by Tom Leveen
“Does anything?”
“I forget,” I said. And then: laughed. Not a lot, barely a chuckle, but no mistaking it.
David actually smiled. “Okay, you realize you just laughed when you said that.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty much a fruit basket.”
“Fair enough,” David said. “So, that’s what I wanted.”
My surprise laugh stopped as quickly as it had started. “I don’t get it.”
“Just for you to laugh, or at least relax,” David said. “I mean, I’m sorry if I made you feel bad at all yesterday. I didn’t know about your friend. No one does. I didn’t tell anyone either, by the way . . .”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But I think people should know. I wish you could just take it easy, you know?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do know. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You want me to wait out here?” David asked.
He’d do it too, I realized. He wasn’t just saying it. If I wanted to go alone, he’d let me. He’d wait out here, in a cold car, until I came back. I didn’t deserve that kind of sacrifice.
“Actually,” I said, “I wouldn’t mind a friend right now.”
Something in his eyes tweaked, like he was suspicious. Then he nodded once and said, “You bet,” and we got out of the car.
I hadn’t wanted a friend in years. Not apart from people on message boards and whatnot. Figures the first time I actually invite someone in, so to speak, it’s David Harowitz. Barista, video game geek, and chauffeur extraordinaire. Well, he looked nice today, anyway. I don’t mean he was dressed up, because he wasn’t. But the right T-shirt makes all the difference, you know? Maybe he had plans later.
Snap.
Get in the game, Pelly, I thought. Focus. Get Tara back so that you can . . .
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s up with the rubber band?” David asked as we neared the imposing glass doors of the police department.
“Oh, it’s a reminder thing,” I said. David opened the door for me. “Thanks. It’s supposed to remind me to change my thought pattern.”
“From what to what?”
A blast of warm air smelling mostly like Clorox but a little like pee rushed out to meet us. Like a kindergarten classroom without the comforting scents of Crayolas and paste. I flinched. It was the exact same smell as six years ago.
“Anything to anything else,” I said, dodging the question. Maybe I could count on David to drive me all over town or come into a police department with me. That didn’t mean I was going to drag him into my emotional toilet.
We checked in at the front desk and got directions to Detective Larson’s desk. It hadn’t moved. I wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad thing that everything was the same as the last time I came here.
Larson met us at the entrance to the big room full of cubicle desks where other detectives were on phones, talking to people or each other, or, in one case, sleeping.
“Thanks for coming by,” Larson said after I introduced David. “Come on in here.”
He led us into a small conference room with a folding table and a few folding chairs. We sat opposite him. Larson got right to work, handing me a sheet of color headshots. They all looked like driver license photos.
“Can you pick out the man you saw yesterday?”
I appreciated that he didn’t phrase it like “the man you think you saw.” That might’ve broken me in half. I studied the six photos. Two of them looked like the guy I’d seen. I wasn’t about to tell Larson more than one looked like him.
Larson chitchatted with David while I studied the photos. Had David seen anything; no sir, but I was working that day; did you see anything suspicious at all; no, not really, sir . . .
“This one,” I said, pointing.
Larson took the paper back. “Number three?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s him.”
But what if I was wrong? Eli kept the Hole in the Wall pretty dark, as part of its moody, quirky indie snarky ambience.
Larson made a note. “Okay,” he said. “Now, I’m going to show you—”
“Was that him?” I asked, and immediately thought, That sounds terrible and uncertain. “I mean, I got it right, didn’t I?”
Larson waved me off. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Even if you didn’t identify the owner of the car, we’re still looking into this.”
“But did I?”
The detective’s face hardened just a fraction. “Don’t worry about it, Penelope,” he said. He handed me several papers. “Here’s some age enhancements we have of Tara. Do any of them look familiar?”
My hand shook as I took the papers from him. I saw David frowning a little as he watched me. But he was looking at my face, not my hand.
The printouts of the age enhancements were spooky. It was Tara, for sure, but—not. They seemed like high-tech caricatures; the features were right but exaggerated just a little. I went slowly through the stack, trying to merge the images with the girl I’d seen yesterday.
Merge them with Tara, I mean.
I’m not sure how long I’d been staring at them when Larson said softly, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. No point in lying. “This is her. And so is the girl I saw at the coffee shop. But they’re not the same.”
“Not the same by a pretty wide margin, or not exactly identical?” Larson asked. “Because age enhancement is never exact. It’s just an approximation.”
I shook my head and gave him back the pictures. “I don’t know,” I said again. “But I know that girl was Tara.”
Larson took the pictures and slid them into a file. “Well, like I said, we are looking into it. We know where the car owner lives, and we’re working with other agencies to see what we can find out.”
“Agencies?” David said, and I immediately wished he’d shut up. “Like, the CIA?”
Larson smiled toothlessly. “No no, nothing like that. Just other law enforcement agencies.”
“Are you telling her parents?” I said. “Maybe they know something, maybe they know the guy?”
