Songs for the Missing (27 page)

The Advanced Stages

Sooner or later they’d find her. In a ditch. In a thicket. In a creekbed.

All fall Lindsay tracked the open cases online, watching as, one by one, they closed. The Alzheimer’s patients and retarded adults, the little kids and alcoholics, the prostitutes and college students and runaways. The pretty girls like Kim.

The leaves were down, and it was easier. Hunters discovered them, hikers, horseback riders, early morning fishermen tromping through tall reeds to their favorite spots. Lindsay pictured their initial confusion and panic and then the long, drawn-out inconvenience, the whole day ruined, maybe flashbacks, nightmares. No one wanted to be part of that, even briefly.

At home it was inescapable, though they told her nothing. Her birthday was coming up, and her mother was bugging her about what kind of party she wanted. They could go bowling or roller-skating or they could just have something at home. How many people was she thinking? What kind of cake did she want? What did she want for presents? She needed to give them some lead time.

“I don’t want anything,” Lindsay said.

“It’s your birthday. What do
you
want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well,
think
,” her mother said.

She wanted contact lenses. She wanted a job like Dana’s at Quizno’s so she’d have some money of her own. She wanted to be able to take the car without her mother acting like she’d never see her again. She wanted to go out on Friday nights with her friends. She wanted—if the right guy asked her—to go out on a date.

She asked for the contacts. Her mother warned her that they were expensive—they might be the only present she’d get. Her father asked what was wrong with her glasses.

“It’s not about her eyesight,” her mother said, though he was only joking.

It wasn’t because of Kim and the way she made fun of her glasses (of her, really, except no one but Lindsay remembered
that
Kim). Last week in gym class she was under the basket, caught in a knot of more aggressive girls going for a rebound, when someone’s arm knocked them off. When she put them back on (by then the action was shifting to the other end), she realized she was the only one in the whole class wearing them, and she wondered how long that had been true. In December she was finally getting her braces off, and she thought she might as well make a complete change—as if, once she shed her disguise, the world would discover she’d been beautiful all along.

Sometimes, leaning into the bathroom mirror, she could almost see the face she wished she had, and sometimes before taking a shower, turned in strict profile with her shoulders back and stomach sucked in, the body. She was going to be sixteen and no one had ever touched her.

Though she knew it was wrong, and complicated, for a short time she would have let J.P. Not anymore.

It was all boys thought of, according to her mother. She’d obviously never met the boys in Lindsay’s class, who were obsessed with their XBoxes and PSPs and skateboarding and hockey and the Clash and their own disorganized punk bands and parties and smoking and drinking and dope and cars and zombie movies and hot sauce contests and Jack Black in
Saving Silverman
and getting the hell out of Kingsville like everyone else. They might pay attention to Cara Penrose’s boobs when Cara passed by their lunch table, but Lindsay doubted they spent hours in serious contemplation of them—or not the way she’d wasted whole days and nights agonizing over J.P. Guys weren’t like that, or not the guys she knew.

She didn’t want a party. She didn’t want a cake either, but her mother insisted, steering her toward the confetti one from last year. Lindsay didn’t remember liking or not liking it, just the novelty of the colored dots inside the sponge cake, but went along to end the discussion.

“Did you want to invite Dana and Micah over, or do you want it to be just family?”

“Just family.”

“I’m sorry it’s not going to be nicer. It’s supposed to be your day.”

“I really don’t care,” Lindsay said, but she could see her mother didn’t believe her.

Otherwise life had fallen into a dulling routine. Halloween was over, all the candy was gone except her father’s nasty Paydays. After school there was a gap of an hour and a half before her mother got home. She couldn’t be alone in the house, because it was possible Kim had been taken from there (they’d changed the locks), so she and Dana hung out in the Hedricks’ basement, sprawled on their horrible aqua leather sectional, watching dumb VH-1 shows and trading the latest sophomore gossip. Three days a week Dana worked, and she watched by herself, Mrs. Hedrick checking on her every once in a while as if she might disappear.

