The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (35 page)

But Grace was gone. The kitchen’s back door was open, and she was gone.

H
er father stood on Mrs. Kleinfelter’s front porch at midnight and gave sleepy and somewhat flustered Mrs. Kleinfelter the barest of information. Grace had gotten a little upset, he said, but she had probably just wandered down the road somewhere. In fact, she was most likely at that little grocery store at the top of the hill—you know, the one with the broken gas pump. Yes, he said, running his hand through his hair and looking back behind him toward the darkened road, they would certainly all have a laugh about this tomorrow, wouldn’t they, and could Jory stay with her just until then? Mrs. Kleinfelter said nothing, just opened the door wider and took Jory in and turned on the radiator in the back bedroom. She gave Jory an extra quilt and then went back into her own bedroom and shut the door.

Jory was now lying in the bed in the spare bedroom. Her father was out somewhere searching for Grace. Jory had begged and pleaded to go out with him, but he had been beyond listening to her. He was going to drive the back roads until he found her, he had said. Why don’t we call the police? Jory had asked. Please, can’t we just call the police? Her father said to think of what would happen—did she want her sister in the local newspaper, did she want the police to ask her sister questions and to listen closely to her answers?
Think,
he’d said. We’re not calling the police.

Jory lay in the bed and listened to the night sounds. A car grew close and then went quickly past. A clock ticked softly somewhere in the house. Jory turned over on her side. Earlier that night, Jory had gone outside with a flashlight and searched through the grape arbor and the tool shed. She had peered down in the basement of Henry’s house and behind the boxes of old clothes and the jars of jewel-like peaches and plums. She had even sneaked into Mrs. Kleinfelter’s garage. There was nowhere else to
hide. Henry’s house was clear out in the middle of the country and the nearest farmhouse was a couple of miles away. Jory’s father had already been there. No one had seen Grace.

She was supposed to go to school tomorrow. She was supposed to hand in her paper on the inexorability of fate and the expectedness of the unexpected, but which she had been too busy recovering from an LSD trip to complete. Maybe Mrs. Kleinfelter wouldn’t remember that Jory was supposed to go to school, or maybe she would call the school and tell them that Jory couldn’t come, that there had been a family emergency and that Jory was vitally needed at home. Jory wondered if her father had gone home yet and told her mother that Grace was missing. She tried to imagine her mother lying awake in the dark of her parents’ bedroom, worrying. Jory flexed her toes against the bottom of the sheet. There had been no angel—only a Mexican man who was insane or maybe mentally retarded. This revelation should not have been all that surprising, and yet somehow it still was.

Jory couldn’t bear to eat any breakfast, even though Mrs. Kleinfelter poured her a big bowl of Malt-O-Meal with the added enticement of maple syrup to put on it. Jory climbed into Hilda’s old truck wearing the same clothes she’d had on the day before, her stomach empty and her hair uncombed. As they drove, Jory found herself carefully scanning each field and roadway as if she might see Grace suddenly walking along. She couldn’t make herself stop this obsessive looking, so she just gave in and examined every house and farm and empty lot they passed.

“Are you all right?” Mrs. Kleinfelter stared straight ahead.

“Yes,” said Jory. “I guess.” She watched as a long-legged dog rushed out of a driveway and loped alongside the car, barking furiously. It gave up after half a block and Jory turned around and watched it standing in the middle of the street still barking. “What if she got hit by a car?” Jory turned back around.

Mrs. Kleinfelter flipped on the car’s heater and a gust of faintly warm air blew toward Jory’s feet. “Your father’s a very determined man,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said, as if this explained something.

Jory took up her vigil behind the window again. She noticed that
today most of the houses had smoke coming from their chimneys. “He won’t even call the police,” she said.

Mrs. Kleinfelter made a small sound in the back of her throat.

“She won’t ever come back,” said Jory. “Even if he does find her.”

Mrs. Kleinfelter made a left-hand turn and pulled into the school’s parking lot. “I’ll be back at three thirty,” she said. “Just hang on until then.”

Jory stared at the sandwich that Mrs. Kleinfelter had packed for her. She put it back in the little brown bag and folded the top closed. Her stomach still felt strange. More than strange. She gazed around her. It was only noon, but the sky right behind the gym had now turned a dark yellowish gray and the treetops were all starting to bend back and forth. Thunder rumbled from somewhere nearby and Jory felt a fat drop of rain hit her scalp.

“Do you know anyone who has a car?”

Rhea crammed the last of her sandwich into her mouth. “Why—you wanna ditch?”

“I need to go somewhere.” Jory patted the hood of the white Ford Falcon they were sitting on. “Whose car is this?”

“I don’t know,” Rhea said. “Somebody who’d give us a ride if we both gave him hickeys, probably.” Rhea stood up and surveyed the school’s parking lot. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend over there?”

Jory saw Laird standing in a group with a wildly laughing Jude and Jude’s less happy, but equally stunning brother, Nick. “It must be wonderful to be her.”

