What do you want?”
Good question.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” I said, even though I didn’t want to say anything close to that. I wanted to say I have a word of advice for you: lettuce. I wanted to ask how her newspaper pal, Max, was—if he was her pal anymore, given that she’d returned empty-handed and photoless from her visit to the kidnapped girl on Maple Street.
“Huh?”
Okay, fair enough. Toni Kelly clearly hadn’t been expecting an apology.
“I’m apologizing,” I said, gritting my teeth, discovering that wasn’t some dumb expression but something you actually found yourself doing when uttering words you’d rather choke on.
“Oh.” A hint of interest now—trying to remember the reporter’s phone number maybe and exactly what he’d promised her.
“I’m still coming to terms with everything . . . ,” I said. What had Mom/Laurie said to me that first night home? “You know . . . coming to myself.”
“Sure,” Toni said, that fake sweetness positively oozing out of her again. “I understand.”
“You do? I’m glad.”
I’d looked up her number online. Checked out her Facebook and Instagram, where she’d milked her five minutes of fame for everything it was worth, and it was basically worth shit.
OMG, she’d posted the day I came back. The day after I’d come back, after I’d inadvertently blabbed to that reporter at one in the morning. Jenny Kristal is alive! My best friend when I was six. She was on her way to see me when it happened. I can’t believe it. God is good!
She didn’t look like someone who gave God much thought, given that her T-shirt said EAT ME in one of her pics from this year’s spring break.
“So . . . um . . . you want to hang?” Toni asked.
“Sure.” I couldn’t think of anything I felt like doing less. But I was on a mission—let’s call it code name: Jenny.
I’d spent the last few years frightened to death of being discovered—of that exact moment when funny looks would stop being funny, and I’d end up being called on the carpet in front of shocked parents and pissed-off social workers.
Put it this way.
There was this game show from the sixties called Truth or Consequences. How would I know that? Because I’d looked it up after reading about this New Mexico town that got itself named after the show by winning a contest—swear to God—Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. A six-year-old had been vanished from there back in 2007, and I was trying her on for size. I found episodes of the show on YouTube—a host in a plaid polyester suit asking dumb trivia questions and making everyone who flunked them do even dumber stunts. Only on this one episode I saw, it was more like a publicity stunt, where the girl who couldn’t name the singer of “Don’t Be Cruel” ended up reuniting with the mom who gave her up for adoption. Instead of everybody laughing their asses off at a girl who’d never heard of Elvis Presley, they’d cried their eyes out. Me included. Anyway, the point of the show was that if you didn’t supply the truth, there’s consequences.
I could write a book about that.
Those rules didn’t apply in the Kristal house. I hadn’t supplied the truth, but there were no consequences.
Why?
It was like being locked in a black closet again, desperate for a tiny crack of light. Picture the stupid quivers times a million.
Something had happened to Jenny.
I needed to know what.
When I opened the door, Toni was all smiles.
“Welcome back,” I said, trying to match her smile for smile. Be the girl who couldn’t wait to reunite with her old BFF. Speaking of best friends forever . . .
“How come you never came to my birthday parties?” I asked her back in my room.
“What?”
“I was looking through an old photo album. All my parties were family only. I was just wondering . . .”
Toni shrugged. “I mean . . . how would I know?”
“You’d think I’d have my little girl gang there. All my BFFs.”
“Maybe I was busy. Another party or something.”
“Sure. What about Jaycee?”
“Huh?”
“Jaycee Klein. She was busy too?”
“Wait . . . are you like pissed off I didn’t go to your birthday party or something?”
“Of course not.” I smiled. “That would be really lame.”
“Right. ’Cause I was like six.”
“Me too.”
“It was twelve years ago. Who knows?”
“Exactly. That’s kind of what I’m trying to do here. Know.”
“Know? Know what? Why I didn’t go to your birthday party?”
“Know whatever. Anything at all. I’m hoping talking to you maybe brings things back. That you can help me recover some memories . . .”
“Oh.” She perked up at that. “Got it. Sure.” Being my amateur therapist would probably make her feel less guilty about selling me out for a little cash and two minutes of fame. Maybe the reporter she was pimping for would even write a whole article about it. She leaned forward. “What do you want to know?”
