“You both go outside,” he said, “in the good weather. You test the phone, okay, and say bye-bye, and smoke a cigarette. I be here when the bus is going.”
Slowly, incredulously, we walked outside into the cold to go over our plan. Now that it was really going to happen, now that the tickets were bought, it seemed far too sudden. But there was no reason to wait, and no excuse, either. The sooner Ian got back home, the sooner the police would stop looking for him and amassing evidence. They’d move on to more pressing cases.
“Are you okay with this?” I asked.
“That guy was so cool! Why is he afraid of your dad? Do you think this really works?”
I took the phone and dialed my own cell with it. It worked. I programmed my number in, under the name Laura Ingalls, and we sat down on a gum-covered bench, out of earshot of the four other people waiting for the bus with suitcases.
“We need a story,” I said. “And it needs to be a good one.”
I remembered a project I had to do for high school Spanish, where we pretended we’d been accused of murder, and each set of partners had to come up with an airtight alibi, in Spanish. Then the rest of the class interrogated both of you alone, while your partner waited in the hall: “Which restaurant?” “What was the soda?” “What was the weather?” Rajiv Gupta and I thought we came up with the perfect story: we drove to the beach and watched the waves. Nothing happened, we didn’t talk, it was pleasant weather, we drove back to town in a red Ferrari, and that was it. We went over our clothes, how I wore my hair, and even whether the car’s gas tank was full. I answered my questions first, brilliantly, then went to wait in the hall and do my calculus. I remember just having turned on my calculator when the room broke into laughter and Señora Valdez called me back in. She explained, in heavily enunciated Spanish, that while I had answered the first question, “What body of water?,” with the geographically logical answer of “el lago Michigan,” Rajiv had answered “el océano Atlántico.” The whole time we planned, he’d been picturing his family’s trips to Maine. I’d been picturing the graffitied section of concrete waterfront across from my family’s building.
At least with Ian our stories didn’t have to match, because, God willing, they’d never ask for mine. “What do you want to tell them?”
“I thought I could say that I ran away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Because that sounds like something a kid would do, especially a kid that reads a lot.”
“No one’s going to believe that. They must have updated their security since that book was written. And it was fiction to begin with. I don’t think it was ever possible.” But on very little sleep, sitting in the cold shadow of a Vermont bus station with a detective waiting for me back at my apartment and a Russian henchman waiting inside for Ian, I couldn’t think of anything better.
“I could say I did all the things exactly like the kids in the book. Not the exhibit where they slept, because that might be gone now, but like I could say I hid in the bathroom stalls when the security guard came by. And I could say I took a bath in the fountain!”
“How would you have gotten there?”
“On a Greyhound bus! Because I’ll be an expert by the time I’m home. I could say I saved up my allowance. And I could say the guy believed I was fifteen. I can tell them the whole route I took, just backwards! I’ll memorize all the towns!”
I slapped my cheeks so I could wake up and think, but it didn’t work. Time was running out, and we had to pick something. “They probably won’t believe you no matter what you say. But if you stick to the same story about the Met, and keep repeating it over and over, and never change it or say anything about the library or Chicago or Vermont, at least they won’t know the truth. You just have to have a sense of humor about it. If they prove you wrong, if they say the Met burned down last week, you can laugh, but you just have to repeat the same story. Again and again and again. Even if they threaten you. And eventually they’ll give up. You just can’t tell them a single thing that’s true.”
“Because of you. Because you’d get fired.”
“Yes.” I wondered if I should tell him that I would probably never go back to the library. If he found out later that I’d left town forever, he might think he was free to tell the truth, or feel betrayed and do it in anger. “Even if I don’t come back,” I said, “you still have to stick to your story. I wouldn’t just get fired, I’d go to jail. For a very, very long time.” I wondered suddenly if this was even true. How bad would the real story actually be? I tried to drive him to his grandmother’s house. She turned out to be a dead soldier. I sent him home. They’d send me to jail, sure, but for how long? It wasn’t Russia. They wouldn’t drag me away in the dead of night. They wouldn’t poison my vodka.
