Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Next to her teenaged sitter, Stella feels frumpier than ever. Her own unruly dark blond hair is pulled back into a black velvet headband—the kind that went out of style more than a decade ago for all but New England finishing school students. The last twenty pounds of maternity weight still cling stubbornly to her hips and stomach, yet Stella refuses to acknowledge that they might be here to stay. That’s why she’s still wearing skirts and tops she bought a few months into the pregnancy, instead of something more streamlined and fashionable. She refuses to buy new clothes in size fourteen.

  She notes with envy Jen’s slender figure in jeans and a simple tucked-in T-shirt. Oh, to be young and skinny again. . . .

  “Do you still need me on Saturday night, Mrs. Gattinski?” Jen brushes off her jeans and casually tosses her silky hair back over her shoulders as she stands.

  “Saturday night . . . yes! We’ve got that Chamber of Commerce dinner. I almost forgot. Mr. Gattinski will pick you up at seven.”

  “I can walk over,” Jen protests, and murmurs her thanks as Stella hands her the thirty dollars.

  “You’re welcome. And no, you can’t walk over; it’ll be dark by seven. In fact . . .” Stella glances over Michaela’s red hair at the sliding glass doors that lead out to the deck and fenced yard. “It’s almost dark now. Come on, I’ll drive you home. Girls, where are your coats?”

  “That’s okay, don’t do that, Mrs. Gattinski. By the time you get them bundled up and into the car seats, I’ll be home.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Stella looks again at the darkness falling. The thought of packing the kids into the car is exhausting, but—

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you two on Saturday, okay?” Jen plants a kiss on each twin’s cheek and heads for the front door.

  As it closes behind her, Stella cuddles her daughters close on her lap and smooths their hair, the same shade and texture as her own. She sighs in contentment. Another long day has drawn to a close. All she wants to do is throw on sweats—even better, pajamas—and collapse on the couch.

  “I miss Jen,” Mackenzie laments.

  “Me, too,” chimes the inevitable echo.

  You should have insisted on driving Jen home, Stella chides herself, glancing again at the shadows beyond the sliding glass door. It isn’t a good idea for a teenaged girl to be out alone after dark.

  Not that this neighborhood isn’t the safest around. It isn’t like their old street in Cheektowaga, where there were three car break-ins in the month before they moved. But still . . .

  April Lukoviak.

  The name flits into Stella’s thoughts, sending a ripple of uneasiness through her.

  April Lukoviak, who lived with her mother up the road at Orchard Arms, has been missing for weeks now—since right around Labor Day. There were fliers up all over the development back when school started. They were cheap, photocopied fliers made by the people who lived in the apartment complex, featuring a poorly reproduced black-and-white image of a pretty teenaged girl with long, straight blond hair like Jen’s.

  At first, the other mothers at the bus stop were disconcerted by the fliers. They kept a wary eye even on their teenaged children, especially the girls. Then people started talking about how April didn’t get along with her mother, who supported the two of them with food stamps, welfare checks, and by tending bar. People said that April was always threatening to run off to California, where her father reportedly last lived. The police seemed to think that theory made sense.

  After awhile, September rains blurred the typed descriptions of April. Fierce autumn winds blew in off Lake Erie to tear the fliers from the development’s lampposts and slender young trees, blowing them away altogether.

  But every once in a while, when Stella passes Orchard Arms or goes through the drive-through at the fast-food restaurant where April worked, she finds herself thinking of her. She wonders what ever happened to her; wonders if she really did run away.

  If anything ever happened to Jen, you’d be responsible. Next time, you’ll insist on driving her home. After all, bad things can happen in safe neighborhoods, too.

  Jen has always liked the sound of leaves crunching beneath her feet. So much that she goes out of her way to step in the piles that line the edge of the pavement along the cul de sac. There are no sidewalks here in Orchard Hollow, and the houses are bigger, farther apart, and newer than they were back in Ohio, where centuries-old trees scattered abundant drifts of leaves in October.

