The Missing Girl Page 8

  THE KIDNAPPER

  SATURDAY MORNING you’re watching out your bedroom window when a red pickup truck stops in front of the house, and the kidnapper emerges. A short, compact man, he looks up and down the street. He’s wearing jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He yawns and stretches, lifting his arms and rotating his shoulders.

  You’re leaning on your elbows, your chin in your hands, and you stare at him and stare at him. You see that his arms have lots of muscles. You see that his black hair is slicked back and shiny, and even from up here you can see the dimple in his chin. Maybe some people would think he’s handsome, maybe you even think so, but you hate him, anyway, because that’s him, the Nathan cousin from New Hampshire, the one who’s going to take away Stevie, but still you’re a little bit proud that you’re the first one in the family to see him.

  Fancy crowds you aside, so she can see out the window, too. “Who is that boy, who is he? Oooh, oooh, he’s pretty.”

  “Boys aren’t pretty,” you say.

  “Oh, I love him, he’s so pretty, look at his hair. I’m going to marry him and have babies.”

  “Stop being stupid,” you say. “You’re not going to marry anybody.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire, I am too going to marry somebody,” Fancy says. “This lady came and said we have to learn about marrying and kisses and things like that, because we are same as everyone like about love and stuff, but we don’t want to get in trouble, so we have to learn things about boyfriends and be super-super-super-duper careful.”

  You watch as the cousin reaches into the truck and pulls out a duffle bag. He slings it over his shoulder, and then, as if he knows you’re up there spying on him, he tilts his head back and looks right up at you, and he waves.

  You want to duck or fall down or something, but Fancy is still talking in your ear, and then she says, “Are you listening to me?” And she pinches you on the arm.

  Your eyes fill with tears, even though it wasn’t a really hard pinch, and you wish that Mommy’s cousin would get back in his truck, get in there right now and drive away and never come back. It’s true that sometimes you hate Stevie so much that you make up stories in your mind where she falls into the river or gets lost in the woods or smooshed by one of the big trucks carrying logs, but you always make the stories turn out happy. You’re the one who pulls her out of the river, you find her in the woods, you save her just before the truck runs her over. And you never, ever lend her out.

  No matter what Mommy says about Stevie going to New Hampshire, or how Poppy tries to make it sound like something good, the way you think of it, Nathan Men and is here to kidnap Stevie, to take her away to New Hampshire, and who knows if you’ll ever see her again.

  THINGS SHE DIDN’T KNOW

  “MIM,” BEAUTY SAID. “Mim? Hello?”

  Her sister, asleep in the next bed, shifted slightly, only her neat profile showing above the quilt pulled up around her head. Beauty watched her, willing her awake. The waxing moon, almost full, shone brilliantly through the window, and by its light she checked the time on the little clock near her bed. Two A.M. It was already Sunday. She had shut off the light around eleven last night, or was it closer to midnight? Whatever, she hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about her object of desire, Cousin Nathan.

  She had almost lost the power of speech when she met him. It was that gaze he turned on her, as if he was seeing the real Beauty, the one inside her skin. He had held her hand in his paw—big hands for a small man—for a long moment, then nodded as if he knew something about her that no one else knew. And it happened again. She fell! Or maybe it was Nathan who fell—into the space in her heart vacated by Ethan.

  Wasn’t it wild! Only a few days ago, she’d had this mammoth crush on Ethan, and now it was Nathan. Maybe not so wild. Those fifteen minutes in Ethan’s car Friday night after the movie had flattened her. That painful moment when he could have kissed her—and, instead, had turned away—had restored her to her senses, to her sense of who she was…and who she wasn’t.

  Supposing Nathan—Cousin Nathan, she reminded herself, tucking her hands between her thighs—supposing he decided to stay for a few more days? Supposing he liked her? Loved her. He had worked, traveled, seen things, been places—all the things she longed for, for herself. He was older, but she didn’t care. He was her cousin, but she didn’t care about that, either, or that he’d be gone tomorrow morning. It was all fantasy, anyway, which was the history of her life. She must have made some sound. Mim woke up. “Beauty,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m just crazy tonight. Go back to sleep.”

