The Missing Person (14 page)

A general shuffling sound made me open my eyes. Everyone else had moved to the sides of the room, where they lay flat on their backs with their legs hoisted up on the walls, and I scrambled to follow. This was a mistake. No way could I get my legs flat against the wall, not without snapping them in half. The instructor moved lightly through the room, touching shoulders, at one point placing a foot on someone's stomach to flatten it. He had very long toes. When he reached me, sitting there in the lotus with my head bowed and eyes closed, I could hear him pause momentarily before moving on.

The heat now seemed even more intense, and sweat was streaming down my back. The people around me had moved to the middle of the room, where they sprawled on their backs, their legs doubled backwards over their heads and their arms twisted together. I had no idea how they'd accomplished this feat, or for what purpose. Even Harold had managed to contort himself into a semblance of the appropriate position. His T-shirt had slipped up, revealing a broad expanse of his starkly white skin, and sweat was puddled around him. Some people were twisted so far around that they were now looking back in my direction, their cheeks flushed and eyes eerily unfocused, their breathing labored.

The perfect muscles of the instructor were folded in on themselves like origami. “Hold it,” he was saying. “Hold it.”

How he could speak from within the pretzeled confines of his body was beyond me. I couldn't even make out where his head was. My own legs, though I was trying to extend them over my back like the others, refused to go any higher than my ears, and my stomach was killing me.

“Feel the toxins of the day draining away. From your heart, your liver, your kidneys. From your tongue, your teeth, your throat. Feel everything letting go.”

Throughout the room, the breathing eased and quieted. People were actually taking the opportunity to ruminate while remaining in their positions. My legs mutinied and crashed onto the floor with a slap that broke the mood. The woman I'd taken to be Eva Kent turned her head and stared at me. She couldn't have been older than I was.

“Close your eyes. Feel the worries of the day leaving your heart.” The instructor's voice was light and pleasant, with a chime almost, like a musical instrument. “Your heart is a feather in your chest.”

I tried picturing this, and couldn't. Then I felt a hand touching my knee, and when I looked up, the yoga instructor was kneeling by my side.

“Feel the toxins draining from your system in your sweat,” he said in his chiming voice. Then he hissed in my ear, in a distinctly unpleasant tone, “This isn't a beginners' class. Didn't you consult the schedule?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to check it out.”

“Inside your body purity is emerging,” he said sweetly, still glowering at me, and then whispered, “Level one meets on Tuesdays. Today's Wednesday!”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“This happens
all the time,
” he said, no longer bothering to keep his voice down. “It drives me completely freaking insane.”

I stood up. “I'm going now.” Everybody in the room was looking at me, all in various stages of unfurling, like fronds in spring. I gave Harold what I hoped was a nonchalant, vaguely surprised “Oh, you're here too?” wave. He just sat up and stared at me.

“I don't know why I bother to make these schedules when nobody reads them,” the instructor said. “This is
advanced
Ashtanga, for crying out loud. Put your blanket back. Don't leave here without putting your blanket back.”

I did as I was told.

“Folded!” he said.

The drive back from Santa Fe passed quickly, borne on the tide of my absolute embarrassment—Harold's face looming always before me, along with the rest of the unfurling yogis. What the hell was I thinking? I wished very much that the whole day had never happened.

I hit town at five o'clock, when Albuquerque's offices were evacuated as if in a sudden panic. So far as I could tell, nobody in this town ever worked a minute later. Fleeing employees stalled the roads in every direction, one per car, heads lolling in boredom, staring straight ahead. I rolled down the windows and got a lungful of exhaust-redolent air. The two interstates that met in the city arched and crossed, bridges above air, in the center of the sky. Over everything in my view lay the pallor of dust. I exited and drove the back streets instead, recognizing in my desire to keep the car moving, even if the route ultimately proved far longer, a tendency of my father's. Wylie had it too. Waiting at a red light behind two other cars, I thought I saw the eggplant-colored Plumbarama van drive past in the opposite direction. I made a quick right, but by the time I got turned around the van was nowhere in sight. Probably I had just imagined it.

