The national news has picked up Jody’s story. I sit on the sofa eating cereal, watching pictures of Pineview and interviews with and about people I know. All this in the same hour that they talk about movie stars and the President. There’s a shot of Main Street, deserted, with wavy lines of heat coming up from the pavement. Even though I was just there two days ago, it looks as foreign to me as if I were watching pictures of a town in Russia.
Suddenly everyone in the country is an expert on Jody. A guy with slick hair and a tweed blazer, from a university back east, is saying that Jody probably ran away, that there’s probably an older boyfriend from another town, probably someone she met online.
“This is why we don’t have Internet at home,” my dad says from behind me. I twitch, startled, my spoon rattling against my bowl.
“Jeez, Dad. Don’t sneak up on me like that.” I haven’t seen him since he left for the Shaws’ house yesterday, without saying good-bye. Or saying hello again when he got home, apparently. So either it was really late or I slept like a rock.
“Sorry.” He comes around and sits next to me. “You look a lot better. Erin says you had a good talk last night.”
I look at him. Why is my life up for discussion between him and Erin? And I wouldn’t say we had a “good talk.” She talked and I had a good listen. I set my cereal bowl down on the carpet and Ralph comes over to lap up the milk I’ve left behind.
“Jody doesn’t have an older boyfriend,” I say. “Or any boyfriend. There’s no way.” If the “expert” could have seen Jody working on the glitter Jonahs, he’d know this.
“Maybe not. But—”
“Shh.” I turn up the TV with the remote. Brandy Wilcox, a soap star who grew up here, Pineview’s only claim to fame—until now, I guess—is on the screen. She’s putting up $75,000 for anyone who has information leading to Jody’s safe return.
“Oh, she called the Shaws last night,” Dad says when the story is over. “So did Jody’s father’s old college roommate. He works for a regional FBI office and is on his way here to help.”
“That’s good, right?”
“It definitely doesn’t hurt. Listen, Sammy.” He hesitates. That moment of hesitation and the way he says my name means this won’t be good.
I watch Ralph hunched over my bowl, his gray fur coming up in unruly tufts around his shoulders.
“With everything that’s going on,” Dad continues, “I don’t like leaving you alone so much. It looks like I’m basically becoming the Shaws’ official spokesperson. There are so many media requests and intrusions on their privacy, you wouldn’t believe. They don’t want to pay some stranger to handle this stuff, and they shouldn’t have to when they’ve got their church family. And until they catch this guy…”
“You’re sending me away?”
“No, not away, away. Honestly, Sam, I want to. But we can’t afford a ticket to Grandma’s, and she can’t afford a ticket here. And you know the Hathaways love you.”
I look at him. “You’re making me live with Vanessa?”
He laughs. “You say that like I’m sending you to Siberia. It’s not even two miles away, and she’s your best friend.”
“Did you check with Mom?”
“Check with her?” he asks, puzzled.
“Check with her.” I get up and take the bowl away from Ralph. He isn’t quite done, and races after me into the kitchen. “Discuss,” I say over my shoulder. “Like, call her and say, ‘I’m thinking about having Sam live with Vanessa until this is over and what do you think about that?’ ”
“I don’t think we should bother her.”
“How do you know? Have you even talked to her in the last week?”
I run the water, hard, to rinse my bowl, drowning out his silence. When I turn around, he’s coming in with his coffee cup. “I didn’t feel like it was a decision I needed help with. They’ve got cable, air-conditioning, home-cooked meals, they love you, you love them…”
But it’s not home.
That’s what Mom would have said to him, what she would have known about me and where I need to be right now. Sober, tipsy, drunk, whatever, she’s the one who’s been here, and she’s the one who really knows me.
I fold my arms. “Why did you say on the news me and Jody are friends?”
“What?”
“Don’t talk about me on TV, okay?”
“All right,” he says slowly, but I can see he doesn’t get why.
I start to notice how clean the kitchen is. All the surfaces have been straightened up and wiped shiny. Mom’s notes and papers and mail are gone. I look in the trash and see them underneath a wet pile of coffee grounds. It must have been Erin who threw them away, since I’ve already told Dad not to.
The sight of random slips of paper with Mom’s handwriting on them, in the trash, water-stained and covered in coffee grounds, leaves yet another part of me crushed.
I reconsider Vanessa’s. Home doesn’t feel like home anyway, so why not leave.
“What about Ralph?” I ask. “While I’m at Vanessa’s.”
“I’ll feed him.”
“You’ll forget.”
“I promise I won’t.” He turns his hands palms-up, helpless. “I just don’t know what else to do right now.”
I pick up Ralph and scratch behind his ears. “Don’t make me go today.” I want to at least get started on my backyard project. I want time to think. Maybe try calling Mom again. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Sam…”
“Please?”
He nods, and glances at the clock on the coffeemaker. “I’ve got to go over to the office for a few hours, then to the Shaws’. Okay?”
“Go. I’ll be fine here.”
I walk toward Main, my flip-flops slapping against the hot sidewalk. The streets are empty, just like the picture on the news this morning. It’s not like Pineview is usually crawling with children or anything, but today they’re noticeably absent. There are things out here, though, that weren’t here before: blue ribbons. Tied onto trees, and fence posts, and mailboxes. Symbols that we’re waiting for Jody to come home.
I pass a house with a few old ladies sitting on the porch, drinking iced tea and playing cards. One of them calls me over. It’s Ida Larson, from church.
I cross the brown lawn and climb the porch steps.
“Does your father know you’re out wandering the streets?” Ida ruffles the hem of her blue print dress, fanning the air up her legs.
“I’m just going to the hardware store.”
Ida and one of her card-mates exchange a glance. “Cal Stewart,” she says. “New in town. Bought the store from the Penfolds three years ago.”
Three years’ residency is “new in town” here, especially to people like Ida. She’s suspicious of everyone and always calls our house if her Sunday offering check isn’t deposited by Tuesday morning. “I don’t want my signature out there floating around where gosh-knows-who-all can see it, forge it, and take me for every penny.”
