Missing Pieces Read online

“Oh, yeah? Okay, well, nice talking to you. Like I say, I have to go now.”

  “Wait, wait! Excuse me, do you think we could talk again?”

  “Sure. Why not? Give me a call some other time.”

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll call you again.”

  I’d done it. I’d found someone related to James Wells, and it had been so ordinary. No rockets, no gun salutes, no screams. No information, either. Jimmy. Not James. That was my big revelation.

  The moon shining into my window woke me. I was thirsty and got out of bed and drank from the faucet in the bathroom. I heard a noise in the front hall. The house was dark but light, full of shadows, everything outlined. I saw Aunt Zis, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, standing in front of the open front door. Her face was raised, and she seemed to be listening to something.

  “Aunt Zis?” I whispered. I was afraid she was sleepwalking; I was afraid to startle her. I saw the moon like a white heart in the sky.

  She slowly turned her head and looked at me. “We’re living in dangerous times, Jessie,” she said.

  Cold air flowed over my feet. I put my arm around my aunt and held the small bones tightly. Did she know what she was saying? Was it the bus stop again? Gradually, sounds attached themselves to the still night. Sirens. Dogs. A deep city hum. “Should I close the door now, Aunt Zis?” I said. She was shivering. She let me guide her back to her room.

  “Is this an emergency?” Mrs. Kriney, the school secretary, said.

  “Well … sort of. My aunt’s home alone. I want to check up on her. She’s old, Mrs. Kriney, eighty-three.”

  “Don’t look at me like it’s my fault.” She pushed her glasses up on her hair with long red-painted fingernails. “You know the rules, Jessie. Students are not to use office phones except in cases of genuine emergency.”

  “Last week, she got lost in a parking lot.”

  Mrs. Kriney put on her glasses again to peer at me.

  “In the mall.” I made a desperate face. “I know it sounds funny, but it isn’t, Mrs. Kriney.”

  If she didn’t let me use the phone, I’d run up the street to the variety store, call from the booth there, and if Aunt Zis didn’t answer, I’d—well, what would I do? Call the police? And say what? My aunt was looking at the moon last night, and now I can’t stop worrying about her.

  Mrs. Kriney pushed the phone across the counter. “Go ahead.”

  I gave her a grateful smile and dialed quickly. When Aunt Zis answered, she said, “Where are you, Jessie? Why are you calling home? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  “I am, Aunt Zis. I was eating lunch, and all of a sudden I had a yen to hear your voice.”

  “Why in the world?”

  “I was thinking about you. I just wanted to know that you were okay.”

  “What are you talking about, Jessie?”

  “Well, since that afternoon you got lost in the parking—”

  “Lost?” she interrupted. “I’ve never been lost in my life.”

  “Aunt Zis, at the mall. That nice man—Victor Perl—”

  “Who?”

  “Aunt Zis, you were talking to him. He kissed your hand, he said you were a lovely lady.”

  “That’s quite a story,” she said. Her voice trembled. “I don’t want to talk about it now.” She hung up.

  I walked slowly back to the cafeteria. What had I just done? Nothing good. Reassured myself and upset Aunt Zis. When things disappear from your life, whether it’s a father or your memory, maybe you don’t want to be reminded of it by other people. Maybe you just want to keep it to yourself, and if you can think about it, maybe you want to do that in silence, on your own terms.

  FIFTEEN

  Red Flags and Green Garbage Bags

  “Just by walking a few hours and picking up junk, you can do great things for the environment,” I said to my mother. Diane and Meadow had both turned me down already.

  “Love to, honestly, sweetie, but my feet …” She pulled into the parking lot where the Save-the-County Walk was starting. A crowd had already gathered, and a woman in a baseball cap was talking through a bullhorn.

  I got out of the car, then lingered, leaning into the window. “Ma, if your cousin gets married, what’s the person he marries to you?”

  “Cousin by marriage.”

  “What’re his kids?”

  “Also your cousins.”

