Little Girl Gone (8 page)

She shook a couple of aspirin out of a bottle and swallowed them down with water from the tap, cupped in her palm. “How was school?”

He popped the top of a soda can. “Great.”

“Well, that’s good.” Her smile made him feel guilty. “I knew you’d get along.”

He left the kitchen and went up to his room, closed the
door, and turned on his iPad. He pressed the GPS app and entered the address he had read off Willis Brock’s contract. It was on Red Rock Road, out in the country but not far away. First chance he got he was going to ride his bike over there to check on that dog, and if he didn’t like what he found, he was going to kidnap him.

As she made dinner, Robin thought about the offer made her that morning in the lawyers’ office. Mr. Conway was delighted when he heard Django was living with her.

“Under the circumstances, a change of scene would do you both good.”

Though Robin had promised to think about it, she didn’t really intend to do so. But that afternoon as she tried to settle into her work at Shady Hills, she had found herself recalculating the same set of numbers two and three times. In the end she left work early and stopped in at a coffeehouse just off the highway. She ordered an iced mango tea and took it back to the car, where she sat, staring into the parking lot.

Mr. Conway had spent twenty minutes singing the praises of Tampa, Florida. The beaches, the weather, the cultural life. He even told her that his wife’s best friend from college lived there, someone named Pansy, who would make sure Robin had a wonderful time. He even tried to make her believe she could keep working for Shady Hills and her other clients, communicating by cell phone and e-mail. She had been amused by the way he amassed his arguments until what he said at the end.
That
riled her.

“This is an opportunity for you, Robin. You’re too young and smart to get stuck.”

What was it about people fond of travel that gave them such an attitude of superiority? Her mother was just as bad.

It had taken all Robin’s self-control to get out of the office without giving Mr. Conway a piece of her mind. For one thing, she wasn’t young; she was almost forty-three. For another, what he called
stuck
was to her mind a comfortable and productive life. She had a successful business, a nice enough house with a reasonable mortgage, a smart car, and a small circle of friends who cared for each other. Every fall she flew to Hawaii for a week. If, as Conway had said, she was in a
rut
, it was one she liked.

She wondered if she might have to quit her job with Conway, Carroll, and Hyde just to end the argument once and for all.

But Mr. Conway had raised three sons, and Robin thought that when it came to Django, he might know what he was talking about. She wondered what he would think of the scene earlier with Willis Brock. Django had embarrassed Robin, but at the same time she was proud of him for having the nerve to confront Willis, who was, she thought, a rather intimidating man. Caro had been a fighter too. It was one of many things Robin had admired about her.

Maybe their father had also liked this in his younger daughter. Robin wondered for the first time if, in comparison, she might have seemed dull to him. That could explain why, after he and their mother separated, he had
stayed in contact with Caro but ignored Robin completely. Nola said he had abandoned Robin, but that was such a loaded word and implied intentionality. She didn’t like to use it. Maybe he just found her so uninteresting compared to Caro that he forgot about her.

She was positive that Django thought she was as dull as dishwater. He would hate being stuck with her in Arroyo, unhappy and bored; adding that to adolescence seemed like a blueprint for trouble, and she didn’t need Mr. Conway to tell her that. He would be better off with Huck, regardless of his unorthodox lifestyle. They would travel together to places a lot more exciting than Florida and Hawaii, and Django would meet the sort of vital young men and women who would interest him. There would be glamour and adventure and the stimulation a bright boy needed to keep him out of trouble. She resolved to call Huck Jones and use Mr. Conway’s persuasive technique, keep him on the phone until he got tired of saying no and agreed to take his brother.

D
espite his run-in with Django, Willis was in good spirits when he got home after his interview with Robin Howard. He kept Madora company in the kitchen as she made dinner and did not mention Linda even once. At such times Madora could pretend that the girl in the trailer did not exist. She and Willis were an ordinary couple, living a commonplace life like the one she remembered in the years before her father walked into the desert.

