He's Gone (27 page)

I was such an idiot.

Of course, you have your losses, and your children have theirs. In that iconic stepfamily, the Brady Bunch, there were no ex-wives or ex-husbands, and Jan didn’t resent Peter for the attention he got from her own mother, Carol. Marcia, Jan, and Cindy didn’t return home after a visit with their father, sporting new clothes and cellphones, eliciting feelings of jealousy in Greg, Peter, and Bobby. Mike Brady didn’t hate the girls’ father; Carol didn’t think Mike spoiled his boys. Greg didn’t bring up his mother and the good old days every two seconds, inspiring murderous annoyance in Carol. Cindy didn’t start wetting the bed, causing Carol to believe that her daughter was damaged for life and that it was all her fault, and Bobby’s mother didn’t phone every week (usually right during the middle of the Brady family dinner) to argue with Mike about school-picture money or Bobby’s missing shin guards.

Here is a stepfamily recipe: Take your pain and his loss and
the children’s anger. Add his ex’s intrusions and your ex’s inconsistencies. Fold into a house with at least one shared bathroom and mutual holidays. Blend.

Anna Jane kisses me goodbye after a quick lunch at the houseboat. I wonder if she is as relieved to get away as that man in the store had been.

“I feel bad leaving you all alone,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“I can wait for Abby to get back.”

“No, no. You’d better get going. Traffic over the bridge …”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” She gives my arm a final squeeze.

I watch her drive away. I know she’ll turn and wave, and so I wait until she does. I don’t want to wait, but I force myself to. And then, the very second her car turns the corner, I head back. That letter, that lie—I need to do what I can to find out what happened to Ian, and fast.

The party, the drive home, the grim face. The key, the dog, the heels. The cool sheets. The bliss of rest!
Goddamn it! Remember!

The cuff link.

I could see why you’d be pissed …
An argument.

I do remember. And I know I need to talk to Desiree Harris. Now.

“Dani?”

It’s my neighbor, Maggie Long. She wears a pair of culottes—who knew anyone still had those? She’s run out to meet me in those swingy, skirt-like pants; she even leaves her front door open, she’s in such a hurry to catch me. She’s probably been watching for me out her front window. Her brown hair is pulled back in a butterfly clip.
Butterfly clip
—the words make me think
of a thorax pinched tight between thumb and forefinger. All those beer bottles in the Longs’ recycling bin—the alcohol is beginning to show on Maggie’s face. Alcohol really ages a person.

“We’ve been talking about you,” Maggie says. What had Ian been thinking, going away like this? There was no way everyone would not know his business now.
Our
business. You want everyone to think you’re perfect, and you do this? You blow it all up in one big move? Was this just a last giant fuck-you to everyone? To me and Nathan and his kids and his father and everyone who’d ever loved him and let him down? The police have visited every neighbor on the dock, of course. We’ve called every person in Ian’s life. Unless he has a very good, innocent reason for being gone (and what might that be? A kidnapping? Amnesia?), we’ll have to leave this place if he ever comes home. Domestic drama in a sprawling suburban neighborhood was bad enough for him; on this small dock, it would be intolerably humiliating. Every time he stepped out the door, there would be Jack or Maggie Long or Mattie or even old blissed-out Joe Grayson, with their awareness of his failures. Every day he walked into his office … He couldn’t live with that. I know that about him. Even if he comes back, our old life is over.

“I appreciate it,” I say to Maggie. “This has been hell.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Maggie shakes her head, but it’s an obligatory move. It’s the comma between two sentences, the pesky have-to before she gets to what she can’t wait to say. “Listen, Jack and I—we were going over that night. Replaying it. You guys went out to that party …”

“We did.”

“Later on, in the early morning, did you hear that boat?”

“No.” My chest clutches up, bracing for some blow.

“I can’t believe you didn’t hear it. It was sitting out there for a
few hours! I’d forgotten all about it. This motor—one of those obnoxious ski boats. You know how the sound carries.”

“What did it do?”

“Nothing. I just remember waking up and hearing it, and Jack rolling over and saying, ‘Fuck!’ and thinking it was some stupid kids sitting out there drinking on Daddy’s toy. I put a pillow over my head and went back to sleep.”

