Wrong Highway

by Wendy A. Gordon

  “Oh yeah, man, that movie was hilarious.” Nick chuckled. “You remember how they finally killed him? They boiled him in water!”

  Midday sun flitted in lacy patterns on the rug, illuminating a knot of dried pasta here, an indeterminate yellowish stain there. It was comforting to be in a place where nobody cared about such superficialities as vacuuming. Maybe that was what brought back such intense memories of Ethan’s dorm room, with its discarded beer bottles and piles of tangled wires. She could see why kids gravitated here after school, for drugs, yeah, no doubt, but also Nick had a gentle, patient way about him. In this room, time slowed down, and she too started giggling like a stupid kid. Perhaps feeling the reverberations of her mother’s laughter, Sophia stirred against her legs, and Erica, with a start, returned to a land where Jared was missing and time mattered.

  “I gotta pick up Jesse and Jake at preschool,” she said. She reached in her purse for ten twenties, just garnered from New Westminster Bank.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Ethan constructed a play castle from a kit by the glow of a flashlight. Erica, unable to sleep, lay on a futon on the upstairs balcony, listening to the rustles of the bags of parts, the bang of his hammer.

  In the morning, he left for Florida again, apologizing profusely for missing the twins’ birthday party, citing unavoidable meetings, bond market liquidity, governmental overreach, issues with Stephan Langston. He’d see her and the kids in Florida.

  The boys were jumping off the turret, playing Masters of the Universe, when Erica opened the front door, admitting her parents, Ron, Debbie, Amelia, Jason, and their kids, Lauren and Jonathan.

  “So, where are the birthday boys?” gushed Amelia, brandishing a large, brightly wrapped package.

  “I didn’t bring a gift,” Debbie said. She was dressed crisply in a lavender pantsuit and hoop earrings. “I hope you understand. It’s not like I’ve had time to shop.”

  “Don’t worry, Deb. Dad and I brought enough for all of us,” said Mom, displaying an overflowing bag from Roger Rabbit, the local high-end toy store. “I’ve been spending too much time on the Miracle Mile these days. Shopping as therapy.” She sighed.

  “What’s to eat? I’m starving.” Debbie lifted up the plastic on the cold-cuts tray and stuffed a slice of pastrami in her mouth. “Ron’s really hungry too,” she added. Debbie snapped open a can of Diet Coke. “He didn’t have any lunch.”

  “I couldn’t reach the damn electrician,” he said. “Tried to rewire it myself, three trips to the hardware store, no luck.”

  “Debbie and Ron’s kitchen lighting went bad,” Mom explained to Erica. “Just what the poor things needed, with everything else on their plate.”

  Debbie and Ron nibbled cold cuts from the trays, dipping them in mustard. Erica gazed longingly at the lively tableau outdoors, wishing she could play the evil Skeletor chasing a crowd of helpless Earthlings, instead of Rikki, dutiful sister.

  Amelia ran breathlessly inside. “How do you ever keep up with those kids?” she panted.

  “Amelia,” Mom said. “I’ve been trying to convince Rikki to give Housemates a call. You got your girl from Housemates, didn’t you? Don’t you love her?”

  “Oh, Dahlia? I couldn’t live without her!” Amelia downed a cup of Diet Coke in one gulp.

  “Nick Stromboli must be doing very well with that Housemates business,” Mom said. “I sold him his house last year, you know, and he paid cash! It isn’t much to look at, but he told me he has all kinds of plans to fix it up. You know, Rikki, I could swear I saw you going in there the other day.”

  “Nope, never met the man,” Erica said. She laid three slices of turkey in overlapping circles on top of a slice of rye bread, topping each slice with a bread-and-butter pickle at the precise center and a pimento stuffed olive at the center of that.

  “Don’t you remember—he starred on the West Meadow wrestling team? I believe you went to a couple of his meets. He owns that house across the street from the pet store. He’s part of the Safe House program at the family clinic. Jared likes him a lot.”

  Debbie gulped at the mention of Jared and inhaled a dill pickle rolled up in a slice of salami.

  “You must have seen me going into the pet store. Sometimes their parking lot is full and I have to park across the street.” Erica sucked on a cherry tomato, letting the seeds spatter against the inside of her cheeks. “Have you met our new addition to the family? You can hold him if you like.”

