No Kids or Dogs Allowed

by Jane Gentry

  “You’ll never retire early, if you spend money like this,” Elizabeth said, laughing at him.

  His wife grinned. “If I’d known he could afford a three- hundred-dollar lunch, I’d have bought the shoes I wanted, instead of the ones on sale.”

  Edward McNulty merely looked smug. He beckoned to the waiter. “Let’s talk about grappa,” he said expansively. He was having a wonderful time.

  “Heaven help us!” said his lawyer, knowing grappa was almost one hundred percent alcohol.

  “It’s lethal,” agreed McNulty, reaching for the bottle. “Have some.”

  Elizabeth left the celebration feeling much better for the day out. Perhaps she would even cook dinner at home for a change and get a movie for her and Cara to watch.

  She went into the house and switched on all the lights. No more work today, she told herself. She built a fire and curled up on the couch with a volume of P.G. Wodehouse and giggled at the antics of Bertie Wooster while she waited for Cara to come in from school.

  Suddenly, it seemed, it was dark, and Cara wasn’t home yet. Elizabeth got up to look out the windows. It was after five—she had been out of school for over an hour. And there hadn’t been a detention—the school always called. Frowning, but telling herself that she wasn’t really worried yet, she dialed the Fanes’ number.

  There was nobody home. Perhaps Cara had made plans to go to Megan’s after school, and Elizabeth had just forgotten. Cara was a compulsive record keeper, so the calendar on her desk would have any appointment written down. Elizabeth bolted up the stairs, still insisting to herself that she wasn’t concerned. But she was.

  On top of Cara’s calendar was a sheet of white notebook paper, with Cara’s careful schoolgirl script:

  Dear Mommy, I have gone to California to live with Daddy so you can be happy.

  Love, Cara

  Elizabeth’s heart stopped in her chest. For a second she was seized with such panic that she couldn’t think. Then with trembling hands she called Steve.

  “Cara’s gone,” she said when he answered. Her voice shook. “She’s run away from home.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he told her. In fewer than five minutes he was at her house, with Melody and Sammy trailing behind him. Melody was crying.

  “Melody helped her get her money out of the bank,” said Steve grimly. “They’ve been planning this for several days. She left as soon as school was out, on a bus, but Melody doesn’t know which one.”

  Elizabeth collapsed white-faced into a kitchen chair.

  “Something will happen to her,” she whispered wretchedly. “There’s so much meanness in the world today. Something will happen to her.” All the air seemed sucked out of her. There was a vast, sickening vacuum where her heart and lungs were supposed to be.

  Steve had his cellular phone to his ear. He called the central bus station and charted every bus leaving toward the West for the last hour and a half.

  “I need to know the scheduled stops,” he said, and apparently the employee on the other end gave him a hard time. “Damn it!” he exploded. “I have a child on one of those buses, and I intend to find her in one piece before the night is over!”

  Capitulation from the bus company. Steve began to write.

  “We have to call the police,” said Elizabeth.

  “I already have,” Steve said. “But we can’t just sit here and do nothing. It will kill us. Here’s the list of phone numbers for the scheduled stops. Do you have call-waiting?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Then Cara can call in, if she needs us. You start calling the stop list. I’m going to get the dispatcher to radio every bus. We’ll find her, darling. Don’t worry.” He spoke rapidly into the phone. “I’ll wait,” he said to the dispatcher, when he had explained what he wanted. “Get moving on this.”

  Every number Elizabeth dialed had the same answer: they hadn’t seen Cara. In the middle of the fifth call, the call- waiting signal beeped. She connected with it, mad with hope.

  Robert. Complaining that Cara had called.

  “Don’t you ever care what’s happening to her, Robert?” asked Elizabeth. “She’s alone and in trouble and we don’t know where she is.”

  “Of course I care,” said Robert, sounding very annoyed. “Why do you think I called? I didn’t realize at first that she wasn’t at home, and she hung up on me before I could find out where she is. Why’d you tell her she could come here, Elizabeth? You know I can’t take care of her. I’m too busy.”

