Half In Love With Death (18 page)

Dad stepped back. “Nothing. My coffee's cold.” He refilled his cup. I held my breath.

As he sat back down, Mom said, “No, really, what is wrong with you?”

He looked at her over the rim of his mug. “What are you talking about?”

I wiped a glass with a dishcloth, pretending not to hear.

“I don't understand how you can keep acting like everything is okay. Our daughter is probably dead and you sip your coffee like it's any other day.”

“Frances.” He used a formal tone. “You know that isn't true. I'm as upset as you are.”

Mom shook her head. “No, you aren't. You have your scotch and your coffee and your golf and your paper and nothing ever gets to you. You just . . . .” She flung her hands up. “Keep going. I wish I could do that. I wish all these years, whenever we had a problem with Jess, I could just have downed another scotch and forgotten about it.”

I stared at the glass in my hand, afraid to move.

Dad pushed his chair back. “I'm not going to listen to this anymore.”

“Go on then. Go wherever it is you're going to go, because I don't care anymore, not about you, not about any of this.” She glared at him. “And now I have to plan my daughter's funeral, because no one else is going to do it.” She gave Dad a miserable glance.

The glass slipped through my fingers and shattered.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” I crouched down to pick up the pieces.

“Stop. You'll cut yourself,” Mom said. She swept the broken glass into the dustpan with such fury it was as if she hated it. When she was through, she turned to us, tears running down her cheeks.

Dad grabbed her by the shoulders. As he pulled her to him, she pounded his chest with her fists. “I can't do this,” she repeated through sobs.

Before I knew what I was saying the words, “You don't need to worry, she's okay,” spilled out of my mouth.

Mom turned to me with agonizing slowness. “No, she isn't. Dear God, no, she isn't. Can't anyone face this?”

I looked down at my hand. A tiny bubble of blood had formed on a cut on my finger. I wrapped my other hand around it tight so it wouldn't hurt too much.

• • •

For the rest of the day, I waited for the police to call and say it wasn't Jess. But hours passed and no one called. I paced from one end of the room to the other, unable to sit still. It was Saturday. Tony and I were leaving for California that night. It was going to be hard to leave, but I had to. After dinner I threw a bathing suit, my black-and-white dress, shorts, and some jeans into a black canvas bag printed with giant daisies, feeling nauseated as I did it.

It was seven thirty, only half an hour until I was supposed to meet Tony. All I needed to do was tell my parents I was going to study with Billy. They would be glad to get me out of the house so they could dwell on their misery without me around. But I couldn't lie to Mom and run off to California with things the way they were. She would go out of her mind with worry. I wished Tony would call and persuade me. I needed to hear him say that the most important thing was finding Jess, that everyone would understand once we brought her back, that I needed to be brave. But he didn't call.

I was ready to give up on going when I had an idea. I sat down at my desk, tore a page out of my notebook and wrote:

I taped it to Jess's mirror. They'd never miss it there. Then I grabbed my bag and went down to the living room. Mom and Dad were having a drink and watching TV.

I was trying to summon the courage to tell them I was going out when Dad patted the cushion next to him and said, “Come on over, kitten. Sit with us.”

Reluctantly, I sat down between them. They were watching some comedy show. Canned laughter filled the air. Mom gave her skirt a tug so I was no longer sitting on it, and took a sip of her gin and tonic. I glanced anxiously at my watch. It was close to eight o'clock.

I cleared my throat when the commercial came on. “I was thinking . . . .”

Dad ruffled my hair. “I'm so glad you're here.” He looked at Mom. “Aren't you, Frances?”

A smile soft as the sun through clouds appeared on her face. “I am,” she said. She took my hand, and touched my lavender nails with unexpected affection. As her cool fingers slipped away, it was like they left threads that held on to me. The TV droned on and on.

I went over to the window. Stars twinkled above this world that was as closed in as a snow globe. After a minute or so, Tony's gold car cruised slowly by. I held my breath as its red taillights vanished around the corner.

