Stony River (14 page)

Mr. Boynton had to return to his classroom. When Officer Nolan came, he interviewed Linda in Mrs. Warren's office. His voice was kind and lines radiated from the corners of his eyes like pencil-drawn sunbeams. He might have been one of the policemen she and Tereza saw at Crazy Haggerty's, but she couldn't be sure because she wore her glasses only when she had to.

Mrs.Warren told Officer Nolan about Tereza's stepfather chasing her with the belt. The officer asked Linda if she knew why. She wasn't allowed to say
whore
and she didn't know for sure why Jimmy was mad, so she repeated only his ungrammatical “I know where you been” and said she thought he would have hurt Tereza badly if he'd been able to catch up with her. The officer took notes when Linda mentioned the number of marks on Tereza's arms and legs in the four months she'd known her. He took down Tereza's description and the direction in which she'd fled.

“Linda thinks Tereza might be hiding in a vacant house,” Mrs. Warren said, her head helmeted in tight curls, dyed (everybody said) daffodil yellow.

“Which house?” he asked Linda.

“Mr. Haggerty's,” she said. “The grand house on Lexington Street?”

“Oh, that one. It's boarded up. I ordered it myself.”

“That wouldn't stop Tereza,” Linda said.

“How come?”

She told him she'd checked the log where she and Tereza had hidden things and discovered the crowbar gone. She told him Tereza wasn't afraid of the house that sat all by its lonesome and might have broken in to stay warm; she hadn't exactly been bundled up when she ran away.

The officer asked Mrs. Warren if she'd called Tereza's parents. “They don't have a telephone,” she said, her elbows on the desk, her fingers forming
here's the church, here's the steeple
. “We don't usually send a truant officer around until a child misses three days in a row. They have a son in third grade. I checked and he's not here either.”

“He was okay yesterday,” Linda said, although that wasn't completely accurate. After church she'd gone over to see if the Dobras had heard from Tereza. Allen was keeping vigil by the front window, arms crossed, hands under armpits, a miserable look on his face.

“He don't believe Tereza ran away,” Mrs. Dobra said, clutching Linda's hands so tightly it hurt. “Says she would've been back to take him to the movies if she could've. He's sure the bogeyman snatched her. I couldn't get him to sleep last night.” She asked Linda to take him trick-or-treating the next day so she could stick around in case Tereza showed up. Since it wasn't fair to hold it against Allen for getting Jimmy's beaky nose and wingy ears, Linda agreed.

Officer Nolan asked for Tereza's address. “Think anyone's there with the boy?”

“Mrs. Dobra usually isn't home till four. Mr. Dobra later.”

He took Linda's address, too. “I may need a statement from you and your father.”

Linda's heart thumped. Daddy would scold her again for not minding her business. “Will you look for Tereza at the boarded-up house?”

“You bet,” he said with the kind of head-patting smile she despised.

“That girl who lived there,” she said, a bit crossly. “Miranda?”

His eyes widened. “You knew her?”

“No. Her name was in the newspaper.”

“Oh, I suppose it was. What about her?”

“Where is she now?”

“With people who will take care of her.”

So-called grown-ups never told you what you really wanted to know.

11:05
AM
. Ma would've been at Catalog Club, in the north end of town, for hours by now. Her job was to fill baskets as they traveled down a conveyer. Like Lucy and Ethel with the chocolates, except Ma couldn't stuff the baskets in her mouth. Tereza headed out for the two-mile jaunt to downtown, disguised in Haggerty's hooded black robe, the bottom scissored off so it wouldn't drag on the ground. Buddy's jacket warmed her underneath. She'd stitched the stuffed socks together into a fat, lumpy belt and pinned the belt to her shorts, using a needle, thread and diaper pins from a sewing box she'd found on a bathroom shelf. The belt cinched her waist like a too-small swimming tube. She'd kept out two rolls of bills, now in the pocketbook on her shoulder under the robe.

The world outside felt bigger. She turned for a last look at the blind plywood eyes and yawning mouth of the house. She felt released, like a balloon slipping from a kid's hand, floating up to get lost in the clouds. She zigzagged to town, avoiding the school and the highway crossing where she knew a cop would be on duty. She wouldn't go to
school ever again if she could help it. She'd never understood what she was supposed to be learning anyway, couldn't see what difference it would make to how her life turned out.

The closer to downtown she walked, the tighter her heart got. The nearly bare trees lining the street looked like twisted old men ready to pounce and steal her money. She folded her arms across her middle and clutched the money tube gripping her waist.