I cruised through residential neighborhoods, at a speed that felt more like walking than anything gasoline-powered. Dogs lay still and panting in the shade of trees. Cats were in hiding. In someone's yard two small children were playing a game that seemed to involve the simulation of vomiting. As I drove past, one of them lifted his arm and shook his fist at me.

Threatened by children, humiliated by yoga instructors, and sticking sweatily to the vinyl front seat, I finally pulled into my mother's driveway. Nobody was home. I tossed my sweaty clothes onto a pile and took a quick, cold shower. Then I found a beer in the back of the fridge and sat in the backyard, the sweet relief of alcohol slipping down my throat, the wafting suburban smells comforting me: the charcoal smoke of backyard grills, the first hints of citronella, the gasoline putter of lawnmowers and weed whackers. I was half-asleep by the time a car door slammed shut out front and my mother and David came around the back.

“Hey, it's Lynnie!” David said, holding out his hand. “We saw that fearsome contraption of your brother's in the driveway and guessed you were back.”

I nodded. My mother, without meeting my eyes, gestured toward the back door. I held it open for her and she stepped inside, carrying a brown paper bag of groceries.

“You'll join us for dinner, I hope,” David said.

In the kitchen my mother was making short work of the groceries. Into the crisper flew the broccoli and green beans. Up into cupboards went the cereal. The breadbox, of course, was the destination of bread. Plastic bags, empty, folded, and creaseless, met their fate in the recycling bin she kept beneath the sink. David and I stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, watching her.

“Nobody puts away a load of groceries like your mother,” he said fondly. Crouched down on the floor, rearranging some delinquent items on the lower shelf of the fridge, my mother blushed and glanced at him briefly, a swift, demure look that made me feel like an intruder. I was about to go back outside when she straightened up and held out a bottle of beer in my direction, still not looking at me. I opened it by covering it with the hem of my T-shirt and twisting, which David seemed to interpret as a sign of weakness.

“Let me do that for you,” he said, holding out his large hand.

“That's okay. I've got it, thanks.”

“If you're sure,” he said. I was already drinking from the bottle. He smiled down at my mother.

“Excuse me for a second,” I said. I walked down the hallway to my room, which in every respect contrasted poorly with the rest of the house: the bed was unmade, the floor littered with clothes that had a faint but unmistakably organic scent. I was becoming one of the great unwashed. Eva Kent's paintings sat on the dresser, their thick layers of paint as violent and mysterious as ever. I sat down on the bed. In a pine tree just outside the window, a bird—I didn't know what kind—cackled and squawked. The world was densely populated with things I did not know. There was a soft knock on the door, and my mother came in. She'd changed from her office clothes into shorts and a loose-fitting shirt, and looked comfortable but fatigued, very fine lines etched everywhere on her skin. “Everything all right?” she said.

“Mom,” I said, “I just didn't have a very good day.”

She sat down next to me, and I remembered how, when I was sixteen, I'd been forced by my parents' machinations to go on a date with Francie Garcia's son, Luis. I had a zit on my forehead the size of a quarter and felt monstrous and degraded by adolescence. The date, by mutual consent, was short. I slunk home afterward and found my mother waiting for me on the couch in the living room, with the television on. My father had already gone to bed, and I sat down next to her, furious, undignified, and told her I would never let her do that to me again. Then I leaned my forehead against her shoulder and cried. “If you wait long enough,” she said, “this will all be over, and it will get better. I promise.”

Now, in silence, we sat in her condo with her married boyfriend here and Wylie not here, and I wondered if this was what she'd meant by “better.” Then she put her hand on the small of my back, still not saying anything, and I knew that this at least was true: in this house, on this day or any other, I would never be refused.

