Bursting Bubbles (26 page)

“Oh, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” says Bonnie. “You may be Sadie’s favourite teenager, but you’re not her mother’s.”

“I’m not?”

Justine wasn’t happy that Marigold went into her house like that.

“But I wasn’t really
inside
. I just—”

“It’s OK. I got the picture. And, trust me, I know how touchy Justine Hawkle can be. But she has a hard time. It took a lot of persuading to stop her from demanding a different reading tutor. That’s why I said I’d call you and see if you knew anything.”

“I wish I did.” Never has she meant that more. “But I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” Marigold has said these words hundreds, possibly thousands of times before; but this is the first time that she realizes how much like her mother they make her sound.

“Oh, there’s always something to worry about,” says Bonnie Kupferberg.

Sadie doesn’t know Marigold’s address, but she does know in what town she lives, so Byron detours on the way to the mall and takes the route the bus takes from Half Hollow to Shell Harbour. Just in case a pale, scrawny, afterthought of a little girl is walking along the side of the road with a sour expression on her face and no idea of where she’s going. Marigold’s head swivels from one side to the other, like a weather vane caught in a strong wind, and Byron drives so slowly that people behind them honk and make rude gestures as they pass.

“If she came this way she either walks real fast or she’s wearing a coat that makes her invisible,” says Byron. “Unless she took the bus.”

Marigold keeps her eyes on the road. “I don’t think she’d do that. I don’t think she’d know how.”

Byron darts a look at her. “I know you’re not going to like this, but you don’t think she’d take a ride from a stranger, do you?”

Marigold considers this for a few seconds, but shakes her head. “No. I really don’t think so. Sadie’s dad’s a policeman. I’m sure he’d’ve warned her about things like that. Besides, she watches a lot of cop shows. She knows the drill.”

“Really, a cop?” Byron laughs. “So we don’t really need to be looking ourselves. He’ll have half the force out by now.”

“Oh, not around here. In New York.” And Marigold, possibly to distract herself from worrying about Sadie, starts telling Byron about Sadie’s dad. How he just moved to Brooklyn so Sadie has her own room. How he’s a really good cop but always in trouble because he bucks the system. How he got a special commendation for finding a missing child.

“Geebus,” says Byron. “This guy sounds like he’s out of a movie.”

“I just hope it’s one with a happy ending,” says Marigold.

According to Byron, who seems to be timing her, Marigold checks her phone every four minutes while they’re shopping, and every three minutes during lunch.

“It’s just that Bonnie said she’d call if there was any news.” Marigold pushes her plate aside. “I’m really worried.”

“What did you say?” Byron puts a hand to his ear, leaning towards her. “Did I just hear Marigold Liotta say that she’s worried? Marigold? Liotta? The girl who would say Armageddon was going to turn out all right?”

Her frown deepens. “You don’t think I should be worried?”

“Of course I think you should be worried.” Byron puts an arm around her shoulder. “I’m just substantially astounded that you think so, too.”

It starts to rain hard in the afternoon.

Marigold stares out of the living-room window. She pictures Sadie sitting in someone’s garage, surrounded by cobwebs and spiders, clutching her beat-up pink backpack and waiting to be found. Sadie might not be in a garage, of course. She could be in a deserted building. God knows there are plenty of crumbling, rat-infested deserted buildings in Half Hollow. How long would it take to search them all – them and every garage in town? Wherever she is, she’ll be cold.

Marigold tries to comfort herself with the fact that her sister Rose used to run away all the time when she was little. She’d pack her overnight bag and march out of the house, vowing that she was never coming back. Marigold was always afraid that she really would never come back, but Eveline would stand on the stoop and wave her goodbye. Sometimes she was gone all day. But Rose always went to the same place: across the street to the Bestermans’. Edie Besterman was her best friend. Mrs Besterman would walk her back home in time for supper.

The rain continues to fall; the day continues to crawl along like a badly wounded soldier over rough terrain. It’s already getting dark when Bonnie finally calls. Justine has reported Sadie missing. She’s never stayed away this long before. She usually gets hungry after an hour or two.

“What about her dad?” asks Marigold. “Mrs Hawkle doesn’t think maybe Sadie went to her dad?”