  Mim yawned. “What time is it?”

  “About two.”

  Mim reached for the bottle of water she kept on the floor. “Wow, look at the moon.”

  “I know, it’s beautiful. Mim…do you have a boyfriend?”

  “You know I don’t.” She yawned again.

  “But you’re so cute, I bet there are plenty of boys who—”

  “Maybe, but I’m not interested.”

  How was that possible? Beauty was interested; she’d always been interested. She’d been thinking about boys, looking at them, in love with them, since she was six years old. “There’s no one you especially like, no, uh, object of desire?”

  “Object of desire.” Mim laughed and pulled the quilt around her shoulders. “I didn’t say that.”

  Ah, that was better. “Would you tell him? I mean, would you, uh, declare yourself to him?”

  “Declare myself—maybe. What about you?”

  “I have, once. And now I—hmm, I—oh, well…” She wasn’t quite ready to confess. “Would you not do it, Mim, because girls don’t? Or shouldn’t? Or because you’re too shy—”

  “No, no, and no. If I wanted to, if I thought the time was right or something like that, I would.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Is he too old?” Now Beauty approached the subject she really wanted to talk about.

  “No.”

  “Is he unavailable for other reasons?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I would tell her if I thought she felt the same way.”

  “Her?” Beauty said. “Oh. Her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Beauty lay back on the bed, her hands on top of her head, Nathan forgotten, as she took in this new information, took in how ignorant she had been of Mim’s real self. It had never occurred to her that there were things she didn’t know about her sisters.

  “Well,” she said finally. “Okay. So, who is she?”

  “It’s just someone…someone in school.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is she, uh, like, uh—”

  Mim reached between the beds and shook Beauty’s arm. “You can say the L word. It won’t burn your tongue. Yes, I think she is. Beauty, you won’t tell anyone—especially not Mom and Dad. I’m not ashamed or anything, but here—Mallory, you know what I mean.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I think so.”

  “How do you know? How do you know it’s the real thing? I get these crushes…”

  Mim hunched over her knees. “The real thing—what is that, anyway? Maybe I’m just wishing it is, because…it’s lonely—” Her voice caught.

  Beauty pushed aside her covers and went to sit beside Mim. She had so many little sisters and the other three took so much attention that she often just forgot about Mim. She was the one who always seemed okay, but now here she sat, her knees up defensively.

  “Are you sad, honey?”

  “Not just for me. It’s Stevie. It’s the worst thing that ever happened in our family. Dad is so—”

  “Stubborn,” Beauty supplied. “He’s a mule. Stevie’s kind of a pain in the butt for everybody, but she’s our sister.” She sighe
d. “And now, you and I, we’re both in unrequited love.”

  “You, too?” Mim said, and she sounded a little surprised.

  “Well, not with a girl.”

  “Oh,” Mim said. “Oh, okay.”

  “I think we should just have a big crying jag and get it over with.”

  “Waaaa!” Mim mocked, and they both laughed.

  It was the next day when they cried. Cried harder than they’d ever cried in their lives.

  COUSIN DARLIN’

  SUNDAYS, BEAUTY WAS in the habit of giving her mother a break from the cooking. So mid-morning, she was at the stove, making pancakes for the family brunch, when Nathan came dancing into the kitchen. She smelled him before she saw him, that strong, beautiful man-smell of sweat. She turned to look at him. He was glowing, raising his arms and dancing triumphantly. “I had me a run. Five miles, folks.”

  Beauty’s father, who was sitting at the table repairing a toaster, made a barking sound. “You’re too skinny.”

  Their first amiable meeting had not let down deep roots. Although Huddle had called this whole scenario into being, he seemed to resent Nathan’s presence, but Nathan either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Or, Beauty thought, he was one damn good actor, but didn’t care was her guess.

