THREE

I Saw You

“Wow,” said Kas. “Clive leaves, you find out that you might have to move, and then you nearly choke to death, all in the same month. That’s a lot of stress.” She skooched her plastic lounge chair along the pool deck to the table and leaned forward. The music for the Nifty Sixties Deepwater Aquasizers bounced off the pool walls.

“Yes,” said Celia. “Must be well over a hundred points.”

“Points?”

“Holmes and Rahe stress scale. For example, acquiring a physical deformity gives you eight times as many points as a family vacation.”

“What do I get if I have more than a hundred points? HD TV? Cruise?”

“No, you get to be sick.”

“Oh. Big whoop.”

“The question is,” said Celia, “who was she, that Heimlich girl?”

Lynn shrugged. “I don’t have a clue.”

Celia, using her flipflop as a gavel, pronounced, “There is always a clue. There is always evidence.”

Lynn grinned. Celia was destined for law school. According to Celia, law school was what Korean parents thought good daughters should aspire to. Celia had an evidence-based approach to life.

Celia continued, “Think. Relive the moment. What do we have? A kilt. What does this suggest?”

“Exchange student from Scotland?” said Kas.

“Yeah,” said Lynn. “On a bagpipe scholarship?”

“Do girls even play bagpipes? If not, why not?”

“Four! Three! Two! One! Good job, ladies!” The blond buffed-boy aquasize instructor danced on the deck. He never stopped moving, talking and teasing the nifty sixties. “Just one more rep, Marjorie, show us your stuff!”

Celia gave Kas and Lynn a look of judicial disdain. “We are straying from the point. I believe what you meant to say was private school. And what else? Distinguishing marks? Height? Hair color? Style? Sound of voice? Accent? Smell?”

“Um. A little taller than me. Her arms felt skinny. Brown hair, pulled back. I hardly saw her. Ordinary voice, not that I heard her say very much. Hang on … There was a smell. Dirt.”

“Ick.”

“No, not ick dirt. Like dirt-when-you-dig-in-the-garden dirt.”

“Obviously the tartan is our strongest lead. Would you recognize it again?”

“Um, maybe. It was mostly green.”

“Kas, your assignment is to research the uniforms of all local private schools.”

“Okay, but here’s a question. Why do we even want to find her?”

“Oh.” Celia frowned. “I just assumed. Lynn?”

“I’d just like to know who she is. You know, to thank her. Otherwise I would always wonder.”

“Okay,” said Celia. “What other approaches can we take?”

“There’s got to be something online,” said Lynn. “How do people find other people?”

“I know!” said Kas. “I Saw You. In that free paper. Wait. There’s a pile of them near the entrance.”

She scooted off down the pool deck and was back in a minute. She spread the paper out on the table.

“Here it is. I Saw You. Have you looked at it before?”

“Yeah,” said Lynn. “That paper’s usually around the house.”

“Um,” said Celia, “I’m not actually supposed to read that paper. It has inappropriate content.”

“You mean all those ads for escorts and massage therapists?” said Lynn.

“Well, not just that.”

“She means that sex advice column,” said Kas. “Not that I’ve ever read it. It’s gross.”

“Me, neither,” said Lynn.

There was a pause.

Celia jumped in. “How do you know it’s gross if you’ve never — ”

Lynn and Kas started to laugh so hard that Mr. Aquasize glanced over.

Celia shook her head. “Oh, you guys.”

“All right,” said Kas, “as my colleague Celia would say, we have strayed from the point.” She flipped through the pages. “Here it is. I Saw You. Okay. Here’s one. ‘Man to Woman. #9 bus. You: bright blue jacket, red hair. Me: green toque, beard. I gave my seat to a senior. You smiled at me. I wanted to talk. You, too?’ Aw, doesn’t Green Toque sound nice?”

“This is the perfect tool,” said Celia. “And, look, it’s online, too.”

“Let’s see,” said Lynn. She ran her eye down the list. “But it’s all, like, dating stuff.”

“Who cares?” said Celia. “It might just work. Obviously lots of people read this paper, or at least, ahem ahem, parts of it. What details should we include?”

The exercise music stopped and the nifty sixties emerged from the pool, teasing and laughing, tossing their noodles and belts into the bin, flicking their heads to get water from their ears. The blue water calmed to glass and invited the girls in.

Kas stood up. “How about, ‘You: green kilt. Me: choking to death. You saved my life. Can we meet?’”

“It’ll take some polishing,” said Celia, “but the basic idea is great. Kilt identification and an I Saw You notice. A two-pronged approach.” She stood up, licked the inside of her goggles, adjusting them over her eyes and did a tidy dive into the fast lane. Kas followed with more of a splash.

Lynn sat on the edge and watched the churning water. She was never one for diving in.

