Taking Terri Mueller

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “All right,” Terri said.

  “You would do it?”

  “Why not?” Terri felt again that blankness, that nothingness. She was wet and chilled, and all that was trivial.

  Maybe, he said, Terri wouldn’t have forgotten me altogether, but it would never have been the same. He’d be with her all the time, this other guy, this man—Clem—He’d be there when she had something to tell . . . he’d be there when she was sick, he’d be there, all the time . . .

  “Oh, you wouldn’t hitch. You’re just saying that. What if somebody picked us up?”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” Terri stepped into the road and stuck out her thumb.

  “Terri, you nut!”

  A car passed. “You’re the one who wanted to do it.”

  “I’ve never hitched a ride! Have you?”

  “No.” Terri kept her thumb up. The driver of another car looked at her, but didn’t slow down. Her heart seemed to race along with the car, speeding, speeding. She felt calm, reckless, strangely adrift.

  Then it turned out they were going to move out of the country. He lined up a job teaching in a school in Italy. In Milan. The American School in Milan. One day when I came for Terri, I saw a letter addressed to him. He and Kathryn must have been talking about it, and he left the letter. I saw the return address. The American School, Via Bezzola, Milano. I never forgot that. Via Bezzola. That’s when it became real to me, and I knew I couldn’t let them, couldn’t let her . . .

  Shaundra pulled at Terri’s arm. “Come on! You’re weird today. You’re supposed to have sense, of the two of us.”

  “One more car.” She walked backward, thumb out. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. Nothing was what it seemed. Strangely, just then she remembered Sally the Mouse and Mustafa riding off in their Mousemobile.

  The next visiting day I was ready. We left. I drove all day, we slept by the road that night, drove again the next day. She was good. I gave her orange soda and half a tranquilizer, to be sure. We sang songs. Played games. After a while I told her about Kathryn . . .

  Words, Terri thought. Words. For a moment she felt hard, bright, and solid, like a piece of metal. All the words her father had said reverberated in her mind, clanged against that metal.

  “Holy schlamoly!” Shaundra grabbed Terri’s arm. A car slowed down. Two boys in the front seat grinned at them. The boy nearest Terri had a long narrow head, a long thin nose, wise and sly, pretty blue eyes. “Want a ride?”

  “Yes,” Terri said. She got in the car. Shaundra gasped, then, muttering, followed her.

  Both boys turned around. The other boy, the driver, was dark-eyed, had a crew cut, the beginnings of a mustache.

  “Hi!” he said.

  “Hi,” Shaundra said.

  “You’re cute. How old are you?”

  “None of your beez-niss, meester.” Shaundra had recovered. She leaned toward Terri. “I didn’t think you would really do it,” she whispered.

  “Come on, how old are you girls, really?” The car glided away from the curb.

  “Old enough to know better,” Shaundra said.

  “I bet you’re under age.”

  “I bet you are, too!”

  The boys laughed. “What’s your name?” the driver asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

  “Me to know, you to guess. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Sonny.”

  “Oh, Sonny Boy,” Shaundra sang, bouncing a little on the seat next to Terri.

  “You can trust a boy with the name Sonny,” he said. “My friend’s name is Jim.”

  “Slim Jim,” Shaundra said.

  Jim couldn’t control his laughter. He kept breaking into high-pitched giggles.

  Terri stared out the window. She heard Shaundra and the boys bantering back and forth. She said nothing. How stupid, she thought. How very dumb. Why did I do this? It was senseless, as senseless as what her father had confessed. And it all came back to her again, the words, and the sense of the words, pouring down on her like water, like the grey rain falling in straight sheets out of the sky.

  She cried some in the beginning. Nights, she cried, and I rocked her in my lap.

  What you’re saying, Phil . . . You’re saying you kidnapped her. You kidnapped your own daughter. My god, Phil, my god.

  I don’t think you should say that. I took her. I just took her. All I did was take her, take what was mine . . .

  Yours? You kidnapped her.

  Then he cried.

  Then she said, Leave him alone. Nancy, leave him alone, can’t you? Just leave him alone!