  “That gross salmonella-carrying lizard?” said Debbie, coughing salami fragments into a napkin. “No, thanks.”

  “Debbie, do you think I should test Jonathan for DDD?” asked Amelia. “He’s only in first grade, but he’s spending half the day in the principal’s office.”

  “Perhaps.” Debbie guzzled the rest of her Coke. “Symptoms can show up very early, and they’re easier to treat then. I wish Jared had been diagnosed sooner.”

  The doorbell rang again; Erica admitted a slew of guests, including Lisa and Justine.

  “You know Penny, my cocker spaniel?” Lisa poured herself a Diet Sprite.

  “How could I not know about Penny, your cocker spaniel?” Lisa updated Erica on Penny’s doings daily.

  “Well, you know how crazy I am about her. I’ve been thinking of showing Penny, maybe breeding her, so I joined the American Spaniel Association, and would you believe they’re having a formal ball?’

  “A ball?” Erica couldn’t bring herself to eat the turkey sandwich she’d so artistically constructed. She was rarely hungry anymore. Food looked pleasant enough displayed in its colorful variety in the supermarket, or in the refrigerator, or on the plate in front of her. But actually consuming it seemed irrelevant. She’d lost eight pounds in the past two weeks.

  “Yeah, a ball, a whole big shebang, like a wedding or a bar mitzvah or something. Only you bring your dogs with you! They’re having a whole cocker spaniel table! Say, Erica, I’ve been meaning to tell you, by the way, you look great! You’ve lost all your baby weight.”

  “Yeah, I wish you’d tell me your secret,” Justine added.

  Erica massaged the area around her belly button that until recently had been all bulges and wrinkles and folds. It still wasn’t anywhere near flat, but it felt smoother and younger and tighter.

  “Low carbohydrates,” she said. “Like everyone.”

  The guests scattered: some outside by the castle, some downstairs with the Brio trains, Debbie and her mother clattering about in the kitchen. Erica sniffed Sophia’s diaper: odorous. On her way back from changing it, she ran into Ron, fiddling with the stairway light switch.

  “I think your connection is loose,” he said. “Can’t fix my house, I can fix yours.”

  “I’ll ask my electrician to look at it,” said Erica.

  “You could have me look at it, you know. I might not have the official license, but I know what I’m doing.”

  “Not right now, okay? Can I get by? They’re waiting for me in the dining room.”

  Ron waved his hands expansively, as he was prone to, blocking her progress. “I thought you might want to know that the private eye I hired spoke to Stromboli. He didn’t have much to say. He’s a loser, if you ask me. Most of those folks at that family clinic are losers, with their diagnoses and their therapies. Fat lot of good they did with Jared.”

  “I have to agree with you,” Erica admitted. “But can I get through?”

  Ron stayed resolutely put, standing with a stretched-out askew posture that gave him the aspect of a Gumby toy. “So, by any chance, do you have any idea where Jared ran off to?” he asked.

  “No, why would I?” she replied. She couldn’t stash Ron in a safe mental slot. He was so quick with the jokes, the facile compliments, the sports patter; he wasn’t a DJ for nothing. She suspected he saw through her more readily than her earnest and sanctimonious sister.

  �
�You and he being such good buddies of late and all,” Ron continued.

  “I told you, I don’t know,” Erica said. “I have to get back to the party.”

  Ron leaned close to her. His skin was pale and dotted with moles, including one irregular purple one that looked like it could be a melanoma. Not that she would point it out to him. Her body stiffened, but his manner seemed more confidential than hostile. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this,” he said. “I’m not even telling Deb—I don’t want to get her hopes up. Ralph thinks Jared might be in the Philadelphia area. Apparently his little girlfriend has some associates there.”

  He was on to her, maybe in his own limited way, but on nonetheless. Her skin flushed, hot and itchy. She feared her body would betray her if her mouth did not. Jesse and Jake ran in at just the opportune moment, pulling at her legs, begging her to light the candles on their birthday cake.

