“YOU’VE BEEN WASHING that ice-cream scoop for ten minutes.”
Dex’s voice interrupted my haze of daydreaming, and I blinked before looking down into the store’s kitchen sink. My fingertips were starting to prune where they had dipped the metal scoop into the sudsy water over and over.
“Worried about your dad?” Dex’s tone was gentle as he moved closer to me.
I felt a jolt of guilt as I pulled the scoop up and dried it on a dish towel in two quick moves. I hadn’t been thinking of my dad—not exactly, anyway. I’d been thinking about my upcoming mission/plan/date(!) with Micah. And before that, I’d been thinking of my morning trip to the tiny Bone Lake Public Library, where part-time librarian/nursery school teacher/real estate agent Ms. Ledden had shown me the library’s collection of newspaper articles on the plant closing. My latest theory on the weird sound bite that Cindy, Hector, and Mrs. Anderson had parroted was that they’d all read the same line in an op-ed or something, and it’d just stuck around in their minds. But I couldn’t find any editorial telling Bone Lake residents that it was “best not to think about” the plant accident. Maybe they’d seen in an on-air news report instead.
Either way, my summer research project was turning up zilch so far. I was 0 for 3 in interviews, and honestly, I probably should have been more worried. The more time that passed without getting a strong “human perspective” on my article from someone else in town, the more imperative it became to get Micah’s story. And that was a problem, too. Because every time I was around Micah, needing to ask him important journalistic (and probably painful) questions about his dad, I was too distracted by . . . well . . . his eyes. And his smile. And just his whole face region in general.
“Penny?”
“Um, yeah,” I responded to Dex, trying to reorient my thoughts to Dad.
Dex leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms. “I’ve been thinking. Even if your dad did take his camping gear—”
“He did.”
“Right, right. But anyway,” Dex said, not skipping a beat, “he still probably took it with him to go look into his story. And I just keep thinking that there must be a way to figure out where he was planning to go.”
“Way ahead of you. I looked for his cameras last night, but I couldn’t find any more in the house. No pictures with clues to where he might have gone, either.”
“Oh,” Dex said, deflating a bit. “Did you check his office?”
I shot him a Come on, seriously? look and took the clean scoopers to the front of the store. Dex followed, whirling around so fast his tennis shoes squeaked against the tile floor.
“Okay, but like, how well did you look? Because Ike has lots of files. I barely had time to look around when I was at your place, but I know there’re more somewhere in that office. Plus, he has that safe. Seems more like a two-person job to go through it all.” He bounced a little on his feet as he waited for an answer.
“You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”
“What’ll it hurt to be as thorough as possible?”
“Fine,” I said, sighing. “If it will make you feel better. We’ll go through my dad’s office again. We’ll try to figure out how to open the safe.”
“Tonight?”
“No, not tonight. I have plans.”
Dex made a surprised face. “Plans?”
“Don’t act so shocked. You’re not the only person I talk to in this town.”
“So . . . you have plans with my mom, then?”
“Ha-ha. You should be excited, actually. I’m going out to go check out some of my dad’s usual camping spots to see if he’s there.”
Dex’s eyes lit up. “That’s a great idea! What time should we go?”
“Well, I sort of have plans to go with someone else.”
Dex stopped bouncing. “Someone else?”
“Micah Jameson.”
“That guy? You’re going to spend the night looking for your dad with . . . Micah Jameson?”
“Yeah. What?”
“Why would Micah Jameson want to help you find Ike?”
“Um, maybe so he can hang out with me? Or just because he’s nice?”
Dex scoffed. “Nice. Too nice, more like.”
“‘Too nice’ isn’t a thing. That’s like saying brownies are too fudgy. More is always better.”
Dex shook his head. “I don’t trust him. It’s like he needs everyone in town to like him—and that goes double for every girl in our grade. He’s just too . . . yeah, I’m sticking with ‘too nice.’ I mean, what’s he got to hide?”
“Amazing biceps?”
Dex rolled his eyes. But then he crossed his arms and leaned against the ice-cream case, looking away from me.
“Have fun, I guess. But be careful.”
“Dex, I’ll be perfectly safe with Micah.”
“If you say so. But I meant be careful going out in the woods at night. Remember the deer. And the hiker . . .”
Dex trailed off as he looked out the window, his eyebrows scrunched down.
“What is that?”
I followed Dex’s gaze through the window. The two-lane street outside the ice-cream shop was completely empty, except for what looked like a small purple heap lying in the middle of the yellow line. I moved out from around the counter and closer to the window. The purple heap was a handbag, and just a few feet away from it, sitting upright with her legs sprawled out in front of her on the pavement, was Mrs. Anderson.
My apron flapped in the breeze as I ran through the door and out into the empty street. Dex followed close behind, and the store’s glass door shut behind him with a soft hiss. We both reached Mrs. Anderson in a matter of seconds.
She looked oddly serene, sitting there in the middle of the street. Her expression was placid, almost vacant.
“Mrs. Anderson?” I asked as I knelt down to her level.
She looked at me, her eyes blinking under the shade of her orange sun hat.
“Hello, dear,” she responded with a smile. “Do you know where I’ve placed my pie?”
I exchanged a quick look with Dex, who shrugged.
“I had it just a moment ago, hot out of the oven. I used those fresh blueberries from Hank’s yard—they’re better than they are in the store, you know.”
“Mrs. Anderson, do you know where you are right now?”
