Juno's Daughters

by Lise Saffran

  “Jennifer?” He rubbed the hair on the back of his head with his palm, mussing it up further. “What the fuck?”

  “Sorry to barge in on you,” said Jenny. Sorry? She remembered what Ariel had said and cleared her throat. “Frankie is in Seattle somewhere and I’m trying to find her. I thought she might have been here.”

  “Fra … Come in.” He stepped aside for her to enter the apartment.

  Jenny ducked past him into the room. There was a sagging blue couch and a leather chair. A small coffee table. A television. The kitchen took up about a fourth of the front room. She stood with her arms crossed on her chest.

  “Sit down.” Monroe dropped onto the couch and pointed at the leather chair.

  Jenny lowered herself down into the chair. There were a few magazines on the table, a can of beer, a plate with some crumbs. No cigarettes. No ashtrays.

  “Did you quit smoking?”

  He nodded. “About two years ago. I had a heart attack, can you believe it? At forty-five? I almost bought the farm.”

  Jenny couldn’t take her eyes away from his face. The arch of his eyebrows. The blue eyes beneath. His jaw, nose, mouth. How had she misremembered his face so completely? It wasn’t Lilly he resembled, but Frankie. He, or rather she, was the mirror image.

  “So what’s up with the kid then? Did she run away?”

  “Not really.” Jenny pressed her eyes with the pads of her fingers. “I mean, she’s here in the city somewhere, but I don’t think she wants to stay away.” She glanced up and couldn’t help but get lost for a second in the pools of his eyes. They were so, so familiar. She said softly, “I don’t understand why she hasn’t called.”

  He stood up. “Do you want a drink of water? A soda?”

  When Jenny shook her head no, he came back with a small white cardboard box and set it on the table next to her. “A scone or something? A cookie? I work at the bakery on Twelfth. Shift starts at one in the morning, but I get to take home pastries that are more than a day old.”

  She was prepared to say no, but as soon as the pastries were set beside her Jenny realized she had not eaten anything since the night before. It was almost three in the afternoon and she was starving. She bit into a scone. “Have you seen her, then?” she asked through a mouthful. “Have you seen Frankie?” She held her hand under her chin to catch the crumbs.

  Monroe stood up and walked into the kitchen. “Don’t you think I would have told you right away if I had?” His voice held a touch of irritation. “Here.” He handed her a plate and sat back down on the couch. “Have you called the cops? There are a lot of street kids in this city and some of them, man, they are bad news.”

  Jenny wiped her mouth. “I was there this morning.”

  “Want something to drink?” asked Monroe again. “I’ve got some Sunny D in the fridge.” He gave her a sheepish look. “Wouldn’t make you drink the water in this dump. Who knows what the pipes are made of.”

  “Sunny D would be great. Thanks.”

  She brushed the crumbs off her fingers and looked around the apartment. The paint was chipping in places and the Formica on the counters looked a bit warped, but it was better than some places she’d seen. The couch was draped with a bright Mexican blanket. There was even a struggling house-plant in the corner. Monroe was clearly making an effort. She called, “Did Lilly ever come to see you?”

  His back was turned so she could not see if his face registered any surprise at the question. By the time he appeared next to her chair with a glass, his expression was mild and friendly.

  “Yeah. Bout a year and a half ago, actually.” He handed her the drink. “Good-looking girl,” he said. “Like her mom.” The spot he chose on the couch was closer to her chair, and when he leaned forward his face was less than a couple feet away from her own. “Has a mouth on her, though, that one.” He rubbed the whiskers on his jaw. “Can’t say I blame her. I’ve been a pretty shitty father.” When he glanced up at Jenny, his eyes were shadowed with the same thick lashes that Frankie had. “Wish I could’ve done better.”

  “She’s a smart girl,” said Jenny. “Funny, too.”

  He nodded. “You’re a good mother, I bet.”

  Jenny focused her eyes on the wall behind his head. You will not, she told herself. You will not cry.

