Little Girl Gone (10 page)

“Why would you want to go inside?” Madora wondered if he might have been spying around before this day. “What’re you looking for?”

“I just told you I don’t want to go inside.”

“Get out. And don’t come back.”

“I forgot to bring water. It’s hot out here.”

Madora guessed that if she told him to leave again he would repeat his request for water; and they would go on like this, back and forth; and the longer they argued, the longer he would stay around and the more nervous and foolish she would feel. She thought of Linda sleeping or watching a video. Something, anything, might set off this odd-speaking boy, and if Linda heard him she would make her own noise to get his attention.

“I don’t really live in Arroyo,” the boy said as if she were interested. “I’m only staying with my aunt. My real house is in Beverly Hills.”

“That’s where the movie stars live.” In spite of herself, Madora was curious. “You’re not a movie star.”

“My dad was Jacky Jones. You know him? He was a rock star back in the day.”

“Not my day,” Madora said.

“How old are you?”

“None of your beeswax.”

“I’m twelve.”

Madora remembered being twelve and still a little girl playing with dolls, though she had kept this a secret from
most of her friends, who had moved on to idolizing television and music stars.

“How come you got a trailer in your backyard?”

“It’s not against the law to have a trailer, you know.” She started to walk away from him but stopped, afraid he would follow. “Go back to Beverly Hills or wherever you live.”

The boy scuffed the dust with the toe of what Madora could see were expensive sneakers.

She asked, “Does your aunt know you’re out here?”

“Let me have some water first.”

He was not going to leave until he had his water—that was obvious—so she gestured for him to follow her. In the carport a length of hose lay curled on the warm cement. The boy found the end and held it up. Madora turned the handle on the spigot.

“Shit!” The boy dropped the hose and leaped back from it. “That’s hot!”

“What do you expect? It’s a hot day.” She grabbed the hose and without thinking, out of pure ornery inspiration, she forgot about Linda and noise and pointed the business end of the hose straight at him, drenching his shirt and pants. He stood still, his mouth wide open and his arms spread wide while Foo danced around his feet, leaping and barking at the splashing water. The boy looked so surprised, like he’d been struck by lightning, and Madora laughed out loud.

“You’ll be sorry!” The boy wrenched the hose away and pointed the water at her. She kept on laughing until she
was wet through and her shirt and shorts stuck to her skin. She dropped onto the stoop in front of the kitchen door and laughed until her side hurt and even then she couldn’t stop. The laughter came out of her as if it had been boxed down hard, like a spring toy.

On a hard hot day, the water was a benediction.

“You laugh like my mom,” the boy said. “She used to laugh a lot.”

“Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know. I guess she’s dead. They both are. Her and my dad.”

Madora wondered if her own mother was still alive. She hadn’t spoken to her since she worked at the diner up Interstate 8, and then she had done it on a whim and never wanted Willis to know. There had not been much to say in that conversation. Rachel didn’t want to hear about Willis’s job or about the house on Red Rock Road. Madora did not want to call her mother again after that. She was afraid of the wrenching pull her mother’s voice had, tugging her in a direction she didn’t want to go.

The boy said, “I guess I’m an orphan. Like Oliver.”

“Oliver who?”

“But I’m gonna go up north soon and live with my brother. My half brother. He’s really rich.”

Madora did not want to hear about the choices this boy had, his dead or alive parents and rich half brother. At the same time, she wanted to hear all about Beverly Hills, and maybe this guy Oliver was someone famous.

“I gotta go,” he said. The day was so hot, his pants and shirt were almost dry already. “I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.”

“You better stay away. My boyfriend doesn’t like kids.”

“I don’t think he likes Foo either.” He started off in the direction of his mountain bike. “I won’t come if his car’s here.”

R
obin parked her car in a visitor’s space and pressed the keypad on the security gate. Her mother’s condo was on the second floor overlooking the Sycuan golf course and casino development that ran along the bottom of a narrow valley ten miles from Arroyo. She was on the balcony sweeping, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt.

