Freaky Green Eyes (12 page)

Freaky reasoned it out. It was simple as figuring the sides of an equilateral triangle are all equal.
If Mom is gone and isn't coming back ever, there is Dad. There is Daddy who loves you. There is only Daddy who loves you
.

There she is. . . .

Which one? The redhead?

That's Franky
.

Franky who?

Don't stare for God's sake! You know, Franky Pierson. Reid Pierson's daughter
.

Oh my God. Her?

Her
.

How's Franky taking it?

It's weird. But you know Franky, pretending nothing is wrong
.

I think it's shitty. Franky's dad didn't do it. I'd never believe anything like that about Reid Pierson
.

I wouldn't either! Reid Pierson is terrific
.

He is so, so handsome. And sweet. My mom has a crush on him
.

My mom too!

So, if he didn't do it, who did?

Do what? Nobody's found any body. Yet
.

My homeroom assignment was a good one, with a teacher everybody liked, and three of my friends including Twyla were assigned to her room, too. And my classes looked promising, at least biology and art and junior honors English, which was a seminar with only seven students taught by a teacher who was also a poet. And Twyla asked if I'd like to have lunch just with her and Jenn, or with a larger table (as we usually did in the cafeteria), and I thanked her and said I wasn't hungry and was going to the library instead. (Which was true, though I ate in about five minutes
out of vending machines in the common room.) Everybody was nice, mostly. At least to my face.

Except: our headmaster, Mr. Whitney, who'd been trying to get my father to visit Forrester for years (“Just to say hello, and perhaps share a glass of sherry in my office”) was definitely avoiding me. Where always he'd call out, “Francesca! Hello,” now when I happened to pass him in the hall, where he was standing talking with several seniors, he saw me, seemed to freeze for an instant, then turned away just slightly, but unmistakably, as if he'd seen something deformed. In my Freaky-somber voice, I called out, “H'lo, Mr. Whitney,” just to let the hypocrite know I was aware of him.

Suddenly after that it seemed pretty obvious that everybody was watching me, out of the corners of their eyes. Peeking around the edges of their lockers. On the stairs, glancing back over their shoulders. In my afternoon classes my teachers seemed embarrassed at reading my name off the roll—“Francesca Pierson?”—and when I raised my hand and said,
“Here,” there was silence in the room, and I knew that everybody behind me was staring at me, and everybody in front of me was deliberately not turning to look.

My teachers knew who I was, of course. A new student in their classes but they knew. I saw their eyes swimming in sympathy like I was a leper they could pity but not get too close to, for maybe my condition was contagious.
Poor girl! Her mother is missing. Her father is being questioned by police. And you know who the father is, don't you?
Almost, I could hear these words like gnats buzzing in my ears. I was maintaining Freaky-control, however, till the middle of fifth-period social studies, when something hit me like a wave, a cold, sick sensation in my stomach, and I knew I couldn't make it through the rest of the class. In a feeble gesture I raised my hand to signal the teacher that I was feeling desperately lousy, and with my head down and eyes lowered and my backpack gripped against my chest, I half ran out of the room.

In the rest room I was sick with a sudden attack
of diarrhea. It was like my guts were on fire. I was shivering, too. I was so weak, I had to stagger down to the infirmary, where the nurse took one look at my face, made me lie down, took my temperature (it was 100°F, what the nurse called a mild fever), gave me two Advils, and told me I might be coming down with flu.

I lay shivering beneath a cover wondering: did the nurse know me? Did she know whose daughter I was? Would she be telling everyone she met afterward in a thrilled voice,
Guess who was in the infirmary this afternoon with the flu?

I'd steeled myself with Freaky-resolve not to give in, but as soon as my aunt Vicky saw me, and rushed to hug me, I couldn't help hugging her back. She caught me in her arms like I'd been falling, and she was saving me, and I felt her trembling against me, and it was so completely weird, the thought came to me,
This isn't Aunt Vicky, it's somebody else
. Because she was so changed, even her voice.

“We have to hope, Franky. We have to pray. She might be—
must
be—all right.”

Aunt Vicky was my mother's older sister by three
or four years. A tall woman, usually strong looking, in excellent condition from hiking, backpacking, running. In her family, Aunt Vicky was criticized—and admired—for never having married, for being independent—“doing her own thing.” Now she was nervous, emotional. It was a shock to see her looking so drawn and haggard. Her hair, which was a faded red, grayer than my mother's, was brushed back flat from her face so that she looked exposed, sort of blunt and raw, weatherworn. Dad hadn't wanted me to see Aunt Vicky—they'd never gotten along very well—but he'd seemed to admire her, to a degree, in the past. Dad used to say that Krista was the beautiful Connor sister and Vicky was the one with the brains. He'd meant this to be praise, I guess, but it came off sounding like both Krista and Vicky were missing something crucial.

Now Aunt Vicky's eyes were raw and reddened like Samantha's, and her voice was shaky. I hated to see her like this!

She was saying, almost begging, “Franky, are you
all right? How are you and Samantha?”

I shrugged. I hated being asked this question every time an adult saw me.

