Tracking Time (14 page)

A
llegra Caldera was ashamed of herself for not telling the detectives her secret. She should have told them everything she knew the minute they said Maslow was missing. The whole city knew he was missing-everybody except her. This was all her fault. The whole thing. She could not forgive herself for continuing the lie.

After the police locked her out of his office, she walked downtown, back to the building where he lived. There, she wandered back and forth, waiting for him to return. When it started getting dark, she marched back uptown and hung around his office some more. She knew she was the most pathetic creature on earth.

She kept thinking that wherever she looked for him she had a ninety percent chance of missing him. By eight o'clock she was on Eighty-second Street again, standing by the park entrance where she had seen him last. He'd looked very small in his shorts and white T-shirt, really slim, about the same size as her father. Her father had his disappearances, too. She should have gotten used to them, but she never did.

When she was so dizzy with hunger that she could hardly stand up, she went to the coffee bar on Columbus and had a cup of espresso, no sugar. For her it was dinner. Finally at ten o'clock she entered the park once again.

Allegra thought she must have walked miles going nowhere at all before she finally sank down on the bench and let her grief out in great heaving sobs. She couldn't lose the only person in the world she really loved. She couldn't lose him before he knew her.

The Chinese cop had given Allegra her home number. Allegra still had it with her. The call box was right there, right near, where she was sitting. It was painted dark green and had a plaque that read "Gift of Central Park Conservancy" on it. She thought of calling the police on the phone. The detective had seemed very nice, understanding. Allegra wondered if she should call her and explain everything.

But what could she say? If she hadn't spooked Maslow, he wouldn't have had to avoid her. He wouldn't have had to run away. He would just have jogged right back out of the park as he was supposed to. She didn't understand why he hadn't just jogged back. He was angry at her, but he would never run away.

She didn't understand him at all. He was so rigid, just like her father. He hadn't let her explain last night. But the truth was Maslow never let her explain. He just never let her. No matter how hard she tried, he wouldn't let her take her story where it needed to go.

It made her sick to think that he was in the dark about so many things. And now he might never know her. Allegra sat there for a long time struggling with emotions that were too big to hold inside her. She loved her mother, loved her so much right at that moment. She wished she could go home and tell her mother everything. But her mother would be so angry. Her mother believed intelligent people should solve their own problems. Her father felt even stronger about it. He was almost a maniac about it. They both believed that psychiatrists were the very last resort, only for people who were
really
crazy. Allegra wasn't really crazy. Ordinary people like them could get over anything. Her mother wanted Allegra to just
get over it,
just get on with her life. She'd be furious, just furious at what

Allegra had done to get relief. So many lies her parents and she had told, and for what, so that she could expose them all in the end? No, she couldn't tell her mother.

There was another reason Allegra could not leave her bench and return home to her real identity. She was afraid to go on the subway. She couldn't go down those stairs and face the train tonight. Now she had even more reason to kill herself.

Allegra was in a state of extreme agitation when she saw the shadows of the two kids slinking into the park. Boy and girl. The boy, very big. The girl, little, like her. She frowned in the dark. She'd seen them last night. They'd come out of the park while she was waiting for Maslow to return. They'd been a mess. She remembered their wet sneakers, squishing as they walked past her. Again, she thought of calling the detective. Maybe they had seen Maslow. But she didn't call the police, and she was too tired to follow their fast pace. She moved to another bench and waited for them to come back.

T
anice Owen got home from work at eleven. The apartment was dark. She picked up the phone. There were no messages, not even from her husband, Bill. In the kitchen was a note left for David by Alvera, the housekeeper they'd had since David was two. The note read, "I waited to six. Can't wait no more. Pills came"- arrow to the refill of David's antidepressant, Zoloft, from the drugstore on the counter-"Your dinner in fridge, microwave five minutes. It's your favorite, chili. Alvera."