“How’s your mother, sweetie?” Ida asks now.
“Fine.”
While Ida watches me, the rest of them look at their cards. “You just tell her that the Lord doesn’t give a person more than he knows they can bear.”
Ida Larson knows? Then everyone must know.
“Yes, ma’am.”
My cell phone, in my shorts pocket, rings. I pull it out. “It’s my dad,” I tell the ladies, and they all smile and nod, like of course it would be my dad because that’s how in touch we are with each other and isn’t it great how Pastor Charlie is young and modern? “Have a nice day.”
I go down the steps, and hit the button on my phone that will send my dad to voice mail, then slide it open as I walk away, pretending to talk. Even though he didn’t explicitly say I couldn’t go anywhere, I pretty much implied that I’d be locked up safe at home. Not answering his call saves me a lie.
Two blocks later I’m standing in front of the hardware store, watching Cal crouch in the window arranging a display of fans and garden hoses and potting soil.
I let my hand rest on the door for a second, staring at the flyer of Jody taped to the glass. It’s the same picture they put on the TV this morning and now the whole country has seen her smiling face, full of braces.
When I go in, the strand of bells Cal has hanging on the handle jingles. His voice comes from the window: “Be right with you.”
There’s an end display of citronella candles and yellow jacket traps. I straighten them and wish I had a dust cloth or something. The store is a little sad right now, neglected. One thing you could say about the old owners is that they kept it clean.
“Oh,” Cal says when he comes out and sees me. “The resident xeriscaper.”
He wears a store apron with his name embroidered on the pocket, his wire-rim glasses resting on the top of his head.
“Yeah, well.” I pick up a tube of cream that claims to be both a sunblock and a mosquito repellent. “Does this stuff work?”
“I’ve never tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”
I put the tube back. “Um, you know that plastic sheeting I got on Saturday?”
“Yes?” He’s half-looking at a clipboard.
“I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to do with it.”
“Cover up the lawn or weeds or whatever plants you want to kill.” He looks up and smiles briefly. “Not much to it.”
“How long does it take?”
“Depends. On the weather, on the types of plants. I’m sure you can find information online.”
Online. Of course. Everything is online, only I’m not allowed online, but I’m too embarrassed to tell him that. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He wanders off with his clipboard. Still trying to work out a plan for the yard, I look at the rack of seed packets. The pictures of the flowers on the packets make it look so easy: dig hole, insert seed, water, and voilà—beautiful, colorful flowers.
Two summers ago there was a heat wave almost like the one we’re having now, but my mom and dad planted our garden anyway, putting in the butterfly bushes and hollyhocks together. Dad laid the flagstone path. They bought yard furniture. It wasn’t like last summer, when the good days were few and far between. This was a months-long stretch of togetherness. They’d let me stay up late into the night so I could sit with them out there, watching the stars. My mom seemed so happy. Open. Even the way she wore her hair back then told you something, always off her face so you could see her eyes smiling out at you.
I wish I understood what happened between then and now. I wish there was a way to put your finger on the map of life and trace backwards, to figure out exactly when things had changed so much: when we started getting the dregs of Dad, if that was before or after the drinking getting bad. If one caused the other, or if it was true what they say about it not being anyone’s fault but instead genetics, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. My great-grandpa was an alcoholic, and sometimes my grandma in Michigan doesn’t know how to stop once she starts. Still, it doesn’t explain how one summer there were real smiles and yard projects and watching the stars together, and then what seemed like minutes later the yard and everything else were a total mess.
“Wildflowers do pretty well in the heat,” Cal says from behind the register. “The ones on the rack should be right for this region.”
“Oh,” I say, turning, “I didn’t bring money. I’m just kind of… looking.”
He opens the register. “I’m sure I can advance you a couple of dollars. Just have your folks take care of it next time they’re in.”
There’s only one folk right now, I want to say, and he’s trying to get me out of the way so he can focus on the truly important stuff. Like Jody and her family. “Are you sure?” I ask.
He nods. “Pick one and take it, it’s fine.” I take a packet of seeds for flowers that look small and undemanding, and bring it to the register so that he can make up an IOU.
“Thanks.” I turn toward the door to leave.
When I’m almost there, he calls after me. “Be careful out there.”
“I will.”
And I leave the store, the bells jingling behind me.
Back at home, I lie on my parents’ bed, under the ceiling fan. I roll to my mom’s side, smelling her pillow, but whatever trace of her there’d been is aired out and washed out. I stare at my cell phone for a long time, the New Beginnings card next to me on the blanket. Maybe there’s a good reason she can’t call me, like she’s in group meetings and counseling and whatever else they make you do in rehab.
Even if there is a good reason, and honestly I can’t think of one, it still hurts.
I had all these big plans for the yard today but now that I’m home I can’t get myself up and doing anything. Gravity is powerful. It’s still before noon, and I already slept like twelve hours last night, but my eyes want to close and I let them.
Pretty soon, I’m asleep.
I dream of Jody. She’s in a hole in the ground, looking up. All I can see is her dirty, looking-up face, and there’s no one around but me. No context, no sense of if I’m in Pineview or in a forest or a desert. Just me, Jody, and the hole. I lower a ladder. But instead of Jody climbing up, I climb down. We’re both in the hole, staring at each other. She looks older than her picture on the flyer; her braces are off. She holds out her hand. I grab it. And then I wake up.
In the yard, I struggle with the black plastic sheeting, which I probably shouldn’t be doing since it’s early afternoon, the hottest part of the day. My cell phone rings. It’s Erin.
“Ah-ha,” she says when I answer. “Your dad suspected you might answer if it was me and not him.”
I move into a shady spot, kicking the pile of sheeting into a manageable lump. “You’re with my dad?”
“I’m at the office. Just taking care of some youth group business. Speaking of which, we’re getting together tonight at Vanessa’s to bake brownies and take them over to Nick’s. It’s the best we could think of right now.”