  Here, there are leaves, too, but not many. There’s only a scattering of old trees that weren’t bulldozed when the houses were built, and the slender new maples and oaks that are still supported by stakes and wires barely have branches.

  “I don’t like it here,” Riley announced on sunny moving-in day last April. “There’s no trees and shade. I want to go home.”

  He had been whining in an annoying singsong voice already for six hours in the overpacked Chevy Tahoe, making Jen long to be riding in the U-haul truck behind them with Dad and Curran. But this time, Jen secretly agreed with her little brother’s sentiment. She desperately missed Indiana already. Even the trees. Especially the trees.

  “There will be shade when the leaves pop out,” Mom promised, as she put the car into Park and turned off the engine, sealing their fate. 9 Sarah Crescent—a two-story, yellow-sided Colonial with blue shutters and stickers still on the windows—was officially home.

  The house—and Woodsbridge—really do feel more like home now, six months later. Especially now that school and soccer are underway and the strangely cool, mostly cloudy western New York summer has given way to the more familiar and comforting chill of autumn.

  Jen feels good about living here; good about the friends she’s made and about her regular babysitting job for the Gattinskis. Mrs. Gattinski is so warm and nice, and the girls are adorable.

  Too bad Mr. Gattinski gives me the creeps, Jen thinks with a twinge of guilt.

  Okay, he’s not necessarily creepy. It’s just that sometimes, the way he looks at her makes her skin crawl. He seems to notice her more than somebody’s husband—and somebody’s father—should notice a kid her age.

  But most of the time, he’s not even around. And anyway, the job is worth the few minutes she has to endure in the car with him making stilted conversation whenever he picks her up or drops her off.

  Realizing she’s starved, Jen quickens her pace. Rounding the corner onto Cuttington Road, she walks along the edge where tangled vines, bushes, and trees border the still vacant lots. From here she can see the cluster of homes, including the Carmodys’, that make up Sarah Crescent just ahead.

  Jen inhales the sweet, smoky scent of leaves and somebody’s fireplace, wondering what Mom has planned for dinner. Maybe she’s got stew or chili in the Crock-Pot. And some of those brown-and-serve rolls that taste like the kind you get in a bread basket at a nice restaurant.

  Back in Indiana, Dad worked late every night, and they ate a lot of grilled cheese and frozen pizza without him. But Mom’s been on a cooking kick ever since they moved east, planning and preparing nightly family dinners like she’s trying to transform herself into Martha Stewart or something. Over the summer, she was the queen of marinating and grilling; now she’s into the Crock—

  Jen jumps, hearing a noise behind her.

  Probably a dog in the bushes, she thinks, scanning the seemingly empty road. Or maybe some kind of animal. What if . . .

  Are there bears here?

  Oh, please, she scoffs, even as her heart quickens its pace. This is suburban Buffalo. Not the mountain wilderness.

  She starts walking again, quickly, toward home.

  Her eyes are trained on the loop of well-lit houses ahead; her ears on the thatch of bushes to her left.

  Is something rustling in there? Another set of footsteps crunching in the leaves?

  Feeling foolish, yet frightened, Jen starts to run. She barrels around the border of hedges onto Sarah Crescent—and slams into somebody.

 
Jen shrieks.

  The other person cries out, too.

  A high-pitched, female cry.

  “Sissy!” Jen exclaims, recognizing Maeve’s cleaning lady. “You scared me!”

  “You scared me, too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re Erin Hudson’s friend, right? Jane?”

  “Jen.”

  “Oh, right. Jen.” The girl—or is she a woman?—presses her hand against her navy sweatshirt as though she’s trying to calm her heart. Jen notices a sheaf of colored papers in her other hand.

  Fliers. She must be putting up more fliers for that missing girl. The thought of her reminds Jen why she was feeling so uneasy in the first place.

  “Why are you running?” Sissy asks. “Is somebody chasing you?”

  “No, I’m just . . .” Out of the corner of her eye, Jen spots one of her neighbors in a track suit approaching at a fast trot. Inspiration strikes. “I’m just out for a jog.”