  Elizabeth paused for only a second, to keep herself from crying. “I despise you, Robert, did you know that? I really, really do. I never realized how much before tonight. A plague-infested gutter rat is a better father than you are. I would list in detail the horrible things that I hope will happen to you, but I have to hang up now so Cara can call me and I can find her before she’s raped or murdered.”

  And she hung up, trembling with rage and terror and physically sick with a horrible, stomach-wrenching fear.

  Steve put his arms around her and gave her a brief, hard hug. “Keep calling,” he said. He put his phone back to his ear.

  He listened intently, then disconnected.

  “One of the drivers headed down Lancaster Pike thinks she was on his bus. He’s checked, and she’s not there now. He doesn’t know where she got off.”

  Elizabeth covered her eyes with her hands and said a prayer. “What shall we do?”

  “You know my phone number?” he asked, and waited for affirmation. “I’m going down Lancaster Pike, and I’ll stop at every station. You stay here. If you hear from her, call me and tell me where she is.”

  He hadn’t taken off his coat since he’d walked into the house. Now he dropped the phone in his pocket and buttoned it tight.

  The phone rang again, and this time it was Cara, calling collect. She was hysterical with terror.

  “Cara!” said Elizabeth. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  Cara sobbed into the phone. “Daddy doesn’t want me. I called him, and he says he doesn’t want me. Can you come get me?”

  “Darling, darling, where are you? Tell Mommy.”

  “I don’t know,” she wailed.

  Steve spoke into the den extension. “Cara, did you take a bus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what road you’re on?”

  “No.” Sobbing. “I was going to California.”

  “Did the bus stop lots of times, or are you on a freeway? Stop crying, honey, and help me.”

  “It stopped.” She tried to think. “I think it’s going to York.”

  “Do you know the name of the place where you are?”

  “Roadagent’s Tavern.”

  That’s appropriate, thought Steve, grimly. “Do you know what town it’s in?”

  “No,” said Cara. “I mean, it’s not in a town, it’s just on the road, with neon. I got off to go to the bathroom, and the bus left without me.” She began to cry again. “And this place is so dark and it scares me, and there was a woman here, but she went upstairs with a man. And all the men when I went to the bathroom said come here, cutie, you’re new, and whistled and said really disgusting things, but I had to go, because somebody threw up in the bathroom on the bus and it was disgusting, and then the bus left without me.”

  Oh, God help us, Steve thought, with panic rising in his throat. She’s in a whorehouse.

  “Stay in the phone booth, honey,” Steve said. “Keep the door shut and put your foot against the hinge. Your mom is going to keep talking to you. I’ll be right there.”

  “Keep her on the phone, Libby,” he said to Elizabeth. “I’ll call the Highway Patrol from the car and get some help.”

  “I’m sorry, Mommy,” said Cara. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Hush, baby,” Elizabeth soothed. “Just keep your foot on the hinge, like Steve said, and talk to me about normal things. That’ll help make you feel safer.”

  Cara’s voice shuddered over the line. “
What, normal?”

  “Well, tell me what you packed,” suggested Elizabeth, willing herself to sound calm.

  “I packed my teddy bear,” Cara said, her voice quavering.

  “So that was why your backpack was bursting at the seams,” said Elizabeth. “Poor Teddy must be squashed by now. You’ll have to poke him back into shape when you get home.”

  As they talked, loud music pulsed over the line, mingled with the clink of dishes and rough voices.

  Then Elizabeth heard the crash of glass, and Cara screamed.

  “No! Leave me alone! Mommy! Mommy!”

  “Come on out of there, sweetheart,” said a drunken voice. “You know what you’re here for.”

  “No!” Cara was sobbing. “Let go of me! Let go of me!”

  “Let her go!” screamed Elizabeth into the phone. Horror. Terror. “Let her alone! Cara! Cara!”

  A slammed door, the pound of running feet and blessedly, Steve’s roar. “Leave that child alone! You son of a bitch, I’ll break every bone in your body!” And then what sounded like a thunderclap.