It’s easy to see how this will go: Dad takes me to youth group, and since it’s at Vanessa’s he’ll say why don’t I just pack a bag to stay over, thereby denying me the one more night at home he promised me this morning. Which somehow feels important.
“I’m still not feeling super great,” I say. “I should probably stay home.”
“It will not be strenuous, I promise. And you’ll be well fortified because I’m going to cook you guys dinner.”
“You’re cooking dinner for the whole youth group?”
“No no, just for you and your dad… Here, I’m going to put you on speaker.”
“Hey, Sammy.” My dad sounds upbeat, energetic, and not mad that I didn’t answer his call earlier. “How’s your day?”
“Fine.” I sit on one of the dirty plastic patio chairs, trying to think of what I can tell him I’ve been doing all day since I probably shouldn’t mention going out, assuming Ida Larson hasn’t already called him to squeal. “I’m just—”
But he cuts me off. “Here’s the plan: I’m leaving the office now to check in with the Shaws. Then I’ll come home, and Erin is going to bring us dinner at six, and afterward you guys will go do brownies at Vanessa’s.”
“And she’ll bring me home?”
“Sure,” Erin says.
Church people only bring meals to other church people when something is wrong. When people are “going through a hard time,” as Erin always puts it whenever us youth group kids do meals for people. Casseroles when Heidi Capp’s dad had cancer. Soup after the Fletchers had triplets. Brownies for Nick. And dinner for us—motherless and wifeless us.
“We don’t need you to cook dinner,” I say.
My dad laughs and says loudly, “Yes, we do! Pay no attention to the child!” They sound like they’re having so much fun. I watch Ralph pounce on a butterfly.
“Dad, I can cook.” Which I know is a direct contradiction to our conversation at the grocery store, but I can at least make some instant rice and open a can of fruit cocktail or something.
“I’m bringing food,” Erin says. “Don’t even worry about it.”
“Can you take me off speaker? And let me talk to my dad?”
“Oh, okay.”
He comes on the line. “Everything all right?”
“I don’t know if I want to go to youth group tonight. I might be coming down with something.” I move my flip-flopped toe over the plastic sheeting. Saying I’m sick could go either way in terms of trying to get him to change his mind about me moving to Vanessa’s. He might just say it’s better to be where Mrs. Hathaway can take care of me. Or he might decide to take care of me himself.
“Wait and see how you feel tonight. You’ll probably want to go out after being cooped up all day.”
I don’t know how many different ways to say that I just want to be home.
“Sam?” he asks. “Still there?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I slide the phone shut. Two black ants crawl across my toe and I let them, because right now I’m distracted with wondering if I should worry about my dad and Erin. I like her. Everybody does. Some of the youth group kids are really close to her, like she’s a sister or an extra parent. If I could find the words to open up to anyone, I’d definitely consider her. But there’s this one memory I can’t get out of my head. Back in May, we had a mission trip–planning meeting thing at our house, a dinner. Mom was still able to pull herself together enough to pose as the perfect pastor’s wife, cooking a bunch of Martha Stewart hot and cold appetizers and making punch. Everyone kept saying how good everything was, how great the house looked, how cute the little mice she made out of strawberry halves were, each tiny chocolate nose smelling its own miniature hunk of Swiss cheese.
What they didn’t know was how I’d been helping for days, giving Mom pep talks every two hours, telling her it was going to be okay, everything looked great, no one was going to look behind the shower curtain and see the little bit of grime that might be in the corner of the tub and if they did they wouldn’t judge her for it.
“You’d be surprised, Sam,” she said, scrubbing out the inside of the microwave. “Some day, you’ll know how it feels. There’s a lot of pressure on a woman. Like you have to be camera-ready at all times. It hangs over you constantly, like homework you can’t ever get an A on.”
The people at the dinner also didn’t know that she had her personal supply of punch under the sink, spiked with gin. I went in and out of the kitchen all night, making sure she was okay, making sure people had everything they needed, and one time I walked into the living room with a tray of mini quiches. Erin—who sat on the floor near my dad—was looking up at him, laughing, her eyes dazzling and alive, while he stared down at her, the biggest smile on his face. Everyone was laughing, not just them. You could tell that someone had just said something funny. Still, the look between them, something about it stopped me. It was the way I wished my mom and dad looked at each other. Everything else in the room disappeared as I watched them, until Daniel saw me standing there and said “Mini quiche!” and broke the spell.
And I don’t think anything is going on. I’m sure it’s not. If my mom doesn’t think my dad is the kind of man who would cheat, why should I. But I will be paying attention.
Dad is barely home for twenty minutes when the doorbell rings a little before six. He shouts at me to answer the door—he’s just getting out of the shower.
Erin looks excited to see me, even though she was just here yesterday. “Let me put this down, then I’m giving you a hug.” She walks past me, smelling citrusy and dressed like she’s stepped out of an outdoor supply catalog: cargo skort, athletic sandals, microfiber T-shirt, ponytail, and no makeup. That’s her look, like she’s ready to hit the climbing wall at a second’s notice.
I follow her to the kitchen. “What did you make?”
“Patience, patience.” She drops her keys on the counter, and sets down a foil-covered bowl and a grocery bag. “Hugs first. You look a billion times better than you did yesterday.”
I let her give me her solid, full-bodied hug but now I’m on watch, and can’t quite show much enthusiasm in return, especially as I’m imagining her giving that same hug to my dad. Our church is touchy-feely, and my dad is among the most-hugged of the congregation.
“Homemade potato salad,” she says, “cold grilled chicken, and fresh green beans. Sound good?”
“Fantastic,” Dad says, and we both turn to see him there in the kitchen with us. His hair is damp, and he’s wearing the brown polo shirt my mom says brings out the blue in his eyes.
I study Erin’s face. Her cheeks could be going pink from whatever feeling there could be between her and my dad, or it could just be that her skin is reacting to the lack of cool air in our house.
“Yeah, looks good,” I say, to remind them both that I’m there, too. I lift the foil off the bowl and pick up a chunk of potato salad with my fingers. It’s better than any potato salad my mom ever made, with bits of bacon and a sweet, mustardy dressing.