I don’t know what to think about this news. I try to make some connection in my head, but there are noisy boats all the time, at all hours. It’s one of the negatives of living on the lake. I stand there with Maggie Long like an idiot, as she looks at me, waiting. I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me.

“Is it possible?” she asks. I shake my own head now. I have no idea what she’s getting at. She sighs. She squinches her nose, as if it’s distasteful to have to say. “Could he have left that way? By boat?”

I feel the air leave me, as if she’s socked me in the gut. I’ve played so many scenarios in my head, but never that one.

“Jack said, ‘His car is there, you know?’ I didn’t want to mention it to you, but Jack said, ‘You gotta tell her. Maybe she hasn’t thought of it.’ The car doesn’t mean anything, you know, necessarily.”

“It never occurred to me.”

“People get picked up on the docks every day.”

For dinner, for a boat ride to a Husky game. Not to disappear into a new life. I rapidly flip through the images: Ian standing at the dock with his wallet and cellphone, waiting to hop a ride. A boat cruising up, sloshing and rocking our home as I slept like the dead.

“I looked at my clock, too.” Maggie Long’s eyes are bright. This is more excitement than she gets on an ordinary day, doing
the books for that accounting firm, or cooking Jack a mediumrare T-bone. God, she looks as excited as Pollux does when I shake the treat box. “I made sure to check the time. One-thirty. I always look at the clock when I hear an unusual sound in the night. You never know when it might be important.”

It’s obvious that she’s imagining herself the star witness at some trial. Thank you, Miss Marple! Thank you, you fucking nosy neighbor! This is as helpful as those psychics who claim they saw the missing person next to a red fence in a yellow field. I wonder if Maggie and Jack had their big revelation after their first six-pack of the night or their second. Maybe the news team could come, and Maggie could be interviewed. She’d be the perfect one to say, “They were just normal people. They kept to themselves. We always thought they were a little
too
quiet.…” All of her friends could come over to watch KING 5 at six. They could scream and point at the screen when she came on. They’d reassure her that she hadn’t looked fat on TV at
all
.

I’m losing my mind. This is getting to me. It’s changing me in ugly ways. I am transforming. There is all this anger, which is burning away my soft silk threads. I
like
Maggie. She’s only trying to be helpful; I know that. My rational self does. The self that began disappearing eight days ago, when Ian did. The self that is utterly gone now that Detective Jackson has my laptop with that letter on it.

Maggie grips my arm. Her eyes shine. I remember this, from my adultery and divorce in the suburbs—how thrilling your tragedy can be to other people.

Desiree Harris is not listed anywhere. I am searching the white pages on my phone with no luck. If I had my damn computer, this would be easier. I try to call Nathan, knowing he’ll have access
to her cell number, but there’s no answer. What now?
Think, think, think
.

Kitty, the receptionist. She could get that information. But it’s Sunday, and she won’t be at work. Kitty what? What’s her last name? Wait. Something funny. Bizarro? Maybe Bissaro?
Please, please, please
. I try my phone again, but those damn online white pages are useless. I hunt for her name in the phone book that, thankfully, we still have under the kitchen counter. It’s been years since I’ve used a phone book, and, wow, the print has grown smaller. How do people even read these things? I hunt around for my reading glasses. Katherine Bissaro, there it is, thank you.

She answers. “ ’Lo?”

“Kitty?”

“Yes?”

“This is Dani Keller. I’m sorry to call you at home, but I need your help. I’m trying to reach Desiree Harris, but I don’t know her number. You don’t happen to have that, do you?”

“Not
here
.”

“God, Kitty, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but can I meet you over at BetterWorks and get it from you? It’s an emergency.”

She hesitates. “Yeah, uh, hold on a sec.” I hear her speaking to someone on the other end, and then she’s back. “Mrs. Keller? I live, like, two miles away. I usually bike. My boyfriend, Jesse, said he’d give me a ride over. I’ll call you back.”

“Kitty, that would be amazing. Thank you so much. I really need to get in touch with her.”

“No problem. If I can help at all about, you know, Mr. Keller …”

“Thank you.”

