Songs for the Missing

by Stewart O'Nan

  Mrs. Hedrick chose that moment to come downstairs and check on her.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, because Lindsay had turned away to hide her tears.

  “Oh honey, it’s okay,” Mrs. Hedrick said, sitting next to her and patting her shoulder. “We all miss her.”

  Not like I do, Lindsay wanted to say.

  “Here,” Mrs. Hedrick said, “come help me make dinner. You shouldn’t be down here by yourself.”

  She didn’t want to, but did, and by the time her mother arrived she was mashing potatoes at the stove and feeling in control again. Mrs. Hedrick didn’t say anything, as if it were their secret.

  At home her mother said she needed to talk to her. She sounded serious, as if something major had changed. She sat Lindsay down at the kitchen table and looked at her, concerned.

  Lindsay waited blankly, as if she was innocent.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about this, but we have to. Your birthday’s less than a week away. What else do you want besides your contacts?”

  The question was so far off the mark that she had no answer for it.

  “You’ve got to tell me these things,” her mother said. “Please. I can’t read your mind.”

  Painesville

  The dorm cleared out before the weekend. Talman took off after his last class on Friday, psyched to be driving cross-country with Hector. He’d never seen New York before. J.P. hadn’t either.

  “We’ve got room,” Hector said at the car. “If you don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

  “Please, John, come with us,” Talman said in his tortured boarding-school English, a challenge to his sense of adventure.

  He’d have much rather gone with them, but his mom was expecting him. All week she called, asking what he wanted for meals, as if she’d forgotten his favorites. She was putting together her menus, checking with him to see if he agreed. The smallest turkey she could buy was a fourteen-pounder. Would he mind if she just made a nice turkey breast?

  He could have left early like everyone else, but said he really needed to go to Chem lab Tuesday night. He was barely passing the class. Technically it wasn’t a lie.

  Over the weekend the stragglers gathered at parties that lasted until everything was gone. They dropped bottles down the stairwells, winged CDs out the windows, threw up noodles in the sinks. He remembered swaying over a bubbling toilet as he peed, blinking one eye and then the other closed so he could direct his stream. When the noise stopped, it meant he was missing.

  Saturday he didn’t wake up until the sun was going down. Sunday he came to in Michaela Albright’s bed, surprised to find Michaela’s bare back and freckled shoulders, the white blond wisps at the base of her neck. She wasn’t a beauty or someone with a reputation, just a quiet, pixieish girl on his floor who’d had too much to drink. They both acted like it was a funny mistake, but hung out that night, talking till four in the morning. She was from Painesville, right down the lake from him, and wanted to be a doctor. “Thank you for not laughing at that,” she said. Like everyone else she called him John, but in her mouth the name sounded familiar. He could sleep with her as long as all they did was sleep. Only an idiot would have turned her down, and only an idiot would have believed they’d just sleep, and the next morning they were even more confused. She had a boyfriend at home who was important to her. J.P. said he respected that, thinking it was a built-in way out.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  Instead of Kim, he thought of Nina.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Me too.”

  Because the dorms were empty, it was still their secret. They made a point not to be seen at the caf together, sneaking out for falafel and holing up in her room, staying naked most of the day. She didn’t understand it—she was actually very shy.

  She was leaving Monday after her Microbiology midterm, taking the bus back, which she hated. He hadn’t gone home for fall break (or to Denison either, guiltily blowing off Nina and Elise), so he’d never taken the bus. “Are you ready?” Michaela said. “It’s six hours.” He could drive it in three, but because of the parking problem on campus, freshmen weren’t allowed to have cars. He hadn’t missed his until now. He thought he should drive her home, as if this was a date. He wanted to meet her parents. How could he explain, after the random way they hooked up, that he was serious?

  He didn’t know her at all, yet he was convinced, on the evidence of the last two days, that she had a good heart. After Kim and Nina, he needed a love that was simple, if there was such a thing.