Janice was annoyed. She had to be a damn detective to find out what was going on with everybody. She read the note, furious on two counts. Alvera was supposed to stay until David got
home
so David wouldn't have to eat
alone
every night. As a devoted mother, Janice took a lot of care to make sure she had these things covered. She didn't like it when her carefully arranged schedule didn't work out according to plan. Now she finds out Alvera had left early
again,
and probably had counted on David to cover for her. The fact that the note was still sitting there meant either David had come home and left again because no one was home, or David had
not
come home and eaten his dinner and he'd lied when they'd talked on the phone. She'd spoken to him at seven during the cocktail hour before her business dinner. He'd told her then he was on his way home. But who knew with him.

These last few years David had been a huge pain in the neck. He wasn't "flourishing," so said the idiots at his fancy school. They'd wanted to kick him out. She and Bill had vigorously opposed hurting David in that way, so they'd had dozens of meetings with counselors, and testers, and psychiatrists to get David back on track. They wanted and expected and
needed
a kid who "flourished" just the way they had. The kid was loved and cared for. There was no reason for him not to do well.

She was most gratified to find out that the important tests, the intelligence ones, showed that David was smart, not stupid. He just didn't concentrate well. He was depressed. They'd gotten him one of the best psychiatrists, referred by the counselor at school, an expert on Attention Deficit Disorders. The psychiatrist prescribed medications; the school had been appeased by David's test scores and granted him a stay of execution. After all her hard work promoting David's cause to the school, plus their investment of thousands of dollars in fees for tests and consultations, diagnosis, medication, and treatment, Janice had been confident they'd finally gotten
everything
worked out last spring. He'd done well at camp.

But now in only the second week of school David was starting to slip already. She was very
angry
at him for letting her down. She couldn't bear the idea of starting the year like this and having him get behind again. She didn't need this.

Before she'd gotten home, Janice had felt successful. She'd left the office early to have a forty-minute massage, a facial, and her hair blow-dried for the event that evening. At the dinner, she'd been complimented on her new red-and-black Escada suit that her sales consultant at the Fifty-seventh Street store had advised her to take even though Janice had been afraid the standout color was something of a risk. Elaine of Escada, who was well informed on these matters, had insisted that combinations of red, gray, and black were going to be the power colors this season. The whole of last year had been gray, gray, gray, completely unrelieved, and it had been a horrible, difficult year all around. The color of spring and summer had been pink, pink, pink everywhere. She didn't wear pink. Since Janice was afraid she'd lose her job in the new merger, she'd taken the plunge for red. Yesterday her boss and associates had liked the suit, so she felt hopeful if
they
didn't get fired, she wouldn't get fired. At dinner, she'd enjoyed the wine and the food.

But now she was upset again. She did not want to be upset with her wonderful courageous David-who had a problem flourishing because of his ADD, which made her feel guilty because she had no idea where it came from since she and Bill were so
very
focused-so she played detective and looked in the fridge for the chili. She knew if he'd eaten it that he had come home after speaking to her. She hoped this was the case. Unfortunately, the chili was still there, wrapped in plastic wrap, sprinkled with cheese and onions the way he liked it. David was a big eater, despite the terrible pain he had from the
awful
Ritalin all the doctors bar none said he had to take to concentrate on his schoolwork. If David had come home, he would have eaten the chili. Janice wandered into her son's room, her pleasure in the wonderful evening draining away with every passing minute. "Jesus!"

There was clutter everywhere. Toys from when David was ten. Pennants from camp. Books, papers, used and unused athletic equipment. Even though Alvera cleaned it up and changed the sheets every week, it smelled horrible. Stale, sweaty boy smell and who knew what else. It occurred to her that she should search his room for signs of drug use. All the ads about kids said she ought to be thinking about this, and she knew other mothers who probed and pried
constantly.
But David said the idea of drugs disgusted him, and that was good enough for her.

The room tugged at Janice's heart. She resisted the urge to snoop. The kid had problems studying, that was all; it wasn't his fault. He was brave about it, terribly brave, she knew. The other boys teased him because he was big. He was in a hard school and struggling to stay there-and as it turned out he
deserved
to be there. He was no dummy. The kid surprised them all with his psychological testing. The kid was actually
smart.
He could do the work if he wanted to. He could be a star.