  “Cool. You get more relatives by marriage. Very cool.”

  My mother laughed. “Depends what kind of relatives they are.”

  “Yeah. That’s true.”

  When I’d called Dennis Wells again, I got his wife, who had decided I was selling something. “My husband is a busy man,” she said before I could explain, “he’s a police sergeant, and he works too hard to be bothered. Let me tell you, you’ll be the one who ends up doing the buying. Tickets to the Policemen’s Ball.”

  I watched my mother drive away. I hadn’t told her about Dennis Wells yet. So I had a secret, and that was uncomfortable. We’d never had secrets from each other; even when I was little, she told me everything. She would even ask my opinion about changing jobs.

  People were milling around, waiting for their team assignment. I was teamed up with a white-haired man with big square teeth, a boy in tiger-striped overalls and a camouflage hat pulled down low, and an older couple wearing identical denim outfits.

  “Last year my team tagged twenty-two tires,” the white-haired man said. He and the older couple drifted to the other side of the road. That left me and the boy in the camouflage hat.

  I started the conversation. “I heard there are two hundred fifty people on this walk today.”

  He nodded.

  “Some people probably think that’s a lot.” I picked up some slimy plastic. “Two hundred fifty, out of a quarter of a million in the county. That’s pretty pathetic. You’d think a few more would want to save it.”

  He nodded again.

  I went into the flattened grass for a beer bottle. There was something gratifying about doing this. It was the same sort of feeling I had when I cleaned my room after a long time of letting it go. I’d throw things out, arrange all my books and stuffed animals, fold every sock, and hang up every pair of jeans.

  “I think I might have a vocation for this,” I said to the boy. “Seriously, what do you think about me being a sanitation worker?”

  He looked at me from under the camouflage cap.

  “I’d like driving one of those big rigs. Did you ever see a woman drive one? I haven’t. It’s about time. Those guys make good money.” I must have heard my mother say that a hundred times, and another hundred times that she wished she made even half as much.

  “I’d get strong lifting those big cans, and you get plenty of fresh air. How can you beat that?”

  He kept staring at me. At first I’d been glad there was someone near my age on the team, but the longer he was silent the more I wished I was on the other side of the road. The adults were talking nonstop.

  I decided to be quiet for a while. When I couldn’t stand the silence for another moment, I started again. “This is my third year doing this.”

  “Wow,” he managed to say. That was progress.

  “And it always rains. Even though the sun is shining now, take my word for it, it’s going to rain before the day is over.”

  “Yeah?”

  What a fascinating conversation. “How about you?” I asked.

  He sort of jumped. “What about me?”

  “How many years have you been going on this walk?”

  “First time.”

  “It’s worth it for the T-shirt.”

  He laughed. It wasn’t that funny, but at least he got the joke.

  We kept cleaning the roadside. Just as I was ready to break the silence again, he said, “Know what this is?” He held up a big plastic ball with a spout that he’d picked out of the ditch.

  “Mutated beach ball,” I guessed.

  “Party ball.”

&
nbsp; “What?”

  “Beer ball. Holds two gallons.” He jiggled it so I could hear the leftover beer sloshing. He threw it down and flattened it with his heel.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “They’re fun. Instead of a six-pack, you have a party ball.”

  “I don’t admire people getting drunk.” He stared at me. “Why do people even drink?” I said. “Don’t answer, I know. What’s fun about getting wasted, smashed, sloshed, and acting like a fool? My aunt is a strict teetotaler, and so am I.” I don’t know why I said that. Just to be dramatic, I suppose.

  I rolled a tire toward the road and red-flagged it for the truck that would follow us. I felt the boy’s eyes on me. He probably thought I was some sort of fanatic.

  “One tenth of one percent,” he said suddenly.

  It was my turn to stare.

  “Two hundred fifty people on this walk is one tenth of one percent of the population in the county,” he explained.

  “You did that in your head? I’m impressed.”

  “I’m going to be a sanitary engineer. Math is useful.”

