The Missing Girl Read online

  He picks up your feet and rubs them on his cheeks. Then he kisses your dirty feet, first one, then the other, and he says, “That’s how much I love you.”

  SUNDAY EVENING: SURE AND POSITIVE AND POSITIVE AND SURE

  WHEN BEAUTY CAME back from her walk around the neighborhood, looking for Autumn, the fricassee she’d made for supper was just about done. She poked her head into her sisters’ bedroom. It was past five and getting dark outside. “Did Autumn say anything to either of you about where she was going?”

  “Not meee,” Fancy sang out. She stabbed a needle into a button she was sewing on one of her stuffed animals.

  Stevie, who was on her knees repacking her duffle again—she’d been at it all day, adding and subtracting items—shook her head.

  “You okay?” Beauty asked, kneeling down next to her.

  “Sure,” Stevie said, giving her a bitter look. Her eyes were all swollen. “I’m just great.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Beauty said, not for the first time.

  Stevie looked at her for a moment, then turned away.

  Beauty stood up. She should be the one going to live with Aunt Bernie. She adjusted to change, to disruption, to everything, more easily than Stevie. For a moment it seemed completely doable. Throw some things into a suitcase, get her records from school, tell the family she was taking Stevie’s place, and—

  But no, it wasn’t that simple. She brought money into the household that the family needed, and what about the way her mother depended on her to watch out for her sisters and to take care of another thousand things. Besides, was she really ready to throw away her graduation, just like that? To be utterly honest, no. Selfishly, no. She had worked for it, she had waited for it too long to sacrifice, even for Stevie.

  “Fancy, come and set the table,” she said, more sharply than she meant to speak. She steered Fancy into the kitchen. “Are you sure Autumn didn’t say anything to you about where she was going?” she asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Positive? Think hard.”

  “I’m positive and sure and sure and positive,” Fancy chanted.

  “Okay, fine.” Beauty tasted the fricassee and added salt, reminding herself again that this wasn’t the first time that Autumn would be late for a meal. Usually it was no big deal, although her mother always fretted, but tonight was different. It would be Stevie’s last meal with the family for months. At least they could all be there for her.

  SUNDAY EVENING: SUPPER’S SERVED

  THE MAN BRINGS you food. The food is on a paper plate, which he sets down on the floor on newspapers. “Your tablecloth,” he says. He’s making a joke. “Go ahead, eat,” he says. “Supper’s served. “

  You look at the newspapers on the floor. You look at the food. Crackers, a hunk of cheese with blue stuff in it, and a wrinkled tomato. How do you know the food isn’t poisoned? For maybe the first time in your life, you have no appetite.

  “Are you going to eat?” the man asks.

  You shake your head.

  He frowns and pulls at his tie. “I’ll leave it for now,” he says, and he opens the door. You catch a glimpse of a cat. “I’m going to have my supper now,” he says, as if it’s something you really want to know. He goes out. He locks the door.

  You’ve never been locked in anywhere. You walk from the door to the window, from the window to the door. It’s like you’re a prisoner. No, you are a prisoner. You’re in jail, and you haven’t even done anything wrong.

  You walk around the room, around and around. It’s like being in a cage, like you’re a hamster. But if you’re a hamster, your brain is a monkey, and it’s going around and around, too. It’s your monkey brain that says, Maybe this is just another story you’re making up and you’re inside it. You want to believe it. But if this is a story, why does your face still smart from his slaps? Why do your wrists still burn like real life? And if this is a story, when do you get the happy ending?

  SUNDAY EVENING: SUPPER’S SERVED

  FANCY MADE A BIG thing out of setting the table, putting the silverware just so, folding the napkins like birds and sticking them in the water glasses, but it was finally done. Mim had emerged from her story stupor, and she made herself useful putting out the bread and butter and finding the grated cheese container, which had been misplaced way in the back of the lowest shelf in the refrigerator. She’d also rounded everyone up, going through the house calling, “Supper. Supper, supper’s served.”

