by Robin Benway
But when Drew’s upset or nervous or excited, that’s when he really lets it fly, and the day Oliver was found was probably the craziest driving I’ve ever seen from him. Caro kept one hand on her seat belt as he flew through a yellow light and when he hit a pothole, she yelped. “Drew, this van isn’t exactly built to break the sound barrier!”
“Oh, relax, Caroline,” he said, and I knew he was using her full name just to annoy her. No one ever calls her Caroline. It’s just too many syllables.
“I’d like to see Oliver before suffering from debilitating whiplash,” I told him, trying to loosen my iron grip on my seat belt.
“So how real do we think this is?” Drew asked.
He had a point. This wasn’t the first time that Oliver had been “found.” The sightings had been intense at first, hundreds of calls pouring in to the hotline saying that they had seen a sandy-haired, freckle-faced seven-year-old in Omaha, Atlanta, Los Angeles, even Puerto Rico. The calls died down over the years, but every year or so, there was a ray of hope. A short-lived ray, but hope nonetheless, enough to live on for another year.
“Maybe real?” I said. “I don’t know, I . . .” I trailed off, not really sure what to say.
Caro took over.
“Emmy’s mom called me because Em wasn’t answering her phone,” she said. “Something about a fingerprint. He was in a police station for a school field trip? I’m not sure. Anyway, it matched the one in his file and they went to arrest Oliver’s dad at home. He wasn’t there, but Oliver was.”
“New York?” Drew asked. “Really?”
“New York City,” Caro emphasized. “But here’s the part that’s bonkers: they still haven’t found his dad. Apparently, he’s on the lam.” Caro always liked the police lingo. I don’t think she’s ever missed an episode of Law & Order: SVU.
“Wow,” Drew murmured. “New York.” I didn’t have to look at Drew’s face to know what he was thinking. He would pretty much like to be anywhere else but our town. New York must’ve sounded like a dream.
We live in a tolerant community, so long as there’s nothing to tolerate. So when Drew came out and announced he was gay last year, it caused a bit of what he called the “muffled kerfuffle.” Caro and I already knew, of course, but Drew’s parents were a little . . . different. They were accepting at first, lots of “we love you just the way you ares” and all that, but to hear Drew tell it, the mood was heavier at his house. The silences longer, the words shorter. “They look at me sometimes,” he said one night when we were sleeping over at Caro’s, his voice quiet in the dark. “And I can’t tell if they like what they see.”
I could understand why Drew sounded wistful about New York.
I glanced out the window as Drew turned right, all of us quiet for a moment. In our second-grade class picture, we were lined up by height in the middle row: Caro on the end, then Drew, then Oliver, then me. And then Oliver went away and there were just three of us, with no idea of how to make sense of our loss. And to make it worse, every adult was super nice in the months after Oliver disappeared: “Ran your bike into my car? It’s just a tiny scratch.” “Threw a ball through my window? Be more careful next time.” It was unsettling. When the adults are full of indulgence, you know things are really bad.
Drew swung a left and pulled onto our street. His normal routine is to careen until the last possible second and then spin a U-turn in our cul-de-sac before zooming into my driveway. You can imagine how exciting that is in a top-heavy VW bus. The first time my mom saw Drew zipping toward us, she said, “He does know that the street dead-ends, right?”
It was a fair question.
I have to admit, though, Drew knows what he’s doing, and ten seconds later, he was pulling the parking brake as we eyed a caravan of news trucks and cameras. “Hello, hello, old friends,” Drew drawled when we saw them. “How long has it been?”
“Two years,” I replied, glaring out my window. After Oliver didn’t show up to school that Tuesday ten years ago, the news cameras became a noisy cavalry for a few months. At first, everyone thought it was great. They were bringing attention to the case! Surely, someone would see Oliver and call the police and he’d come home in time for Drew’s eighth birthday party. Caro and Drew and I used to draw pictures of Oliver and try to get the newscasters to film them, but mostly they just stood in front of Oliver’s home and said things like “This tragic disappearance has left a community shaken . . . [dramatic pause] . . . to its core.”