“Who—Jude? Get real,” said Rhea. “She’s just as messed up as everybody else.” Rhea kicked her foot against Jory’s. “C’mon, I dare you to go over there and ask him.”

“No way,” said Jory.

“Seriously,” said Rhea, taking Jory by the arm. “Don’t be such a pussy.” Rhea tightened her grip on Jory’s arm and began dragging her across the parking lot.

“Oh, poop. Oh, poop,”
Jory kept saying under her breath as they approached the group.

“Hey,” Rhea said loudly when they came to a stop next to Jude and her brother. “Jory here wants to ask her Homecoming date a favor.” Rhea gave Jory a push.

Jory could feel her entire face and neck burning and turning red. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said in a small voice. “I was just going to see if someone would give me a ride somewhere.”

“What kind of ride do you need?” Nick Mullinix turned and winked at Laird, who was looking down at the pavement of the parking lot and scuffing his boot against an invisible divot in the pavement. “Seriously, where you wanna go?” Nick now made a show of digging his car keys out of his pocket and twirling them around on his finger. “You coming too?” He gave Rhea a look.

“Um, okay,” said Rhea.

“Do you know where the Bali Hai Trailer Court is?” Jory tried to steady her voice.

“The
Bali Hai
?” Jude asked.

Laird looked up from the pavement and squinted at Jory. “My brother’s got his truck, but I’d have to go find him.”

“Forget it, man,” said Jude’s brother. “I got it covered.” He turned to Jory and Rhea. “I doubt we’re gonna make it back in time for fifth, you know. If that’s, like, a problem.”

Jory glanced at Laird and he was already looking at her. “I’ll take notes for you in science,” he said. “If you don’t get back, I mean.”

“Thanks,” said Jory, trying not to embarrass him further.

Jude squinted her eyes at Jory. Suddenly she reached into the front pocket of her Levis and pulled out a quarter. “Here,” she said, handing the coin to Jory. “Bring me back a chocolate Push Up,” she said in a strangely quiet voice. “And tell him that I said hi.”

Jory stared at Jude.

Nick nodded his head at Jory and Rhea. “Let’s book, my beauties,” he said, and began heading toward his car. Rhea pulled Jory along behind her. Jory glanced back and saw Jude putting her hand into Laird’s shirt pocket and pretending to pull something out. Laird was grabbing at Jude’s hand and she was laughing and hiding her hands behind her back.

Jory sat motionless in the backseat of Nick’s car, replaying Jude’s comment over and over in her head.

“You’re a senior, right?” Rhea was saying to Nick. “So who was that I saw you with at Dave Roddy’s party?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Some chick from Arco Christian.”

Jory leaned forward. “That’s my old school.”

“Seriously? I thought it was a reform school.” Nick glanced back at Jory. “Jude said that place is seriously fucked up, man. It’s supposed to be like a prison. A prison for nuns.”

She looked out the side window and rubbed some condensation off with her coat sleeve. The sky was even more gray, purple almost. The trees were swaying, first in one direction and then the other, their branches leaning low. Several drops of rain hit the window, but were quickly whisked away by the wind. Jory tried once again to imagine where Grace might be. But Grace didn’t really know anyone besides their family. There wasn’t anywhere for her to go.

“Turn left here,” said Rhea, “and then it’s two more streets, I think.” The car bumped over a pothole and Rhea hit her head on the car roof. “
Ow!
Jesus’s racehorses!” she said. She rubbed the top of her head. “That hurt.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Nick. He bent Rhea’s head down and kissed the top of it.

Rhea looked pleased, even as she massaged her head.

“So what’s at the trailer court?” Nick glanced back at Jory with his eyebrows raised.

“Just somebody I know,” she said.

“Whatever you say,” said Nick. “Anyway, that looks like it up there, right?” He turned into a long rutted driveway. “Bring some back for me, okay?” He grinned at Jory.
“Ass, grass, or cash.”

Jory stared at Nick. “What?”

Nick laughed and shook his head. “You Arco girls. You’re hilarious.” He stopped the car and Jory leaned forward past Rhea and opened the car door and squeezed out. The rain was starting to come down for real
now. She put her hand over her eyes and tried to figure out where to go. There were metal trailers and painted blue ones and some that had little porchlike things hanging over the front doors. One trailer had an empty wading pool next to it that was now slowly filling with water. What number had Grip said? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? Jory walked down one row of trailers after another, the blowing rain plastering her hair down against the sides of her head. At the end of the last row was a trailer with colored Christmas lights strung around it. Space 23.
G. Welker,
it said on the mailbox. Jory stepped up the two wooden stairs and knocked on the trailer’s screen door. The rain came down harder. She opened the screen door and knocked on the wooden one inside it. Through the glass window in the door she could see a shirtless Grip as he ambled toward the door yawning and scratching his head. He opened the door and saw Jory. “Whoa,” he said, taking a half step backward. “This is a surprise.” He opened the door wider and she went in.