by Vendela Vida
I need to find a newspaper, to see if there’s news about Keith. I sneak out of the shed, in case Madame Sonya is home, and out onto Clement Street. I see a yellow newspaper box and approach it cautiously, afraid of what the headline might be. But the front page has nothing about Keith. The main article is about tax reform. I insert my coins and take out a copy and bring it into the shed. I sit on the floor and skim every section, every page. Not a single mention of Keith. Nothing.
27
In the early afternoon I go out for food again, and see a face I recognize. It’s my cousin Lazlo standing near the theater across the street. He’s holding hands with a man who’s clearly older than he is. Lazlo is eighteen. I look up at the marquee of the small art-house theater: My Beautiful Laundrette is playing. There’s a matinee showing.
“Eula?” Lazlo says to me, and quickly drops the hand of his companion.
I haven’t seen Lazlo for three years. We used to be close before my father and Lazlo’s mom had a falling out. That’s what my dad calls it, a falling out. My mother calls it a travesty.
“You okay?” Lazlo says. “What happened to your head?”
“I guess I fell,” I say, indicating the top of my ear. It hurts to touch the wound directly.
“You guess you fell?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. He’s still a teenager, but he has a thin mustache that wasn’t there last time I saw him. His hair is dark blond, his cheeks round, his eyes set deep in his face. We could be mistaken for siblings.
“Maybe I should take you back to your house,” he says.
“You drive?” I say.
“Yeah,” he says, hesitantly.
“You have a car?” I say.
“My friend does,” he says, and then looks around. The man whose hand he was holding has vanished. “Joel?” Lazlo calls out.
“Where’d he go?” I ask.
“Probably back to his wife and kids,” Lazlo says. He tries to disguise the anger in his voice but that only makes him sound angrier.
“Stay here a second,” he says.
“Okay,” I say reluctantly, as though waiting is an inconvenience. I like pretending I have someplace to be. I watch Lazlo run down the block and come back, and then run in the other direction. His torso seems unusually long, his legs small and rubbery like a centipede’s. “Joel!” he calls out. “Joel?” His dark blue Members Only jacket inflates as it gathers wind.
When he returns he looks distracted and defeated.
“Should I walk you home?” he says.
“I can’t go home,” I say.
“I’ve been in that situation,” he says.
But have you led a boy to his death? I want to ask.
Instead I say: “I’ve missed you.”
We end up taking two buses to his house, which used to be my grandma’s house before she died. Now a small herd of my Hungarian relatives live there—Lazlo, his mother, Ágota (my aunt), his sister Jazmin, and another cousin, Zsolt, and his family. I’m not sure how cousin Zsolt is related to me, and there’s some question in my family about whether or not he is in fact related to us. But he’s a contractor or carpenter, and helps keep the house intact.
“Will everyone be there?” I say. We’re sitting side by side on the slippery orange seats of the bus.
“I don’t know,” Lazlo says. “Some people are working. Jazmin’s knocked up,” he says.
My cousin Jazmin is twenty.
“Who was the old man outside the theater?”
“He’s not that old.”
“He was at least forty.”
“He’s thirty-four.” Lazlo grows somber. “I know him from this restaurant where I work. He’s confused.”
“You kiss him?” I ask.
“I’m not answering that,” he says.
“Does your mom know you’re gay?”
“I haven’t told her anything but I think she knows,” he says, and rests his head on the seat in front of us. “She’s always making comments about Harvey Milk,” he says to the floor of the bus.
“My dad met Mayor Feinstein once,” I say. “He said she had nice calves.”
Lazlo sits up straight and looks at me like I’m an idiot.
Lazlo’s mom, Ágota, and my dad had a falling out over the kinds of things siblings usually have falling outs over: money and love. My father made money and Aunt Ágota lost money. Then there was some disagreement about how their mother, my grandmother, should live. My father thought a retirement home. Ágota wanted to be paid to take care of her. The argument didn’t help anyone. In the end my grandmother died anyway.
