Gretchen
Page 4
Daddy?
“Um. My mom and I just play by whatever rules are on the box.”
“Oh, ha. Right,” she says, shaking her head at herself, indicating she knows she’s being silly. She loses her smile and steps closer, as if she’d tested the waters and is now going deeper. A red patch on her collarbone pulses. “So, like, what about puzzles?” She scrunches her shoulders around her neck, seems she’s bracing herself in case my answer whiplashes her. I’m looking into the top of her head; her blondish hair is thin. Her scalp is visible and has freckles.
“Puzzles? Like crossword? Sure. And I like Sudoku,” I say, running my fingers along the books on a shelf. Some Stephen King, an old dictionary, a Debbie Macomber, a paperback Koontz, and several others I haven’t heard of yet and am dying to pry open.
Gretchen leans back and shifts her eyes to the green pictures on the wall, which now I can tell are actually finished and shellacked puzzles. Duh. She meant those kinds of puzzles. I hadn’t focused too much on the pictures, too distracted by the colors and the sound of the wind and the intoxicating vanilla and the fact I’ll have a whole entire built-in bookcase with multiple shelves of books if we land this rental. I’ve been focusing on the forest and not the trees.
“Right, oh. You mean puzzle puzzles.” I step to the wall with the framed puzzles. Looking closer, there is way more detail than two squares of green. What they each show are thick, layered leaves in a rich canopy. The layering of the leaves appears to be, and indeed is, the scales of mermaid tails; the barely perceptible limbs of the trees are the mermaids’ limbs. The remainder of the mermaid bodies are found in the various ways the leaves cluster or are layered. And the individual puzzle pieces are themselves cut in the shapes of mermaids and leaves. Looks like a crazy, complicated puzzle.
“Yes, yes. Exactly. Jigsaw puzzles. I should have been more specific. Not crosswords,” Gretchen is saying as I study the puzzle. When I’m done, I look to her, and she rolls her hands together while shifting her gaze to the floor. “But yeah, I do like Sudoku. I mean jigsaw puzzles, though. Do you like those?” She’s pointing at the mermaid trees on the wall.
“Yeah. They’re really cool.”
“I made them. From scratch,” she mumbles.
“Wow. Really?”
She shrugs and twitches. After a weird pause, she says, “Do you like to do puzzles?” She steps closer, not smiling. She’s in my personal space, but then again, maybe I’m too sensitive. I typically do not like to be within five feet of people. I need to make myself try here. I need a friend. I like this home.
“Sure,” I say. She leans in even closer, wanting more of an answer, and so I fish fast for more to say. “I mean. I don’t hate them,” I add. She seems to want me to be bananas about puzzles, but I can’t lie. I can’t start this friendship by being a total phony. “I can’t remember the last time I did one. That’s pretty incredible that you made these puzzles.”
“Oh,” she says. Her smile hasn’t returned. “Yeah.”
“They’re super cool.” I step away from her and to the farthest puzzle. “I’m sure I’d love doing puzzles with you.” I suddenly don’t want to let this pulsing girl down, and I wish she’d smile again, or at least that her wild skin would chill to an even coolness.
“Good!” she shouts, as if she’s decided right this second to be happy again. “I have a lot. Like, a lot a lot of jigsaw puzzles. Like, not common die-cuts either. I have homemade, custom, antique, top-of-the-line Par, Stave . . .” She trails off when she realizes I’m giving her a confused look. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Never mind,” she says, studying the floor, rolling again those nervous fingers of hers.
I begin to pace, circling the colorful queen bed, considering how, in comparing Gretchen to other girls in other schools, she must be somewhat of a nerdy outcast. She is surely no Jenny. I think she must be lonely, but unlike me in the sense I mostly don’t mind being alone, and I usually find a Jenny to sit with in silence at lunch. Maybe Gretchen needs me more than I need a friend. Is that even possible? And with her living at the top of the hill, she’s a built-in, convenient friend, and I wouldn’t have to concoct all those lies to avoid get-togethers and weekend sleepovers with other potential friends. Because Mom doesn’t allow sleepovers, and she never allowed playdates. Then she’d have to meet other parents, and she fears they’ll connect the dots by seeing both of us together too much. I’m nervous, though, nervous this is exactly what Mom’s thinking, out in the living room with Jerry, checking out the rest of the place. Surely she’s feeding her paranoia, and any second she’ll burst in here with an excuse for us to split.