  : : :

  Ron left right after cake and ice cream, allegedly to prepare for a WBEZ staff meeting the following morning. The rest of the guests scattered soon thereafter. Dylan settled himself in front of Apple IIGS, while the twins bounced about the family room, rolling wrapping-paper fragments into balls and throwing them at each other.

  Debbie lingered, seeming less guarded than usual, slipping cold cuts into Ziploc bags and coleslaw into Tupperware. “I don’t feel like going home,” she said. “It feels so empty without Jared.”

  “So, Debbie”—Erica shoved paper plates into the garbage—“are you having any luck with your search missions?”

  “No, nobody knows anything.” Debbie furiously swept cake crumbs off the counter into a paper towel. “It’s like Jared’s vanished into thin air. And it’s such a dangerous world out there. Male prostitutes. Heroin. And crack! Have you heard about the crack epidemic?”

  “Ron hasn’t come up with any clues, either?” Erica stacked the leftovers neatly in the refrigerator, the pastrami, corned beef, and turkey nestling next to Tupperware containers of coleslaw and potato salad.

  Debbie dumped the crumbs into the trash and, pantsuit or no pantsuit, knelt down on the floor to wipe up a soda spill. “He trusts that private detective of his, Ralph Rossiter.” She sighed. “But I find him cold and unfriendly. He leaves me out of the loop. Let me be honest with you, Rikki. Ron and I have been fighting. I don’t blame him for Jared’s running away, goodness knows, but he simply never understood about the DDD. About Jared’s lack of impulse control and the need to watch his diet. And the need to keep him away from that awful girl. He actually encouraged his dating Ashley! As if it made him manly or something! He doesn’t realize that Jared is still a vulnerable adolescent!”

  “Were you fighting even before Jared ran away?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Debbie clutched the small of her back. “God, my soaz hurts,” she groaned.

  “You don’t need to sanitize my floor,” Erica said, covering up the remaining cake with plastic wrap.

  Debbie stood up, grimacing and rubbing her back. “I understand now how Mom must have felt when you disappeared as a kid. Like at Jones Beach? Even if it was only for a few minutes. You could have drowned.”

  “I was only swimming,” Erica said.

  “But how could she know that? And I despair, Rikki. I try not to show it, but I despair. Sometimes, and I can’t tell Ron this, sometimes I worry that Jared’s dead. Except I’m sure I could sense it—if that was the case—but if he’s alive, why hasn’t he called me. Can you give me a good answer, Rikki?”

  Erica’s mind refused to go there. Jared hadn’t called her either. “Debbie, I’m sure he’s alive. I guarantee you.”

  Debbie wrapped Erica in an unfamiliar hug. “One mom to another,” she said. “We may be different, but we’re both moms.”

  Erica twisted gently free.

  “I better go home and have a hot bath,” Debbie said. “You’re coming to that special meeting I’m running about DDD next Wednesday, right? At the high school? I left you a phone message.”

  “I’m leaving for Florida the next morning.”

  “Rikki, please. Mom told me she offered to babysit.”

  Erica nodded yes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  West Meadow High School’s parking lot was completely filled, with additional cars lining the adjoining streets. The gymnasium smelled of chewing gum and sweaty socks. Erica, running late, squeezed into the back, wedged between a water fountain and a muscular man with graying hair and a gold chain around his neck. Debbie stood at the podium, hair twisted into an unfamiliar bun, wearing bifocals Erica didn’t recognize, looking like she was wound up so tight that any second she would burst, sending springs and fasteners bounding throughout the room. Patti stood next to her, tight-lipped in a Bettina Riedel pantsuit.

  “As many of you know,” Debbie was saying, “my fifteen-year-old son, Jared, has run away from home. My husband, Ron, and I are still searching for his whereabouts.” She choked up, hesitated a moment. “What many of you do not know is that Jared is handicapped by an invisible disability—defiant disobedient disorder, or DDD.

  “Jared did not run away alone,” Debbie continued. “He was accompanied by his”—Debbie glanced sideways at Patti—“his friend Ashley, whose mother is standing right next to me. Ashley has not been diagnosed with DDD, but she is under treatment for ADD, a related disorder.” Debbie scratched her neck in a gesture reminiscent of their mother, and directed her eyes toward a gray head in the front row. “I want to introduce you to a woman who has been of special help to my husband and me and to our precious son, Jared, in his struggles. I proudly introduce you to Dr. Arlene Rafferty of the Nassau Family Clinic.”

