by Diana Wagman
He looked up and I saw he wasn’t sad about me leaving—it was something else in his eyes. Or nothing. A blankness. He forced a smile. “Such good news,” he said. “I am so happy for you.”
He sounded so straight and formal, not like him at all, but I didn’t have time to wonder too much about it. I looked at the
clock over the mantle and said, “I have to run to the store.”
“Now?” Mom asked.
“Emergency. You know.” I leaned over and whispered in her ear the magic word, “Tampons.”
“Take my car,” she said. “Dinner will be ready in fifteen.”
“Back in a flash.”
As I grabbed her keys, I noticed my dad hadn’t moved. He was still staring at the floor. The rug wasn’t that interesting.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine, thank you,” he replied.
He didn’t look fine to me, but I was late. I’d talk to him when I got home. I ran out the front door.
The rain had stopped but the streets were wet and shiny. I drove at a speed definitely ticketable, but I couldn’t help it. I was excited both with my news and to see Trevor. Would I have my first kiss along with everything else—like the cherry on top of a dish of fireflies and college? When I pulled up, Trevor was waiting for me out front of the Stop N Shop. I started to get out, but he came and got in the passenger seat.
“Hi,” I said. “I can’t stay, I—”
“I’ve missed you.” He interrupted.
“Really?” It had only been a few hours.
“I keep thinking about you.”
“You do?”
“For real.” He turned to face me.
The neon light from the Stop N Shop sign turned his face icy blue. I had never seen such perfectly smooth skin, as if he were a marble statue. He looked down and his long black eyelashes brushed his cheeks.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why me?”
“I want to know,” he began, smiling impishly. “Do you like to play in the leaves? Have you ever been swimming in a river? Have you climbed up a mountain to see the view?”
Each thing he said conjured up images so real I could smell the dusty leaves, taste the river water on my tongue, and feel the breeze from the top of a mountain.
“Have you ever played Hide And Seek in a forest?” He kept going, “Danced on moss? Watched a mother fox with her babies?”
I laughed. I had to. He looked like such a city boy. “Sure,” I said. “Some of those things. With my dad.”
“Would you like to—with me?”
“I think so.”
He put out his hand as if would lead me to the woods right then and there. In the shadowy car, his hand looked huge, almost inhuman. His nails were too long and dirty. Involuntarily, I leaned back.
“Let’s go right now,” he said.
I could see my reflection in his eyes and my face was stretched and distorted like in a funhouse mirror. He bent toward me. His breath smelled like green plants and very faintly of rot. I frowned, but for some reason I wanted to kiss him so badly I didn’t care what he tasted like. He smoothed my hair off my face and blinked and my reflection was gone. I leaned toward him—
Crunch! The car jerked forward at the same time I heard metal meet metal. We’d been hit. “What the?” My mom’s car was a lot nicer than my dad’s. I looked at Trevor. He was furious and in his anger his chin looked pointier, his eyes larger. Then he shook all over like a dog waking up and shrugged at me.
“What a drag,” he said.
“No kidding.”
I got out of the car. Jed’s fancy red Charger was somehow connected to my bumper.
“Oh wow,” Jed said. “It’s you. Wow, man, I’m sorry.”
“What were you doing? Are you wasted?”
“Absolutely not. I dropped my phone. I just looked down for a minute.”
“Oh my God. You are such an idiot.”
When I glanced back in the car for Trevor, he was gone, and the passenger door was wide open. I was disappointed in him, running off at the first sign of trouble. What did I know about him? Nothing much. For a second I saw again his odd angry face and I could smell something dead. I shivered.
Jed jumped up on his bumper and rocked his car up and down. The two bumpers disconnected. “No problem-o,” he said.
“What? Look at my car!” But surprisingly, the bump hadn’t done any damage.
“Those plastic bumpers you got are awesome,” he said. Then he looked around. “Where’d your friend go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lock your doors on the way home, okay? This isn’t such a safe neighborhood anymore.”
“That’s funny coming from you.”
“There are worse things than a fender bender.”
“Bye, Jed.”
Another perfect opportunity with Trevor—ruined. Angrily I got into my car and started it up. Jed watched as I backed around him and drove away.
6.
The computer screen was the only light in my room. Sometimes I think the Internet was invented for insomniacs. I have never been a good sleeper, but the web—the perfect name for the way it catches you and won’t let you go—makes the middle of the night much more pleasant. There is a whole world out there that is never asleep.
I carried my laptop into my bed and rested it on my knees. I had that WWI paper to write, due next Monday, and I hadn’t even started. But instead of Gallipoli or the Treaty of Versailles, I Googled Walker Smith. Nothing—and I mean nothing—came up. Then I tried Hayden College. Turned out Hayden College was one of those for profit schools where you took classes only online. It didn’t even offer a Psychology major, only dental hygienist and computer tech. I thought of how warm his hand had been, how blue his eyes. And then there was Trevor. I looked for Trevor Rockman and he came up on the school’s page. He had joined the football team. What the hell? There were only three months of school left and nobody was playing football. Maybe they meant baseball.
My cell phone pinged, a text. I got out of bed and found my phone.