Mrs. Anderson’s brow wrinkled. “Of course I know where I am,” she said. “I just don’t know how I got here!”
Dex bent down and put one hand under Mrs. Anderson’s elbow. “Why don’t we get you up out of the street?”
I bent down to lift Mrs. Anderson from the other side. Together, we walked her over to the sidewalk in front of Sweet Street. When we stopped, Mrs. Anderson looked first at Dex, then me, up and down.
“What are you both doing in your aprons? The store doesn’t open for another two hours. . . .”
“Mrs. Anderson, it’s noon,” I said.
She shook her head. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and showed her the time. Mrs. Anderson gave a small gasp, then put one hand up to her temple. “Well, I . . . I don’t . . .”
“Can we call someone for you?” I asked. “A doctor, or maybe the sheriff?”
Mrs. Anderson blew a raspberry, her lips smacking wetly. “And what’s that moron going to do, write me a ticket?”
Dex and I both stifled a laugh.
“I just need to get home, I think. Lie down for a bit.”
“Why don’t I take you?” I said.
“I don’t want to trouble you—”
“It’s no trouble. Dex, do you mind watching the store on your own?”
Dex shook his head. “Of course not. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Anderson. Take care.”
He went inside, and I handed Mrs. Anderson her handbag. We started to walk slowly down the street, my arm still locked under her elbow.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked as we passed the post office.
Mrs. Anderson took a moment before responding. “I was taking my morning pie out of the oven,” she said. “And I thought I should bring it to . . .” She gave an angry sigh. “Oh, I can’t remember.”
“That’s okay.”
But Mrs. Anderson’s mouth stayed firmly bunched up, and she continued to shake her head in frustration as we passed by the buildings at the end of Main Street. When we neared the corner, I saw a black car idling at the curb across the street. It had tinted windows, and its engine was so quiet you could barely tell it was on. It was the same car I’d seen in front of my dad’s house the other day.
The sun bounced off the car’s shiny exterior, nearly blinding me. Just as I shielded my eyes, it peeled away from the curb and maneuvered into the road with a squeal.
“Mrs. Anderson, do you know whose car that is?”
“What, dear?”
“Never mind. It’s gone now.” I turned back to the sidewalk in front of us. “You’re still on Waterbury, aren’t you?” I asked, raising my voice.
“Yes, but you really don’t have to walk me all the way home.”
“I don’t mind. It’s not that far.”
Mrs. Anderson smiled and patted my hand with her own. “You remind me of your father. He was always so sweet.”
I swallowed, caught off guard. “I don’t think that’s how most people would describe him,” I said.
Mrs. Anderson surprised me by laughing. “Oh, I’m sure he’s lots of other things, too. But he’s always had a soft heart.” She loosened her grip on my arm as we turned onto Waterbury and started to pass by the one-story houses that lined the street. “He comes over to rake my yard in the fall, and shovel my driveway every winter.”
I blinked, surprised. “I forgot that he did that.”
“People forget small kindnesses,” Mrs. Anderson said. “They’re often the first things they forget.”
A familiar bubble of anger rose up inside of me at Mrs. Anderson’s gently chiding tone. First Dex and Cindy, now Mrs. Anderson—why were people so intent on telling me what a great guy my dad was? I was the one he had forgotten about to go on a last-minute camping trip to hunt down aliens or whatever—didn’t I have a right to judge? To be even a little pissed off? And who cared if he was the type of person who shovels his neighbors’ sidewalks? He was also the type of person to leave his own daughter in the lurch.
“My dad has a way of making you forget his kindnesses,” I finally said. “He’s pretty good at it, actually.” I heard the sharpness in my tone a moment too late. I instantly regretted snapping at Mrs. Anderson, whose arm still rested, frail and light, above mine.
But Mrs. Anderson just smiled and kept walking. “Oh, I’m sure he does,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Anderson, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, dear,” she said. “I don’t offend that easily. Besides, you’re right. Your dad can be kind, but he can also be a bit of an asshole.”
My eyes widened as Mrs. Anderson chuckled, her voice sweet and cracking and old. “It was true when he was a little boy, and it’s true now. Good parts and bad . . . Oh! Maybe it was banana bread?”
“Mrs. Anderson . . . ?”
“They were going soft yesterday—I saw the dark bruises. I’m pretty sure I used them up, but then I remember picking blueberries. . . . Anyway, your mom was the best thing that ever happened to your dad, and also the worst.”
“Uh, I’m not sure I follow. . . .”
We reached the base of Mrs. Anderson’s yard and started to walk her up her gravel driveway. A row of pink roses lining her lawn were just starting to drop their petals, and she stopped to look at them.
“Or maybe it was apple pie. That does make more sense . . . but then what did I do with the bananas?”
Mrs. Anderson looked up at me as if she expected an answer. I shrugged helplessly, and she smiled. She opened her front door, which was unlocked, and stepped inside.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I set my DVR up to record The Price Is Right.”
“Well . . . okay, Mrs. Anderson. See you later.”
“Bye, dear.” Mrs. Anderson started to close the door, but then stopped just before I turned away. She looked at me, her eyes clear and blue. “Try not to stay too angry with him, okay? Summer’s so short.” She gave a vacant smile. “Summer. That’s right. Yes, it was definitely the blueberries. But it’s best not to think too much about it.”
She shut the door in my face with a loud click, leaving me alone on her porch among the dying roses, feeling a chill run down my spine even in the midday heat.