  “Cesspools?”

  “Not just cesspools.” His face was red.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Engineering is great. But don’t you think structural engineering, bridges and things like that, would be better? Useful and beautiful.”

  We bent down to clean up broken glass. We were nose to nose. “Some eyebrows you have!” he said.

  “They’re mine.”

  “I like them.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  We walked again. “I have this idea,” he said, “that the earth is like a house with a lot of rooms.”

  I looked at him. “How interesting.”

  “Humans are like the family that lives in the house, but they don’t do a good job keeping it clean. Which is bad.”

  “I know.”

  I knew something else, too. I was only surprised I hadn’t figured it out sooner. But then I’d only seen him once, and he did look different in overalls and a cap than in gym shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt.

  “The world as a house,” I said. “My language arts teacher would like that analogy.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Her. Sure. Maybe I’ll get extra credit. No, no, no, that wouldn’t be honest. It’s your idea. Aren’t you proud of thinking of such a good idea?” I couldn’t resist. “That’s so smart of you.”

  His big face was pinker than ever.

  Oh, why torture him? “You know, we’ve met before,” I said. Maybe just a little torture.

  “Are you in one of my classes?”

  “Wouldn’t you remember me if I was, Jack?”

  “You know my name!”

  I relented. “I saw you at the clubhouse.”

  “Working out on the machines?” He sounded hopeful.

  I raised one of the eyebrows that awed him. “Oh man, watching hunks on machines is not one of my preferred pastimes.”

  “You’re so cute. What’s your name?”

  “Jessie Wells. Quick, what’s yours? Never mind. Just testing.” I knotted my plastic bag and dragged it over to the side of the road. “Jack, how’d you get that great idea about the earth being a house?”

  “Well, uh, someone told me. My, uh, girlfriend. That is, uh, this girl I talk to on the phone.”

  I snapped open a fresh plastic bag and, as I did, the truth about Jack Kettle was revealed to me. He was not just a bunch of bulging muscles. He was sweet, smart, and, when put to the test, definitely honest. And then something else occurred to me: I liked him. I liked him a lot.

  SIXTEEN

  Flecks of Paint

  “I don’t think Zis has been eating breakfast,” my mother said. She picked up her cigarette pack and lighter. “If she gets any skinnier, she’ll disappear. Before you go to school, shove some food under her nose and say, Eat! And make sure she does, because I can’t. When I walk out of here, I can’t keep track of who’s doing what.”

  I parked my face guiltily in my cup. I still hadn’t told her about Dennis Wells. It was like not telling Meadow about Jack Kettle. I kept thinking I’d get around to it, but half the week had passed, and I hadn’t said a word.

  “I’ll take care of Aunt Zis,” I said.

  “Thanks, sweetie.” She kissed the top of my head.

  “Aunt Zis, I put some toast and cottage cheese out on the table for you.”

  “Why?” She was fastening on a pair of small pearl earrings.

  “For your breakfast.”

  “Do we have strawberries?”

  “Just strawberry jam. You have to eat, Aunt Zis. Okay?”

  “What do you mean, I have to eat? Everyone has to eat.”

  “You have to eat breakfast is what I mean.”

  She took off the pearl earrings and put on another pair, tiny gold hoops. “Did you eat breakfast?”

  “Yes!”

  “What did you eat?” she demanded.

  “Cornflakes and milk.”

  “Good,” she said.

  While Aunt Zis was eating, I called the Public Safety building. I had never phoned the police before, and when I asked for Sergeant Wells, I had another stab of guilt, as if the cop on the other end of the line knew I was doing things behind my mother’s back.

  “Hold on,” she said.

  There was a long silence. Then I heard his voice. “Hello?”

  “Sergeant Wells? This is Jessie. Jessie Wells. I called you the other day.” He didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t remember me. “I’m James Wells’s daughter.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You said we could talk when you had time. So I thought if you told me when that would be—”

  “Now,” he said.

  “Now? Great.” I jumped up. I couldn’t sit still.

