by S. F. Kosa
A younger, shirtless man with pink hair and black roots leaned around the white-haired guy, laying a hand on the older man’s arm. “Who—?” the younger guy began, then frowned when he caught sight of her. “Honey, is she okay?” he asked, looking up at his partner.
“Are you okay?” the white-haired man asked her, his gaze traveling from the top of her head down to her knees. He frowned. “Do you need anything, sweetheart? We have some croissants if you want something to eat.”
“How long has she been here?” the younger man whispered, but she heard it loud and clear.
Her fingers dug into her biceps as she waited for the answer.
The older man shrugged. “Did someone hurt you, dear? Do you have a phone? Need us to call someone for you?”
She shuddered and took another step back. Wiped the rain from her eyes. Smoothed her hair from her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, licking raindrops from her lips. “S-sorry to bother you.”
She turned and jogged onto the road. The two men didn’t chase after her. She heard the squeaky cottage door closing as she made it to an intersection. She was back on Commercial Street. The Pilgrim’s Monument was off to her left, and the ocean was in front of her, which meant she was in the West End.
Haverman’s was in the East End. When had she left work? Where had she left her bike?
She began to meander toward the center of town, pausing only to observe a lone pigeon, its purple-tinged neck puffed out with seeming determination, bobbing along the sidewalk as if it was setting out to see the world. The rain tapered to a sprinkle and then to a mist, and she breathed it in, imagining the tiny specks of water gathering on the inside of her nose, her throat, her chest. Filling up every space, every cell. She wrung out her soggy shirt. With every step, her heels exacted a sad, distressed squish from her saturated flip-flops.
She was not alone here. If she were dead, then these other people were, too, the ones out walking their dogs and carrying cups of coffee and folding up their umbrellas and squinting at the sky. She flinched as the ferry’s horn sounded off, a deep bellow of warning before the vessel shoved off into the bay. Unless the 8:30 a.m. fast ferry to Boston was piloted by Charon himself, she probably wasn’t dead.
But she was tired. Her pace slowed to a zombie shuffle, and she plopped down on the steps of a T-shirt store. Her hands found her face, sliding over the planes of her cheeks and forehead, over the dome of her skull and down to her scraggly, loose ponytail.
“Layla?”
A guy was standing in front of her, clutching a paper coffee cup and frowning. His name floated up to the surface of her thoughts, alone and unaccompanied. “Matt?”
Her voice was small and hoarse but hers.
“What are you doing?” Matt asked. He had curly brown hair that was thinning on top and a few days’ worth of stubble. He wore a shirt with Cory’s Bike Rentals emblazoned across the chest. He looked up and down the street. “Have you been out all night?”
“Yes.” Better than telling him she wasn’t sure.
“Doing what?” He glared at her skinned-up knees as he fished his phone from his pocket. “Jesus,” he muttered.
She wanted to ask how they knew each other, but she understood instinctively that it would make things worse. “Who are you texting?”
His thumb marched over the screen of his phone. “Who do you think?”
She began to push herself up from the steps, but Matt’s hand clamped over her shoulder. She yelped, and he drew his hand back as if she’d bitten him. Her butt hit the steps again. Matt shook his head. He said something she couldn’t catch because the buzz between her ears was too loud.
“I’m going to go get you something to eat,” he said, louder this time, pointing to the Portuguese bakery right across the street. “You want a muffin? Or one of those fried dough things?”
She put her hand on her stomach, then peered down at it. When she raised her head, he was gone, but then he was back, carrying a wax paper sack. He shoved it at her. “You can pay me back later.” His look said he doubted she was good for it.
The smell of cinnamon reached her, and she pushed her nose into the bag. Then she was shoving chunks of sweet, chewy pastry into her mouth. She couldn’t eat fast enough. She needed five more just like it. She needed a million of them.
“What the fuck.”
This voice she recognized, but she was too busy chewing to name its owner.