  He tried to persuade her to stay till Wednesday so they could go together, as if with two more nights he could win her forever. He took it as a sign when she wouldn’t change her plans. That was all right. Like the turkey breast, it wasn’t what he wanted, but it made more sense.

  She had to study Sunday night and then sleep so she’d be fresh for the test (she was on the Dean’s List and said there was no reason he shouldn’t be). Wide awake, in the shifting light of her screensaver, he watched her breathe, resisting the urge to kiss the thin skin of her neck. In sleep she seemed smaller, and he felt a rush of tenderness toward her, as if he were there to protect her instead of messing up her life.

  After her midterm (she was pretty sure she’d aced it), he took the bus downtown with her to the station. As the line filed on, they lingered behind to kiss good-bye. To say he loved her would be unfair if not untrue, so he said he’d miss her. When she was gone he felt both abandoned and relieved. Walking along the dingy street outside of the station in his new coat, he shut his eyes and shook his head.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  The dorms officially closed at noon on Wednesday. The halls were quiet, and he didn’t have to wait forever for an elevator. He stayed till the end, and, leaving, envied the Nigerian grad student who manned the security booth.

  The one o’clock bus was full, making him wait an unplanned hour for the two. A cold front had dipped down out of Canada, and by the time they were in Amish country it was dark and snow was falling, salting the stubbled fields. Cold seeped through the window, and he folded his coat inside-out like a blanket to insulate his shoulder. The interior stank of cigarettes, though each seatback sported a NO SMOKING sign and the ashtrays on the armrests had been welded shut. Muttered cellphone monologues bothered him, and the tinny beats of a dozen iPods. Across the aisle a soldier in desert camo slept with a stuffed Bugs Bunny in his arms, a prize from a fair, a present for a kid sister. As they rolled up 271 the driver suddenly braked, throwing them forward, pausing the one-sided conversations before they continued with even more force. There were no seatbelts, and as the snow flew thicker and night came down, J.P. imagined the bus sliding off the side of the road and rolling over, as if only another tragedy would absolve him.

  Through the sprawling exurbs of Cleveland, past the exit for Geauga Lake, where they’d gone for their class picnic in eighth grade. Mile by mile he was going back in time, as if nothing of the last three months was real. In many ways it wasn’t. He’d told no one about Kim, just as he’d told no one his real name, with the result that she was with him constantly, harping on him as she had in life, accusing him of being stupid and weak and a coward, and he had nothing with which to refute her. He drank and smoked himself senseless—at first on weekends and then whenever the opportunity arose—and slept through his classes, wasting money he wouldn’t be able to repay for years. His GPA was below the minimum to keep his scholarship, meaning if he didn’t turn things around he wouldn’t be coming back next year. It wasn’t that he didn’t care—he was bitterly aware of letting down his mom, who’d stood by him through everything—but the more he dwelled on his problems, the more hopeless they seemed, and the more obviously of his own making. The truth was, the false person he’d become deserved to fail, and worse.

  They dropped off passengers in Bath and Macedonia and Pepper Pike, places he’d never heard of, at stops outside convenience marts and doughnut shops. The snow was heavie
r toward the lake, blowing in rippling sheets beneath the high lights of cloverleafs. Police guarded cars that had spun off the road, their red and blue bars strobing over the median. On 90, near Mentor, traffic going the other way was backed up for miles. He wished they were, if only to postpone the inevitable.

  “Painesville next,” the driver announced over the fuzzy PA. “Next stop Painesville.”

  He could get off and call her and she’d have to come pick him up. Unless she was doing something with her boyfriend, or eating dinner with her family, in which case he’d be a jerk, and stuck there till the next bus.

  As if she’d read his mind—as if she’d sensed his presence—his phone buzzed in his pocket. He levered himself off the seat to dig it out.

  It was his mom, wondering where he was. She’d planned on serving him supper tonight. If that wasn’t going to happen, it would be nice if he’d let her know.

  “Sorry,” he said, “it’s snowing,” and told her he’d call when the bus dropped him off.

