Certain Girls

by Jennifer Weiner

  Tamsin’s room is small, and it feels even smaller because every inch of the wall is plastered with pictures: blow-ups from her graphic novels, drawings of regular girls mixed with superheroes. Some of them I recognized from the books she read: Summer Blonde and Plain J.A.N.E., Fun Home, and Ghost World. Some of them she’d drawn herself. There was a drawing of her and me and Todd, sitting in a row on a bench with our lunch bags in our laps, and one of me and Amber Gross, looking like twins, walking down the Philadelphia Academy hallway with our flat-ironed hair flying out behind us, twice as big as we were in real life.

  Tamsin saw where I was staring and tried to stand in front of the picture. I pointed at it. “I look like Lyla Dare or something.” I wasn’t quite sure how to say what I was thinking, which was that Amber and I looked almost menacing, tall and strong and pitiless, like we’d stomp on anyone who stood in our way.

  Tamsin tilted her head sideways in a gesture that wasn’t quite a shrug. “What’s with the suitcase?”

  “I’m running away,” I said. I hadn’t known it was true until the words were out of my mouth, and once I’d said them out loud, there was no going back.

  “You’re going to miss Amber’s bat mitzvah.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  Tamsin turned toward the wall, toward her drawings. “What’s wrong?” she finally asked. “Why are you here?” Her voice did not sound very best-friendly. “Did Amber break up with you?”

  “No,” I snapped. “You know what? Never mind.” I reached for my suitcase handle. “I shouldn’t have come here,” I muttered, and I was almost out the door when Tamsin said, “What do you need?”

  She sat down on her bed. Last summer we’d sewn differentcolored patches to the pink-and-red-patterned quilt, trimmings from jeans we’d outgrown, pieces of our old show-choir robes.

  “A favor. A big one.” I sat down on the bed across from her.

  “What?” She yanked up her sweatshirt zipper and flipped her hair back over her shoulders, all business.

  “If I wanted to get to Los Angeles by myself, without my parents knowing, do you think I could?”

  “Did you get invited to another bar mitzvah?” she asked.

  “No, it’s . . . It’s something else. It’s my grandfather. My mother’s father. I e-mailed him, and I want to go and meet him.”

  Her laptop was folded on her bedside table, next to the lamp that she’d decorated with red and gold bottle caps, glued in rows to its base. She reached for it and opened it up. “Where will you stay? With Maxi Ryder?”

  “No! No, she can’t know. Nobody can know. I’ll stay in a hotel.” I rolled my suitcase back and forth with the tip of my foot. Excitement was building inside my chest, making my fingertips tingle.

  “Do you have enough money for that?” Tamsin asked.

  “Nope. But I have this.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the thing I’d taken from my mother’s desk, a credit card she’d never used, never even activated, still in its heavy cream envelope, attached to a square of paper with WELCOME TO WHITE CARD written on it in gold script. I handed it to Tamsin, who stared at it, then at me.

  “You’ve got a White Card?”

  “It’s my mom’s, but it’s never even been activated. It probably won’t work. I just—”

  “Hang on.” Tamsin grabbed her laptop. Her slender fingers danced over the keyboard. “Checking Wikipedia . . . Okay, it says here that White Cards are never supposed to expire. They have unlimited periods of usage and no credit limits, they entitle you to automatic upgrades on seventeen international airlines, sixty-three hotel groups worldwide . . .”

  “How do I activate it?”

  “You’ll probably need your mother’s social security number and her date of birth.”

  “I’ve got those.”

  Tamsin stared at me. “You know your mother’s social security number?”

  I smiled smugly. “Check it out.” Finally my mom’s paranoid overprotectiveness was going to pay off. In the front pocket of my backpack, where my mother had insisted I carry it for years, was my Medical ID card, with my name, date of birth, address, health conditions, insurance information, and all of that for both my parents, including their dates of birth and social security numbers. Tamsin stared at it for a minute, then shook her head. “Wow. It’s a good thing you never lost this. It’s, like, an engraved invitation to identity theft.”