After his death she had turned to her mother for comfort, but Rachel had nothing to give and Madora was left on her own. The only person who ever tried to explain the suicide was a cousin who came to the funeral and said that Wayne had been a sad sack on and off, all his life.
Sad sack.
Madora hated her cousin for dismissing her father’s pain that way. Rachel never talked about him or the suicide at all. And Madora hated
her
for
that
. When she met Willis it seemed like she hated almost everyone, most of all herself.

When she told Willis about her father, he attended to
every word. Her heart swelled with his obvious concern. He urged the whole story out of her without saying much, asking a question every now and then. Afterwards, he talked about her father as if he knew him well, and he explained his death in a way that made sense.

“Men like your dad and me, it’s in our nature to love and trust one special woman. You might say, we give away our hearts. And if we get let down, if we get disappointed—”

“I’ll never let you down,” Madora swore.

She remembered how he held her face between his hands and looked at her with such tender sadness that she felt she might break at any moment. “I hope you mean that, little girl. I pray to God you mean that.”

Something about Willis had roused Madora’s mother from her stupor of grief. When Rachel turned off the television and started to pay attention, she became aware of Madora’s short shorts and bikini tops, the glitter on her toes, and earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders, her failing grades and the complaint calls from teachers. Madora said
“fuck you”
when her mother said she could not see him anymore.
“I’ll do what I want.”
Day and night they fought until Willis told Madora to stop.
“Just pretend to go along with her. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Several nights a week Madora said she was going to Kay-Kay’s house to study, and her mother never doubted her. Or maybe she knew the truth all along, but for her, too, it was easier to pretend.

And without her mother doing anything at all, Madora
had begun to change. Willis admired intelligence and self-discipline and insisted that she go to school and do her homework. He told her not to dress trampy, and if she wore too much makeup he scrubbed it off her face himself. He would never touch a girl who used drugs and drank too much, so she cleaned up her life in that way too. Though they made out in the backseat of his SUV until they were both hot and breathless, Willis never touched her intimately, had not even slipped his hand under her T-shirt, which she so much wanted him to. She believed that he held back out of respect, thinking she was a virgin. It was the kind of honorable behavior she expected from him.

On a hot night smelling of carne asada and green water, they took a blanket to the river. In the semidarkness she whispered to him about the two boys she’d had sex with the summer before.

“We only did it a couple of times,” she explained, surprised to feel shy when she said it. One of the boys had brought a bottle of tequila and she’d been lying on her back on the blanket between them when one put his hand on her leg and the other touched her breast. She couldn’t remember now if she had liked either one of them very much. Or if she had experienced any real pleasure, traded off between two friends on a vacation. In the middle of her story she cried, humiliated. Willis held her close and said that he forgave her.

“It’s hard to be a woman,” he said. No one had ever called her a woman before, and because he did, she believed he
understood her better than anyone ever had before. “You’re like a little soft creature in a world full of predators.”

That night at the river she had hoped Willis would take her in his arms and do what those two boys had done except with the care and tenderness with which he did everything. She kissed him and ran her tongue along the inside of his lips, pressed her hips and breasts against him. He pushed her away.

“I know what you want, little girl, but I got to tell you, it’s not going to happen. Not here on this crap-ass river; that’s for sure.”

“I thought you liked me.”

“I love you, Madora. You’ve heard me say it, and I think you know I don’t lie.”

“I could go on the pill.”

“Madora, I want you to listen real carefully. Then you tell me if I’m right or not, okay?” He sat cross-legged on the blanket facing her, holding her hands and looking right into her eyes. It was almost dark at the river, but the light of the nearby bonfire flickered across the planes of his perfectly symmetrical face.

“I’m not going to make love to you until you’re eighteen. One reason is, it’s against the law and I don’t want to get thrown in the brig. That’d screw me with the Corps and I’d never be able to go to medical school.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

He laughed and his warm breath stirred the air between them.

