In the Dead of Summer (13 page)

“That’s kind of why I hoped we could talk,” he said. “Maybe I seem fixated, but let’s forget the word
logic
.
I won’t use that anymore, but all the same, there must be a motive behind it, and if all of us who knew her pooled our data, we might get somewhere.”

“Like what? You don’t think anybody from here in school took her, do you?”

He shook his head. “I mean maybe we learned something relevant through her essays and class discussions, and your extra time with her. Something we don’t yet recognize as useful. Reasons for her behavior and what happened. For starters, what was she doing hanging around a—let’s face it—a whorehouse? What kind of family does she come from that lets their daughter—”

“She couldn’t have worked at a massage parlor.” Of course, I had no hard evidence, only instinct, scraps and tidbits, bits and pieces of what constituted April Truong,
the kind of information you glean when you aren’t
in search of any. The kind that simply stuck to what you were wearing. “She said she worked in a café. I believe her.”

“Then why did the news say the place didn’t exist? Wouldn’t you make up a cover story for your teacher if you worked in a massage parlor?”

“She didn’t! I’m sure she wouldn’t have. There was a—there is a great innocence about her. Not naïveté, but an excitement about the future, a belief in herself and the possibilities. It isn’t how I’d think a girl who had to do that kind of work would sound.”

“Drugs?”

“I’d be astounded.”

“Maybe not using, but involved in sales—”

I shook my head.

“—or having a boyfriend who was? Sometimes revenge is carried out pretty widely by those gangs.”

“What gangs?” Who had said anything about gangs?

“Gangs involved in drugs and massage parlors. Vietnamese gangs.”

“No boyfriends, no drugs that I know of,” I said honestly.

“Who were her friends?” he asked. “Was she a loner?”

“The other people from her home school seem as if they were friendly with one another, but I don’t know how social a person she—”

“Hello there!”

It was nothing short of amazing. Phyllis the Sibilant hadn’t visited me once since the day before school began, when, by incredible coincidence, Five had also been in my room. Now that he’d escaped the lunchroom, she must have been prowling the building in search of him. I wondered how often she found him.

However much it was, was too often. He flinched when he heard her warbled greetings.

“Isn’t it hot, though!” She wore a flowered, filmy skirt, and high-heeled sandals with ribbons that wound around her ankles. The ensemble ached for a large-brimmed hat and a cup of tea. “I thought this day would never end. I’m not sure my stamina is up to summer sessions anymore. I must be getting old!” She put her hand to her mouth to muffle a Scarlett O’Hara titter that begged for a gentleman’s denial of what she’d said.

The gentleman present failed to respond properly. “We were talking about the missing girl,” Five said instead.

Phyllis adjusted her face to the solemnity of the topic. “So dreadful—the police disrupting class and all. It took me forever to get my people back in stride.”

“Pretty dreadful about her being abducted, too,” I said quietly.

“Of course. I didn’t mean I don’t care about little June.”

“April,” I said.

“I knew it was a month. Besides, that wasn’t her real name.” Phyllis sounded triumphant, as if she were revealing something important we’d missed. “She picked it out of the blue. I was told that she’s really something like Your Duck. The girl Americanized it for us, although how you get from duck to April beats me.”

“Maybe that’s what the Vietnamese meant.” I didn’t see what was noteworthy about making her name easier and less conspicuous, but Phyllis looked scandalized, as if any defection from Your Duck constituted betrayal.

“And where was that girl’s common sense?” she asked. “Hanging around a neighborhood like that late at night, alone. Honestly!”

“She worked in Chinatown. At a café.”

“I heard a—”

“A café,” I repeated.

“I find the term Chinatown offensive,” Phyllis said. “It isolates one ethnic group, and besides, shouldn’t it be
Chinesetown
if that’s what they meant?”

“Who are
they
?” I
asked.

“Actually,” Five said, “with all the different sorts of people who live there now, maybe it should be Orientaltown.”

