Hyacinth Girls (6 page)

Besides these questions about Autumn, Callie talked about her new favorite topics that summer. Conservation. The threat of global warming. Three days a week she volunteered at the nature reserve, and every evening as she scraped mud off her boots, she briefed me about the box turtles and wood frogs she'd counted for their surveys. As July's heat wave blazed into August, she held forth on dying fish populations, algal blooms, the number of species at risk of extinction. I agreed to take three-minute showers, we started a compost bin, and Callie insisted she'd rather bike to her friends' than let me waste gasoline. I kept waiting for her to crack and start blasting the air-conditioning, but the temperatures didn't seem to affect her as she crouched in our yard, collecting leaves. I watched from the kitchen window as she methodically measured a tree trunk, and I was impressed but also boggled. How much longer could this go on?

She went to stay with my aunt Bea for the last week of vacation. She'd been looking forward to the visit all summer, and before she left she printed recipes off the Internet for things made with blueberries and beets and apples—foods that were supposed to be healthy for people with lung disease. My aunt had been diagnosed with emphysema years ago, and even though we weren't close or even moderately friendly, I felt obligated to support her relationship with Callie.

Bea kept no pictures of Curtis in the house, at least none that I'd seen on display, and she'd given the impression over the years that she wouldn't talk about her son. She'd thrown out all of his things, leaving only the small single bed under the window. The bed that Callie would be sleeping in, in Curtis's old room. Callie dumped her bags on the floor with a sigh—it didn't bother her. She wanted me to go home, to stop worrying so much. “I like worrying,” I teased, but she was already waving. “Good-bye!” Callie yelled. “Byee!” she trilled. And I didn't want to leave her, but it was only for a week.

After Callie was gone, our house was too quiet. I turned on the radio, and then the TV, while whipping egg whites in a bowl. That month I was trying to learn macarons. The tiny delicate French confections. But despite my exertions, my work in the kitchen was not going well. I splashed my skin with the hot sugar syrup when I tried to whip and pour simultaneously. I sweated in the kitchen nights and afternoons, but each batch came out progressively worse. The shells were cracked or lumpy or flat. They looked like ugly brown rocks. And out of shame, I felt compelled to eat them, as if to cancel out all that waste. One afternoon, I broke a bowl out of carelessness; it was full of hardened sugar. And instead of picking up the pieces, I shoved another macaron into my mouth.

I needed to get out of the house, to get away from the smell of burnt sugar, so I ended up driving over to the green for some window-shopping on Main Street. I wandered in and out of boutiques and gift shops that
burned expensive soy candles; I stopped in the modern art gallery on the corner to look at a sculpture made of red lights. The thing about living among the wealthy was that it sometimes rubbed off on you, the tastes and fashions, the desire for certain things. I wanted our walls to be that same shade of gray, and to buy one of those sculptures, and also the silk blouse in the window that cost more than my laptop. You'd wonder how these stores could stay in business with such extortionate price tags, but Dr. Rick was always reminding us that people had money here. Our schedules at the practice had been patchy since May, we were seeing fewer patients, and we'd been warned at a recent staff meeting that some of our hours might have to be cut. We were supposed to try to drum up business when we weren't with patients, making wheedling calls about six-month checkups. But it was always our wealthiest patients who started complaining about our prices, clucking their tongues, claiming to be “broke” due to home renovations. We didn't know exactly what Dr. Rick was planning, and wondered if all of us would bear the brunt, or if one of us, unlucky, would end up losing our job.

I had wandered to the far end of the green, where the French bakery flaunted its wares, and I contemplated the macarons with their spectacular pastel shells. A chubby man in brogues came out with a large white sack and a pleased expression. I touched the burn mark on my hand and smiled at him briefly. Gateway man? Macaron lover? He didn't give me a second glance as he shuffled past. Then I heard someone calling my name in a loud girlish voice.

Dallas carried a shopping bag in each hand and she grinned as she meandered over. Her tank top rode up on her stomach, and she'd clipped her hair into a twist. I hadn't seen Dallas much over the summer, not since Callie started riding her bike everywhere, and since our place was so small it never seemed worth inviting her over.