Make your excuse and leave, I thought, do it now, but I lingered, my hand pressed on the glass, watching. And then the phone rang. Dad and Mom looked at each other. It rang again. I didn't think either of them could bring themselves to answer it, but finally Dad went in the kitchen and got it.

He came back in after a few minutes with a look of profound relief on his face. “That was the police,” he announced. “It wasn't Jess.”

“Thank the Lord.” Mom squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Then we all hugged. I wanted to squirm out of her arms and rush out the door, but I didn't.

“It's another girl, and that
is
a tragedy, but it's not our Jess,” she went on triumphantly. “The only news that would be better is finding out where she is and having her come home.”

I thought of Tony, still waiting for me around the corner, I hoped. “Mom,” I started to say.

She beamed. “Let's do something to celebrate. Caroline, how about if I make s'mores?”

“Okay.” There was nothing I wanted to do less than eat a bunch of chocolate and marshmallow, but she was staring at me with such intensity I couldn't say no.

Dad looked up with an idiotic grin. “I'll have s'more of this scotch.”

She made a face at him and dashed into the kitchen. I heard drawers opening and closing. I picked up my bag and edged my way over to the door.

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

“I'm studying with Billy again.” I brushed a strand of hair from my mouth.

He smiled. “No s'mores?”

“Maybe later.” I bounced on my heels, feeling as if I was about to jump off the high dive into cold water.

“Study hard.” Dad waved pathetically. Once outside, I ran down the street as fast as I could, my bag banging against my leg. My breath burned in my throat. When I rounded the corner his car was gone. As I stared in disbelief at the blank spot where it must have been, I wanted to cry. I imagined him waiting for me, then gunning the engine and taking off in disgust. I'd let him down.

I walked slowly back to the house. Dad was still exactly where I'd left him. “That was fast,” he said.

“He didn't want to study.” I sank back down on the sofa, knowing I'd missed my big chance, and, as always, it was my fault. I tried to watch the show on TV, but its gaiety disturbed me. I wondered if Tony was feeling the same thing I was now—as if there really was no escape.

Dad rubbed his eyes. “This has been a long few days. I'm so relieved.”

“Me too.” I stood up. There was something I wanted to ask though I wasn't sure I should. I cleared my throat. “Do they know who the girl in the desert was?”

“That poor little girl named Geraldine Keanen,” he said.

The blood rushed from my face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

As I told him I was just tired, I saw Mom standing in the hall with a tray of s'mores. “Geraldine?” She looked at Dad. He nodded.

They stared at each other a moment, and then she put the tray down on the coffee table. “Why don't you have a s'more?” she said to me.

“I'm not really hungry, Mom.”

Dad plucked one off the tray and took a bite. “Aren't you having one?” he asked her.

“No.” She stared at me. “I don't understand why we can't be happy, even for a minute.”

“But these are great, hon,” Dad said with a weak smile.

“You have chocolate on your mouth.” She gave him a disdainful glance, and he began frantically wiping his lips with a napkin.

• • •

I tore the note off the mirror and threw it away. As I sat on my bed, I thought about what Edie had said about the body in the desert, and the terrible thing she claimed Tony had done. Did she even know Geraldine? Tony said that Edie lied. Everyone did. She could have made everything up, maybe even believed it in her crazy way, and then been right by accident. The fact that they'd found Geraldine in the desert was just a strange coincidence, the same way as when you dream about a blue bottle and see one exactly like it in a store window the next day; it means nothing. At Tony's party, I'd seen Jess in another world in the green folds of my dress. The man in
The Doors of Perception
had gotten lost staring at the folds of his pants when he was tripping on mescaline. But that was just a strange coincidence, too. The world was full of coincidences once you started to notice. Still, cold anxiety radiated through me. I thought of what May and Sheila had said weeks ago about Geraldine. How had they known that she was murdered? And I remembered seeing Geraldine's pale and depressing mother at The Flying Saucer restaurant. The police were probably calling her right this minute, giving her the news my parents had been dreading.