“Oh, no. Oh, my, no! That’s truly offensive. Nobody says that anymore. Orient means the East, and what does that imply—that some other place west of it is the center of the universe?”

“Asiatown, then?” What in God’s name were we talking about? “Pacific Basintown?”

“But don’t you find it offensive to label a geographical area by the country of origin of its settlers?” She beamed a large-toothed smile at Five. “We wouldn’t say Irishland, would we? We make some groups so conspicuous—denigrate them, really. I consider it
them
ism, the verbal ostracism of the perceived outsider.”

“Of course you’re right,” he said. “That’s why I never refer to New England, or Germantown, or New York, or New Jersey, or even go near them.”

“If you’re going to be that way,” she said, but gently, flirtatiously.

I’d had it. “I’m bushed,” I said. “As you can tell, my room tends to overheat, even on a dull day like this, and I find it difficult staying awake all day. But be my guests as long as you like. Just close the door behind you.”

And damned if they didn’t say they would. Well, more accurately, Five made moves to leave, but Phyllis implored with small, cooing sounds. She had a question about grade-averaging. Apparently, she wasn’t interested in my opinions on the subject.

Five checked his watch and agreed to stay a few minutes.

“Thanks,”
Phyllis said, as if she’d been given the world’s most valuable gift.

What the hell—at least she was having a grand day. It’s only right that somebody in the known universe should.

*

It bothered me that I didn’t like Lowell Diggs. It
felt prejudiced and narrow. Another example of us-against-themism, as Phyllis might have put it.

I told myself that it wasn’t his fault that his features had been put together the wrong way, or that his sweat glands were hyperactive. The absence of a chin is not a sign of unworthiness, a thin and whiny voice doesn’t necessarily reflect a worldview, and the fact that he was shaving-impaired should have provoked pity, not contempt. But I couldn’t squelch my annoyance at the inevitable missed clump of hair and the tissue-covered specks where he’d cut too deeply.

And yet once again, as I left school, he called my name and hurried to walk beside me, and I fixated not on Lowell’s hidden potential but on the scraggly patch below his left nostril. I disliked it—and him, by default. And me, for my pettiness.

“Need a ride, Mandy Pepper?”

I shook my head. “Thanks anyway. I’m walking to school and back these days. Easy exercise.” I would have accepted a lift from almost anyone else. The air stuck to me like a damp, sour washcloth, like a whole mildewed laundry basketful dumped on my head. We needed a cleansing storm, a King Lear kind of production number, to wash away this oppressive atmosphere.

But I, with my prejudice and prejudgment now extended to his possessions, didn’t want to encounter the inside of Lowell’s car. I knew it would contain the automotive equivalent of unshaved patches.

“Mind if I walk with you a while, then?” he asked.

Could I say no? I didn’t want to hurt him gratuitously. A parallel walk was just that and nothing more.

One of the problems I had with Lowell was that every time I saw him, I could imagine my mother saying “What’s so bad about him? Give him a chance.” So even though I didn’t want to give him the time of day, let alone a bona fide chance, my guilt at not wanting to obliged me to give him the chance I wouldn’t otherwise have given him—if that’s what my mother, even long-distance, wanted. Is that intelligible? How about mature?

“You seem down,” Lowell said. “Not your usual cheery self, Mandy Pepper. What’s bothering you, if I may be so bold as to ask?” He spoke his silly lines with jolly ineptness. I thought of all the girls who must have turned him down, and I tried to be kind, even though what was bothering me at the moment was, in fact, him.

“The weather. Fatigue.”

“No, no, no,” he said with a finger waggle. “I know you too well to believe that. Can’t fool Uncle Lowell.”

That did it. He’d had more than a fair chance and had blown it. I opened my mouth to say something scathing, but he interrupted.

“Besides, you don’t have to tell me. I already know.”

“How would you?”

“Because you are a sensitive and caring person, so of course you would be affected by the evil you feel encircling us.”’