  Yeah. Right. She always jogs in jeans and boots with a book bag over her shoulder.

  But Sissy says, “I like to jog, too. It’s good exercise. Keeps me in shape, you know?” She gestures at her thin frame in the baggy sweats Jen’s seen her wear to clean over at the Hudsons’.

  She’s just being nice, Jen realizes. She knows I was spooked.

  “Yeah, it’s good exercise,” Jen agrees, giving the neighbor a wave as she runs past.

  She looks toward home. Theirs is the only dark house on the block. Mom isn’t home yet. Reluctantly, she tells Sissy, “Well, I’ve got to get home.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Hey, does your mother need a cleaning lady by any chance?”

  “My mother?” Jen laughs. “Nope.”

  She’s well aware that they seem to be the only family in Orchard Hollow who does their own cleaning. But that’s how Mom likes it.

  “Can I give you one of my fliers?” Sissy asks. “I’ve got reasonable rates, and I work for a few other families in this neighborhood who can give me references.”

  Oh. So this isn’t about the missing girl after all.

  Jen takes the flier Sissy offers and shoves it into her backpack, knowing she’ll never bother to show her mother. “Night, Sissy.”

  “See you . . .” Sissy pauses, then closes her mouth in the manner of somebody who still isn’t sure what the other person’s name is.

  “Jen.”

  “Right. Jen. I remember.”

  Back in Indiana, the only people they knew who had a cleaning lady were the Remingtons, and they were total snobs.

  For a fleeting moment, remembering how Melina Remington used to look down her nose at the other girls, Jen almost wishes her mother would hire Sissy to clean their house after all.

  But it’s not like Melina Remington would ever know about it.

  And anyway, doing stuff around the house keeps Mom busy. The busier she is, the less time she has to nag Jen.

  This time, Jen doesn’t run toward home. She’s hoping that if she walks slowly enough, her mother and brothers will get home before she does.

  That doesn’t happen.

  Jen turns on every light in the house as she goes, looking behind doors, inside closets, and under every bed . . . just to be sure.

  To be sure what? she asks herself, returning to the living room and looking out onto the deserted street.

  To be sure she’s alone in the house?

  Why wouldn’t she be?

  Who does she think she’s going to find hiding in some dark corner, a crazed killer?

  No.

  Of course not.

  Still, she stays close to the window—and the front door, her potential escape route—and she doesn’t breathe easily until she sees the SUV’s bright headlights turning into the driveway.

  “Way to go, Jen! Woo hoo!” Blinking into the October morning sunlight, Kathleen waves a victorious fist in the general direction of her daughter on the soccer field.

  “Mom!” Curran, sprawled on the ground before her nylon folding spectator chair, is clearly mortified. “Can’t you keep it down? Geez!”

  “Your sister scored again. I’m proud of her.” Green eyes glinting with mischief, Kathleen shouts another “woo hoo” for good measure, and grins when Curran cringes. He moves a few more feet forward to a new patch of grass and resumes pretending he doesn’t know her.

  Seated beside Kathleen in an identical folding chair, Maeve Hudson laughs. She pushes her designer sunglasses up to rest above her dark bangs and leans closer. “What are you going to do when he’s starting quarterback on the high school football team? Show up with pompons and a bullhorn so you can really embarrass him?”

  “Football? Curran?” Kathleen shakes her head, her auburn ponytail brushing against her fleece collar. She jerks it away, feeling it crackle. Static. Ugh. Static gives her chills. So does the ragged fingernail that’s just snagged a strand of hair.

  Her nails need filing; her hair needs trimming. Kathleen sighs inwardly. Some days, she’s tempted to have it cut short, the way she wore it as a teenager. Short hair would be so much easier.

  But Matt likes it long on her. On Jen, too.

  Her daughter’s blond hair had been neatly bound into a single braid when they left the house an hour ago. Now, long strands have worked their way loose, streaming behind Jen as she runs, falling into her wide-set brown eyes when she stops, causing her to distractedly shove impatient fingers through the deviant tresses.