Dinner was the hardest. Her mother had instituted a prayer for Kim before every meal, and it seemed to Lindsay that it was always her turn to say it. “And please help bring her back to us safely. Amen.”

“Thank you,” her mother said.

Though there was never a formal discussion, it was now Lindsay’s job to do the dishes. She dedicated herself to it with the same concentration she gave her homework, making sure she got every spot off the stovetop.

Later, her mother went up first, her father watching TV from the far end of the couch with his eyes closed.

“Go to bed,” Lindsay told him. “I’ll close up.”

“Okay, chief,” he said, and then locked up anyway.

In her room she found the missing, or they found them for her. A deputy on routine patrol. A woman walking her dog. A DOT mowing crew. The leaders of Scout Troop 121.

She had her favorites, the little kids and teenagers she hoped had just run away.
In the company of adult male,
the FBI posters said, making her guess whether he was a kidnapper or a boyfriend or both.

Some had been missing for years but still had active sites. The first-grade teacher from the little town in Georgia who’d been a beauty queen. The college track star who went jogging at dawn in her upscale Dallas suburb. Lindsay wondered if someone who was plain would inspire the same devotion.

In the spillway of the lake. In the woods behind the ShopRite. In a field off of U.S. 41.

Burned under the overpass. Wrapped in plastic. Bound with ligatures.

In a chest-type freezer. In a foot locker. In a duffel bag. In an oil drum.

Dismembered. Decapitated. Partly skeletonized. In the advanced stages of decomposition.

There was never a mention of rape or torture, no matter how obvious the probability, as if by some unspoken agreement the reporters decided to leave out the most upsetting details. Those were the cases Lindsay took with her to bed, filling in the empty spaces as if these real-life nightmares could replace her own. What would it feel like to be stabbed or strangled or beaten to death? When would you pass out and stop feeling it? Was it just blackness then, and nothing after that? She had nothing to imagine it with besides sleep.

An irrigation worker in an orange grove. A Jet Ski rider by the marina. It was like a game of Clue without weapons or suspects.

She found herself looking at people strangely during the day. Ultimately everyone in her French class would die (Madame Cassada first), the question was when and where and who would find them. If they were lucky it would be in bed. A nurse would come, like at her grandmother’s place. EMTs, people who knew what to do. On the bus home she sat with Dana and Micah, watching the sun flash through the newly bare trees, wondering if there was anyone out there waiting to be found.

Some of them turned up alive hundreds of miles away, identified in bus stations, but more often they were rotting in landfills and canals and ravines, in rockpits and flooded quarries. In abandoned cars. How many of them had sisters, and what were
they
supposed to do?

The idea occupied her as she sat alone on the Hedricks’ sectional, watching “The 100 Best Toys of All Time,” counting down the last half hour before her mother came home. Number 29 was Battleship, one of their favorite games—one that Kim usually won, though that never mattered. She remembered playing it on the floor of Kim’s room one rainy day, both of them lying flat on the carpet so they couldn’t cheat, the white pegs accumulating in diagonal patterns and then the short straight lines of red. She was eight or nine, an age when Kim agreeing to play with her was enough to make her happy.

Mrs. Hedrick chose that moment to come downstairs and check on her.

“Are you all right?” she asked, because Lindsay had turned away to hide her tears.

“Oh honey, it’s okay,” Mrs. Hedrick said, sitting next to her and patting her shoulder. “We all miss her.”

Not like I do, Lindsay wanted to say.

“Here,” Mrs. Hedrick said, “come help me make dinner. You shouldn’t be down here by yourself.”

She didn’t want to, but did, and by the time her mother arrived she was mashing potatoes at the stove and feeling in control again. Mrs. Hedrick didn’t say anything, as if it were their secret.

At home her mother said she needed to talk to her. She sounded serious, as if something major had changed. She sat Lindsay down at the kitchen table and looked at her, concerned.

Lindsay waited blankly, as if she was innocent.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this, but we have to. Your birthday’s less than a week away. What else do you want besides your contacts?”

The question was so far off the mark that she had no answer for it.

