The Missing Girl Read online

  He eliminates her, and he eliminates the stupid one. He just won’t think about them. That’s a relief. It clears matters up. He can concentrate on the other three, which makes everything neater, more orderly. Only three. Funny that he was so delighted at first with five. But everything changes, doesn’t it? That’s the way life is. Nothing stays the same. You can try and try to keep things in order—and he does—but something is inevitably always going to screw it up. Throw a monkey wrench in the works. You have to be clever to stay on your feet, to keep out of the eye of the storm, and he is clever. He’s got everything under control.

  He strides, swinging his arms. An aerobic walk and the delicious murmuring of his mind. The delicious questions. Which one does he like the best? Which one is his favorite? For a while it’s been the small, quiet one, but there isn’t much of her. She’s a skinny thing, the only skinny one among them. Doesn’t appeal.

  So it comes down to the youngest one—he thinks she’s the youngest—with the long brown hair or the sulky-looking one with the fat lips and cute little belly sticking out of her jeans. He goes back and forth in his mind. This one. That one. Hair girl. Belly girl. Which one? It’s only a game. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s only looking, letting his thoughts play, playing with his thoughts. Nothing wrong with that. It gives an interesting flavor to his days, makes him step out of the house each morning with something to look forward to. And during the day, he can think about them, pass the two of them through his mind. All in his mind. Touch her hair. Touch her belly. Which one? Belly Girl or Hair Girl. All in his mind. And it makes the time pass.

  THANK YOU FOR THE NIGHTMARE

  “AUTUMN…AUTUMN…” Someone’s calling you. You try to answer, but your mouth is glued shut, and it’s so stupid not being able to talk that you burst out of your dream. “Whew!” you say into the darkness, joyful at your quick getaway. Then you realize that someone is calling your name. It’s Stevie, leaning over from the top bunk.

  “What’s the matter?” you ask, but you know: Stevie had a nightmare. Every time Stevie has a nightmare, she wakes you up. Not Fancy or Mim or Beauty. Only you. “Want me to come up?” you say, which is what you always say, and you’re already pushing aside the covers and climbing up into her bed. “Was it a really bad nightmare?” you ask, snuggling in next to her and yanking a little at the covers, which she’s hogging as usual.

  “It wasn’t a good nightmare,” she says, and bumps her butt into you for asking such a dumb question. “It was horrible,” she says, “it was raining like crazy, and it was dark, and I saw Poppy on the roof. I could see everything, it was so real. Poppy was wearing those striped overalls with the big pockets? And he was just set to go down the ladder, and then he slipped, his foot slipped right off the ladder.”

  Your stomach is going all yucky, like you want to throw up, like you’re standing there in the rain, too, watching Poppy on the ladder, like it’s not even a dream. You cuddle in closer to Stevie, and you must have fallen asleep for a moment, because the next thing you know, she’s saying, “…wanted to save him, but I couldn’t, I just had to stand there and watch him fall and smash into the ground. He looked dead, he just lay there, he didn’t move.”

  Stevie’s voice goes high, like she’s going to cry, except she never cries. “It was so real. It was raining that afternoon when Poppy fell, remember? I could hear the rain hitting the metal roof. I even saw the color of the roof. Green.”

  You remember that it was still raining two days later, when you all went to look at that green metal roof, Poppy with his neck in a brace and his arm in a sling. Stevie is starting to tell the whole dream again, but quick, before she can get to the dead part, which will make you cry, you know it will, you say, “Stevie! Poppy is okay! He’s getting better. He’s right down the hall with Mommy, in their bed. It was just a dream, Stevie.”

  “I know that, Autumn,” she snaps. “I’m just trying to tell you something, I’m trying to tell you how horrible it was.”

  Now she sounds like herself, ready to bite your head off, and for once you’re glad of it. Your arm is around her waist, and your nose is in her hair, and you say, “Your hair smells really good. Is it a new shampoo?”