  “Where should we go?” Sonny said.

  “Not far,” Shaundra said. “You can let us out at the next corner.”

  “What? Oh, no! Don’t be a party pooper. Let’s go for a ride.”

  “Okay, a ride to my house,” Shaundra directed. “It’s on Millson Street.”

  “Millson Street? Okay, okay. But you gotta tell me your name.”

  “Well . . . maybe I will, and maybe I won’t . . .”

  “That’s not fair. I told you my name. I told you my friend’s name. Sonny and Jim. And you’re—”

  “Oh, okay. Shaundra.”

  “Shaundra. Great! What’s your silent friend’s name? What’s her name? Hey, you, back there, what’s your name?”

  Terri stared out the window. It was raining, raining, a hard grey rain.

  Kidnapped. Kidnapped? Kidnapped your own daughter. Kidnapped by her father. Silly! Made no sense. Kidnappers were sinister men, ugly men, violent men. Kidnappers had cut off a boy’s ear and sent it to his family. This was to prove they would do what they said if they didn’t get their money. Money was what kidnappers cared about . . .

  Shaundra tugged her arm. “Tell them your name.” What if Sonny drove past Shaundra’s house, out of the city, into the country, onto a back road . . . She felt a little stab of fear in her belly and welcomed it. A feeling. She had been numb for so many hours. She leaned forward.

  “My name is Terri Mueller.” And in her head she heard her voice continuing, And my mother isn’t dead after all. She heard this so distinctly it surprised her that no one reacted.

  “Terri and Shaundra. Nice. Where do you girls go to school?”

  “Where do you boys go to school?” Shaundra countered.

  “Do you answer every question with a question?”

  “Do you? Turn here,” she instructed.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “I scream.” The boys laughed. They were in the middle of a long line of cars. “Here, right here! That’s my corner.”

  Sonny kept driving.

  Shaundra screamed.

  “Hey!” He swiveled his head. The car rocked. “Don’t do that!”

  “I want to get out!” Shaundra put her hand on the door handle. “Let’s go, Terri!”

  The car went through an intersection, picked up speed. “What’s the matter, your mamas won’t let you take a ride?”

  Shaundra opened the door. The blue-eyed Jim gaped, mouth open. The pavement whizzed by below the half-opened door. “Is she crazy?” Jim asked Terri.

  “Yeah, I’m crazy. I’m a real maniac and you better let me out.” Shaundra gave another long piercing scream. “I drink blood!” she yelled.

  The boys looked at each other. There was a stop sign ahead, a cluster of stores, and gas stations on the four corners. The car rolled to a stop. Shaundra and Terri scrambled out.

  “Chicken,” Sonny said, sticking his head out the window.

  The girls ran back toward Shaundra’s house. They couldn’t stop laughing. Terri laughed so hard she felt sick to her stomach, laughed so hard she cried. Cried and laughed, and couldn’t tell where her laughter ended and her tears began.

  TWELVE

  Phil didn’t sleep well again Monday night. Again he had many dreams. In one dream he saw a bejeweled train in the distance, like a fabulous child’s toy. Crying out with wonder, he called Terri to come and look. “You see,” he said to he
r, loving her greatly, “you see how it is!”

  In his dreams, also, his former wife came back. She was striding down a street, yellow-tinted sunglasses up on her forehead, holding a Japanese vegetable knife in her hand. “You’d better hurry, Phil,” she said authoritatively, and he felt his anger at her harden like a stone in his heart. This anger woke him. In the bare darkened room, he stared at the ceiling and thought that the woman in his dream actually had not looked at all like Kathryn.

  He glanced at the clock. Time to get up. He felt very tired and thought that it would be nice not to go to work. But then what? In the other room he heard the dog’s toenails click on the floor. He heard Terri moving around. “Good morning,” he called. She didn’t answer.

  She didn’t hear me, he told himself. He dressed, laced up his boots, noticing that they needed a shine. Fleetingly he wished their apartment were nicer. He put keys and money in his pocket, then his wallet, first glancing at Nancy’s picture. Very glamorous, her hair whipping out behind her, a big white glistening smile. A picture to impress. He knew her better. The real Nancy was soft, giving, needing.