Dad gets down plates from the cupboard.
Erin opens the plastic container full of chicken. The smell of lemon and garlic wafts out, bringing Ralph in from wherever he’s been lounging. Erin watches my dad put out three plates and says, “Oh, just two.”
“You’re not staying?” Dad asks. Disappointment is all over his face.
“I already ate. I need to run and get the brownie stuff. You guys eat.”
“Are you sure?” Dad holds the extra plate. “I thought…”
“I’ll be back in about half an hour to get you, okay, Sam?”
“Okay.” I’ve decided I do want to go, if only so that I can do something for Nick, even indirectly.
“Erin, really, there’s plenty,” Dad says.
“Dad, she said no.” It comes out harsh, more than I meant. I open the drawer to get forks and knives, and feel them both looking at me. Ralph looks, too, his ears going flat. “I mean, she has to get the brownie stuff.”
“So, yeah.” Erin waves her hand dismissively, then draws it through her hair. “I want you guys to have leftovers.” She whisks her keys off the counter. “See you in a bit.”
After the door closes, Dad quietly feeds Ralph and puts glasses on the table, and we sit down. I scoop a heap of potato salad onto my plate, saw off a third of a chicken breast, and take about six green beans. His cell rings. And of course he answers it.
“Hey. Yes. Uh-huh.” He listens for awhile, moving potato salad around with his fork. “I think we can get it together by Friday. And if… mm-hmm. Exactly.”
The food is really good, and I’m starving, but I make myself leave some behind as if I don’t like it, imagining Mom watching and worrying that I like Erin’s cooking more than hers.
When Dad gets off the phone, I ask, “When are we going to visit Mom?” We haven’t been since the day we all went together to drop her off, and got the tour and a stack of pamphlets they print up for family and friends. Those are still sitting around here somewhere.
“That’s kind of up to her,” he says, like this is no big deal. “The counselor there said that sometimes people choose not to have contact with their loved ones until they’ve really settled in.”
“It’s been three weeks. Of a four-week program.”
He sets his fork down. “I know. We can’t make her.”
“Have you even asked?”
“I’ve been a little busy, sweetheart.”
I want to say: I know, but it’s Mom. She’s your wife. You’ve got time to sit around the church office joking with Erin.
But how can I complain? Jody’s parents don’t even know if their daughter is alive. At least we know where Mom is. I get up for water. When I press my glass against the ice maker in the fridge door, a grinding sound comes from inside the freezer, followed by a loud clunk, before the whole thing kind of shudders and goes dead. Half a cube of ice drops into my glass. I stare at it, feeling the tears building.
Why does everything have to be broken right now? I think of Job, in the Old Testament, who lost everything. He didn’t just lose everything, God took everything away from him—his wife, his kids, everything he owned. Despite it all, Job kept on believing that God knew what he was doing. Well I don’t. I hit the fridge door with my open hand, hard, and it’s all I can do not to smash my glass onto the floor.
“Sam, easy,” Dad says.
I turn around. I want him to give me answers, but I can’t even ask the questions. And he just looks at me like I’m the one with issues.
What’s the point of being a pastor if you can’t tell when your own daughter needs help? I turn away and draw water from the tap, over my half-cube of ice, and take it to my room to change before Erin comes back.
She’s mostly quiet on the ride over to Vanessa’s. The dark clouds that have been clustering and dispersing for days have finally stuck around, sending a half-hearted drizzle onto the windshield. Erin rolls down her window; the car fills with the scent of wet asphalt. I consider mentioning how Job-esque my life feels right now, but the response seems obvious: at least I’m better off than the Shaws.
“I love that smell,” she says, dangling her arm out, opening and closing her left hand as if she could somehow grab hold of the thick evening air. “It reminds of being your age. School out, running around in the streets with my friends, standing outside the house where my crush lived hoping he’d look out his window at exactly the right moment.”
It’s not hard to picture Erin as a teenager. She’s only twenty-six now, and seems to remember what fifteen felt like, which is why she’s good at what she does. And she is. It’s easy to see why my dad likes being around her. Classy and elegant are words to describe my mom, and she’s beautiful, but also she’s anxious. A little high-strung. Erin is the opposite. Maybe when my mom was twenty-six, she was more like Erin, too. I wonder what my mom was like at fifteen. Like me, maybe, quiet, not sure where she belonged. I’d like to be like my mom when I’m older, with a little bit of a personality like Erin’s mixed in.
In a flash, the drizzle turns into sheets of rain that hit the roof of the car with a sound like machine-gun fire. “Holy downpour, Batman,” Erin says, frantically rolling up her window. “Sam, I know you don’t really want to come do this tonight, but just remember these are your friends.”
“Sort of,” I say, as the car glides to a stop in front of Vanessa’s house.
Erin makes a sound that’s half laugh, half disbelief. “Why would you say that?”
She’s observed us closely enough. She has to know that when they get together at non-church-sanctioned events—driving up to one of the alpine lakes in the summer to lay around and drink beer, or in winter meeting up at someone’s house to watch horror movies or listen to music—they don’t invite me. Even Daniel and Vanessa sometimes go to those parties and don’t tell me. They’re just “busy” and then I’ll catch them talking about it and changing the subject when I appear. She has to realize that I’ll never totally be one of them.
Anyway, I don’t want to get them in trouble by telling all this to Erin. It will only confirm their idea of me as naive and goody-goody, or worse, a mole. So I say, “I just mean I’m shy.”
“Well, we can work on that.” She opens her door. “Come on.”
I can see into Vanessa’s living room as we walk across the brush in front of her house, crickets hopping away from our feet. Her house has an open floor plan, like ours. At least half the youth group has already congregated. Paul and Daniel and Allie are huddled with Kaleb Franklin around Kacey’s iPod, Vanessa’s mom passing through the kitchen with a pitcher of iced tea or punch or something, Daisy trying to show everyone her hedgehog chew toy.
“Ready?” Erin asks as we stand on the porch.