  Now they were all present at the table except Autumn. “Where is that girl?” Blossom fretted. “She knows it’s supper time.”

  “She has no business staying out so late,” Beauty’s father added. He’d showered, and his hair was wet and slicked down. “She’s done this before,” he said, frowning at Blossom. “You have to have a talk with her. You let her get away with too much.”

  Beauty’s mother flushed and said quickly, “I’ve told her a thousand times she’s supposed to be at the table with everyone else. Sometimes she just doesn’t listen.”

  “Dad, you know how she is.” Beauty automatically sprang to Autumn’s defense. “She just gets into a dream and forgets everything. She doesn’t mean to be late.”

  “But she is. I’m going to go look for her,” her father said, pushing away from the table, and he went out.

  While that conversation was going on, Nathan had been telling Stevie that he wanted to make an early start the next morning. “Okay with you?” he asked. She shrugged. “Still not talking to me?” he said. “It’s going to be a long silent trip, darlin’.”

  “Good,” Stevie muttered.

  Beauty had put the fricassee on the table in a large bowl with her mother’s best serving spoon, one of the few really nice things they had. It was silver and had been her grandmother’s. She wanted this meal, Stevie’s last with the family for a long time, to be special. After her father left the table, she was uncertain if they should start eating without him and Autumn, but her mother nodded at her to pass around the bowl. She gave it to Stevie first, who took a single chicken wing and passed the bowl right on to Fancy.

  “I looove fricassee,” Fancy said, and started picking out meatballs and ignoring the chicken wings.

  Beauty looked across the table at Nathan. Had she really said all that stupid stuff about him to Mim? She was such a leaf in the wind when it came to men! At least she hadn’t told Mim who was the object of her desire.

  When the bowl had gone around the table, she covered it with a plate to keep the food warm. Silverware clinked. Stevie got up and went to the sink for a glass of water. Nathan was talking to Blossom.

  Listening for the sound of her father returning with Autumn, Beauty checked the time again. Autumn would be in tears, for sure, sorry for upsetting her Poppy, sorry for upsetting everyone, but sorriest of all for herself. Beauty decided that, for once, Autumn’s tears were not going to soften her into sympathy. She should be here for this meal. Period. No excuses. Sure, she was upset about Stevie, but so were they all. No, no sympathy this time. It was bratty of Autumn to stay out this long, to worry her parents, to draw attention to herself, just plain bratty, and unfair to Stevie.

  SUNDAY EVENING, LATER: WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

  YOU’RE SITTING ON the cot when the man comes back. You’ve put your sneakers back on. You tied them tight. Your feet are flat on the floor.

  He looks at the food you didn’t eat. He clicks his tongue and wraps the food in the newspaper. “Waste not, want not,” he says. “You’ll eat tomorrow morning.”

  You don’t say anything, but you hate the way that he says “tomorrow morning.”

  Then he says it again. “You’ll eat tomorrow morning.”

  Now you understand that he’s asking a question, that he wants an answer, that he wants you to say you’ll eat. You don’t want to talk, so you nod.

  “Good girl,” he says, as if you’re a dog that just learned a new trick. “Lie down now and go to sleep.”

  You shake your head. You don
’t want to lie down. You don’t want to move. You just want to sit there with your feet flat on the floor, and your arms crossed over your belly.

  “Lie down,” he says again.

  Your stomach flutters. “I’m…not sleepy,” you say.

  He gives your shoulders a little shove, and then another. He takes off your sneakers. He took away your stinky socks before. He kisses your feet. He strokes your hair, then your face. You lie there, waiting for him to stop.

  When he leaves, he locks you in again.

  You listen to his footsteps going away. You can hear him going down the stairs. You slip off the cot and pick up your sneakers, and you sit down on the floor, holding them. Not putting them on, just holding them. He told you not to cry, but tears keep leaking out of your eyes. And you’re glad, because those tears belong to you. They’re yours. Your tears. He can’t have them. He can’t touch them. They’re all yours.

