True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  George hitches his head to the electronic highway sign flashing far ahead. “Is that an Amber Alert?”

  “Damn it.” Nate slows the vehicle as they near it and squints to read the words. “No, it’s just construction announcements.” He turns to give the sign a second look as they pass it. “I didn’t think they’d issue an alert.”

  “Why not?”

  “They need a vehicle to report, a car the girl might be in, or a license plate number to broadcast to these drivers. Some identifiable vehicle for them to watch out for.” He adjusts his rearview mirror and sits back. “They’ve got nothing, nothing to locate.”

  George opens his passenger window a few inches and deeply inhales the outside air.

  “Just take it easy, man. All you have to do once you’re home is relax and watch the evening news for updates, then wait fifteen minutes in case a change of plans needs to be made. And don’t tie up your phone. At seven-fifteen, drive over to your shop and give it a once-over. Like you always do when you take time off.” Nate signals for the exit and leaves the highway. “We’re almost there, home free.” He lets out a whoop, then takes a long breath. “Okay. Okay, now when you’re done at the shop, lock up and stop at Litner’s Market, for a quart of milk or something.”

  George knows the place, the small convenience store not far from his home.

  “Cars are always pulling in and out of there for a loaf of bread or paper towels. The commotion in the parking lot is all part of the cover, okay? You’ll be an innocent bystander and shit will happen. You’ll get her then.”

  “How will she be delivered? And what do I do with her?”

  “I’m sorry, but if I tell you the details, it won’t be spontaneous. It won’t be credible.” Nate turns into the long driveway leading to George’s condominium. “You have to think like a witness in order to keep your cover. This way, not knowing, you will. Like a normal witness.”

  But normal witnesses don’t bolt from the shower to vomit. Don’t shake so much they cut their face shaving. Don’t take a second shower after perspiring so badly.

  At the end of the evening news, George sits silently in his living room. He glances at his father’s ring still on his pinky. That’s not something he can think about, his father. So that’s gone now, the way he’d think easily of his dad. He stands and looks out the same living room window he looked out this morning and the memory brings him to tears.

  Finally, it is time. Dim lights cast long shadows at The Main Course. Right on schedule, he steps in and locks the door behind him. Dean, his full-time butcher, ran the shop today. What George wishes is that he’d been here today too, filleting fish, making meatloaves to-go, been anywhere but where he had been. Walking through the shop, the countertops, the glass meat cases and the spice display racks, they all gleam. He has good help. In the back room, the equipment has been stripped down, cleaned and sanitized. He touches the blade on the commercial slicer and glances at the grinder. Fresh meats stock the refrigerator, with a stack of custom orders waiting for his attention in the morning. Satisfied, he locks up and leaves.

  Lights come on in the old houses, the Tudors and stone-front capes set back on deep lawns. It is that dusky time of day when low sunlight and long shadows play tricks on your eyes. He is sure that even the lighting is part of the plan, casting subdued doubt on any witness’ perception. That much precision went into the heist, that manipulation of memory using light to blur the lines of distinction.

  He pulls into Litner’s parking lot, picks a space not too far from the door and kills the engine. Should he wait in his pickup? Does he go inside? His heart drums in his chest as he looks around. Fluorescent lights flicker in the store window above handmade flyers advertising the week’s specials, discounted sandwich bread and laundry detergent. In his rearview mirror, he checks the parking lot entrance. Perspiration covers his forehead when he finally gets out of the truck. He has to get out, just to take a deep breath.

  It’s amazing how he’s acutely aware of every damn domino set in place. A teenaged girl exits the store and walks toward a red compact car at the very same time a dark sedan pulls into a space three away from George. Its headlights sweep the parking lot, adding to the mounting activity. An older minivan pulls in, loaded with loud kids in soccer gear. The girl leaving the store wears stereo headphones and so won’t hear a thing. Is she a planned distraction? With two cars coming, the red car going and George locking his door, enough activity fills the parking lot to keep watching eyes off any one individual.

  He turns toward the store entrance, noting the young kid running the cash register. An older man steps behind the counter, a store manager wearing a shirt and tie. His large stomach presses against the shirt as he turns back past the lottery tickets and cigarettes to answer a ringing telephone.

  George knows. Even the phone call is planned, keeping the manager’s attention off the parking lot. Nothing is what it seems, and never will be again.

  “Hey, guy.” Just steps away from the entrance, he hears the voice. If his every nerve ending hadn’t been on edge, he would have missed it; it is that smooth. He bends his head down to get a better look while approaching the sedan parked beyond his truck. So they ditched the van. Normal, he whispers as he blows out a long breath.

