Brave Girl, Quiet Girl: A Novel

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Here, it seemed everybody was awake.

  An old man was hanging hand-washed clothes on a rope strung between two long sticks he’d managed to embed in the hard ground. A younger man had a fire going in a pit and looked as though he was trying to make coffee.

  A woman walked across my path. Then she stopped suddenly. Her eyes flew wide at the sight of me, as if she had seen a ghost. But, if so, the ghost was me.

  “Phyllis!” she shouted. As though calling to somebody. Not as though she thought that was my name.

  Then she ran away.

  A woman came rolling out of her tent, sighed, and struggled to her feet. She located me with a sweep of her eyes, then moved in my direction with slow but sure steps. She looked to be about sixty, or maybe in her fifties but worn down. She was wearing a sweat suit in an alarming shade of pink.

  She walked right up to me. And I mean right up. Way into my personal space. I could smell her breath. When she opened her mouth to speak, I could see she was missing two front teeth. The rest, the ones she still had, didn’t look any too good.

  “Cop?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I said.

  Which was interesting. The “ma’am” part, I mean. She commanded respect. I gave it without thought or question.

  “Reporter?”

  “I’m getting asked that a lot today.”

  “Which is a yes or a no?”

  “No. Not a reporter.”

  “Looking for somebody in particular?”

  “Yeah. A girl named Molly.”

  “She’s not here.”

  Then she turned to walk away.

  “Wait,” I called to her retreating back. “What if she was here? Would you tell me?”

  She didn’t stop or turn. Just shot a single word back over her shoulder to me.

  “No.”

  Something broke in me. I shouted. Literally shouted. My frustration boiled over and everything just came flying out.

  “Wait!”

  She stopped. Turned to face me. She did not move closer. Just waited. Waited to see what else I was inclined to shout about, I suppose.

  “I don’t understand this!” I called to her across the considerable distance. In my peripheral vision I saw at least two dozen people staring at me. “Why would you not help me? Why would anybody not tell me where Molly is if they know? I just want to help her. I’m just trying to help!”

  Then I stood, silent. Feeling foolish. And she stood still, just waiting. Maybe waiting to be certain I had it all out of my system.

  “Sure,” she said after a pause. “Everybody wants to help. People come down here from time to time, wanting to help. Problem is, they never do help. They’re just never any help. Look. Lady. When someone disappears into this city, they’re gone. If we wanted to find the people we left behind, we would. Give it up, okay?”

  Then she turned away again. Marched back to her tent.

  I got into my car and drove away.

  I showed up at the police station at seven o’clock the following morning. I was hoping I could time my visit just so. I was hoping Grace Beatty would be just about to go off duty.

  As I walked up to her desk, she was standing. Not on the phone. Not with anyone. Just standing there, looking down. Riffling through some paperwork. It did give the impression that she might have been on her way out.

  She looked up at me, and her eyes changed. Reflected her recognition of me. And it was a good change. A good recognition. I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure. I might have been nothing but a thorn in her side all along. How was I to know?

  “Hey, you,” she said.

  I said, “Hi.”

  But it felt weird. And difficult. I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Maybe it was being back there. Maybe I was reliving the worst night of my life just by stepping into that place. Or maybe I really did care about what I’d come to say.

  “Where’s your little one?”

  “I dropped her at day care. I didn’t want her to be here when I talked to you about Molly. She understands a lot. And she’s pretty upset about Molly being gone.”

  Grace Beatty just stood a moment. Her eyes remained on my face, but not looking into my eyes directly. She seemed to be waiting. To see if I was done. It reminded me of Phyllis at the homeless camp. All these people just standing there. Staring at me. Waiting to see if I was done. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I took it as a comment on my current emotional state. A lot of explosive stuff seemed to need to get out of me. People seemed inclined to stay out of the way.

  “Well,” she said, and paused. “I’m off shift now. Want to go get a bite?”

  “Sure. But maybe not at that same place.”

  We walked out the front door of the station together. Down the steps. Into the cool morning.

  “Food not so good?” she asked as we walked.

  “No, it’s not that. It was fine. Or . . . actually . . . I don’t really know how it was. I was so upset I couldn’t taste anything. It was probably fine. I’m just not doing well with all the memories from that twenty-four hours.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  We walked in silence for a time. Then she stopped in front of a little storefront tavern. Which, to my surprise, seemed to be open and serving drinks at that odd hour.

  “Want to knock back a few?” she asked me. One of her eyebrows arched up. It made her face look mischievous.

  “It’s seven o’clock in the morning.”

  “Seven o’clock in the morning is my version of after hours. But if it doesn’t work for you, no problem. I understand.”

  “I have to pick Etta up at day care soon,” I said. “But I could knock back one.”