“We’ll bring them in when the time comes,” Larson said, which was about as nice a brush-off as I’d ever heard.
“Okay,” I said, defeated. My head hurt.
Larson stood up, so David and I did too. “I’ll keep in touch,” Larson said. “And if you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Thanks,” I said.
David and Larson traded nods, and we made our way back out the way we’d come. Once we were outside, David said, “How did that go, do you think? I couldn’t tell.”
“Dunno,” I grumbled.
“That good, huh?”
“Whatever.”
I felt him wanting to ask more, but he didn’t. We walked back to the car and climbed in. It took a massive force of will for me not to slam the door. No reason to take out my frustration on his truck.
“We’ve got some time before work,” David said hesitantly as he pulled into traffic. “Where should we—I mean, where do you want to go?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered.
“Pelly? Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” I said. “My best friend got kidnapped and I didn’t do anything about it and now she’s out there somewhere and no one’s doing anything about it, including me, and if I could just find her and get her back then I could—”
Stop. Shut up.
I crammed my hand against my mouth to stanch the flow of words bleeding from me. I wanted to roll up my jeans right then and there. Bleed for real, bleed the hate. I’d just said more to David Harowitz about Tara than I’d told anybody since my therapist.
That shows how much I enjoyed sharing. David, however, didn’t seem put off at all.<
br />
“You could what?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. Which was a lie.
David gave me a little snort. “In other words, ‘Shut up and stop bothering me, David.’ ”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I just . . .”
We were at a stoplight. David took his eyes off the road and turned to me. His hazel eyes, dotted with kelly green, were so sincere I felt my resolve slipping.
I couldn’t stomach looking at him. Stared out my window again instead.
“That’s when it all started,” I said quietly, hoping maybe he couldn’t hear me and would give up listening. “When Tara got taken, everything went to hell. I got scared. Thought someone would take me, too. Or Jeffrey. I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I just stayed inside. I couldn’t go to school. I faked sick so much my mom thought I really had something bad, like cancer or something. And Mom and Dad didn’t understand at all, I mean, they tried to, but I couldn’t make them see . . .”
I stopped. The car behind us honked, and David hit the gas to carry us through the green light. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. I’d already puked out more secrets than I ever wanted to, anyway.
I zoned out, not paying attention to where we were going. When we stopped, I lifted my head and glanced around.
“Is this cool?” David asked. He’d stopped the truck, but hadn’t shut off the engine yet.
We’d ended up at this little park called Arcadia. A couple of fields and a decent-size playground, plus lots of concrete picnic tables and grills.
“Um . . . sure,” I said. I had no idea what we were doing here.
David shut off the engine and climbed out, and I followed. Without a word, he led us toward the empty playground. I would’ve thought it would be crowded since the schools were closed.
“You’re on break from school, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” David said. “But I’ve only got about half a schedule next semester, and a terminal case of senioritis.”
“So, what, you ditch a lot?”
“Actually, no, not excessively. I’m kind of a goody-goody. You?”
Oops. Hadn’t meant to go quite that far. “I’m taking classes online. Ditching doesn’t have quite the allure.”
David looked like he wanted to ask more, but he didn’t say anything else about it.
Instead he marched onto the sand and said, “Swings?”
I stayed on the sidewalk. “I don’t think so.”
“Whatever,” he said. “You’re missing out.”
David slipped himself into one of the rubber seats and launched backward with both feet. In just a moment he was arcing high into the air, back and forth.
He looked ridiculous. I wanted to tell him so. Except then when I did, I also laughed. I hardly recognized the sound.
“Yes, I do look ridiculous,” David said. “But at least I’m having fun. Lookit, there’s five more here. You wouldn’t even have to sit next to me or anything.”
He didn’t say it bitterly. In fact, I couldn’t quite figure out how he meant it. Sarcastic? Flirty? Just a statement of fact?
So just to show him I couldn’t be manipulated, I climbed into the swing beside his and pushed off. Pretty soon we were in sync, up and down, back and forth, not speaking. For no good reason I remembered suddenly in grade school, when Tara and I got into sync like this, we shouted, “You’re in my bathtub!” I don’t know why. It was just one of those things kids said, I guess. We’d heard other kids say it before. It always cracked us up.
Maybe because of the way my stomach kept squishing up into my ribs, then down past my belly button, I didn’t feel quite as hopeless as I had at the police station. Maybe the g-forces were relaxing my guts or something.
“I’m gonna jump,” David announced.
“Don’t!” I said.
“Why?”
“You’ll crack your skull open and your brains will fall out and I am not cleaning it up.” This was a phrase my mom always used to say to me and Jeffrey. For pretty much any occasion. Jumping on the couch, climbing ladders, whatever.
“Nah. I’m gonna do it.”
“David—”
And then he was airborne. A wild splay of arms and legs that I thought for sure would result in multiple compound fractures. But David landed expertly on his feet like a gymnast, and threw his fists up over his head as if to complete the image.