I nod, and we go in. The last time the youth group got together on a non-Sunday was before most of them went on the mission trip. Nick had been there, I remember, playing Guitar Hero with Daniel. For some reason that memory makes me so sad, like it’s just another thing that will never happen again, because how can you sit around playing video games, that carefree, once you know how life really is?
Vanessa immediately runs over to give me a hug and grabs my arm, pulling me into the thick of things. Daisy tries to stand and put her front legs on my shoulders.
“Daisy, down,” Mrs. Hathaway says, dragging Daisy by the collar. “I’m going to put her downstairs. You kids let me know if you need anything.”
“We missed you in Meh-hee-co,” Paul says, putting his skinny arm around my shoulder. Vanessa claims Paul has a crush on me, which only makes me want to avoid him because I don’t know what to say to someone who has a crush on me. Like it isn’t hard enough for me to relax and talk to boys, other than Daniel.
I let Paul side-hug me, anyway, and then Kacey comes over and hugs me, too. “Glad you’re okay,” she says. For someone who only comes to church because her parents make her, she seems pretty happy to be here, tonight.
“Thanks.”
Erin holds up her grocery bags and says, “We should get started.” She organizes us into brownie-making teams, and we get to work. They all have stories about the mission trip, shared experiences, inside jokes. Eventually, conversation tapers off while we concentrate on tasks. Until Allie, cracking eggs into a mixing bowl, says, “Are we all going to take these over to Nick? Tonight?”
Kacey grimaces. “It might be kinda overwhelming if we all just showed up on his porch, like, hi, hope you don’t mind ten people dropping by with no warning or anything during this tragic time.”
“We could call,” Vanessa says. “It doesn’t have to be with no warning.”
Daniel, who’s just put a handful of chocolate chips in his mouth, says, “Plus, we’ll have brownies. Who doesn’t want people showing up with homemade brownies?”
Everyone kind of laughs, but Paul says, “I may be crazy but I don’t think brownies are going to cut it as a substitute for Jody.”
We all stop what we’re doing, Jody’s name hanging in the hot air of the crowded kitchen. I glance at Daniel, who looks stricken. “Dude, that’s not what I meant. At all.”
“Okay,” Erin says. “Let’s think it through while the brownies cook.”
Daniel leaves the kitchen, shaking his head. I set down the pan I’ve just coated with cooking spray and follow him through the dining room and down the hall. Without turning around, he says, “I hope you’re not going to follow me all the way into the bathroom. ’Cause that’d be weird.”
“Don’t pay attention to Paul,” I say to Daniel’s back. “No one thinks that’s what you meant.”
He turns around, eyes red and watery, a smear of chocolate on his T-shirt, which is stretched tight across his stomach. “It was stupid of me to stay that. I was trying to be funny. It’s a reflex. God, I’d be the worst pastor in the history of the world.”
“No. Don’t say that.”
He wipes his hand over one eye, and leans against the wall in the hallway. “I don’t know if you know, but Erin told us about your mom. I mean, I knew something was up. But she told us officially. I thought you’d want to know.”
I blink. “When?” I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s never really been a secret. We just don’t talk about it. Those aren’t the same things. Every day I’m realizing a little bit more that I could have been talking to my friends about it all along.
“She sent out an e-mail last night. Seriously, Sam, when is your dad going to let you have e-mail? You miss a lot.”
“What did it say?”
“Um, not to talk about it unless you brought it up. That it was a hard time for you. Pray for you. All the usual stuff.”
I nod.
“So… do you want to? Bring it up?”
I try to smile. “You already did.”
“Oh, yeah. Clever how I did that, huh?”
“Very. That skill will come in handy in your future career.”
My little joke doesn’t succeed in making him forget what we’re talking about. “So you don’t want to bring it up,” he says.
I shake my head no. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now. We need to focus on Jody.”
“I can’t even think about Jody. When I got home after the search on Monday I ate like a whole chicken and a bag of chips just to give me something to do other than think about Jody. If I don’t keep making jokes I’m seriously going to start crying and never stop and that’s not cool for me. She’s just this sweet, goofy kid, like…” He puts his hand over his eyes. “Oh, man. Please, say something to keep me from breaking down. Or go get me a pound of chocolate chips. Punch me in the head. Kick me in the crotch. Anything, because I don’t want to feel this.”
There’s got to be something I could say to him that would matter in this moment, but my brain has seized up. Because he’s right. It’s too much.
“Like, the brownies,” he continues, uncovering his eyes. “What are we supposed to say to Nick? I don’t even want to go over there. I can’t look at him. Oh, crap…” He clutches his stomach. “Unless you want to be struck down by the toxic cloud of my puke, you should go away now.” He runs into the bathroom and slams the door. I walk back down the hall, running my fingers along the textured wallpaper until I can see the kitchen, where everyone is quiet. Waiting, I guess, for me and Daniel to come back.
Erin catches my eye. “Is he okay?”
I shrug. I mean, obviously, no, none of us are okay.
“I should have kept my mouth shut,” Paul says.
“I’m sure he’ll let you off the hook,” Erin replies. Then she turns to me. “Sam, they voted that you and I take the brownies to Nick.”
Allie makes a bunch of noise with the mixing bowls. She’s had a thing for Nick all year, but it’s hard to believe anyone would see this as an opportunity for flirting.
“Why me?” I ask.
“You’re least likely to say something lame and embarrassing,” Kaleb says. They know I’m probably least likely to say anything. “We figure some of your dad must have rubbed off, somehow.”
Well, it hasn’t, is what I want to say. Daniel comes back in, looking pale and clammy. “Hey, man,” he says to Paul. “Sorry for being an ass. Um, a jerk.”
Erin checks her watch. “We’ve got eight minutes until the brownies are done. It wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world for us to pray.”
Each slat of the picket fence in front of the Shaw house has a blue ribbon tied around it. Stuffed animals and flowers and handwritten signs and cards completely cover the front porch. I bend down to pick up a teddy bear that’s fallen off the pile and onto its side.
