at the People cover, and she didn’t even hear Letty come in. But she must have made some kind of noise, because Aunt Cora jumped a little and looked like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.
She was pretty, Letty suddenly realized. Not, like, Barbie pretty, but just really naturally pretty, even though she’d gained weight and her face was a lot rounder than it was on the People cover.
“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown up,” Aunt Cora said, not moving from in front of the wall. Letty dropped her bag on the bed and went to stand next to her, both of them looking at the articles and pictures.
“Yeah,” Letty said, looking at the cheesy studio photos, where she was in frilly dresses and posed with angel wings and big plastic letters. She couldn’t believe she was ever so small. She realized that Aunt Cora was turned toward her, staring at her, but it just felt too weird to turn and look back at her, so she pretended she didn’t notice.
She moved away from her a little, toward the corner, where the pictures and articles stopped. Her mom had stopped putting pictures up a few years ago. She didn’t know why. Maybe because she always acted like it was so embarrassing. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Aunt Cora had stopped looking at her and was looking at the wall again.
“What do you think about all this?” Aunt Cora suddenly asked, waving her hand at the wall.
Letty shrugged. “I—I don’t know. You mean the pictures?”
Aunt Cora turned around fully toward her then, like she was irritated or something and touched her on the shoulder.
“What?” Letty asked, finally looking at her.
“It’s weird, right?” she asked.
Letty nodded.
“Look,” Aunt Cora said, “I just want you to know that I am really proud to have been a part of this. I feel as though I did something really important in my life when I look at you, Letty.”
Letty didn’t know where to look. Aunt Cora stayed quiet and just looked at her.
“How come you never had kids?” Letty asked. It was something she’d always wondered, but she’d never even talked to her mom about it. Aunt Cora looked surprised.
“I guess I never thought it was necessary to complete my life,” she said after a minute. “Not the way it was for your mother.”
“But did you ever just want them?”
She looked over at the pictures again.
“No. Actually, no, I didn’t. I never felt that urge, that deep desire to be a mother. I think that maybe because I knew your mom, knew what that real, deep-seated desire to have a child was from her for so long, that I realized that if I didn’t feel it like that, I probably shouldn’t do it.”
When she finished, she looked at Letty with her eyebrows raised, like she was looking for her approval.
“Are you ever sorry?” Letty asked.
Aunt Cora smiled. “Sometimes,” she said. “But then I hear about what you’re doing, or your mom sends me a picture, and I know that my role in having children was the one that I chose.”
Letty looked back at the photo, and she saw what Seth had seen, what Aunt Cora saw, and she was okay with it. She did look like her, and that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
“Do you think I could learn to fly planes?” she asked.
Aunt Cora laughed, like she was surprised again. Letty had never known she was so surprising.
“I don’t see why not,” Aunt Cora said. “It’s work, a lot of homework. And it’s expensive. Lessons are pricey, and you know how much fuel costs? And how much you use, just flying around the way we’ve done?”
“I could get a job,” she said. Aunt Cora looked pleased.
“I think that’s a great idea. Maybe your mom would like some help at the store? You know she worked there all through high school.”
“Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t think her mom wanted help at the store, especially her help. “Do you think they’ll get back together?” she asked, afraid to ask it, but more afraid not to.
“Get back together?” Aunt Cora repeated. “They’re not apart, Letty. Stop worrying about your parents, okay? They’re fine, and this has nothing to do with you.”
Nothing to do with her? Then why had they been staying at Aunt Cora’s for weeks? What was wrong? But there was definitely something, because Aunt Cora looked guilty, like she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
“Letty,” Aunt Cora said, and for one of the first times ever she talked to her like she was a little kid. “Sometimes parents just need a little time away from each other, that’s all. It’s going to be fine, I promise.”
Letty stared at
her. She hated it when people lied to her.
Her birthday dinner sucked.
Emily acted weird, and it was obvious to everyone that she didn’t like Letty anymore. She didn’t really know what to do about that. She had friends when she was a kid that she wasn’t friends with anymore, but she’d always thought she and Emily would wind up being like her mom and Aunt Cora.