“Stuck the landing!” he announced.
I wanted to jump too. Instead I dragged my feet in the sand until I could hop off. “You could’ve been killed,” I said.
“I doubt it.”
“Whatever, it’s your ass on the line.”
David grinned. “Hey, come here,” he said, and took off through the sand again.
What was I supposed to do? I followed after him, grumbling because of all the sand slipping into my sneakers.
David jumped onto a wooden deck plugged into the ground by a giant spring. He spread his feet and bounced back and forth on the platform, making it rock.
“Awesome!” he said. He stopped bouncing and held out a hand. “Come on up.”
“No,” I said, taking a step back.
“Come on,” David said. “I’m going to show you something.”
I made a face to let him know I was suspicious, to say the least. Since I had to kill time before work anyway, I went ahead and climbed aboard.
I didn’t take his hand, though. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Hands up,” David said, raising his own in a limp sort of way. It reminded me of a dog sitting back and begging, the way his hands curved at the wrist.
I raised my arms like a zombie.
“Geez, no, loosen up,” David said. “Relax your shoulders. Bend your elbows. Let your hands float a little. See?”
“Okay . . .”
“Now just follow me,” David said. He put his wrists against mine, and began moving his hands in slow circles. I was reminded of The Karate Kid and wax on, wax off.
“Is this some kind of dance?”
“Nope. Martial arts.”
“What? Come on.” Secretly I was pleased I’d sort of guessed right in my head.
“It is,” David insisted. “It’s wing chun. Or you can call it sticky hands. It’s what Bruce Lee practiced before he created Jeet Kune Do.”
“Can you say that again in American?”
“Nope,” David said. “Now I’m going to move a hand toward you. You just stay attached to my wrist, okay? Go with it, but don’t let me in.”
“Uh . . . okay . . .”
He gently eased his right hand toward my shoulder. I resisted.
“No, relax,” David said. “Blend. Blend.”
“Like a milkshake?”
“Like a tree. Bend with the wind instead of trying to stand against it.”
“You are making no sense.”
“I know,” David said. “It’s a gift.”
“Are you going to make me wax your car, paint your house, paint your fence?”
“I’m not that inscrutable,” he said with a smile. “But I am working on it. Cultivating that whole mysterious inner peace and calm thing, yet maintaining the ability to whoop on a bunch of kids in skeleton tights . . .”
We hadn’t detached our wrists through the entire conversation. He kept moving his hands, his wrists lightly touching my own. Suddenly—though not in a surprising way—he moved his right hand toward my shoulder again. I let him get close, but shifted my shoulder away and let my hand drop, taking his with it.
“Yeah,” David said. “There, you got it. Nice.”
I got a weird cramp in my face, and after a second I realized I was smiling. And that I didn’t want a cigarette. And that my heart was slower than it had been in the past six years without major pharmaceuticals. . . .
I stopped moving. Dropped my hands. David dropped his too.
“That was awesome,” he said.
My heart sped up. I wanted a smoke.
I hopped off the platform and started heading for the car. Sand sucked at my feet, making it feel like I was walking through a swimming pool. The same sensation as I’d had yesterday at the Hole in the Wall.
“Pelly?” David called. In a moment he had fallen into step with me. “What’s up?”
“What’re you doing?” I said, my voice low and tight.
“Um . . . hanging out at the park?”
“Stop it.” I paused and looked up at him. “What are you really doing?”
David’s body sagged. He sort of snorted. “Trying to cheer you up, actually.”
“By teaching me karate?”
“Wing chun.”
“Whatever. I don’t want to be cheered up, all right? Life sucks, and that’s it. All the swinging in the world won’t change that.”
“Or bring her back,” David said.
“Or bring her back, that’s right!” I said. Then I blinked. “Wait, what’s that supposed to mean? What are you saying?”
“Nothing,” David said. He shook his head, eyes averted. Then he glared at me. “I just thought it had been a bad couple days for you, is all. And maybe you’d want to get out of your head for a while.”
“There’s no getting out of my head,” I said, crossing my arms and staring down at the concrete.
“Clearly,” David said, and the sharpness in his voice startled me. “Jesus, Pelly. You know, I don’t even know why I bothered. You ask me for help, which I then give you, and then—and then this. This is what I get.”
“I’ll give you gas money—”
“What the hell, are you kidding me?” David’s eyes bugged out, and he took several paces away from me as if he needed the room to use his long arms to gesture more effectively. “Gas money? How about just taking it easy for a minute? How about, I don’t know, smiling?”
“I don’t see anything funny here,” I said.
“Well that sure makes two of us.” David turned and looked out at the playground for a minute, then began walking toward the truck without waiting for me. “Let’s just go.”
I followed David, thinking, Good work, Pelly. If “bitch” was an Olympic event, you’d be a medalist. I snapped my rubber band till my wrist was red. My calves tingled in anticipation of being bled, of releasing the tension and switching my brain off.