  “You look great, Jen.” Monroe rested his hand ever so gently on her thigh. It could have been a gesture designed to comfort her. Or not. “I’m glad you came by in person, though. I’m not sure I would have recognized your voice if you called.”

  “It’s been a long time,” whispered Jenny. She dropped her gaze to stare at his hand. It was about the weight of a child’s folded-up sweatshirt, but deeply foreign after all the time that had passed. Strange, but not altogether without an element of comfort. “And these last twenty-four hours have been … Well, I’ve cried so much I’ve made myself hoarse, I guess …”

  He gave her an appraising look. “You always did cry a lot.”

  Around Jenny’s body, the temperature dropped. Where moments before her senses had been groggy they now started to pelt her with information. She could hear the cars outside on the busy avenue. The carpet smelled of mold. The leather seat was sticky against her back. Her skin prickled with goose bumps and her stomach twisted in rejection of the scone and the syrupy liquid she had drunk. It was as if a spirit had floated through the room, or perhaps even Juno, goddess of marriage, and stroked her on the cheek. Though long melted into air, into thin air, she still had enough power in her touch to wake Jenny from her reverie.

  Jenny stood up and reached for her bag. Monroe drew his hand, his whole body back, and looked at her with surprise.

  She looked down on him as if from a great distance away. “Take care of yourself, Monroe.”

  He jumped up and followed. “What’s your number, then? Where are you staying? How am I supposed to get a hold of you if I find Frankie?”

  She took in his rough, whiskered jaw, the lips she had once kissed and allowed to kiss her, the thick black hair and wide-set blue eyes. She looked hard at his face for one last time, and this time she did not see Frankie or Lilly. She saw only Monroe.

  “Here,” she said, fishing in her pocket and handing him the business card of one Skip Arnold, detective with the Seattle Police Department. “Call this number if you find her.”

  She left him reading the name on the card and walked out into the bright sunlight.

  CHAPTER 18

  Lost Children and Animals

  Jenny drove back toward downtown and found a parking space out in front of a Victorian house on Queen Anne. She sat on the curb with her feet in the gutter and dialed Officer Arnold’s number, which she had memorized before handing the card to Monroe.

  “Well, Mrs. Alexander, your daughter was definitely on the ferry that arrived last night from Friday Harbor into Pier 69. The Clipper, as you’d suspected. Apparently she bought a round-trip ticket, which, in my view, is excellent news.”

  Jenny lifted the hem of her T-shirt to wipe her eyes.

  “Are you there? Mrs. Alexander?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was more of a croak. “I’m here.”

  “Okay. Well, that’s the good news. The bad news is that she hasn’t tried to use the second half of the ticket yet. We can tell that from the security tapes. So, she’s still here in the city somewhere.”

  “There’s a chance …” Jenny cleared her throat before continuing, “that my ex-husband might call. I gave him your number. His name is Monroe.”

  “He lives here in Seattle?”

  “Yes.”

  She did not need to see his face to know that he was putting that information together with what she had said to him earlier about there being no other friends or family members in the city.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “We’ll watch for his call.”

  A silver-haired man in a Lexus stopped to look at Jenny’s old farm truck before heading slowly down the street. Jenny stood up.

  “Oh, Mrs.
Alexander? One last thing.”

  Jenny’s heart leaped. “Yes?”

  “Frankie wouldn’t have cut her hair, would she?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “There were some reports of a new girl at one of the squats in the University District, where a lot of the street kids hang out. She had short hair and a scar over her left eye.”

  “Frankie doesn’t have a scar.”

  “I’ll call you if we turn up anything else.”

  “Thank you.”

  The airport was packed with travelers in shorts and flip-flops dragging huge wheeled suitcases behind them. An exhausted-looking woman with a shoulder bag walked toward security leading two small children by the hand. Jenny watched her until she could no longer see her or the kids.

  And then suddenly, there was Lilly. One beloved girl in a stream of anonymous travelers, walking fast, the straps of her backpack covering the straps of her tank top, her skirt brushing the ground. She saw Jenny before Jenny could lift her hand or make a move toward her. She wrapped her arms around her mother before Jenny’s knees buckled and she could fall.