“That cost me three fifty,” Matt said to Esteban, who was now standing next to him, wearing worn-out boat shoes and khaki shorts and a Haverman’s T-shirt. His black hair was wet-looking, slicked back.
“This is where you found her?” he asked Matt as he took her by the arm. He pulled her up and steadied her with a hand on the small of her back. The wax paper sack crumpled in her fist.
“Ask her, dude,” Matt said. “I have to get to work.” He tossed an exasperated, disapproving look over his shoulder as he headed up the street toward the East End.
“I was out looking for you until three,” Esteban snapped, steering her up the sidewalk. “I called Jaliesa, and she said you took off before your shift was even over. Where the hell have you been?”
“I worked last night,” she said. The memories were hazy but there, a relief and a worry at the same time.
Esteban sighed, but he didn’t say more. He simply guided her along, and she didn’t fight him. She even knew where they were going. The boardinghouse. Robin’s egg blue, paint peeling from the wooden siding, narrow stairs. He unlocked the front door and pushed her upward, to the third floor, and then to the second room on the right, with a loose doorknob that he had to twist a few times to open. The place was hushed, though she could hear strains of Led Zeppelin coming through the door next to Esteban’s.
The cramped room was taken up almost entirely by a double bed, its headboard a shuttered window, the walls tilting inward as if they were about to collapse on top of them. She was several inches shorter than Esteban, and still she wanted to duck her head. He pushed her onto the bed and removed her flip-flops, then her shirt, his movements brusque. He knelt by the bed and pulled a battered suitcase from underneath. “Do you want a shower or just dry clothes?”
When she didn’t answer, he sighed again and pushed a red shirt at her chest. She put it on. It was huge, the hem hitting her midthigh. She rose and unbuttoned her shorts. They slid down her legs, soggy and cold, and suddenly she was desperate to get them off, to get them away. She kicked them toward the door. Underwear, too, because it was soaked through. She sat down on the foot of the bed again.
Esteban slid the suitcase under the bed. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Matt said you were messed up. Did you party last night?” He rose and took her face in his hands, turning her head up so she was looking at the old glass light fixture on the ceiling. “Did you take something?”
She tried to shake her head, but his hands prevented much movement. “I need to sleep,” she said. “I’m tired.”
He let her go. “I have to be in at ten anyway.” He worked days at Haverman’s and the occasional double. “Did Lou pay you last night?”
Her gaze flicked to her shorts, in a heap by the door. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s the end of the month, and I need to pay rent. It’d be nice if you chipped in.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve been here longer than I expected.”
“Sure.” She frowned. “You told me I could stay for as long as I wanted.”
It was more of a question, a need for confirmation, but it was also the wrong thing to say. “I’ve done everything for you that I could, Layla! I stuck my neck out for you with Lou. I gave you a place to stay.” He looked at her there, the edge of the red shirt barely covering her upper thighs. “I’ve been your friend.”
Layla tugged the hem all the way down to her
knees.
He let out an exasperated groan. “How long do you think you’ll need a place?”
She shrugged, gaze focused on her own feet. Her knees were stinging. Her left arm ached. She had no idea where her bike was.
“Look,” he said, then paused. “Okay, look. Do you have anywhere to go? Did your folks kick you out or something? Are you from the Cape? You got people who might come get you?”
He had asked her this before.
“Because you don’t seem like you should be on your own,” he continued. “I mean, look at you.”
She raised her knees, tucking them under the shirt until it stretched over her legs like a tent, pulling at the raw skin underneath. The pain was warm. It connected her to her body. “I can go.”
“I’m not asking you to go, dammit! I’m just trying to know you, okay? I figured you’d talk to me when you got comfortable, but you’re… I don’t know. I can’t figure out what’s up with you.” He sank down on the bed next to her, shoulders slumped. “You can trust me. I’ve been looking out for you, haven’t I?”
She nodded.