“You’ve got to tell me these things,” her mother said. “Please. I can’t read your mind.”

Painesville

The dorm cleared out before the weekend. Talman took off after his last class on Friday, psyched to be driving cross-country with Hector. He’d never seen New York before. J.P. hadn’t either.

“We’ve got room,” Hector said at the car. “If you don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“Please, John, come with us,” Talman said in his tortured boarding-school English, a challenge to his sense of adventure.

He’d have much rather gone with them, but his mom was expecting him. All week she called, asking what he wanted for meals, as if she’d forgotten his favorites. She was putting together her menus, checking with him to see if he agreed. The smallest turkey she could buy was a fourteen-pounder. Would he mind if she just made a nice turkey breast?

He could have left early like everyone else, but said he really needed to go to Chem lab Tuesday night. He was barely passing the class. Technically it wasn’t a lie.

Over the weekend the stragglers gathered at parties that lasted until everything was gone. They dropped bottles down the stairwells, winged CDs out the windows, threw up noodles in the sinks. He remembered swaying over a bubbling toilet as he peed, blinking one eye and then the other closed so he could direct his stream. When the noise stopped, it meant he was missing.

Saturday he didn’t wake up until the sun was going down. Sunday he came to in Michaela Albright’s bed, surprised to find Michaela’s bare back and freckled shoulders, the white blond wisps at the base of her neck. She wasn’t a beauty or someone with a reputation, just a quiet, pixieish girl on his floor who’d had too much to drink. They both acted like it was a funny mistake, but hung out that night, talking till four in the morning. She was from Painesville, right down the lake from him, and wanted to be a doctor. “Thank you for not laughing at that,” she said. Like everyone else she called him John, but in her mouth the name sounded familiar. He could sleep with her as long as all they did was sleep. Only an idiot would have turned her down, and only an idiot would have believed they’d just sleep, and the next morning they were even more confused. She had a boyfriend at home who was important to her. J.P. said he respected that, thinking it was a built-in way out.

“What about you?” she asked.

Instead of Kim, he thought of Nina.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Me too.”

Because the dorms were empty, it was still their secret. They made a point not to be seen at the caf together, sneaking out for falafel and holing up in her room, staying naked most of the day. She didn’t understand it—she was actually very shy.

She was leaving Monday after her Microbiology midterm, taking the bus back, which she hated. He hadn’t gone home for fall break (or to Denison either, guiltily blowing off Nina and Elise), so he’d never taken the bus. “Are you ready?” Michaela said. “It’s six hours.” He could drive it in three, but because of the parking problem on campus, freshmen weren’t allowed to have cars. He hadn’t missed his until now. He thought he should drive her home, as if this was a date. He wanted to meet her parents. How could he explain, after the random way they hooked up, that he was serious?

He didn’t know her at all, yet he was convinced, on the evidence of the last two days, that she had a good heart. After Kim and Nina, he needed a love that was simple, if there was such a thing.

He tried to persuade her to stay till Wednesday so they could go together, as if with two more nights he could win her forever. He took it as a sign when she wouldn’t change her plans. That was all right. Like the turkey breast, it wasn’t what he wanted, but it made more sense.

She had to study Sunday night and then sleep so she’d be fresh for the test (she was on the Dean’s List and said there was no reason he shouldn’t be). Wide awake, in the shifting light of her screensaver, he watched her breathe, resisting the urge to kiss the thin skin of her neck. In sleep she seemed smaller, and he felt a rush of tenderness toward her, as if he were there to protect her instead of messing up her life.

After her midterm (she was pretty sure she’d aced it), he took the bus downtown with her to the station. As the line filed on, they lingered behind to kiss good-bye. To say he loved her would be unfair if not untrue, so he said he’d miss her. When she was gone he felt both abandoned and relieved. Walking along the dingy street outside of the station in his new coat, he shut his eyes and shook his head.

“What are you doing?” he said.

The dorms officially closed at noon on Wednesday. The halls were quiet, and he didn’t have to wait forever for an elevator. He stayed till the end, and, leaving, envied the Nigerian grad student who manned the security booth.