  “Be careful,” she said, as if he was the one driving.

  The soldier got off at Painesville, and he wondered, wildly, if the stuffed Bugs Bunny was for Michaela, if, with a doubletake worthy of a cartoon, he would see it next week, propped on her bed.

  Perry, Geneva, finally Ashtabula, almost home. Erie was the last stop; the bus was nearly empty. “Kingsville next,” the driver called.

  They came in by Lake Road, skirting the bluffs and the summer camps boarded up for the winter, the wind pushing the snow sideways through the streetlights. Across from the gas pumps of Waite’s Market, the town golf course was smooth and untouched, the greens and bunkers sculpted. He anticipated every landmark, every sign, his mind flying out ahead of the bus. Past the firehouse and the old grade school and the fenced substation and then down and back up the roller-coaster dip for the creek before they hit the town line and the highway turned into Grandview Avenue. They were coming up on the corner of Buffalo. The Larsens’ was a mile away, walkable even in this weather, and he imagined rushing up the aisle with his bag and telling the driver to stop and let him off, then trudging through the drifts in his sneakers, climbing the stairs to their porch and ringing the bell and standing there until they let him in.

  Silently he watched his chance go by. He was already late and his mom was holding supper. He’d go tomorrow, he promised himself. He didn’t know what he’d say, but he’d go and apologize again, and if they turned him away that was fine, at least he would have tried.

  He’d call Nina and see if she wanted to get together. She was the only one he could really talk to. They could walk on the beach and figure things out. With the snow they’d be the only ones there.

  If he could do those two things he thought he’d be okay.

  They made the light by the park, crossing Harbor, and rolled into downtown. The stores were closed, the churches dark blocks against the sky. They turned onto Superior and then Euclid, circling the court-house, and slowed for Main. The interior lights came up, making people grumble. “This stop Kingsville,” the driver said, braking, and J.P. hauled on his coat and gathered his bag. They pulled alongside the diner with its cluster of newspaper honor boxes out front, the neon clock above the grill shedding a lime green glow.

  He was the only one who got off. He stood on the sidewalk in the cold as the bus pulled away from the curb and swung around the corner, leaving him facing the post office, its steps perfectly caked, tinted a pale copper by the streetlights. The night was quiet. With the snow falling, it seemed like a stage set he’d wandered onto after the movie was over. All he needed was for a church bell to ring.

  Like an idiot—like a little kid—he hadn’t brought a hat or gloves. There was nowhere to set his bag down, and he had to dig out his phone and open it with one hand.

  “Hello?” his mom answered, as if it might be someone else.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I’m here.”

  Halftime Entertainment

  It was a tradition. Every Thanksgiving they played Conneaut, no matter how bad the weather was. She hadn’t planned on going until her mom told her about the ceremony for Kim. It was a good opportunity to do something. The team was undefeated; everyone would be there. She called Elise, thinking it would be easier for her to approach the Larsens. They’d always liked her better, the goody-goody of the three. When J.P. called that morning, she thought it was too late to include him, and risky, since—though none of it was his fault—they blamed him the most.

  “I’d really like to be part of it,” he said.

  “I know.”

  She wanted to tell him to call them himself, but felt guilty. All along it had been Hinch’s deal. She didn’t know why she’d ever listened to him.

  “I’ll ask Elise to ask them. The worst they can do is say no, right?” He agreed, though, really, there were far worse things they could say. She’d accused herself of them for months—alone or in dreams, waking in the middle of Abnormal Psych or as she ladled out kung pao shrimp to the realization that by leaving Kingsville she’d left Kim to die. On the built-in bookshelf of her desk, at eye level, she kept her favorite picture of the three of them. It was from last summer, when they’d practically lived at the beach. They were wearing cheesy sunglasses they’d bought at Wal-Mart and had their heads pressed together, beaming crazily, their hair stringy from swimming, the Three Seahags. As she was writing a paper or e-mailing she’d look up from the screen and study Kim’s face—her smile, the lines of her eyebrows, the gold chain around her neck, the yoke of her collarbones. While the picture was just an image—ink on glossy paper—Nina could still feel the living force of her personality. It seemed impossible that all of that energy was just gone.