The ironic thing is that even though Oliver’s disappearance was a huge deal in our town, it didn’t really get that much attention outside of the city. He was a young kid taken by a non-abusive parent who had no citizenship in a foreign country. It was terrible, yes, but when it came to criminal investigations, finding Oliver wasn’t at the top of most people’s lists. That’s when I first learned about true frustration, that wrenching ache when the thing that matters most to you barely makes a ripple in other people’s lives.
One afternoon, after the story had faded slightly in the local headlines, the reporters decided to talk to me. My parents were inside and didn’t know that I had snuck out to see if Oliver was secretly in his backyard, and the cameras descended on me. Even now, when I think about it, it makes me want to throw up.
“How does it feel to know that your friend Oliver might never come home?”
“What can you tell us about Oliver, sweetheart? Do you think he wanted to be with his dad more than his mom?”
“Did Oliver say anything to you? Did you know that his father was going to take him?”
I’m not sure when I started to cry, but when my dad came storming out of the house, I was in full-blown hysterics. He grabbed me up and told all the newscasters to go fuck themselves (which definitely did not make it into the seven o’clock broadcast), then carried me back inside. Soon after, he taught Caro and Drew and me some Beatles songs and told us that whenever we saw people with cameras, we should just sing those songs.
At the time, I thought it was just fun to sing really loud, but then I realized what an evil genius my dad is. To broadcast Beatles lyrics, you have to have the rights to the songs, which costs somewhere around a billion dollars. So whenever we popped up singing about yellow submarines or Lucy in the sky with diamonds, they couldn’t use the footage.
We’ve done that ever since. Works like a charm.
“Which song?” Drew asked, unbuckling his seat belt like he hadn’t just commandeered his car like a rocket. “I vote for ‘Hello, Goodbye.’ It’s appropriate.”
Neither Caro nor I disagreed, so we hurried out of the car and up my driveway as the anchorpeople dashed toward us. I recognized some of them—the ones that hadn’t been promoted to better jobs in San Francisco or Houston or New York—and they were already eyeing the three of us, painfully wise to our wacky sing-alongs.
“‘You say goodbye and I say hello!’” we sang. What we lack in talent, we make up for with enthusiasm and nefarious glee.
We were barely done with the first chorus before we made it through the front door of my house, where my mom was waiting.
“Oh, honey!” she wailed, grabbing me up and then hugging Drew and Caro as an afterthought. “They found him! He’s alive!”
I hadn’t seen either of my parents cry in years. When Oliver was taken, there were whispered conversations and stressful quiet moments, but they never cried. I think they thought they had to be brave for me and strong for Maureen, Oliver’s mom. But now my mother was weeping against my shoulder and I hugged her tight, not sure what to say.
Drew was better in these situations than I was.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Trenton,” he said. “Oliver’s in New York. If he can make it there, he can make it anywhere.”
She started to laugh through her tears and she let go of the three of us. “Drew,” my mother scolded, “this isn’t a time for jokes.” But she was still laughing and Drew just winked at me.
“Mom,” I said, “is it true? Really, this time?”
My mother nodded and used a ragged tissue to wipe at her eyes. “Maureen called us an hour ago. She’s already on her way to the airport to go to New York. She said . . .” My mother stopped to stifle a sob. “She said he’s six feet tall and has dark hair.”
I just nodded, but I knew what my mom meant. When Oliver left, he was barely as high as my shoulder and had blond highlights from spending summers outside in our backyards.
“What about his dad? Is he—?”
“They don’t know,” my mother said. “Apparently, he wasn’t home and he hasn’t come back since. They’re looking for him now, though. I’m sure they’ll find him.” (I wasn’t so sure. My mom had been saying that for ten years about Oliver: “I’m sure they’ll find him.”)
“Your dad’s on his way home from work now, Em.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “Are you kids hungry?”
“Yes,” Drew and Caro chimed together. My mom runs a catering business so there’s always food around. They like to take blatant advantage.
“Come on, come on,” my mom said, ushering us into the kitchen. “There’s leftover crêpes.”
