The Missing Girl (3 page)

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He likes the thought. A good deed for the world. He repeats it to himself, watching the girls.
The girls . . . a
good deed for the world.
The phrases cling to one another, like Velcro they cling.
The girls . . . a good deed for the
world
. As a young boy, he dreamed of doing good deeds—

of helping an old lady across a traffic-clogged street or saving a screaming, helpless child from a fiery building. Once he told his mother these dreams of good deeds, and her face flushed, she kissed him and said, “What a very nice person you are!” His parents were older and quiet, and often appeared slightly surprised to see him there in their life.

On his revised route he’s obliged only to cross this disgusting street to get to the bus stop, but the girls—poor things!—must walk the full length of the street, all twelve long blocks, to arrive at Mallory Central School. He knows exactly where the school is located. He has walked by the brick building with its ugly, blank-faced annex and run-down trailer, but not too often. It’s the kind of place he takes care to avoid. He’d done things so carefully these past couple of years, it would be stupid to be caught hanging around a school. And he’s not stupid.

He arrives at the corner of Fuller Avenue and Carbon
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Street at precisely the same time every day. If he’s lucky, the girls are there to greet him. Although they never even look at him, he likes to think of it that way: they are greeting him with their high voices, and how they toss their hair, and the way in which they bend and hunch against the cold.

He thinks about them as he approaches the corner. Will they be there? His mind tingles, his step lightens. Behind his glasses, fogged by cold, he looks at each one, singles them out, fixes them in his mind. Then, later, at work, he has all of that—all of them—to think about. Musing over the girls makes time pass. Which one does he like the most? He considers, rejects, chooses, changes his opinion, prefers this one, then that one.

Happiness.

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MAKING MRS. KALMAN HAPPY

JUST AS YOU’RE leaving school, pretty Mrs.

Kalman stops you in the hall and says, “Autumn dear, do you know who I am?”

Of course you know. She’s your school counselor. You look at her briefcase and wonder what’s in it—must be important stuff. You fidget under her glance and wish you hadn’t braided your hair this morning. It’s too babyish.

Mrs. Kalman is saying she’s been thinking about you.

“Me?” you say.

Mrs. Kalman nods. Is she looking friendly or serious?

It’s hard to tell, because her face is always the same. “Mr.

Spiegleman and I have been talking about you.”

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That doesn’t sound good. You must be in trouble. For the day you were late, maybe. Or maybe Mr. Spiegleman found out you knew more than you told on Oral Report Day, and he’s mad.

“Mr. Spiegleman is concerned about you, Autumn. You failed the last two spelling tests.”

Why does she have to say that? That’s not nice! Those tests were hard and, anyway, what does it matter? You’re not a good speller like Mim, who knows everything about all that language arts stuff.

Mrs. Kalman is looking at you like she’s waiting for you to say something. What? What are you supposed to say?

Your eyes wander up to the white-tiled ceiling. You like ceilings. They are like dreams . . . or stories. Right now, practically over your head, is what some people would call a water stain, but you’re seeing a girl’s face, her mouth half open, like she’s in the middle of talking. Maybe
she’s
giving an oral report. You like that idea. The water-stain girl looks like Fancy, who always has her mouth going. Like Stevie would say, Fancy’s a walking oral report.

“Autumn!” Mrs. Kalman says in a voice that’s a little bit cross. “Hello! Look at me, please.”

You drag your eyes down to her. Now you
know
you’re
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in trouble. You’re going to get detention. Poppy will laugh about it, except he doesn’t laugh very much since he fell off the ladder and walks around all bent over with that neck brace and everything, but Mommy will be plain-out mad. You didn’t show Mommy the two failing spelling tests. Your chest is tight. It’s like having a stomachache again, only higher.

“Mr. Spiegleman tells me you’re just getting by in other subjects,” Mrs. Kalman is saying. “He knows you can do better. He says you’re not working up to capacity.”

“Oh,” you say, and you wonder why you’re smiling. You don’t mean to smile. The smile is just there. You didn’t want it. It just popped out on your face.

