Further Joy (12 page)

The cops opened a file on Mal, but only because the fact that she was under eighteen forced them to. Pauline admitted there were no signs of struggle at the apartment. The police already had a backlog of violent crimes to work on, violent crimes that had definitely occurred, they told her, with blood and weapons and such. Mal wasn't a native, so they figured she'd wised up and headed home. Putting her on file was all they would do right now.

Pauline didn't have any pictures of Mal, so they used the one from her Florida driver's license, promising to circulate it within the system. They weren't going to come poke around the apartment building, didn't care about the car as of yet. They weren't compelled by Pauline's secondhand description of Tug. Pauline felt surreal at the police station, like she'd entered an old TV show or something, like what everyone was saying had been decided ahead of time. She turned Mal's deflated-looking yellow purse over and the cops accepted it indifferently and found a cardboard box to rest it in. They smiled at her humanely, waiting for her to leave.

There was no extended family Pauline knew of, no one beyond Granny who had passed away. She didn't know the names of the people Mal always talked to on the phone. Pauline called the appliance store where Mal worked, but they didn't have anything to offer, either. The woman who owned the place said they'd been wondering if she was going to show up again or if she'd had enough of retail. The woman seemed amused, like Mal was pulling a stunt. She said Mal reminded her of herself as a kid. She said Mal would always have a place at her store, if she wanted it.

Pauline herself still half expected Mal to clomp up the stairs outside in a new dress and with another offbeat manicure, a knowing smirk lipsticked across her face. The police had told Pauline to let them know if anything changed, if anyone came for the car or anything. That was their line—let them know if anything changed. They told Pauline to continue with her life. They told her that fretting wouldn't help anything.

For the next few days, Pauline ate nothing but the occasional slice of bread. She kept her teapot continually heating and drank cup after cup of peppermint tea. She scoured the balcony floor and the banister, scraping off some mold that was thriving and a battalion of tiny off-white snails. She stole a glance now and again at Mal's unlocked door, knowing it would do no good to venture past it. She almost wanted to lock it again.

Pauline was justified for believing Mal needed guidance, for always wanting to warn the girl about the way she conducted her life, but that validation was only making her feel small and cynical. That's what a realist was: a cynic. They were one and the same. And what was the prize for it, for all the accurate cynicism? Here she was cleaning, killing snails. The world was a perilous place where fun had a price, and what would understanding that get Pauline? Her landlord and the cops and the lady at the furniture store thought nothing bad had happened to Mal, and they were going on with their lives; they were believing what was convenient for them. Pauline had been right, and now she was left to feel hollow and stymied in her prudence.

She went out to the balcony less and less. Being out there only made her miss Mal worse, and she didn't like being next to that damned door. There was nothing behind it but fresh sadness and uncertainty; she wasn't going to find a clue. She didn't want back in that apartment.

Instead she would look out at the balcony from her kitchen and see birds perched on the railing. They didn't want anything to do with the feeder. They would just perch on the rail and look around. Pauline saw more of the big white water birds, strutting aimlessly down below, jabbing around dumbly in the swamps of Central Florida, which they would be allowed to do until they wandered into some redneck's yard and got shot to pieces for fun.

During the day she felt trapped in her own mind, a feeling she wasn't unfamiliar with, but at night she could hear everything, near and far—dogs answering one another across county lines, insistent whippoorwills, the screeching of tires, breezes in leaves and squirrels in branches and frogs in the muck out behind her building. She heard a girl scream, surprised and giddy. She heard fireworks.

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Pauline tried to turn back to her work, something necessary, a duty, but day after day she couldn't concentrate. She would work a half-hour and then lose focus. She'd never had trouble working before. It was something she'd depended on. She'd been an A student and then a model employee. Now she found herself way behind on two separate projects, too far behind to hope to meet her deadlines. She wanted to email the company and tell them what had happened, that a friend of hers had gone missing, but she couldn't bring herself to use Mal as an excuse.