Thirteen

An uneasy peace is peaceful nonetheless. I was surprised at how happy I was, over the next few days, to play the good daughter, tidying up around the house and waiting for my mother to get home from work. I put all thoughts of Harold Wallace and his yogically contorted buttocks out of my mind. Several times we had dinner with David, the three of us marshaling enough energy for friendly conversation about topics of the day. We never talked about Wylie. David's manner toward me became less bombastic, more subdued, and he no longer cried out my name like a cheer every time he saw me. This came as a relief. My mother cooked a sequence of elaborate meals—from braised lamb shank to chicken satay— which she arranged on serving plates in displays worthy of food magazines. There were desserts and specially chosen wines. She emerged from the kitchen bearing fragrant dishes, blushing proudly at our praise.

I thought, None of this is so hard.

One sweltering Wednesday I even went down to her office so we could have lunch with Francie and Luis of the long-ago date. He and I ate enchiladas and watched our mothers beam at each other with pride. After a little while I understood what Francie had meant by saying she didn't think Luis would ever settle down: he was gay. All his teenage awkwardness had been replaced with an almost intimidating social ease. He was beautifully dressed and mannered, pulling out chairs for his mother and mine; drawing his mother out on the subject of her spectacular garden; making us all laugh. Francie put her hand over his and squeezed it as she bragged relentlessly about his accomplishments at work and exclaimed how lucky she was to have him around. It verged on disgusting. Then, halfway through the meal, she excused herself to visit the ladies' room, and I saw a trace of exhaustion emerge on his careful features. All this politeness and admiration and laughter was part of some agreement between them, some ongoing negotiation that made everything else, within limits, okay.

When Francie came back from the restroom, pink lipstick and blue eye shadow brilliantly reapplied, she asked what was new with Wylie these days.

My mother shook her head. “I've deferred to Lynnie,” she said. “She's the only one who can talk to him.”

Francie gave me a generous and approving smile. “It's so good you're back!”

“I guess so,” I said.

“It's been like that ever since they were children,” my mother went on. “Wylie would keep secrets that only Lynn could hear about. He'd creep into her bedroom at night and whisper them to her. Nobody else could know.”

I looked at her. I remembered Wylie chattering, and me telling him to shut up and go to sleep, but whether there was any exchange of secrets I couldn't say. Luis smiled at me, sipping his iced tea.

“She even got Wylie to come back for dinner,” my mother said. “I'm hoping by the end of the summer, he might even spend the night. It's like domesticating a wild animal. You have to take it a little bit at a time.”

Francie and Luis laughed. The tone of my mother's voice was confident and humorous and, it seemed to me, utterly false. Not to mention the improbability of Wylie coming home any time soon. She was either offering the most favorable interpretation of events or else hoping that by presenting an optimistic scenario she could somehow make it real.

The idyll of the good daughter lasted less than a week. What broke the peace was this: I drank at least a bottle of wine over dinner with my mother and David, preceded by a gin and tonic and followed by a healthy dose of Kahlua she'd produced from some hidden cupboard, after which I fell into a deep yet troubled sleep rife with pornographic dreams. Then I woke up at five in the morning, thirsty, restless, and wracked by the kind of loneliness that can't be cured by having a nice chat with your mother. I had to see Angus again.

It was so quiet in the condo that I could almost hear my mother and David breathing behind their closed door. Outside, the sky was packed with stars, but already lightening to purple in the east. There was a burnt tinge to the air, the distant smell of wilderness fires. I got into the Caprice and drove to Wylie's apartment, feeling alert and alone. There was no answer when I knocked, but when I tried the door it wasn't locked.

The place was empty and dark, and I stood in the middle of the room waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then something damp and rough brushed against my leg: the dog, licking me.

“Are you all alone here, Sledge?” I said. “For a bunch of animal lovers, these guys don't pay you much attention.”

In answer, he worked his tongue down my calf.

“That's enough,” I said.

