Plaster City (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) (4 page)

Time passed and the fight was forgotten. With a graduating class of eighty-five at Holtville High, the dating pool ran shallow. Everyone knew everything about everyone, making everyone less attractive as the years went on. But nobody liked to dance alone and sex was more fun with a partner, even one you didn’t like that much. Eventually Bobby and Becky found each other in the rotation. They didn’t date for very long. Just long enough.

Becky’s parents both worked as migrant field hands. So when they moved the summer after junior year, nobody thought anything of it. A lot of families spent half the year in the Central Valley or in Arizona, depending on what crops needed picking.

Five years later, Bobby found out he had a daughter. A shocker for a two-kegs-a-week college student studying Ag Econ in San Luis Obispo. Becky needed cash and Bobby had access to student loans. She didn’t ask him for anything more than the financial commitment.

Somewhere in the roughly ten years since, Becky had decided that Bobby should play a more active parental role. Not knowing how to handle the situation, Bobby made a weak effort to become involved in Julie’s life. He already sent money, what was left after the child support payments for his younger daughter—she’s a whole different story. He sent presents on birthdays and holidays. Those grew to occasional awkward visits.

Becky and Julie had lived in Twentynine Palms, which was far enough to make it an effort. But a move to Indio a little over a year ago had brought them close enough to nullify most excuses. The problem was that Bobby was Julie’s father, but he was never going to be her dad. Julie had become a young woman, his absence already felt. She was who she was going to be.

I had only met Julie once. A quick stopover on our way to a boxing match at Pechanga. She had no interest in meeting her father’s friend, so our interaction was brief. I wanted to tell her that the Misfits shirt, tongue and nose ring, and super-short shorts really played into a predictable stereotype. Individuality through conformity. A look that screamed, “I’m different in the same way this gigantic group of other people are different.” But teenagers have to be teenagers. As long as trouble didn’t become permanent in the form of addiction, a kid, or death, that rebellion was a part of becoming a real person. Kids have to act grown up before they grow up.

Hopefully Julie was acting out in a predictable way. But it was hard not to think of the other scenarios. Too many news stories and movies of a kid gone missing to not expect the worst. All those loonies that made a parent’s skin crawl. They were out there. And the desert was like a psycho-magnet to the worst predators. The nefarious potential of wide-open spaces, no neighbors, and unmarked graves.

The drive from Holtville to Indio took less than two hours. Through Imperial, Brawley, and the US Immigration checkpoint in Westmoreland, the route ran along the western shore of the Salton Sea. I took in its aroma: the smell of anchovies mixed with rancid cottage cheese. I would’ve taken the odor as a bad omen, but it always smelled that way. I didn’t even bother to play the radio, letting my mind wander. I went over the last conversation I had with Bobby before he headed out without me.

“Becky said Julie’s been gone five days already. She’d done it before—never more than a day or two—so she didn’t think much of it. Called the cops two days ago. Me, today. They’re on it, she says, but forgive me if I don’t show a shit-ton of confidence in the Indio PD or Riverside Sheriff or whatever group of country cops got the case.

“Julie’s gotten wilder in the last year. Back sass. Coming home drunk. Tats and piercings. Loser boyfriends. Older boyfriends. Pot in her underwear drawer. Fights. Like father, like daughter, I suppose. Except she’s straight-A’s. Smart as shit. Don’t know if that makes it worse or better. Worse probably, because it means she does stupid shit, but she ain’t stupid. Smart enough to know better.”

“Lots of us manage to be smart and stupid at the same time,” I said. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

Bobby didn’t answer for a moment. “Six, seven months. How fucked up is that? I don’t barely know her.”

“It’s always been an impossible situation.”

“If you think that me not being around’s got nothing to do with that bad girl shit, you’re a dumbass who slept through college.”

“When did you crack open the Freud? She’s independent, does her own thing. Sound familiar?”

“Except her keys, clothes, phone, all her stuff was still at the house. She hasn’t posted anything on Facebook or Twitter or any of that teenage shit. Her last message on Facebook said, ‘He treats me like a woman. Knows I can take a punch as hard as I can throw one. That’s all I need.’ ”

“Shit.”

“I’m going to find out who the fuck that fucker is and fuck him up. Pardon my fucking French.”

That’s why I was driving north. Bobby’s sentiment was solid. It was his plan of attack I worried about. To talk to Becky. See what she knew. Go through Julie’s stuff for clues. Talk to Julie’s friends. Find out who was who. Then fuck up the fucking fuckers. I felt sorry for anyone in Bobby’s path.

Indio might be known for the Coachella Music Festival and a stretch of Indian casinos, but the bulk of it is lower-class residential neighborhoods filled with people who work for a living.

Becky’s house was a nondescript, salmon-colored box in a concrete brick neighborhood. Squat, mostly dead palms passed for topiary along the walkway. The rest of the front yard was dirt, a big swath of uneven brown. Three cars filled the driveway, the third poking into the street.

