Vanishing Acts (9 page)
A
ll of the starters gave Madison the cold shoulder on the ride back to The Grove. To Madison's relief, Gail didn't protest when Madison sat with her again on the trip back to school. The other alternates were influenced by the starters and would not meet Madison's eye. When the bus stopped, Madison waited until everyone was gone before she got off. She was so embarrassed that she didn't want to be around the other players. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she headed for her father's law office.
Traffic was heavy because the people who worked downtown were driving home, but Madison was walking with her head down and she didn't notice. It was starting to get dark, and a chilly rain fell on her. She made no attempt to shield herself from the large, wet drops that soaked her hair and dripped down her face. The gloomy weather fit her mood perfectly. She couldn't believe she'd muffed her first chance to play for The Grove in such spectacular fashion. She wouldn't be surprised if the coach never played her again. Was it possible that her middle school soccer career had ended before it had a chance to begin?
As Madison reran the awful moments of her disgrace in her mind, she couldn't stop thinking about why she'd tripped over the ball. Was the person in the trees Ann Beck or had her imagination played tricks on her? Had she convinced herself that Ann was the girl in the woods because she missed Ann so much? She wanted that girl to be Ann because it would bring her a step closer to solving the mystery surrounding her friend's disappearance and make her humiliation on the soccer field a little more bearable. If the girl wasn't Ann, Madison had destroyed her soccer career for wishful thinking.
The waiting room at Kincaid and Kirk was empty when Madison walked in. It was late, and most of the employees and attorneys had left. Peggy looked up from her work when the door opened. She started to smile but stopped when she saw how dejected Madison looked.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
Dropping her duffel bag, Madison slumped on a chair across from Peggy's desk.
“I just made a complete fool of myself in our scrimmage at Prescott-Mather. The coach will probably keep me on the bench forever.”
“I can't imagine anything that happened in a single game being that catastrophic, let alone in a scrimmage,” Peggy said.
“You didn't see what I did,” Madison replied gloomily.
“Why don't you tell me about it?”
Peggy listened carefully while Madison told her about tripping over the ball and falling flat on her face at the most crucial point in the game.
“You're not the only player on your team who didn't break that tie, Madison,” Peggy said firmly when Madison was finished relating her tale of woe. “The other girls had the whole game to score a second goal.”
“That's true, but I'm the only one who looked like a clown. On the ride back everyone treated me like I had a horrible disease.”
“Don't make too much of one bad moment.”
“You don't know Coach Davis. Beating Prescott-Mather is a big deal for her.”
“Tell me about Ann,” Peggy asked, obviously trying to get Madison's mind off her misery. “Are you sure she's the person you saw?”
“I don't know. I thought it was Ann, but she was far enough away so I couldn't make out her features for sure.”
“And you lost her in the woods?”
“Yes. Whoever I saw must have been a student because the trail I followed ended at the school buildings.”
“Can you think of a reason Ann would transfer to Prescott-Mather without telling you?”
“No, I can't think of any reason she'd switch schools. If she transferred, we couldn't play together. We vowed to be teammates forever and she'd know how disappointed I'd be.” Madison felt her face scrunch up. “Besides, why wouldn't she
tell
me if she transferred? That's the kind of thing you would tell your best friend.”
“Oh, honey.”
Madison didn't want to cry in front of Peggy. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up.
“Why don't you put your mind to finding out if the girl you saw was really Ann?” Peggy suggested. “If she was and you find her, you'll get the answers to all your questions.”
Madison perked up. “You're right. That's what I'll do.”
An idea occurred to Madison and made her think about something else she wanted to discuss with Peggy. It was something embarrassing, but Peggy was the only woman she knew to whom she could open up about stuff that was personal.
“Peggy, there's something I want to ask you.”
“Sure, anything,” Peggy said.
Just thinking about what she was going to ask Peggy made Madison blush and look at the floor. It was times like these when Madison especially missed having a mother.
“How do you know if someone is your boyfriend instead of just a friend?”
“You're good at math, aren't you?” Peggy asked.
Madison nodded, a little confused by the question since it didn't appear to have anything to do with what she'd asked.
“In math, there are sure answers,” Peggy said. “Four is always the answer to what is two plus two. Well, there's no formula when it comes to a boyfriend. It's something you feel. When you're around a boy or girl who is just your friend, you feel happy. When there's romance in the air, your heart soars and you feel giddy. And the two of you tend to act silly, but you don't care.” Peggy smiled. “Is that any help?”
Madison's brow furrowed. She was definitely happy when Jake was around and she missed him when he wasn't, but she wasn't the type of person who acted silly or felt giddy. She was more the serious type. She decided that she was still uncertain about whether Jake was her boyfriend.
D D D
Twenty minutes later, Hamilton knocked on Madison's office door. It was late, so they ate dinner at a small Thai restaurant near the office. During the walk to the restaurant, Madison thought about the game at Prescott-Mather and memories of her humiliating experience came flooding back. She was depressed by the time they sat down and ordered.