“The second reason we won’t do it is even more important. The kind of man I am, I want you to be a virgin for me.”

“But how can I—? I thought you said it didn’t matter.”

“Just listen to me, Madora. If you can stay pure for me until you’re eighteen, it’ll be the same as if you’ve been made a virgin all over again. It’ll prove that first time was an innocent mistake. You’ll be purified and the nasty things those boys did to you, they won’t matter. All the parts of you they touched will have disappeared and been replaced with new cells. You know about cells?”

“What if you get shipped out? You might go to Iraq or that other place where they hate women.”

He tilted her chin with his index finger. “And if that happens, could you be faithful to me?” He pressed the tip of his finger to her lips. “This is all up to you, Madora. If you don’t control yourself, if you tempt me, I’ll likely give in, just get carried away. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. That’s the power a woman has. So I don’t want you to say anything right off. Take a minute to think about it, Madora, because this means something. This minute, right now, is the most important moment of your life. Are you mine forever? Can I trust you, Madora? Think hard before you answer.”

She didn’t want to think, nor was it necessary.

“You can trust me. Forever.”

Madora’s mother announced that she and Peter Brooks, the man she had been dating, were getting married. It was
more than two years since the suicide, and this was a new start for her.

“You too, Madora.”

Peter Brooks lived in Sacramento and they would be moving there.

“I don’t want to go.”

“Who doesn’t want to get out of Yuma? Sacramento’s a beautiful city. It’s green there and Lake Tahoe’s only four hours away and Peter’s got a nice little house. No more stinky-dinky apartments, Madora.”

“What about Willis?” It came out like a wail of pain. “Mom, I love him.”

“You’ll look back in a year and thank me for getting you away from him.”

“Is that why you’re marrying Peter? To get me away from Willis?”

“No, but it’d be a damn good reason.”

Madora had stopped pretending she was not seeing Willis. He knocked on the door of the apartment now and politely sat in the living room when he came by to take her out. Madora’s mother was cool but polite, and she grudgingly admitted that though it defied the logic of what she knew about men, he seemed to have been a good influence on Madora, who had made the honor roll two quarters in a row.

“But there’s something wrong with him, Madora. I know he’s smooth and handsome but there’s something… off.”

“You don’t know him.”

“And I don’t want to, honey.”

“I’ll go live with Kay-Kay.” Her best friend had twin beds in her room. “Her mom likes me.”

“That doesn’t mean she wants you living with her. Someone has to pay for your food and the utilities you use.” She was always after Madora for letting lights burn all night and taking too many baths. “I don’t have any money of my own. I can’t give you an allowance or anything.”

“If Peter thinks you’re so great he wants to marry you, ask him for money. Are you going to work? Won’t that be your money?”

“Don’t change the subject, Madora.” She opened the closet and pulled out a roller bag. “Put what you need for a week or so in this, and the rest can go in boxes. A couple of guys from the hotel will come by on Saturday and help us load.”

“I’m staying with Kay-Kay. And if she won’t let me, I’ll move in with Willis. He’s got an apartment off base.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He says I should get emancipated so you won’t be able to tell me what to do.”

“I’m sure he’d like that.”

“You can’t make me—”

“Madora, emancipation takes time, and right now, legally, you’re a child. My child.”

Something with claws was trying to climb up Madora’s throat. “Don’t make me leave him, Mama. Please.”

“Honey, it’s for your own good.” Her mother sat beside
her on the bed. “If you move in with him, you’ll end up pregnant in no time and what’ll you do then?”

“Mom, we don’t even have sex.”

Her mother blinked several times.

“Do you think Willis is stupid or something? He knows I’m jailbait. And besides, he says it’s good for us to wait and I agree with him. I’m making myself pure for him. It shows I’m committed.”

“You’re telling me you and Willis are just holding hands?”

“We kiss, but that’s all. He honors me.” Madora added more softly, “And I honor him.” The words were beautiful to her ears, holy in a way she could not explain. “Willis has standards, Mom.”