And I wasn't going to tell the truth anyway, like I'd been having the most disgusting repulsive stomach trouble and my period had come eleven days early this month and the cramps just about knocked me out and I couldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time and my dreams were psychotic and I was confused, angry. Like hell I was going to tell anyone, even Aunt Vicky who I knew loved me, what was in my heart.

My mother ran away. She left us
.

Why should we care about her, now?

Aunt Vicky held my shoulders, and gazed searchingly into my eyes. “Tell me anything you know about your mother, Franky, please? The last time you were with her? That Sunday, when I came up? And you and Samantha were gone? And—oh, anything! Tell me anything.”

It's awful when an adult begs you. And you feel
so bad you can't give them what they want, and you hate them for doing this to you.

Dad had warned me that my aunt would ask “prying”—“hostile”—questions. Like the police. Dad had warned me that I should be very careful what I told Aunt Vicky, because she was “on your mother's side”—“our enemy.” Dad believed that my aunt had never approved of her younger sister's marriage to him, and that everything she said of Reid Pierson was tainted with her prejudice. She hated sports, Dad said, so she hated him.

Aunt Vicky was asking me about that Sunday. When Dad drove to Skagit Harbor to take Samantha and me home. If, while he and Mom were together in the cabin, I'd happened to overhear—anything?

Quickly I shook my head no.

But Aunt Vicky didn't believe me. “Franky, look at me. Look me in the eye. I know what you've been telling the police, but—please, will you tell me?”

I shut my eyes, shook my head. I felt my ponytail slap against my back.

Aunt Vicky said, suddenly emotional, “Oh, Franky, I'm afraid—your father has been—has—” She broke off, her eyes brimming with tears. Whatever it was, Aunt Vicky couldn't bring herself to say it.

Striking her. Abusing her. Threatening her
.

I backed off, suddenly emotional myself. A panicked rage came over me like flame. “Aunt Vicky, I don't know where Mom is.”

“Franky, wait—”

“Leave me alone!”

I ran out of the room. Pressed my hands hard over my ears so I couldn't hear Aunt Vicky calling after me.

In eighth grade, when I made the swim team at school, Dad was so proud of me, he allowed me to go with Aunt Vicky on one of her trips to the Southwest. Just five days, but we had a spectacular time hiking and sightseeing. One of the places I remember was a tropical garden attached to a natural history museum
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I loved it: giant trees and vines, gorgeous jungle flowers; so many butterflies, some as large as my outstretched hand, brightly colored as if they'd been painted, behaving like they were tame. And chattering birds everywhere. It was a rain-forest atmosphere, the air so humid you could feel moisture congealing on your skin. My favorite birds were the big white cockatoos and the Amazon parrots, with their beautiful bright-green feathers trimmed in crimson and their amazing, aware eyes. There was Daisy, who squawked, “H'lo! Pretty girl! Pret-ty girl!” when Aunt Vicky and I peered at her, and I was going to pet her head except Aunt Vicky caught my hand in time. On Daisy's perch was a comical little warning:
I bite. I hate myself afterward but I bite. Be warned!

The weirdest things in the garden were the giant Atlas moths.

They were big, beautiful moths you'd have thought were butterflies, almost the size of bats, clustered on tree trunks and vines. Some of them you
could hardly see, they blended so with the trees. They were the color of brownish mist, with dappled spots on their wings. Aunt Vicky said she'd timed our visit because this was their mating season, which occurred only every five years. And you could see the moths mating, sort of: one big dappled moth lying on another, slightly smaller moth, unmoving. At least they were unmoving while we looked.

What's remarkable about this moth species, Aunt Vicky said, is that the moths spend five years in their cocoons and only three to five days “alive” as moths. They're born with reproductive systems but not digestive systems! Once out of their cocoons, they have only a few days to mate before they shrivel up and die. “But a new generation emerges to continue the cycle.” Aunt Vicky spoke as if this was good news.

I laughed and shuddered. “I'm glad I'm not a giant Atlas moth.”

“Yes, Franky, but to the moths, three to five days
is
their lifetime. It probably feels just long enough.”

“Oh, Aunt Vicky! That's just like you.”

“Nature has mysterious ways, Franky. But somehow it all makes sense.”

I knew Aunt Vicky had been trained as a biologist and ecologist. Still, I was stubborn and had to say, “Maybe nature doesn't make sense at all, Aunt Vicky. Maybe people like you want to think it does.”

Three years later, I thought of that conversation. Aunt Vicky insisting that things make sense and turn out basically all right, the way she was saying that, thirteen days after Krista Connor and Mero Okawa were reported missing, things might turn out all right for them, too.

“I miss Rabbit.
I want Rabbit back
.”

Samantha spoke sadly but listlessly. Knowing it meant nothing, what she wanted.

After so many days of searching in Skagit County by police, rescue workers, volunteers, Krista Connor and Mero Okawa were still missing. And so was Krista Connor's dog, Rabbit.

In the news items, the missing dog was rarely mentioned. Nobody cared about Rabbit. Except Samantha and me. I wanted Rabbit to be alive, so badly. Sometimes I'd shut my eyes so I could hear better his toenails clicking on the floorboards, and his
breathless little high-pitched bark.
Hey! Hi! Here I am!