She'd gone to town lots in the summer, usually with the guys and mostly to places that let you horse around: the diner, the soda shop, the five-and-dime. Today she braved a luggage and gift shop where anything noisier than the rustle of tissue paper was probably against the law. A briefcase in the window said twelve bucks. A present for her father, she told the perfumy saleswoman who smiled and whispered, “A lucky man.” She didn't say boo about Tereza's costume, maybe because she was wearing a witch's hat herself. The briefcase came with a lock. In the shop's bathroom, Tereza tucked the rolls of cash into it and abandoned the socks in a wastebasket. She locked up the necklace, knife and flashlight in the briefcase, too.

She carried the locked case across the street to the only department store in town and headed to the women's section for something grown-up looking. She took three suits off a rack and peered around for blouses. A nearly chinless woman in a pleated plaid skirt and red sweater set appeared from nowhere at her side, took the suits from Tereza and returned them to the rack.

“Hey! I wanted to try them on.”

“The children's department is in the back.” The woman didn't even look at her.

Tereza hadn't anticipated needing a story. What she came up with on the spot—that she had the Grace Kelly part of the wife who almost gets bumped off in a school production of
Dial M for Murder
and needed the right costume—wasn't her best.

Chinless scowled at her then, with eyes the color of mold. Tereza produced her pocketbook from beneath the robe and fished out some bills. “I got cash.”

Chinless suggested that Grace Kelly would choose a slim black-and-white tweed suit (extra small for Tereza), a white blouse, a gunmetal gray double-breasted wool coat with big round buttons and fake pearl earrings. “A wig would be the crowning touch, pardon the pun,” she said, “but with your coloring, something more Dolores del Rio than Grace Kelly.”

Tereza didn't know any Dolores, but a wig was a boss idea. She opted for a black one with Ava Gardner waves, then picked out gloves, bra, skivvies, garter belt and nylons. A hundred and six bucks for the whole shebang.

Chinless helped her do her makeup, going easy on the eye shadow. “You look good,” she said, “and older in that outfit. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a young wife out for the day.” Tereza could tell she wasn't bullshitting.

She had Chinless bag up Haggerty's robe, Buddy's jacket, her old bra, shorts and sweater. Told her she'd wear the new clothes out of the store to begin getting in character.

“Grace Kelly would not wear ballerina slippers with that outfit,” Chinless said.

Tereza admired her for continuing to play along. She exited a shoe store, inches taller, in what the salesman called “an amazing pump.” Black. $10.95. Matching pocketbook: $3.50. The first roll was gone and the second shrinking.

The amazing pumps took her to the train station three blocks away. Her plan was to take the Pennsy to Linden, first, to return Buddy's flashlight and jacket. She'd have him meet her at a fancy hotel to show she didn't need his help.

“There a nice hotel in Linden?” she asked the old ticket seller with a missing middle finger.

“I wouldn't think so,” he said.

“What about Elizabeth?” The stop after Linden.

“Oh sure.”

On the twenty-minute ride Tereza envisioned a bath hot enough to steam up a mirror and, later, a soft bed. After seeing Buddy, she'd get back on the Pennsy and get off in New York City. Finally see the Rockettes, the Empire State Building and the Automat. She wouldn't tell him where she was going in case he blabbed to Richie. The realization that she could do whatever she wanted from now on gurgled up into her throat. She wanted to hug everyone on the train.

The conductor pointed her to a hotel a five-minute stroll from the station. On a canopy over a carpeted entrance, the hotel's name was lit up in fancy script Tereza couldn't read. Green-and-whitestriped awnings hung over every window of the eight floors. Linda would've said it was
grand
. A man in a jacket the same green as the awnings stood at attention behind a wood-paneled counter holding a jack-o-lantern. He flashed her an Ipana-white smile.

“A room, please,” Tereza said, dropping her voice to sound older.

“A single.” She'd seen people check into hotels in movies.

“For how many nights?”

“Two.” In case she couldn't get hold of Buddy tomorrow.

“American Plan or à la carte?”

“American Plan.” She was feeling patriotic.

“The rate is six dollars a night. Are you comfortable with that?”

“Yeah, no sweat.”

He handed her a card and a pen. “I'll need name, address and telephone number.”

Tereza stared at the card, her heart pounding against her ribs. She set the briefcase and shopping bag beside her feet and slowly picked up the pen, buying time while her mind conjured up a phony name and address. Stop watching me, she wanted to yell as she gripped the pen in her fist and printed ugly letters that strayed off the line. His
X-ray eyes burned through her new clothes to the dumb old Tereza underneath. She looked up at him. “Don't got no phone.”

He took the card from her and read it quickly. “May I see some identification, Miss Derek?” When she didn't respond, he said, “A driver's license or social security card will do.”

“I got money in case you're worried.” She opened the new pocketbook and pulled out what remained of the second roll.

He lifted his eyebrows and smiled flatly. “Excuse me a moment.” He ducked through a doorway behind the desk.