By eleven David was supposed to be, if not
in
bed, at least in his room and
ready
for bed. Still, Janice didn't want to jump to conclusions. Maybe she had misunderstood him. Maybe he had a good excuse. She went back into the kitchen and sat on the stool in the kitchen, played with Alvera's note, and called David on his cell phone. The phone rang three times before the answering function picked up.

"Hey, it's David. I'm not here right now. Leave a message."

This upset Janice even more. How could he not be there right now? He had the thing in his
pocket.
Janice screamed into the phone. "David! Call me right
now.
You know the rules. It's a
school
night! I'm supposed to know where you
are."
She slammed down the receiver.

Then she realized she hadn't told him where she was, so she called again.
"David!
I'm at home."

She hung up a second time and marched into her room to undress. It was a hard, masculine room, everything in colors of beige and brown because Bill didn't like anything girly. She wasn't surprised that
Bill
wasn't home. He worked even longer hours than she did and was often out of town. This upset her, too. Despite the comforting massage, tension crept back into her neck and shoulders. She wished Bill were there to consult about David.

When they were together the couple talked about David and his problems endlessly. Usually he was in the other room because neither of them actually spent any leisure time with him. It was difficult when he was so sullen. So their family outings consisted of dinner together Saturday nights at one of the better restaurants and that was
it.
Although
that
was a lot of fun. The three of them recorded and rated every meal in a journal, carefully listing what they'd eaten and drunk and how much they liked or were disappointed by the restaurant.

David remembered every single thing about every restaurant from the time he was three. She could call him up any time of the day and ask him about something they'd done years ago, and he could tell her without having to look it up in the journal. Sometimes she'd be in a meeting and she'd call him with the question just to impress her friends.

They didn't do anything else but eat for entertainment. Bill was focused on his legal cases; he wasn't athletic, wasn't interested in the theater or movies or having a country house. If they planned a vacation, it was always with the caveat that he might have to cancel at the last minute. Even by Janice's standards he was a workaholic. She was angry with him for not being as good a father as she was a mother, but she would have liked his advice tonight.

Finally she poured herself another drink and turned on the news. On the news she heard a story about a missing man in Central Park. This alarmed her further because she knew that David played there with that
really nasty
girlfriend of his who she wished would fall off a cliff and die. She waited for her son and husband to come home from wherever they went to escape her. She had another drink and fell asleep.

G
o to bed, Mom-everything's fine." Wearily, April closed the front door of the house and climbed the stairs to her two-room apartment. Dim Sum joyously yapped at her feet and her mother followed close behind.

"That big rie,
ni.
I see you on TV, small news tlee time." Skinny Dragon Mother began to wheeze. For almost ten years, since she'd stopped working, she'd gotten no exercise. Leisure time hadn't been good for her. "What's long with boyflen?" Even though the front door was closed and Skinny didn't have to show off her English for the neighbors, she screamed in English anyway.

"Go to bed, Ma." April's nose told her that her mother had had a big day. She'd walked three blocks to the beauty parlor. The chemicals that curled her two inches of naturally straight gray hair into a fine frizz and dyed it black and shiny as shoe polish smelled like a combination of ammonia and artificial raspberry jam.

She relented.

"You look great, Ma. Did you get your hair done today?"

"No!" Skinny slammed the door as hard as she could. "Don't cly," she ordered. "Get betta boyflen. One two tlee."

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"Call tlee time."

"I told you. Everything's fine." April threw her purse on the hot pink tufted sofa from Little Italy that she'd bought both as a great luxury and a rebellion from the hard Chinese chairs in the living room. The effort of not thinking about Carla's long tanned legs made her head feel as heavy as a brick.

Skinny Dragon Mother flashed one of her powerful silent messages that only an idiot wouldn't understand. Message 403 was a bit of detective work worthy of any squad in the city:
Everything couldn't be fine. Worm daughter slept at home last night and night before. Came home tonight again. Tomorrow day off. If everything so fine, why no boyfriend for three days?
Skinny was so excited by the prospect of April's failure at love with a Spanish ghost, she'd stopped the wheezing for the moment. Her renewed health didn't help April's morale one bit.

"One two tlee," she repeated, about getting a new boyfriend.

