The Missing Girl (10 page)

“Yeah, you did act s-s-stupid.”

“Thank you.”

They looked at each other, smiled sheepishly.

“So, let’s pretend we’re back in the line,” she said, almost happy again. “You just kicked my foot. I turn around and say, ‘Ethan! Hi!’ And you say—”

He cleared his throat. “Uh. Hi.”

“And then we walk over to this table together, and—”

“You want to see a m-m-m movie?” he interrupted, getting the words out quickly. “
History of Violence
. I was going to ask you.”

“History of what?” Maybe she heard him wrong.

Maybe it was
valence
, a movie about curtains.

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“Violence. History of.”

“Right, that’s what I thought you said. So it’s educa-tional?”

“No. It’s not. No education. No school. Worry not.”

“If you say so. When and where?”

“Saturday night. My house.”

Nathan, the New Hampshire cousin, was due to show up Saturday. Her sisters, Stevie especially, would need her to be there. “I can’t,” she said.

He pulled at an earring. Was that surprise she saw on his face? “How about Friday night?”

Oh, let me think. Can I possibly be free? Yes. How unusual! “What time?”

“Seven, seven thirty?”

Friday she worked four to six. Maybe Patrick would let her off work early. He would. He was good about things like that.

“I’ll pick you up,” Ethan said.

“You have a driver’s license?”

“Uh-huh, don’t you?”

“No, not yet.”

“You should get it. Around q-q-quarter after seven, okay?”

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That would leave her just about enough time to get home, shower, change her clothes, and eat something.

She’d wait outside for him. One thing she wasn’t going to do was bring him anywhere near the squall that was her family right now.

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A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

“WE HAD TO MOVE everything in this room every which way after we got that,” Ethan’s mother said proudly, ushering Beauty into the living room. She didn’t identify “that,” but she didn’t have to. The huge, curved plasma screen, hanging on the wall over the fireplace, loomed over the furniture, the rugs, the windows—everything, in fact, including the Boswell parents, Ethan, and Beauty—like a strange god arrived from outer space. “But we do love it,” Mrs. Boswell said, giving the screen a fond pat, as if it were a new and favorite pet.

Beauty glanced at Ethan. In this brand-new social situ-ation, she was unsure how to respond. Politely?
I’m really
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sorry that you had to do all that work.
Enthusiastically?

It’s fabulous! You are so lucky!
Or truthfully?
That screen
would make ten of our TVs, and it’s actually pretty ugly.

She settled for smiling and nodding, and hoping fervently that Mr. Boswell, who had seated himself on the couch facing the screen, would now rise and say to Mrs.

Boswell, “Come on, let’s leave the kids alone.” That would be perfect.

But no. It didn’t look as if they were going anywhere soon. Mrs. Boswell took the other end of the couch, patted the cushion in the middle, and beckoned Beauty to sit down. Then she patted Beauty on the knee (her third pat in the last three minutes) and said, “We’re so pleased Ethan has a new friend.”

Beauty blinked. So! She was a
new
friend. The ugly little dog named jealousy woke up and barked.
Who’s the old
friend? What’s her name? Is she pretty? Where is she
now?
Ethan, who had said nothing this whole time, blushed at his mother’s remark. He was sitting to the left of his father in an upholstered armchair, patterned with tiny roses, and his whole face turned pretty much the same color red.

“Okay, folks, settle down, settle in,” Mr. Boswell said.

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“The movie’s going to begin.” He aimed the remote.

“Hey, Mom,” Ethan said, finally finding his voice.

Beauty shot him an encouraging look with a message.

Right! Ask her to change seats with you
. Although neither of them had said it in so many words, hadn’t they intended to sit together
and
as close as possible, while watching the movie?

“Mom, what about—”

“Quiet, please,” his father said, nicely enough. “We all want to watch the movie.”

So the movie started, and Beauty sat pinned between the Boswells, while Ethan, alone in the armchair, which could have nicely held the two of them, leaned forward, ever more absorbed by the action on the screen. Did he even know anymore that she was in the room?

