by Kit Frick
“Not the summer people. They’re here on vacation. Mommy and Daddy are working.”
“Of course they are,” I say, steering Paisley around an overexcited Jack Russell straining on his leash. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
* * *
Inside Jenkins’, we stand before a giant, wall-mounted menu that looks like a chalkboard, but its descriptions are so vivid and smudge free, I wonder if it’s actually paint. The shop is empty, aside from Paisley and me. Behind the counter, a man in a white smock is crouched down, fiddling with something behind the case of hard ice cream. The menu boasts twelve flavors, all homemade, and an array of toppings. There’s also a soft ice-cream machine with levers for chocolate, vanilla, and twists, and a selection of two sorbets. In the very center of the menu, inside a box with jagged edges like a bright blue starburst, is the shop’s featured flavor: Chocolate Caramel Popcorn.
“I want two scoops of Peanut Butter Cup,” Paisley says, but her words wash over me. I’m still fixed on the menu board, that bright blue box advertising something I’d never usually order. But I can taste the flavor at the back of my mouth, coating my tongue like a memory. Chocolate Caramel Popcorn. I stare until my eyes lose focus, until the words squiggle and pulse against the blackness like a lighthouse in a storm. Suddenly I’m a little light-headed, and I lean my hip against the glass to keep my balance.
“Always get a waffle cone,” Paisley advises, and I force myself to tear my eyes away from the menu, focus on her. “Mr. Jenkins fills the bottom with hard chocolate so the ice cream doesn’t leak.”
“Shop secret,” says the man behind the counter, his deep, earthy voice snapping me back to reality. He straightens up and leans slightly forward, over the glass, to give Paisley a grin. “But your friend will find out soon enough.”
He’s in his fifties, I’d guess, ruddy cheeks studded with black points of stubble. His crisp white smock reads Lou Jenkins in curvy embroidery. I raise my eyes to meet his, which are hazel and creased with kind lines. In that moment, his expression changes, geniality sliding away into something between awe and dread.
“Zoe?” he splutters.
Before I can figure out how to respond, Paisley cuts in, her voice like a chime. “This is Anna Cicconi. She’s from Bay Ridge, in Brooklyn, New York. Anna is my au pair for the summer.”
Lou Jenkins takes a small step back, taking me in. He runs his hand across his face, in a gesture that makes my mind skip back to the other day on the beach, Kyle the lifeguard peering under the umbrella, his hand tracing the same bewildered route across his eyelids and cheeks. Christ, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.
“Who’s Zoe?” Nerves bunch in a tight knot in my stomach. I gather my hair back self-consciously, slip an elastic from my wrist, and twist it up into a messy knot on top of my head.
“Zoe Spanos disappeared last January,” Paisley supplies. “No one knows what happened to her.”
“That’s horrible. From Herron Mills?”
“She grew up here,” Lou explains. His face has not yet regained its formerly jovial glow, but at least he’s stopped looking at me like I’m a ghost. “She was in college, home on winter break. She went out on New Year’s Eve, and her family hasn’t heard from her since.”
“And I look like her?” I ask, the need to name the elephant in the room burning hot in my throat.
Paisley nods eagerly, like this is a game we’re all playing and not some highly cryptic coincidence. “I think it’s mostly your hair. And your face.”
I laugh, the tension bubbling up, then bursting like the sharp crack of gum against my lips. “Just my hair and face?”
Lou tilts his chin to the side. “With your hair up, there’s less of a resemblance. And she has more of an olive complexion. But you two could be sisters.” He smiles. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Everyone in Herron Mills has been a little on edge since Zoe disappeared.”
I do the mental math back to New Year’s Eve. That was nearly six months ago. I don’t know a whole lot about missing girls, but I’m pretty sure the odds she’ll show up alive after this much time must be pretty slim.
“Can I get you ladies some ice cream?” Lou asks, a burst of energy filling his voice like he’s clutching some invisible steering wheel, directing us onto a new course. “Or maybe a coffee or tea?”
Paisley gives him her order, and while the rational part of my brain says to ask for black coffee, which is probably the only thing I can stomach after that exchange, I hear myself ordering a scoop of the Chocolate Caramel Popcorn.