  “What do you want to know, Jessie?”

  I walked back and forth, pulling the phone cord after me. What did I want to know? “Anything,” I blurted. “James Wells is your cousin?”

  “Second cousin. Our fathers were first cousins. They had the same grandfather, Hubert Wells, an old farmer.”

  “Did you and James live near each other?”

  “No, no. City boy and country boy.”

  “He was the city boy?”

  “Me! He lived in the country. Hated it. Couldn’t wait to get out of Hicksville.”

  “He lived in a place called Hicksville?”

  “No, that’s what he called it. He lived in Myrtle.”

  “Is that up north?” Once, on the way to the St. Lawrence, we had gone off Route 81 there, looking for a bathroom.

  “Yeah, cow town. You can smell the manure. Two houses, twenty-five barns, and a bar, that’s Myrtle. Jimmy got out of there when he was sixteen.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “West. Wyoming, I think. What’s the cowboy state? Maybe it was Montana. He was back here a few years later, hung around for a while, and took off again. Another two, three years, he comes back for a year or so. Then, what do you know, he’s gone again.”

  That must have been when he left us, I thought. “What was he like?”

  “Jimmy? I’ve been telling you.”

  He hadn’t told me enough. He’d given me two words when I wanted ten … ten when I wanted twenty … twenty when I wanted a hundred. It was as if he had a painting hidden behind his back and he’d said I could see it, but then he only showed me a measly few flecks of paint scraped from the canvas.

  “I mean, what was he like as a person, not just where he lived or went to school.”

  “What do the kids say today? An attitude. That was Jimmy, he had an attitude. Always wanted you to know he was as good as anybody. Better.”

  “Was he smart? Was he a good athlete? Was he—”

  “Too smart for his own good. The kid had nothing, less than nothing, zero, but he went around like he owned the world.”

  “He had pride,”
I said. I had the phone pressed to my ear, trying to absorb everything Dennis Wells was saying. “Do you ever hear from him?”

  “I don’t hear from my own brother, why would I hear from him? For all I know, he’s dead.”

  “What? I don’t think so,” I exclaimed.

  Death was too passive a state for James Wells. He was the man in motion. Always walking out the door, always leaving, always getting behind the wheel of a car and driving away. James Wells, dead? No, I couldn’t believe that.

  Just for a moment, though, I pictured him in a grave, hands folded on his chest, clods of earth piled around the deep hole. But when, once more, I tried to see his face, all I saw was darkness.

  SEVENTEEN

  Things Too Numerous to Mention

  After school I walked home with Meadow. It was raining, and I got under her red umbrella with her.

  “Is your family project done?” she asked. “I finished mine last night.”

  “Great.” Was this the time to bring up the subject of Jack Kettle? He’d called me the night before and we’d stayed on the phone over an hour. How was I going to explain that to Meadow? “You’re doing an oral report?” I asked. My voice struck me as too cheerful. The voice of a hypocrite.

  “I’m doing a visual on Thomas Borden Hayes, who was our mayor fifty years ago,” Meadow said. “Two buildings, a school, and a street are named after him. I’m related on my father’s side. His mother was a Borden. I’m going to use the overhead projector and show old pictures of the city.”

  “Great.”

  “My mother took me to the historical society to do my research. I have one picture you’re going to love, Jessie, of trolley tracks running down Seneca Street.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “What about you? You know, it’s due two weeks from Monday.”

  “Yeah,” I said calmly, but my heart took a jump. I stuck my hand out to test the rain. “Nothing to tell, Med. I don’t even have an idea yet. Maybe I won’t do anything.”

  “You’re going to take a failing mark? Why?”

  Good question. Why did I do or not do anything? Why hadn’t I worked on the project all these weeks? Why hadn’t I told Meadow about Jack Kettle? Were those choices I’d made, or did I just let things happen? The way James Wells must have let things happen. Walking out the door … getting in the car … driving away … So much easier to just keep going, not stop, not think about difficult things.