“This is Jeb. Have you seen Luisa?”
I texted back. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Look out your window. See her?”
I looked, but there was no one outside and no strange cars in front of the house. It was the night before trash pick up and all up and down the street people had put their big rubber containers out at the curb. I thought I saw movement behind one. What would she be doing out there? I looked closer. Nothing. Just a branch moving.
There was something white in the middle of the street. It looked like a paper plate that had fallen out of someone’s recycling. On closer look, it wasn’t a paper plate. It was a Frisbee.
“Frisbee in the middle of the street.” I texted.
He texted right back. “On my way.”
I pulled on my jeans, conveniently lying right there on the floor. I took off the T-shirt I slept in—one of my dad’s and enormous—and put on an old hoodie. I tiptoed downstairs carrying my shoes. I looked toward the den. The door was closed and I could hear my parents in there fighting, but in low voices as if I wouldn’t know. I always knew when they were arguing and lately it had been more often. My mom was gone a lot to conferences and mycology meetings. She said it was important, but I think Dad thought it was just to get away from him. He was worried she might leave him so he was desperate to lose weight, but they were in there fighting about Madame Gold. It had been an uncomfortable evening despite celebrating my college acceptance. Mom had made all my favorite foods: fettuccini, garlic bread, asparagus, and my dad had refused to eat any of it. That’s when the fight began. Usually Mom was telling him not to eat so much. That night it was because he wasn’t eating at all.
“You’ll get sick,” she had said. “That hypnotist girl didn’t mean for you to stop eating completely.”
“I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m just not the least bit hungry.”
He kept speaking with that unusual formality. As Mom got frust
rated and started shouting, he stayed calm, also unusual for him. He was adamant about not eating. Finally he went into the den and shut the door. Mom looked furious.
“I guess the hypnosis is working.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mom said firmly. “It’s not right.” She sniffed the air. “I can smell it. I can smell her.”
My mom has a hypersensitive nose, better than anybody. She likes people—or doesn’t—often by their odor. As soon as dinner was over she followed Dad into the den. They’d been in there ever since.
I opened the front door silently. Jeb was standing outside.
“You got here fast. Where’s your car?”
“Too noisy.” He already had the Frisbee in his hand.
“Is it hers?”
He nodded. “She’s been taken.”
“What?” I knew she came from a kind of messed up family. I knew her mom worked all the time and her dad lived somewhere far away. “You mean her dad? Have you been to her house?”
He shook his head. “She would never leave this behind.” He meant the Frisbee. “Unless she had to.”
“Why was it in front of my house?”
He looked down the street. “I gotta go.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Go inside. Lock the door.”
He had never been much of a talker. Now he was driving me crazy. “But what is happening?” Jeb didn’t answer. He reached out as if to touch me, but then turned and ran off. He was quick and he melted instantly into the dark. “Jeb?” I whispered. “Jeb?”
Other than the circle of light from the single streetlamp it was pitch black. I thought I heard the bushes rustling. One of the trashcans thumped softly as if someone had bumped it. My mom’s car keys were still in the pocket of my jeans. I hurried to the car, got in and locked the doors. Jeb couldn’t say I hadn’t done what he asked—I was inside with the door locked. I let out the parking brake, put the car in neutral, and coasted down the street. When I got a few houses away from home I started it up.
I’d been outside of Luisa’s house only once—when she and Jeb took me home from that party and Jeb had dropped her off first. I hoped I could find it again. She didn’t live near by. My particular housing development wasn’t big, but East Los Angeles with all the neighborhoods that fed into my high school was huge. I wound this way and that, made some wrong turns and had to turn around. The streets were empty. There were fewer houses, more businesses. They say no one walks in LA. but it’s a big city, you usually see someone around. That night I didn’t see another soul, not outside a bar or in the all night market. When I finally pulled up in front of her house, it was after midnight. The house was set back from the street with a white picket fence all around. It had a front porch and looked about the same as other houses in the neighborhood. Drooping over the porch rail was a dirty pink sweater that had obviously been there a long time.
I turned the car off and sat. Was I really going to knock on the door in the middle of the night? What would I say? I woke you up because Luisa left her Frisbee in front of my house? But Luisa had come to my aid so many times. She was the closest thing I had to a friend. Beautiful, sweet Luisa. And Jeb had really been worried.
I got out of the car and crept up the front walk. I peeked in the front window, but the curtains were closed. I’m not sure what I was looking for or what I hoped to see. It had been chilly earlier, but it had gotten strangely warm. The moon and stars were hidden behind heavy black clouds. I unzipped my hoodie for some air. Along with the odd warmth, it was perfectly still, not a breeze, not a sound. Where was the wind?
I tiptoed off the porch and around to the back of the house. It was darker in the back. I looked through a window and saw a coffee mug on the kitchen table, signs of life. I stumbled and bumped into a metal chair. It clanged loudly and I froze. I waited, but no lights came on. I was more careful as I walked down to the next window. It was raised about three inches. I peered through the glass. I made out a Brodie Smith Ultimate Frisbee poster on the wall. Had to be Luisa’s room. And then I saw a bed with someone sleeping in it.
I pushed up the window. “Luisa! It’s me.”