“Waffle cone?” Lou asks.
“Just a cup,” I reply, then assure Paisley I’ll order a cone next time, if she promises future trips to Jenkins’ can be scheduled for after lunch.
* * *
Outside, the street is drenched in crisp white sunlight, and the strange encounter in the shop rolls off my shoulders like the last wisps of stale morning fog off the East River. Paisley and I post up on a wooden bench about a block down from Jenkins’ to eat and people watch. The ice cream tastes like chocolate Easter eggs and the popcorn from those big tins they sell at Target around the holidays. It tastes like childhood. It tastes amazing.
“Want to try?” I offer.
“That’s okay,” Paisley says. “I’ve had it before. It’s their most popular flavor. Dad says that Mr. Jenkins says that his dad invented it. The original Mr. Jenkins. I prefer peanut butter.”
“Heya, Paisley.” We look up to find two girls around my age stopped on the sidewalk in front of our bench. One is wearing a red-and-white checkered sundress that looks vintage and a pair of Mary Jane flats the color of cherry pie filling. Her glossy brown hair is bone straight and pulled back in a neat ponytail, and her skin is a soft fawn brown. The other girl is dressed like me, denim shorts and a tank top. She’s only five feet three or four, but she’s all muscle. A swimmer, or maybe a gymnast. Her hair is cropped into a feathery pixie cut that emphasizes the surprising plumpness of her cheekbones and cool olive of her skin. A pair of large gold hoop earrings, the metal helixed into a delicate twist at the base of each hoop, dangle from her ears.
“Hey, Aster!” Paisley holds out her cone for me to take and jumps up to give the shorter girl a hug. I can feel two sets of eyes trained on me, their faces narrowing into the same apprehensive scrutiny I saw play across Lou’s face a few minutes ago.
“I’m Anna,” I supply quickly, eager to nip those looks in the bud. I shove up to my feet. “Paisley’s nanny.”
“Martina Green.” The girl in the vintage dress sticks out her hand, then drops it when she realizes mine are both filled with ice cream.
Her friend rolls her eyes. “She’s Martina Jenkins. ‘Green’ is like a stage name or something.”
Martina flashes Aster a flinty glare. “It’s my professional name,” she says, as if that clarifies anything. She can’t be any older than I am. What kind of profession could possibly require a name change? The ice-cream profession? Jenkins’ must be her family’s shop. I wonder fleetingly if she’s a print model. She doesn’t look quite tall enough, but she’s obviously into fashion, and she has that slightly edgy Urban Outfitters look.
I must be making a face because Martina sighs, as if resigning herself to an explanation that makes her tired. “I’m going to be a journalist, and my mother doesn’t like the idea of attaching the family name to my investigative work. She’s old school like that.”
“Like TV news and stuff?” I ask.
“For now, I’m editor in chief of my school paper. And I run a podcast series. Well, ran.” She offers Aster a weak smile, then drops her eyes to the sidewalk.
For a moment, everyone is quiet, and I wonder how many uncomfortable exchanges one morning can possibly hold.
“The podcast is about Zoe,” Paisley explains in a reverent voice, her chin tilted up toward me. “Aster and Zoe are sisters, and Martina’s going to find out what happened to her.”
Aster and Zoe. A to Z.
I glance back at the shorter girl, noting how little she resembles me, or vice versa. Which means she must not look much like Zoe either, but of course not all siblings look alike. I remember Lou saying something about Zoe having an olive complexion, though, and as the sun glints off Aster’s gold hoops and olive shoulders, it strikes me that they’re probably Greek. Spanos.
“I did my best,” Martina says. “I’m so sorry, Aster.”
Aster wraps one toned arm around Martina’s shoulders and gives her friend a jostling squeeze. “It’s the police who dropped the ball, not you,” she says, voice kind. My gaze comes to rest on the raw, red lines of sadness that have settled along the rims of her eyes. She looks like she’s been living ten seconds away from tears for months.
Martina leans down to kiss the top of her friend’s head, and Aster’s lips soften into a smile. “Okay, no more Zoe talk before lunch,” she says, straightening up. “Do we still have time for sushi before your shift?” Her eyes flicker toward the ice-cream shop.
