The Bad Boy Next Door: Lance & Chastity (27 page)

“Can I do anything?” he asks.

I look at Lance for a second. He’s inscrutable. I say, “You should stay here, Mr. McKnight. We’ll let you know what we find out.”

“Okay.” He sounds sad.

I would invite him, but he shouldn’t have to endure more insults from Mom.

Back home, I lead Lance into the kitchen.

Mom is on the phone. “Okay. Thank you, Linda. Yes. Please let me know if you see her. Thanks. Good night.” She beeps off the cordless phone and stares at me with hollow eyes. “She’s not there.”

My stomach waves nauseously. “Did you ask if Trish talked to Charity?”

“Linda said not since the weekend.”

“Hmmm. Maybe she’s…”

“She’s gone, Chastity,” Mom says, frightened.

“We should go look for her,” Lance says.

Mom stares at him like she can’t decide if she hates him or needs his help.

“Shouldn’t we call 911?” I suggest.

“I already did,” Mom says. “An officer came by an hour ago. I gave him her picture. They’re already looking for her.”

I nod and think. “What did Charity’s note say?”

She picks a folded sheet of notebook paper off the counter. Written in Charity’s bubbly handwriting in purple ink is the following:

Mom-

I can’t deal with you anymore. Don’t look for me.

She didn’t even sign it.

I’ve felt the same way a thousand times since Dad left. I feel her pain. I hardly blame her. At least I got out and had Lance waiting to catch me. Charity doesn’t have anyone except… “Did you call Dad?”

Mom looks away nervously.

“Did you?”

She stares at me for a second before her face cracks. “No! I did not call your father, okay?!”

“Mom! Are you crazy? Dad is not the enemy! Call him! For all you know she’s on a plane to Chicago already!” I pull up Dad in my contacts on my phone and call his number. The phone rings four times before going to voicemail. I hang up and call again. Same thing.

“He’s not going to answer because he doesn’t care,” Mom scowls.

I glare at her and shake my head and dial again. While it’s ringing, an incoming call from Dad flashes on the screen. I answer it. “Dad!”

“What’s wrong, Chaz?” He sounds sleepy. It’s two hours later there.

“Charity ran away. Did she talk to you?”

“What?! When?!” He’s awake now.

“Today. Did she say anything to you?”

“No! I haven’t talked to her all week. She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Is she okay?”

“We don’t know. I’m going to put you on speaker. Mom’s here.”

He sighs heavily. “Fabulous.” His sarcasm is obvious. “Go ahead.” I hit the speaker button. “Hello, Faith.”

Mom doesn’t respond. Her lips dance over her teeth, holding back her venom.

“Is your mother there?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, Dad. She’s here.”

“Faith, I haven’t talked to Charity all week. What’s going on?”

“She ran away, John,” Mom sneers. “Were you not listening?”

I whisper, “Geez, Mom. Be polite.”

She rolls her eyes. “She left a short note saying not to look for her.”

“She what?!” Dad is still trying to process all this. “I can’t believe she would do this. Chastity, did you notice anything wrong?”

I glance at Mom. “Something is always wrong around here. You know Mom.”

Mom bares her teeth.

I shake my head slowly and glare back, daring her to say anything.

She doesn’t.

“Have you called the police?” Dad asks.

I sigh, “Yeah, Mom did. I was hoping maybe Charity had decided to go live with you.”

“I wish she had,” Dad says, bemused and melancholy. He sighs, “Is there anything I can do right now?”

I look at Mom.

She shrugs and rolls her eyes, obviously not wanting to interact with Dad at all.

I smirk at her. “Probably not tonight, Dad.”

“Do you need me to fly out? I can catch a plane first thing in the morning.”

“Gosh, Dad. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“Hmmm. I’ll make that call in the morning. Let’s see what happens tonight. Maybe she’ll come home. If she doesn’t, I can be in LA by the afternoon.”

Lance mutters to me, “We should go look for her. Now.” He says it like finding Charity is a foregone conclusion. His presence is incredibly reassuring right now.

I can’t imagine going through this with just Mom. We would be fighting the entire time. I’m so lucky Lance is here. Sadly, that makes me feel worse because at the moment, Charity has no one. She’s all alone who knows where. I have to do something. “Dad, we’re going to look for her right now. I guess we’ll call you when we find her?”