“Ugh,” Gretchen says, breaking into my awkward silence. She’s standing in the doorway; I’m staring out the window to the big oaks in the picnic field of the out beyond. “I know. I know. I sound like such a nerd. I’m sorry. I don’t have a lot of friends. I totally get it if you ditch me. You seem really cool. I’m totally out of your league.”
Literally nobody is out of my league. I have no league.
“Gretchen,” I say, turning from the window and facing her, “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. I don’t think you’re a nerd.” This is a lie, but a white lie—it’s okay. “I’d love to play board games and do puzzles with you. Sounds like a different kind of fun I haven’t had in a long time.”
Gretchen giggles. “You’re a swearer. I knew you were cool.”
And the fact she categorizes teens who swear as swearers cements her as a definite loner nerd. Whatever. I’ll take what I can get. It’s not like I’m some grand-prize friend.
“Come on. Let’s see if our parents made a deal.”
We head to the living room and stop and stand at the end of the two super-cushiony red love seats facing each other. One parent on each middle cushion.
Whatever they were talking about, they stop. “Girls,” Mom says.
“So, Susan,” Jerry says, “what do you think?”
Mom’s fake-ID name is Susannah Mary Smith, because the first two names can be contorted into a number of different variations and combos, and the last name is so completely ubiquitous—ubiquitous. I know complicated words. Maybe I can beat Gretchen at Scrabble under North American rules, box rules, or whatever rules, not with ubiquitous—that would be wicked hard to play—but something. Maybe all my reading gives me a vocab advantage. I could con her, convince her I’m a novice, and when I win, maybe impress her. She seems super into game play.
I nod to Mom, screaming at her in my brain how much I friggin’ love this joint and, please, for the love of every jellyfish in the world, rent it. Please. Mom stretches all ten fingers straight, clenches them into fists, then straightens again. This is her way of landing on a decision.
“We love the place,” Mom says to Jerry. She turns to Gretchen and adds, “Gretchen, you did a great job with the furnishing and decor. You must be very talented.”
Gretchen smiles at Mom and scrunches her nose. “Thanks,” she says in a shy way, which is so unlike her bounding, forceful voice when she first crashed on the scene. I’m unsure what’s her true nature. Gretchen seems a puzzle herself.
“Gretchen ordered from Wayfair. The dressers, the tables, cabinets, beds, these sofas. Did everything by herself,” Jerry says. “All while I’m away in Boston or when I’m practicing. I’m impressed.” He winks at his daughter.
Gretchen holds herself, casting shy eyes to the corner of her father’s love seat, and sways. “I really like puzzles,” she says.
I’m confused, because I’m not sure why she’d continue on with the puzzles when we’re talking about furniture. She catches whatever confused expression is on my face and nods with a head shake. “Oh. Sorry. Some of the stuff from Wayfair comes disassembled. You have to put everything together. Some come in a ton of parts. Like a puzzle.”
“Ah,” I say. “Cool.” With a slight scrunch of my shoulders in Mom’s direction, I toss her the conversation baton, because I don’t know where to go from here.
“Utilities, yep. All included,” Jerry says.
“And you don’t mind us paying in cash? I may be an extremist, sorry, about not trusting the US banking system. I’m a single mom, so perhaps I might be overprotective.”
“Cash is actually better for us, if you know what I mean,” Jerry says, and winks behind his giant dad glasses. This guy needs an update bad. Minus the pleats in his khakis, turn those rectangle rims into contemporary wayfarers, minus the god-awful loafers with no socks, and trim his receding hair into a Caesar cut, and he might, maybe, be handsome. Or at least not as boring as driving on straight highways through the Midwest for endless hours. Then again, he is a dad, and I don’t have a dad, and it’s probably better for dads to be boring, as long as they’re present. I must be staring too long in thought at Jerry, because he pushes his lips in a kind smile my way, making his otherwise muscly cheeks puff out. I wonder about his wife, and if she’s around, and if she’s as nice as Jerry seems. Nobody has mentioned a wife or mom yet.