  We sat at the bar together. I was staring at the image of the two of us in the mirror. Running my hand over the cold wetness of my beer bottle. Noting how confident she looked. And how lost I looked. Wondering why everybody seemed to have this life thing down to a science except me.

  “I made such a mess of everything,” I said to her. Breaking a long silence.

  “In what way?” She ran one hand back along her closely cropped hair as she spoke. As though it needed smoothing down.

  “With Molly.”

  “Oh. Right. That.”

  “I owe her so much. I mean, think how different my world might be right now if she hadn’t been there for me that night. And then I went and let her down. I made her a promise, Grace.”

  “When did you make her any promises?”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s right. You don’t know.”

  So I gently unraveled the story. Brought her up to date. The trip back to Utah. Waking in the morning to find my mother had put her off the property. My efforts to locate her since.

  Then I fell into silence, wondering if I had just put myself in any legal jeopardy. If I knew where this runaway teen was, which at one time I did, had it been my job to report it? Tell her social worker? I had no idea.

  I waited, my heart thumping.

  She ran her hand over her hair again. Let out a deep sigh.

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” she said.

  I felt myself relax some. My heart slowed to a more normal pace.

  “I don’t think I am. I think I let her down.”

  “Well, I’m not saying there’s no way you could have handled it that would have been better. But you’re human, Brooke. You were trying, anyway. You met her at the worst time of your life. Your emotions were going every direction at once.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, you had your baby daughter to think about. It’s counterintuitive to throw open your door for a relative stranger off the street.”

  “I would have thrown my door open for her,” I said. “After I knew her a little. Problem was, I didn’t have a door. I only had somebody else’s door. It helps to have a door of your own.”

  She smiled. But it was a sad-looking thing.

  “If you came here to be absolved, you
got it,” she said. “You meant her no harm.”

  “Actually . . . I was hoping you might be some help in finding her.”

  She shook her head. Without pause.

  “Not really. She’s not wanted for any crime. If she were a younger child, she’d be seen as a danger to herself, and then the police could get involved. But she’s sixteen. Old enough to be an emancipated minor. But . . . more to the point . . . we don’t know where she is, either, Brooke. I mean, we find people based on things like credit card trails. You know. Living-on-the-grid kinds of things. The best I can really do here is let you know if she gets arrested.”

  “She won’t get arrested.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  I took a sip of my beer before answering. I had said it so quickly. And so glibly. Now I had to decide how much I should stand behind what I’d said.

  “She’s just a basically honest person.”

  “Yeah. I get that. But need does things to a person. Makes them do things they never thought they would do.”

  I drank my beer for a long time in silence. I was trying to decide if she was right. And if I wanted her to be.

  I never could decide.

  Two days later, on the last day I could before starting my new job, I strapped Etta into her car seat and took another trip to the jail. To make a liar of myself by seeing that Denver Patterson boy one more time. Because I had to know if Molly had gotten my message.

  The only person behind the desk was the woman with the braided hair. She knew who I was. She knew who I’d come to see.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “Gone?”

  I felt as though she’d wakened me out of sleep. I couldn’t seem to put a meaning to her simple words.

  “Released.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Released. Off to Kentucky.”

  “Yep. Off to Kentucky.”

  She rolled her eyes in a way that seemed to indicate she had heard about the Kentucky plans far too many times for her liking.

  It struck me then. That I would never know.

  Etta fussed on my shoulder, feeling the change in my mood.

  I turned to walk out. But I stopped again. I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to know.

  “Did he get another visit from his friend before he got out? That girl?”

  “I’m sorry to have to say . . . ,” she began.

  And, in her pause, I thought she was telling me Molly had not come. And I wondered how many times I’d have to hit the END sign on this dead-end street before I got it. Before I gave up and went home, both literally and figuratively.

  But the finish to the sentence was not what I expected.

  “. . . I’m not allowed to give out that information.”

  “Got it,” I said. “So I’ll just never know.”

  “Never know what?”

  “I gave him my address to give to her. But now I’ll never know if she got it.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay. You’re just doing your job.”

  Then I went home. Both literally and figuratively.

  I was walking down the hallway of my new apartment building when Etta started in on me about Molly again.

  “Molly, Molly, Molly,” she chanted.

  I realized it was time to stop avoiding the issue and tell her the damn truth.

  “Listen,” I said. Gently. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I stopped in the hallway. We stood in a spill of light from a window in the little nook between our new apartment and the one next door. It lit Etta up from behind like a halo. Made her look like the chosen one. Like pure light.

  “Etta, I have to be honest with you about Molly. She’s gone. And I don’t know how to find her for you. And I don’t know how to find her for me. I just don’t know where she is and there’s really no way to find out. And I’m sorry. But the truth is, I don’t think we’re going to see Molly again.”

  “Molly,” she said.

  And, this time, she pointed.

  I spun around.