Without knowing I was going to, I started to laugh, a crazy laugh like Ian’s the night before, and at first he looked worried, but then he started too. Even with the wind whipping past the station, even with Ian hugging his backpack to his chest for warmth, we were laughing, and not a laughter of release or a laughter that was really sadness in disguise. It was the laugh of the absurd. Your grandmother is a seventeen-year-old boy? That creepy Russian man just paid for your bus ticket? Ferret-Glo?
We eventually lost our momentum and sat in silence for a few minutes, and then I quizzed him on his story. (“What did you see at the Met?” “Well, the most interesting part was definitely the ancient part.” “Ian, we know you’re lying. There are motion detectors all over that place.” “I’m afraid they must have been broken when I was there.”) The plan was for him to get off the bus in Hannibal and keep hidden as well as he could on the walk downtown, where he’d finally turn himself in at the library. This was Ian’s cleverness again: because why would he turn himself in at the very place he’d run away to? And where would Ian Drake turn himself in but the Hannibal Public Library? I imagined him diving through the book return slot, Rocky scanning him back in, the computer blinking all caps: OVERDUE!
I told him only to call me with an emergency, and to give Mr. Andreev his phone back before they reached Hannibal. Or, better yet, throw it away somewhere, after deleting my number from the speed dial.
Before it seemed possible, the bus was there, wheezing and dirty and urgent. I gave Ian all the cash I had left so he could buy food at the truck stops on the road without the help of a sinister Russian. Alexei Andreev came out of the building and stood a few respectful yards away, hands folded, eyes forward, like a Secret Service agent. “I call you when he is deposited,” he said.
Ian counted and pocketed the money, and now he stuck his hand out for me to shake, which I did. I wondered if I should hug him. Probably not—he was ten. I punched his shoulder for luck, and we grinned at each other, more like people who were going to meet up in a week or two to laugh about this than people who would never see each other again. It would have been a wonderful moment to think of something perfect to say, something to last him the next ten years.
I couldn’t come up with a single word.
How to say good-bye like Ian Drake:1. Do the Charleston, or a gross approximation.
2. “Sayonara!”
3. Bow like a geisha.
4. Ask your creepy Russian chaperone if he has any ChapStick.
5. Spin in circles, arms extended, all the way to the bus.
6. Walk backward up the steps, looking at the sky.
Ian and Mr. Shades disappeared into the bus together, and I watched for Ian’s face in the windows, the glow of light off his glasses that would somehow let me know he was going to be all right, but his face didn’t appear. He must have found a seat on the other side.
The bus pulled off, and I turned and walked fast back to my car. Even as the bus disappeared down the street, half my mind was consumed with the thought that there were probably security cameras around somewhere. With luck, no one would ever think to watch those tapes with Ian in mind.
I sat in the cold driver’s
seat a minute before I stuck the key in the ignition. I expected myself to cry, but I was still grinning. And I felt a freedom like I was about to burst through the roof of the car. I’d never quite felt it before. Not when I got to college, where I was too scared to do anything with freedom but drink beer; not when college ended, and I was busy landing a job and denouncing my parents’ money and finding an apartment I could afford. I wondered if, despite his guilt, this was how my father felt plunging into the river, getting off the plane: anchorless, homeless, inexplicably jubilant.
36
In Which Lucy Clicks Her Heels Together Three Times
I drove back to Church Street, sat in a sandwich shop, and ordered a cup of coffee that I had no idea how to pay for. I thought how to spend the rest of my day. Maybe go back to those bookstores and browse. Sit in on an art class at the university. Find some kind, adventurous sophomores who would let me sleep on their couch.
I knew that as soon as I found a plan, the sense of endless possibility would be over. But then for me, for my librarian’s sensibility, fifteen minutes of boundless freedom was probably enough. I had a vague notion of lighting out for the territory or doing something final. The idea came down on me like a warm halo as I stared out at the street: I would open a children’s bookstore, a wonderful place with couches and a dog and fortune cookies, right there on Church Street. But I had exactly zero money—zero to the millionth power, as Ian might have said—so the store would have to be in a cardboard box in the park. I could sell the Lynton library books and the Vermont books. Then I’d be done. Going-out-of-business sale.