She snatched up the briefcase and shopping bag and left.

REENIE OPENED
the door just a wedge, so the cop couldn't see inside. He stood feet apart, hand on holster. He flashed his badge and gave his name but her head was too full of noise to take it in. “Tereza Dobra's mother?” Her legs went spongy. They've found her, she thought, face down in the river or run over. “Call me Reenie,” she said, her voice coming from someplace else. She squeezed out a smile to cover the fear seizing her lungs. “Anything wrong?” “Your children weren't at school today, Reenie, and the principal's concerned. They home now?” “My boy is. The school send the cops every time a kid don't show up? That must keep you busy.” “Mind if I come in and talk about it?” She didn't want a cop in the house. Didn't want Allen hearing whatever he might say. “My husband ain't here.” “Would it be better if we spoke outside on the porch?” A gentleman cop; that made a change. “Yeah, it would, thanks, just a minute, lemme turn off the stove.” She shut the door, leaving him in the hallway. Allen was sprawled on the floor watching
The Mickey Mouse Club,
the first show in days to drag him away from the window. “Stay here,” she told him. She grabbed her coat off the hook, her Winstons and matches from the counter. The cop tested the porch railing before half-sitting on it. “I heard there was
trouble between your husband and daughter Friday night, an incident involving a belt. I understand your daughter ran away afterward and hasn't been seen since.” “Who told you that?” “Is it true?” Reenie drew a cigarette from the pack and handed him her matches. He flinched like she'd stepped on his toe but recovered and offered her a light. She took a deep drag and watched her icy breath fuse with the smoke. Linda, she thought, it had to be Linda who told. “I don't know nothing about a belt. Tereza was late coming home, my husband seen her coming down the street and went out to meet her, to make sure she come in, you know? He said she yelled at him and ran away.” “Did he say why she yelled at him?” This cop was good-looking but so tall you'd have to kiss him on the stairs, him a couple steps below. Reenie pursed her lips and shook her head. Sometimes the truth was nobody else's business. Tereza thought that too, and it drove Jimmy nuts. “What have you done about finding your daughter?” “I called around the neighborhood all weekend. Stayed home from work today—pissing off the shift boss; Tereza's got no idea the trouble she's making. Anyway, I stayed here because my boy was too upset to go to school but also because I thought Tereza might sneak back to get some clothes. My husband's out right now checking places she might be at.” Doing penance, she thought but didn't say. Jimmy always felt like crap after a row with Tereza. “Why would she have to
sneak
home?” “She don't, of course, just that when she gets a bee in her …” Reenie didn't finish because Allen's worried little face was pressed against the window. She turned her back so he couldn't read her lips. “She's stubborn is all, thinks nobody but her is ever right.” “Why do
you
think she hasn't come home, Reenie?” “I got no idea.” “Sure you do.” Reenie shivered and hugged herself. She studied the peeling paint on the porch, the same baby-shit color of the last building they'd lived in. She hated having to leave places just when they started to feel like home.
Hated
having to choose between being a good wife and a good mother. “Has Tereza run away before?” “Not here, but yeah, last place we lived. She always
came home after she cooled off.” “Does your husband hit her?” Reenie took a last drag and tossed the butt over the railing. “Why'd you ask that?” Her teeth clicked like castanets; it was goddamned cold out. “Because Tereza has been observed with marks on her arms and legs.” Ah, only four months in Stony River and already time to move on. Well, this apartment was nothing special and she'd need a lobotomy to do that job at the Catalog Club much longer. “She's a tomboy is all,” she told the cop, “always taking a tumble, scraping or breaking something.” He nodded slowly, looked straight at her and said, like a punch in the gut, “Does he hurt you and the boy, too?” If Jimmy went to jail, how would Reenie take care of Allen? It might be better if Tereza didn't come back; she'd be leaving in a few years anyway, and Jimmy was calmer when she wasn't around. She stared right back into the mirror of the cop's brown eyes. “You bring me any news about my girl? If not, I gotta go feed my boy.” She could tell he didn't like that. He slid off the porch rail and stood like he had a rod up his behind. “I inspected a vacant house a few blocks from here. Someone's been in it recently. It might have been your daughter. We'll keep an eye on it in case she returns. Also, I put in calls to the county hospitals and police stations this afternoon. No unidentified young females found. I'd like a recent photograph of Tereza to show around.” Imagining her baby in a morgue, no one to claim her, Reenie teared up. She thought about that lump of bone where Tereza's jaw had healed. “Don't have no picture, no camera.” “When will your husband be home?” “Seven, maybe.” “I'll be back then.” Inside, Reenie took Allen's chin in her hand. “Don't tell nobody about that cop being here, understand? And I'll be the one lets Pop-Pop know.”