On the morning the first project was due, Pauline took a walk. She left her corner of town and wandered down a two-lane county road she'd never driven. She walked past empty fields dotted with dying trees, a few muddy stockponds. And then she came into a development of some kind, with plain little ranch houses and dogs behind fences. There was a market and a one-room post office. Pauline said good morning to some polite high school kids who were all wearing ball caps and drinking coffee. She went into the store of a gas station and bought a bottle of water, then stepped back out onto the pavement. The sun was shining persistently though the cloud cover; people were cleaning their windshields. A mother yelled at her son because he didn't have shoes on. Music was playing over the gas station speakers, a country song about having fun because you'd worked hard all week. People were making inconsequential decisions, choosing regular or high-octane gasoline, choosing coffee or soda, the
Gainesville Sun
or the
St. Augustine Record
. None of these people knew a thing about Mal, and there were hundreds of missing girls whom Pauline knew nothing about.

Before she went to bed that night, dusk still clinging to the sky, she stood inside her front door and unlocked the deadbolt. She leaned against the wood, her cheek pressed flat. On the other side of this two-inch-thick plank were countless unknown threats, all gaining agency. She slid the bolt in and out of its little nook, listening to the sure sound it made when it dropped into its spot. She turned the lever all the way over, leaving the door unlocked, and backed away. This was the door she should've unlocked
all along, she thought. She went to her bedroom and put on a cotton nightgown, then curled up in her bed and lay there wide awake, sweating under the ceiling fan, listening to the noises outside her window.

The next night she left the door unlocked again. She took a shower with it unlocked, then lay down on her bed in a towel. Mal would have laughed at this, laughed at Pauline thinking she was daring for leaving her door unlocked. Mal would never need to scare herself in such a small, stupid way. When she opened herself up to danger, it was in the name of chasing joy. Her version of it, anyway.

Pauline removed her towel, shimmying it out from underneath her back, and tossed it aside. She felt the air from the fan tickling her skin. She had always acted like Mal's mother, but in truth she'd been envious of the girl. And there was a part of Pauline that was envious even now of the fact that Mal could inspire someone to steal her away, whether against her will or not. Mal had aroused such passion that she was either in a shallow grave or nearly two weeks in on some wild romantic romp. Either way, she'd put a man out of his mind. Either way, a man had irresistibly needed her. Her skinny, pale limbs were flopped haphazardly about her in the ditch she'd been dumped in, or else her limbs were stretched leisurely on the deck of a boat, her body warmer and more alive than ever. She was in the middle of the ocean, cut off from civilization, being adored. Tug would be growing a beard by now. He'd be bringing Mal fruit and running ice cubes down her spine. He would lose his job to stay with her longer. He would lose his family, if he had one. He'd spend his last penny on her, dizzy with desire, wanting her over and over.