As if it would help, I took everything out of my purse and put it in front of me on the table, like a crazy lady. Lip balm, wallet, Swiss Army knife, gum, pen, passport, useless date book. I had just enough clarity of mind to leave the tampons in the purse pocket. I checked my coin purse. Everything was still Canadian. I opened my wallet. Driver’s license. Gas and hotel receipts that I really should destroy. Credit cards that of course I could use if I had to, but that would still link me, in a court of law, to Vermont on this particular day of history: an airline Visa, my bank card, and my parents’ sparkly platinum card, forced on me by my father the year before and never once removed from its pocket in my wallet. Which, come to think of it, would not necessarily link me to Vermont on this particular day. It would have been nice to think of earlier. I tried to wish that I’d thought of it earlier, that Ian was still here with me, that we had endless money. But I couldn’t wish it, not now with relief pouring over me like a hot shower. I ordered a club sandwich and chips, so I wouldn’t be paying a two-dollar tab with a platinum card. I was ravenous, I realized once the sandwich came, and I ate so fast I jabbed my lip with the toothpick that held the thing together.
I paid and watched the waitress walk away with the black plastic receipt book, my father’s little strip of silver sticking out the top. This, I realized, was not a story of independence and roughing it that held up next to the plunge into the river, the potato in the tailpipe, Ilya’s run for the Romanian border. It was more along the lines of Anya Labaznikov’s pathetic, drug-fueled flight to London. I was spoiled. I was born too late, in too comfortable a place. Here I was with my coffee and my platinum card, my parents a speed-dial away. I picked up my phone and called them. What the hell.
When I told my father I wanted to stay with them for a week or two, he said, “So finally you see that this Hannibal town is a nothing! Your smarts will be appreciated in Chicago. You use the credit card, yes? Buy yourself a plane ticket.”
But I didn’t want a ticket with my name on it, and as much as I hated the car right then, I wouldn’t mind the time to stare out the window in silence. It would only be a two-day drive. I’d stop along the way to return the books to the Lynton Public Library, like a responsible member of society.
I said, “That Alexei guy was really something.”
“Aha! Yes, he is very good! I never meet him, but he calls me every day to tell me how is it going. He thinks you are very beautiful, and if you are ever in Pittsburgh, he would like a date!”
“Dad, he scared me to death. You could have warned me.”
“You weren’t supposed to see! He was KGB once, but he’s not a bad guy. He is a good egg. Moldovan, very smart. But the KGB guys can’t get work. Putin can only keep a few around, or it looks bad. And nobody else will touch them. So here in U.S.A., here there is world-class KGB on the cheap!”
“How did you figure it out?” I asked, still not knowing what, entirely, he had figured out.
“Okay, well, you are twenty-six. So this Janna Glass at the Latin School, she would be twenty-six also. And here is a ten-year-old boy. This is not impossible. There are many pregnant teenagers on the Oprah show. But your mother says, okay, so how come she never tells us about this pregnant high school sophomore? And then I think, yes, this is right, because when anything happened at the Latin School, your mother knew all the story. Your mother is the town crier of the town of Chicago. She is like the barbershop, where all the gossip comes. And if your mother does not know about this pregnant Janna Glass teenager, then it never happened. So she goes and finds out. She calls the alumni office, and your Janna Glass friend lives in Prague.”
“So then you called the Labaznikovs.”
“Yes, I tell Leo to have a heads-up, and then he calls and says you have the boy with you still, and so I say, okay, what can you do for us?”
I looked around the sandwich shop. Two boys were playing cards with their father, and a woman was reading a book with a German title. Everyone looked happy and calm. I tried to be happy and calm, too. I said, “Has anyone else called there for me?”
“No, no. Here is an idea: if you are in trouble of any variety, we can print up a receipt that says you were in Argentina with us. You remember my friend Stepan, the travel agent? He can do this. He can do receipts, ticket stubs, even baggage claims, et cetera. He can’t get in the United Airlines computer anymore, but this is just the terror protection bullshit that does not work anyway. But I tell him to do this printing, yes?”
