When the last of the supper crowd was gone, Abe came out to wait on them, and they kept him busy wiping up their spills, bringing them French fries, and refilling their pops. He moved among them with barely a word. Though he was the same age as the other boys, he was bigger in every dimension: taller, his arms more muscular, his shoulders broader. Lilith smiled at him when he took her order, and I noticed he served her first when he brought the trays of pops and fries. I thought about Father, and what he would say about this whole business, and my stomach clenched. I wanted to leave, but I was stuck between Lilith and Ben, and of course I wouldn’t have gone without her anyway. So I stayed, listening to their silly talk about the dance hall that had opened in Lexington—everyone seemed to know someone who’d gone, but none of them had ever been—until Mr. Miller told them it was closing time.
The boys shoved one another as they walked up the path. Jeannette linked her arm through Lilith’s, and Betty walked on Lilith’s other side. I trailed behind, watching their heads bend close together as they talked. When we got to our house they called after her: “Good night! See you tomorrow!”
In our bedroom, Lilith was giddy almost to the point of mania, twirling about the room so her nightgown wound around her thighs. “Did you see Charlie bought me two Cokes? And Ben couldn’t stop looking at me. I would love to go to that dance hall. Can you imagine?” She didn’t notice I said almost nothing in return.
After that, she went to the lodge every night Father wasn’t there. When supper was over, she went upstairs and primped, leafing through the Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines Jeannette and Betty loaned her, studying the models while I sat on my bed in silent misery. She’d never look like them, of course; not with her hair that Father wouldn’t let her cut and the babyish dresses Mother bought for her. This gave me some comfort, though secretly I wished she’d offer to do my hair in the new style she devised: swept back and pinned in a glorious mass that gave the illusion, at least, of short hair. I knew I’d never be pretty no matter what anyone did. But I would have liked to feel her fingers in my tangled curls and have her eyes meet mine in the mirror.
“Why do you want to go?” I asked her one night.
“It’s fun,” she said. I told her I didn’t see what was so fun about playing cards and drinking Cokes for hours on end. She stopped in the middle of pinning her hair and turned to face me. Pressed against the dresser, with her hands gripping its edge and her face set in tense lines, she didn’t seem like someone who was about to go have fun. “I’m practicing.”
“Practicing for what?”
Her pupils were large in the blue fields of her irises. “I’m getting out of here, Lucy. I’m going to go far away, and live a fabulous life. To do that, I need to make people notice me. So I’m practicing.”
I looked at her raven hair, her bold face, the graceful young curves of her body. We had talked about leaving for as long as I could remember, but in that moment I knew it had been just a game to me. I couldn’t really imagine myself anywhere but here.
“You should come to the lodge, too,” she said, and I knew she did want me to come, but I couldn’t go to the lodge and watch, ignored, while she sat among her new admirers, practicing, so I shook my head.
Not going, though, was almost as bad. Without Lilith I had no idea what to do with myself. I tried to join the evening games, but as the older children had become the teenaged crowd, only the youngest ones remained to play, and among them I felt out of place. One night I walked up to the bridge by myself, but this was an exercise in self-pity that even I, feeling hard-done-by though I was, could not abide. In the house my moping distracted Mother and Emily, whom Mother was teaching to stitch.
“Where’s Lilith?” Mother asked one evening as I leaned against the doorway.
“At the lodge,” I said, “with Jeannette and Betty and them.” I watched her. She pursed her lips, and I could tell she didn’t know what to make of this. Lilith and I had never separated before, and although Jeannette and Betty were nice girls from good families, they were older, and she had to know what that meant. I think I was hoping she’d intervene, perhaps forbid Lilith from going, but I shouldn’t have hoped that. Even then I knew she’d relinquished any power she might have had over Lilith and me long ago.
Emily was watching me from Mother’s lap. I frowned at her, indulging a small flare of resentment. Once it had been my hands Mother guided in embroidery, and my bed she shared at night. My bed, where I’d pull Mother’s arm over my head so its soft weight closed my ear to everything but her heartbeat and mine, a thrum-thrum that sent me safely into sleep. Until the night, soon after Emily outgrew her crib, when Mother sat beside me in her white cotton nightdress, her long hair in its plait, and looked at me with a sorrowful apology in her face that in those days I thought was sweet and plain, a perfect mother’s face. “Good night, baby,” she said. Then she laid her hand on my forehead, smoothed back the curls, and kissed me, her lips light and dry, before slipping away to Emily’s room. Ever since, I’d fallen asleep alone, except in summer, when Lilith and I shared our bedroom at the lake.
What saved me in the end was books. Lilith and I had never read much; quiet, internal pursuits like that didn’t suit her. Now, with these long evenings to fill, I began to investigate the lodge’s makeshift lending library, two shelves of castoff books left by earlier guests. All the children’s books were for boys, but I was so desperate that I picked up Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Huckleberry Finn, and Treasure Island, and soon I was immersed in the worlds of these messy, swaggering adventurers. Each night after Lilith left me I lay in my bed and read about rocket ships and pirates and orphaned pickpockets until she came home. Years later, when I got around to reading the books girls my age were supposed to read—Little Women, The Secret Garden, The Little Princess—I found their staid rhythms difficult and the melancholy that seeped from their pages distaff and secondhand when measured against the loneliness of my eleven-year-old self reading Tom Sawyer in that empty bedroom.
