Maggie
There was not an ounce of recognition on Taylor’s face as Maggie approached her. This, Maggie knew, was from a combination of things. One, she was drunk. Two, Maggie looked young in a ponytail. Three, no one cared or remembered anything about anyone’s parents. Oh, they’d pretend to all right. The charade started in high school when they accepted your rides to games, when they came to your house at all hours and ate your food, when they were getting ready for a party together in your daughter’s bedroom and one of them needed a black eyeliner. Then, yes, they would register your existence. Maybe on those nights, when you’d looked them in the eye and given them something they needed, maybe then they could describe you or pick you out of a lineup. Sometimes they’d eye something on you they wanted—a nail polish color, a tasseled necklace—and you’d feel their gaze linger, registering, filing away.
But most of the time? Mothers were just a blur, part of the background, or occasionally, when you asked too many questions or worried too much, an easily kicked-over barricade in their way.
The converse of the equation, though, which aided Maggie now, was how much the opposite was true. How mothers saw their children and their friends in stark, detailed relief. All the negative things floated up first. Chipped polish. Bitten-down nails. The too-orange edges of a spray tan. The bend in the back of their heads where they’d missed with the flat iron. Mothers saw these things first. They’d been trained to be on the lookout, and they were, whether they liked it or not. So Maggie had no doubt she’d recognize those roommates and no doubt whatsoever that the girl laughing as she dropped a shot of Jack into her Solo cup of beer was Taylor.
Maggie took a cup from a teetering stack and pulled herself a beer, pretending to drink.
Taylor wiped the foam from her mouth with her sleeve. “Cheers!” she said to Maggie.
Maggie lifted her cup toward her. “So what are we celebrating, Taylor?”
Taylor stopped drinking, blinked. The fairy lights above them swayed in the wind, creating shadows across the planes of her face.
“What?”
“Are you celebrating the fact that one of your roommates is gone? Instead of, I don’t know, being out looking for her? Instead of talking to the police and organizing a search and putting up flyers like her other friends will be tomorrow?”
She squinted. “Oh my God. It’s, it’s—”
“Yeah, OMG. It’s Emma’s mommy. So let’s go out front and talk about that.”
“No, I—”
“No? Well, would you like me to call your mom and explain instead?”
It was early by campus standards—ten thirty—but late for Maggie. She was exhausted, and Taylor was tipsy, and that’s why Maggie suggested coffee, pointing to a place around the corner.
“No,” Taylor said, “I’m meeting people here.”
“Fine,” Maggie said. She opened the gate, motioned outside, and Taylor followed her. They stood on the sidewalk, one woman upright, one wobbly.
“So where’s my daughter? And why didn’t you and her other roommates report her missing?”
“She’s been gone a while.”
“I know that, Taylor. Why didn’t someone contact me?”
“Because she’s not, like, missing. She’s just, you know. Elsewhere.” Something about the way she spoke gave Maggie the impression that she was pretending to be drunk, not actually drunk.
“Elsewhere?”
“She’s staying somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“That I do not know.”
“Do you know she hasn’t been to class? Her teachers haven’t seen her or her friend Sarah. So you know her, Sarah Franco?”
“Sort of. And no, I didn’t know.”
“Don’t you have any classes together?”
“One, but it’s, like, a lecture. There’s hundreds of kids in it.”
“So when did she leave?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a week?”
“Why did she leave? And why are you ignoring your voicemails, when the police are trying to reach you?”
“I don’t listen to voicemail,” Taylor said. “I don’t pick up for random numbers.”
Of course, Maggie thought. No one bothered. Too much time. Life moved too fast for voicemail or messages.
“You do realize they’re going to find you? And you’re going to have to answer someone a lot tougher than me. So why don’t you just tell me where she is and save yourself some time and heartache.”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“Well, if you don’t know when or where, maybe you can tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why she’s quote-unquote staying elsewhere.”
“You know, not everyone is cut out for dorm life.”
The wind picked up and blew a strand of hair across Taylor’s lips. She lifted it away and turned her head so the wind blew her hair back. She stood away from Maggie now, ignoring her, swaying just a little, like a drunk person would. A drunk person in a bad play.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. It’s like camp or having a big family. Emma couldn’t deal.”
“Couldn’t deal?”
“Right.”
“So she’s staying with another friend?”
“I guess.”
“You guess? And what about your other roommates?”
“What about them?”
“Where are they?”
“Tonight, you mean?”
“Yes, tonight, Taylor. Now. Because I find it astonishing that none of you were reachable on exactly the same evening. All night long.”
She said nothing, looked at her feet. This confident, spark plug of a girl, a theater kid, the life of the party, good with people, suddenly couldn’t perform. And couldn’t look her audience in the eye.
“I don’t know. We’re not joined at the hip.”
“Any Instagram stories or Snapchats from them tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t give me that, Taylor. I don’t believe you. I can hear your alerts buzzing in your goddamned pocket. You know exactly where they are.”
“Look, I don’t know what you want from us. We don’t know. We don’t understand her, okay? The workings of her mind are not, like, normal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she doesn’t care about people.”
“That’s not true.”
“No offense,” Taylor said, and Maggie steeled herself for what was coming next. Because when a young person used that phrase, she knew she was about to be offended deeply. “But I don’t think you know your daughter.”
Ouch. An arrow through the heart. Wasn’t that what all mothers feared? That you spent all this time, talking, tending, shaping, and the result would be a complete mystery? Maggie suddenly couldn’t breathe. She bent forward a few inches, trying to gather herself, centering her gaze, and in that half second, Taylor turned and ran back inside. Maggie could have followed her, could have embarrassed her, could have stolen her phone from her back pocket. She did none of those things. Instead, she made her first mistake. She called Kaplan and left him a message, told him she’d found Taylor and gave him the address.
Let him get it out of her, she thought. Let him shut down this loud, underage party and ruin her night for causing it. Taylor would learn the hard way; she’d learn to be a better actress. Or she’d learn to tell Maggie things first.