Boy Still Missing (26 page)

“She’ll have ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ nailed down by the time she’s one,” Jeanny said. “But it’ll be a bit before she’s discussing politics.”

“Is she going to do anything in the near future?”

“Probably dirty her diaper. Other than that, she’ll cry a lot.”

“You mean all she does is shit and cry?”

“And sleep. She’s still an infant. It’s in the job description.”

Jeanny gave Sophie a peck on the forehead, then told me that I’d miss this stage once the baby started walking and talking. She said that her brothers were sweet when they were infants. She could always tell
what they wanted when they cried. Bottle. Diaper. Crib. That was about the extent of their needs.

I thought of my mother—not the woman in the mirror but the young woman who had given birth to Truman after her first husband had died. She must have felt so hopeless and dazed to agree to hand over her baby like that. I thought of how blinded by happiness she must have been that day on the plane. Happy but scared, like I was now.

“Can I tell you something?” Jeanny said.

I nodded yes, lost in thought about my mother and brother. I still wanted to find Truman—Rand—just for her. Even though he was older now, I pictured him again as one of those flawless rich kids streaming out of that school on the Upper East Side. I wanted him to know how much our mother regretted what she had done, whether he wanted to hear it or not. How much she thought of him, right up until her death.

“I know about your mom,” Jeanny said.

Her words were a pitcher of cold water poured over my head, snapping me to attention. She knew. Just as I suspected. I wanted to say so many things, explain why I was here, but the only thing I could manage was “How?”

“The paper.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling awkward once again. For the first time I noticed a thin slit of a scar beneath Jeanny’s chin. It made me see her as a pigtailed little girl falling off a bike, jumping too high from a swing and crashing to the ground. Bleeding and crying. “And you still came? I mean, it didn’t freak you out?”

Jeanny put her hand on her chin, covering that scar, that image of her as a girl. She told me that after her father died, her mother used to load her and her brothers in the car and drive to the train tracks. “We’d sit there for hours. Crying or staring or thinking. I don’t know. It was a way to be near him. I guessed that maybe it’s the same for you.”

The way she said it made it all sound so normal, uncomplicated.

“Does it feel weird for you to be here?” she asked.

I glanced around the room at the matching nightstands on each side of the bed, the long dresser along the far wall. All of it made from pressed board. Wood that was real but not real at the same time. “Mostly it seems like any other motel room. But I know what happened here.” I kept quiet about my mother in the mirror, because I knew she would think I was crazy.

Then Jeanny asked, “Is Sophie really your sister?”

Another pitcher of water. More startling and cold this time.

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I wanted to fess up to her about the whole story but was afraid of what she might say. In the silence I wondered if it would simply be better to tell her yes and leave it at that.

“It’s just that they didn’t mention her in any of the articles,” Jeanny said. “It seems like they would have. And the way you acted on the bus, it was like you’d never seen the baby before. Plus the way your mom died…” She paused, must have gauged by the look on my face that this line of questioning was making me uncomfortable.

I took a drink and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. If she was going to be here, she had a right to know the truth. I was about to explain everything when there was a knock at the door. The sound made Jeanny jump; the jump made Sophie cry.

“Milkman,” Leon said from outside.

“It’s okay,” I told Jeanny. “I’m expecting a delivery.”

When I opened the door, Leon was standing there with a lifetime supply of Pampers in his arms. Behind him, Special Ed was carrying four bags of groceries.

“What’s he doing here?” I said to Leon. “I told you not to let anyone know about this.”

Leon ignored me. He and Ed made their way through the door and set down the boxes and bags. “Leon Diesel,” he said, sticking his hand out to Jeanny. “I bet you’re the girl from the bus. Dominick told me all about you.”

I cringed. Jeanny shook his hand and said hello, but I got the feeling she was leery of them both. I probably should have warned her that Leon
was going to come by. One of the many warnings on my list. “Nice to meet you,” she said halfheartedly.

“I could ask you the same question about her,” Leon said to me when he let go of her hand.

“But it’s my room. I decide who comes and goes.”

“Relax,” Leon said. “Don’t blow a gasket. I saw Ed hoofing it down the road, so I picked him up. He’s just helping with the supplies. We bought out the baby aisle for you.”