Martina digs her phone out her pocket—of course her dress has pockets—and turns on the screen. “Plenty. Dad can hold down the fort for another hour.”
The girls wave and say it was nice to meet me, and I hand Paisley back her melting cone. She takes a big lick. “Zoe used to babysit me when she was in high school,” she says. “Aster’s three years younger. She was my babysitter after Zoe went to college.”
“I thought you had Lindsay,” I say. “Wasn’t that your last au pair?”
“Lindsay was only in the summers,” Paisley says. “Like you. I’d have Zoe and Aster on the weekends, or if Mom and Dad went out on a date night. Zoe was super nice, but I think Aster was my favorite babysitter.”
“Why’s that?” Paisley works at her cone, and we start ambling slowly down Main Street.
“Because she’s brave. This one time, before school let out last June, I told her about this boy Markus who was teasing me. My teacher wasn’t doing anything to stop it, so Aster came up with this whole plan to get back at him. Markus was having a pool party, for his birthday, so the night before, we snuck around to the back of his house and dumped buckets of water mixed with yellow food coloring into his pool. It looked like it was full of pee.” Paisley giggles.
“That doesn’t sound very mature, but it definitely sounds fun.”
Paisley grins, but then her smile drops. “Aster’s had to be really brave this year, and her parents too. That’s what my mom says. Because Zoe’s probably not coming back.”
I toss the remains of my melted ice cream in a trash bin, the nostalgia factor fading into sugary soup. I reach out for Paisley’s hand, and she slips it into mine. “Why didn’t you tell me I look like the missing girl?”
Paisley shrugs and takes another lick. “Everybody loves Zoe. I don’t see why it’s a big deal.”
I guess it isn’t, but I resolve to order a few more sun hats along with my pocket dresses, as soon as I get paid. I’m not sure I’m up for an entire summer of weird looks and mistaken identities.
“Did you listen to her podcast?” I ask.
“Mom won’t let me. She says it’s ‘too adult.’ ” Her voice forms air quotes around the words.
“Oh. That sucks.”
Paisley chomps down on her waffle cone, channeling the unfairness of childhood into the bite.
“But she might be right.” I shrug. “Sounds like scary stuff.”
“Yeah.” For a minute, she stares down at our feet, sandals keeping pace on the sidewalk together. “Do you think she’ll come back, Anna?”
A thin blade of worry glides up my rib cage and settles between my lungs. Is there a right answer to that question? What would Emilia say?
“I don’t know.” My voice is quiet. “I hope so.”
* * *
In the pool house that night, I google Zoe Spanos. The results fill my phone screen, dozens of news articles from last winter and spring about the nineteen-year-old girl who disappeared from Herron Mills without a trace. I click on the first one, and the photos of Zoe make my breath catch. She does, as promised, look a hell of a lot like me. Same messy cascade of black hair, same high-set cheekbones and big, toothy smile. But her skin is creamy olive where mine is pasty white, her eyes yellow-flecked brown where mine are a sharp blue-green. She has what looks like a splotchy brown birthmark near the center of her collarbone, where my skin is bare. Resting against it, in most of the photos, is a delicate gold chain with the initials ZS.
Me, but not me. The similarities are striking; they prick at the corners of my eyelids, making me squint and then open wide until I see myself, then don’t again. I remember in ninth grade, this new kid Bryan told me I reminded him of his friend from home. He held out his phone across the cafeteria table, showed me a picture of a stranger that was like looking into a fun-house mirror. It’s that feeling all over again.
I quickly scan through the other search results, looking for a podcast. I try again with Martina Green podcast in the search bar, and I’m directed to four episodes of Missing Zoe on SoundCloud. There’s a thumbnail picture of Martina wearing a pair of black cat-eye glasses and burgundy lipstick, her hair styled in the same ponytail I saw today. The podcast description promises in-depth investigative reporting with a single goal: to uncover what really happened to Zoe last New Year’s Eve. A chilly finger of curiosity tinged with fear zips down my spine, and I slip my earbuds in.
TRANSCRIPT OF MISSING ZOE EPISODE ONE: SHE’S (NOT) A LITTLE RUNAWAY
[ELECTRONIC BACKGROUND MUSIC]
ADULT MALE VOICE: It’s not illegal to disappear.