“Good,” Dad says. “As soon as we hang up, I’ll call Charity’s phone. Maybe she’ll answer. If I talk to her, I’ll call you right away. Call me if you hear anything, okay sweetheart?”

“Yeah, Dad. Love you.”

“I love you too, Chaz.”

The look of jealousy on Mom’s face is obvious.

“And Faith?” Dad says over the speaker

“Yes? John?” she spits.

“She’ll be okay. Charity is a smart girl.”

Mom’s face ripples with fear and rage. “She’s fourteen and she’s out on the street,
John!
She’s just a child! Nothing about that is okay!!”

“Jesus Christ, Faith! That’s not what I meant!”

Wow, only two minutes and they’re fighting like they’re still married.

“Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain! This isn’t his fault! It’s yours for turning away from Him in your time of need! You left your daughters,
John!!
”

I roll my eyes in disgust. That’s not true. Mom pushed him away, but I don’t know if she’ll ever see it.

Dad groans, “I have to go, Faith.”

“Bye, Dad,” I say cheerily.

“Bye, sweetheart. I’ll call you if I find anything out.”

“Okay. Bye.” I hang up.

Mom hisses, “That
man
. Never taking responsibility for anything.”

What a hypocrite. No use trying to tell her. “Calm down, Mom. You aren’t helping. We need to find Charity. Not complain about Dad.”

Mom snarls before turning away to sulk.

“How do you want to do this?” Lance asks. “I’ve got my bike, your mom has the car. We can cover more ground if we use both. You wanna come with me or go with her?”

That’s a no-brainer. “Go with you.”

“I can’t look every direction at once!” Mom growls, spinning around. “You should come with me, Chastity.”

Um, no?

Lance says, “Take my dad with you. He can help.”

Mom folds her arms across her chest, “No, no, no. Never. He’s probably drunk anyway. What good can he possibly do?”

“He’s not drunk,” Lance growls.

That’s news to me. I thought he was. Is he?

“Says you,” Mom scoffs.

I roll my eyes. I can’t say for sure he hasn’t been drinking, but he’s not so drunk he can’t help look. “Don’t be stupid, Mom. Mr. McKnight isn’t drunk. I just talked to him. He can help.”

She huffs a sigh. “All right. Fine. But I’d rather go by myself.”

“Mom.” I prod.

She throws up her arms. “Fine! I’ll take Mr. McKnight. But I’m driving. Who knows when he had his last drink.”

++++8++++

CHASTITY

Before we leave, Lance gets our leather jackets from his house.

After that, Lance and I spend two hours cruising to every location we can think of on his motorcycle. Charity’s school, the mall (which is closed), Marble Slab (which is also closed but she used to stop by to visit me when I was working all the time), the church (you never know), the nearby parks, everywhere. Mom calls repeatedly asking if we’ve found her. None of us have any luck.

I text and call Charity dozens of times, but she never responds.

I even text:
Chair, it’s Chazzy Wazzy. I’m alone. I know you’re mad at Mother Mather. Please talk to me and tell me you’re okay. I won’t tell her you talked to me. But I need to know you’re safe. Please at least text me back. Okay?

Charity is the only person who ever calls me Chazzy Wazzy. Mother Mather is a reference to Cotton Mather, the guy behind the Salem Witch Trials. It’s what we call Mom behind her back when she has been particularly puritanical.

Not even that gets a response from her.

Is her phone off or her battery dead? Did she lose it or break it? Those are the only reasons I can think why she wouldn’t respond to me. Unless she’s in trouble. Or hurt. Or…

Gosh, I hope she’s okay.

Dad can’t get through to her either.

The whole time, I’m beating myself up in silence on the back of Lance’s Gixxer while thinking every shadow I see is Charity hiding from us.

At one point we stop at the Valley Park skateboard park and talk to four street kids who are clearly under eighteen. They have grimy hair and haunted eyes and sit on top of a park picnic table. The one girl wears a torn army jacket. A guy wears a tattered leather jacket, another a dirty denim jacket with band patches, the other a ratty flannel. They look lost. Not literally. Emotionally. Spiritually. Like they’re not sure who they are or where they fit in with the world. They don’t even belong at the skate park because the park is closed at this hour. They just stare at the empty cement bowls behind the fences like they’re watching the ghosts of skaters or perhaps wishing they had their own skateboards, but they don’t. Just their shoes, which look thrashed. Wherever these kids may fit in, if they fit anywhere at all, it’s not here or any place I would want to be, and definitely no place I want Charity to end up.