“As if that’s not suspicious, too. You and Ed buying enough diapers to supply the Griffith Hospital nursery for the next decade.”

“You know, Pindle, you’re not sounding very grateful.”

I didn’t say a word to that, because there was no use arguing. Just reached into my pocket and pulled out some money to give him.

“I told you, it’s on the house,” Leon said, holding up his hands.

“Just take it.”

“It’s a gift. Keep the cash and buy yourself a few joints so you can relax.”

I stuck the money in my pocket and walked to the window, peered out from behind the curtain and blankets to make sure he had parked around back. The front lot was empty, so at least he had done something right.

“Would you guys like a slice of pizza?” Jeanny asked.

“No thanks,” Leon said. “We’ve got errands to run.”

“I’ll take one for the road,” Ed said, reaching into the box and grabbing a slice. He picked around for the loose bacon I had pulled off and shoved that in his fat face, too.

“What’s rule number one in my new car?” Leon asked him.

Ed took a bite of the pizza and thought about the question. “No eating?” he said, mouth full.

“Wrong. Rule number one is no farting. Rule number
two
is no eating.”

I glanced at Jeanny, who seemed to be ignoring their circus act. Busy opening a box of Pampers. Diaper duty. If Leon’s and Ed’s idiot zoo personalities didn’t send her running, nothing would.

“I’ll suck it down before we’re even outside,” Ed said. True to his word, the thing was gone in four bites.

“I’ll swing by tomorrow to see if you need anything,” Leon said.

I squinted my eyes and glared at him, which was my way of saying,
Not with Ed, you won’t.

“Don’t worry,” he said, getting my drift. “I’ll come alone.” He waved to Jeanny and told her he’d catch her later. And with that they were out the door.

“Is that guy a dealer?” Jeanny asked the moment the door closed.

“Car dealer?” I said, watching them from the window and playing dumb, though I wasn’t quite sure why.

“Drugs,” she said.

Sophie started to cry again, and I glanced at Jeanny. She had laid the baby down on the bed and was unsnapping her yellow outfit at the legs, getting ready to change her. “I know, little darling,” she cooed to Sophie. “The world isn’t fair. This will all be over in a minute, and you can go back to sleep.”

I turned to the window again and watched Leon’s car drive around front. “What makes you say he’s a drug dealer?” I asked, figuring she was probably right.

“The car. The clothes. The groceries on the house. It doesn’t take a detective to spot the clues.”

As Jeanny spoke, I kept watching Leon’s ’Cuda. Instead of pulling onto the street, he stopped out front and flicked on the inside light. I saw him reach over to the glove compartment and hand something to his new sidekick. Ed took whatever it was and got out of the car, walked back up the stairs toward our room.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Jeanny was saying to Sophie, who was giving one of her big bad cries. “We’re almost done.”

I decided she had to be right. Leon was dealing drugs. I guess it wasn’t so surprising. Still, it seemed funny to me, because I remembered how nervous he’d been the first time he scored a dime bag of pot. Now he was a dealer. Knowing him, he was sending Ed back upstairs with a joint.

I opened the door before he could knock.

“One more thing,” Ed said, taking the package out of his coat and shoving it into my hand. Not drugs at all. But a slim, silver pistol wrapped in a McDonald’s napkin. A box of bullets, too, tucked beneath the Golden Arches. In my head I heard Leon say,

They could come after you.

They could find you here and kill you.

Slit your throat or something.

“Protection,” Ed told me. “Leon said you should have it just in case.”

I had held a gun only once before. And the weight of it in my hand brought back the memory of when my father had come home with a Smith & Wesson he’d won in a card game. I was only nine or ten at the time, but he took me to the junkyard so I could fire it. Just like then, I felt nervous holding the thing. I worried that the piece of metal was something uncontrollable and wild that might fire unexpectedly at any moment. Or that perhaps
I
was something uncontrollable and wild and would have the impulse to pull the trigger at any moment.
Just hold her steady and aim,
my father kept saying that day. I did as he said, but all my targets—a beat-up dresser with missing drawers, a bent bed frame, a clump of dirt with an unidentifiable silver glint—went unscathed. I missed every time.
Because you’re afraid of it
, my father had said.
It’s okay. You’ll learn
. Only he didn’t take the gun out much after that, because my mom hated having it around. And I never learned.

