The Lost Girls (26 page)

I turned and ran, pushing at branches and tripping on roots, crashing through the forest that slammed shut behind me with savage green teeth, not stopping until I burst onto the grassy verge where our clothesline stood and our dresses, their bows limp and wet, hung motionless in the hot, still air.

The school gym was too small. It was filled with metal chairs, but still people stood in the back and along the sides, clustering around a holiday bake sale by the door. Justine and Maurie found a place to stand along the left side of the chairs. Maurie looked stiff, the skin around her mouth tense. The gym was an annex to the main school building, and the dedication above the door said it was built in 1945. Justine tried to imagine her mother as a girl here, in gym class or maybe a school play, but she couldn't.

A woman Maurie's age was staring at them from her seat three rows away. She said something to the man next to her, and he turned, too.

“Do you know them?” Justine asked.

“No.” Maurie looked the woman square in the eye until she turned back around.

Justine didn't know anyone, of course, but she recognized some of the mothers who waited for their children on the sidewalk after school. She also saw Elizabeth Sorensen in the front row with a Nordic-looking man and an older blond couple. Her profile was elegant beneath a sleek French twist. Justine scanned the program and saw Claire and Maxwell Sorensen. She wondered what grade Claire was in.

The chorus, which had been running through warm-ups despite the din, stopped singing. The chorus teacher moved the children closer together and relocated a boy from one row to another. She directed the older children to sit, then waited with the stiff back of a circus ringmaster for the audience to stop talking and
the herd of squatting fathers with video cameras to settle into their places in the center aisle. When it was quiet, she raised her baton and launched the younger singers into an energetic rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Justine focused her instant camera on Angela in the second row. Angela's ash-blond curls floated around her perfect, china-doll face as she sang. The girl beside her, also adorable, with a pixie haircut and a red dress, smiled at her and bumped her arm between the first and second verse. Delighted, Justine snapped a picture, including the pixie girl. Someday, she knew, Angela would look at it and try very hard to remember that girl's name. She tried not to think about that.

When the littler kids were done the chorus teacher waved the older children to their feet. Justine studied the girls. Four, standing together, reeked of status in satin headbands and pressed collars. Even their hair looked like it had been done in a salon. Justine, who remembered fifth grade very well, didn't like them.

Melanie stood at the end of the top row. She'd placed herself there on purpose, Justine knew, because then she'd have only one person beside her. Only one person who would avoid touching her for fear of contamination. That person was a chubby girl with glasses who kept a careful six inches between them. Melanie pushed her hair behind her ear, and when it immediately fell forward, did it again. In that gesture Justine saw Francis, sweeping his hair out of his face as he played his guitar. The image pricked her heart with a quick stealth before she could defend it. Francis would have loved that Melanie was in the chorus, she thought, then corrected herself: obviously Francis hadn't given a damn what Melanie did.

The chorus wasn't very good, of course, but they sang “In the Bleak Midwinter” with simple, quiet piety, and “Deck the Halls” with a verve that more than compensated for the painful intonation. And the chorus teacher was oddly compelling. When she raised her baton to begin a song, Justine could feel the children's
hearts pause, like sledders at the top of a hill. They watched her with rapture, this plain woman with her brown hair falling out of its bun and her wide bottom straining at her black skirt. Even the queen bees forgot themselves, their mouths chewing the music like cows working a cud.

But it was Melanie whom Justine watched. Melanie, who sang with something shining in her eyes and something aching in the line of her throat, something rich and unaware that made Justine remember the Melanie who'd sung on the coffee table in her nightgown, long ago. Then, when the last notes of “Silent Night” washed over the crowd, and the teacher, having frozen with her hands raised and her body alive to the fading echoes in the air, dropped her baton at last, a remarkable thing happened. She looked at Melanie—only Melanie—and nodded at her. Melanie's mouth stretched into a wide, delighted grin that lasted through the applause, which lasted a long time. Justine willed Melanie to see her; to smile that smile at her; but she didn't. Later she would realize she hadn't taken her picture.