“Deal,” Mom says. She extends her hand to Jerry, and the two adults shake.
As in every place we’ve rented, we’ve entered into a conspiracy to allow the landlord to hide rental income from the IRS. We like landlords like this.
Now I’m the one doing a happy bounce, and Gretchen is back to doing hers. I’ve never done a happy bounce before. I think Gretchen might be infectious. Inside my mind, I’m bouncing high, thinking of showing Allen all these rooms and snuggling with him tonight in our new, big, colorful bed, with the window open, listening to the symphony of wind rushing through leaves. I know Allen will purr, and I know he’ll love it. He won’t need catnip to chill tonight. And I won’t cry myself to sleep.
Jerry interrupts my daydream.
“Why don’t you two unpack, bring Allen in. I’m sure your cat needs to eat. Gretchen and I will go up and get the lease together. Nothing, a page for liability, is all. And then, oh, let’s say around one-ish, we meet back here. We’ll bring you some subs. We can then talk about some important boundaries you need to know about on the property. And I suppose we’ll need to also talk about some rumors in town you might hear. Nothing big, just want to make sure you hear it from us first. Sound good? You like turkey clubs?”
Mom clenches and withdraws; she tolerates so little when it comes to where we live and who we associate with. So the mention of strict boundaries and “rumors in town” is throwing her, I know. But I steel my eyes into hers, forcing her to stay strong. I’m not letting the pattern begin again so soon.
“We love turkey clubs, Mr. Sabin, thank you,” I say, before Mom can come up with some excuse to extricate us. “But could we have no mayo, please?”
“You got it, kiddo,” Jerry says with a big-cheek dad smile.
CHAPTER FOUR
MOTHER
Whenever she thinks about the monster who took her daughter, strong, slicing shivers shake her whole body. The fear of it, the anger boiled into it, all for what? Why? She knows why, but she may never know the true why. The true answer that would explain how anyone could take a baby girl from the mother who loved her to a point of self-extinction.
Her baby girl was two when the monster clutched her to his (or her?) chest when her attention was distracted. Only a split second of comparing different baby-jar labels too long on a store shelf. Gerber or Beech-Nut. Gerber or Beech-Nut. And him or her, brazen and entitled and bold, caught on black-and-white video in his/her ball cap and mustache. The cops said the kidnapper could be a small man or a woman in disguise. Could be anyone, someone who knew her or someone who was hired by someone who knew her. Someone who knew the precise moment, the precise place, to strike, but to also make it appear to be an untraceable rando taking her baby in public.
She’d been tracked, they knew from spotting his or her unregistered Datsun on CCTV on the surrounding streets, following her into the Sunday-crazy-busy Bing’s Superstore parking lot, following her down aisles, into the baby-girl clothes section, and then into the food section, all on the store’s security cams. The perpetrator’s face was obscured by a hat’s rim and a mustache. And her own actions—she made the cops show her the store’s video—her sauntering around all disgustingly, unforgivably unaware, humming songs in her daughter’s face, blowing popping kisses on her perfect nose. Pushing the Bing’s mega cart, fingering hanging shirtsleeves, running her palm over tempting white towels, reading sale prices on multicolored sneakers she didn’t need, oblivious in her humming, kissing her baby’s face when she giggled. And then the empty aisle with the damn baby jars. Gerber or Beech-Nut, Gerber or Beech-Nut. Her baby girl was two already and eating solids, but baby girl loved the taste of those jarred purees, so she’d mix them in her mix of meals. Whatever her baby girl loved, she loved.
She pulled her baby girl up out of the seat in the cart and let her stretch her chunky baby legs. She’d been walking since she was one, a whole year of practice. Gerber or Beech-Nut. Pulling her out of the cart was only to let her baby stretch while she decided between Gerber and Beech-Nut. Gerber or Beech-Nut.
What hypnotics were in those labels that so consumed her she didn’t see her baby girl run down the entire length of the aisle in a second flat like she was Flo-Jo? What was it about the dietary nutritional facts in tiny font that blinded her when her baby girl turned the corner at the aisle’s cap? The monster snatched her baby girl outright—fast as a cat to a moth. No shit, she’d been tracked. No shit, Sherlock.