“About you and me. About being friends.”
“Best friends . . . ,” Toni corrected me.
“Right. Best friends. But my best friend wasn’t at my party. At any of them.”
“Geez, Jen. Like I said . . . maybe I was busy. Maybe Mom was having a meltdown about Dad and forgot to take me.”
I’d noticed there was no Mr. Kelly in the picture anymore. Literally. No family pictures on her Facebook page. A few of him and Toni alone, and one with him and a younger woman with fake boobs, poor Toni shunted off to the side.
“Maybe that’s it. Did we play together a lot?”
“Sure. All the time.”
“Really?”
Jenny and Toni . . . they don’t really play together all that much: what Mrs. Kelly told Detective Looper. Maybe that’s why Toni’s mom hadn’t given it two thoughts when Jenny didn’t make it over that day. She’d never expected to see her in the first place.
“Yeah, really. Why?”
“I heard that maybe we hadn’t played together that much. Not after we were really little.”
“Who told you that?”
Yeah, who?
“Mom.”
“Your mother said we didn’t play together?”
“She alluded to that.”
Ever let the air out of a balloon to make that fart sound? That was Toni—minus the sound. I was threatening her new status as a major player in the Jenny Kristal story. The loyal best friend. Maybe I was threatening all those dollar signs dancing in her head—the ones she’d get for her page-one exclusive.
“You were coming over that morning,” Toni stated emphatically. “To play. We had a playdate.”
“I think I was being dumped on you. To get out of Ben’s hair. He had a broken arm.”
“You weren’t being dumped on Jaycee, were you?”
“Got me there. You were definitely the dumpee.”
“What?”
“Forget it. Give me a memory, Toni.”
“A memory . . . of what?”
“Anything at all. I thought maybe you could help me recover some memories. So, hand one over. About you and your best friend.”
“Well . . . let me think . . .” Her face lit up. “I remember your Fourth of July barbecues. When your dad’s brother would blow off those bottle rockets. Cool shit.”
“Yeah. Those were with everyone, though. The barbecues. What about just me and you? A playdate. What we’d do? One little memory, Toni Baloney. Just one.”
“Your horses,” she said.
“What about them?”
“We . . . played with them.”
“Great. Which one was my favorite—you remember?”
“Huh?”
“I had a favorite horse. Which one was it? Think I remember, but I can’t be sure. Was it Flicka?”
“Right. Yep. It was Flicka.”
“Actually I think it was Black Beauty.”
“Right. Black Beauty. That’s it.”
“Wait a minute, now. How could I be so stupid? Goldy. That was her name.”
Toni turned red.
“Okay, so I don’t remember your favorite toy horse. How would I remember that anyway?”
“Good point. What about something else?”
“Like what?” Toni was starting to look uneasy, like those two-sizes-too-small jeans she was wearing were maybe crawling up her snatch.
“Favorite movie. Favorite cartoon show. Favorite color. You were my favorite friend. So maybe you remember some of my favorite things.”
“I don’t know.”
“Right.”
“I can’t remember.” Toni had begun fidgeting with the rope bracelet on her wrist.
“I’m thinking maybe Mom was right,” I said.
“Huh?”
“That we stopped playing together.”
Toni just stared.
“Why do you think?”
“Why do I think what?” she said.
“Why we stopped playing together?”
Her face was forming the same expression she had when I kicked her out of the house the other day. She was starting to worry I was kicking her out of the story. That she’d go back to being a Fatty Patty with pretty much zero on her social calendar.
“You were like . . . violent,” Toni stated.
Suddenly it was my turn to clam up. I don’t know why it felt like she’d slapped me. Like she was saying it about me instead of the girl I was pretending to be.
It just did.
“Violent . . . ?” I finally repeated. “What do you mean?”
“You need a definition? Violent. As in physically the fuck harmful to me. To Jaycee too. You pushed me off the monkey bars once. I cracked a tooth. Hey, you wanted a memory, didn’t you?”
“You remember me doing that to you? Hurting you?”
“Kind of. My mom definitely does. She couldn’t stop talking about it when you showed up again. You were like this dangerous kid.”
And here I’d thought that was Ben’s department, I wanted to say. I almost did.