“Dallas, you look great!” I exclaimed. “What are you up to?”

She said she was back-to-school shopping; Ella was still trying on jeans in a store. She held up her bags and started describing the things she'd bought—necklace, sweater, pair of earrings—but then her smile faltered. “Is Callie okay?”

Dallas explained that she kept texting her, but Callie wasn't responding.

“She's visiting family this week,” I said. “It could be her phone doesn't get great service.”

I'd talked to Callie just a few hours earlier, and we hadn't had trouble with the reception, but it seemed like a plausible explanation and Dallas appeared relieved.

“I thought she might be ignoring me,” she said with a smile, like the very thought of this was ridiculous. She looked down at her two bags, amused by herself. Dallas had a sturdier figure than Callie or Ella; she was strong and athletic, but when she dropped her chin you could see a smidge of baby fat.

“I'm sure she's not ignoring you. I'll tell her to call you.”

“And tell her we miss her a lot,” she said. “We can't wait for her to get back.”

I asked Dallas about her weekend plans and she mentioned sailing around the Thimble Islands. “I would've invited Callie, but I know how she gets around water.”

Dallas's eyes glistened with sympathy—I hoped it wasn't pity. All these priceless experiences, and Callie was missing out.

“She can swim.” I felt exasperated. “She just refuses. I can't explain it.”

“I think she's embarrassed,” Dallas said. “With everything else she's practically perfect. But with swimming—” She bit her bottom lip. “Spectacular mess.”

“She needs practice,” I said. “But she won't take lessons.”

“Me and Ella tried to teach her. It was like watching a cat tread water.”

“You actually got her swimming?” I remembered the day of the wet bathing suit.

“Only once. Last month. She looked pretty bad. But we don't care how she looks; it's not like we're taking pictures.”

“At least you got her in. That's better than I can say.”

“We wouldn't let anything happen to her, but she doesn't want to trust us.”

Dallas had this confident way of speaking that made you forget she was only fourteen. She exuded such poise, she could have been on TV.

“Callie trusts you,” I assured her. “She knows you look out for her. You and Ella really helped her with that awful girl at school.”

“Robyn.” Dallas flicked one of her earrings. “
She
was a weird one.”

“You haven't seen her since?”

“I'd probably run if I did.”

“But you stood up to her when it mattered. That's the important thing.”

“It wasn't hard.” Dallas shook her head. “Nobody liked Robyn.”

“Well, who would? A girl who does things like that.”

“That's what I told Callie.” Dallas wrinkled her nose prettily. “But she just doesn't get what can happen when somebody hates you.”

“I suppose she's learning,” I told Dallas gratefully. “She's learned now.”

The next day I got a call at work from Aunt Bea. “I'm struggling,” she said. “You need to come get her.” I drove to the neighborhood where I'd grown up in Cansdown, and by the time I opened the front door of Bea's single-story prefab, I'd imagined the worst. Bea would be half dead, surrounded by EMTs, and Callie would be sobbing in the corner. But Bea was eating potato chips in her armchair, her oxygen tube fitted neatly into her nostrils, and Callie wasn't even there.

“She's out on the bike,” Bea said offhandedly.

I'd made emergency arrangements to leave work after Bea called, thinking that something really serious must've happened. I'd forgotten that my aunt didn't understand what it was like to have a job with actual responsibilities.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I told you.” Bea pouted. “I can't handle her. I'm on sixteen types of medication. You try handling a kid when you're on that much medication.”

Bea's cheeks were hollowed out, and when she frowned, she looked both skeletal and childlike. Her hair hung unevenly to her shoulders in tufts, and although she was only in her fifties she looked closer to seventy. Despite her appearance, I no longer thought of my aunt as an adult. She was more like a miserable troll who couldn't be reasoned with. I tried to arrange my face as sympathetically as I could.

“Did you fight?” I asked.