  Dr. Arlene Rafferty took the podium, and Erica took an instant dislike to her. Short and stocky, with a helmet of steel-colored hair, Rafferty reminded her of every substitute teacher she’d ever thrown paper airplanes at.

  “DDD is a destroyer of young people’s lives,” she pronounced.

  In a series of slides, she outlined the cardinal signs of DDD: a lack of respect for authority, poor grades, refusal to attend school, lack of interest in formerly enjoyed family activities, substance abuse, and “new and unsavory” friends. She reviewed the possible physical causes of DDD: vulnerable genes, emotional stress, wheat or dairy allergy, even exposure to common childhood vaccines. As Rafferty droned on, she reminded Erica more and more of Mrs. Law, her eighth-grade gym instructor, the one with a neck like a turkey who gave lectures on the rules of field hockey. Erica had heard all this DDD claptrap from Debbie before and found herself worrying about whether she’d packed the twins’ rain jackets for Florida.

  She hadn’t eaten all day. Her blood sugar dipped, her head swam, her stomach gurgled acidly. Dr. Rafferty turned the overhead projector off and flipped the lights back on. The fluorescence drilled into Erica’s skull. She sighed and paced in place.

  Rafferty extended herself to her full gnomish height, fixed her audience with a steady eye, and pronounced, “But the main problem, my friends, is not physical.” She paused for dramatic effect. “The problem, my friends, is a lack of old-fashioned discipline. I know, ‘discipline’ is not a popular word these days. Since the 1960s, ‘discipline’ has been a dirty word. But discipline is exactly what we need to rescue our children from the messy world they’ve been born into. DDD children may look different from one another, they might have superficial differences in their interests or talents, but inside they’re all alike. What they need more than anything, fellow parents, is behavior modification.”

  A rustling arose from the crowd, some tentative applause, a few hands raised for questions. West Meadow traditionally was not a land of discipline, more a territory of gentle parenting, of negotiations, of family conferences. A woman with an auburn bob called out, “But what exactly do you suggest?”

  Rafferty calmed the crowd with a wave of her hands. “We offer many excellent behavior modification groups at
the Nassau Family Clinic, groups that have benefited the Carrera and Lassler families as well as several other families I recognize in this audience.” She smiled, a thin, tight stretch of teeth that made her appear even more unpleasant. Upon reflection, Erica decided she looked considerably more venal than Mrs. Law, who, despite her stupidity, was never vicious, actually praised Erica’s field hockey performance, and brought heart-shaped cookies to class on Valentine’s Day.

  “Sometimes, despite our best efforts, family therapy is not enough,” Rafferty continued. “Sometimes residential treatment is necessary.”

  Murmurings arose again from the crowd, not uniformly positive.

  “Sometimes a vacation, shall we say, away from the pressures of everyday life is exactly what these young people need. A chance to be out in the country and reflect. To experience physical challenges. A chance to escape peer pressure, societal pressure, and yes, even parental pressure—to discover who they truly are. An opportunity for a disciplined life.”

  The lights dimmed again; the overhead projector lit up, this time displaying shots of pine-covered hills and wholesome youth feeding horses, playing soccer, and harvesting fresh vegetables. Brittle rage coursed through Erica—her pulse racing, that sharp pain at the back of her skull. All the verdant countryside and mooing cows in the world couldn’t conceal the fact that this must be Jared’s feared boot camp. Dr. Rafferty yammered on, selling the boot camp like a time share in Hawaii.

  “At the Pritima Center, young men and women complete their high school curriculum while learning discipline and self-respect. They do chores on the busy farm and learn athletic, outdoor, and practical life skills. And as they do so, they learn how to make appropriate decisions.”

  Blah, blah, blah. Her words all ran together. Erica scratched her scabby wrist, blew her nose, picked a pimple on her chin.

  “Through hard work and periods of reflection, the children regain a spiritual center, Rafferty intoned.

  “Whoa! What was that all about? Were they a bunch of Jesus freaks?” Erica’s stomach felt like an empty pit.