“That might not be a bad idea.” In that it might be as far as the Hannibal police would think to look, and if they looked deeper than that, I was screwed anyway.
“Listen, I tell your mother you just had a bad breakup with a boy, okay? This is okay? She does not know quite what is afoot.”
“Well you don’t really know either, do you?”
“I know nothing! I am an ignoramus!”
I walked out onto Church Street in the brilliant afternoon light. It was one of those winter days that look warm and sparkling from inside, until you step out into air so thin and brittle and cold you know that the earth has been abandoned by all its blankets of atmosphere, that the sun only looks so bright because it’s flashing good-bye.
I walked up and down the street until my feet ached and my cheeks burned from the wind. Now that I knew I was going home, and probably for good, it felt like all this time in college and in Hannibal had been the real running away. Here I was, just like Ian, just like Dorothy and everyone else, heading back home at last. And I was heading right back into the protective arms of the Russian Mafia, which was probably what I’d been running from to begin with. You think you can’t go home again? It’s the only place you can ever go.
There was something else I’d missed, along with the fact that twenty-six minus ten equals sixteen: I’d known all along that when Pastor Bob said you can change who you fundamentally are, he was horribly, dangerously wrong. Yet hadn’t I tried to change Ian by changing his circumstances? I had failed to understand that one reason you can’t change who you are is that you can’t change where you’re from. I could have taken Ian to Pluto, but his mother would still be his mother, and his father would still be his father, and Pastor Bob’s voice would still ring in his ears for the rest of his life.
When I got back in my car, I noticed Ian had left the Australian anthem tape on his seat, as if it would replace him or make me lau
gh. I didn’t put it in. I wanted instead the Russian anthem, with its heroic sadness, or the American one—that song whose pompous tune and confident beat had always made me forget, at parades and ball games, that it ended with a question mark.
37
Away from Earth Awhile
Two days later I was home in Chicago, high above the ground. I didn’t leave the apartment for a week, and I loved knowing that in that time, my feet never touched planet Earth. My mother kept saying things like, “Whatever his name was, you forget him. No one like that is worth it,” and bringing me sandwiches. My father would wink at me over her head. I stared out at the lake a lot. I slept late.
After ten days, I still hadn’t heard from anyone in Hannibal. No calls, no e-mail, no subpoenas. Halfway through Indiana, on my drive home, I’d gotten a call from Alexei Andreev. “The boy has got off the bus in Hannibal, Missouri,” he said. “Is this town named in honor for the great conqueror Hannibal?” I told him I supposed so, and thanked him, and said I’d commend him to my father. I was relieved that he didn’t ask for my hand in marriage. Ian never did call me from Alexei’s extra phone, which was presumably a good sign. It also meant I’d probably never hear his voice again.
There was a frustratingly brief article in the papers online: “A missing ten-year-old Hannibal resident has been reunited with his family. Ian Drake was last seen on Sunday, March 19th, and returned by himself to Hannibal on Wednesday, March 29th. The police investigation of his disappearance is ongoing.” I expected an outraged response from Loloblog and the activist groups that had rallied for him, but there was very little response to his return, aside from a few comments added to the message boards of previous articles. The fight against Pastor Bob continued, though, and although the recent news articles only mentioned Ian in passing (“spurred to action earlier this month by the disappearance of a ten-year-old boy enrolled in Glad Heart’s youth program,” etc.), it was clear that Ian’s flight had focused the activists’ efforts almost exclusively on Pastor Bob. That was something. They were still trying to bring him to court, and it was still going to be impossible. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t seem terribly interested in the child himself, especially now that he’d come home, now that the drama was over. Not that I wanted them to descend on Hannibal and hold up signs outside his house. It was bad enough that his savvier classmates had probably found these articles, had probably told the whole school that Ian ran away because he was secretly gay. I didn’t want more attention for him. Maybe I just wanted someone else to be as worried still as I was.
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