The concert was over. The audience rose in a crashing of metal chairs, collecting coats and toddlers, but Justine stood still. In the next town there would be a chorus, and Melanie would join it. Justine would see to it. She imagined a sun-drenched, white stucco apartment building with patios and bougainvillea and a swimming pool. She imagined her daughters walking through warm air to the nearby school, where Melanie sang in the chorus and no one washed their hands after they touched her. She wished they were there already.

“Let's get out of here so I can have a cigarette,” Maurie said.

It took them a while to find the girls in the swarm of people, but then Angela, bouncing with excitement, wriggled between a pair of elderly aunts. “You were fantastic, sweetie,” Justine said, running her fingers through her hair.

“What did you think, Grandma?” Angela asked, her face shining.

“I thought you were the prettiest girl on the stage,” Maurie said, which was such the perfect thing to say that Justine smiled at her in gratitude.

They found Melanie beside the risers. Her face had settled back into its usual sour expression, but her hands betrayed her, the fingers thin and needy as they worked at one another. Justine touched her shoulder. It was the first time she had touched her with intention since she'd flung her onto the sofa. Through a sparkle of tears she saw that Melanie's head now came up to her chin. “That was beautiful,” she said. Melanie shrugged and looked down.

The chorus teacher was talking to another family nearby, but when she saw Melanie and Justine she excused herself and came over. Up close, she was far from plain. Her face was strong, with full lips and small, bright eyes, and the bones of her hips and shoulders were flung out with an exuberance her sober pencil skirt and high-buttoned blouse couldn't quite contain. “I'm Rose Scozzafava.” Her voice had a faint accent. “You have a very talented daughter.”

“Thank you,” Justine said. She wasn't sure this was the right thing to say. Mrs. Scozzafava leaned close.

“I have a chorus for high school students. Not a school program, a private one. Even though she's in fifth grade, I would take her.” Her voice was clipped, almost military with its foreign consonants. Justine wondered how she'd wound up in Williamsburg.

“We'll think about it.” She wasn't going to tell the chorus teacher they were leaving, but even if she'd considered it, the look on Melanie's face would have stopped her. Then a blond woman pushed forward to press Mrs. Scozzafava's hand, and Justine and her family slipped away through the emptying room.

In front of the door Patrick was waiting for them.

Justine stopped. The world funneled in, then spun out again. A mother in a tan parka walked past, towing a girl in pigtails. An elderly man and woman shuffled after them. Patrick came closer.
He was wearing a faded blue jacket Justine didn't recognize and a baseball cap over his ginger hair. He looked thinner. Justine put her hand over her mouth. She wasn't sure what it was doing.

Maurie said, sharply, “Who's this?”

Justine couldn't answer. When she was sure her face was under control she turned to her daughters. Their faces were shocked. Then Angela's dissolved into confusion and Melanie's hardened into fury and revulsion. “I didn't know he was coming,” Justine said to her.

When she turned around again Patrick was right in front of her, and she took a stutter-step backward. His eyes looked fragile. He said, “Can I walk you to your car?”

She didn't know how to say no. So they walked, she and Patrick several steps behind Maurie and the girls. Maurie canted her head, clearly trying to overhear anything they might say. Melanie's back was straight, and she'd taken Angela's hand. Justine wrapped her arms around her chest, not from the cold. The school had no parking lot, so they had parked two blocks away, on the street. It seemed like two miles now.

“I hope you don't mind that I came,” Patrick said after they'd walked the first block in silence.

“How did you find us?” Justine's lips were stiff.

“It's the only school in town. I saw the sign for the concert and thought it was worth a shot.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “You called a lawyer out this way. I got laid off, so I decided I'd come see if you were here.”

She stopped walking. “You lost your job?”

He stopped, too. His shoulders slumped and his hands burrowed deeper into his cheap coat. “I couldn't do it, Jus. After you left I didn't care about those copiers and faxes. None of that mattered. All I've been thinking about is you. I need to talk to you. Please.”