  “When are you going to start running, Beauty?” Nathan said.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She turned back to the stove and flipped a pancake onto the stack she intended to keep warm in the oven. “Maybe pretty soon I’ll start,” she added untruthfully.

  “How about tomorrow morning?”

  She shook her head. “Tomorrow morning won’t be good. I have to go, uh, somewhere.” She didn’t want to say school, didn’t want him to think of her that way, as a schoolgirl. She stirred the pancake mix furiously. Stupid of her.

  “Where’d you get that toaster, Poppy?” Nathan bent over Huddle’s shoulder. Within the first hour of arriving, Nathan had taken up Autumn and Fancy’s names for their parents as if he were one of the kids. Beauty glanced at him. He was almost the same age as her mother.

  “That toaster is a little beauty,” he said admiringly, and gave Beauty a quick look.

  “It’s the old-fashioned kind,” Beauty said, flushing.

  “That’s right,” he said, “two slots for bread and no other functions.”

  “Got it in a thrift shop,” Beauty’s father said without looking up. His tools were scattered all over the table—the screwdrivers, a utility knife, a roll of colored tape, and a loop of copper wire. “Three bucks,” he said, “and it works like a charm. I just have to replace the cord. Then I can sell it for seven, eight dollars.”

  Nathan nodded. “Nice, very nice. You’re a thinking man. It’s great to have your own business, isn’t it? I’m still working for someone else.”

  “Something’s burning,” her mother yelled from the back shed, where she was hanging laundry on the clothes rack. “Beauty. What’s burning?”

  “Nothing, Mom. It’s all right.” She turned the fire down under the pancake grill. In fact, the pancake in the middle of the grill was singed around the edges. Nathan reached around Beauty and took one off the stack. “Wait. I’m going to warm them,” she said.

  “I know that, cousin, darlin’,” he said, “but I’m so hungry, I could take a bite out of you.”

  She blushed again, but said, briskly, as if she couldn’t feel the heat of him behind her, “Get yourself a slice of bread.”

  “Will do,” he said, and moved away.

  She grabbed her stirring hand by the wrist to keep it from shaking and stirred the remainder of the pancake batter long past the moment when she could have stopped.

  RUNNING AWAY TO FLORIDA

  LYING ON YOUR bed, you’re reading a comic book, waiting for the pancakes to be ready, and trying as hard as you can to ignore Stevie, who’s on her bunk bed above you, being really noisy, making all kinds of grunts and groans and weird sounds, bouncing around from one side of the bed to the other. You could get out your bike and take a ride, but you’re chillin’, like Stevie says when she’s in a good mood, which is definitely not today, because she’s so freaked about going away tomorrow morning.

  You totally understand. You’re not in a good mood, either, sort of for the same reason. Last night the loud voices downstairs, where your parents were arguing and talking and going on about Stevie and money and jobs and other stuff like that, kept you awake for hours. When you couldn’t stand it anymore, you went downstairs and stood in the kitchen doorway, where they could see you, and said, “Hey.” But no one even noticed you were there. “Hey,” you said again, and they still didn’t notice you, so you went back to bed, but you didn’t fall asleep right away, and that’s why you’re a little cranky right now.

  Stevie is kicking her legs so hard on the mattress, you think she’s going to kick right through it and land on top of you. “Hey,” you say. You don’t say it in a mean, mad way, like you said last night to the grown-ups, you say it just nice, but she doesn’t answer. So you say it again, louder. “Hey, Stevie?” You know she heard you, because she kicks even harder, but she still doesn’t answer. Kicking is so ridiculous! She’s fourteen years old, she shouldn’t be kicking like a baby. Still, you’d be mad, too, if Mommy and Poppy were lending you to someone. You don’t think they ever would do that, because you’re the youngest and, like your sisters are always saying, sort of spoiled and Mommy’s favorite.

  But then something occurs to you. How can you be positive that they would never lend you away? Maybe they would do it. Poppy said it, didn’t he? He said—and now you think for a moment, and then you’ve got it. He said he’d lend all of you, if he got half a chance. He didn’t say he’d lend all of you except Autumn.