“The—” Us?

“The girl who was stolen, and Flora, what was done to her room. Well, to her, really.”

“Are you saying the two events are related?”

“Many events are related,” he said in a solemn, albeit high-pitched voice. “Don’t you feel the rising tide of evil? I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Like, um, what other things are in the tide?” I eyed him nervously. People don’t talk about evil. Not people I want to hear. Even Lowell hadn’t talked about it the other times he’d intercepted my walks and lunches. He’d talked about math, computers, and his aunt Melba. He’d even talked about the woman who’d unceremoniously shaken free of him three months ago. So what had provoked this? I checked out Lowell’s small, gray eyes, made sure they weren’t spinning.

He shrugged. “There’s much more in the tide. Vandalism. The old graveyard that was spray-painted. That wasn’t random violence. That was hitting a definite target.”

Rebecca Gratz’s grave. Weeks ago. Old news, nearly forgotten. Lowell was paranoid. Graffiti in a graveyard is, unfortunately, nothing exceptional. Graffiti anywhere is, unfortunately, unexceptional.

There were spray-painted stigmata all over the city. I couldn’t believe some people wanted it classified as art. If so, then every time a dog lifted a leg and marked a fireplug as his turf, that, too, should be declared a work of art. There’s no difference between that and the taggers’ sprayings—except that the dog’s product is biodegradable. In any case, graffiti isn’t a sign of conspiracy or evil.

“It was a Jewish cemetery. Are you aware that Pennsylvania has more racist and anti-Semitic activity than any other state?”

“Oh, Lowell, surely not. That’s the job of the South, isn’t it? This is Pennsylvania. Quaker tolerance and all.”

“You’re an innocent. There’s even an anti-Semitic group who believe that the computer bar codes on food packages are part of a Jewish plot to kill Christians.”

The idea was ludicrous enough to be funny. Where did Lowell do his research? In an asylum for the incurably wacko?

“There’s more evil on the loose than ever,” he said firmly. “Often in disguise. Be careful who you befriend.”

Meaning what? Whom? Himself? That was the trouble with being nice to people you didn’t like. They turned out, too often, to be people you didn’t like.

“I can trust you, Mandy Pepper,” he said. “After all, we’re friends.”

There was no empirical basis for his feelings, but I couldn’t think of a humane way to say so.

“Which is why I want to warn you about our Five, as he likes to be called.”

Enough of the search for polite ways to handle this man. “What are you saying? Could you be more precise?”

“I understand. You women like him. You women are overly influenced by classic features and a smooth manner. In your biologically programmed imperative to find excellent specimens to father your children, you’re too often attracted to superficial qualities. But Satan can wear a handsome face, you know.”

“I’m really uncomfortable with this, Lowell.” He was pathetic. Painfully obvious and pitiable. And still unlikable.

His face took on a fanatic’s glow. “He’s cunning. Nothing you could link directly to him. But
things
,
Amanda. Trust me. He is not what he seems.”

“People seldom are.” I could, for example, have pointed out to Lowell that I had taken him for a poorly groomed bore, while he was actually a poorly groomed madman. I wasn’t sure this man should teach anybody’s children.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

“Thanks for sharing that.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sure that as a mathematician, you require proof. You want things to add up.” I was proud of my analogy, and I savored it before continuing. “Well so do I, and I’m sorry, but you aren’t offering anything tangible.” Except jealousy. Understandable, but repugnant all the same.

“You’re a bright woman, Mandy Pepper, but childish in many ways.” His tone was darkly disappointed.

We had reached the corner where I should have turned right toward home, but I was sure Lowell would escort me, and I didn’t want him overly familiar with my address. “I nearly forgot where I was going,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet my friend Sasha. We’re having dinner.” I took a deep breath to stop the babbling that usually accompanies my lies. “This has been a real treat,” I said when I was ready to speak like a normal person, “but I’m going down to Society Hill. Sixth Street, quite a way off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”