Later, while he was driving her home, they didn’t exactly have a fight, but the evening ended badly. They talked about the movie, which Beauty hadn’t really liked—

maybe that put a bit of chill in the air; the movie had been Ethan’s choice, after all. Even so, they might have got past it, but then she said, “It’s weird the way your parents stuck to us.” And when he didn’t respond, she added,
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“Like glue. Elmer’s glue.”

“I don’t want to talk about them,” he said, and the air got a little chillier.

They rode the rest of the way to her house in silence.

There was a moment after he parked when they looked at each other, and there might have been a kiss. She leaned a little toward him, then he said, “Well, see ya,” and looked straight ahead.

She nodded and pushed open the door. “Thanks,” she said automatically. “Nice time.” She walked toward the house. Behind her, she heard the car pull away.

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THE KIDNAPPER

SATURDAY MORNING you’re watching out

your bedroom window when a red pickup truck stops in front of the house, and the kidnapper emerges. A short, compact man, he looks up and down the street. He’s wearing jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He yawns and stretches, lifting his arms and rotating his shoulders.

You’re leaning on your elbows, your chin in your hands, and you stare at him and stare at him. You see that his arms have lots of muscles. You see that his black hair is slicked back and shiny, and even from up here you can see the dimple in his chin. Maybe some people would think he’s handsome, maybe you even think so, but you hate
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him, anyway, because that’s
him
, the Nathan cousin from New Hampshire, the one who’s going to take away Stevie, but still you’re a little bit proud that you’re the first one in the family to see him.

Fancy crowds you aside, so she can see out the window, too. “Who is that boy, who is he? Oooh, oooh, he’s pretty.”

“Boys aren’t pretty,” you say.

“Oh, I love him, he’s so pretty, look at his hair. I’m going to marry him and have babies.”

“Stop being stupid,” you say. “You’re not going to marry anybody.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire, I am too going to marry somebody,” Fancy says. “This lady came and said we have to learn about marrying and kisses and things like that, because we are same as everyone like about love and stuff, but we don’t want to get in trouble, so we have to learn things about boyfriends and be super-super-super-duper careful.”

You watch as the cousin reaches into the truck and pulls out a duffle bag. He slings it over his shoulder, and then, as if he knows you’re up there spying on him, he tilts his head back and looks right up at you,
and he waves.

You want to duck or fall down or something, but Fancy
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is still talking in your ear, and then she says, “Are you listening to me?” And she pinches you on the arm.

Your eyes fill with tears, even though it wasn’t a really hard pinch, and you wish that Mommy’s cousin would get back in his truck, get in there
right now
and drive away and never come back. It’s true that sometimes you hate Stevie so much that you make up stories in your mind where she falls into the river or gets lost in the woods or smooshed by one of the big trucks carrying logs, but you always make the stories turn out happy. You’re the one who pulls her out of the river, you find her in the woods, you save her just before the truck runs her over. And you never, ever lend her out.

No matter what Mommy says about Stevie going to New Hampshire, or how Poppy tries to make it sound like something good, the way you think of it, Nathan Menand is here to
kidnap
Stevie, to take her away to New Hampshire, and who knows if you’ll ever see her again.

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THINGS SHE DIDN’T KNOW

“MIM,” BEAUTY SAID. “Mim? Hello?”

Her sister, asleep in the next bed, shifted slightly, only her neat profile showing above the quilt pulled up around her head. Beauty watched her, willing her awake. The waxing moon, almost full, shone brilliantly through the window, and by its light she checked the time on the little clock near her bed. Two a.m. It was already Sunday. She had shut off the light around eleven last night, or was it closer to midnight? Whatever, she hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about her
object of desire
, Cousin Nathan.

She had almost lost the power of speech when she met
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him. It was that gaze he turned on her, as if he was seeing the
real
Beauty, the one inside her skin. He had held her hand in his paw—big hands for a small man—for a long moment, then nodded as if he knew something about her that no one else knew. And it happened again. She fell! Or maybe it was Nathan who fell—into the space in her heart vacated by Ethan.