Then all my relatives who couldn’t afford their own places moved into my grandma’s house, which wasn’t big to begin with. I’ve just heard this from Lazlo. I haven’t been to the house since my grandmother passed.
We get off the bus in West Portal, and walk a few blocks through the sleepy residential neighborhood and into her small, gray house. It’s strange how many things are still the same from when my grandma was alive and living there—the clock radio by the yellow refrigerator, all the miniature ceramic dogs she collected.
From the kitchen I can look down into the rectangular garden and see that Jazmin is asleep by the apple tree. From this angle she looks so natural, like an earth mother relaxing in the garden on a sunny but crisp winter day. But Jazmin is no earth mother. Her nails have always been long and fake, her clothes black.
“You want to go say hi?” Lazlo asks.
“Nah,” I say. “I think she should sleep. I mean, she’s pregnant.”
“Yeah,” he says.
We both watch Jazmin for a moment, and I’m surprised she doesn’t wake from our collective stares.
“I’m not really sure what I’m doing here,” I say.
We play Centipede and Pac-Man. Eventually Jazmin comes inside.
“What the . . . ?” she says when she sees me but doesn’t give me a hug. I congratulate her on her pregnancy. She shrugs. Her small green eyes look even smaller now that she’s gained weight, and maybe it’s the pregnancy but her dark-blond bob looks much thicker than it used to be. The phone rings and she goes to answer it in the other room. Her gait is colt-like even though her stomach is huge. After a few minutes she comes back and looks at me strangely and for a second too long. “Let’s get that head of yours cleaned up, Eulabee,” she says.
I follow her into the bathroom. When she opens the medicine cabinet above the sink, I feel a sinking sadness in my chest. My grandma’s pink Oil of Olay moisturizer and her Pond’s cold cream are still sitting on the bottom shelf. I know the way these creams smell, and how they made my grandma’s face shiny and cool when I kissed her goodnight on the evenings I stayed over at her house.
Jazmin takes some tissue paper and wets it and aggressively pats the side of my head. “Ow,” I say.
“I’m just trying to get it clean,” she says.
The wet towel makes the blood run more; a thin pink stream trickles down my face. Jazmin takes out an Ace bandage from the cabinet and tries to wrap it around my head. Her long nails repeatedly poke me.
“It really hurts,” I say when she fastens the Ace bandage. I start to unravel it.
“Fine,” she says, not sounding like it’s fine. She leaves the bathroom and I finish removing the bandage. It’s now stained with blood and ruined but I roll it up and put it in the medicine cabinet anyway. Then I remove the Oil of Olay and apply it to my face with small circular motions the way my grandma taught me.
When I come out of the bathroom Lazlo is sitting in the den shuffling a deck of cards and I sit down across from him. Just when he finishes dealing, I hear people climbing the stairs. Zsolt, the builder who’s supposedly related to me, enters the room. He’s in his late twenties and wearing a shiny suit. His wife, Eileen, walks up the stairs behind him wearing a dress with shoulder pads. She has a vast mane of black hair that climbs precariously high from her forehead. Her blouse is missing a button so I can see her beige bra. She makes a big producti
on of hugging me. She’s wearing my grandmother’s rings.
Neither of them seems very surprised to see me at the house and I deduce that Jazmin told them on the phone. No one asks why I’m not at school that day. While Eileen makes dinner—I can smell the cabbage cooking—Zsolt comes into the den and turns on the TV to watch the news. He sits in the reclining chair where my grandfather used to sit.
The volume is too low for me to hear what the anchorwoman is saying, but I see the headline flash across the screen: “Another Missing Child Case in Sea Cliff.”
They must not have found Keith. I blink hard. Then I see a familiar face on the screen. It’s me. My photo from last year’s school yearbook is on TV. In the photo, I’m standing in front of the bush at Spragg where the butterflies gather. It takes me a minute to make sense of what the news is saying: it’s me who’s missing, not Keith. I am missing. And then the segment is over and I’m followed by a pile-up on a freeway.
