The Lost Girls (11 page)

“What was it like?” Lilith's whisper pulled me from the edge of sleep. It held an urgency that raised bumps on my skin. Although the moonlight shone on her face, her eyes were shadowed, unreadable. Still, I knew what she was asking.

I could have told her, then, how the lake had fallen away below my feet, and about the silence, serene and watchful, that waited there. But I didn't. I said, “It was cold. That's all I remember.”

It was the first lie I ever told her.

Two weeks went by. Justine still couldn't bear to spend the day alone in the house, so she drove her daughters to school, ate breakfast at Ray's, ran a few errands, and read in the library until it was time to pick them up. When they got home Melanie and Angela watched the fuzzy picture on the television while Justine made dinner in the microwave or on the stove top: spaghetti, hamburgers, sloppy joes, Lucy's frozen dinners. She'd figured out the house was heated with propane, and that the tank was only one-third full, so she turned the radiators down when they left for the day. With no wind the kitchen heated up quickly, but the living room stayed cold for hours. The girls watched TV with their coats on.

Though she saw Matthew Miller from a distance a few times, Justine still hadn't seen his brother. Nor did Matthew stop by again, which brought her a mixture of relief and regret. Now that she'd been here for a while she realized she took comfort in the glow the lodge lights cast upon the snow. Once night fell, they were the only lights she could see besides the stars.

Her list of things to do still sat on the counter, with a pen beside it. She'd figured out Lucy got her mail at a post office box in town—check—and dropped off the job application at the Walmart—check. But the oven stymied her. O'Keefe & Merritt, it said in chrome letters on its white porcelain finish, but neither of the appliance repair shops in the Yellow Pages serviced that brand, or any oven as old as this one, which apparently dated to the 1920s. She also hadn't looked for Maurie's ring, or sorted through any of Lucy's belongings. All she'd done was clean out the bathroom to
make room for her own things, and throwing out the prescription bottles and half-empty jars of face cream made her feel horrible, like a janitor sweeping up after a life.

The worst thing, though, was the cold. She'd lived in cold places before; she and Maurie had spent winters in Iowa City, Omaha, and a few other midwestern towns, but the cold here was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. It was a raw, windy, toothsome thing that whipped through your coat when you were outside and forced its way through windows and floorboards to trace its icy fingers against your cheek when you were inside. And it was just November. In San Diego it was still warm enough to barbecue. Every Sunday, Patrick had barbecued for them on his meticulously maintained Weber grill. He wore an apron that said
KISS THE COOK
, and he'd hold Justine's plate above her head until he collected his kiss.

His absence still felt like a phantom limb. She missed him; missed his laugh, missed his broad shoulders. And he was so capable. If he were here, he would take charge of fixing the oven, filling the propane tank, even going through the house. Often she turned around to say something to him as she washed the dishes, expecting him to be sitting at the table, or reached for her cell phone to see if he'd left a message, only to remember she'd left the phone in San Diego. At the same time, she reveled in the silence and the additional space she felt around her body without him. At night she read in Lucy's bed for an hour or more before turning out the light, something she'd never been able to do when Patrick lay beside her. He hated when she read—he wanted all her attention for himself—so she'd only been able to read during her lunch breaks.

She was watchful the way the unnoticed often are, the way she'd learned to be when Maurie brought her to whatever restaurant she was working in, put her at a table with a coloring book, and told her to make herself invisible. Every morning she sat in her booth at Ray's and watched the other customers from behind her newspa
per. Of all the places she and her mother had lived, she'd liked the small towns best, because the people there made for better watching. Unlike city people, who moved quickly and cultivated a lot of artifice, small town people were slow and transparent, even when they thought they were being secretive. So Justine could tell that Maisy the shoe store owner irritated everyone with her constant chatter, and that Mike the barber was desperate for a friend but made everything worse by standing too close to people. And when Quentin, one of the two brothers who ate breakfast at the counter, talked about his soldier-son she could tell from the way the other man, Nate, hunched his shoulders that his own son wasn't worth bragging about.

