Ghost Flower

by Michele Jaffe

  “Right.”

  Another sharp look. He picked up a piggy bank in the shape of a cat, shook it, and put it back down. “Of course Bridgette is livid. She spent something like six hours at the train station trying to figure out where you’d gone. She doesn’t like it when people don’t follow her plans.”

  The adrenaline must have been leaving my body. I felt spent, exhausted again. I yawned. “I got that.”

  “She’ll come around. Now that you’re here, the pressure’s off. Since Grandmother brought you home, everyone else has to believe in you too. Tonight was a triumph. Only two more hurdles to go.” He lifted a finger. “One, meet the Family. That shouldn’t be too bad. And two, answer the cop’s questions about what happened and where you’ve been.”

  “I’m sorry, Officer, I don’t remember anything,” I chirped, then went back to my regular voice. “I know what to say.”

  “Don’t get cocky. The last thing in the world we want is for you to attract their attention for any reason.” The word “we” seemed to hang in the air, emphasizing our complicity. He’d finished with the desk and was gazing in my direction, but I had the sense that what he was seeing was in his head.

  “Look, I’m tired. Can I go to bed?”

  “Oh, sure, of course.” He didn’t move. He just sat there staring at me.

  “What?” I demanded. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  He shook his head slowly. His expression was the same one he’d had at Starbucks three weeks earlier, before this started. “It’s just seeing you here, in her room—it’s so real. So possible.” He got up, but instead of going to the door he took a step toward me.

  “Good. That’s the point, isn’t it?” I asked. I felt the cool metal of the flashlight handle against my thigh beneath the comforter, and I let my fingertips rest on it.

  “Yes. Ro home again. Home, alive, in the flesh,” he said. His fingers flexed, then straightened. “Irrefutable.”

  Something was going on inside him, something I didn’t—and didn’t want to—understand. He took another step toward me. My uninjured hand wrapped around the bottom of the flashlight beneath my comforter.

  I wanted to snap him out of it. My eye fell on the photo strip on my night table, and I pulled the flashlight out and turned it on, pointing to the row of pictures. “Do you know who that is? Or why Ro would have scratched out his face?”

  It worked. The faraway expression left his face. He took another step in my direction but this time focused on the photostrip. The beam of the flashlight was on the photo strip, not him as he bent to look at it, so I couldn’t see his face. But I thought his forehead might have wrinkled in a frown. “Where did you find this?”

  “In her sock drawer.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Socks?” I said. “Why? Does it mean something?”

  He stood up, shaking his head. “Beats me. I have no idea why Aurora would have scratched this guy’s face out.” The way he said it I believed him.

  “She kept the photo though. So he must have been someone important to her. Any idea who it is?”

  “I already said I didn’t know,” he told me, even though he hadn’t. He seemed agitated and suddenly in a hurry to go. Glancing through my window in the direction of his house, he said, “I’d better get back. I don’t want to ruin everything by getting caught in your room.”

  He made the door in two easy strides, paused, and turned back to face me. “I’d keep that picture you found out of sight. Somewhere safe where no one can get to it.”

  “Why?”

  “People might ask who the guy is. It would blow the whole thing if you couldn’t tell them, right?”

  “Sure,” I agreed. It was a good point. But I had the sense it wasn’t the real reason.

  As I moved to lock the door behind him, I replayed Bain’s reaction to the photo strip. He’d been genuinely surprised by it, but not by the guy in it. I could have sworn that despite the face being scratched out, he knew exactly who that was.

  Which meant something happened to Aurora the week before she disappeared that made her go from adoring the guy in the photo to hating him. Something Bain didn’t want me asking questions about.

  I decided I’d take his advice and keep the photo safe, but I doubted that his idea of safe and mine were the same.