Crêpes! Caro mouthed at me, grinning. I stumbled along behind them, discreetly wiping sand off my ankles while my mom’s back was turned.
My mom had the kitchen redone several years ago and it looks like a Martha Stewart showcase combined with an operating room. There are shiny gadgets that completely befuddle my dad and me, and yet it’s somehow warm and inviting. I like to hang out in there, just so long as I don’t touch anything and accidentally get puréed.
“Do you think Oliver’s dad will follow him here?” I sank down into a chair next to Drew, who looked as worried as I felt. “I mean, Oliver’s been with him all this time. To be separated now, that has to be hard.”
“His dad?” Caro said. “That’s who you feel bad for right now? Seriously?”
“No, I feel bad for Oliver,” I told her. But I felt kind of bad for everyone and I didn’t know why.
“Is there Nutella in this crêpe?” Drew asked.
“Here, mine’s Nutella. Switch with me.” I swapped the plates around before Drew could say anything. Caro muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “people pleaser,” but gave me an innocent look when I glanced at her.
“Does he know that Maureen’s remarried?” I asked. “Or about the twins?”
“Oh, man, that’s going to be a shock,” Caro said, digging into her snack.
“I’m sure Maureen will tell him all about Rick and Molly and Nora,” my mom reassured us. “That’s not exactly news that she can hide.”
“Do you think he even remembers us?” Drew asked. “It’s been ten years.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped before I could stop myself. Drew’s fork froze in the air as he stared at me. My mom was watching me across the kitchen, too. I had seen that look too many times over the years, the “oh my God, is our child damaged beyond repair?” look, and I was in no hurry to see it again.
“Of course he remembers us,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he? We remember him. How could he forget us?”
Both Caro and Drew blinked at me, but I glanced away and tried to calm down. For years I had imagined Oliver coming home, what it would look like, and it never involved crêpes or him not remembering us. I crossed my fingers and knocked my hand softly against our wooden kitchen table, Oliver’s and my secret way to undo a jinx. We had made it up two weeks before he disappeared and I wasn’t about to let it go now.
“I’m sure he remembers,” my mom said in that soothing way that made me want to scream. “Oliver’s coming home and he’s safe. That’s what matters right now.”
I looked at Caro. She crossed her eyes back at me.
My mom suddenly stopped. “Hey,” she said. “Why is your hair wet?”
All three of us froze, Caro almost choking on her crêpe.
“We dared her to try out for the swim team,” Drew said, not missing a beat.
“That’s why I didn’t get your messages,” I added, tapping Drew’s ankle under the table in a silent thank-you. He kicked back his own version of you’re welcome.
My mom just laughed. “Crazy kids,” she said, then turned around to get more food. “You know Emmy can’t swim very well.”
Caro, Drew, and I looked at one another, then Caroline leaned over and brushed some sand off my elbow, wiping away my secret.
CHAPTER THREE
The day dragged on as we waited for more news about Oliver. Not that there was anything to hear, of course. He was on a plane in the sky, hurtling back to us with the same instantaneous force that had caused him to disappear in the first place. His dad was still missing, but my parents kept Caro and Drew and me away from the news and computers. (They don’t know that Caro and I figured out how to disable the internet parental controls years ago. Plus, hello? iPhones.)
Drew and Caro immediately got permission to sleep over. Caro’s parents hadn’t even heard that Oliver was found and I could hear her enthusiasm diminish with every sentence between them. “They found him! . . . No, they don’t know where he is. . . . No, I already cleaned my half of the room. . . . That’s Heather’s mess, not mine. . . . Okay, yeah. No, I don’t know. Thanks, bye.”
Sometimes, I suspect that Caro’s parents lose track of their kids. There’s six in all, and Caro’s the youngest. “I’m shuffled to the bottom of the deck,” she says whenever it comes up. I think the biggest problem is that she’s had to share a bedroom her entire life with Heather, her older sister, and Heather is basically a tornado with legs. Caro, on the other hand, is a very organized, neat person, and watching them share a room is like watching two movies on one screen. Caro is desperate for Heather to move out.