They even used to pretend to be them when they played. When Letty got her period first and it took Emily forever, they even thought that maybe she’d never get it and then Letty would have a baby for her when she wanted one. But she did finally get it, of course.
At dinner Emily mostly talked to Aunt Cora and her dad, and she watched her, thinking about the fact that she didn’t even know that she and Seth had had sex. Only six months ago she would have sneaked into the bathroom right after to call and tell her, but it had been more than two weeks and they still hadn’t even talked about it.
But her dad was the worst part of all of it. She could tell that he wanted to hug her, but he acted like he wasn’t sure she would want to, and so they wound up sort of half-hugging, like the guys did at school. He didn’t even give her a present. He said the gift certificate was from him, too, but she thought probably Mom had gotten that on her own. She didn’t even want to go shopping after dinner anymore.
Her mom didn’t say much during dinner, and then afterward, once half the restaurant sang “Happy Birthday,” she and Emily went to the bathroom. They were in there for only a minute, and it was almost like they were going to start talking like they used to when Aunt Cora came in. Letty went back to the table, leaving Emily washing her hands.
The chairs were empty, and the waiter was already clearing the dishes. He nodded toward the front doors, and Letty could see her parents on the sidewalk, talking.
The front doors were double swinging doors with lots of little windows in them, and she got right up close to them and could hear a little bit.
They weren’t even talking about her.
They were talking about having another baby.
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” her dad said. “And you’re right. I was having a hard time separating Todd Jasper from all of this. I’m working on it. I’m willing to at least talk about it if you really want another baby.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
Her mother had her hand on her chest, and she sounded super excited. Her dad put his hands on her shoulders, and she tilted her head up to look at him. They didn’t look mad at each other at all anymore.
He took a really deep breath with his eyes closed, and then he leaned down and kissed her mom lightly on the lips.
“I’ve missed you.”
He didn’t say anything about Letty.
CORA
When Letty wasn’t waiting in front of the school on Thursday afternoon, I wasn’t worried. I leaned my head back against the seat and let my mind wander, allowing myself to pretend that this was my life, that I was waiting for my daughter to come out, even allowing myself a little motherly irritation at her for making me wait.
I didn’t see any harm in it. Haven’t we all pretended, just for a few minutes, to be living a different life?
After we’d dropped off a strangely subdued Emily, the shopping trip at the mall relegated to another time after Letty said she didn’t want to go, we’d driven home in near silence. Ali went straight to bed, but Letty and I got some ice cream and sat on the sofa.
For a birthday it had seemed like a sadly noncelebratory evening, and I couldn’t blame Letty for her downcast eyes, her downturned little mouth. She looked like any other sullen fifteen-year-old girl, but I had some empathy for her. There’s always a point in childhood when you realize your birthday is just another day, no more or less magical than any other.
“I remember the day you were born,” I said to her. “You were pretty angry about coming out into the world.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, and then, as she had so often this past week, asked me a question that made me think her mind was moving much faster than mine, leaping ahead three or four beats.
“Are Mom and Dad planning on having another baby?”
“What? Where’d you get that idea? Of course not!” I gaped at her, my spoonful of ice cream suspended halfway to my mouth.
She shook her head. “They were talking about a baby.”
“Well, what baby? Maybe a friend is pregnant, maybe they’re talking about you being the baby, maybe a lot of things. But believe me, if your mom was even considering having another baby, I’d be the first to know.”
She’d only cocked an eyebrow at me, making her look far more knowledgeable than her fifteen years and making me question myself.
The stream of high school kids had slowed to a trickle, and only two other cars were waiting in the roundabout. I rubbed my arm, thinking of the operation to set up my access point tomorrow, knowing that I had to tell Ali that afternoon. It had gone on too long. I was nervous, of course, but relieved to finally get it out of the way.
I squinted up at the steps and checked my watch. It was nearly twenty minutes past when she was supposed to meet me. Ali had stressed the importance of her being on time and not making me wait, but I’d given her plenty of slack, assuming she was talking to her boyfriend.