Gerber and Beech-Nut can fuck off. They’re the same damn thing to her now. She shouldn’t have wasted a second on any consternation over any difference.
And now when she drives long miles between states, she questions her current motives. Why? Why this running? Will there ever be an end? Should this be the end? What if all this scouring and researching locations and looking over and around and under her shoulders at every nook and cranny everywhere could stop? When? No, she can’t stop. It’s her fault, all her fault, for bringing her baby girl into a dangerous world. She has no right to settle down and stop. She’s on an eternal mission to fix this and protect her.
Her sisters never understood. Well, maybe Carly understands. Carly, her big sis, the one who stepped in and acted like a mother when their parents died in a crash. She doesn’t remember her parents because she was only two when they died, but Carly, thirteen at the time, she remembers. Living with their aunt and uncle was to Carly a fake existence, so, as Carly would explain, she had to act like their real mom and make the best of it for her littlest sis. Carly might understand, but she can’t go be with her or her other three sisters now. Can’t listen to their laments and their pleas and their judgments about what she’s been doing for thirteen years. No.
Nobody understands this need. Thirteen years of driving. Thirteen years in a series of beast vehicles. Staring through the windshield at endless miles of tar. The overpasses, the grassy gullies dividing highways, the rest stops, the bathroom breaks, the dinners on a Coleman stove. Her sisters probably think she’s still in that foreign country, fighting demons. They haven’t had a proper conversation in thirteen years, just a one-minute call, no longer, on Christmas mornings to Carly, and one on Carly’s birthday in June. A request in these calls for Carly to send her best to the other sisters. A couple of strategically mailed, no-return-address postcards sent throughout the year to keep the sisters from searching for her and getting in her way. But nothing and nobody and not even God’s hand clawing through a cloud could wedge between her and her determination to protect her daughter. Nothing.
In her latest drive, she imagined herself driving a sleek, black Audi and herself in a lined, black suit on her way to collect a grant to run an open-air sanctuary in a tropical location. A wild, wild idea, totally random, which seemed to spring up in her out of nowhere. Yet the thought, she realized, calmed her and, she was surprised to feel, caused her to smile. Then the beast’s engine rattled and knocked her con
science back to her vehicle’s brown interior. Reality didn’t give her the colors of a tropical sanctuary; reality gave her last winter’s sleet stains on the floor mats, her recycled glass water bottle rolling around, an empty paper bag of popcorn, and a spinning blue-tree air freshener that offered its last molecule of fresh scent three months ago. She wanted to roll in her fingertips her daughter’s silky black hair, each strand as thick as nylon fishing line, for the softness, the strength. She craved the rush of love such an act would smooth onto her skin and spread. A salve for all these years of driving.
She thought of pulling out her daughter’s baby photos, pinned in an album in a box in the back. A tear rolled down her face. All these years on the road. And now her baby’s fifteen.
Yesterday morning she woke up before everyone else in the world woke up. At a rest stop somewhere in some state—doesn’t matter which one, because it has no ocean on any sides—she stepped out of her beast. Just another middle state, she thought. Stretching in the dawn light, she breathed in so deep, her chest rose and expanded, the tension against her ribs waking her more. She began her daily knee raises. A full five minutes of knee raises, which started slow and ended in a sweat-filled, high-lifting sprint in place. A janitor in a gray jumpsuit entered the rest stop’s Burger King through a back door, waved at her, and mimicked her knee sprint with a thumbs-up. She gave him the thumbs-up back. The shadows of her movement cast long along the side of the beast and extended beyond to the tar, given the exceptional length of her limbs.
Next, she dropped to the side of the beast in a plank, holding firm for two minutes, and then she popped back up and repeated the five-minute knee-lift sprint. She checked her time and heart rate on her digital sports watch. The next interval was to drop to the ground and conduct one hundred full-body push-ups. Her hands were immune to the tiny pebbles in the tar. She thanked her years of archery and fly-casting and shooting clay pigeons and treetop adventure-birding course runs for the calluses. Next up, another five-minute interval of knee-raise sprints.