  CHAPTER 16

  SATURDAY

  The lights are long silver dashes in the wet pavement, and the tires of the cars make squelching noises. Across the road a payphone is ring-a-linging. Every time I try to reach it, a car goes by, splashing me with more mud. I have to answer it, I think. It’s a matter of life and death. When I finally get there, I see the numbers have been scratched out and the receiver is missing. I stand there, staring at it, while it goes on ring-a-linging. There’s nothing I can do; I’m helpless. I must answer it, must answer for it—

  I woke up in a cold sweat, heart racing, blankets twisted around my legs, thinking, Answer for what? The sun was blazing through the windows, bouncing rainbows off the faceted sides of the star lantern.

  The brightness was like a rebuke to the racing of my heart, the fear-clenched tightness in my chest. What could be sinister here? the room seemed to say, mocking me. Looking through the window, I saw a luxurious carpet of perfectly manicured green grass, with hills and a blue sky beyond it. See, it’s paradise, the room seemed to say. Nothing to be afraid of.

  On my way to the bathroom I unlocked the door of the room, feeling stupid for having locked it in the first place, and was washing my face amid the green-and-white tiled splendor when I heard the sound of it opening. I turned around in time to see the woman enter, take in my empty bed, stop dead, then turn and see me.

  She stood frozen, a tall, lean, woman with a face like an upside-down Anjou pear, smooth and golden brown with high cheekbones and a little round chin. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun and had more silver in it than I remembered from the photos. But the face was the same, and the smart, miss-nothing eyes behind the rhinestone cat-eye frames of her glasses were the same. She looked like the best kind of high school librarian, and I would never have guessed she was past sixty if I hadn’t known. She was wearing dark blue slacks, a crisp white blouse rolled up at the sleeves, and a silver and turquoise cuff bracelet that I imagined she’d gotten during a visit to her relatives on the Maricopa Reservation.

  She was carrying a breakfast tray. I walked toward her and took the tray from her hand.

  “Hello, Mrs. March,” I said.

  “You are a very naughty girl,” she said. There were tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her.

  “You leave like that with no word, and we worry and worry. And now look at you. All grown-up and far too skinny. I knew you couldn’t look after yourself on the streets. I fussed and fretted, and I was right.” Now she burst into tears.

  I went to put my arms around her, but she shook her head. I let my hands fall to my sides. “But here I am. Back. You know the only reason I came back was to see you and eat your cooking.”

  She sniffled. “Bah.” She pulled away and took an ironed handkerchief out of her pocket to wipe her eyes. When she was done, she stood and looked at me. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m sorry I left,” I told her. It seemed like the right thing to say. And standing there, facing the only person who really seemed to have been moved by Aurora’s disappearance, I found I meant it.

  “She’s sorry she left,” she repeated, hands on her hips, looking even more like a high school librarian. “Do you know what I should do to you?” Without pausing, she went on. “Neither do I, and I’m going to think about it, but right now you should eat these and be quiet.” She began smoothing her hair back into her bun.

  “You brought me doughnuts.”

  “I did, and I don’t know why because you don’t deserve them. Mind you eat all of them. The Family is waiting to greet you downstairs, and then your Uncle Thom is going to take you to the poli
ce for an interrogation. If you survive that, you have the added terror of going shopping with your cousin Bridgette, so you have something to wear to the Country Club. I’m not sure which activity should frighten you more, but you’re going to need your strength.”

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded to herself and turned toward the bed. Before she’d done anything, she froze and, as though giving in to something she couldn’t check, turned, crossed to me, and wrapped me in her arms. “Welcome home, Aurora,” she said. There was nothing frightening in the way she spoke the words, or in her touch. She was the first person to touch me on purpose with kindness.

  Pulling away, she said, “I couldn’t be happier today if you were my own granddaughter.”

  “I wish I were.”

  She shook her head at me. “Don’t start with that kind of talk again. You know your grandmother. Hard on the outside but sweet inside. I could name someone else like that. Now get dressed.”

  “I’m not like her,” I protested instinctively.