“You’re a vision. I wish I’d brought my camera.”

“I could be nude out here and who’d notice?”

“Sit. You’re going to make yourself a cripple.” Robin took the broom from her and leaned it against the wall. “I interviewed that home nurse guy I told you about. He’ll be calling you.”

“I had to cancel my trip to Peru because of this wretched back, and now I can’t get Caro out of my mind for more than three minutes.” Groaning, her mother dropped onto a white plastic chair. “At least on a trip there would have been things to distract me.” She used her straw hat as a fan.
“I tell you, Robin, if that drunk hadn’t died in the accident I’d go out and find him and kill him myself, and don’t look so shocked. I’d be doing the Lord’s work.” She squirmed in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position. “My sweet baby… Sometimes I just don’t understand God at all.” Her eyes filled with tears and she crossed herself, then fanned herself more furiously. “I’ve been trying to remember the last time she came here to visit, and do you know, I’m not sure she ever did. Is that right or am I losing my mind?”

“Your mind’s fine, Mam. She was never here.”

“Why not? She and I were never close, and believe me, I regret that. If there was something I could have done. But you two used to get along fine. Something must have happened between you, but it’s nothing I ever understood.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now.”

“Gone? I’ll say she’s gone!” The tears started again. “Your only sister couldn’t be bothered visiting you? And you never got out of your own road for long enough to visit her either, did you? I don’t understand, Robin.” She sat up straight, stretching her back. “You girls were close as children.”

Robin let her mother talk on, knowing it was one of the ways she made peace with whatever troubled her.

“We weren’t sophisticated enough for her. After she married the guitar player.”

Robin laughed. “Mam, you’re a stitch. Jacky wasn’t just a guitar player. He was one of the greats.”

“So you say.”

“But you’re right. I never made the effort to see her and I should have.” Robin did not want to talk about Caro, but by visiting her mother she had virtually guaranteed she would have to. Over the last two or three days she had been troubled by an amorphous regret for something she had overlooked and could not name. Being with her mother only made it worse.

Robin had been fourteen and Caro nine when their parents were legally separated, divorce being out of the question for Nola. Frank Howard left Morro Bay and moved to Los Angeles, and though Caro occasionally visited him there, for some unexplained reason, Robin was never invited to go along. She complained once, and her mother responded by saying that her father was not a nice man and Robin was lucky to have a mother who loved her and not to forget it. She had known better than to ask why, if he was not a nice man, Caro was trusted to his care on weekends.

And Robin
had
been loved; she would not deny or discount that. Her mother had made sure she finished high school at Holy Rosary Academy in Morro Bay and went on to college in Santa Barbara. Robin would have been happy to go to Cal Poly just up the road, save money and live at home, but her mother did not want that.

“You need to get out, get some independence.”

“I’m driving up to Beverly Hills in a couple of days,” Robin told her. “Caro’s lawyer wants me to go through the house. I’m not sure exactly why, but I thought I’d better go. I’m taking Django with me.”

“I’d go too if the devil would stop stabbing me in the back with his pitchfork. I’d like to see the inside of that house. Caro sent me photos but I was never invited. Maybe your sister was ashamed of me.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“She held it against me when your father left home.”

“She was a little girl, Mam. She was confused. We both were.”

“They must have been made of money to buy a lot in Beverly Hills and build a house from scratch. How did she ever get so peculiar, so set off by herself, I’d like to know. I suppose she thought she was better than us because she got rich all of a sudden.”

Her mother said such outrageous things sometimes, Robin had to laugh out loud. “You know that’s not true. Caro never thought she was better than us. She wasn’t that kind of person.”

“Then explain to me what happened, why she left us high and dry.”

“She didn’t leave us. She just went on with her life. And I could have gone up there. I should have. I wish I had.”

If she had walked into Caro’s house and asked her straight out why they weren’t true sisters anymore, not even friends, Caro would have told her.
She knew.
But for a long time, Robin had believed she didn’t care that she had no relationship with her sister and father. Now she knew that wasn’t true, but it was too late for her to do anything about it.