  For a moment Stevie doesn’t answer, and you think she’s going to get mad that you changed the subject, but then she says, “Same cheap old stuff that cheap old Mommy always buys. You know the way she squeezes every last drop out of the detergent? The bottle is empty, you know it’s empty, everyone knows it’s empty, but she turns it upside down and squeezes and squeezes, just in case there’s one little drop left.”

  “She does the same thing with the milk,” you say.

  “And the juice,” Stevie says.

  “And the salad oil,” you say.

  “And if you catch her at it,” Stevie says, “she’ll tell you that Grandma told her the most important thing she ever learned.”

  And then, at exactly the same moment, like a perfect chorus, the two of you say it together, just the way Mommy says it, in her hoarse voice: “Waste not, want not!”

  It’s bad to make fun of Mommy, you know you shouldn’t do it, but you squeal with laughter, and just then, when you’re all full of love for Stevie, and all perky and proud that you were so clever in helping her forget her nightmare, just then she says, “Go back to your own bed, you’re sweaty and stinky.”

  “I was going to sleep with you,” you say, and you try to snuggle in closer.

  She gives you a little shove. “I can’t sleep with you puffing in my ear like that.”

  “You didn’t even thank me for the nightmare—”

  “Thank you for the nightmare!” Stevie’s laughing again, but at you, this time. “Thank you, thank you, okay? Go.”

  So you climb back down to your own bed, which is cold now, and you try to get comfortable, but you’re so awake you can’t sleep. Then you hear Stevie snoring away above you, and it’s not fair! You get all teary thinking how Stevie kicked you out of her bed after you were so nice to her, and you decide you’ll never help her with another nightmare, never, ever. And that’s the last thing you remember until morning comes.

  SOMETHING DRASTIC THIS WAY COMES

  THAT DAY WHEN Beauty entered the woods was one of those rare early April days when the temperature suddenly shoots up twenty degrees, and winter briefly turns into spring. Beauty was stealing a couple of hours for herself, a chunk of time free of her job at the florist shop, free of her sisters and her mother’s endless needs. The sun had been in and out all day, and the ice on Newton’s Pond, where Beauty and her sisters skated every winter, was soft. In the coldest months Beauty could walk across the long frozen pond without a thought, but now she went around it and past the boulder that looked like a hunched-over giant. As a child, she had thought nothing in the world could be bigger than that boulder. She patted it and turned into the woods and onto the worn path that led to the top of Farley Mountain.

  Mountain? Not really. Just a hill, although a pretty big hill. A half hour’s climb, and you had a 360-degree view of the countryside. Bears lived here, and stories about them were rampant. A bear coming down into Mallory and knocking on someone’s plate-glass door, bears in pairs rampaging through garbage, bears chasing hikers and sometimes catching them. You could believe the stories or not, but last year, in late summer, a bear had happened upon Beauty—or she had happened upon the bear—when she’d been on this same trail. Maybe she’d cried out. She’d never been exactly sure of what happened, except that she’d barely had time to be scared when the bear turned around and lumbered off.

  “Huh,” her father had said when she came home and told the story, “old Mr. Bear was more scared of you than you was of him.” And he’d reassured her that black bears, the kind that inhabited their woods and hills, were not aggressive. “Pretty harmless,” he said. “Leave ’em alone, and they’ll leave you alone. They sure don’t want to eat you. They favor berries and things like that. Only thing is, you don’t want to meet up with a mama,
that might be another story.”

  Beauty had all this in mind as she moved up the sodden path. The trees were still bare, the bark just beginning to show a reddish tint. All at once the wind came up, and glancing at the sky, she saw thick wads of gray clouds scudding from north to west. The weather was going to change. She wrapped her scarf more securely around her neck and kept moving.

  At the top the sun was shining again, but it was colder up here, windier, too. She stood on a rock and looked out at the immense and distant world. This moment was what she had come for: the radiant sense of being somewhere else, far above and out of and beyond her everyday life, the life that, at one and the same time, held her up and pulled her down. She stood there, buffeted by the wind, her arms wrapped around herself, lost in a dream of the future. Finally she looked at her watch and started back.