“Her
dad
?” Bonnie couldn’t sound more surprised if Marigold had asked if Sadie could have gone back to her home planet. “But, Marigold, Sadie doesn’t have a dad.”

Yes, she does. He’s a New York City policeman and he lives in Brooklyn
. Marigold laughs nervously. “Everybody has a dad.”

“Not one that’s alive,” says Bonnie.

“Her dad’s dead?” That’s not impossible. City cops are always being killed. “I had no idea.” Marigold’s voice is its own ghost.

Bonnie sighs. “Did Sadie tell you that her dad’s alive?”

“I–I guess I misunderstood.” How could Sadie make her father so believable? So completely real? It’s not as if she’s bent under the weight of a great imagination. “I just thought…”

“I didn’t think she even remembered him. She was very young when he was killed.”

And Marigold, convinced that Sadie’s story must be based on truth, says, “Killed? You mean in New York? In a robbery or something?”

“New York? A robbery? No, of course not. Sadie’s father was blown up in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan? You mean he wasn’t … you mean he was a soldier?”

“It was a terrible tragedy. He was a week away from coming home. Can you imagine? It was six years ago, but Justine still hasn’t recovered. That’s why I try to cut her slack with her timekeeping and … and other stuff.”

“I’m so sorry. That’s awful. I—”

“Yeah, well, that’s life,” says Bonnie.

Marigold can’t concentrate. She doesn’t want to hang out. She doesn’t want to do homework. She doesn’t want to watch TV. She doesn’t want to play cards with her mother and Mrs Besterman. She doesn’t even want to read. Where could Sadie be? But to ask that question is to start her mind picturing dozens of places where Sadie might be – and none of them are safe and warm and full of sunshine and laughter. To ask that question is to start her mind constructing dozens of stories about what’s happened – and none of them have happy endings. Marigold has completely run out of silver linings.

Because her rainbow has vanished, instead of going to her room where there would be nothing to distract her dark imaginings, she sits on the sofa in the living room where she can put the TV on for company and hear the women talking in the sun porch. She puts her phone down on the coffee table next to the stacks of old magazines and TV guides, turns on the set and sits back.

She puts on a movie – a comedy that she remembers liking a lot the first time she saw it, but now it just annoys her. It’s silly. It’s shallow. Even if she hadn’t already seen it, she’d know exactly how it would end. Happily. All problems solved. All bad things banished into someone else’s film.

Restless, Marigold picks up a TV guide and flicks through it. She tosses it aside and picks up another. In the third one she happens on an interview with one of the stars of
Justice for All
, Harlan Colt.

Marigold has never seen this show, and has no interest in it, but because it is Sadie’s favourite she starts to read. Harlan Colt plays Detective Fabio Ramirez. Harlan likes Ramirez because instead of being one of these hard-drinking loners, he’s divorced and is very involved with his little girl. Harlan Colt feels that this gives Ramirez an added dimension and a greater ability to empathize with others. Marigold is about to close the magazine when she sees that Detective Fabio Ramirez lives in Brooklyn.

No wonder the stories about Sadie’s dad didn’t sound like something she could make up.

Marigold has to trawl through several weeks before she finds the episode she’s looking for: the one where Detective Ramirez finds the boy who has run away.

Marigold is on her feet and in her boots and jacket before she actually thinks about what she’s doing. She stands outside the coat closet for a few minutes. She can hear her mother and Mrs Besterman talking and laughing in the sun porch. Her mother’s bag is on the hallway table. Marigold has never gone out without telling her mother where she’s going; and she has never taken her mother’s car without permission. But to do either of those things would entail a lot of explanations, and she doesn’t have the time right now. She can’t even imagine where she’d begin. Her mother has never heard of Sadie Hawkle; she still thinks Marigold’s working at the library.

Still clutching the TV guide, Marigold opens the bag, takes the car keys and slips out the front door. She starts the engine and backs out of the garage. She isn’t halfway down the driveway when her mother comes charging through the front door with a coat flung over her head and shoulders and a face like the Day of Judgement.

“Marigold! Marigold!” she shrieks. “Marigold! What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?”

Marigold’s automatic response on seeing her mother is to stop the car and start apologizing. She locks her door but opens the window. “I have to go, Mom,” she calls as Eveline skitters down the walk. “It’s an emergency.”