“Eulabee,” Zsolt says.
I turn to him but can’t speak. It seems too soon to be missing on TV.
Lazlo turns to me. “You have to call your parents.”
“Okay,” I say. “Where’s the phone?”
I follow Lazlo into the kitchen, where Zsolt and Eileen are setting the table. The phone is on the wall by the bread box. I pick up the receiver.
“What are you doing?” Eileen says, alarmed, like I’ve picked up a gun.
“She needs to call home,” Lazlo says.
“No,” Zsolt’s wife finally says. “We’re still on that phone plan your grandma had. We only get three calls a month.”
I remember the system. When I would call my parents from my grandma’s house, I’d let the phone ring twice and then hang up. That was the signal to my parents to call me back. I consider doing that now—dialing their number and letting it ring twice so they know to call. But they won’t be expecting me to be calling from my grandma’s house.
Lazlo reads my mind. “Can’t she use it this once?” he says.
“Let your dad sweat a little,” says Zsolt. “What has he given us? Let him get us a better phone plan. He can afford it.”
“This is crazy,” Lazlo says. “Eulabee’s on TV. Joe and Greta think she’s dead or kidnapped.”
“She’s fine,” Eileen says. “I’ll call them later.”
“But the cops?” Lazlo said. “They’re looking for her.”
“Fuck the cops!” Zsolt scoffs.
Eileen places bowls of cabbage soup on the place mats. The table is too big for the small room and there are too many chairs. There’s no room to move.
“Sit down, Eulabee,” Zsolt says, gesturing at the last chair.
I can’t get out of the house fast enough. I run down the stairs, and down the street. The bus comes right away, like it’s been waiting to take me home.
28
I get off the second bus at 25th Avenue and as I approach my house I see two news vans. The lights in my house appear to be off, but I’m sure my parents are home. An anchorwoman is standing in front of a palm tree giving a live report. I turn around and run without stopping until I get to the ballet school.
I open the door to the shed and find a figure sitting on the couch. I scream.
“Well done,” Maria Fabiola says. “I never knew you wanted to be in the spotlight.”
Seeing another person in the shed seems like a terrible invasion. Maria Fabiola appears outsized, like a fairy-tale wolf.
“What?” I say, closing the door behind me. “You’re totally wrong.”
“Um, then why are you hiding in this shed?” Maria Fabiola says. She gestures around the room, as though to remind me of my environment.
“I did something bad,” I say.
“Yeah, everyone knows that you wrote the valentines,” Maria Fabiola says. “There aren’t that many clever girls in our class who are also that stupid. And when you didn’t show up for school it was obvious it was you.”
“That’s not the reason I didn’t show up,” I say. “I didn’t come to school because I hit my head on the rocks when I was trying to save Keith.”
“Save Keith?” Maria Fabiola says. “Why does he need saving?”
“We were at Baker the other day and it was high tide and he tried to run around to China Beach, but . . .”
“But what?” She’s looking at me with mouth agape.
“I don’t think he made it,” I whisper dramatically.
“You don’t think he made it?” Maria Fabiola says. She sits upright. “Eulabee!” she says and starts laughing. “I just saw Keith on my way over here. Like twenty minutes ago!”
“What? Where?”
“He was at the park with his usual crew. Lance and White Charlie.”
“Oh my god,” I say. “Oh my god.” I want to collapse with relief on the couch next to her but when she sees me approaching, she doesn’t move to make space. Instead I lie down on the furry rug.
“That’s why you’re here?” she says. “Because you thought Keith was dead? I hope if you ever think I’m dead you don’t go into hiding. I figured you were here because of the valentines. The teachers are fucking pissed. Everyone’s assuming you’ll be expelled. Just for the ‘I miss your boobs’ one alone. And Sexo? You can do better.”
I can’t think. I want to ask about Julia but decide it hardly matters.