Of course that was another thing I would need to talk to Ali about, but as Letty spent every second outside school with either me or her mother, I hadn’t been overly concerned that she was seeing too much of him, or at least not enough that they could have sex again. I didn’t think, despite the alarmist news media, that teens had resorted to having sex in school bathrooms just yet.
Though perhaps I was out of touch on that account. I would never know, and it was one thing I was certainly glad that I didn’t have to ever find out about. The insanity around “rainbow” parties in the news a few years ago had been entirely enough for me.
I had told Letty the truth. Sometimes I regretted not having children, but, overall, whenever stories like those appeared in the news, I felt horrified and anxious and then relieved, knowing I wouldn’t have to deal with it.
I finally turned off the car and got out, heading up the steps. The office had a few parents and kids in it, and I patiently waited my turn, keeping an eye on the hallway in case Letty walked by. The secretary finally met my eyes.
“May I help you?” she asked, resignation in her voice.
“I’m Cora Brooks. I’m supposed to pick Letitia Gutierrez up, but she hasn’t come out yet.”
The woman’s gaze flicked to the clock on the wall, and then, as if agreeing that it had been long enough, asked me for my ID. She called Ali and got her permission to check Letty’s attendance records and share the information with me. My cell phone went off just as the secretary nodded at something on her computer screen.
“Hey, Ali,” I said, “just hang on.” She was talking, but I tuned her out to listen to the secretary.
“She was here for her first class,” she said, “and then it looks like she wasn’t present for any after that.”
I relayed that to Ali and then silently handed the phone to the secretary.
“We don’t have the school locked down, Mrs. Gutierrez,” the secretary explained, from her tone obviously having gone through this before. “Children skip class all the time. We can’t possibly keep track of them all once they’re out of elementary school. At the high school level we do our best, but there are simply too many of them.”
She listened for another moment, handed me the phone without a word, and then made an announcement over the speaker system for Letty Gutierrez to report to the office.
“What’s up?” I asked Ali.
“Oh my God, where the hell is she?”
“I don’t know, Ali, I’m sorry.” Her panic made me start to really worry for the first time. I just figured she’d skipped school and would show up acting innocent at any moment.
“Well, it’s not your fault,” she said, but she didn�
�t sound completely convinced. She was silent for a minute. “Give me back to the secretary,” she said.
“She wants to talk to you again,” I said, holding the phone out. The secretary took a breath and sighed it out before taking it.
“Yes, Mrs. Gutierrez?” She started typing on her keyboard. “I can’t give you any specific information about another student, but it doesn’t appear that way.” She handed the phone back to me.
“What?”
“I asked her to check Emily, to see if they skipped together, but it doesn’t look like it. Of course not. Emily has always been smarter than my daughter, dammit. I wish I knew that kid’s last name.”
Though I knew more about Letty and Seth’s relationship than Ali did, I’d never thought to ask his last name.
“Would you mind checking the house to see if she’s there before I freak Benny out?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
I waited another ten minutes to see if Letty would respond to the announcement, but she didn’t, so I headed to Ali’s house. But Letty wasn’t there, either. And while I talked with Ali on the phone I drove by Emily’s, where nobody was home. Thinking she might have wanted to use the gift certificate she’d received for her birthday, I drove across the street to the mall and hunted through the stores she preferred, growing ever more disgusted at the clothing they marketed to teenage girls. As I sped through racks of half shirts and tiny shorts, Ali called again.
“I’m on my way; I left a note for her on the door. We can cover the mall faster together.”
We met at the entrance to one of the anchor stores, and in tandem we searched the mall, even having security make an announcement for Letty to meet us at the information office. But if she was at the mall, she wasn’t coming forward.
“What should I do?” Ali asked, turning toward me in the parking lot. “Should I call Benny, or should I wait?”
What I wanted to say was that I was sure Letty was simply being difficult, punishing her parents, and maybe even me, for her lousy birthday and she was likely right that second over at Seth’s house . . . playing house. I couldn’t keep Letty’s secret anymore.
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