  She laughed. Then her face took on a serious expression. “She needs you now. More than ever. You’ve come back just in time. Good girl.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She’s aging—aren’t we all?” she said, moving back to the bed and adeptly stacking the pillows on the low table next to it. She worked with the smooth precision of someone who has done this a lot, and I wondered if she enjoyed it. I hadn’t loved my time working for Maid-for-You, but maybe it was different in a place like this. “Soon we’ll all be as crotchety as this old house.”

  I saw the photo strip on the desk where Bain had left it and slipped it into a drawer. I said, “It’s strange not remembering anything that happened. I know it was a long time ago, but did you notice anything unusual about me before I left?”

  She froze. “Why are you asking that?”

  I sensed the question upset her, but I didn’t know why. “It’s just—it’s hard not to know. Like being dizzy. I’m hoping I can piece it back together.”

  She let out a long breath. “The morning before you and Liza disappeared, you didn’t eat any breakfast.” She turned to face me, clutching a pillow in front of her. “That was so unlike you that I came up to check on you, and you were crying. You told me you wanted to be alone.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Girl cries like that for only one reason. Boy troubles.” She tilted her head to one side, and her eyes got distant like she was pulling something from her memory. “I knew you’d been up to something; I just didn’t know with who. I tried to get you to tell me, but you wouldn’t. And then—” She let out a breath. “And then you vanished. I kept thinking maybe if I had done something, maybe if I had made you tell me, you wouldn’t have run off. You wouldn’t have—” Her hand went to her mouth.

  I took a step closer to her. “There’s nothing you could have done,” I said. The words felt bare, common, but I hoped they worked. I liked Mrs. March. She gave a tight, trembling smile and nodded. Trying to figure out the right way to play it, I said, “I didn’t realize you knew my secret.”

  Now she laughed. “Who do you think saw the tell-tale tracks of dirt up the back stairs first thing in the morning after you’d snuck in at night? Never a tidy one, you weren’t.” She looked down at the tangle of sheets and blankets on the bed and shook her head. “Still a tosser and turner, I see.”

  “I had trouble falling asleep,” I said. Before I could remind myself that the door-knob-turning incident had just been a dream, I said, “We haven’t added a crazy relative in the attic or anything?”

  “I don’t think your grandmother’s quite gotten to that yet, though I won’t deny some of your relatives could deserve it.” She carefully folded the top of the flat sheet over the comforter and turned to reach for the stack of pillows. “Why?”

  “I thought someone tried to get into my room last night. Turned the door handle. I just wondered if there was anyone else up here.”

  She had been leaning across the bed holding a square pillow with little silver beads on it. But as I spoke I heard a sharp intake of breath, and the pillow fell out of her hand and tumbled to the floor. I bent to get it. When I handed it to her, she didn’t meet my eyes, instead turning to carefully position it among the others.

  “I’m sure that was just the wind through an accidentally open window,” she said, half-facing away from me. “This old house is as creaky as my back on a December morning.” She gave a laugh that almost sounded genuine. I laughed with her, and for a moment I felt better.

  But as she turned to go I caught sight of her reflection in the mirror next to the door, and there was no sign of laughter there. Her eyes flashed to the door handle, and her face was creased deeply with worry.

  CHAPTER 17

  I wasn’t sure how to dress for both a police interrogation and an excursion to the mall with Bridgette, let alone how the old Aurora would have dressed, so I went with a mid-thigh-length navy blue dress with ruffles up the front and cap sleeves that reeked of innocence on top, and the studded motorcycle boots on the bottom in case Bridgette needed to be taught a lesson.

  The edge of the photo strip poked out of the drawer, and I opened it and took it out. This must have been the secret boyfriend Aurora was crying over the night before she left. I tucked it into the pocket of the dress and went out the door.

  I hadn’t really been worried about the family reunion because from what Bridgette and Bain had told me all that really mattered was that Althea accepted me. But suddenly I realized I had no idea how Aurora would behave in this situation. What would it be like to see your family after a long absence?