Pauline put on some too-short denim shorts she hadn't worn in ages and a snug white tank top, and walked outside into the evening. The air was sticky, the mosquitoes lackadaisical. There were no stars in the sky and the night smelled of moss and car exhaust. Beyond the parking lot there was a sidewalk for a time, running alongside the white-lined thoroughfare she lived on, but instead of continuing that way she crossed the street and cut behind a high-fenced middle school, a couple cars in the lot seeming forgotten or broken down, an athletic field patchy with weeds.
At the far end of the school she walked past a knoll blanketed with cigarette butts, thousands of them. This end of the grounds was unfenced. The land in front of Pauline was haggard and she could see in the failing light that it lowered by degrees down to a retention pond. Beyond the pond was the territory where normal people didn't venture, where the rednecks and recluses still lived by their own rules. She stopped there on the humble vista, hugging herself in the heat, a sheen of sweat glistening on her arms and legs. She looked back in the direction of her apartment building and couldn't make it out. There was a blank spot in the tree line that must've been the strip mall. She wasn't going to be satisfied by walking over to a middle school and walking back home. She didn't want to view the edge of the grid; she wanted to get off it. She started down the mild decline, not feeling bold but not acknowledging fear either, advancing at a mechanical stroll. She skirted the pond on the side with less overgrowth, cautious with her steps. A mosquito buzzed close in her ear and she flapped at it. She could hear a deep croaking that was either a bullfrog or an alligator. One step at a time and she was clear of the pond. She kept going straight and entered a swath of woods that ran alongside a string of slovenly family compounds. She felt hidden. If someone saw her it would seem like she'd been spying. She would seem guilty of something. Her eyes felt darty in the dark. The woods here were strangely dry, palmettos and pine trees, the earth underneath her practically beach sand. She steered herself between the skinny trunks of the pines. The tense voices she heard came from behind screens, from porches and bedrooms. The houses and outbuildings were all bare cinderblock, and there were lesser sheds locked up with heavy chains, disassembled dirt bikes everywhere, no music at all. Pauline tried to find the sand with her footsteps, testing for fallen branches or dry leaves. She could see quick glints of light above her, so she stopped a moment and concentrated, letting her eyes work. She was under a big hardwood tree, an oak probably, and the boughs were hung with metal objects, revolving lazily with the breeze or with gravity. Hubcaps and saw blades. Squares of cut sheet metal. The unexpected beauty ran a shiver through Pauline. She looked all around her, making sure no one was near. In her mind,
Pauline saw the back pages of a newspaper. It would be dated about a month from now, a concise write-up about Pauline and Mal, two more girls gone—neighbors. That detail would make them suspicious. But no: there wouldn't even be a cursory article. There would be an ad in the classifieds for their apartments. That's what would mark their vanishing. She kept herself moving, clearing the last shed, and emerged on an unpaved lane, trying to keep track of where she was so she could find her way home. The weeds on the roadside were thick and high, so she had to walk right down the packed, pale limestone. The houses were hidden back off the road, no mailboxes or street number markers or signs of welcome. The road was empty of traffic for a few minutes, but then a pack of big pickups came along and rumbled past her one by one, harassing her with their growling engines, slowing almost to a stop as they passed, the men in the cabs astonished at her and the pasty, unkempt women looking alarmed and annoyed. Her legs felt so naked now. She tugged on the bottom of her shorts without much effect. She felt even taller than normal, conscious of the way she was forming her steps. Tiny cars with worn shocks trundled by, whole filthy families inside, the children staring wide-eyed at Pauline like she was an apparition. The moon found a spot low in the sky and Pauline could see the yellowish path in front of her feet, winding ahead, winding ahead. She could hear her inner voice telling her it was time to turn back, that she'd done whatever it was she'd wanted to do, but her body had its own momentum. She could hear what sounded like chickens. The air smelled fishy. She went around a sharp bend and came upon three guys working on a dune buggy by lantern, the buggy upside-down, propped on big black bricks. She quickened her pace, a sane reflex that felt all wrong. It felt wrong to show fear, but that's what she was full of. The tall one saw her first and tapped the other two on the chest. They were wearing unlaced boots. One had long thin hair and the other two had bristly crew cuts. One held a wrench, another a pack of cigarettes. They weren't the least bit amused. They were slack-jawed, but with steely eyes. They were wondering, probably, what they were supposed to do about Pauline—
something
had to be done—wondering what the opportune move was for them in this unforeseen scenario. She kept walking, even
faster, trying to keep her arms causal while her legs hurried, passing them by and not looking back, hoping they wouldn't call out to her, hoping she'd be out of sight before their shock wore off.

A telemarketer named Justin called. He was calling from Macon, Georgia. He spoke for several minutes about the pitfalls of the stock market, avoiding any mention of what he was selling. His heart wasn't in it, Pauline could tell. He threw in friendly asides, for example that he liked the name Pauline. He told her that even for young people it was paramount to begin making sound financial plans.