  SUNDAY NIGHT, LATE: IT WAS JUST A WALK

  IT’S DARK AND quiet. You slept for a while, but now you’re awake, and for a moment you don’t know where you are or why it’s so dark. Then you remember, and your stomach squeezes up into your throat. You stumble off the cot and half crawl to the bucket, but it smells of your pee, and you don’t even want to throw up in it. You sit on the floor, weeping for a long time, and then you crawl back onto the cot and huddle under the hateful-smelling blankets and try to understand why you’re locked in this room and not home in your own bed.

  Okay, you were mad, you admit it, mad at them all, and you took a walk, but that’s it. It was just a walk. You didn’t do anything wrong. Okay, you should have told Mommy you were going out, you can see that now. You put your hands together under your chin and whisper to God, “If You get me out of this, I promise I’ll never do that again.”

  You wait for an answer, as if God doesn’t have a million other things to do besides worrying about you. Does God know how everything changed so fast? Does God know about the man? You hope so.

  Tears sting your cheeks where he hit you. You close your eyes. You want to sleep. You want to sleep so you can forget the man and where you are and how, when you wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll still be here.

  MONDAY MORNING: FEET FIRST

  IN THE MORNING he stands in the doorway and beckons you to come to him.

  “What?” you say. You hold on to the cot with both hands.

  He crooks his finger. “Come on. Come on over here. Taking a little trip.”

  Your stomach thuds. “Where are we going?”

  “Come on. You’ll see, nosy girl.” His voice is still nice. “Just come on now.”

  You walk toward him. Your legs are shaky. He motions for you to go in front of him. He puts his hands on your shoulders, steers you down the steep, narrow staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, you remember, is a little hall and then the front door.

  The front door. You remember walking through it, following him into this house. It’s that door that stands between you and home. Is he going to open the door? Is he taking you down there to let you go? He’s says he’s a nice man. Maybe, right now, he’s going to prove it to you.

  He squeezes your shoulders, and it hurts a little, but you don’t care because he’s going to let you go. You’re sure of it. Why else would he be taking you down these stairs? You’re almost there now. When he opens the door, you’ll walk through it, onto the porch, down the steps, out to the sidewalk. And then you’ll run.

  Wait.

  If he thinks that you’ll tell on him, that could make him change his mind and not let you go. Okay, you’ll just say to him that you won’t tell. Nobody. On my honor. I promise, no matter what they ask me. I’ll just say I stayed with a nice man for a while when I got lost, okay? Is that good?

  While you’re thinking this, he steers you past the front door and through his living room.

  “Wait,” you say. “I won’t tell.”

  He keeps pushing you along through the room, past a chair and a TV. A cat is sleeping on the floor near the chair. “That’s Harold,” he says, and he pushes you into a bathroom.

  “Wash yourself,” he says. He points to the sink. “Hands, face, feet. Feet first.”

  He hands you a cloth and watches you wash your feet. He watches you wash your hands and face. For a moment, bending over the basin and splashing water on your face, you pretend you’re home, and any moment your sisters will bang on the door and yell at you to hurry up, you aren’t the only one who needs the bathroom.

  “All right, darling, enough,” he says, and he hands you a towel. He tells you to hang the towel on the towel bar. He marches you back up the stairs, back to the room. He locks you in.

  MONDAY AFTERNOON: ANSWER ME

  YOU HEAR SCRATCHING at the door. You lie down on the floor and stick your fingers under the door. “Cat, hello,” you say. “Hello, cat.” You wriggle your fingers. “Are you out there?” You wait, your throat tight. “Cat, cat,” you call, “answer me, cat. Answer me, please!” Your voice rises. “Are you there? Why don’t you answer me?”

  You slump over on your arms. You hate that cat. It’s his. You hate everything that’s his. You hate this room. You hate the cot. You hate the blanket. You hate the pail and the walls and the floor and the window. You hate it all, hate it, hate it.