April didn't miss much, either. Usually the Dragon- real name Sai Yuan Woo-was happy to show off her brightly colored, look-like-silk blouses that didn't match the patterns of her slacks and jackets. This was her attempt at scaling the peaks of high American style. But tonight she'd dressed down; she was wearing her peasant outfit. Black peasant pants, shapeless black cotton jacket, black canvas shoes with the rubber band across the top. She must have changed when Mike called those three times trying to reach her. Whenever the Dragon dressed this way, she wanted to hide her true motives and true self. Her goal was to appear humble and simple to the daughter she wanted to control, and nothing special to the gods who ruled the heavens and earth so they wouldn't confuse her prosperity in Astoria, Queens, USA, with happiness and cause her harm. Whenever Sai became a peasant, ten kinds of bad luck for April were on the way. The outfit was as lethal as a voodoo hex.

The phone rang, the dog started barking, April stood there, certain that pins were sticking in the real her. The ringing phone caused her mother-way overbalanced at the moment with aggressive male yang-to grab her arm and roughly shake her. Skinny was several inches shy of five feet and weighed about three and a half pounds, but she spun April around with no trouble. The phone rang a few more times. April ignored it. "Maybe boss," Skinny screamed. "It's not my boss."

"How know,
nil
Maybe lose job." Sai punched April's arm. She didn't want worm daughter to lose job until she had a rich Chinese husband. When she wasn't calling April worm daughter, she called her
ni,
which was just plain old you.

"Okay, okay." The screaming that passed for love in the Woo household propelled April into the bedroom just in case Maslow had been found in the last hour and she'd missed it. But they both knew the caller was the Spanish threat to the Han dynasty.

"Sergeant Woo," she said into the receiver.

"Querida,
why are you acting like this? Are you crazy? Carla is nothing to me. She's just a mixed-up girl I helped once. I told her all about you. She has the highest opinion of you. You're overreacting. You know what girls are like. This is nothing." Mike blabbered into the phone.

"Mi
amor,
I know what girls are like.
La puta
was wearing my nightgown, demanding money from you."

"What's this
puta?"
Skinny Dragon screamed.

"Ma!" April put a finger to her lips.

"I can explain it," Mike insisted.

"Well, explain some other time. Stealing my case and cheating on me in one day is more than I can swallow."

"Bu hao waiguoren, guole,"
the Dragon muttered happily. Looked to her like the Han dynasty was safe for another day.

"That's not fair," Mike protested.

"Fair has nothing to do with it." The teenager was in his apartment. She was scantily clad and she was not his sister. Mike didn't have a sister. And she wasn't his cousin because she didn't speak Spanish. April knew Carla was one of those girls on the phone that Mike talked to longer than he should. He was certainly guilty of letting her spend the night. And he was guilty of not saying a thing about it this morning.

Skinny picked up a pillow from April's pathetic single bed and started whacking it with gusto. She was having the time of her life. "New boyflen, one, two, tlee," was her new chant.

"April, I don't want to end the evening like this. I made a mistake. I had a couple of beers and let her crash at my place. She slept on the sofa. I swear I didn't touch her," Mike insisted. "I never promised her any money or any clothes. Trust me on this."

Oh, now he'd been drunk. It was sounding worse and worse. "Thank you for sharing that. I happen to know that men will do anything when they're drunk," she said softly. "What do you think they invented alcohol for? I love you, but don't call me back tonight, okay? I just need to calm down." April hung up. She didn't want to fight with her mother listening.

Skinny finished punching the pillow and patted her new hairdo. "You hunglee. I got good dinna. Happy famree clab, Oh Oh soup, flied lice, ramb and scarrions." Skinny reeled off the menu.

Her mother's cycle of batter then feed filled April with a deep sadness. Why would her mother be glad to see her lose face? Her cheeks burned yet another time and tears that she would never in a million years let escape prickled painfully behind her eyes. Why couldn't she have a sweet and sympathetic mother? The phone started to ring again. She decided not to answer it. Skinny's silence as she trotted down the stairs for food from her kitchen spoke loudly. Triumph had never been sweeter.