I’m an idiot, though. Because when I hang up, I realize I haven’t given her a way to reach me. Wait, if she has Desiree
Harris’s number, she’ll certainly have mine! And what about caller ID? I don’t need to worry. But I do worry. As the minutes pass, I’m getting more anxious. I need to get a hold of this Desiree immediately. I need some answers before Detective Jackson comes up with answers of his own. How long does it take to go two blocks? I wait five minutes exactly, and then I phone BetterWorks.

There is ringing, and then the answering system picks up. Of course, it’s Sunday. I try one of the back lines, but there is only more ringing, endless trilling. I wait four more minutes exactly and try again. And again.

Finally, “BetterWorks.”

“It’s me. Dani Keller.”

“I just got here.” She’s out of breath. “Let me find it for you.”

“Fantastic,” I say. “Thanks so much again.”

She puts me on hold. The piped-in music comes on automatically—some jazz piano number. I feel a weight on my chest, as if something’s pressing there. It’s hard to catch my breath. I felt this way once before, when I fell off the monkey bars in elementary school and landed flat on my back. I remember the recess teacher’s big face looking into mine, the orange balls of her necklace dangling over me. I thought I was dying. No air, no ability to even gasp … Wait—twice. I’ve felt this way twice. I’d gone to court for a temporary order of separation from Mark, and I met my attorney in her office beforehand. This same thing had happened. She pulled a paper bag from her desk and made me breathe into it. I thought it was darkly humorous that she kept a stash of them handy. When my bill grew, I understood even better why they might be necessary.

Kitty is back. “Mrs. Keller? I know I took a long time, but I was talking to Doug, and I was thinking that it’s against policy to give out those numbers.”

“What?”

“It’s against policy. I was thinking maybe I should call Desiree and give her your number.”

“Kitty.” I try to breathe. “Do you understand that this is an emergency?”

“Just stay right there. I’ll call her now.”

She puts me on hold again. The jazz song ends, and another begins. It’s the screaming-horns kind of jazz, and I want to claw at my own skin at the sound of it and at this waiting, waiting, furious, crazy waiting. Ian doesn’t even like jazz. Why he has jazz on his answering system is beyond me. I once played a mellow guitar-type jazz album at a dinner we held for some colleagues of his, and he said,
I thought you had better taste than this
.

I stamp down a feeling of fury, the way you make sure a fire is completely out at a campground. It doesn’t do much good. Cinders are flying everywhere now. I make a deal with myself. If she’s not back in ten seconds, I’m going to get in my car and
drive
over there. I’ll talk my way past that guard. I’ll get on the damn computer and find the number myself. It’d be quicker than
this
.

“Mrs. Keller?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Desiree isn’t answering.”

I keep the cry of anger down with great effort. I imagine Desiree Harris at Nordstrom. She’s in the dressing room. Her cellphone is ringing, but she has a new red dress half over her head. Or else maybe she and Kitty
did
talk. They talked and Desiree is avoiding me. That’s what’s going on. Of course it is.

I try not to sound as furious as I am, I really do. “May I have her cell number please? As you can imagine, this is rather important.”

Kitty sounds nervous. “We can’t give those out, Mrs. Keller. It’s against the rules.”

“My
husband
made those rules. You might want to remember that.”

Oh, the dripping venom, the bitch tongue. My old self is gone, and good riddance to her, the pathetic, self-defeating Goody Two-shoes. Ian gives me a hard time about the way I pour on the nice to every salesperson, barista, waiter, telemarketer, or person I bump into in an elevator. A guy came to repair our furnace once, and I asked him if he needed something to drink. I asked how long he’d been in furnace repair. I told him that it must be gratifying to do his job, to provide something people needed so badly, warmth on a November day. Ian was disgusted.
You act like you’re personally responsible for everyone’s self-esteem
. He was right.

Kitty’s voice is strained, stretched tight as glass. “I’m so sorry, I can’t …”

I open my mouth, where a string of vicious words are waiting—I can feel them pressing in my throat. Instead of speaking, I slam that phone down so hard that the plastic case smacks against the wall, which causes Pollux to leap to his feet in alarm. His eyes are chocolate pools of distress.

I dial Nathan. I reach Tim’s Shoe Emporium instead, whatever and wherever the hell that is.
Goddamn it!
I try again.