  There she was at the end of the hall, leaning one shoulder against the flowered wallpaper. Just watching me. As though she might decide to stay or she might decide to run.

  “Molly,” I said. It came out breathy. As though I were noting a thing beyond belief.

  “What do you mean you need me? What does that even mean? You need me how?”

  I felt a little tug at the corners of my mouth. Upward. And it had been a while, I can say that for a fact.

  “Why don’t you come in?” I asked her. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Instead she took a step backward.

  “Why should I come in? I mean . . . what’s in it for me?”

  Her voice had moved into full-on defense mode. If she could have donned a suit of armor, I think she might have felt better. And I’m pretty sure she would have done it.

  “Well . . . are you hungry? I could order pizza.”

  At first, nothing.

  Then, in a quiet voice, she asked, “What kind of pizza?”

  “What kind of pizza do you like?”

  “Anything but pineapple,” she said. And, much to my relief, she took a step in my direction. “Or anchovies,” she added.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Molly: Crazy like Family

  I wasn’t really liking how the talking was going and I wasn’t really feeling like she cared about me the way I wanted her to, but I was really liking the pepperoni pizza and I think that’s why I stayed.

  We were sitting on the floor because nothing was really set up to be an apartment that somebody lived in yet—just more like a big pile of boxes. There was a couch, but it was covered in more piles of boxes, and it felt like too much trouble to fix that. So we were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and I was thinking about carpet in general, and how amazing a thing it is when you’re used to concrete and dirt. Funny how you can take a thing like carpet for granted if you’ve always had it and you figure you always will.

  The baby was chewing on a piece of crust that she was holding really tight in her amazingly tiny, wonderful little fist. She was so beautiful and sweet that I almost wanted to say yes to what Brooke had asked me—the whole babysitting for free because she couldn’t afford day care thing—even though that plan was obviously everything for them and nothing for me.

  I wasn’t expecting Brooke to talk, so when she did I jumped a little.

  “So you did go see Denver one more time.”

  “No,” I said, thinking she was talking some kind of nonsense. “I’ve never been to Denver in my life.”

  “Denver the boy,” she said.

  “Oh. Bodhi.”

  “Right. Bodhi. I mean, obviously he gave you my new address. When did you go see him?”

  For some reason, the question made me nervous. Well, not even the question really, but I think more just talking about Bodhi made me feel weird. It made my stomach stop and think twice about whether it was willing to digest any more pizza.

  “I’m not sure,” I told her. “It might’ve been four days ago or it might’ve been five.”

  She frowned, but she didn’t say anything. And I don’t really like frowns, so I just kept talking.

  “I sort of didn’t want to go see him, because I’m mad at him and he hurt my feelings. And I’m getting tired of doing stuff for people when I know they wouldn’t do that much for me. You know what I mean?”

  I didn’t really plan to wait and get an answer on that, but I didn’t know what to say next, so a space came into my talking and she used it to answer me.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I think I do. But then you went anyway.”

  “I figured a promise is a promise.”

  I looked away from my slice of pizza and up at her face, and she was looking at me with this weird look in her eyes, like she’d just found out I was an angel with wings or a superhero or something. It made me nervous, so I looked away again.

  “Why did yo
u wait so long to come find me?” she asked.

  “Did it seem long?”

  “Well, yeah. It seemed like forever. But what I mean is, if you had the address for four or five days . . .”

  I set down my pizza slice. There were about two bites left before I hit the crust, which I’d also intended to eat, but the conversation was getting serious again, and it started ruining my appetite.

  I snuck a really quick look at her face, but she was staring at me, so I looked away again.

  “I wasn’t sure you really cared about me,” I said.

  And it was more honest than I meant to be, so it made my face get all hot, so I figured it was turning red, and I knew she could see that. So it was a pretty humiliating moment.

  “What changed your mind?” she asked.

  It hit me that she was talking to me really quietly and gently, like I was super fragile or something. Like I was one of those blown eggs you make for Easter that’re only the shell and you have to handle them just so. Then after a minute I started wondering if she was right about me. About that. If I was holding myself together in a way that was dicier than I’d been pretending to myself and everybody else.

  I said, “Phyllis told me you came looking for me, so that seemed like maybe a good sign.”

  “So she did know where you were!”

  It came out loud and scared me a little.

  “Yeah. She knew.”

  “Well, why didn’t she tell me?”

  I was still looking down at the carpet, and my face still felt red. I was beginning to worry that that red thing might never go away again in my whole life.

  “She sort of has this rule,” I said. “Sort of everybody who lives down there has this rule. You don’t answer any questions about anybody else. If the law comes asking, or their family comes asking after them, you don’t give anybody away. You always let it be up to them if they want to see somebody or not. You never let somebody get ambushed.”

  “But if you hadn’t gone to see that boy and gotten my new address . . . she could have blown it completely by letting me walk away.”