Tell Me (6 page)

Morning. Eight twenty. I'm warming up my voice.

 

Ah ah ah ahhhhhhhh ah ah ahhhhhhhhhh

 

I go up one note.

Ah ah ah ahhhhhhh ah ah ahhhhhhhhhhh

Bean is in the bathroom holding his disgusting, mangy ball.

“What?”

Bean drops the ball. It rolls toward me.

“I have to get ready. I have to be a petunia.”

I put pink blush all over my face, pink lipstick. I put on mascara. Petunias need long lashes. I flutter my lashes.

Don't mess with me.

Bean whines.

“I can't play with you in this outfit.”

 

Ah ah ah ahhhhhhhhhhh ah ah ahhhhhhhhhh

 

Honestly, I'm up to being a petunia. Not much else.

Definitely not a singer.

My phone rings. It's Mom.

“Hi.”

“Well, hi.” She sounds like she's trying to hold it together.

“Have you broken any eggs?”

That's a joke. She doesn't get it. “Oh, Anna, how are you?”

Mom, you sound awful.

“I've sort of got a job.” I mention the petunia.

She half laughs. “You've got range, honey.”

“Mom, you don't sound too good.”

“Well, I've been better.”

Bean pushes his ball to me. I kick it back. He pushes it again.

“Do you have time to talk, Anna?”

“I'm supposed to be at the library, I can call and say I'll be—”

“No, we'll talk later.”

“Mom, did something happen?”

She's quiet.

“Dad's okay?” I say this louder.

“Yes. We'll talk later. I love you.”

Call ended.

But not really.

My mind seems to be finishing all the sentences.

She and Dad had an awful fight.

They're going to get a divorce..

She wants me to come home.

I suppose I could do that. I can hang out with Lorenzo.

They're selling the house.

Peanut died.

No, she would have told me right then.

She's got some terrible disease . . . or Dad does . . . or I do.

Stop it, Anna.

“I hear you're a singer,” Ben says.

I shake my head. Petals fall in my face.

“Winnie told me. Librarians don't lie.”

“I sing like anybody else.”

I try hard to look like I mean it, but it's hard to look serious in a puffy petunia suit. I head toward the front of the library.

I'm not going to go round and round about my call with my mother.

No hamster brain allowed. The show must go on!

“We need a singer in the band,” Ben says after me.

Run it by Caitlin first, okay?

I pull down in my actor's soul. Today I'm going deep as a petunia.

The library doors open. Three little kids run in and instantly hug me.

“Hey,” I shout, “this is the way to start the day!”

We start dancing, and their mothers are smiling. More kids show up, more parents—in just a few minutes I've got a crowd.

People take my picture.

Puffy pose.

A little girl comes up to me and whispers, “I didn't want to come to the library, because my best friend said she hates me.”

“That's hard. I'm glad you came.”

She goes to the children's section, gets a book, and comes back to read it here.

When you hurt you need people around you.

“Yes, the library float has a bookworm.” That's Winnie Dugan walking by on her phone. “It is not a tired symbol, Doria, it's classic. We have a huge book decorated with roses and a reading tree. We'll have one hundred mum plants decorating the staircase.”

Winnie looks at me. I wiggle my nose. She smiles. She needed that.

Back to the ever-growing group.

“Petunia, will you read to me?”

“Petunia, will you be my babysitter?”

Three little boys, triplets, start twirling me around. I don't even know how much time has passed, but all of a sudden I feel so tired.

“You guys,” Ben shouts, “leave the petunia alone.” He points to the children's room. They scurry in there.

Ben hands me an iced tea. “Take a break, Anna.”

I take off my petal hat and head outside. My hair is wet from sweating. I sit on the library steps next to the camel-shaped bush.

I look at the camel. “How's it going?”

Voice trick time. “I'm thirsty,” it says.

A boy asks me. “How did you do that?”

“It's a secret.” I do it again.

A man and woman walk up holding hands; they smile at me.

My parents used to hold hands.

I drink my tea as an old van pulls up. A lady gets out, shouting on her purple phone, smoking a long cigarette. She's not speaking English; she looks Asian. She puts on big white sunglasses.

A man sits in the driver's seat of the van. A girl is in the back looking out the window. I wave to her; she waves back a little. The man honks the horn, and the
lady on the phone yells something at him I don't understand. He yells back.

I look at the girl in the van. My parents fight, too.

The girl hits the window. The man shouts. The woman walks over, waves her cigarette at me. She's wearing a hot pink shirt with a silver star.