We show the kids Charity’s picture but they don’t recognize her. Flannel says he’d do her. Angrily, I say she’s my sister. The girl in the army jacket says, “Fuck your sister.” I’m about to scream at her when I realize their bravado is a thin veil hiding their fear. I can’t really be mad at them because I feel so bad for them. When Lance and I turn to leave, the boy in the leather jacket asks if we have any weed. Lance says no and gives them eighty bucks and tells them to go buy food.

As we walk back to his motorcycle, I say, “They’re probably not going to use it for food.” I’m thinking about Mr. McKnight and how angry Lance gets when his dad has booze. Now Lance is giving weed money to street kids? It doesn’t make any sense.

“I don’t care what they use it for. The important thing is they realize there are people in the world who will help them. If they want it.”

“Oh. Good point.”

Just when I think I have a handle on Lance, he goes and shows how thoughtful he is. I should’ve realized his dad has him. Those kids looked like they had nobody. Nobody who could help, anyway.

We cruise the gloomy streets for another hour before stopping to stretch our legs and get gas at a Chevron station on Victory Boulevard. Sadly, we have no victory of our own to celebrate. We’re the only people at the pumps this late. The cold fluorescent lights give everything under the overhang a grim cast.

I pull my helmet off, shaking my hair out. “How could I be so stupid? How did I not see this coming? I am such an idiot. I thought about running away a hundred times. I almost did twice. One time, I packed my stuff and everything. Why didn’t it ever occur to me Charity might actually do it?”

Lance sets his helmet on the gas tank of the Gixxer. He leans his hands on the seat and shakes his head heavily. “Sometimes people hide things and you never know it.” There is a deep sadness in his voice.

Is he talking about Charity or his Dad? Or someone else?

Probably all three.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Look. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s not yours. It’s your Mom’s. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but that woman is way too extreme for her own good.”

“I know.” I shake my head morosely. “What are we going to do, Lance? Charity is out there all alone.”

“We keep looking until we find her.”

Lance hangs the gas hose back on the pump and we put our helmets on and climb on the bike.

Hours later, the sun is rising when we call it a night.

We pull into Lance’s driveway a minute before Mom parks the Toyota in our driveway. She gets out of the car alone.

“Where’s Mr. McKnight?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” she grumbles.

Lance gives me a funny look.

I return it. “What the heck, Mom? Did you lose him?”

“No.”

“Then where is he?”

“Pish. Probably at some all night liquor store.”

Lance turns on Mom and grabs her arm in a strong grip.

“Let go of me this instant!”

Lance is pissed. “Did you leave him at a liquor store?”

“No! Now, let go!”

Lance shakes her. “Then where is he?”

“How should I know?”

Lance looks like he’s about to bite her face off.

She whines, “Let go of me, Lance!”

“Where is he, Faith?” Lance’s voice is deadly.

“Tell him, Mom,” I grumble.

Mom huffs. “We had an argument. I made him get out.”

“What?!” Lance is incredulous. “What the fuck, Faith?”

Mom growls, “You weren’t there. We had an argument.”

“About what?” I demand.

“About his drinking, of course.” Her tone is superior and blameless.

“Mom?” I growl. “What did you say to Mr. McKnight?”

She smiles her superior smile. “I told him he was lost, that he only drank because he had turned away from the Lord. He said otherwise. I pressed my case. He let loose with a tirade of filth that I would not stand for. So I made him get out of my car.” She is so proud of herself.

I want to kill her right now. “Mom! Now is not the time to be sermonizing! We need to find Charity, not save Mr. McKnight!”

She chortles. “I tell you, the devil is in that man and the Lord is punishing me for my transgressions.” There she goes, making it all about her, as always. She smiles at Lance. “And your transgressions…” she turns to me, “and yours. I have no doubt the two of you are living in sin. Perhaps all three of you are to blame for Charity’s running away. You’re certainly setting a terrible example.”

“Where did you leave him?” Lance demands.

“I don’t remember. It was several hours ago,” she chuckles like this is all a game.

“Where, Mom?!” I shout.

She rolls her eyes and tosses her hand. “Somewhere in Burbank. How should I know.”