YOUNG FEMALE VOICE: If Zoe was there, I would have known. Zoe never showed up that night.
ADULT FEMALE VOICE: Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?
SECOND ADULT MALE VOICE: My name is George Spanos, and my daughter Zoe is missing.
[END BACKGROUND MUSIC]
MARTINA GREEN: Today is Tuesday, February eleventh, and Zoe Spanos has been missing for six weeks to the day. Last Friday, the Herron Mills Village PD declared Zoe a runaway, and that’s why I’m here, talking to you. Because if you know Zoe, you know she didn’t run away.
Zoe Spanos is missing. And we’re missing Zoe.
[MISSING ZOE INSTRUMENTAL THEME]
MARTINA GREEN: Hi, I’m Martina Green, and you’re listening to the first episode of Missing Zoe, a multipart podcast series about the disappearance of Zoe Spanos, a nineteen-year-old resident of Herron Mills, New York, on the night of December thirty-first or morning of January first this year.
You can probably tell from my voice that I’m not your typical true crime podcast host. I’m a junior at Jefferson High School in Herron Mills. That’s on the East End of Long Island, one of those quaint beach towns you might visit one summer for the ocean, the lobster rolls, the relaxed pace of village life. For many, Herron Mills is a destination, an escape. But for others, like Zoe and me, it’s home.
Let’s begin by taking a quick stroll through Herron Mills. Consider this your welcome tour.
ALFRED HARVEY: You might notice there’s been a bit of a commercial boom around here lately. [CHUCKLES.]
MARTINA GREEN: There’s no greater expert on the textured history of Zoe’s hometown than village historian Alfred Harvey. We spoke in his office at the Herron Mills Village Historical Society.
ALFRED HARVEY: But it retains rich elements of its agrarian past in the surrounding farmland and the farm-to-table restaurants that have cropped up. And of course the windmills.
MARTINA GREEN: And there’s a long-standing artistic history as well?
ALFRED HARVEY: Of course. The village was initially settled in the sixteen hundreds and incorporated in 1873. Artists and writers began to flock to the Hamptons, including Herron Mills, in the late nineteenth century. They came for the quiet, the rural beauty, the light. The culture of creation is part of the fabric of the landscape out here. Nowadays, when people hear “the Hamptons,” they hear wealth, celebrity, privilege. But that’s only part of t
he story. On the bay side, in Sag Harbor, there’s been a thriving African American community since World War Two. The Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton is home to between six and seven hundred tribal members. There’s much more to the Hamptons than exclusivity and wealth.
MARTINA GREEN: When you’re a resident of Herron Mills, you know everyone. I’ve known Zoe since I was a baby; her sister Aster is my best friend. I’m telling you this in the interest of full disclosure. I’m not an unbiased reporter, an outsider looking in. I’m not someone with a twenty-year career in journalism behind me, although I hope I will be someday. But I don’t think that’s what we need to find Zoe. I think we need an insider. Someone who knows this community, knows the people, isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions the police don’t seem interested in exploring.
ASSISTANT DETECTIVE PHILIP MASSEY: It’s not illegal to disappear.
MARTINA GREEN: I spoke to Assistant Detective Philip Massey, one of the officers on the Zoe Spanos case, over the phone.
AD MASSEY: I can’t comment specifically on the Spanos case, but in general, you’re an adult, it’s perfectly legal to leave your life behind. Start a new one. Might be hurtful or unkind, but there’s no law you have to tell anyone where you’re going.
MARTINA GREEN: Why can’t you discuss Zoe specifically? Didn’t your office close the investigation last week?
AD MASSEY: As our office stated publicly last Friday, there is strong evidence to suggest Miss Spanos willingly left Herron Mills on the night of December thirty-first last year. That’s all I can say. It’s still an open investigation.
MARTINA GREEN: The investigation may still technically remain open, but it’s clear that local police have wound down their search. Yes, Zoe is nineteen. Yes, that means she’s an adult in the eyes of law enforcement, allowed to step willingly away from her sophomore year at Brown, from her holiday at home with her family and friends, and start over somewhere new. No note. No explanation. No news, six weeks later.