  “Don’t you dare hit him!” Cara shouted. The receiver hit the side of the phone booth with a clank, and Cara’s receding voice yelled, “I’ll help you, Mr. Riker!”

  Then Elizabeth heard the drunk say, “Ow! You little bitch! You bit me!”

  “Get back, Cara, out of the way. You turn around here, you bastard! I’m not through with you yet!” growled Steve.

  Then another thunderclap and a stranger’s awed voice saying, “God, mister, I think you broke his jaw.”

  “He’s damned lucky I didn’t kill him for manhandling my daughter. Cara, come here, baby. Are you all right?”

  Sirens and police and Cara’s sobs came clearly over the wire. Then Steve picked up the dangling receiver and said into Elizabeth’s ear, “She’s okay, darling. We’re on our way home.”

  * * *

  Melody threw herself into Elizabeth’s arms.

  “It’s all my fault she left.” She wept, full of remorse. “If she gets hurt it’s all my fault.”

  Elizabeth held her tightly and stroked at the shiny hair. “No, honey. You might have helped her, but it’s Cara who made the decision.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s my fault. I was horrible, and it’s my fault.”

  Elizabeth pulled the sobbing child closer to her chest and rocked her back and forth. “Hush, Mel,” she said, in an automatic, crooning, maternal sing-song. Everything’s all right. You mustn’t cry anymore.”

  “I didn’t know Cara could get hurt,” she said. “And I didn’t know Cara’s father didn’t want her. How could he not want her? Everybody’s parents want them.”

  “That’s not anything you could ever imagine, sweetheart,” said Elizabeth, rocking her back and forth. “Quit crying now. She’s all right, and so is your dad, and they’ll be home here in just a few minutes. Hush, now.”

  Gradually Melody’s tears slowed, and she went to the window to watch anxiously for her father’s car.

  * * *

  Steve’s headlights were swallowed by the night. Cara sat silently beside him as he drove. Finally she said, “You came after me.”

  “Of course. And I have never been as glad to see anybody in my life.” He reached across the seat and massaged at the back of her neck. “You scared me to death, Cara, do you know that?”

  “Daddy didn’t care,” said Cara in a hard little voice. “He told me I was stupid, and he couldn’t send me money, and I couldn’t live with him, and hung up.”

  Steve was silent for a minute. “That would hurt my feelings really bad.”

  “It hurt mine,” Cara said. “And besides, I was scared, and all he could say to do was call Mom.”

  Steve tugged at the black ponytail. “Well, Cara, realistically, what could he do from three thousand miles away?”

  “I don’t know. Worried, anyway, instead of sounding mad.”

  “He is worried. He called as soon as you hung up.”

  “Ha,” said Cara, somewhat mollified.

  Steve had a violent inclination to find Robert and pound him into a slimy mass of raw DNA.

  “Cara,” he said. “About your father.”

  “I don’t ever want to talk about him again,” Cara said.

  “Honey, he does love you,” said Steve.

  “Right,” said Cara scathingly.

  “But some people, Cara, though they love you, can’t take responsibility for anyone else. Sometimes they can’t even take responsibility for themselves. Your father is one of those people.”

  “So?” said Cara, and not insolently. She was actually interested.

  “Well, you have to love people for what they are, not for what you wish they were. Do you understand that?”

  “I guess,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t know if I can do it, though.”

  “If you can, you should try,” said Steve. “It’s not good for you to hate somebody.”

  There was a silence, while Cara digested this.

  “I don’t hate you or Melody,” she volunteered. “I just don’t like Melody very much.”

  “I think you could learn to like us,” he said, smiling to himself in the dark. “If you gave us a chance.”

  “Oh, I like you, all right,” said Cara. “I suppose I could probably like Melody. I’ve been mean to her.”

  “She’s been mean to you,” said Steve. “You two could stop that, couldn’t you, if you made up your minds?”

  “I guess,” said Cara.

  “That’s a step in the right direction,” Steve told her. “I’ll do just about anything I can to help you—with that, and with anything else you ever want to do.”