Erin exhales loudly. “Every time I come to this house, it hits me all over again. When you’re standing right here you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
I reposition the teddy bear, thinking about what to say to Nick, and what expression I should have on my face. Is it wrong to smile? I tighten my ponytail and take the brownie platter from Erin so that I have something to do with my hands. She rings the bell. Maybe we won’t even see Nick. Maybe it will be one of Jody’s parents I have to look in the eye, and that would be even worse.
But the man who answers the door is a stranger, to me at least, an older man leaning on a cane. “Oh, hello again,” he says to Erin.
“Brownie delivery,” she says. I hold up the plate. “From the youth group. They all wanted to send their love to Nick. Is he home?”
He opens the door wider.
“Come on in.”
“This is Pastor Charlie’s daughter, Sam,” Erin says. I half-smile.
“Nice to meet you, Sam, I’m Ron. Jody’s grandpa.”
“Hi.” I hadn’t thought about grandparents. And there are probably cousins and aunts and uncles, too, a whole devastated family.
“We don’t want to bother you,” Erin says. “But we could visit a little if he’s up to it.”
“I’m sure Nick would be glad to see you.” We follow him in and he turns and speaks low. “We’ll just keep our voices down. Trish and Al are sleeping. First time in a couple of days. They kind of hit the wall this afternoon after you and Charlie left and are finally getting some rest.”
“We can just leave these if that’s better,” Erin whispers, glancing up the stairs.
He waves his cane. “No, no. Nicky is up. The distraction will be good for him. Be right back.” He goes up the stairs slowly, gripping the wooden railing.
I set the brownie platter on the coffee table; Erin sits on the sofa. The Shaws’ house is older than ours, more interesting and kind of Victorian, with a high-ceilinged formal parlor where we are now. Pictures of Jody and Nick and their parents and other relatives line the piano and mantel. Some of the pictures have been featured on the news—I recognize one of Jody on a beach somewhere, smiling into the camera, showing off a sand dollar. I touch the frame.
“I love that picture,” Erin says.
It’s a good picture. But all I can think is how every day the girl in that picture becomes less real. The more she’s on TV and on flyers and represented by blue ribbons, the more the real Jody—the one in choir, the one who lives… or lived… in this house—disappears. How long before the real person is permanently changed into a memory?
“Hey.”
I turn to see Nick coming down the stairs, a small white dog trailing behind him. Erin stands to give Nick a hug, up on her toes since he’s about a foot taller than her. When he lets go of her, he looks at me. “Hi, Sam.”
He needs a haircut and probably about twenty hours of sleep, but other than that he seems like himself, barefoot and dressed in cargo shorts and a Lakers T-shirt. “Hi,” I reply, bypassing the moment when we would have hugged by pointing to the brownies. “The youth group just made these.”
“Thanks.” He picks one up.
“Let me go grab some napkins,” Erin says, and heads off toward what I guess is the kitchen.
“You want to sit down?” Nick asks me, indicating an armchair near the piano.
I sit, and the little dog comes over to sniff my legs. I reach to pet it. “Probably smells my cat. What’s his name?”
“Her. Noodle.” Hearing her name, Noodle goes over to Nick, who’s still standing there with his brownie. “She’s been looking for Jody. I think that’s actually one of the hardest things for my mom… seeing Noodle running around the house, all frantic, smelling Jody everywhere.”
He crouches and scratches Noodle’s head, then looks at me with a kind of startled expression, like he’s just noticed who I am, that I’m here. “Thanks for coming. It’s been awhile, huh?”
I could point out that we only just saw each other on Sunday, but since then time has stretched and bent in strange ways so I know what he means. “I was going to come over with my dad a couple times, but…” I’m unsure how to finish that sentence. But I was too chicken? Too selfish?
Erin comes back in with some paper towels and two glasses of milk. “I took the liberty,” she says, handing us each a glass. I sip from mine, watching Nick finally take a bite of his brownie, then another, then finishing it off with a third and gulping down most of his milk before wiping his mouth with a paper towel.
Realizing we’re staring, he says, “Really good,” and picks up another one.
I glance at Erin, thinking we should leave or be saying something meaningful, or do something other than watch Nick eat. The youth group was wrong, obviously, about my dad rubbing off on me.
Nick saves us by picking up the plate of brownies and holding it out to me. “Go ahead. I can’t eat all these. I mean, I can, but I shouldn’t. And we’re not exactly having a food shortage here with people bringing stuff constantly.” I take one.
Something about the way he offers the brownie reminds me of when he asked me to dance at that wedding, his natural niceness coming through in unexpected ways, even at a time like this.
I bite into the brownie. It’s good, and still warm. I think hard about what I could say to Nick. I’m sorry about Jody feels empty and seems to go without saying. Erin starts talking to him, and I watch his face. What would I want someone to say to me if a person I loved disappeared, and I didn’t know where she was?
A person I love did disappear.
But it’s different. Every future I imagine has my mom in it. Whereas Nick has to imagine possible futures without Jody, without that person who looks like you, and knows what it’s like to be in your family. Possible futures as an only child.
“So, you know,” Erin says to Nick, “we’re all here for you, whatever you need.” Her cell phone rings; she picks it up from where it’s sitting on the coffee table with her car keys, and makes an apologetic face. “I should get this.”
I eat another bite of brownie. Take a sip of milk. Pet the dog. Continue to say nothing. The Youth have no idea how much they should regret sending me.
“Can’t the twins take you?” Erin is saying. “Well, did you ask?… Okay, give me a couple of minutes.” She hangs up. “Allie needs a ride home. I can’t let anyone walk or I’ll be in deep doo-doo.” Looking at me, she says, “I don’t want to rush you out, Sam. Why don’t I go get Allie, run her home, and then come back for you?”
“Oh.” I start to get up. “I can just go now.” It’s painful enough with Erin here, who at least is a kind of buffer.
“No,” Nick says quickly, almost desperate. “Stay. I mean, you just got here.”
I glance at Erin. Please say you have to get me home.