“You show,” she says with a thick accent, “ba room.”

“What?”

“Ba room!”

“Bathroom?”

She nods.

“There's one inside.”

“You show.” The woman shouts to the man, who gets the girl out of the van. The girl is nervous, looking around. The woman throws her cigarette down, grabs the girl's hand, drags her over, then says to me, “Okay, now you show.”

“This way.”

I put my petal hat back on—it's important to stay in character. I walk them to the bathroom behind the return desk. The girl is looking everywhere, almost like she's never been in a library before. She has the biggest eyes. She looks at my outfit.

“I'm a petunia,” I explain.

The lady says something in another language, and instantly the girl looks down.

“This is it,” I tell them. “There's only room for one at a—”

The woman goes in with the girl, slams the door shut.

Winnie Dugan is saying to a boy, “Roland, you can't take any more books out. You have eight overdue. . . .”

I hear a flush, and the door opens. The woman leads the girl outside by the arm, back into the van.

I walk back outside to get my iced tea and watch as they drive too fast out of the parking lot and almost crash into an SUV turning in. The van screeches to a stop. The SUV honks and pulls around the back. Then the side door of the van opens.

The girl jumps out and tries to run.

The man jumps out and catches her. “She sick, she sick!”

For a half second she looks pleadingly at me—this girl is scared. The man carries her back to the van and drives off.

What was . . . ?

Did anyone else see this?

I look around. I'm the only one out here.

I run inside. A little girl says, “Wanna dance, flower girl?”

“Not right now.”

I run up to Winnie Dugan, who is saying, “I'm sorry to hear about your turtle dying, Roland, but borrowing a book is a sacred trust.”

“Did you see that?” I interrupt.

A girl with short brown hair runs out of the bathroom. “Siri,” a woman shouts to her, “I swear, if we are late and miss that plane . . . !”

“I'm coming, Mom.” The brown-haired girl looks at me strangely. She and her mother head for the door.

I turn to Winnie. “The girl who was in here with that lady . . . who went to the bathroom . . . did you see it?”

“I did. It seemed odd. Who was she?”

“I don't know.”

People walk by and smile at my outfit.

I feel dizzy. I grab onto a tall bookcase.

“Something about that child,” Winnie mentions. “What kind of car did they have?”

“It was a van.”

“What kind?”

“I don't know.”

“What color?”

I try to remember. “Blue, maybe? Brown. I'm not sure.” I mention the lady's hot pink shirt. “There was a star on it.”

“I didn't notice that.”

I'm remembering when Becca's cousin Martin tried to jump out of a car; her uncle had to carry him back inside and give him his medicine.

Maybe this was the same thing.

Or not.

And if not . . .

“I think the girl might be in trouble, Winnie.”

“I wasn't paying attention when they first came in, but as they were leaving . . .”

Winnie asks the other librarian if she saw anything.

She didn't.

I run outside to get air, I stand on the library steps gulping it in.

My heart's beating so fast.

What just happened?

I sit on the steps, put my head between my legs, and try to slow my breathing down.

I'm trying to remember everything I saw.

The girl.

Her huge eyes.

The scratched van.

They were Asian. The girl and the lady. I think the man was, too.

I know this much—I'd better remember.

I'd better get it right.

I'm sitting at a picnic table behind the library. Ivy crawls over the wooden fence. Mim is here, Winnie, and Ben.

I say, “How do you know if you really saw something or you just think you did?”

Mim says, “Sometimes you don't know the difference.”

“Then what do you do?”

“You test it.” That's Winnie.

I tell them every detail I can remember.

“The man driving the car was angry. He had a wide face. He wasn't tall, at least I don't think so . . . I mean, she could just have angry parents or . . . she needs help going to the bathroom. . . .” I shout, “Her hair was brown—dark brown and straight . . . she wore it in a ponytail.”

“She was taller than the woman,” Winnie mentions.

“That's right! I can't remember what the girl was wearing.”

Winnie can't either.

I gulp. “I just remember her eyes—big and wide and sad and brown . . .”

Winnie puts a legal pad in front of me. “Write it down.”

“I'm not sure what I saw!”

Ben hands me a pen. “You just went into massive detail, Anna.”

“Do it now, honey. Before you forget,” Mim adds.

I write:

 

I was outside when the van pulled into the library parking lot and parked. It was an ugly van, scratched up.

A lady got out, talking on her phone. Another language—not Spanish or French. I know how those sound.

The lady was short.