When at last Lilith opened our door, I’d slide the book under my pillow, because I knew she’d want to talk then. I tried not to mind that the topics of our conversation had changed; that instead of talking about Hollywood and the glamorous lives we’d live there, she talked about how Charlie adored her, how desperate Ben was to catch her eye, and how, through clever gesture and insinuation, she flattered first one, then the other, with her attention. Practicing. I listened and made the assenting noises she wanted. I was just glad to have her there, alone with me, who knew her best, after all.
Justine
On Monday the girls went to school. Justine drove them to the end of the dirt road, and they waited in the car for the bus to rumble over the hill and collect them on its way to Kishawnee and West Liberty and Red Arrow before getting to the school an hour later. It was still dark at seven thirty, and bitter cold. Justine watched Angela’s shoulders sag as she climbed onto the bus, and tried not to think about the sunny six-minute drive to the San Diego elementary school.
The night before, she’d scrabbled through the coupons, paper clips, and buttons in Lucy’s junk drawer to find a piece of paper and pen. Then she made a list of the things she needed to do. She needed to find out where Lucy got her mail. She needed to send her mother the jewelry and find that diamond ring. She needed to get the oven fixed, and she needed to find a job. Now the list lay on the counter next to the blank Walmart job application while she sat at the old elm table, still in her coat. The draft had kicked in again, and it fingered the nape of her neck. In the empty room it felt as if the house itself were watching her.
Over the weekend she’d confirmed what she suspected: nobody lived in any of the other houses. They were probably summer homes, so she supposed she and the girls would have neighbors come June, but right now there was only the vastness of the woods and the silent, frozen lake, and creepy Matthew Miller and his unseen brother in the lodge. She couldn’t stop thinking about the San Diego apartment. It was five thir
ty in the morning in California. Patrick would still be sleeping, and if she were there she’d be tucked against him, feeling anything but alone.
The doorbell rang. It startled her—she’d just been thinking about how isolated this place was, and now somebody was here. She answered the door to find Matthew Miller standing with his neck thrust forward like a buzzard in his dirty coat. She stifled a sigh. Of course it was him. Who else could it be? She hoped he wasn’t going to keep dropping by like this.
He made a wet, gurgling noise in his throat. “I’m heading to town. If you need anything, I could pick it up for you.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m going myself, in a little while.”
He nodded and left. Ten minutes later, a heavy motor turned over, and Justine watched through the living room window as he drove his black pickup onto the ice, heading to where the frozen lake collided with the hills in a colorless line. There was no way she was trying that in the Tercel. But as she watched, she decided she really would go into town. The thought of spending the day in this cold house filled with a dead woman’s clothes and unused coupons was unbearable. In Williamsburg she could get some coffee, maybe find a library, and pick the girls up after school so they wouldn’t have to take the bus back.
She found the coffee in Ray’s Diner, a café down the street from the Williams law firm. It was a small place built in the 1950s and unimproved since then, but it was warm inside, and humid with melted snow. Two older men sat at the blue Formica counter, remnants of egg and toast on their plates, and three middle-aged women were talking in a booth. Justine stood at the door for a beat too long, and the women looked up, curious, and scanned her secondhand coat: the new girl in school. Justine grabbed a newspaper from the stack on the counter and slipped into the nearest booth.
She’d just finished reading about the local movie theater’s impending closure when a voice said, “Hon, we don’t have table service until lunch. You want something, you gotta order at the counter.” The woman who spoke was about sixty, with dyed black hair in a misshapen bouffant, heavy brows, and thick lips painted a red that disagreed with her sallow skin. When she caught Justine’s eye she smiled, and the smile made her oddly appealing, like a friendly goblin.
Justine obeyed, ordering coffee and a cinnamon roll. As she walked away with her cup and plate one of the men at the counter said, “Ray, fill me up, why don’t you,” and the woman answered, her voice low and musical, saying something that made both men laugh.
Next Justine found the library, a new-looking building with its own parking lot two blocks off the square. Inside, she breathed deeply and happily, inhaling the familiar library smell of wood and paper and dust. All around were the sibilant sounds that libraries make: the turning of pages, the shelving of books, and the whispering of librarians colluding to make a shush like the ocean on a still day. Sometimes Justine imagined this was how the world sounded to babies listening from the womb.
She had spent many hours in libraries. By the time she was ten she’d stopped trying to make friends at every new school and instead spent her time at the closest library. She’d been in all sorts, from small town libraries no bigger than a double-wide to the city libraries of Kansas City and St. Louis. She went after school, on weekends, and in the evenings if they were open. She walked to them, took buses to them, begged her mother for rides to them. To be fair, she hadn’t had to beg very hard—dropping her daughter at the library was easier for Maurie than convincing a neighbor to watch her.