  Thinking about this gives your stomach that cold, nasty feeling, like the times in the car when you think you’re going to throw up, but you don’t, and then it’s even worse than if you did throw up and got it over with. You sit up and, all at once, your eyes are wet and your throat is tight, and you think you’re going to start crying right then and there. “Stevie,” you say, but before you can get another word out, Stevie yells, “Don’t say my name. I didn’t give you permission.”

  You feel like yelling at her that she’s mean and selfish, but then you see the duffle bag on the floor, stuffed with all her clothes and earrings and her elephant with one ear that she sleeps with, and you think how this is going to be the last night for a long, long time that she’ll be sleeping in the bunk bed over you. And that makes you be like Stevie and hate them all. You wish you could wash out their mouths with soap, like Mommy is always saying she’ll do to you if you say the F-word or the A-word.

  “Hey, Stevie,” you say, “I don’t want you to go away with Cousin Nathan. I’ll miss you too much.”

  For a moment she stops thrashing, like she’s thinking about what you said. Then she leans over the side of the bed and says, as mean as mean can be, “Shut up, and don’t talk to me.”

  “It’s not me,” you say. “I’m not sending you away, I’m not lending you.”

  “I told you, shut up,” she says in a weird voice, “I hate you all,” and you wonder if she’s going to cry. She never cries. She’s always calling you a crybaby, snivel-snot nose, and other names like that. You thump your legs. She doesn’t even care that you said something nice to her. You’re mad! And sort of mixed up, too, sort of crazy feeling. It makes you want to scratch your face all over, but if you do that, Mommy will yell at you that you’re ruining your beautiful skin.

  You don’t know what to do, so you get up and go outside, and you still don’t know what to do. You think about going back in and eating pancakes, which should be ready pretty soon, but you’re just too mad at everybody, so you start walking, and you think about running away from home. Maybe you and Stevie could run away to Florida or someplace nice like that, and she wouldn’t have to go to New Hampshire, and she’d probably love you a lot for saving her.

  You walk for a long time, making up
the story about going to Florida with Stevie, and after a while you look around, and you’re on a street you don’t know. It’s called Elm Street, and it’s mostly just houses like your street, but not as many, and you keep walking, and then you’re on another street, you didn’t notice the name or maybe there isn’t even a street sign. There’re only a couple of houses way down on the other end of the street, and everything else is mostly bushes and trash and junk. Well, not really junk—weeds, which aren’t really bad things, like some people think. Poppy taught you the names of a lot of weeds, not just dandelions, which everyone knows. He taught you mustard and wild onion and that tall one with the reddish kind of leaves called dock, and Japanese knotweed, and he said you could eat a lot of that stuff in the springtime, including dandelion leaves.

  You decide to spell dandelion. Mim told you to try spelling all the hard words. She said if you do that, after a while, it gets lots easier. So you stop walking to concentrate, and you say, “Dandelion. D-A-N-D-A-L-I-O-N.” Wait. Is it an A or an E after the dand part? You try again. “Dandelion. D-A-N-D-E-L-I-O-N.” Both ways sound right to you. Rats! You don’t want to think about it anymore.

  You squat down in the empty field and you hug your knees and look at the things that are growing right along with all the trash, the beer bottles and the sticky papers and some awful reddish gloop, which you don’t even want to know what it is. You squat there for a while, watching a bunch of ants rushing around, and thinking that when Poppy is feeling good again, he’ll show you more stuff about nature and plants. He could spell dandelion for you, too.

  It’s getting sort of windy, though, and a little bit dark in the sky, like it might rain, and now you notice that you’re hungry, really hungry. It must be way past Sunday brunch time. You missed the pancakes, and now you’re sorry, and you’re ready to go home, but you’ve lost track of the streets. You’re not exactly lost, but you’re not exactly sure how to get home, either. You need to ask somebody.