As for Ray herself, she was something of a town oracle. The neighboring business owners stopped in every morning to get their coffee and ask what she thought about everything from the high school football team's chances to the drifter panhandling outside the general store. Her opinions were succinct, often funny, and no one ever disputed them. T.J., the Chippewa cook, loved her with a forlorn fervor, and Justine liked her for the way she spoke to him, as if he were fragile.

She also liked Ray because Ray left her alone. Everyone seemed to know Justine was Lucy's great-niece, but whenever anyone asked Ray anything else about her, like where she'd come from, whether she was planning to stay, or whether she was married, Ray just shrugged. Eventually, just as they had in all the new schools, people stopped asking, and Justine felt herself slide into the background where she belonged.

She watched her daughters, too. Angela in particular worried her. Her normally cheerful child cried on the way home from school, saying she didn't fit in. Despite the new backpack she didn't dress right, in her Argyle sweaters from the Walmart. No one sat with her at lunch or wanted to partner with her for projects. They were studying Minnesota history and all she knew were the
missions and gold strikes of California. She missed Mrs. Fitz and Lizzie and Emma. Justine tried to placate her by letting her write postcards that she secretly didn't mail, but it didn't help.

Melanie was a worry of a more familiar sort. Justine had allowed herself to hope her oldest daughter's grim nature might be lightened by the chance to start over in a new town, but the child who lived in Lucy's house was the same sullen girl who'd lived in the San Diego apartment. She gave monosyllabic answers to Justine's questions and barely spoke to Angela. She shoved her homework in her backpack without showing it to Justine, her eyes defiant, just as she'd done back home. Justine hadn't known what to do about it then, and now she let it go without a word.

Thanksgiving came. When Justine was young, Thanksgiving was haphazard, celebrated or not depending on whether her mother had a boyfriend she wanted to cook for. So Justine had always tried to create for her family the kind of Thanksgivings she imagined other families had as a matter of course. She made centerpieces out of corn husks, used recipes from
Better Homes and Gardens,
and lit candles. This year, with the oven still broken, she bought a roast chicken at the Safeway and served it at room temperature with microwaved mashed potatoes and canned peas she heated on the stove. The girls ate without comment, as if it were any other day. Justine looked at the empty fourth chair and wondered with a pang of guilt what Patrick was doing. He was probably eating takeout in front of the television. This would have been their first Thanksgiving together, and if she'd stayed, she would have cooked all day for him.

She got up, found two candle stubs in the bottom of a drawer, and set them on tea plates. Angela smiled, but Melanie didn't seem to notice.

On Friday the girls had no school, so they went to the Paul Bunyan Mall in Bemidji, a modest indoor mall with a JCPenney and a
Kmart at either end. The mall was gaudy with red and green bunting and packed with people shopping the Black Friday sales. In the central plaza children lined up to whisper their hearts' desires to Santa while a middle-aged lady dressed as an elf took their picture. Justine thought of the many disappointments of her own childhood Christmases: the roller skates she'd wanted so she could skate with the other girls; the Barbie Dreamhouse everyone else got that one year. She thought about her daughters opening their Walmart presents on the brown carpet of the San Diego apartment year after year and wondered what secret, futile wishes they had made. She pulled them away from the North Pole and into the JCPenney.

Ten feet inside they ran into the makeup counter girl. “Care for a makeover?” she chirped. “It's free with any ten-dollar purchase!”

“Mommy, do it!” Angela's face was bright, her silver eyes reflecting the Christmas lights like twin mirrors. The makeup girl nodded at Justine in vigorous encouragement. She looked about nineteen. Her nametag said
CARRIE
in swirly handwritten letters. Hired for the season, Justine thought, trying to make it permanent. It was only ten dollars.

Carrie beamed as Justine sat on the metal stool. “You have a fabulous complexion. We'll just even it out with some foundation.” She pawed through a drawer, her inexperience with the product line obvious, before seizing a bottle of foundation and a sponge. As she bent close Justine smelled jasmine perfume, chamomile shampoo, and cigarettes. Angela sat on the stool beside her. Melanie stood behind Carrie, her fingers picking at her cuticles.

“You don't wear much makeup, do you?” Carrie said. “Are you married?” Justine shook her head. “Then you need come-hither eyes. We'll use Sapphire Jewel on the creases and blend it with Smokey Mist.”