“Yeah, Sam, stay.” She picks up her keys.
“You don’t mind coming back for me?”
“Don’t be crazy.” And she gives Nick another quick hug—it’s so easy for her—and walks out. Nick takes a third brownie. I look around the room at all of the pictures and cards, just to have something to do with my eyes other than look at him.
Forced to deal with a mute, he says, “Your dad’s been really great. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“Oh. Yeah. Good.”
Sometimes, moments like this, I can see my dad a little bit through other people’s eyes. Objectively I can say he’s a good man who cares about people, a good pastor who cares about his church. And I wonder if I expect too much. If I picture it as a giant scale, with me and Mom on one side, and the whole congregation on the other, Mom and I are way up there, light as feathers, compared to the weight of the rest of everyone else who needs him.
Nick leans back on the sofa, groaning and patting his stomach. “One brownie over the line.”
I smile a little and set down my milk. “Yeah.” I’m sure this conversation will go down as one of the worst in the history of Nick’s life.
“Look,” he says, “I’m sorry. I know this is… I should have let you go with Erin.”
Even he realizes this is a disaster and wants to get rid of me.
He sits forward. “I just wanted to feel normal for a minute. Spending twenty-four hours a day with my parents and grandparents is definitely not normal.”
I want to feel normal, too. “When do you leave for State?”
“I’m supposed to be packing up my room and stuff for moving into the dorms, like, right now. I can’t do that to my parents… pack up and leave in the middle of this. But in my head I am. Sorting out my junk. What I’ll take, what I’ll leave.” He glances toward the staircase and lowers his voice. “I want to leave, though. That’s horrible, right? To want to bail? To want to just get out of here and be somewhere else?”
And that second, everything changes. Nick doesn’t think I’m a disastrous, boring mute. We really are having a conversation. I just haven’t figured my part out yet. Now is my chance to finally say something. “I don’t think it’s horrible. I think… probably anyone would want to be anywhere else.”
“Yeah.” He nods, like he expected nothing less of me than to understand. “You’re right. Speaking of getting out of here, I can take you home, you know.”
“Oh, I think I should wait for Erin.”
“Call her,” he says, already standing to get his keys off the side table and feel for his wallet.
I stand, too, and straighten my shorts, tighten my ponytail. I pull my phone out of my pocket and pause. I don’t want Erin to say no, to say she’s already on her way. In about three minutes I’ve gone from desperately not wanting her to leave me here alone to desperately not wanting her to come back. So I text her instead of calling: Nick’s taking me home.
On our way out, Nick slides his feet into the sandals by the door and says, “Let me just tell my grandpa I’m leaving so that no one worries.”
He jogs up the stairs, and I step out into the night to wait. Though the sun is down, the day’s heat lingers, pulsating from gravel and through the thin soles of my flip-flops. It feels more like a regular summer night, and less like the backward world we’ve been living in since Sunday. And even though so many things are going wrong right now, I want something in me to still be able to enjoy a night like this, to feel that it’s good to be here, and alive.
“Okay,” Nick says, closing the door behind him and pointing to the silver mini-truck in the driveway. “You’re the first passenger in my new ride. I just got it Saturday. It’s five years old, but my last one was thirteen so it feels brand new to me.”
I walk around to the front of the truck as Nick turns on the headlights, illuminating my legs and swarms of gnats. When I climb in, his cell rings. He flips it open while simultaneously backing out of the drive. “Hey,” he says. “Nothing.” He holds the phone to his shoulder with his head and puts the truck in gear to start us moving forward. “I can’t.”
The trees and houses and fences flick by as we gain speed, blue ribbons everywhere.
“I know,” Nick says into the phone. “I’m sorry.”
I find the button to lower the passenger window. The breeze dries my damp neck.
“Not sure,” Nick says. “Dorrie—” Then he holds the phone out for a second, looking at it in disbelief before turning it off and folding it shut. He tosses it into the cup holder and accelerates, upshifting as we hit the straightaway on Main. “My old car couldn’t do this. It was a four-cylinder automatic. That’s not driving.” He glances at me. “Do you have your license yet?”
“Next year. My dad’s supposed to teach me to drive this summer.” I’m wondering how Dorrie Clark could hang up on Nick, especially with everything that’s going on.
“The clock is kind of running down on ‘this summer.’ ” He accelerates again. “Here. In about five seconds I’m going to put the clutch in and you’re gonna put it in fourth. See the little diagram here?” He taps the stick shift. “Just follow the map. Ready?”
“Really? What if I break it?”
“You won’t. One, two, three… now.”
I touch the shifter tentatively. Then Nick puts his hand over mine, firm. “Straight down. There you go.” He lifts his hand, completely unaware that it’s as close to holding hands as I’ve ever come. He eases his foot off the clutch and now we’re flying, the speed of the truck cooling down the air that blows through the open windows. “I wish we could take it out onto the freeway,” he says. “But I guess I should get you home.”
No rush, I want to say. But at the corner of Sagebrush and Main I tell him, “You can turn here to get to my house.”
He stops but doesn’t signal, letting the truck rock back and forth while he keeps one foot on the gas and one on the clutch. “Let’s at least drive it back up Main. You can try the other gears.”
A bead of sweat trickles down the side of my face, the air still again. I can see the hardware store up ahead on the next block, the window display lit up but the shop lights out.
“Just ten more minutes,” Nick says. He must take my silence for hesitation, which it isn’t. It’s just silence. “Five. I don’t want to go home yet. I really, really just don’t want to go home.”
I turn and study his profile the way I figure every girl who’s ever known Nick has studied him. His face has perfect symmetry. Each feature works with the others: eyes set at the right width and depth, leading to the nose that’s exactly centered and straight, leading to a dip above his mouth that you want to put your finger on, tracing it down to his wide lips and strong jaw. He could probably be a model.
“What?” he asks, looking back at me and smiling a little.
“We can keep driving for a while,” I say. “Five minutes.”