“Well, what do you think?” Mrs. Kalman says in that sort-of-cross voice.

You shift your backpack. You look at her long blond hair. What are you supposed to say? You failed those tests.

You didn’t
want
to fail them, but you did. Because you’re not special in school like Mim and Beauty. The stomachache in your chest gets worse.

“Capacity,”
you hear yourself saying. “That’s like a spelling word.”

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Kalman says. “Can you spell it?”

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You concentrate. Ka-pass-a-tee. But you know it begins with a
C
. You say,
“C-A-P.”
Under your breath, you say,

“capacity” again, and you try to see the word. You say,
“A-S-A-T-Y.”

“Not quite,” Mrs. Kalman says. “You’re off by two letters. That’s not so bad. Here, I’m going to write it down for you.” She takes a little notebook out of her briefcase and writes in it. “Now you can study this word and amaze Mr. Spiegleman when you ace it on a test.”

Mrs. Kalman’s notebook cover is blue. You say, “Blue is my favorite color.” Was that a stupid thing to say?

“Really?” Mrs. Kalman’s voice goes all singy, like she’s so happy you said that. “Well, guess what, Autumn, this notebook is for you.” You stare at her. She says, “It’s a present. Don’t you like presents?”

You like presents, all right. You like them a lot. You wonder if you should say that. You wonder if you should tell her that your birthday is coming, but because of Poppy’s bad back and no job, there won’t be money for presents. Mommy told you that already. She warned you, so you wouldn’t be disappointed. But she said she would make you a cake, so that part is good.

Mrs. Kalman puts the notebook in your hand. You find
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your voice and say, “Thank you.”

She pats your head and says, “I want you to use it to write down your thoughts and feelings.”

You think, What feelings? What thoughts?

“Make me a promise to write in it every day,” Mrs.

Kalman says.

Every day? So it isn’t a present. It’s a school thing, an assignment.

“It’s like a blog,” Mrs. Kalman says. “You know what a blog is, don’t you?” You nod, although you have just a vague idea.

“It’s like a blog,” she repeats, “only in a notebook, instead of a computer, and just for you, not for the whole world. Private. That’s important. Private, personal thoughts and feelings. You do this, and you’ll see, you’ll like it, and before you know it—” She pauses sort of dra-matically, and her voice rises, like Stevie’s voice when she gets excited. “Before you know it, you’ll be doing better in school!”

“Uh-huh,” you say, because you don’t know what else to say, and you have to say something.

Mrs. Kalman squeezes your shoulder. “That’s my theory, anyway. I hope I’m right, Autumn!” Now she’s laughing,
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and she looks nice when she laughs and tosses her blond hair around like a movie star. “It’s up to you to make me happy by proving my theory. All you have to do is write in this notebook every day. Will you do that for me?”

“Okay,” you say, and you nod a lot and give her a smile.

You like to make people happy, and you hope you can do it for Mrs. Kalman, but what you’re thinking is that she
will
look at the notebook, because she’s a teacher and that’s what teachers do, and then she’ll give you a mark, and it will be another bad mark.

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HAROLD AND VIOLET

THE ALARM CLOCK brings the man awake.

He gets out of bed promptly, stretches, then drops to the floor and does twenty-five push-ups. He’s a bit tired at twenty, but he keeps going. He’s proud of those push-ups.

He was never one of those strong boys with thick shoulders and defined arm muscles, and it wasn’t easy working up to twenty-five. So he does his push-ups diligently, only allows himself to take off Sundays.

After the push-ups, he showers, brushes his teeth, and combs his hair, parting it on the left side. Always the left side. Always twenty-five push-ups. Always clean socks, clean underwear, and a change of shirt every three days.

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He inspects himself in the mirror, straightens his tie.

Always a tie, although it’s not a requirement of his job. “A tie shows self-respect.” His father’s words, one of the few good things his father ever said.

He goes downstairs. The cats are waiting for him.

“Good morning!” he says to them. They look at him expec-tantly. He’s hungry, but he feeds them first. “You know,”

he says, getting the can of cat food from the cupboard, “I think of you guys before myself. You know what that means, don’t you?” He looks at them. They look back.