  I waved away her concerns.

  “You might need something else,” Tamsin said. “Something nobody else would be able to know, like her pet’s name or her mother’s maiden name.”

  “I could guess.” My heart was rising in my chest. Nifkin, I thought. The magic word was “Nifkin.”

  “Then you just dial the number on the back, get the card activated, and according to this . . .” I heard her fingers clattering over her keyboard. “You’ll be connected to your personal concierge.”

  “Good,” I blurted. “Great. Thank you, Tamsin, seriously, thank you so much!”

  • • •

  Todd brought us the telephone, ceremoniously carrying it to the room and laying it on the bed between us like a totem, before returning to his regularly scheduled Project Runway marathon. Tamsin and I sat facing each other, cross-legged, me with the White Card in my lap, Tamsin with her back against the wall and, in her lap, a list of things I might need to know: previous addresses, social security numbers, Grandma Ann’s last name, the word “Nifkin.”

  I called the toll-free number and plugged in my card number. I’d expected a computer, but a live woman with a smooth voice answered my call. “Good evening, Ms. Shapiro. My name is Riley. How may I be of service this evening?”

  “Hi! I, um, I never activated the card,” I said.

  “The card was activated when you signed for it with our messenger,” Riley said. “However, for security purposes, can you please verify your home telephone number and social security number?”

  I rattled them off, glad for once that I had a deep voice, because it would make me sound older than I really was. Tamsin, who was reading the numbers over my shoulder, gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Your date of birth?”

  My heart hitched in my chest as, for one panicked moment, I couldn’t find the right dates on my medical card. Tamsin pointed them out and I read them off, exhaling after Riley accepted the number without comment.

  “How can I assist you this evening?”

  “I need to make arrangements for my daughter, Joy Krushelevansky, to travel to Los Angeles tomorrow morning.”

  “Unaccompanied?” Riley asked.

  “That’s correct.”

  “She’s thirteen?”

  “Yes.” How’d she know that? I mouthed to Tamsin, who shrugged.

  “We can ticket her as an unaccompanied minor if you like. Most airlines give it as an option for travelers thirteen or under.”

  Could it really be this easy? I wondered as she rattled off the possible times that I could fly in the morning. I booked a one-way ticket, leaving the next morning at ten A.M. I’d figure out how I’d get back to Philadelphia once I was there.

  “Of course, the ticket will qualify for an automatic upgrade,” said Riley. “Will you be needing any tickets?”

  It took me a minute to sort out that the “you” she thought she was talking to was my mother, not me. “I . . . um . . . no, I’ll be flying to Los Angeles later in the afternoon. I have a script out there that I’m . . .” There was a word for this. What was the word for this?

  “Doctoring!” Tamsin whispered.

  “Doctoring!” I said. “So the ticket’s just for Joy. Also, she needs to be able to check in to the hotel by herself, because I’m not sure what my day will look like. I’ll give her the card, of course—”

  “Will she be meeting you there?” Riley interrupted me smoothly. “The reason I ask is that, unfortunately, most hotels won’t let minors check in by themselves.”

  “Um . . . well, I’ll be there eventually.”
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br />   “I’ll make a note in the file and call the hotel to follow up. Is there a number where you can be reached?”

  I gave Tamsin’s number.

  “And does Joy have ID?”

  “I have . . . I mean, I have for her a passport. I have a passport for her.” Tamsin was making frantic throat-cutting motions. Oh, boy. Maybe Riley would just think that English wasn’t my first language, or that I’d had some kind of head injury since I’d gotten the card.

  “I’ll call the hotel to let them know.” Riley paused. “I’m sure, of course, that Joy is a responsible young lady?”

  “Very,” I assured her.

  “Will you be needing anything else? A car and driver to meet Joy at the airport?”

  “Sure,” I said giddily. “Sure, why not?” And find my grandfather, too! Maybe the White Card people could do that. Maybe they could do anything.

  “My pleasure.”

  I hung up the phone and grinned at Tamsin, who dropped her head without meeting my gaze.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  I stared at her and waited. Finally she said, “You know that Internet story about your mom writing the Lyla Dare books?”