“What is Leon doing with this?” I asked Ed.

“Confiscated it from his mother’s new boyfriend. We’ve been shooting it down at the quarry. Oh, and he asked me to leave you one more bit of protection.” Ed reached into his pocket and pulled out another package, put it in my free hand. Trojans. Ribbed. Lubricated. “Leon wanted me to tell you that we’ve got enough children in the family.”

Behind me, Jeanny was busy with Sophie. I shoved the box into the pocket of my sweatshirt and prayed she hadn’t seen it. The gun I held in my stiff hand along with the bullets. “Tell Leon that I appreciate his concern,” I said and practically slammed the door in Ed’s grinning face.

“Catch you later,” Ed said from outside before clomping down the stairs.

“I hate guns,” Jeanny said when I turned around. “I just want you to know that. I hate them.”

“Me, too,” I told her, wondering if she’d seen the condoms, since she didn’t mention them. “Don’t worry. I’m getting rid of it.”

I looked around the room, holding the dead weight of it and feeling my body tense. I wanted to flush it down the toilet like a deceased pet fish. Toss it out the window. But what if it went off? I walked to the closet, where I planned to stick the pistol on the top shelf until tomorrow, when I would hand it back to Leon or get rid of it for good. That’s when I noticed a door at the back of the closet. I turned the knob and gave it a push. It opened, and I stepped through the closet into another closet, pushed open that door and stepped into the dark of the neighboring motel room. Even in the dim light that came through the closets with me, I could see that the place looked almost identical to 5B, except that the cabin picture was above the bed in here and the paint job and rug weren’t as new.

“Dominick?” Jeanny called, sounding farther away than she really was.

“There’s a door,” I shouted. “It opens to the next room. I’m in here.”

I walked to the back window and looked outside. Directly below me, in the rear parking lot, was a Dumpster. From where I stood I could have pretty easily opened the window and dropped the pistol and bullets down inside of it. And that would be that. But as uncomfortable as I felt holding the gun, something told me I should keep it after all. Not a voice or a sign from my mother. Just my own instinct. After all, who knew what could happen or when I might need it? Just in case, as Leon had said.

I walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Inside was another phone book and a Bible, too. I opened the Bible to a random page and stuck the pistol and bullets inside.

“Just in case,” I said out loud.

The Bible didn’t close all the way, but I shoved it in the drawer,
then walked back through the closets to my room, closing the doors behind me.

“Did you get rid of it?” Jeanny asked. She had finished changing Sophie and was holding her again.

“It’s all gone,” I told her because I didn’t want her to worry. “I opened the window in the next room and dropped it in the Dumpster.”

“Good riddance,” she said.

I glanced at my watch. Ten-thirty already. I thought of Jeanny’s words when I answered the door:
If I’m not home by midnight, I’ll turn into a pumpkin
. The thought of her leaving made me feel lonely. I hated the idea of sleeping here tonight with just me and Sophie, that haunted vision of my mother calling to me.

When Jeanny turned to open her guitar case, I shoved the condoms under the bed. It wasn’t that some part of me didn’t dream of making it with her, because I did feel that way. I mean, she seemed prettier to me by the second. And those small, loose breasts of hers kept catching my eyes. Just being with her made me forget—if only a little—what had become of my life. But it seemed weird to think about sex in the room where my mother had died. And if I was going to be with Jeanny, I wanted it to be perfect. Not like that night with Edie when I had let go in my pants, felt my stomach twist and turn. Besides—not that it made a difference to guys like Leon and my father—but we had only really met that afternoon. As liberated as she was, I doubted Jeanny wanted to go all the way, or even part of the way, with me already.

“Do you take that thing with you everywhere you go?” I asked when Jeanny lifted her guitar out of the case. Beneath the strings the belly of the instrument was a gaping dark hole that opened in my direction.
Ooooooo
, I imagined it endlessly mewling.
Oooooooooooo
.