He takes the can opener from the drawer. The cats watch. Sometimes he’s lonely, but the cats make it better.

He likes the way they watch him, listen to him, and he likes the way he talks to them, like a regular person, like anyone else. The thought passes through his mind that he’s a good man. He wishes that someone else knew how he feeds the cats before himself. He would like to hear someone tell him that he’s a good man, a good person.

He opens the can of food. The cats follow his every move. They are quiet, concentrated. They aren’t shedders or talkers. He had the other kind—noisy, wild, undisci-plined. Those cats had to go. They were bad for his health.

He would find himself yelling at them, losing control.

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“You’re different,” he tells them. He spoons the food into their bowls. A bowl for each of them. “You’re good cats. You listening?” They are.

“Harold. Violet.” He calls them to come to their feeding place near the back door

“They say you can’t train cats,” he tells them, setting the bowls down on the floor, “but I trained you, didn’t I?”

He’s said it before, but Harold and Violet don’t object.

They look up at him, then bend to their bowls.

They are named after his parents, whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in many years. Harold and Violet, the people, are probably still living in California, San Fernando Valley, same old place, same old house. One of these days he might visit them. He imagines the visit, how he will tell them he has two cats named for them. His father will stare at him, not getting that it’s a nice thing the man has done, a good thing, but his mother will be pleased. “You’re my boy,” she’ll say, and she’ll stroke his hair, and he’ll let her, although he doesn’t like to have his head touched.

“You’re the best,” he tells them. “Chow down. Enjoy yourselves.” He pets them briefly.

Now it’s his turn. He toasts bread, boils an egg, makes coffee. Harold is grooming himself, licking his paws.

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Violet has stretched out in a small patch of sunlight on the floor. “You know how to live,” he tells her, although secretly he approves more of Harold, who is so particular about his personal hygiene.

Both these cats are
good
, though, unlike the others.

They don’t jump up in his lap without an invitation. They don’t claw the furniture or yowl at night. He had to go through a great deal of effort, a lot of cats, to get these two excellent ones. A lot of Violets and Harolds, some buried in the previous backyard, some in this backyard.

“How many do you think?” he asks Harold. Violet is sleeping. “Eight? Ten?” He’s forgotten the exact number.

Fortunately, there are always more cats in the world. And nobody could deny that it’s satisfying to bury something and thus enrich the soil. The proof of it is the stand of tall, golden Jerusalem artichokes, which grow so wonderfully over the Violets and Harolds. The flowers are beautiful and, should he so desire, he could dig up the roots and eat them. Nature is a wonderful thing.

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CABBAGE HEAD

WHEN BEAUTY ENTERED seventh grade,

everything changed for her. She had newly grown breasts, new classmates from all over the city, and all new teachers and classes, but the teacher who captivated her was Mr.

Giametti. Paul Giametti, fresh out of college and passionate about teaching these bored Mallory kids. Almost the first thing he said to Beauty’s language arts class on the first Friday of the first week was this: “You people, listen up. If I do nothing else this term, I’m going to teach you all to love poetry and dig metaphors.”

He was tall and skinny and blond and funny looking, and Beauty fell in love with him at once. Therefore, she
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fell in love with poetry and metaphors, even before she loved them for themselves. She straightened out of her C-shouldered slump, wowed that Mr. Giametti didn’t seem the least bit put off by the groans, the shuffling feet, the loud yawns from the back-of-the-room boys. He stood in front of his desk and, with a little smile, slowly—so they’d get every word—recited, and then wrote on the black-board, the first poem of the semester.

music

is a naked lady

running mad

through the pure night

No capital letter on the first word. No period at the end.

And those words,
naked lady
. Those words, spoken out loud, written for them to stare at, as if they were ordinary, everyday Mallory words.
Naked lady
. The boys hooted and snorted, the girls giggled nervously. A small subset tried to look uplifted and thoughtful, Beauty among them.

Almost no one paid attention as Mr. Giametti explained why this sentence was both a poem and a metaphor.

Later Beauty pulled the words back up into her mind.

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