Where I Lost Her (15 page)

I
sit in a plastic chair at the edge of the pool and watch Plum swim. Because of his sister's accident, Devin insisted that both girls learn how to swim as babies. I remember watching him dunking Zu-Zu under water when she wasn't even walking yet, amazed by the instinctual closing of her eyes and holding of her breath. The way her tiny arms and legs propelled to keep her from sinking. As a result, both girls are practically amphibious: as at ease in water as they are on land.

The pool is filled with children this afternoon; it's one of the few places in Quimby where kids can hang out all day in the summer. There are only a few parents here, the ones whose children are still swimming in the baby pool. One mother blows up a pair of bright pink water wings while her diapered toddler splashes her chubby hands in the water. Her friend sprays down a little towheaded boy with sunscreen. Most parents just pull up to the gate and drop their kids off with enough money to pay the admission fee, and for a snack from the snack bar. Effie and I spent most of our summers here when we were kids as well. I learned how to swim in the cold blue depths of this pool, got my first kiss in the playground beyond the gate.

“Aunty Tess, watch!” Plum hollers and dives into the water, doing a handstand, her skinny brown legs sticking out of the water like a frog's. I smile and clap as she emerges, triumphant, and then slips into the water again.

For hours, I sit and watch her. Feeling the sun on my back, wishing I'd brought sunscreen. The sky is bright today, though in the distance I can see some dark clouds moving slowly toward us. I suspect it will be another hour or so before they cover the sun, and we might get some rain.

After Plum is done, shivering inside her beach towel, teeth chattering like the clacking keys of a typewriter, I bring her to the ice cream truck that is parked in the parking lot. She is overwhelmed by the colorful signs plastered to the front, takes forever to make up her mind before ordering an ice cream that looks like Tweety Bird's head. It's one of the same milky pastel treats offered when I was a kid, and I have the fleeting thought that maybe it's some sort of relic of the past, having sat in the truck's freezer for the last thirty years.

“What are you getting?” Plum asks, licking at the already-melting confection.

“Nothing for me,” I say.

As we drive back to the lake, I think about what I should do next. I had planned to go to Strickland, to get him to at least look into this guy Sharp. But now that Ryan, Ryan Hughes, fellow camper, my
lawyer,
has insisted I not go to the police, I feel aimless, restless. Like I need to do something, but my hands are tied.

I remember Lisa, the day care, and think that at least she should know. It seems crazy to me that the state doesn't require anything of these criminals beyond simply checking in with law enforcement. I know all of the information is available online, but there's no Internet access out here. Effie said that half of the year-round residents at the lake rely on the library's computers for Web access.

“Where are we going?” Plum asks as we turn into the day care's driveway.

“I just need to stop by here really quick,” I say.

“Can I stay in the car?”

I start to say yes, and then realize I don't want to leave her anywhere alone. Not at the pool, and certainly not out here near these woods.

“Why don't you come with me,” I say.

We walk through the chain-link gate to the doorway, and I knock on the door. I can hear a loud TV blasting cartoons inside and the sounds of kids squealing. There is the distant sound of a dog barking, probably in the backyard. I don't remember there being a dog here before.

Lisa opens the door, looking frazzled. She's got a baby in her arms again, and there's a line of spit-up running down her T-shirt. A baby gate separating us looks like it's seen better days.

“Hi, Lisa? I'm Effie's friend? The bookmobile? Um, we were here the other day, handing out flyers about the little girl that went missing.”

“The cops say it was a hoax,” she says, her chin jutted out defiantly. Angrily.

“Well, that's not why I'm here,” I say, feeling flustered.

“Then why
are
you here?” she asks. “I don't see no bookmobile.”

“It's actually about one of your neighbors. The guy who lives in that house down the road, the one with all the trailers?”

She shrugs. “What about 'em?”

“I just thought you should know he's a registered sex offender. I don't know if you knew that already, but with the kids here . . .” I trail off.

Her expression is not what I expected. Not shock or dismay, but anger.

“This is my place of business,” she says, hoisting the baby up higher onto her hip.

“I know,” I say, nodding. “And I thought you'd appreciate knowing. Apparently, the state doesn't require any notification for the neighbors. . . .”