Carrie's hands were surprisingly gentle with the eye shadow wand. With her eyes closed Justine couldn't see her daughters, but
she could feel their attention. She found herself enjoying this, sitting on a stool while another woman made her beautiful.

“What do you think?” Carrie asked the girls when she was done with Justine's eyes. Angela's face wore an expression of fascinated surprise. Melanie was frowning, but Carrie moved in with a lipstick and blocked her from Justine's view. “Honey Blossom will make all the men want to kiss you,” Carrie said as she painted it on. Her own lips were plump and red, traced with liner and parting to reveal crooked teeth and the tip of her pink tongue.

Two women had stopped to watch. Justine looked away, but now she saw that all the shoppers that passed glanced at her, and all of a sudden she felt ridiculous. She thought about what she'd gotten for those childhood Christmases instead of the toys she wanted: brushes, bows, lip gloss, perfume, makeup. Maurie wanted someone to play dress-up with; she'd thought that was what daughters were for. But Justine never liked the way men looked at her mother when she had her “face” on, so she'd been a disappointment that way.

At last Carrie turned her to the mirror. Justine didn't recognize herself. Her narrow lips were full and pink and shiny. Her eyes were enormous, with thick, curly lashes. Her skin looked waxen, the pores and her light spray of freckles invisible, and pools of rose bloomed on her cheekbones. She looked unreal, like a mannequin.

“Mommy, you're beautiful!” Angela said.

“Do you like it?” Carrie asked, proud. Behind her Melanie scowled, her eyes hard.

“It's great, thank you.” Justine slid off the stool and began to walk away.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Carrie put her hands on her hips. “You gotta buy something. Ten dollars, remember?”

“Oh, yes, sorry.” Justine grappled with her bag. “What do you have that costs ten dollars?”

“Well, the cheapest thing we got is fourteen.” Carrie's face was crafty and embarrassed at the same time. Justine handed her a twenty and left with a tube of mascara. Her face felt brittle. She kept her eyes on the scuffed floor tiles, but she was sure everyone they passed looked at her longer than they looked at anyone else.

Melanie was glaring at her with such disdain that finally Justine stopped. “What's the matter with you?”

“You look like a clown.”

Justine pulled her purse tight against her stomach. A woman in a pink velour sweat suit navigated a stroller around them.

“No, she doesn't! She looks beautiful!” Angela patted Justine's arm. “You look beautiful, Mommy.”

“Why do you want to look like that?” Melanie hissed. “So you can get another boyfriend? Another great guy to be our daddy?” Her eyes were slitted with fury.

Justine's face flamed beneath the creamy foundation. The woman with the stroller stopped, her features avid with piggish curiosity. Justine grabbed Angela's hand and walked away. She didn't look back to see if Melanie was following. When they reached the car she helped Angela inside, then got behind the wheel and waited until she heard Melanie shut the rear door before slamming the car into gear and driving away. It took an hour to get back to the lake. No one talked the entire way, and Justine didn't turn on the radio.

At home, Melanie walked straight to the living room, and Angela, after a quick look at her mother, followed her. Justine went upstairs to the bathroom, where she picked up the hand towel and wet it with soap and water.

Above the green porcelain sink her reflection stared back at her. The bulb buzzed in the metal ceiling fixture, and Justine rested her hands on the sink. In the muted light the makeup looked less garish than it had in the store. She turned her face from side to side. Melanie was wrong. She didn't look like a
clown. She didn't look beautiful, either. But she did look like someone you might notice.

She considered her reflection for a while longer, then scrubbed everything off.

When she got back to the kitchen the girls were watching television, some Disney thing, by the shrill voices. Justine's skin felt prickly-clean from the rough nap of the hand towel. It was five, and already it was night. They'd have sloppy joes and Tater Tots for dinner, with frozen corn on the side, and an early bedtime. Tomorrow they'd go back to the mall. What else was there to do? What had they done on Saturdays in San Diego? She couldn't remember. Patrick had planned it, whatever it was.

The phone rang, and she picked it up, bracing herself to tell the caller—last time it had been a dentist's office—Lucy was dead. Instead it was her mother.

Maurie got right to the point. “Did you find the ring?”