The man who opened the door was in his early forties. More Palm Springs than Indio, he was tall, tan, and in shape, easy to picture bounding over a tennis net. He wore an apron that said “Kitchen Bitch” on the front. The apron, his pants, and his hands were all dotted with flour.

The aroma of cookies or brownies, something sweet and chocolaty, wafted from inside the house. Not exactly the smell I was expecting. Although, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting any smell except a general house smell.

“Everyone’s in the living room,” the man said. “I have cookies in the oven.”

And on that, he went back into the house without saying anything more, leaving the door open. I heard voices, the muffled hum of a small crowd.

There were eight people in the living room, evenly divided between men and women. They organized stacks of fliers with Julie’s picture on them.

Becky Espinosa stood up and gave me a quick hug. She wore jeans and a halter top and didn’t look much different than high school. Other than her eyes, which revealed she hadn’t slept in days.

I realized that I only really knew Becky from back when. I didn’t know who she was anymore, if I ever did. In school she had been a cheerleader, smiling and nice. But her chipper demeanor was like a politician’s promise. You wanted to believe it, probably some truth in there, but you knew it was mostly bullshit. In addition to being on the cheerleading squad, she had also been a Precious Girl. The Precious Girls were a lipstick and razor chola gang that frightened the whole school—girls and boys, students and teachers. Even the hard-core hairnet and top-button vatos stayed clear of the Precious Girls.

“Christ, Jimmy,” Becky said. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s nothing. At least, nothing worth talking about.”

“Bobby didn’t tell me you were coming. Thanks. We can use all the help we can get.”

“Of course. Is he here?”

“He’s in the back, looking through Julie’s things. I can go get him for you.”

“In a bit,” I said. “How you doing? I mean, considering. Shit, I don’t know what I mean.”

“Worried, pissed at myself that I didn’t take it serious sooner. But what can I do now? Trying to do whatever helps find her. And hope that brings her back.” She turned and spoke to the flier crew. “When you get done with those, pull out that stack of maps and break each map into neighborhoods. Last thing we need is all of us canvassing the same place. We got ground to cover.” She turned back to me. “Don’t know if any of this will help, but if I don’t do something, anything, I’ll lose it. I want to cry, punch someone, and give up, but none of that will do any good.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“It was nothing special. I was leaving for work. She was eating breakfast. Nothing strange. Nothing memorable. We’d had plenty of fights, but not this time. I can’t figure it. Every few minutes I look toward the front door and imagine Julie walking through it. I wouldn’t even ask where she went, what happened. I don’t care. I’d hold her.”

Becky gave my arm a squeeze. “I’m going to go find Bobby for you.” She walked down the hall into the back of the house.

The flier crew seemed to have the flier situation under control, so I looked around the room. My eyes immediately went to the framed school photos of Julie on the TV. Maybe a little heavy on the eye shadow, but she didn’t have the full raccoon that some kids go for. She was even smiling in what looked like the most recent photo. Julie was light-skinned Mexican, pretty like her mother, but with the same mischief in her eyes as Bobby. No doubt she was his daughter.

The rest of the room felt as spare as a jail cell. No art on the walls. No plants. A couch, a table, the TV, and a bunch of folding chairs. An air-conditioning box unit in the window cranked full blast. It had the feel of a squat. Not a home, but a place to get out of the heat.

When two people finally looked up at me, I decided to engage. “Hi, I’m Jimmy. Friend of Becky’s and Bobby’s. From high school.”

The crowd said hello or gave a nod, then went back to the fliers. From what I could tell, they were taking some from one stack and putting them in another stack, but I know next to nothing about fliers. I got the sense they were doing things just to do them. Better to be busy than idle, even if busy wasn’t productive.

The man in the apron came into the room with a plateful of brownies. The flier crew gave theatrical moans and held their stomachs.

“No more, Russell,” one said. “We’re full up.”

“You?” Russell said, offering me a brownie.

I never turn down free food.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a brownie off the plate and shoving half of it in my mouth. I made mmm sounds and nodded.

“I should have introduced myself at the door, but nobody likes burnt snickerdoodles. I’m Russell. I’m Becky’s boyfriend.”

I shoved the rest of the brownie in my mouth, wiped my hand on my pants, and shook his hand. “I’m Jimmy. Friend from high school.”

The introductions out of the way, neither of us had anywhere to go with the conversation. We stood in silence, both of us staring at the platter of brownies in his hand.

“Any news?” I finally asked. “About Julie?”

He shook his head. “We’re going to flier tonight. Be sure to grab a stack. The police are talking to her school, but it’s summer, so I doubt that’s going to help. I teach there, so if the other faculty knew something, I would know. The police seem to be taking it seriously, but how much can they do?”

“Any leads at all?”

Russell shook his head. We went back to our awkward silence, watching the group do their flier-stacking. Seriously, what the fuck were they doing with those fliers?

Becky popped her head out from the hall. “Bobby’s back in Julie’s room. Second door.”

I grabbed another brownie and headed toward the back of the house.