Her mother talked on about Caro, saying that she had
always craved excitement, taken risks, stepped out to the end of the plank and been unafraid of the deep water.

“She was never scared of anything.”

Yet again Robin heard the story of the time Caro was found, aged two (she got younger every time the story was told), atop the old upright piano.

“She was the bravest little girl and you were the complete opposite. But she spent too much time with your father. I’m afraid it ruined her.” She patted Robin’s forearm. “I know you think you never got a fair shake with him, but you’re better off. Trust me; I know. He was not a nice man.”

“Has anyone told him about the accident? Do you know where he is, Mam?”

Nola sighed.

“You’re still legally married, aren’t you?”

“Separated. We’re legally
separated
.”

“You should tell him.”

“I’d rather not, Robin.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Years ago.” Nola flipped her fingertips, dismissing the matter of where and when. “Do you remember how he smoked? He was a chimney, let me tell you. When he left me he was good for two packs a day. I aired the house for a month and the stink didn’t go away.”

“You should have gotten a divorce. You could have married again and had a life.”

“You forget your catechism, Robin. If we had divorced, I would have lost the church.”

“No one cares anymore. You could divorce him tomorrow if you wanted to.”

“You toss that word around like it’s nothing.”

“Divorce isn’t the end of the world, Mam.”

“Don’t lecture me, Robin. You’ve never been married. You don’t understand what it means to make an eternal vow before God.”

Judgments came to Robin’s mother in the air she breathed and she saw no reason for not expressing them.

“The Catholic Church is different now,” Robin said.

“Alas. But my church has never changed and never will.”

“You don’t even go to Mass anymore.”

“Well, look who’s talking. The point is, I could go if I wanted to. But I don’t care for all that touchy-feely stuff. I liked the way it was when I was a kid. The way God meant it to be.”

The clock on the mantel inside chimed. Her mother got up from her chair slowly, her hand on the small of her back. Holding the doorjamb for balance, she went inside and turned on the television. “Do you want to watch Ellen’s show with me?”

“I’ve got stuff to do.”

“The boy’s a big responsibility.”

“Less than you might expect. You know, Mam, I think Caro and Jacky must have been very good parents. He’s a nice boy. Beautiful manners.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“And he’s so smart. Omigod, he knows all kinds of things.”

“Your sister was smart. She could have gone to college if she’d wanted to. She must have gotten her love of travel from me. Your father wouldn’t budge from the front yard without a shove.”

“The lawyers think I should take him to Tampa. Mr. Conway thinks it would be good for both of us.”

“I couldn’t agree more. It would get you out of your own way while you’re still young enough to enjoy a change of scene. You’re timid, Robin. I never raised you to be timid.”

“It’s not a good time.”

“Nonsense. It’s a perfect time. Take a risk for once, Robin. Though God knows, Florida isn’t much of one, but it’s better than not going anywhere except Hawaii. If you don’t do it now, I promise you’ll regret it. One day you’ll have a back like mine, and then you’ll wish you’d gone out and enjoyed life.”

D
jango said, “Are those sandwiches for me?”

Madora literally jumped when he spoke, and the sandwiches she was taking to Linda bounced on the plate.

He had ridden his bike out to see Madora three times since his first visit. At some point during every conversation she told him to go away and not come back; but they both knew she didn’t mean it.

“Don’t do that,” she said, gasping. “Don’t ever surprise me like that.”

“Are you having a picnic?”

“What are you doing here? Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

Actually, though his timing was bad, she was glad to see him. Until Django started showing up, Madora had not realized how lonely she was. Each time, after he left, she scolded herself for the terrible chance she was taking. A smart, curious boy, how long would it be before he asked too many questions about the trailer? Or Linda
heard his voice? Django had brought the world, framed in his quirky personality, into her narrow life. His famous parents and his woo-woo school and the exotic countries he had visited: Madora didn’t know how much of it was true, how much fantasy. Nor did she care. He was welcome entertainment.