“But listen,” Maria Fabiola says. “I have a plan. You know how I’m supposed to be on ABC? You know how I did the B-roll?”
Again with the B-roll.
“The truth is that they asked a bunch of questions and I didn’t always get the story right,” she says. “Or I guess there were inconsistencies. So they said they were ‘doing some research’ and would get back to me. And meanwhile Mr. Makepeace is acting weird toward me now. So I had an idea.”
“But first will you please admit you made up that story?”
“I didn’t make it up,” she says. She says this with enough conviction that I know everyone but me would believe her. She is good.
“You borrowed it from a book,” I say.
She’s weighing her options. She takes off half her bracelets from one wrist and transfers them to the other. “I got the rough outline from Treasure Island. But I came up with lots of new details. Good ones.”
“Kidnapped,” I say. “Not Treasure Island.”
“Okay. Good for you,” she says. “You’re wonderful.”
I actually do feel wonderful. Because I guess her idea.
“You want me to say I was kidnapped, too.”
“It helps us both,” she says, now in a school-counselor voice. “It saves us both.”
“Kidnapped by the same people?” I ask. “Who was it again? Pirates? Actual pirates?”
“We can change that,” she says. “As long as the stories are similar. I’ll say they gave me Stockholm syndrome and you can say you already had it, being Swedish and all.”
I don’t know where to start. She is not bright enough to pull this off.
“Otherwise, Eulabee, you’re expelled,” she says.
Or maybe she is.
“You’ll never get into any high school if you’ve been expelled, but you’ll get into any high school—every high school—if you’ve been kidnapped.”
I know she’s right. Maria Fabiola scoots over to make room for me on the couch. “So what are your thoughts?” she asks.
“I thought you had a plan,” I say.
“I do, but I want to hear yours first.”
Of course she has no plan.
“I do think it should be maybe more logical kidnappers this time,” she says.
There is no way this will work with her. She is the worst possible partner for a scheme like this.
“I was thinking the Mob could be involved,” she says.
“No,” I say. “Let’s back up a second.”
“What about Melvin Belli, the lawyer?” she says.
I haven’t heard of Melvin Belli. “Listen,” I say. “It has to be realistic.
You said that yourself. Let’s think of an actual situation that might have happened.”
“The guy in the white car!” she says, lighting up. I realize it’s a relatively brilliant idea. But it would mean I was lying about him when it first happened, or didn’t happen. I decide I can’t lie now about telling the truth then.
“No. Too complicated,” I say, and the light inside Maria Fabiola goes out. “We need a name,” I say. “We need something big, to erase the other stories and lies. We need a headline.”
“What about Neal Cassady?” she says. “Maybe he drugged us and made us marry him. He’s a polygamist.”
“I think he’s dead,” I tell her. “How about Jerry Garcia drugged us?”
She likes this. “Then he made us clean his guitars!”
“And tie-dye his shirts,” I say.
“And we have some dirt on him, like he’s secretly really into football.”
I’m ready to settle on Jerry Garcia but then realize at the time of our kidnapping he was probably playing a six-hour show at a stadium somewhere in Ohio.
“We need someone whose exact whereabouts are not known on a day-to-day basis,” I say.
“They never found the Zodiac Killer,” she says. “Maybe he kidnapped us and made us research astrological signs.”
Suddenly I feel overwhelmed by everything ahead of me. I slip myself off the couch and onto the rug again.
“Don’t worry,” she says, and lowers herself off the couch so she’s seated next to me. “I’ve got this figured out. You come back. We present our stories so they’re parallel. They add up, and we have a big name for the kidnapper. Then we both go on ABC. You’ll have to do B-roll, too, since I already did mine. B-roll is really fun. You walk up and down the sidewalk, open doors, pretend to do your homework. You can wear that pretty polka-dot dress.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You’re tired,” she says like she’s my babysitter. “Let me take you back to your parents and make sure you’re okay. We’ll figure out everything there.” She stands and offers me her hand to help me up. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t let you out of my sight.”