“That’s why we stopped playing together?” I prodded. “Why you weren’t at my birthday parties—why no one was?”
Toni shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Why did I push you off the monkey bars?”
“Got me.”
“We weren’t like fighting or something? Calling each other names. You know, little-girl stuff?”
“I was sitting there minding my own business. You just fucking pushed me. I broke my tooth. That’s the kind of shit you began doing. Hurting other little kids . . . The story was, you even pushed . . .” Toni stopped and picked at a nail.
“The story? What story? I even pushed who . . . ?”
“Forget it.”
“That’s the problem. Forgetting is the problem. I’m trying to remember, remember?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe not this.”
“Who did I push?”
“I told you. Let’s forget it.”
“Let’s not. The story was . . . c’mon—I even pushed who, Toni?”
“Okay, since you asked. Ben.”
“Ben? My brother? Pushed him where?”
“Down the stairs. He ended up with a broken arm, remember?”
“I pushed Ben down the stairs and broke his arm? Who says?”
“Everyone.”
“Everyone. Who’s everyone?”
“My mom and dad. Other people.”
“Why would I do that? Why would I push Ben down the stairs?”
“I told you. You turned into this little monster. Like Chucky.”
“They never told me that. My mom and dad. Even Ben. He didn’t say I did that. No one has.” I was about to say Ben never wrote it either—it wasn’t on his memorial page. I remembered something about him flying down the stairs, sure, but nothing about me being the one who caused it.
Toni shrugged. “Maybe they don’t want to upset you. I mean, with all the shit you’ve been through.”
“So, if I asked Ben, he’d say, ‘Yeah, you pushed me.’”
“How do I know what Ben would say? Ask him. Maybe he isn’t sure. ’Cause you, like, did it from behind. It was suspected, though.”
“So, people thought I did it?”
“My mom said you did it.”
“How about my mom?”
“Your mom? How would I know? Look, it’s not like your mom announced it to the neighborhood. I’m sure people, like, didn’t bring it up to her on the street. Hey, heard your crazy daughter pushed your son down the stairs.”
I understood something now. I thought I did.
Something being spelled out in a flashing neon sign like the ones that cover the entire sides of buildings in Times Square—even as I showed a pissed-off Toni to the door, photoless again, but maybe with a story she could actually sell to somebody.
Normal. Just a sweet, adorable, six-year-old little girl.
Now, why would three moms of Jenny’s friends go word-for-word the same when asked what Jenny was like? And why those words? Those words, in particular.
Normal. Let’s take that word.
Try this.
Because your friends’ daughter was just kidnapped.
And those friends—Laurie and Jake—were losing it. Freaking out with shock and fear and whatever else goes through parents’ minds (mine not included) when their kids are stolen. And the community was in full support mode: Jenny Hotlines and Jenny Central and Jenny posters and Jenny Searches. So, when the local detective stops by (and maybe the local paper) and asks you what Jenny was like, you have two choices. Tell him she’s bat-shit crazy and borderline homicidal, or tell him she’s just a normal, sweet, adorable, six-year-old little girl. For the sake of her parents.
They must’ve had a little conference that day. Talked it over. If they ask us about Jenny, we’ll say this, this, and this. All of us. We need to keep it consistent.
The same thing must’ve occurred to J. Pennebaker.
Who’d sent the Kristals that transcript. Where three different parents had said exactly the same thing. He must’ve been puzzled by that too at first.
I’d finally remembered why his name sounded so familiar. It was in that magazine article I’d found online while researching my new self—the one marking the ten-year anniversary of Jenny’s disappearance. Detective Looper was in there, and a private investigator, and even some phony psychic the Kristals once threw money at trying to find Jenny. And someone else.
A cold case detective named Joe Pennebaker, who would scrupulously go over every single piece of evidence again. Which sounds more impressive than it was, since there really wasn’t any evidence—not any physical evidence, anyway.
J. Pennebaker equals Joe Pennebaker.
But why was Joe Pennebaker still calling them two years later?
Who knows?
But I knew why he’d called to say he’d stop calling. That one was easy.
Because I’d come home.
So, now it was my turn, I guess.
To be the cold case detective.