“Do you have any idea what would happen if these kids' parents found out?”

“What?” I say, baffled.

“They'd be
gone
. Every last one of 'em, and where would that leave me?”

I don't know what to say. I am stunned.

“And why should I believe you anyway? You come here making shit up about some little girl in the woods, and now you're telling me my own neighbor's some sort of pervert?”

“I'm sorry,” I say.

The dog barks louder and louder.

“Let him in,” Lisa hollers over her shoulder. I can see the silhouette of a boy behind her in the living room. I hear a sliding door open, and the sound of nails across the floor as the animal comes running through the house, barking, barking.

I start to back up.

“I'm sorry,” I say again. “I just thought it was your right to know.”

And then the dog is at the precarious baby gate that separates me from Lisa. It growls, its teeth bared. It's a large black dog, a square head, its ears hacked off.

Holy shit. It's the dog from the white truck.

“P
lum, honey. Go get in the car. I'll be there in one second,” I say, and she runs to the car in the driveway. I hear the door slam shut.

The dog is growling, pushing against the baby gate.

Lisa yanks the dog back by its collar with her free hand and starts to close the door. “Wait,” I say. “Whose dog is that?”

She stops, just as the door is about to slam shut, but she doesn't answer me.

“It's just that I saw someone, the night I saw the girl. He was driving a white truck, and he had a dog.
That
dog. I remember the ears.”

I can only see a sliver of her now. Somewhere in the depths of the house a baby cries.

“It's
my
dog,” she says. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

And then she is gone. The door slammed shut.

I go to my car and open the driver's side door. Plum is already reading a book she's pulled from her backpack, eating an apple slice from a plastic ziplock bag.

“That was a mean dog,” she says, without looking up from her book.

I nod. “I know. I'm sorry if you were scared.”

“I wasn't scared,” she says. “I wonder what happened to its ear. It looks like somebody cut it off with scissors. No wonder it's mean.”

I nod again.

I am reeling as I back out of the long driveway. A half dozen little faces are pressed against the house's windows, peering out at me.

Plum shoves her book back into her backpack and sits staring out the window.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods.

I shouldn't have dragged her along on this little visit. But then again, I hadn't exactly expected it to go like this either.

“I miss Zu-Zu,” she says softly.

“Oh, sweetie,” I say, partly relieved that her sudden sullenness has nothing to do with whatever it is that just happened at that house. But mostly I am concerned. Her eyes are full of tears.

“I bet you do,” I say. “Maybe when we get back to the camp we can write her a letter. Put together a care package for her?”

“What's a care package?” she asks, interest piqued.

“It's like a box filled with things that she loves. Treats. Books or cookies. Something to make her happy if she's feeling homesick.”

“I got homesick once,” she says, nodding knowingly. “At my friend Maddy's house. Daddy had to come get me in the middle of the night.”

I nod.

“What if Zu-Zu gets homesick in the middle of the night? Would my daddy go and get her?”

“I'm sure he would,” I say. “But if we send her a care package, maybe it will keep her from getting homesick.”

And thinking about care packages makes me think about art camp. About the smell of the musty cabin, the lumpy mattress. About the girl I was back then. A girl who could find poetry in chickens. A girl who wanted nothing more than to make beautiful things with words. I feel suddenly, strangely homesick for that girl with all her beautiful longing and hope.

Plum looks out the window again, studies the green that whirs past us as we drive the last stretch around the lake before we see their house through the trees.

“I didn't think I would miss her. Because she's actually not very nice, but I do. I even miss her yelling at me.”

I smile and we pull into the driveway.

 

The clouds I saw at the pool earlier are filling the sky now. We eat dinner outside, but the air feels ominous, thick. Effie builds a fire in the stone fire pit, and we make s'mores. Effie's all turn out golden and perfect. I burn almost every single one.

When Plum goes in to bed, Effie and I sit by the fire and I tell her about what happened with Lisa. First, about her strange reaction about Lincoln Sharp.

“Isn't it weird that she'd be more concerned with losing business than with the safety of the kids?” I ask.

Effie shakes her head. “Jesus.”