There was a rustling sound, and a shadow appeared out of the back. Even in the dark I could tell the figure wasn't tall enough to be Angus. After more rustling and some muttering, a flashlight clicked on and I could see Irina, in a blue night-dress, standing there blinking, looking sleepy and confused.

“Irina, it's me,” I said.

“Oh, my goodness. Is everything all right? Are they in prison?”

“Are who in prison?” I said.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said again. “Never mind, then.” She set the flashlight down on the kitchen counter, so that its pallid ray stretched across the room. Sledge whined once, as if for show, then lay down at my feet.

“I'm sorry to disturb you,” I said. Even in the dark, I saw her face was creased with sleep and concern.

Suddenly the flashlight rolled off the counter and crashed onto the floor. Sledge jumped, and from the bedroom came the anguished sounds of Psyche waking up. I picked up the flashlight as Irina went back to get her, and played the light, in turn, on the dog, the bare floor, and the bedroom, where Irina stepped out cradling the baby in her arms, rocking back and forth and cooing soothingly.

I went to the window and pulled the sheet loose from the duct tape, letting the vague light of early morning into the room.

“Are you all right?” Irina said. I looked down at myself, at shorts and an old T-shirt I didn't remember putting on, feeling as if I'd only just then woken up. “Where is everybody?” I said.

“They're off working.”

“Wylie too?”

“Sometimes he helps on Angus,” she said.

“Out,” I said. “He helps out.”

“That's what I said,” she said, smiling. “Would you enjoy some breakfast?”

Somehow, in an apartment with no power, she made a delicious meal. First, she put a clean baby blanket down on the floor and laid Psyche on top, the baby watching us drowsily, kicking her fat legs a few times before falling back asleep. Then she pulled a small camp stove from a milk crate and heated water over the propane flame, adding dried fruit and powdered milk and maple syrup to some kind of hot cereal, and finally brewed tea. We lingered over breakfast in the cool, gradually brightening apartment. Through the window early-morning sounds made their way into the apartment: trucks barreling distantly past on the highway, the twitter of birds. Psyche smacked her lips in her sleep, but her moon face was otherwise still. We were sitting on the floor, with steaming, maple-scented bowls between us.

“Why did you ask about prison?” I said.

“Oh, no reason.”

“Most people don't bring up prison without some reason,” I said. Irina shrugged, and the baby lifted her head and said, “Guala guala,” still asleep. Irina smiled. “She is practically obsessing with gorillas.”

“You were telling me about prison.”

“Nobody's in prison,” she said firmly, and hoisted Psyche onto her chest. She was sitting cross-legged, and for the first time I noticed that her legs were unshaven, brown with hair down to her ankles, and her toes had thick, curved nails. She reminded me of some fairy-tale creature, part human, part animal, who lives in the woods.

Then Psyche woke up and moved a tiny curled fist to her mother's breast. Irina unbuttoned her pajama top and looked up at me. “Does this bother you?”

I shook my head.

“I am glad of that,” she said, starting to nurse the baby. “Some people we know, they do not like to see the baby.”

“They don't like babies?” I said. “What's their problem?”

“It's because of VE. I'm not adhering.”

“What's VE?”

“Voluntary extinction,” she said. “No breeding. That's what they call me. The breeder. Not Wylie or Angus, but some of the others.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” I said slowly. “That's crazy.”

Irina shrugged and cupped the back of Psyche's head in her hand. The baby was sucking dreamily, one hand resting gently against the exposed breast, her eyes closed. “It's actually the opposite of crazy,” Irina said. “It is totally logical. The logical consequence of thoughtful people observing our world. If you think that humans are destroying the planet, Lynn, and the population is growing too fast, then it only makes sense not to procreate. Trying to slow things down is everyone's responsibility. VE begins at home.”

In a way, I thought, this made sense. If you believed that overpopulation was an ecological crisis, why would you bring a child into the world? And if you believed that most people's lives were ruined by unnecessary materialism, then it made sense to share an empty apartment with a handful of like-minded people. And yet, I thought, looking at the baby cradled in Irina's arms, they were crazy, too. “Jesus H. Christ,” I said.