“Don’t you dare leave!” Eveline’s screams are sharp as a siren. “You hear me, Marigold? You promised. After you took those books! You swore! How can you do this to me!”

“I’m not doing anything to you. It’s not about you. There’s this little girl who’s lost. I have to find her. It’s really important.”

“More important than your mother?”

“Mom, please. I’ll explain everything later.”

Eveline’s reached the driveway and is about to grab for the car when Mrs Besterman appears at the front door. “Eveline!” she shouts. “Is everything all right?”

Distracted, Marigold’s mother turns.

Marigold puts the car into gear and goes. Her phone rings even before she’s out of the driveway. As soon as she’s out of sight of the house she pulls over and takes it from her pocket.
One missed call: Mom
. She turns it off.

Marigold has hardly driven a car in sunshine since she killed that pigeon, never mind heavy rain, but she is too focused on finding Sadie to worry about a detail like that. Visibility is poor, and in the battle between Nature (in the form of the storm) and Man (in the form of the windshield wipers), Nature has the slight advantage. Marigold keeps all her attention on the road, looking out for kamikaze pigeons in the curtained dark and concentrating so hard that she is nearly out of Half Hollow before she realizes she’s even in it.

She turns into Clarendon Road and parks in front of 116. She doesn’t even stop to lock the car but runs to the house and rings the bell. Almost instantly, the door to apartment 1a opens and Justine Hawkle comes running down the hall and pulls open the front door. Her hair isn’t brushed, she’s wearing no make-up and she looks as though she’s been crying. It’s obvious from her expression that Marigold isn’t the person she was expecting, and definitely not the person she was hoping for. “Marigold? What is it?” Her voice sounds like a snapping pencil. “Have you heard from Sadie?”

“No, no I haven’t, but I—”

She breathes heavily. “Look, I’m sorry. I appreciate you coming over, but I really don’t have time for this now. I’m waiting to hear from the police.” She starts to shut the door.

“But, Mrs Hawkle, I think I know where Sadie might be.”

Hope is the sudden light in Justine Hawkle’s eyes. “What? Where?”

“It’s only a guess. And it is kind of a long story…”

“Oh, a guess. And a long story.” She smiles sourly. “It would be with you.” The door moves forward again. “I told you, I don’t have time for this now.”

But Marigold hasn’t come all this way in this weather to give up now. “Please, Mrs Hawkle. Just let me explain.” And Marigold begins, talking so quickly that her words fall over one another like people escaping from a burning building. Sadie’s stories about her dad being a cop. How he found a boy who had run away. How it all came from her favourite police show.

“So you what?” If Justine Hawkle could laugh right now, this probably would be the moment. “You think she’s in the cellar? Is that what you think? Well, she isn’t. The basement’s practically the first place I searched.”

“Not the basement. Under the porch. The little boy in the show was hiding in the crawl space under the porch.”

Justine Hawkle looks at the floor under Marigold’s feet, as if she can see there is nothing under it. “So you think that’s where Sadie is. Because she saw it on TV.”

“It’s worth looking,” insists Marigold. “There’s nothing to lose.”

Sadie’s mother doesn’t seem convinced, but she does know she has nothing to lose. “You need a flashlight?”

“I have one.” Marigold holds up a Maglite.

Justine Hawkle steps out onto the porch. “You’re a regular Girl Scout.”

“It’s my mother’s. She keeps it in the glove compartment.”

Justine wraps her arms around herself and watches as Marigold steps back into the downpour.

“Sadie?” she calls. “Sadie, it’s me, Marigold. Sadie, are you there?”

The space under the porch of 116 Clarendon Road is small, even if you’re crawling, and there is no one in it with less than four feet.

Sadie’s mother leans over the railing. “You satisfied now?”

But Marigold can’t believe she’s made a mistake about this. She has to be right. Anything else would be so wrong.

“OK, Sadie’s not under your porch,” reasons Marigold, “but every house in this neighbourhood has one. She could be under any of them. We have to keep looking. She can’t stay out all night in this.”

“And she could be under none of them,” says Justine. “Why don’t you leave this to the real cops? I’ll tell them your idea, all right? I promise. You better go home now, Marigold.”