“Do you know her well?” I ask. “Lisa?”

“No, not at all. Just from my bookmobile route,” she says.

“Have you ever seen a dog there before?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not that I can remember. Why?”

And so then I tell her about the dog.

“Why would she lie about it being hers?” she asks. “It doesn't make any sense. Are you sure it's the same dog as in the truck?”

“Yes. I remember because its ears were messed up. Like somebody tried to cut them off with scissors.”

“I have never understood why people do that,” Effie says.

“What's that?”

“Cutting their ears. It seems so cruel.”

I think of Plum's similar reaction. It's so funny to see how traits—both physical and personality—are passed down from parent to child. Physically, Plum is the perfect amalgam of Devin and Effie. But her personality is all Effie. Sweetness and compassion, a raw vulnerability, that reveals itself tender, like a bruise.

“Oh my God, I totally forgot to tell you about Ryan, the lawyer. Remember that art camp I went to in high school? He went there too.”

“Seriously?” she says.

“I
know
. I don't remember him, but he remembers me.”

“That's nuts,” she says.

“I always forget how small this town is.”

“So he says you can't go to the cops about this guy. What are you supposed to do now?”

“I don't know. My plan had been to get Strickland to dig a little deeper. To at least go check this guy's place out. But Ryan said that I shouldn't give the cops any more ammunition. They're trying to make the case that I'm a liar, that this whole thing is some sort of elaborate scheme to get attention. I guess he thinks this is just going to exacerbate the problem. But meanwhile, there's a freaking pedophile living down the road, next to a day care for Christ's sake, and nobody seems to give a shit.”

Effie sighs, rubs her temples with her fingers.

“Never mind that there is a little girl somewhere out there. While we're here playing point-the-finger, she's probably cold and hungry and scared.” What I don't say is that all of this is assuming she's still alive.

We both look at the fire, watch as a spark alights on a sliver of wood. Listen to the crackle and hiss as it catches, as it sparks and ignites. As it combusts and burns.

We sit by the fire until it is not much more than a pile of blackened remains and glowing embers. I can see Effie is exhausted, but I also know she'd stay out here with me all night if I needed her to.

“You should go to bed,” I say.

“You okay?” she asks.

I nod, and she stretches and yawns before standing up. She comes over to me and hugs me. She smells like burned marshmallows, and I can see a little bit of white sticky fluff in her hair.

“You're wearing some of Plum's s'more,” I say.

“Ugh,” she says. “I'm going to go take a shower.”

“I'll be in in just a little bit,” I say.

After she goes inside, I use a stick and break up the remaining embers, push them around until they turn to ash. I finish the bottle of wine. When the fire is nearly out, I make my way across the dewy grass and into the camp.

I know I need to check in with Jake. It's Monday; the auction was today. Despite everything, he's going to want to share the news. But now that the auction is likely over, or at least the bids are all in, I wonder what excuses he'll come up with to stay in New York. I know that he won't come back with Devin on Wednesday. I almost don't want to hear his lame attempts to justify his absence. I'm already angry as I dial his cell number.

Effie is in the shower; I can hear the groaning pipes in the walls.

I sit in the kitchen nook, doodling on the notepad Effie keeps near the phone. The phone doesn't even ring but rather goes straight to voice mail, and this pisses me off. It's nearly midnight. He'll tell me tomorrow that he was out celebrating. That the entire office went down the street for drinks. And I won't have to ask if she was there. Because I will hear it in every single one of his sighs. In between his words.

“Hey, it's me. Just calling to check in to see how the auction went. You're probably out celebrating. Give me a call tomorrow,” I say. And then I hang up.

Effie comes out of the shower with her hair turbaned in a towel. She smells like soap. She looks at me expectantly. “Did you get a hold of Jake?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

Effie says, “Try not to worry. I'll help you figure out what to do tomorrow.”

I think she's talking about Jake. As if there can be a solution to this problem. As though any of this is fixable. Or worth fixing even.

She goes to the sink and gets a glass of water.

“There's got to be a way to get someone to look into this Sharp guy. Maybe I can call it in for you? Like an anonymous tip?”

I shrug. “I just need to sleep on it, I think.”