“Okay. Cool.” The whole time we’ve been idling here, there’s been exactly one car coming from the other direction, and one car behind us, which simply went around without beeping or anything. “When I tell you,” Nick says, “ease it from first to second.” We’re in motion again. “Go.”
I move the gearshift down.
“Good. Third is trickier. Follow the map.”
I look at the shifter and try to maneuver into third gear. The truck makes a sick grinding noise.
“Whoa, whoa, not yet,” Nick says. I jerk my hand away, and he laughs. “Wait for me to say when.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He accelerates and puts in the clutch. “Now.”
He puts his hand over mine again and we move the truck into gear, and it’s so gentle, his hand, like when he danced with me that one time, and I don’t know what to think. Two hours ago I barely knew Nick and now he’s not moving his hand off of mine and his long fingers are curled over my shorter ones. We’re just driving, I think, trying to ignore my tingling fingertips.
A car shoots out in front of us from nowhere. Nick takes his hand off mine to honk the horn and swerve to avoid a collision. I put my hand in my lap. “I should get home,” I say, lightheaded.
“Yeah,” he says reluctantly, “okay.”
He turns the truck around and heads back to my house, and I’m thinking that I should say something meaningful about what’s going on, something not canned or slight or stupid. But Nick talks before I think of anything. “Your mom. She’s in rehab?”
I lean my head out the window a little ways to let the air cool my face.
Nick says, “Sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool.”
“No, I… I just keep forgetting that people know.” That life is never really private, that it’s something other people look at and wonder about and make their conclusions based on what really might just be the tip of the iceberg.
“So, what kind of rehab? I’m going to be a psych major. That’s the plan anyway. Hence my nosiness.”
“Oh.” Maybe that’s why Nick wants to spend time with me. To probe my psyche about living with an alcoholic. “I’m not sure. It all happened kind of fast… she wrecked her car and got cited for a DUI and they kind of ‘strongly urged’ her to do this program. I don’t think she would have otherwise.”
“Wow. Your mom is so…” Perfect? “I just never would have thought.” He slows in front of our neighbor’s house. “This it?”
“The next one.”
I feel us both noticing the blue ribbon tied to the tree in our front yard. It wasn’t there earlier—I don’t know who put it up.
The other thing we both notice is the little car behind my dad’s. “Isn’t that Erin’s car?” Nick asks.
“Yeah.” I try to say it like it’s completely expected and okay for the single-girl-youth-group-leader’s car to be in our driveway while my handsome dad is home and my mom is not. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Next time, I’ll let you get behind the wheel.”
“Okay,” I say, sincerely doubting there will be a next time, but make no move to get out. The truck engine idles. “Yeah. I guess I’d better go.” Finally, I lift the door handle, push the door open, and swing my legs out.
“Hey,” Nick says, stopping me. “If you ever need anything, give me a call.”
Like what? He’s the one in the middle of a real crisis. I nod. “Sure.”
“No, really, I mean, I’m just here for… as long as it takes. I’m not working or anything because I thought I’d be leaving for school in a week. And I’m used to doing all kinds of stuff for Jody. Giving her rides or whatever. And now—” For the first time tonight, he looks like he might cry. “Anyway, I’ve got all these big brother skills. That’s all.”
Then, without thinking, I blurt, “Maybe they’ll find her.”
A car drives by, sweeping its headlights over Nick’s face. His gaze is far away, his curly hair sticking out over his ears. Then the cab of the truck goes dark again. “We’d need a miracle,” he says. “A real one. Do you think those happen anymore?”
I want to reach across the truck cab and touch him, and tell him that is the exact same question I’ve been asking myself for a long time now and I’m glad I’m not the only one wondering. Before I can move, the driveway lights come on and flood the truck. Nick shields his eyes and laughs. “Dang. What does your dad think we’re doing out here?”
I scoot out of the truck and close the door. “Thanks again,” I say through the open window.
He lifts his hands off the wheel. “See you, Sam.”
The front door opens the second I reach it. My dad is standing there, Erin behind him, looking like she thinks she belongs. “Finally,” Dad says.
“What took you so long? You texted me almost half an hour ago, Sam.” Erin is aggravated. “It’s a five-minute drive.”
“We were talking.” I squeeze past them and into the hot living room, where there are mugs on the coffee table and a plate of brownie crumbs. Ralph rubs himself against my legs.
“That’s fine,” Dad says. “But you need to let me know where you are, especially now.”
“And keep your phone on when you’re out,” Erin adds.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. The display is black. I turn around to face them. “The battery must have died. I didn’t know.” Then I think about what she just said and the way she said it. Like she’s my mom.
“Nick’s phone was off, your phone was off… anyway, you’re okay, so, phew.” She turns to my dad. “Remember what I said, Charlie, okay? See you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He smiles and nods. I follow his eyes following Erin as she leaves, her calf muscles flexing and shiny hair swinging.
“What did she mean, remember what she said?” I ask as the door closes.
“Oh, she offered to bring dinner over again sometime.”
“I can try to cook.”
He laughs and walks past me to lock the door for the night, something we never used to do. “So, what did you and Nick talk about?”
“I don’t know. Is there any food left?” I head for the kitchen.
“You don’t know what you talked about?” he asks, following.
“Stuff.” I open the fridge. Erin’s potato salad is still there. I push it aside to get out the grape jelly, butter, and bread, and put a slice in the toaster.
“Ah. Stuff. Well, next time I’d prefer it if you called me for a ride, or Erin, or Vanessa’s mom.”
I stare at the toaster. “Why? Nick offered. He didn’t have anything else to do. He was lonely.”
“Because. I’d just prefer it.”
The toast pops up. I spread on butter and a thick layer of jelly. “That’s not a reason. You told me you wanted me to spend more time with youth group people.”
“Nick is barely in youth group. He’s older. He’s in college.”
“Not yet.”
“Sammy,” he says in his don’t-wear-me-out voice. “Just say you’ll do as I ask.”
I wrap a napkin around my toast and go past him toward my room.
“Sam?” he calls after me. “Samara?”
“Good night, Dad,” I say, and close the door.