The sidewalk was nearly empty. The last of the concertgoers
hurried to the warmth of their cars. Justine clutched her purse as though Patrick were a mugger. He'd driven two thousand miles because of a number on a phone bill. It was insane. It was also exactly what he would do. God, she'd messed everything up so badly. She should have called him. If she had, he wouldn't have left San Diego. He might not even have lost his job. She'd been an idiot. A coward. Shaking the dust off her feet. Goddamn it. She looked at his hands, deep in his pockets. He didn't even have any gloves.

She steadied herself, lowered her purse to her side. He was here, and it was her fault. She needed to fix it. She owed him that much. “Where are you staying?”

“The Motel 6.”

“I'll call you there tomorrow. We can meet somewhere, and we'll talk.”

He blew out a huge breath, as though he'd been holding it this entire time. “Thank you, Jus.” They walked on again in a silence broken only by the crunch of their feet on the snow. Tomorrow, Justine thought. Tomorrow she would tell him the things she should have told him before. Tonight she would rehearse them, alone in her room, so she'd get them exactly right. She would end it properly, he would go home, they would leave, and everything would be okay.

They got to her car, where Maurie and the girls waited, shivering. Patrick said, “Hey, Angie. Mellie.” Angela pressed closer to her sister. Melanie was still holding her hand.

Justine unlocked the doors and Patrick opened hers for her. Then he stepped back and began to walk away. She saw, at the far end of the street, his white Chevy truck. She hadn't seen it before; he must have come after the concert began. As he walked up the sidewalk she took a moment to regain her equilibrium, then turned the key in the ignition.

Nothing happened. She turned it again. Click-click-click. “Mommy?” Angela said from the backseat.

Patrick, halfway to his truck, looked over his shoulder. When he saw they hadn't left, he turned back. “Oh, no,” Justine said. She turned the key again, and again. Nothing. When he got to her window she rolled it down. “It's just cold, it'll start in a minute.”

“Let me hear it,” he said. He leaned in. He listened to the click-click-click and shook his head. “I hate to tell you, but your starter's out. You'll have to call a garage tomorrow and have them tow it.”

Justine's fingers were numb in her gloves. She had $983 left in Lucy's checking account. How much would it cost to fix the starter? Pay the tow truck? She owed her mother $121.68. She hadn't bought any Christmas presents yet. A rime of ice coated the bottom of the windshield. Maurie sat beside her, watching but offering no assistance.

“It's okay, I can drive you home,” Patrick said.

No. She didn't want him to take her to Lucy's; didn't want him to know where she lived. She looked up and down the street. It was empty beneath the lights. Maybe he could take them to a hotel. But not the Motel 6. Then where? What other hotels were there? One night at a hotel: $19.99. They needed money for the next town. Gas and hotels on the way. First month's rent, security deposit, money to last until she got her first paycheck from the job she hadn't gotten yet.

“Come on, it's not like I had plans for tonight. Let me drive you home.”

Shit
. It was five below zero. They needed to go somewhere. And even if they did go to a hotel, they'd need to get out to the house tomorrow, because how long would the car be in the shop? More than a day, surely.

Justine tightened her hands on the steering wheel. He was going
to find out where they lived anyway. It was a small town. All he had to do was ask around and somebody would tell him Lucy Evans's great-niece was living in the lake house.

In his truck, she sat in the front seat and tried not to think about all the times she'd been in it before. The times she and Patrick had eaten their doughnuts, drunk their beers, and made love on the back bench seat where her daughters and her mother now crowded together.

The reflectors lining the county road flared to life, one by one, then faded, like small flames. No one spoke. At the turnoff to the lake, the truck rose and fell, its suspension swinging through the ruts of the dirt road. “Damn,” Patrick muttered once, as branches laden with snow scraped the top of the cab.

When they reached the clearing he pulled to a stop in front of Lucy's house. In the dark it looked even more slump-shouldered than usual. “This is where you're living?” he said, disbelief coloring his voice.

Melanie opened the door and climbed out; Maurie and Angela followed. Justine reached for her door, but Patrick put his hand on her arm. “Please. Stay a minute.”

Maurie stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and looked back. Justine nodded at her, and she and the girls went up, Melanie last, glancing over her shoulder before she went inside. Justine kept her hand on the door handle.