“I told her she had to go and she didn't like it. You shouldn't have left her here so long.”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “But she was really looking forward to spending time with you.”

“Well, it's not a good time,” Bea said. “And I didn't ask for this.”

I didn't point out that she
had
asked for this. I dialed Callie's cell phone, but she didn't pick up, and then Bea turned on the TV as if it had nothing to do with her. Bea and Curtis had lived with Mom and me until I was fourteen, and by the time she moved out, I'd realized how irresponsible and petty she could be. She'd moved here after she finally managed to hold down a job long enough to afford rent, but for the past six years she'd been too sick to work and had relied on my mom and welfare to keep her going.

“How long has she been gone?”

“I don't know,” Bea said. “An hour?”

I made her promise to call me immediately if Callie got back before me, and then I jumped in my car, making an effort not to panic. I'd just cruise slowly around the neighborhood until I spotted her, and I wouldn't turn it into some big ordeal, dramatic tears, and accusations. She was fourteen years old—she could disappear for an hour in daylight, even if she didn't answer her phone, the one thing I always asked of her. Anyway, Cansdown was fairly safe, although not as safe as Pembury, but sometimes Callie's phone ran out of juice or she didn't hear it ringing. I drove along the curving suburban streets of the south side, and then I headed down the beach road, and when that produced no sightings I tightened my grip on the wheel.

Not far from Mr. Hort's house, I drove past a place I hardly recognized. There was a large new split-level on the spot that I remembered as a vacant lot. Twenty years earlier it was just weeds and broken glass, the place where Joyce and I caught up with Lara after running out of Mr. Hort's house.

“You dumbasses,” Lara cried. “I thought I was going to have to go back there and get you.” She collared us and then hugged us as we panted from our run. We were both exhilarated and pink-cheeked, thrilled by what we'd done. I leaned in to Lara, forgetting that Autumn was still missing. Forgetting that the three of us were supposed to be four. We scuffed our shoes together, ankles touching for reassurance, and then Lara lit up a cigarette, taking an urgent drag.

“I checked his basement and everything.” She pushed her sweaty red hair behind her ear. “Autumn definitely wasn't there.”

“He could've moved her,” Joyce said.

He could've killed her
, I thought. Then I looked at Lara. Had I just heard her thoughts?

I held the cigarette when she passed it to me, and took my first puff
ever, feeling a mixture of pride and belonging; I was part of this awful tragedy. What an idiot I was, what idiots children can be. Longing for emotions that aren't theirs: desperation and sorrow. Believing a calamity will make them adults—like a puff of smoke, a sip of wine.

Fifteen minutes after I got back to Bea's house, we heard the front door. Bea was still watching TV, completely indifferent, while I chewed my cuticles, a nervous wreck. Callie's flip-flops slapped noisily against the floor, and then she stood in the doorway of the living room, staring at both of us with bright, clear eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and sweaty from the heat and the bike ride, and I took in all the familiar details that I'd missed over the past few days. The way the roots of her hair rose up from her forehead, almost spiky, before curving back down. The pale scar that cut across her knee from the time she'd fallen off the trampoline in the school gym. Her toenails, painted baby blue, and her wide freckled shoulders that always fit perfectly under my arm.

“Where the hell have you been? Where the hell?”

Callie crossed her arms and caught my eye. “I was just out on the bike.”

“You're too much for me,” Aunt Bea said unapologetically. “I'm not up to kids anymore.”

Callie flinched, and then she turned her head, as if preparing for another blow. She pulled her hair across one cheek, and I glanced at Bea. She didn't even seem to notice. She rustled the bag of chips on her lap, and I willed her to shut up. “I missed you so much,” I said, pulling Callie into a hug. “You can't just disappear like that.” Her slender body was hot and rigid. She touched my back and then pulled away.

“You came to take me home?”

“Bea's not feeling well, so she called me,” I explained. “I've been driving around looking for you. Why didn't you answer your phone?”

“I didn't hear it,” she said. Then she looked at Bea with open frustration. My aunt put another chip in her mouth before Callie turned and skulked out of the room.