  At the same time she was aware that she herself had changed. Her roommate had her own set of friends, and without Kim or Elise to understand her, Nina hardly talked to anyone. As if in penance, she swore off partying, lying in bed nights and listening to the music thumping through the walls. On weekends she did laundry and signed up for blocks of time at her library carrel, and by her absence earned a reputation in her dorm as a humorless nerd, which she thought was funny. She didn’t care if people thought she was weird, or proud, or stuck-up. Guys still hit on her, but now she could turn them down without explanation, as if she was sexless and chaste, preoccupied with higher things. Inwardly she laughed at her transformation into an uptight grind. Through solitude and hard work she’d become one of the girls she’d made fun of in high school. She’d become, essentially, Elise. She thought that when she was done mourning she would set this mask aside (it was like wearing black), but as the semester went on she stopped regarding her new incarnation as a conscious act and found she respected the responsible, self-possessed person she’d become more than the scheming, empty-headed teenager she used to be. The real wonder was that Kim and Elise had put up with her for so long.

  Even over the phone her mom noticed the change and praised her for it, as if she’d been waiting for this new stage. She was happy Nina was finished with Hinch, and, looking back, Nina saw that all the guys she was with in high school were chosen not for any positive qualities of their own (Hinch was silly, an overgrown twelve-year-old) but for the not-so-hidden object of worrying her mother. Now, finally, she was the smart, thoughtful Nina her mom had always wanted, and the more her mom celebrated the breakthrough, the more Nina felt the urge to revert to her earlier self. Luckily she was only home for a week. Already she was dreading Christmas.

  About an hour before game time, Elise reported back. The Larsens were okay with J.P. being part of the ceremony, with a few ground rules. He couldn’t sit or stand with them, or talk to them or any reporters.

  “Jesus,” Nina said. “What about me? Can I breathe the same air?”

  “We can stand with them.”

  “I can’t talk to them.”

  “I’m just telling you what they said.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “Mr. Larsen.”

&n
bsp; “So you’re allowed to talk to them and I’m not?”

  “He didn’t say that.”

  “I’m just trying to get this straight.”

  “I just want to be there,” Elise said. “That’s what’s important to me.”

  “It’s important to me too, but . . .” She wanted to call them monstrous, heartless people. She wanted to say that she and J.P. didn’t do anything, but that wasn’t true either.

  “Do you not want to go?” Elise asked.

  “I want to go.”

  “Then tell J.P. what the deal is and let’s go. It’s going to be cold as shit out there.”

  “Thank you,” Nina said.

  “You can thank me when it’s over,” Elise said.

  She called J.P. and explained the situation, listing the Larsens’ demands, hoping he’d say they could go fuck themselves. Instead he said that was great, over and over, as if he was relieved.

  “You don’t mind that they won’t let us stand next to them.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “It is not okay,” she said. “I think it’s pretty shitty of them. You did more than anyone.”

  “You did too,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does.”

  “They could have said no.”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “They have,” he said.

  She’d admitted this was her fault, for narcing on Wooze, yet it never failed to silence her, as if she was powerless to console him.

  “You need a ride?” he asked.

  “I’m picking up Elise.”

  “I’ll see you there then.”

  They spoke casually, as if they hadn’t been apart for months. They’d e-mailed at the start of the semester, but soon he stopped, and while she was disappointed, she was also relieved, imagining he was busy. The last time she’d seen him, he seemed quiet and tired, as if everything was too much and he was shutting down. Maybe it was just her. The end of summer had been a mess. She’d just wanted to leave. Being back made her feel old and strange, as if she no longer had a place here. It wasn’t like school, where she could get away with a disguise. The town was the same, not a single thing had changed. Obviously the problem was with her.