  Amazing how Jen can be such a tomboy on the field, then turn around and spend an hour in the bathroom putting on makeup and primping when people—namely her mother—are waiting to take showers.

  Not only that, but Kathleen is fairly certain Jen has been going through her drawers again after several warnings not to borrow her mother’s clothes without asking. Kathleen had noticed a faint ketchup stain on the collar of her favorite yellow sweater when she took it out to wear it this morning.

  “Matt played football, right?” Maeve is asking.

  Kathleen’s gaze shifts from her daughter to her strapping husband, jogging down the field after the girls and the ball with a coach’s whistle in his mouth.

  Yes, Matt played football. Baseball and basketball, too. He’s got two cartons full of trophies in the basement to prove it. They lined the shelves of his den in the old house, but so far, Kathleen hasn’t found a place for them here. The family room off the kitchen is too cluttered as it is, between the television with its Playstation, DVD player, computer desk, and stereo—along with all of the games, disks, and CDs that go along with all that technology.

  “Matt played football,” she tells Maeve, “but Curran takes after my side of the family. He’s built like an Gallagher.”

  The way things look now, wiry Curran doesn’t have a chance of approaching his father’s six-foot-three height or broad-shouldered build. Kathleen shudders just imagining her elfin son collapsing beneath a heap of brawny athletes.

  Maeve sips from her paper coffee cup and comments, “So I guess Jen and Riley got Curran’s share of Carmody blood.”

  Avoiding the comment, Kathleen focuses on her younger son, rolling pell-mell down a low hill several yards away. “Look at that kid. He’s going to be covered with grass stains and I’m all out of Oxy Clean again. And if he survives childhood without broken bones, he’s the one who’s going to be the star athlete of the family.”

  “He looks just like Matt,” Maeve says. “Acts like him, too.”

  Yes, Riley, with his dark curls and full throttle personality, is certainly the image of his father. And Jen . . .

  Well, Jen doesn’t look a bit like Matt. But she’s the apple of his eye, nonetheless.

  “So was that Jen’s second goal this game?” asks Maeve, who missed the early part of the game, having made her ritualistic morning detour to Starbucks.

  “Her third.”

  “Her third? Geez, what are you feeding her for breakfast?”

  Kathleen can’t quite keep from beaming as she turns her attention back t
o the field, where the pack of long-legged girls, knees bared above their soccer socks and shin guards, race down the green field beneath a piercing blue sky. There’s a hint of wood smoke in the air, mingling with the sweet musk of damp earth and fallen leaves.

  That’s odd, Kathleen thinks, staring out across the field into the late morning glare.

  Somebody is watching the game from the opposite end of the field, far from the rest of the spectators. Standing on the very edge of the clearing against a backdrop of peak foliage, he looks as though he might have just stepped out of the thatch of woods that border the park.

  Or is he a she? The figure is draped in a long garment of some sort, making it impossible to discern gender from this distance.

  There’s a chill autumn wind blowing off the eastern Great Lakes, but an overcoat would be out of place in this crowd of fleece and sweatshirted, jean-clad families. Then again, so would a dress or skirt.

  Her skin prickling with inexplicable apprehension, Kathleen squints into the sun, wishing she hadn’t left her sunglasses on the dashboard of the Explorer in the parking lot.

  The fact that somebody is standing on the “wrong” end of the field—and wearing a long coat or dress—is no reason to be suspicious.

  “Way to go, Jen!” Maeve hollers as Kathleen’s daughter barrels down the field toward them, expertly kicking the ball in front of her.

  “All right, Jen!” Momentarily forgetting the oddly dressed stranger, Kathleen shrieks as her daughter approaches the goal again. She puts two fingers between her lips and whistles. “Come on, Jen!”

  Curran flashes a glare over his shoulder. She ignores him, watching her long-legged daughter jab the ball with her right cleat. It sails into the air . . . only to be stopped by the other team’s goalie.

  “Almost.” Maeve sighs. “I wish Erin were as into the game as Jen is. Look at her. It’s like she can’t wait for it to be over so that she can go home and crawl back into bed.”