He made a pained face. “Oh, honey. Look. I’m sorry.” He put his arm around her, pulled her to him. It hurt her shoulder and arm, but she didn’t resist. Her gaze rested on the loose doorknob. It still worked, but not well. Like her, she supposed.
“I can give you some money,” she said.
“Forget I mentioned it. It was just—it was a rough night. I was worried about you.”
“Why?”
“I like you.” He looked down at her. “I care about you. I wish you’d trust me enough to let me in. And I thought we were headed in the right direction, but then last night…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. I’m glad you’re okay. You really should have a phone, though. I can probably get you one if you want. For cheap. I know a guy.” He smiled. His upper left canine was gray. He let her go and stood up again. “I’d better head out, though. Gotta sling the drinks and pay the bills.”
He was still smiling, but she could tell he wasn’t actually happy. She didn’t move as he opened the door, as he stepped into the hall and then turned back to her. “I’m gonna see you tonight?” he asked. “We could go for a walk. Talk a little more?”
She smiled at him. He nodded and closed the door.
She fell back onto the bed and stared up at the light fixture. Assorted bug carcasses littered the glass bowl that covered the light bulb. She wondered if the heat had killed them. Or the light, flooding every inch of that space, magnified by the glass, too bright and confusing.
Esteban wanted to talk. Wanted to know her. Where she came from. What she was doing in Provincetown. Where she was headed next. He thought she didn’t trust him, and that was why she’d kept to herself, hadn’t told him a thing.
But that wasn’t it.
She couldn’t tell him about herself.
Because she honestly didn’t know.
Friday, July 31, to Saturday, August 1
I don’t regret calling the police last night, even though I could practically hear the dispatcher’s eye roll through the phone. She asked if I knew whether Mina had even made it to Provincetown—maybe she went somewhere else. Free country, right? She asked when I was supposed to meet Mina, and when I confess it was today and that I showed up early, it only seemed to confirm her skepticism. She told me that I should call back if I had any new information, but that right now, with so little to go on and the high likelihood that everything was a miscommunication between me and my wife, there’s not much the police can do.
I think about taking the ferry back to Boston, meeting with Drew in person and having it out with him, but I’m not up for that. Instead, I stay put, hoping that my wife will come through the doorway of the cottage, carrying with her a completely logical and innocent explanation of where she’s been.
She doesn’t.
Around noon, I try to track her iPhone, and I realize that Mina has her privacy settings efficiently and thoroughly geared to prevent those kinds of shenanigans. I don’t know if they’ve always been that way—the perils of celebrity—or if she only recently changed them (the perils of…me?).
I’ve never thought to track her before.
Perhaps I should have.
On Friday afternoon, I call the only hospital on the Cape and several along the South Shore, as well as every hospital in Boston. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed when it turns out she isn’t at any of them, when there aren’t even any Jane Does admitted since Monday.
I also check with her neighbors. The couple who lives next door on the right, a slender older man and his younger, buff, pink-haired partner, invite me inside and offer me a drink. Their home is an ode to P-town, maritime and quaint, the walls bedecked with local art and old photographs of the docks and supper clubs. The older guy, whose name is Chris, tells me that he’s been spending summers here since the eighties, and his partner, Aaron, explains that they met at the A-House about five years ago and have been inseparable ever since. They tell me they bought this place three years ago and did a whole gut rehab, and that Mina showed up with cake and lemonade to welcome them when they finally moved in last year. Over martinis made with, they inform me, South Hollow’s Dry Line gin, which is a favorite of Mina’s, Aaron tells me that he saw her leave in her car, but he can’t remember if it was Monday or Tuesday evening. And he doesn’t know if she came back after that. Chris asks if it’s possible that Mina and I crossed wires—perhaps she’s returned to Boston? I’d love to believe that, but surely she’d have at least texted me by now if she were back in our Brookline condo.