  You lie there, stretched out. You don’t move. You weigh a thousand pounds. You can never move again. You lie there. You listen to yourself breathing. You listen to the silence of the house. Your eyes are wet and burning.

  MONDAY AFTERNOON: EVERYTHING IS CRAZY

  HELLO! I’M HAVING The Urge because everything is crazy and mixed up. One! No New Hampshire because Stevie my sister screamed at everybody like this, I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE TODAY, YOU CAN’T MAKE ME. Two! Cousin Nathan says he will stay, too. Three! Mommy gave Stevie my sister a slap for screaming and a hug for staying. Four! Poppy says, Don’t worry, Fancy baby, Autumn’ll be back soon. Five! They think I don’t know anything like what disappear means.

  Ha-ha! I know what it means. It means gone, good-bye, invisible, which is a big word, which I can rhyme funny, like invisible, delisible, halisible. I know how to do rhyme stuff, because I am not dumb. I can read. I can read Nancy Drew. I can read Frog and Toad. I can read the funnies. Mrs. Sokolow my teacher says, “Good for you, Fancy, you’re working hard at your reading. I’m proud of you.”

  But today she can’t say, “Good for you, Fancy,” because everybody stays home from school, and that makes me mad as boiling hornets. My family is sooo stupid. Stupid all of them. Stupid Autumn! Why does she disappear? Beauty my sister wiped my mouth that was all spitty, and she said, “Come on, Fancy, cool off. Don’t give me that look, okay? We’re all staying home today. Just be good and don’t get people upset.”

  Right! Best day of the week, Monday, and no school. Right! Mommy doesn’t go to work. Right! Nathan my cousin doesn’t go away to New Hampshire with Stevie my sister. Right! And the telephone is ringing and never stopping. Everything is crazy.

  MONDAY EVENING: ’FESS UP

  THE DOOR OPENS. “Hello,” he says. He’s carrying a chair.

  You’re sitting on the cot. Your feet are on the floor. Your hands are biting into each other.

  He puts down the chair. “Did you miss me?” he asks. “Did you miss me today?” He puts his hands on his hips, and he smiles his half smile at you. “Come on, Autumn, ’fess up.”

  Slowly you shake your head.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” he says, playfully. “You’re teasing me. I know you missed me. Alone here all day? You missed me.” He sits down on the chair and pats his legs. “Come here,” he says. “Come over here and sit with Daddy. Come on,” he says.

  Your heart is going booom booom booom booom. You’re going to have a heart attack. You’re going to die. Will your family ever know what happened to you? You remember all the times you played Dead Person, so you could make up the story of how your sisters and parents would cry and say how much they loved you and how sorry they were for not being
nicer to you.

  “Right here,” he says.

  You sit on his lap.

  He takes off your sneakers. He kisses your feet.

  MONDAY EVENING: IN NATHAN’S TRUCK

  BEAUTY SAT WITH her face pressed to the side window as Nathan slowly steered his pickup truck past the old opera house and over the North Branch bridge.

  “What time is it?” her father asked. He was sitting between them.

  “Seven thirty, Dad,” Beauty said.

  He nodded. They had been driving around Mallory for over an hour. Futile, really. Did they think they’d just come across Autumn strolling down some side street, or waiting for them in front of their school? But they had to do something. It was too awful to go on sitting at home, looking at one another, all of them thinking their own separate, terrible thoughts.

  Beauty sat forward, peering into the darkness, willing herself to believe that nothing awful had happened to her sister, that the child had run away. Which was bad, but not horrendous. After all, how far could she get on foot? That little chub was not an athlete.

  Say she slept in a field last night. Say she realized how silly she’d been. Say they’d find her tonight, maybe on Route 11, walking back toward Mallory, tired, but glad to be found. Say all that, and try to believe it.

  TIMES STAR

  Established 1899 Tuesday morning edition

  * * *

  “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”