The body moved, turned over, sat up.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Jeb is worried about you.”
The body stepped over to the window and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Oh oh! Sorry!”
“October, is that you?”
It was Luisa’s mom. “Hi, Mrs. Flores,” I said.
“Come to the back door.”
She met me there. She had been crying. She looked horrible and I knew Luisa really was gone. I started crying and she opened her arms and I fell into them.
“What happened?” I managed. “Where is she?”
She pushed me back, held onto my shoulders with both hands and looked into my eyes. She was a pretty woman usually, but her face was as pale as the nightgown she wore and everything was sagging, her eyes, her mouth, her shoulders.
“We don’t know,” she said. Then she actually shook me. “Unless you know something. October, do you know where she is?”
“No, no, I don’t.” I pulled myself out of her grasp. “Jeb came by my house. He found, we found, her Frisbee.”
She sat down at the kitchen table. She rested her head in her hands. “I knew this would happen one day.”
“You mean her dad coming to get her?”
“One day,” she said it almost to herself. “What could we do?” She looked up at me and her eyes were hard and squinty—as if she was angry with me. “It was a mistake coming here. I should have said no, but Luisa wanted it so badly.”
“They’ll find her,” I said. “The police are good at finding deadbeat dads. Even if he took her back to Mexico.”
“You have no idea,” she said. “Oh October.” She gave me a small, bitter smile. “You are really clueless, aren’t you?” She looked me up and down. “And why? For what?” Then she put her head down on the table and cried.
I didn’t know what she was talking about. I had the creeps as I walked back through the yard to my car. A breeze rattled the palm fronds and I jumped.
“This is all your fault.” A woman’s voice, as clear as my own, whispered in my ear. I spun. There was no one behind me. There was no one anywhere. I was all alone standing by my car. It wasn’t Luisa’s mom’s voice. It wasn’t mine. It had to be my imagination. It had to be.
7. Two Days Until My Birthday
I was exhausted the next morning. I’d been frightened driving home and then running up my front walk and even inside my house. I checked under my bed and, after arming myself with my ancient red Elmo flashlight, looked inside the closet. I thought I was too old to be afraid of the dark, but that night all the terrors of my childhood came flooding back. Monsters, witches, vampires, and psycho murderers. I put a chair in front of the closet door and I kept the flashlight in bed beside me. Where was Luisa, my brain went round and round, where could she be and how could it be my fault? It wasn’t. It wasn’t. That voice was just my imagination saying the worst thing possible. The same too big imagination that pretended I could understand crows and cactus wrens and fireflies. I finally fell asleep just as the sun was coming up, a solid, heavy sleep without dreams. My alarm went off an hour later and I woke up stiff, my eyes puffy and my mouth dry. I wasn’t itching, but the bruise on my ankle had blossomed into a stylized kind of flower. I must have been scratching in my sleep because the red lines were dark blue like bruises and radiated from the flower shape, circling my calf. I definitely needed to wear my jeans to cover it up. Not that I ever wore skirts.
When I plodded into the kitchen, Dad was making his favorite banana pancakes. It seemed he was back to his old, chipper self.
“Morning. You look like you could use another couple of hours.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I can nap in English.”
“Don’t get cocky, Miss College Co-ed. English is still important. If you’re going to sleep, do it in Biology.”
He laughed, of course, but for once I didn’t, and he looked at me with concern.
“What’s up, Pumpkin? Bad dreams?”
“Luisa’s missing.” I blurted it out. “Even Jed doesn’t know where she is.”
My dad swayed as if someone had hit him. He held onto the counter.
“What? Are you okay?”
He turned to me, and his smile was big and fake. “They’ll find her. Not your problem. Don’t worry.”
But his eyes were saying something different. He looked worried. And scared.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
He put a pancake on a plate and handed it to me. He sounded like himself when he laughed. “You know what they say: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” He looked at me and waited.
“All day,” I responded. It was our standard joke—something I had said when I was a little kid and tried to justify eating banana pancakes at every meal—but again I didn’t laugh. I wasn’t even hungry. “Where’s Mom?”
“She left early. Said she had another conference.”
“What? She has to get back in time for my birthday.”
“Two more days.” Dad studied me for a moment. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Fine. Just tired.”
“Sit down. Eat your breakfast. I’ll drive you to school.”
“Okay, thanks.” Getting a ride sounded great.
The syrup and butter were on the table, but I liked my pancakes plain. I picked it up with my fingers. That was another thing that would usually drive my dad crazy: I liked to eat pancakes with my hands. That morning he didn’t seem to notice. I watched him cooking. Usually it was one pancake for me and three for him. One for Mom and two more for him. He had one sitting on a plate on the counter beside the stove, but he hadn’t touched it.
“Delicious, Dad. Have you had one?”
“Got one right here.” He gestured to the uneaten pancake. “Yummy.”
I watched him until it was time to leave and he never ate one bite. Something was definitely different about him. I wondered if hypnotism could make a person starve to death. I wondered if a fat person could live longer without food than a skinny person? Mr. Snyder, the bio teacher, loved it when we came in with practical questions. I would ask him, I thought—if I was awake. Ha ha ha.