  At the base of the hill, she slowed and walked quietly as she approached a small clearing where, at various times, she had seen deer, grouse, and wild turkey. If she saw deer, her father would want to hear about it. It would start him thinking about next fall, when he’d go hunting. His back should be better by then, and—

  The thought was abruptly cut off. People were in the clearing. Two people, a man and a woman, wrapped together, locked in a kiss, the man’s hands around the woman’s bare waist, her hands around his face.

  Wait. Not a man and a woman. A boy and a girl. No, not that, either. A boy and her sister. Her little sister Stevie.

  The hands gripping the boy’s face, as if holding him to her by sheer force, were Stevie’s hands. And the hands that were creeping down the back of Stevie’s jeans were the boy’s hands.

  At once, without thinking, Beauty reversed herself and went running back up the path, not quiet now, nothing in her mind but running from the sight of her little sister passionately kissing the boy, hugging his head, the sight of the boy’s hand down the back of her little sister’s pants.

  That night she lay in bed, wakeful, one arm over her eyes. What a fool she was, believing that she needed no one, that all the painful moments she dragged herself through, and had still to drag herself through, meant nothing. Believing that it was good to hold out to have a real life until she escaped Mallory. Fool. Fool!

  Everything had changed in that moment of seeing her sister wrapped around the boy.

  Stevie—passionate, demanding, infuriating Stevie—who was barely out of childhood, already had what Beauty, on her way to adulthood, had never had, which was—well, what? A relationship? Love? Sex? All of the above? Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  The name and face of Ethan Boswell came into her mind. Something has to change, she thought. Something drastic this way comes. The words hummed in her ears. From a poem, wasn’t it, something that Mr. Giametti had read to them…Mr. Giametti, dear Mr. G who had landed in Mallory like a rocket…She saw that rocket hurtling through space…rocket with tail of fire…rocket running…Odd, she thought, then she was running, leaping into the air, and she was naked, but that was all right, because she was running over the bridge out of Mallory, and now she was in a classroom, and it all made sense, it was all wonderful, she was joyous, laughing, and then someone was kissing her, holding her face tenderly, kissing her, kissing her….

  In the morning she remembered the dream, the kiss. Oh, God. Oh, God. That kiss. It was so sweet. So sweet.

  WALK LIKE A ROBOT

  THE MAN STRAIGHTENS his tie, wipes his lips one more time, and checks to make sure the gas jets are turned off. He locks the door behind him and walks briskly past the empty lot that takes up most of the street. A beautiful day, the blue sky, the trees sparkling from last night’s rain. The air is fresh this morning. He thinks about the girls. His heart quickens in anticipation, but he walks steadily, neither hastening nor slowing his steps. Long ago, someone cruel—one of the many cruel people he’s known in his life—yes, including his father—told him he walked like a robot. The remark hurt his feelings deeply. He couldn’t forget it. He had wiped the name of that boy from his memory, but he remembered the voice, the sneer on the face.

  He pushes away the memory. He prides himself on being rational, not wasting his time on useless memories, on sentiment. He lives an orderly life, a well-regulated life, and now a habitual part of that life is thinking about the girls. Thinking. That’s all he’s doing. No one can accuse him for thinking.

  He hopes to see his two favorites today. The pretty one with the belly has been in the lead for a while, even though her teeth stick out, but last week he heard her yelling at the others. She lost out with him that day. Still and all he likes her and keeps her in his mind, along with the little one with the long hair and the brimming eyes. It’s between those two now. Which one is his favorite? The tantalizing question. Maybe today he’ll make up his mind.

  MISS PRISS

  AS THEY LEFT the house Monday morning, Beauty touched Stevie on the back and said, “Walk with me.” Early she had awakened to the reproachful thought that she was neglectful, so focused on her own dreary little wants and fantasies that she had overlooked the danger her little sister was headed for. She meant to make up for that right now. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

  “And I want to talk to you.” Stevie stomped down the porch steps. “I have a bone to pick with you,” she said as they walked two and three abreast toward Elm Street.

  “Me? A bone to pick with me? About what?” What notion had gotten into Stevie’s mind now? The girl always had some grievance or other hanging about.