  I nodded, with a dawning idea about where this was going. Tamsin paused. “Well, I was the one who told them.”

  I stared at her. “You did? But why?”

  “I was really mad at you,” Tamsin said miserably. “You kept blowing me off for Amber. So I found a website where you could send an anonymous tip . . .” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I thought you’d think it was Amber and then you’d be my friend again.”

  “But I was always your friend!” As soon as I’d said it, I knew that it wasn’t true—or at least I could see how Tamsin wouldn’t believe it.

  “What about Amber?” Tamsin asked.

  “She’s okay. You know, if you like talking about dresses and tablecloth colors.”

  Tamsin laughed a little. Then she looked at me. “I’m really sorry.” She sighed. “Probably I should tell your mom, too.”

  “Never mind her right now.” I bounced off the bed and over to my suitcase. “We’ve got to talk about tomorrow.” I tucked the card carefully into my backpack. Then Tamsin and I went to pull Todd away from the TV for a fashion and packing consultation, to print out addresses and maps, to make sure I had everything I needed for my quest.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Gone?” Bruce’s voice was impassive, but I imagined I could hear disdain lurking somewhere in that single word. I was pacing in front of the Four Seasons at six o’clock on Saturday night with my cell phone pressed against my ear, feeling frantic enough to hurl my body into traffic, throwing myself in front of strangers’ cars and taxicabs, wrenching open their doors, and screaming, “Where is my daughter?” Throngs of partygoers, men in tuxedoes and women in gowns, streamed past me and down the red carpet that stretched toward the doors bracketed by a pair of ten-foot-tall inflatable gold Oscars. Half a dozen photographers—instructed to act like paparazzi, I figured—fired off shots and shouted the names of the teenage guests. “Madison! Madison, this way, please!” “Give us a smile, Gavin!”

  I hoisted my hip onto a planter filled with petunias and shouted over the din, trying to explain the situation: “I thought she might be at your place.” Peter and I had come home from dinner the night before to an empty house. Joy had informed us, via a terse message on the home phone, that she was spending the night at Tamsin’s. I’d called the Marmers. “Yep, they’re upstairs watching High School Musical again,” Shari had cheerfully confirmed. I’d asked her to have Joy call me in the morning, but I hadn’t been terribly worried when I hadn’t heard from her. Amber’s bat mitzvah was slated for ten A.M. Maybe Joy had overslept and needed to hustle to get there, and of course she knew enough to turn off her cell phone in the synagogue.

  I called her at noon and was sent straight to voice mail, where I left a message asking her to call. I’d called again at one and two. Still nothing. Her GPS feature had been disabled, but that was to be expected if her phone was off. At two o’clock I’d called the Marmers. “Nope, sorry, she left first thing in the morning,” Shari said.

  Unease rose in my throat as I asked to speak to Tamsin.

  “I haven’t seen her since this morning,” Joy’s best friend said.

  “Do you have any idea where she might be?” I asked. The worry had been just a tickle before. Now it was more palpable, a living thing taking a slow tour of my intestines, making me feel panicked and queasy.

  “Maybe with Amber or Tara or Sasha,” Tamsin said. “Then she’s got the party tonight.”

  Amber. Tara. Sasha. I scribbled down the names and rummaged through my desk for the class directory. From three until four-thirty, I sat in my office and called everyone’s numbers: mothers, fathers, stepmothers, stepfathers, cell phones. Nobody answered at Amber’s. Tara said she hadn’t seen Joy at services but that there were “like, sixty kids there, so maybe she was just sitting somewhere else.” There were three Sashas attending the Philadelphia Academy. My daughter wasn’t at any of their houses, and the third Sasha—the right one—hadn’t seen Joy at the bat mitzvah, either.

  I sucked in air through a windpipe that felt narrow as a pencil. Then I turned to Peter, who was standing in the doorway with his hands crammed into his pockets, frowning. “I think we should call the police,” I said.