  “We will so totally find her, Mom.” Lilly rested her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I promise.”

  Jenny wanted so badly to believe her. They walked arm and arm to the truck. “We can go drop off your stuff and then I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Jenny stopped at the light and glanced over at Lilly, “or a really bad one, to walk downtown where a lot of the kids are.” She couldn’t say the word street. Just kids.

  “I thought we were going to go see Monroe.” Lilly, Jenny noticed, did not say going to see Dad, or even my father. Just Monroe.

  “I did that already.”

  “Mom! You promised.”

  “It’s done, Lil.” She glanced over at her daughter. She was not surprised to see in Lilly’s face a touch of relief. “He hadn’t seen her.”

  Lilly chewed her lip. “Did he say anything about me?”

  Jenny smiled. “He said you had a mouth on you. But of course, we both knew that.”

  “He said …” Lilly’s back straightened with outrage. “Well, I won’t even tell you the things that he said.”

  Jenny held the wheel with her left hand and rested her right gently on Lilly’s arm. “It’s done, baby. Really. Done.”

  Lilly nodded and looked out the window. “Okay.”

  “U District?” Jenny turned and followed the signs for I-5 and Seattle.

  “Sure.”

  It was close to eight p.m. now, but the line of traffic heading out of Seattle was still steady. The lights in the city had begun to pop in the dusk and the sky had one last streak of orange in it that was fading fast.

  Lilly flipped open the glove box and began to fish through the odds and ends inside: random maps, flashlights, a takeout menu from the Chinese restaurant in Friday Harbor. “Didn’t you used to keep candy in here?”

  “There was an old Snickers bar.” Jenny glanced at her watch. “I ate it about two hours ago.”

  Lilly forced a small smile. “Figures.”

  Jenny said, “We’ll get you something to eat.”

  “No hurry.” Lilly pulled her knees up on the seat and wrapped her arms around her legs. The toes of her now-bare feet poked out below the hem of the skirt. “I’m not mad at you anymore, you know. About Trinculo.”

  Jenny’s face burned. “I shouldn’t have …”

  “There are way better guys in Marin. Bankers. Movie stars.”

  Jenny gave her a sharp look and this time, Lilly’s smile wasn’t forced. “Just kidding.”

  “Lil, you’ve got to stop that running around with different boys all the time. I’m serious now. It’s not good to …”

  “I will,” said Lilly softly. “I mean I am.” She glanced over at Jenny briefly and then looked out the window. An eighteen-wheeler pulled up alongside them with Cascade Farms written on it in cursive. “I guess I was just kinda bored. At home.” She dropped her feet back to the floor of the cab and slipped them into her sandals. “I think it’s great, actually. About you and Trinculo.”

  Jenny avoided looking at her. “I haven’t spoken to him since Frankie disappeared.” She merged right toward Exit 169 and the University of Washington, glad that she could concentrate on her driving rather than the expression on Lilly’s face.

  “Did he break your heart? That asshole.”

  “I’m sure there’s a good reason why he hasn’t called.”

  Jenny’s mind flashed to the mysterious laughter she’d heard on his end when she called from the police station and she experienced a moment of doubt. She pushed it out of her mind with an image of him sitting beside her on a rock after they had climbed Mount Finlayson. The peak of Mount Rainier stood jagged against the sky and a large navy ship inched its way through the sound like a toy boat in the tub. He had told her about being engaged when he was in college in Boulder. It had ended, he’d said, when he had changed his major from business to theater.

  “Practical girl.” Jenny had stretched out on the rock to look at the sky.

  “No doubt,” said Trinculo, and he had lifted her shirt to trace her navel with the tip of his finger.

  Beside her, Lilly raised her eyebrows. “Oh please, Mom. Spare me.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What a total douchebag.” She added, “You know, I never knew why you and David split up anyway. It was fun when he used to come over and bring his harmonica.”

  “Let’s not talk about my love life, okay? We have more serious things to think about.”