≈≈≈

The guinea pigs were loose on Celia’s kitchen floor, cautiously inspecting Lynn’s feet, rumbling and squeaking in their mysterious guinea-pig way. Celia, looking like a surgeon in her rubber gloves and armed with a bottle of spray disinfectant, was cleaning out their cage. Kas was taking artsy guinea-pig photos and posting them to her blog.

“Come on, Hoover. Come on, Oreck, Miele. Smile for the camera.”

“Okay,” said Celia. “It’s been a week. What progress have we made in our investigation of the identity of Heimlich girl?”

Kas consulted her phone. “Where are those tartans? Here we go. The three closest private schools use Arbuthnot Ancient, Modern Douglas and Hunting Gordon.” She held out the screen to Lynn. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Could be any of them.”

“Inconclusive,” said Celia. She scooped out some pine shavings. “What about the I Saw You ad?”

“A bust,” said Lynn.

“No replies?”

“There were lots of replies, but all of them were from creeps. Looks like ‘kilt’ is some kind of code word.”

“For what?” said Celia.

“Don’t ask. Inappropriate content. Slimeball stuff.”

“But they don’t have your email address, right?” Celia was always careful about Internet safety.

“Right.”

Kas shook her head. “I think we’ve hit the wall on the search.”

“Yeah.” Lynn slipped out of her sandals and wiggled her toes to give the guinea pigs a thrill. Some of the kilt replies had been seriously weird. Scary, even. Maybe it was time to let this go. “Do you think the Vacuums ever want to just make a break for freedom? Is Hoover saying, ‘Come on, guys, this is our chance!’?”

Celia folded newspaper into precise squares. “Why would they? It’s guinea-pig paradise right here. Best-quality hay, fresh veggies, vitamin C supplements, cuddle cups, plastic igloo, excellent conversation.”

“I don’t know,” said Kas. “Sometimes cuddle cups aren’t enough. Even if things are pretty good, sometimes you just want to escape. Like, I can hardly wait for Sunday, to just get on that choir bus and go.”

“Me, too. Two sleeps and we’re out of here.” Lynn picked up Oreck.

“I’m kind of starting to get nervous,” said Celia.

“Nervous?” said Lynn. “About performing?”

“No. Oh, I don’t know. You’ll think I’m stupid.”

“Come on,” said Kas. “When have you ever been stupid in your whole life?”

“Yeah,” said Lynn. “Your bottom end of stupid is still above our top end of smart.”

Celia exploded and laughed backwards up her nose. “My bottom end of stupid?”

Oreck, who liked a quiet life, gave a high-pitched squeak of distress.

“And, hey,” said Kas. “Speak for yourself. I’m sure that my top end of smart at least touches Celia’s bottom end of stupid. Once in a while. Well, once. Maybe in preschool. I was very smart in preschool. But, anyway, what are you nervous about?”

“The thing is … it’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, come on,” said Lynn. “The Vacuums won’t tell anybody.”

“It’s those shared bathrooms. At the college dorm where we’re staying. I don’t even like the bathrooms at school and there are going to be all those girls we don’t even know and those rows of toilets. I bet they’re the kind with gaps. In my family we’re pretty private.”

“Okay,” said Kas. “Here’s a promise. We’ll find you a single toilet with a door. There’s always one somewhere. A handicapped or something. You just have to look around and be a bit sneaky.”

“But is that fair? What about if other people —”

“Stop! Stop with the fair thing. You have special needs. End. Of. Story.”

Celia smiled. “Thanks, you guys. You’re the best. Hey! Where did Miele get to? Miele? Miele?”

“Next topic,” said Lynn. “What shoes are you taking?”

“Flats and low boots,” said Kas. “Maybe runners.”

“That reminds me,” said Celia from the floor where she was crawling around, brandishing a stick of celery. “That instruction sheet said we should pack light so, since we’re all going to be in the same room, should we share one hairdryer? I’ve got a travel one.”

“Good idea,” said Kas. “We need to leave room in our duffels because Mr. Inkpen said the bus could stop at the outlet mall on the way back. I’m going to buy stuff. I figure as long as I have my music, my choir clothes and my passport I’ll be okay.”

Passport. Lynn froze halfway to petting Hoover. What had happened about her passport? She filled out the application weeks ago, before things fell apart. She had her picture taken. She asked Shakti’s friends Jean and Rob to be her guarantors. Shakti took the completed application for mailing. Lynn remembered seeing her stick stamps on it and stuff it into the chaos that was her bag.

Had it arrived? She hadn’t seen it. Had Shakti just put it away without telling her?

She set Oreck in his cage, took out her phone and punched in Home.

No answer. Shakti’s cell. “The cellular party that you are trying to reach … ”

Shoot. She laid Oreck gently in his cage.

“Sorry. Gotta go.”

“Aren’t you going to stay for stir-fry? Dad’s cooking.”

“No, something might be wrong. I’ll text you.”