  “She’s been missing for, what, six hours?” he said. “I’m not sure they’ll take that seriously.”

  “She’s thirteen,” I said. “I will make them take it seriously.” I stared at him, waiting for him to say Let’s not panic and This is normal. I almost collapsed in gratitude when he said, “Tell you what. The party’s at six. We’ll go to the Four Seasons and watch until we see her.”

  “Oh boy, she’ll love that,” I grumbled, imagining the look on Joy’s face when she saw her parents loitering outside the hottest bat mitzvah party in town. “But she deserves it,” I added hastily.

  I spent the next three hours rearranging a china cabinet that didn’t need rearranging, transplanting lilies in the garden, putting on lipstick and running a straightening iron through my hair, figuring Joy would be embarrassed enough when she saw us and that I didn’t need to ratchet her shame up to mortification by looking like a slob.

  At six on the dot, we were in position across the street from the hotel. By six-thirty, all of the tuxedoed and evening-gowned guests had made their way inside, the fake paparazzi had packed up their cameras, and we hadn’t caught a glimpse of Joy. “Be right back,” Peter said. I watched, my heart hammering, as he trotted across the street. A minute later he was back, frowning, with something in his hand: a tiny reel of film with Joy’s name on the front. “Her place card,” he told me without spelling out what that meant—Joy wasn’t here.

  I rocked back and forth on the ledge of the planter with my arms wrapped around my chest. Then I pulled out my cell phone and called Elle. Nothing. I called Josh. Ditto. I dialed my mother’s number.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Ann and Mona Shapiro-Pasternak,” my mother’s calm voice said in my ear. I shook my head as a late arrival, a girl in a skintight gown with cutouts at the hip and back, hopped out of a cab and raced through the doors. When had the two of them decided to hyphenate? “Neither one of us is available to take your call.” The voice mail offered a number of options. I could press one to leave a voice mail for Mona. I could press two and leave a message for Ann. I could press three and leave a voice mail for both of them. I could press four and send a message to the White House about dignity and respect for same-sex households. Instead of pressing anything, I hung up and called my mother’s cell phone.

  “Have you heard anything from Joy?” I could hear chanting in the background.

  “What?” my mother yelled.

  “JOY!” I shouted above the racket of the activists. “JOY IS MISSING!”

  “Hold on, I need to get somewhere quieter.” There w
as a muffled thump—my mother putting the telephone in her pocket, I supposed. I dug my fingernails into my palms.

  “Hello? Cannie? Can you hear me? I’m in a coffee shop.”

  “A coffee shop where?”

  “In Washington. Mona and I are marching for justice.”

  Justice for what? Never mind. “Joy slept over at Tamsin’s house last night. She was supposed to call me by this morning and she didn’t, and she was supposed to be at this bat mitzvah party and she’s not here, and I don’t know where she is!”

  “Oh,” said my mother. “Well, let’s think. She’s not here with us, and I haven’t heard from her today. Where do you think she could be?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Hmm,” said my mother. She paused. “Do you think this has anything to do with your father?”

  “I already called Bruce, and he said—”

  “Not her father,” my mother said. “Yours.”

  My skin went icy. “There’s no way,” I said, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I wouldn’t have believed Joy had been capable of getting herself to New Jersey or stealing credit cards, and she’d pulled off both of those tricks quite nicely.

  When my mother spoke again, her voice was gentle. “I think I’ll go home and see if I hear from either one of them. Or do you want me to come over?”

  I leaned against the minivan, feeling sick. “Do you have a phone number for . . . for . . .”

  “I have his lawyer’s number,” my mother said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach him on a Saturday, but I’ll try.”

  I promised to call as soon as I learned anything, then hung up. Peter looked at me expectantly. I shook my head and dialed Bruce’s number again.

  “Guberman residence.”

  “Hello, Emily,” I said as nicely as I could. “It’s Candace Shapiro. Is Bruce there?”

  “Is Joy still missing?” she asked.

  “May I speak to Bruce?” I repeated.

  I heard Emily sigh before Bruce got on the line. “Candace?”