  He thought of Sunday afternoon when Terri had disappeared for so many hours . . . And then her return. He thought of it rapidly, feeling somehow damaged, but also with a curious relief and emptiness. The phrase the dirty little secret came to mind. He yawned with that empty feeling and pulled up the shade. It had snowed overnight. The roofs were frosted with white. The first snow of the season. Going to his closet for a heavier jacket, he told himself that Terri’s insistence on knowing the truth reflected well on him. She had a mind, and spirit, too. This was the way he had brought her up. He would match her against any girl her age.

  “It snowed, Terr,” he said, walking into the kitchen. He kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning,” he said again, and was surprised by an exquisite sense of relief when she replied, “Good morning, Daddy,” then turned, as on any other morning, to fill the coffeepot for him.

  After the coffee, she cracked eggs into the poacher. Barkley was at the window, nose pressed to glass, whining excitedly at the sight of snow. Her father began their lunches. He was wearing a dark green plaid shirt, denims; his eyes were a little puffy. She felt that he looked at her uneasily. She felt sleepy herself, dream-filled; she was in a little trance.

  She dropped slices of bread into the toaster, set out plates, silverware, napkins. They never rushed through breakfast. Her father wrapped peanut butter sandwiches, yawned, licked his fingers. Yes, he was definitely avoiding her eyes. It was Tuesday morning, and they had not really talked since Sunday night. She moved around in an orderly way, quietly, not quite connected. Gradually, slowly, she had realized something—her mother had not died. She had a mother.

  Waking, she had said it out loud. “I have a mother.” The words were shocking. Something seemed to burst in her mind.

  She sat down across from her father. She’d left the eggs in the poacher too long, and the yellow centers were hard. She poked at her egg. Was her mother sitting at a table now? Did she like eggs? Was she a morning person? A tall, handsome woman. Sipping her milk, Terri mused over her aunt’s words. A tall, handsome woman would be a strong woman, someone you could respect and admire. She strained to make it seem real.

  “There are a lot of things you haven’t told me,” she said abruptly to her father.

  He poured coffee, his thumb over the little glass ball in the center of the pot cover. “Such as?”

  “Why did you and my mother get divorced?”

  “A long complicated story. I’m not sure I remember that well anymore, Terri. It was a long time ago . . .”

  “Did you fight?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “What’d you fight over?”

  “Is this what we’re going to talk about for breakfast from now on?” He took money out of his pocket. “We need cheese and butter. Will you pick them up after school?”

  He looked sad and uncomfortable and it was too hard for her to keep pressing. She took the money and put it in her back pocket.

  But later, after he’d gone and just before she went to school, she saw a workshirt of his on the bathroom floor near the green wicker hamper. Ordinarily she would have picked up the shirt, dropped it in the hamper. Now she didn’t want to touch it. She toed the shirt into a corner, shoved it out of sight.

  The sun came out as she walked to school. She pulled off her white Icelandic wool hat. She had also worn wool mittens, her down vest. They had bought them all through the Bean catalogue in the fall, marking the items together, also ordering a Bean shirt and flannel pajamas for her father.

  At the corner near the school she saw Shaundra and George Torrance talking. “Hi-iii!” Shaundra waved. Terri’s legs stiffened. Did she have to walk straight toward them? Why did she still feel this way about George? She wasn’t even sure she liked him, although she couldn’t find anything wrong with him. But then she had hardly ever really talked to him.

  “Hi.” She knew her face was red.

  “Hi-iii!” Shaundra said.

  “Hi,” George mumbled. His eyes were down. His eyes were always down. Didn’t he want to look at her?

  “We were just talking about ice skating,” Shaundra said. “We were just saying maybe we’d all go ice skating some afternoon this winter.”

  George was wearing an oversize purple sweater covered with polka dots. An ugly sweater. Terri didn’t like the way he dressed. She sighed softly as they walked up the steps to school. The good thing about being near George was that she found it impossible to think about anything else.