  They parked in the U District and walked through Ravenna Park for what seemed like miles, scanning benches and abandoned patches of grass. They peered into the faces of people as they jogged by, stopping to chat with dog owners, students, and a park worker who was emptying garbage cans near some tennis courts that had fallen into disrepair, the nets sagging and uneven. The sun dropped in the sky and the pedestrians and joggers thinned out. Neither Jenny nor Lilly said much when they were alone. They just walked and looked. Jenny’s phone rang in her pocket and they both jumped.

  The cop had called once before with a question about Frankie and this time his voice was grim. “Some kids at a squat near I-5 said they might have seen your daughter with a kid whose street name is Pyro. Look, Mrs. Alexander. I have to tell you that if she’s with this Pyro character, it’s not good news, but we will try to pick her up as fast as we can. I suggest you take your other daughter back to the hotel. We will call you the minute we find her.”

  Jenny closed the phone and stuck it back into her pocket. She picked up her pace.

  “What is it, Mom?” whispered Lilly. “What did he say?”

  Jenny could see the park entrance now and the bright lights of the clubs and restaurants beyond. “He said that I should buy you dinner and take you back to the hotel.” She looked hard at Lilly. “Can you wait?”

  Lilly met her eyes. “Of course.”

  Jenny started the engine and headed toward the neighborhood of warehouses and industrial complexes near 1-5. She watched the road and wondered, why hadn’t Frankie called when she found out that Ariel was gone? The kid across the hall had given her twenty dollars, which was plenty of money for a cab ride to the ferry terminal and a phone call. Why hadn’t she simply gotten on the ferry and come home?

  They came within sight of the Duwamish River for a stretch, their eyes peeled on the streets and doorways, not sure what they were looking for. They passed several abandoned buildings, a few with broken windows and a place that looked like an art studio that had a wire sculpture on a concrete post marking the door. After a while they moved away from the river back toward the highway where the sound of traffic was constant, like the roar of the sea.

  “Stop.” Lilly had her hand on the door before Jenny could even pull over and cut the engine. “I thought I saw a light.”

  Jenny followed Lilly toward a low dark building surrounded on all sides by a battered chain-link fence. As they got closer, she, too, co
uld see a flickering glow coming from inside one of the windows, though it was faint in the now gray evening light.

  She lunged forward and grabbed Lilly’s arm. “No.”

  Lilly tried to yank away. Jenny did not let her loose.

  “Frankie might be in there,” hissed Lilly. “Let go!”

  Jenny pointed to a cinder block that sat in the corner, near the fence. A step, most likely, to use in hoisting yourself over. “You sit there and wait for me. I will be right back.”

  “But, Mom, no …”

  “Sit!”

  Lilly looked into her mother’s face. She figured if Lilly could see even half of the resolve she felt, she would not dare to argue. Lilly crossed her arms over her chest and sat. Jenny left her there. Around the back of the building she found a steel door ajar and lightly pushed it open. She walked in and found herself in a storage area, or what might have been one once, cut off from the flickering light they had seen. A sofa was pushed up against the wall. There was a boy lying on it, asleep, his body curled around a sleeping dog.

  Jenny paused to look at him. The white skin of his scalp was visible where he had shaved off part of his hair. He was as skinny as Frankie and Phoenix were, but he looked older, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She’d seen kids like this all through the U District that afternoon, in fact the whole city seemed to be filled with lost children and animals. Her heart was pounding. Another two steps in the dark and she would have stumbled and fallen on top of him.

  A small fire was burning at the far end of the space and there were several figures sitting around it. Shapes in one corner looked like they might be the sleeping bodies of yet more people. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock and it occurred to her that these kids might rise at night and stay up until dawn, like vampires. She swallowed. To get to them she would have to cross the entire room.

  She started walking.

  “Who is that?” It was a young girl’s voice. “Who’s there?”

  “My name is Jenny.” She tried to speak loud enough so that the girl could hear her but not so loud that she would wake the sleepers on the floor.