The elderly widow who lives in the cottage to the left says she saw Mina loading a cake carrier into her car on Monday evening. She says I’m lucky, that Mina is a wonderful baker, that my wife has dropped off a batch of cookies on more than one occasion—raspberry shortbread and lemon butter the last time, about two weeks ago. And I smile and agree, yes, Mina’s an awesome baker, no shortcuts, no mixes, and I accept her invitation to come over for tea the next time Mina and I are in town for the weekend. It’s all very nice, but as I turn away from her door, my heart is pounding.
Before I’m even back inside the cottage, I’m dialing the police again. I tell the dispatcher I have new information. This time, she puts me through to the detective, who answers with a gruff, “Correia here.”
I introduce myself. I explain everything. I tell her that Mina was definitely in Provincetown on Monday and that several of her neighbors saw her. That puts the disappearance in their jurisdiction.
Detective Correia is relatively unimpressed. Adults are allowed to disappear if they want to, she tells me. Mina took her car, her wallet, and her phone, and she could be in Florida or California by now, which is totally within her rights. She takes down all the usual information, though. I give her Mina’s vital stats and email her a picture of my wife, links to her website and social media, our addresses in Brookline and here in Provincetown, my phone number and hers, all of it. I give her the color and plate number of Mina’s Prius. I describe the last time I saw Mina. When the officer asks if we were having “relationship issues,” I say we weren’t, because we weren’t. One fight is not a “relationship issue.” It’s just a fight. Every couple fights. And besides, it was barely that.
What happened: I asked Mina a question about when we could get pregnant, and Mina refused to answer it, and then I lost it and accused her of having second thoughts about sharing a life with me. She said, “That was a shitty thing to say,” and I said, “That wasn’t exactly a denial,” and then she withdrew into her shell, not even making eye contact, while I sulked and drank Macallan and fell asleep on the couch, and the next morning, she left.
Is it a fight when only one person participates?
The detective asks if Mina has any family. When I tell her, she asks if I’ve checked in
with Mina’s parents, especially because they live nearby—maybe Mina simply went to visit them for a couple of days? The detective’s tone gives me the sense that she doesn’t think much of the efforts I’ve taken to contact Mina so far. As if I expected the police to do my work for me, to handle my personal life because I can’t quite manage it. I have trouble blaming her for that.
She promises they’ll put out a BOLO for Mina and inform Truro police to be on the lookout as well, then reminds me that it’s the middle of the summer season, which means that they’re dealing with ten times more disruptive drunks, tweaked-out partiers, sex assaults, thefts, and yes, people temporarily going missing, than at any other time of year. Then she gives me her full name—Detective Felicia Correia—and asks me to let her know if Mina turns up or if anything else comes to light. She assures me Mina will probably show up soon, as most people do, and she hangs up. Busy, busy, on to the next caller.
Shamed by Correia, I dial Mina’s parents next, more out of obligation than confidence that they’ll be helpful in telling me where she is. I’ve always been close with my parents, and I talk on the phone with my mom at least once a week now that Dad’s gone. Mina marvels at that and has said on more than one occasion that she’d literally go nuts if she had to spend that much time speaking to her own mother. When I joked one time that my mom isn’t exactly a boon for my sanity, Mina gave me what I can only describe as a patronizing smile. So I brace myself for tension and unpleasantness as Rose Harkin Richards answers the phone.
What I get is the opposite: Mina’s mother sounds surprised when I say my name—she hasn’t spoken to me often enough to know my voice—but when I tell her I’m in Provincetown, she immediately invites me out for a visit the next day. She seems truly excited and asks me whether I have any allergies or food sensitivities. Although it’s the reason I called, I don’t ask if she knows where Mina is or tell her that Mina is missing, her pleasant tone proving to me that she doesn’t know anything’s amiss. Then she tells me she really must go because she has to visit a friend who’s in the hospital all the way down in Hyannis and visiting hours end at eight. I hang up without managing to wedge more than a few words into the conversation. Rose’s bubbliness shunted me along like a fast-moving current, and I didn’t end up anywhere near where I thought I would.