When the food came, Madison picked at it. Hamilton made small talk, but Madison responded with grunts. For once, her dad seemed to notice that something was amiss. Hamilton Kincaid was Oregon's best cross-examiner, and he finally pried her sad tale out of her.
When she finished, Hamilton started to laugh. Madison fumed, furious that her father wasn't taking her tragic situation seriously. At times like this Madison really missed having a mom. A mother would never laugh at something so awful.
“It's not funny, Dad!”
“Yes, it is. I can imagine how you looked flying through the air and landing on your nose. You just can't see the humor because you're too close to what happened. But let me tell you something. If I had a penny for every time I made a fool of myself when I was a young lawyer, I'd be a rich man. And I still make a fool of myself every once in a while. I just don't broadcast that fact.
“I can promise you that worse things than what happened to you today are going to happen. Screwing up is part of life. It's how you deal with the screwups that define you. You can either crawl in a hole and say, âWoe is me,' or you can laugh at yourself, dust yourself off, learn from your mistakes, and forge on. This is a big deal for you now, but I'll bet most of the girls have already forgotten what you did because they're thinking about what they failed to do to win that game.”
“You don't know some of the girls. They're really mean, and they'll never let me forget.”
“Those girls are losers, Maddy. People who have to make fun of other people to feel good usually don't feel that good about themselves. You can put this behind you if you see the humor in what happened and learn from your mistake.”
Hamilton's words didn't cheer up Madison at first, but the more she thought about what he'd said, the more sense it made. She remembered when she'd scored the goal against her own team in the championship game last summer. She almost never thought about that now, and what she'd done then was far worse than what had happened at Prescott-Mather. In fact, she took great satisfaction from the way she'd blocked out the wrong-way goal and sucked it up to help win the game. For the first time since the scrimmage, Madison smiled.
J
ake was waiting for Madison at the front door when she got to school the next morning.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“So you heard?” she asked sheepishly.
“About your soccer debut? Yeah. A few of the girls were gabbing about it.”
Jake handed her a drawing that showed Madison flying through the air with a goofy expression on her face. She couldn't help laughing.
“I must have looked pretty stupid, but I'm over it,” she said. She wanted to appear confident to Jake even if it was only partly true. “And you'll understand why when I tell you why I tripped over that ball.”
Madison told Jake about the girl she'd seen in the woods.
“Do you think she was really Ann?” Jake asked when Madison was through.
“I think it's possible. And I've thought of something I can do to find out if I'm right or wrong.”
“What's that?”
“I'm going to take the bus out to Prescott-Mather and show a picture of Ann around. If she's a student, someone will recognize her.”
Going to soccer practice was one of the hardest things Madison had ever done. When Marci spotted Madison in front of her locker, she sneered.
“I'm surprised you showed up today,” she said.
Madison had expected Marci to harass her, and she'd decided how she would deal with her tormentor. Instead of looking embarrassed, Madison looked Marci in the eye and smiled.
“I sure made an ass out of myself, Marci. And I especially feel bad because your pass to me was so perfect. Thanks for showing enough confidence in me to make it. That meant a lot to me.”
Marci hadn't been prepared to be praised by her rival, and she was speechless for a second.
“Well, pay more attention the next time” was the best she could do. Then she turned away and led her buddies to the practice field.
Madison had anticipated a comment or two from Coach Davis, but the coach simply went over problems she saw with everyone's play and didn't single out Madison. Then it was practice as usual. By the time practice ended, Madison was starting to think that she might survive her horrible mistake after all.
T
he next day, Madison developed a really bad cold just before Hamilton left for work. Hamilton was too distracted to examine his daughter carefully, and as he walked out the door, he told her to drink plenty of tea with honey and stay in bed. She felt guilty about tricking her father, but she thought it was necessary if she was going to solve the mystery of her best friend's disappearance. Shortly after Hamilton left, Madison dressed and rushed to the stop where she could catch the bus to Prescott-Mather. Safely stowed in her backpack was a picture of Ann posing with Madison at a soccer game.
The bus stopped at the gate to the prep school forty-five minutes after she'd boarded it. Several of the riders were students at the school, and Madison mixed with them as they walked down the lane that led from the gate to the campus. Fishing Ann's picture out of her backpack, she showed it to some of the kids, but no one recognized Ann.
Students were streaming into class when Madison arrived at a quadrangle made up of a large, open grassy space surrounded by school buildings. She was approaching another girl when she saw a mop of frizzy blond hair out of the corner of her eye. Madison turned around and found herself staring at Ann Beck.
“Ann!”
Her friend stared for a second before sprinting away.
“Wait!” Madison shouted as she took off after Ann.
Ann had always been faster than Madison, and Ann also knew the layout of Prescott-Mather. She rushed around the side of a building and Madison raced after her. When Madison got to the side of the building, Ann was gone. All of the side doors were closed. Racing to the corner, she saw Ann's heels just before they disappeared again.