If the phone had rung an hour earlier, I'd be on my way to California with Tony now, not troubled by any of this. I thought of the tender way he had touched me, the drifting-petal sadness in his blue eyes, how we were going to find Jess together. This was more important than the crazy things Edie had said, and, if I had to admit it, more important than Geraldine. Tony would probably be so mad at me for not showing up; he might never speak to me again. But if what Edie said was true, I could never speak to
him
again.

• • •

Early Sunday morning, the Beckhams' car pulled up in front of our house. I stood outside with Mom and watched Dicky come running toward us. He practically knocked her down, he was so excited to see her. As she hugged him, she looked over his head at Ron getting out of the car, wearing a pink shirt. He grinned at her. She let Dicky go.

“Take your brother inside,” she said to me.

I held Dicky's hand, unable to move, as she walked toward him.

Ron said, “So how's everything?”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Except for . . . you know . . . .”

They leaned close, saying something I couldn't hear. They stared at each other a little too long, and then Ron got back in the car. After he drove away she turned to me, her face oddly radiant. My mother was a different person when she was with Ron. I wasn't sure exactly how, but she was. It was like she wasn't my mother.

I didn't hear from Tony for the rest of the weekend. On Monday, there were two police cars parked outside the school. I walked past them, worried that somehow they knew what Edie had told me, and were looking for me. I became even more nervous in homeroom when I learned they were going to talk to kids about Geraldine. Though I knew nothing about her, I almost had a nervous breakdown when my name was called. I'd never had detention, never even had to stay after school. And now, though I hadn't done anything wrong, I felt like I had.

I made my lonely walk down the hall, and pushed open the door to the office with its square of frosted glass. May and Sheila were sitting on a bench along one wall. May slid over to make room. I sat down next to them. They didn't look happy to see me. I hadn't spoken to either of them since I'd said that thing about Mom and Ron.

May pulled a small white compact from her purse, stared at her perfect face in the round mirror, and lightly brushed her cheeks with the pressed powder. She turned to Sheila. “I hate that my skin is so blotchy.”

Sheila looked at her adoringly. “You're kidding. Your skin is perfect.”

I leaned back and drummed my fingers on the bench. May put her compact back in her purse, careful not to let her eyes meet mine. A tortoiseshell comb fell out. “Geez.” She reached under the bench for it.

The skinny secretary sitting across from us said, “Quiet, girls.” Sheila smirked at May.

The door to the principal's office opened and Debbie Frank stepped out. She walked past us with her head held high, pausing only to tap the arm of the bench next to me.

When she was gone, Sheila leaned toward May and whispered, “I can't believe they have us here with someone like her. It's not like we know anything.”

May whispered back, “I know.”

“I never even met Geraldine,” I said. Neither of them said a word. Apparently they'd forgotten they were the ones who'd told me the rumors about her. It was strange how you could be sitting right next to two people who you once thought were your friends and feel so far away from them, and not even care.

I fidgeted with the ruby-slipper keychain I'd attached to the zipper of my purse. It looked like something a kid would have. Why hadn't I noticed this before? I wet my finger and rubbed some dust off my black patent leather shoes that I loved so much. They didn't look new anymore.

The secretary touched the glittering bird pin on her lapel. The principal leaned out of his office and said, “Caroline Galvin.”

As I stood up, May raised her narrow eyes just enough to show me a flicker of interest.

• • •

Mr. Shannon was sitting in his reclining chair, his hands folded on his stomach, a weary expression on his face. He nodded toward a small chair on the other side of his desk where I suspected kids sat when they were in trouble. As I sat down, I gave my jean skirt a tug so it wouldn't ride up.

Officer Barnes was sitting next to me. When he glanced at me with his husky dog eyes, I smiled in spite of myself, grateful to see a familiar face.