  Without warning my mind flashed to an image of walking into a large, elegant room.

  There’s a woman standing in front of a tall window looking out, and as I enter she turns toward me. The sun is behind her, so I can’t see her face. But I know it’s my mother, and I know she’s smiling. She opens her arms and pulls me toward her, and I can feel her warmth as she holds me to her, rocking me softly. I say, “I’m so sorry, Mommy,” and she says—

  “What’s keeping her?” Althea’s voice, rising from somewhere beyond the base of the wide staircase, sliced through my thoughts, leaving me hanging somewhere between disappointment and relief.

  You don’t have time for this, I told myself sternly. It’s time for you to play Aurora, the Aurora everyone expects to see. My knees trembled a little as I descended the rest of the stairs. I was scared, I realized, but also… excited.

  Walking into the large parlor was a little like walking into one of those dreams in which the mannequins in a store all come to life after it’s closed. I heard voices when I approached the door. But as I entered everyone froze, so the room seemed to be filled with very lifelike sculptures caught in self-consciously characteristic postures. Bridger Silverton—Bain and Bridgette’s father [55, property developer, now running for U.S. Congress, widowed and remarried, $26,000,000]—half-rising out of the leather seat; Margie Silverton [35, Bridger’s second wife, no money of her own. A former waitress and Bridger’s mistress since his first wife died, she’d “somehow convinced” him to marry her right after Aurora left; “ambitious, carefully conniving, manipulative, and dangerous,” according to Bridgette; Bain described her as “trailer trash with flair”], perched on its arm with her ankles crossed.

  There weren’t enough chairs in the room, as though it was designed on purpose to make people uncomfortable. Bridgette stood near the wall behind her father and stepmother with her hands in fists, and Bain lounged alongside her, his face in a sort of gleeful smirk. On the other side of the room Uncle Thom looked like he was wearing a suit even though he wasn’t. He was standing, his hand dangling over the back of the upholstered chair occupied by Aunt Claire [44 but tells people she’s 35, youngest of Althea and Sargeant’s children, ethereal beauty, dabbled in all the arts, “nice” according to Bain, “ruthless” according to Bridgette, older than her husband but worked very hard to loo
k younger. She claimed assets of $14,000,000, although there was a rumor she’d lost most of it to a cult and was living on loans based on her future inheritance]. She had been Aurora’s mother’s best friend, so I looked at her with interest. But her pale alabaster face with its slightly too wide eyes and careful contours was disconcerting. She had a large Irish setter at her feet. She looked relaxed, but I had the impression she was watching me more closely than anyone else.

  Althea sat in the middle of them all, perched in a burgundy leather wingback chair with large brass studs like an Elizabethan monarch. “Come,” she said, motioning me forward with one hand. The command shattered the tableau, and everyone started to talk and move and gather around me at once. After exactly two minutes of insincere hugs and wondering backslaps, Althea said, “Enough! We have work to do,” and everyone resumed their positions, well-rehearsed actors taking up their marks.

  A young woman with tightly curled hair pulled into a puffy ponytail and skin the color of caffe mocha had entered but stood discretely off to one side in the middle of the meet and greet. I recognized her from the cards—Jordan North [23, friend of Bain and Bridgette’s from high school so had known Aurora socially; now Althea’s social secretary while applying to graduate school for psychology, net worth negligible]—but she was far prettier in real life. She was beautiful, like a model, but didn’t seem self-conscious about it. She wore a caramel fitted skirt and sleeveless sweater and was by far the most formally dressed person in the room. In her arms she held a well-worn leather folder. As she entered her eyes moved briefly toward the corner of the room where Bain was standing next to his sister, and it made me wonder if they were a couple.

  Althea started to say, “This is my social secretary—” but I interrupted her.

  “Hi Jordan,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  I could have sworn Aunt Claire sat up a little straighter.