“You keep saying that,” Irina said sadly, “but I don't know why.”

I smiled at her then. She seemed like the most innocent person I'd ever met. “Who's Psyche's father?” I asked again.

She smiled at me shyly, then blushed deep crimson. “It's no one you know.”

“Are you sure?”

“You are afraid it's Angus,” she said suddenly. “It is not. And it is not Wylie, either, in case you are wondering that.”

Now it was my turn to blush. “Okay,” I said.

Psyche had stopped nursing and was fast asleep.

“Do you know,” I said, trying to sound casual, “when Angus is getting back?”

“Oh.” Irina looked surprised. “I thought you had arranged the plan to meet him here. He's coming back today.”

I felt strangely contented, hanging out in the bare apartment with Irina and her child. We could hear the building rise slowly into life, the banging of doors and the starting of cars, an early-morning argument downstairs.

Irina told me about meeting Wylie, and this version of her life story was less mythological than the one about being transported by a nature special. She had arrived in Albuquerque, a little over a year earlier, but she was homeless. Her dreams about a new life had slipped so far from her grasp that she couldn't remember how she'd come to hold them in the first place.

“I was also,” she said, “having a little problem with the drugs.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Many kinds. The social worker said I had a diversified appetite.”

I looked at the baby, who had rosy, healthy skin and an appetite confined, from what I'd seen, to Irina's milk.

“So. I was living out of the dumpsters. And I met these people, these boys, who were also living out of the dumpsters. We were always meeting at these same dumpsters. The ones behind the pizza restaurant by the school are good, and also behind the grocery store. But these young men are doing this by their choice. It was like a whole new idea to me, do you see? A whole new meaning of life. I thought, maybe I am not just a drug-addicted person. Maybe I can believe in something also.”

There was a pause.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “You are thinking, Jesus H. Christ. But this is what happened. And then Wylie, he helped me go away from the drugs, and he let me stay here whenever I wanted to, and the rest was easy. I have learned so much since I have met these people.”

“Okay,” I said. I stood up to stretch, and I was in the middle of a big one—arms above my head, stomach exposed— when Angus opened the door and saw me.

“Hello, stranger,” he said, and his voice warmed me like the sun.

Then my brother, Stan, and Berto came through the door behind him, their skin and clothes smeared with dirt and sweat. Sledge went into a welcoming frenzy, leaping up on each of them and licking their faces and stinking bodies. I felt the same way the dog did. I was being released from my calm existence in my mother's condo, from the days of boredom and good behavior. I caught Wylie's eye and said hello as Angus and the others carried backpacks and milk crates into the apartment and dropped them on the floor.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“Looking for you,” I said, “like always.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, glancing at Angus.

I blushed for the second time that morning, strongly and with conviction. I'd really taken to shame, it seemed. Then I looked over at Irina; she smiled as if she understood, and I felt better. “Where have you guys been, anyway?”

“Bisbee,” Wylie said.

“What the hell's in Bisbee? And please don't say ‘Bisbee.'”

“It's just a place we like to go,” Wylie said, and rested his skinny hand, for the briefest moment, on my shoulder.

The group convened, cross-legged, on the floor. It was daylight now, and through the open windows I could smell freshly laid asphalt from some distant driveway.

Angus clapped his hands.

“The time has come,” he said, “for the next plan.”

I was more curious than I would have expected to hear what new instance of extreme behavior they'd invented this time.

“No way, man,” Berto said, to my surprise, his gray, hang-dog face even more ashen than usual. “The time has come for breakfast, man, if you know what I'm saying.”

Angus put his hands on his hips. His clothing was in tatters: his jeans had holes, his white T-shirt had holes, even his socks had holes. Through the tears in the fabric his pale skin glowed. I wanted to go over and touch it.

“Is this how everybody feels?” he said.