She went to the counter and put The God of Small Things in the returns box. When the librarian greeted her, Justine told her she’d like a library card. “Where are you from?” the woman asked as she gave her the form. She was in her mid-fifties, with dyed blond hair, and though her smile was warm, she had gossipy eyes.
“California.” Justine filled out the form and slid it across the desk.
The librarian gasped when she saw her name. “Are you related to Lucy Evans?” When Justine gave a reluctant yes, the librarian looked as if she wanted to jump over the counter. “That’s wonderful! We heard she had a relative somewhere! I’m Dinah, so happy to meet you. Oh, but I’m so sorry for your loss. So sudden. But such a blessing, to go in her sleep like that.” She leaned closer. “Did you know she worked here, at the library?”
Justine took a step back. “No.”
“Well she did, for decades. We even had a party for her fiftieth anniversary. She retired about three years ago, but she still did her weekly story hour for the kiddies. Although I think the driving was getting to be too much. I told her she should sell that place, move into town, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She loved it out there, she said. But with her sister gone, she was all by herself. Except for the Miller brothers, of course.” She gave Justine a significant nod, and when Justine didn’t say anything, went on, “She was supposed to come in for her reading that Saturday, but she didn’t. That’s how we found out she’d passed.”
Justine had taken her girls to a story hour at their neighborhood library in San Diego when they were younger. The reader was a rangy woman with a severe face, but when she opened the book, her body curved toward the children.
Dinah was watching her expectantly. Justine said, “How long until the card is ready?”
The librarian squared her shoulders. Justine had offended her. To mend the breach she asked where the fiction stacks were. Dinah pointed to the back of the library. “We don’t have a big selection. Not like what you’re used to in California.”
“That’s okay.” This, too, felt like the wrong thing to say, so Justine hurried off, anxious to put several bookshelves between herself and the front desk.
The stacks were indeed small, but the mystery collection was impressive for a library this size. Justine picked out an Elizabeth George—she loved the character Barbara Havers, the awkward and homely deputy to the handsome, highborn detective. She sat in a chair, and before she knew it, it was past noon and the library was busy. Half a dozen people were browsing or sitting at the computers by the wall.
Dinah was still at the desk. Justine debated coming back later, but she took herself in hand and put the book on the counter.
“I’ve got your card right here,” Dinah said, all-business as she swiped the barcode.
“You have a beautiful library,” Justine said, tentatively.
This was the right thing to say. Dinah puffed up like a rooster and stroked the wooden counter as though she’d built it herself. “We’re the only town in the county that has a new library. All the others are falling apart.” Williamsburg, she explained, had received a large gift from a local patron, Agnes Lloyd. “If you like to read, you’ve come to the right place.” She paused. “You know, I have something you may want. Wait just a minute.” She disappeared through a door and returned with a large cardboard box. “Lucy read the children all the usual things. Dr. Seuss, Winnie-the-Pooh, and all that. But she also read them stories she wrote, and those were the children’s favorites.” She slid the box toward Justine. “Now that she’s gone, we don’t know what to do with them. She read them in such a particular way. Maybe you’d like to have them?”
Justine lifted the flaps. Inside were two dozen notebooks with black-and-white marbled covers and black spines. She pulled one out and opened it. On the first page was written, “Emily Catches a Star,” in the neat, careful cursive of a young girl. The rest of the pages were filled with the same handwriting, story flowing into story, all with titles beginning with the name Emily.
“They’re set at the lake,” Dinah said. “Of course, the children didn’t know the history. They thought Lucy made Emily up.”
Justine ran her hand over the spines of the little books. “Are all the stories about her?”
“Yes, isn’t that sad? She must never have gotten over it, poor dear. They searched for weeks—they dragged the lake and everything—but they never found the slightest sign of that child.” Dinah shook her head, her enjoyment of the tragedy palpable. Justine felt a t
winge of affront on Lucy’s behalf. To cover it she reached for the box and thanked the librarian. She made sure to smile at her before leaving.
At three o’clock she was in front of the school, the box of Emily books on the seat beside her. She called to her daughters as they shuffled toward their bus and saw relief burst upon their faces. Her heart felt spongy in her chest: she hadn’t been so long without them since leaving San Diego. When they climbed in she asked how they’d liked the school.
“It’s awful,” Angela said. “My teacher made me stand up and tell everybody where I was from. When I said San Diego somebody said that must be why I wore such stupid boots.” She kicked the back of Justine’s seat. “Everybody else has big fuzzy boots, not these dumb ones.”
Justine looked at the clots of children passing by. Several girls wore thick suede boots with fluffy lining. They looked expensive. “Sweetie, the first day is always hard. I’ve been the new kid lots of times. After a while they’ll forget you’re new, or another, newer kid will come along.” She didn’t add that she’d made few friends at any of her new schools; that wouldn’t be Angela’s fate, she knew. “How about you, Melanie?”
Melanie’s eyes met hers in the mirror, then looked away. “It’s just a school, Mom.”
Justine turned on the radio for the drive home.
That night, when the girls were in bed, Justine carried the Elizabeth George mystery and the box of books the librarian had given her up to Lucy’s room. She changed into her pajamas, intending to get into bed and read the mystery. But instead she opened the box.
The Lost Girls Page 8