Drew’s parents were beside themselves with joy that he wanted to spend the night with us girls. “Just Caro and Emmy,” he said into the phone, wiggling his eyebrows at us lasciviously. “We just want to hang out and talk . . . no, Mom, it’s Friday. No school tomorrow . . . okay, fine. Fine. Bye.”
“You lucky guy,” I said as soon as he hung up. “Spending the night with two lovely ladies such as ourselves.”
Drew just grinned and pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was getting long and I suspected that it was a metaphorical middle finger to his straitlaced parents. Who could blame him? “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink,” he said mournfully, then plopped himself on my bed next to Caro and sighed.
The nervous energy started to creep in once the sun set. It had been setting later now that Christmas was over, and by seven o’clock, the sky was dark. No one really ate dinner, and finally my dad pushed his chair back from the table and said, “Well, I’m done,” and the rest of us followed suit.
There had been so much food when Oliver first disappeared. So much, in fact, that Maureen’s kitchen couldn’t hold it all and much of it made its way to our house. Not that anyone was eating then, either. Casseroles don’t look appetizing even in the best of times, and there were just so many of them. Even at seven years old, I knew there was a limit to the magical healing powers of baked ziti. Neighbors kept bringing them by, trying to look past us and into our house and Maureen’s house, like we had shoved Oliver into a cupboard under the stairs. We gave some of it to the nicer reporters. Caro and I spent an afternoon eating an entire bowl of ambrosia salad with teaspoons and then an entire night in total abdominal agony. We weren’t in trouble, though—that creepy indulgence was in full effect—and for the first time in my life, I had wished we had been. At least that would have been normal.
From the moment they discovered Oliver was found through the next day, a few neighbors came knocking on our door. “I didn’t want to disturb Maureen,” they said, then offered their brisket/creamed-corn casserole/Jell-O mold with mandarin orange slices jiggling in the middle. Drew looked at all of it and shook his head. “Why don’t people just bring alcohol?” Drew wondered aloud.
“Hear, hear.” My dad sighed as he tried to make room for t
he Jell-O in the refrigerator. He had spent the entire Saturday with Drew, Caro, and me hanging out in our backyard, not eager to leave the house in case something happened and we missed it. I didn’t know what “it” would be, but it felt better to be at home than anywhere else. (Well, besides surfing, but I had no idea how to sneak out to the ocean and back with news crews parked all the way up the street.)
“Ugh, ambrosia,” Caro muttered when she saw the salad in the refrigerator. “I can’t even use coconut body lotion without feeling ill.”
“Pretty much,” I said, then helped myself to some tomatoes off the veggie tray that our neighbors across the street had delivered an hour ago.
I knew we’d eventually toss most of the food, like we had ten years ago. Seeing the dishes lined up on the countertop made my stomach flip and I gripped the tile in my hand just as I heard some shouts from the cameramen.
“Mom!” I yelled, since that seemed like the right person to call for, and suddenly my parents, Drew, Caro, and I were tumbling out the front door and onto the porch. The camera lights shone like high beams as a police car made an eerily silent path toward Oliver’s house. There were two figures in the backseat, one much taller than the other. I saw the outline of Maureen’s hair and realized with a sickening feeling that I didn’t recognize the other person at all.
And right then, I wanted it to stop. I wanted to go back to surfing yesterday afternoon and have Caro announce nothing more exciting than a pop quiz in calculus that she totally failed. I wanted the neighbors to mind their own business and to my complete horror, I realized I wanted Oliver to go back to New York. His disappearance had created such a huge chasm that it still hadn’t fully repaired itself, and I didn’t know if I was ready to have it ripped open all over again. As terrible as the past ten years had been, they were familiar. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to trade them in for a brand-new set of issues and worries.
The police car’s passenger-side door opened and Maureen climbed out, along with the officer in the front seat. Cameras descended like electronic locusts and next to me, I saw my mom grab my dad’s arm. There were tears in both of their eyes. The police did their best to clear a safe path up to Oliver’s front door, but they couldn’t stop the barrage of questions that the reporters began to yell.