She was smoking.

The color of her shirt was hot pink.

The picture on her shirt was a star.

The girl in the van had huge, brown eyes and never smiled. I just remember her eyes and how it seemed she wanted to run away.

She tried to run away!

The lady took her by the arm and went into the bathroom with her.

The man driving the car was angry. He had a wide face. He wasn't tall, at least I don't think so.

The girl's hair was brown—dark brown and straight.

She was taller than the woman.

The girl was wearing ________.

The color of the van was ________.

The license plate was ________.

 

I draw a girl's face with huge eyes, baby animal eyes.

“The girl I saw could just have weird parents or . . . she needed help going to the bathroom . . . or she doesn't need help at all!”

We look at Winnie, who says, “I'm calling the sheriff.”

The sheriff sends Deputy Bitterson, who isn't
impressed by what I saw.

“You don't have a name, a license plate, make of car, young lady?”

“It was a van, sir.”

“What color?”

I mention the scratches.

“How old was she?”

“Maybe my age. Twelve.”

“Deputy,” Winnie says, “I saw the girl and the woman, too. This was not a normal situation.”

He shakes his head. “There's been no crime that we know of, no report that a girl with this description is missing.”

“Do you always need that information?” Winnie demands.

He takes in a breath. “Usually.”

I look at the clock on the wall, ticking off the seconds.

How much time is left to find her?

Does she even need to be found?

I look at the deputy. “What if the girl's in trouble?”

He sighs. “Unfortunately, there are lots of kids in trouble.”

Does that mean we don't try to help this one?

Winnie mentions getting an artist to draw a composite sketch.

Deputy Bitterson's long face is getting longer. “We don't have a police sketch artist in Rosemont. Closest one is an hour away.”

Winnie leans toward him. “We have a car!”

“Mrs. Dugan, we have a couple thousand people who are going to pour into this town over the next two weeks. We need to make sure we're safe and ready for whatever comes. We don't have the man power to track this down. I'll make out a report.”

She's in his face now. “What do you do in emergencies, Deputy?”

“We do the best we can!”

The genius hands him a copy of all I wrote down.

Deputy Bitterson folds it without looking at it.

Then he marches past the four-day book table, turns left at the My Favorite Book shadowbox display, and heads out the door.

Mim's backyard is packed to overflowing. There is a patio with a slider chair and a big tree with a rope swing,
every branch has a birdhouse painted in bright colors, and a birdbath stands by the hammock; four birds are playing in it as a squirrel watches.

And I can't sit still.

I flop into the slider chair, push it back and forth.

I get up, I sit down.

Mim is grilling bourbon chicken. “Don't talk yourself out of what you saw, Anna.”

“I know . . . I'm just confused . . . and worried . . .”

“I can understand both those things. But do not doubt what you saw.”

Right
.

I'm back in the sliding chair, pushing it back and forth, back and forth, I feel the rhythm of the movement.

I watch the birds splashing. My dad made the big birdhouse. . . . It looks like a bird motel. Several birds fly in and out.

Maybe that girl's mother was just having a bad day.

Back and forth . . .

Mim puts the chicken on a platter. Bean heads over to the grill—he wants this chicken.

“Why shouldn't I doubt what I saw?”

Mim looks right at me with her royal blue eyes. “Because Winnie saw strange behavior, too, and because you're a smart, discerning girl. Live with that. Winnie is checking with someone who knows about these things.”

“The sheriff?”

“She has another contact.” Mim heads to the table. “Don't overthink it, Anna.”

“I can't not think about it!”

“I understand.”

“We can't give up!”

“We won't.”

If I were a better person, if I'd been paying attention, I would have gotten the license plate and I would have run over there and helped that girl. I could have at least taken a picture with my phone!

Did I do that?

I did not do that!

I sat there

Doing nothing . . .

And now a girl with baby animal eyes might be in serious trouble, and it's all my fault!

Mim carries corn bread to the table, studying my face.

“I'm not overthinking it!”

I grab a piece of corn bread, take a bite.

“This corn bread is amazing.”

I sit there trying not to overthink anything, but the minute you try so hard, every worry you have tumbles out.

I eat some bourbon chicken, and this chicken is beyond great, and I sip my orange juice and I look at Mim and burst into tears.

Mim says, “Come on. I want to show you something . . .”

I shake my head.

I go over what I saw.

The girl's eyes were brown.

Her shirt was—

I bolt up. “She had a yellow scrunchie, Mim! Her hair was in a ponytail! I remember!”