  At the top of the stairs, George rushed to open the door for her and Shaundra. “You don’t have to do that,” Terri said.

  “Why not?” He held the door for Shaundra.

  “It’s—I’m not helpless.”

  “I didn’t say—She doesn’t want me to open the door for her,” George said to Shaundra.

  “Oh, she’s crazy, anyway,” Shaundra said. “She really is.” Her voice was excited and gay. They walked toward their lockers. “You know what this crazy girl did?”

  Terri turned her head. Oh, no. Was Shaundra going to tell about the hitchhiking?

  “She broke open a locked box of her father’s!”

  Terri couldn’t believe Shaundra had said that. Worse, worse, than talking about picking up those boys.

  “A locked box?” George said. “What was in it?”

  Terri threw her lunch into her locker and rushed down the hall. Shaundra came after her.

  “Terri, hey, Terri—”

  “Why’d you say that? Why did you?”

  “I don’t know,” Shaundra said. Her frizzy dark hair fell around her face. Her eyes peeped out. “I wasn’t thinking, I guess, it just came out . . . you know. You’re always so quiet around George. I was just trying to show him that you’re really lively and fun and—”

  “You shouldn’t have said that!”

  “Well, maybe I wouldn’t have, if you’d told me what happened. I asked you yesterday.”

  What was she supposed to tell Shaundra? Oh, yeah, it turns out that I was kidnapped. It was my father who did it. By the way, another interesting tidbit is that my mother never was in that car accident. Yeah, she’s not dead.

  “It’s—it’s private,” Terri said.

  “It wasn’t too private for me to be right there when you did it.”

  “That was different.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Shaundra, can we just drop this? This isn’t the place to talk about it.”

  “Nobody will hear.”

  A couple wearing identical tight blue Levi’s passed, their hands in each other’s back pockets. “There are people all around,” Terri said.

  “Sure!” Shaundra dug her hands into her hair. “I get it now, Terri. You don’t trust me. That’s why you won’t tell me—you just don’t plain trust me.”

  “Shaundra, I trust you—”

  “Oh, my foot!” Shaundra said. She wal
ked away.

  Later, between classes, Terri passed Shaundra in the hall. Shaundra stuck her chin into the air, and that was that.

  At lunch hour, Terri took her food outside. The sun had come out, and the snow was gone. Terri leaned against the building and slowly ate her peanut butter sandwich. A feeling of total misery gripped her. She had quarreled with Shaundra, and she didn’t know what to think about her father. She had been so proud of their life together, of him, of the deep, close love they shared. But it had been built on lies.

  She walked home after school trying to think only about a composition she had to write for English and something good to eat for supper. Around the corner from her house, she shopped in Azria’s Groceteria, adding chocolate chip cookies and maple walnut ice cream to the morning list.

  Outside Azria’s there was a dilapidated phone booth. When they’d first moved here, before their phone was installed, they’d used this one. Now, just as she walked by, the phone rang. That shrill sound in the empty booth gave her the most terrible feeling. At the other end of the line, someone was waiting for someone else to pick up the receiver. A someone else who would never answer.

  The phone rang again. My mother, she thought. What if that’s my mother? She stepped into the booth. “Hello?” she said, picking up the receiver.

  “Hello,” a man said. “Is Frank there? Frank the plumber?”

  Terri stared at the debris on the floor, an oily rag in one corner, scraps of wet paper. Telephone numbers and names were scrawled on the walls, and just above the phone someone had written SOLAR POWER TO THE PEOPLE, enclosing the words in a red circle with red sun rays streaming out of it.

  “Hello!” he said.

  “This is a phone booth,” she said finally.

  “Wrong number, I guess.” He hung up.

  Terri didn’t move. My mother, she thought again. I have a mother. She is somewhere in this world. At this very moment. . . Was she talking on her phone? Buying milk and eggs? Tying her shoelaces, or petting a cat, or eating a piece of toast? The small realness of all this made Terri dizzy. She leaned back against the cold glass.

  I have to find her, she thought, and then, foolishly, scoffing at herself, but stubbornly unreasonable, she stayed in the booth waiting for the phone to ring once more.