  “Just about?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want you to leave home anymore. Your mother and I would be brokenhearted if anything happened to you.”

  “How can you love me?” mumbled Cara. “You’re not my father.”

  Steve squeezed the back of her neck. “Your mother loves you,” he said.

  “So?”

  “She’s not your father.”

  Cara giggled. It was a little tentative and shaky, but it was definitely a giggle.

  Steve squeezed her neck again. “Sammy loves you, and he’s not your father.”

  “You know how to tell if a dog loves you?” asked Cara, after a minute.

  “No, how?”

  “If you have a piece of bacon and you show it to the dog, and then you wave it in the air, if the dog looks at you and not at the bacon, he loves you.”

  “He hates me,” said Steve. “I just realized.”

  Cara giggled again. “Mr. Riker?”

  “Miss Fairchild, don’t you think people who are allies in a bar fight ought to be on a first-name basis?”

  Cara giggled nervously. Then she said shyly, “Steve.”

  “Cara.” He tugged at her hair again.

  “Are you going to marry my mom?”

  “With your permission, madam. You know that we can’t have a happy marriage if you and Melody aren’t happy.”

  “Melody doesn’t mind,” said Cara. “Only me. And I don’t guess I mind anymore.”

  As soon as they pulled into the driveway, both Melody and Elizabeth burst from the house. Melody hugged Cara fiercely, sobbing, and Elizabeth wrapped her arms around them both.

  Steve herded his wounded little band into the kitchen. Cara sat on her mother’s lap while Steve made hot chocolate. Melody stayed close, as if she were afraid Cara would disappear again, and clung to Elizabeth’s hand.

  He got hot chocolate down the whole bunch of them, and together, he and Elizabeth put the exhausted children to bed.

  Once they were safely tucked in and out of sight, Steve put his arms around Elizabeth and kissed her gently. Her muscles, under his hands, felt like coiled steel.

  “All the trouble’s over,” he said. “You look pretty wrung out, baby. Don’t you want to go to bed?”

  She inclined her head towards the girls’ rooms.

>   “Oh, not with me, I’m sorry to say,” Steve told her. “You can sleep with Sammy. I’ll take the couch downstairs.”

  “I hate setting a good example,” said Elizabeth, feeling happy for the first time in weeks.

  “Still got a date for New Year’s Eve?”

  “I think we’d better move that up to this weekend,” she said. “Just to make sure it doesn’t get away from me again.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, gathering her in closer. “The girls can be bridesmaids and Sammy can carry the ring.”

  “We can tie it to his collar,” said Elizabeth. “And Melody can walk him down the aisle.”

  “This is very silly, you know,” he said.

  “I hope it works. The girls can’t go from despising each other to—” she grinned “—the Bobbsey Twins in one night.”

  “Well, no, we can’t expect that,” Steve agreed, kissing her over and over. “But I did see an olive branch or two being offered. Let’s see how it goes. After the wedding, of course. Go put your nightgown on, sugar. You need to go to bed yourself.”

  “It’ll be a long night,” she said. She wanted to stay there until the sun came up, wrapped in his arms.

  He smiled. “Just like the night before Christmas.”

  And indeed it was. The kiss he gave her before she went to bed called up vast, remembered pleasures and a joyous, wakeful anticipation of delights yet to come: his hands at her breasts, his legs at her thighs, his mouth heavy on hers, and the long solid feel of him, cuddling her against his naked warmth.

  She lay happily wide-eyed until dawn.

  Epilogue

  On Christmas Eve, as Steve loaded the car with presents, cakes and pies to take to Lin’s, Cara received a letter from the Department of Defense.

  She ripped into it eagerly, while Melody hovered. Elijah Thomas’s picture of his wife and baby were framed and sitting on Cara’s desk. She’d been waiting anxiously to discover what had happened to him.

  Steve heard both girls shriek and turned to see them caper across the frozen grass.

  “He made it! He made it!” shouted Cara. “I knew he would!”

  It was as if a personal friend had gotten home from war.