I didn't tell Samantha something I'd learned from clicking onto one of the case's websites: that the bloodstains found on Krista Connor's quilt had been identified as “nonhuman.”

It hadn't been Krista Connor's blood, or Mero Okawa's blood; it had been Rabbit's blood. I knew.

He'd been barking, trying to bite, protecting his mistress. A brave, feisty little dog any sizable boy or man could kill by kicking hard, and repeatedly
.

We never discussed the police investigation in our family.

By “our family” I mean our reduced family: Dad, Todd, Samantha, me.

We never spoke of Krista Connor directly. Mostly, she was
she, her
. A missing person like a missing object. Mero Okawa was rarely alluded to—it was easy to forget Mero Okawa, but when he was spoken of, the name was simply “Okawa.”

Only Dad and Mr. Sheehan uttered that name—“Okawa.”
With a look of disdain, disgust. As if they had a bad taste in their mouths.

If you read the papers or watched TV, it seemed clear that the missing individuals had been a “couple.” Because they were missing together, and Mero Okawa's SUV had been parked at Krista Connor's cabin through the night, it was assumed that they were lovers, or somehow involved. Friends and neighbors in Skagit Harbor vehemently denied this, but no one took them seriously. There was a collective wish to believe that the missing woman, separated from her celebrity husband, had been having an affair with a local art gallery owner, and that their affair, an adulterous affair on the woman's part, was the probable reason for their disappearance. The general belief was that the celebrity husband had had something to do with this disappearance, but a counterbelief was that the couple had run off together. In the
Seattle Star
, a tabloid paper, an unidentified “intimate” of Mero Okawa testified that Okawa was a “quick-tempered man with a history of domestic violence.” On
Seattle
After Hours
, a late-night talk show on cable, the possibility of Krista Connor having been “abducted” by Mero Okawa was earnestly discussed.

The missing couple had been sighted in Las Vegas, in Palm Springs, in Kailua Bay, Hawaii.

Mr. Sheehan conceded to the press that his client and Krista Connor had been discussing an “amicable separation” but not divorce.

Neither Reid Pierson nor his wife, Krista Connor, believed in divorce, Mr. Sheehan insisted. There may have been another man in the picture (“about whom my client knows nothing”), but in fact the Piersons had been on the verge of reconciling when Krista Connor disappeared.

When I read this, on the website, I felt a stab of hope. Mom is coming home? Is this so?

Wanting so Freaky-bad to believe.

“What did your aunt Vicky want, Franky?”

Dad's voice was friendly, easy. But I saw the tension in his jaw. He wasn't doing TV lately—he was
still on the network payroll, but his sportscasting duties had been “temporarily suspended” (according to
The Seattle Times
), so he was restless and kept a sharp eye on his daughters. I said, “Oh, just to talk, Daddy. Nothing.”

“Sowing seeds of discontent, eh? Like all that family.”

I bit my lip. Didn't know what to say. My Freaky-sullen heart beat hard.

“I suppose Aunt Vicky was asking about me, eh? Casting suspicion on me. Like I'm not sick with this, crushed with grief, as much as she is, in fact more. I'm the husband, for Christ's sake!” Dad was wiping angrily at his eyes. He had a sinus headache all the time now, he said. Medication didn't help. “Did you tell her that? The nosy Big Sister?”

I said uneasily, “Aunt Vicky's okay, Daddy. She's worried about . . . her sister.”

“Well, she should be. Disappearing like that. With her ‘native' lover. They're saying this
Okawa
is a nutcase, too. Involved with young boys.
Sadomasochistic sick stuff. Like on the Internet. Your deluded mother was taken in.” Dad shook his head sadly.

I had never heard this before! A Freaky-defiant urge rose in me to resist.

“The Connors are a dysfunctional family par excellence. They're suspicious, paranoid. They've ‘broken off all relations' with me, their lawyer has informed the public. Nice, eh?”

I wasn't sure what Dad meant, but knew better than to ask.

“Next time your aunt Vicky comes to this house, I want to be present. I want Mike Sheehan present. I don't want that sick, man-hating female poisoning my daughter's mind, the way she poisoned her sister's mind. All the Connors have been bearing false witness about me to the police. I'll never forgive them. And neither will you.”

Daddy was looking so sick, so sad, I wanted to hug him. But I was afraid to touch him.

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Todd's on my side. Todd's my boy from way back. Todd knows the score.
She
broke that boy's heart, pretending to be a true mother to him when she wasn't even fit to be a stepmother. And you, sweetie, and Sam-Sam. You're all on your daddy's side, eh? When
she
shows up alive and well, the police are going to arrest
her
. And know what I'm going to do? Sue her! For dragging her family through this dirt, for trying to destroy us. Trying to ruin Reid Pierson's career. And you kids will testify on my behalf, won't you.”

It wasn't a question, it was a command.

“Franky? My big girl? You're on your daddy's team, eh?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“It could get nasty. Nastier. When
she
comes back.”

Dad spoke with such conviction, grimacing as you'd never see him on TV, I believed he must speak the truth.

When she comes back
.