Wasn’t it wild! Only a few days ago, she’d had this mam-moth crush on Ethan, and now it was Nathan. Maybe not so wild. Those fifteen minutes in Ethan’s car Friday night after the movie had flattened her. That painful moment when he could have kissed her—and, instead, had turned away—had restored her to her senses, to her sense of who she was . . . and who she wasn’t.

Supposing Nathan—
Cousin
Nathan, she reminded herself, tucking her hands between her thighs—suppos-ing he decided to stay for a few more days? Supposing he liked her?
Loved
her. He had worked, traveled, seen things, been places—all the things she longed for, for herself. He was older, but she didn’t care. He was her cousin, but she didn’t care about that, either, or that he’d be gone tomorrow morning. It was all fantasy, anyway, which was the history of her life. She must have made some sound.

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Mim woke up. “Beauty,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just crazy tonight. Go back to sleep.”

Mim yawned. “What time is it?”

“About two.”

Mim reached for the bottle of water she kept on the floor. “Wow, look at the moon.”

“I know, it’s beautiful. Mim . . . do you have a boyfriend?”

“You know I don’t.” She yawned again.

“But you’re so cute, I bet there are plenty of boys who—”

“Maybe, but I’m not interested.”

How was that possible? Beauty was interested; she’d always been interested. She’d been thinking about boys, looking at them, in love with them, since she was six years old. “There’s no one you especially like, no, uh,
object of
desire
?”

“Object of desire.” Mim laughed and pulled the quilt around her shoulders. “I didn’t say that.”

Ah, that was better. “Would you tell him? I mean, would you, uh, declare yourself to him?”

“Declare myself—maybe. What about you?”

“I have, once. And now I—hmm, I—oh, well . . .” She wasn’t quite ready to confess. “Would you not do it, Mim,
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because girls don’t? Or shouldn’t? Or because you’re too shy—”

“No, no, and no. If I wanted to, if I thought the time was right or something like that, I would.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Is he too old?” Now Beauty approached the subject she really wanted to talk about.

“No.”

“Is he unavailable for other reasons?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I would tell her if I thought she felt the same way.”

“Her?” Beauty said. “Oh.
Her
.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re—”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Beauty lay back on the bed, her hands on top of her head, Nathan forgotten, as she took in this new information, took in how ignorant she had been of Mim’s real self. It had never occurred to her that there were things she didn’t know about her sisters.

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“Well,” she said finally. “Okay. So, who is she?”

“It’s just someone . . . someone in school.”

“Do I know her?”

“Maybe.”

“Is she, uh, like, uh—”

Mim reached between the beds and shook Beauty’s arm. “You can say the L word. It won’t burn your tongue.

Yes, I think she is. Beauty, you won’t tell anyone—especially not Mom and Dad. I’m not ashamed or anything, but here—Mallory, you know what I mean.”

“Do you love her?”

“I think so.”

“How do you know? How do you know it’s the real thing? I get these crushes . . .”

Mim hunched over her knees. “The real thing—what is that, anyway? Maybe I’m just wishing it is, because . . . it’s lonely—” Her voice caught.

Beauty pushed aside her covers and went to sit beside Mim. She had so many little sisters and the other three took so much attention that she often just forgot about Mim. She was the one who always seemed okay, but now here she sat, her knees up defensively.

“Are you sad, honey?”

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“Not just for me. It’s Stevie. It’s the worst thing that ever happened in our family. Dad is so—”

“Stubborn,” Beauty supplied. “He’s a mule. Stevie’s kind of a pain in the butt for everybody, but she’s our
sister
.” She sighed. “And now, you and I, we’re both in unre-quited love.”

“You, too?” Mim said, and she sounded a little surprised.

“Well, not with a girl.”

“Oh,” Mim said. “Oh, okay.”

“I think we should just have a big crying jag and get it over with.”

“Waaaa!” Mim mocked, and they both laughed.

It was the next day when they cried. Cried harder than they’d ever cried in their lives.

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COUSIN DARLIN’

SUNDAYS, BEAUTY WAS in the habit of

giving her mother a break from the cooking. So mid-morning, she was at the stove, making pancakes for the family brunch, when Nathan came dancing into the kitchen. She smelled him before she saw him, that strong, beautiful man-smell of sweat. She turned to look at him.