  “Me to know, you to find out.” Stevie’s slightly slanted eyes glittered. She flung her scarf tighter around her neck. “You’ll hear. Don’t be in such a hurry.”

  The five of them walked to the corner in a clump, Fancy chattering as usual. It was not quite raining, but the air was wet and heavy, and the trees glistened. The snow was rapidly disappearing, although the icy mounds along the roads remained as dirty as ever from car exhaust.

  “So who goes first?” Beauty said.

  “Me,” Stevie answered like a shot. “Me!”

  “Go ahead, I’m listening,” Beauty said. At the same time she was counting heads: Fancy was right behind her, Autumn and Mim walking ahead. She heard them working on Autumn’s spelling. “Sarcophagus,” Mim said, and Beauty winced as Autumn confidently rattled off, “S-A-RC-U-F-G-U-S!”

  “I saw you,” Stevie said. “I saw you!”

  “What do you mean, saw me? Where? What are you talking about?” But she knew, and her heart set up a frightful clatter.

  “I saw you spying on me.” Stevie’s eyes darkened.

  “Spying? Are you crazy?”

  “Don’t act so innocent. In the park. I saw you. Peeping at me!”

  “Stevie. I was not spying. I was out for a walk, I was coming down from the top of Farley’s, and there you were. I went away. I didn’t hang around! The moment I saw you, I left. Did you see me? Did you see me run away?”

  “Yes, I saw you. That’s why you ran, because I spotted you. How long were you there, spying on me?”

  “Stop it,” Beauty said. “Just stop that. I wasn’t spying. I saw you and…and…what I want to know is, what’s going on with you? We should have a talk about”—she faltered just for a moment—“about sex.”

  “Oh, no way!” Stevie grabbed the straps of her backpack and pulled at them. “I don’t need any talks about that.”

  “He had his hands all over you,” Beauty said. Her ribs ached. Or maybe it was her heart. Did she sound like a horrible, jealous person? “His hands were down your pants.”

  “What’d you do, stand there and take notes?” Stevie said, smiling scornfully.

  Beauty drew in a deep breath and told herself to stop, but could not keep from saying, “What are you doing with him? I’m worried about you. Are you two—”

  “Are we doing it? Gasp,” Stevie mocked. “It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell you, anyway. No, dear sister, Miss Priss, who can’t say screwing, I am not doing it.”

  Was she lying? Ste
vie often lied. “All right,” Beauty said. “I’m glad to hear that, because you’re too young to get going like that. I don’t want you to get into…into…dangerous waters.”

  “How would you even know what’s dangerous?” Stevie said, her eyes gleaming. “You’ve never even had a boyfriend. And in case you forgot, you’re not my mother.”

  “Oh, stop,” Beauty said again, futilely, and she turned around to check on Fancy. “Fancy,” Beauty called. She had stopped to talk to a little black dog. “Come on. You’re going to be late.”

  “What if she is?” Stevie said. “You spoil her. She’s got to learn to take care of herself.”

  Beauty went to Fancy and took her hand. “Come on, honey, there’s not enough time to dawdle.”

  They walked quickly toward the others, who were waiting for them at the corner.

  “I love that dog,” Fancy said. “I kissed her and she kissed me back.”

  “You shouldn’t be kissing strange dogs.”

  “I know that,” Fancy said. “Good for me for knowing that. Mrs. Sokolow my teacher will be proud of me.”

  Traffic was heavy on the corner of Dix Avenue. A cluster of people was waiting at the bus stop across the street. “If it wasn’t for you, we would have been across already,” Stevie said to Fancy. “I better not be late for play rehearsal.”

  Beauty wanted to shush her but decided not to. She didn’t need another fight with Stevie. A man in a gray overcoat and a gray fedora, very old-fashioned looking, stood just behind them, also waiting to cross. Beauty glanced at him for a moment, then turned away. There was a lull in the traffic, and she said, “Okay, let’s go,” and they all crossed, Stevie’s stiff little shoulders in her bright blue jacket leading the way.