The gym was in the direction Ann was headed, and Madison bet that was where she'd find her. There were tons of places to hide in a gym. Madison took a gamble and streaked toward the scene of the scrimmage. She saw a door closing and grabbed the door handle at the last moment.
“Ann, stop!” she yelled as her friend skidded around the corner, using the polished linoleum floor like a skating rink. Madison followed Ann's lead and glided around the corner just as the door to the girls' locker room snapped shut. Madison pulled it open and dashed inside seconds before she heard a crash and her friend's scream. When Madison ran around the end of a row of lockers, she found Ann sprawled on the floor. Next to her was an overturned metal bucket the janitor had left in an aisle.
“Wow, girl, you're still faster than me,” Madison said, gulping air as she walked toward her friend.
Ann looked miserable. She rolled over, sat up, and put her back against the nearest locker. Madison walked over to her.
“Why did you run? I've been frantic looking for you.”
“I'm so sorry,” Ann said. Her head was in her hands and she was near tears.
“Seriously. You've been here at Prescott-Mather? Why wouldn't you just call me?”
Ann looked up. “I was too embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed? To go here?” Madison was confused and angry. “It's a really good school. I would have cared because we wouldn't be playing on the same soccer team, but we're best friends and I'd want what's best for you. And knowing you're at a prep school is better than thinking that you've been kidnapped or are dead!”
“I didn't pick this school, okay? It's not my fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just . . . ” Ann's hands were clenched at her side in frustration. “I'm not just a student here. I'm in boarding school.”
“Huh?”
“My parents are getting a divorce, okay?”
“What?” asked Madison, her anger melting away. “When? And what does that have to do with your being a student here? And in
boarding
school?” It was a lot for Madison to take in.
Ann sighed. “My parents had been having problems, and you know I went to Europe with my dad this summer.” Madison nodded. “So he ended up getting a job there and just stayed.”
“And your mom?”
“She didn't want to move to Europe or be with my dad. So they decided to divorce and she had a bit of a midlife crisis. She's âworking things out for herself' or something and living in a meditation/yoga retreat center. She put me here while she sorts things out.”
“I saw your mom in Nordstrom the other day and she ran away from me.”
“Yeah. She comes home some weekends. I needed new clothes, so she ran to the mall before she came to see me.”
“And she looked, well, different,” said Madison thoughtfully.
“She's âfinding herself,' and her new self wears gypsy dresses and doesn't brush her hair.” Madison giggled and Ann joined in. It felt good to have her friend back. “She ran away from you because I made her swear she wouldn't tell my friends about Prescott-Mather. She didn't know what to do when she saw you and she didn't want to lie, so she took off.”
“Gosh, I'm sorry I upset her.”
“It wasn't your fault, it was mine,” Ann said.
“I stopped by your house and it looked like no one had been home in a while.”
“Yeah, well, my mom needs to decide whether to stay in the house or move when she gets done with her meditative journey or whatever. I guess she's too busy with yoga and the retreat center to mow.”
“I thought I saw a light in a second-floor room.”
Ann blushed. “That was me. My mom dropped me off to get some stuff from my room while she went shopping for groceries. I saw you come up the walk and I hid so I wouldn't have to tell you what I was doing.”
“Why didn't you tell me all this? I could have helped.”
“I don't know. At first I felt bad complaining about my family problems when you don't even have a mom. And then things just got worse and worse and it was too much to tell. I wanted to tell you. I can't have a cell phone here, dorm rules, and I was going to call during one of my mom's weekend visits, but after all this time I didn't know where to start.”
“I wish you had told me. I'm your best friend,” Madison said.
“I know, I was just really embarrassed to tell anyone about my problems, and especially that I'm going to Prescott-Mather after we'd spent so much time making fun of the kids who go here.”
Madison gave Ann a big hug.
“There's nothing to be embarrassed about. A lot of our friends' parents are divorced. I would have helped you through it even if you have to go to a snobby school.”
Ann laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, and Madison could see that her friend was still embarrassed and uncomfortable. Then Ann sobered.
“It sucks that we aren't playing soccer together,” she said. “I feel like I deserted you. We had all those plans to win a championship. Now I'll probably be watching you win championships without me.”
“We still can win championships. Just not this year. I'm only an alternate anyway. If your mom moves home, you can go to The Grove. Next year I should be starting, and we can wow everyone together. And there's always high school.”
“I don't know if I'll be any good by then. I'm not playing this year because I was in Europe when they had tryouts.”
“You're really good, Ann. A year off won't kill you. You'll take up where you left off when you decide to play again. And we'll still be on the club team together this summer.”
Madison wrapped Ann up in another big hug.
“I am so glad I found you!”
“Me too,” Ann said, hugging her back. Madison found herself grinning from ear to ear. One mystery was solved, just one more to go.