  “Could you give me directions?” Reid’s voice calls.

  George squints through the shadows looking for the girl. “Where you headed?” he asks, going along with the charade for the benefit of any witnesses. As he nears the vehicle, the rear passenger door opens and the child is set on the pavement. She turns back to the car and for the first time all day, he hears her speak.

  “Kitty,” her small voice calls out. It holds no fear, only fatigue and concern for a cat. So they haven’t harmed her.

  It comes then, the urge to run and scoop her up, to dash off in the other direction and never look back. George thinks he can run so fast, he’d beat the speed of time and bargain with the devil to change his fate. But then his stomach knots. He is the devil, as far as Amy Trewist is concerned.

  “I just talked to your brother.” George jumps at the voice coming from the driver’s seat and looks back at Reid. “He’s real pleased he took care of you today, financially. Took care of his family. It means a lot to him.”

  “Well I’m out,” George answers quietly. “This is the end of it.”

  “You’re never out.” Reid’s voice drops. “Lay low, George. For a good, long time. We’ll be watching you, your shop, your life. One wrong move and, you know, accidents happen.”

  “Accidents? What are you talking about?”

  “Just don’t slip up.” Reid shrugs. “Think twice. Always now.”

  George looks over at the girl. Her thumb is in her mouth while her pinky twists around a strand of her flattened ponytail. It looks like she just woke from a nap. Elliott sets a carton on the ground beside her.

  Reid glances over at the child. “Even that Trewist lady,” he says. “If you don’t keep all this quiet, well hey, she lives alone, easy target.”

  But none of this matters anymore. George looks from the girl to Reid and doesn’t wait to hear more bullshit. He’s done. In one fell swoop, he turns and grabs the girl and the carton. With the child hoisted on his hip, he runs toward the store, jostling the carton as it nearly slips when he yanks the door open.

  “Get off the phone!” he yells at the manager before the door even closes behind him. His pounding heart can’t take much more and he struggles awkwardly to keep the cat carton upright. “Call 9-1-1, fast!” He looks over his shoulder and sees a glimpse of red taillights leaving the parking lot.

  Five

  AMY GIVES THE INVESTIGATORS PHOTOGRAPHS of her daughter, allows them to cull a set of fingerprints from Grace’s room and relinquishes clothing samples enabling search dogs to pick up Grace’s scent. With tongs, they lift select pieces and drop them in a plastic bag. Will the German Shepherds, noses to the ground, smell what Amy does? Will they pick up the scent of her daughter’
s soft clothing, dried in the spring breeze on the clothesline? Will they sense a trace of baby shampoo from her angel-soft hair? Will they recognize the waxy aroma of crayons from little fingers that color masterpieces?

  Amy had felt she was helping, in some way, with all this. Now though, evening settles and the hunt intensifies outside her realm. Celia lit a fire in the stone fireplace and sits with her watching out the front windows. They speak little, instead listening for a knock on the door, a ringing telephone, any sign that Grace is alive. Pots rattle in the kitchen and the aroma of chicken soup fills the house, as though someone is ill. Along with her parents came the chicken, carrots, celery, onions and stewed tomatoes spilling from grocery bags. Her mother even brought ginger ale.

  Finally Amy moves to the kitchen, picks up a knife and begins slicing celery at the counter. She slices only half a stalk before setting the knife down and turning to pull a bottle of Scotch from the high cabinet.

  “Amy,” Ellen Vance begins.

  “Don’t you dare. Just don’t say anything, Mom.” Amy fills a tumbler with the liquor, takes a long swallow and drops into a chair. “I need something, okay? If I can’t have my Grace, really, I can’t do anything else.”

  Ellen sits beside her and pours a splash of Scotch into a juice glass. “One drink. Just to remember a little. To talk about her while we wait.”

  So Amy tries to recall sweet thoughts of Grace. But every image torments without Grace here. It’s such a struggle to merely choose thoughts. She searches her mother’s face and catches the glimmer of heavy gold earrings. Her mother dressed for the trip. She wears a pale spring pantsuit, jewelry, a touch of make-up, though none of it masks the strain on her face.

  “Why’d you dress?” Amy asks, her hand turning her whiskey glass.

  “What?”

  “When I called you this morning, you were working in the garden. Why’d you dress up?”

  “Well. I was covered in dirt. Look.” She lifts her hands, palm up, toward Amy. “I still can’t get all the soil out.”

  Amy takes her mother’s hand in hers and softly drags her own fingers over her mother’s skin. Veins of dirt are imbedded in the fine lines of her mother’s palms. “I touched his hand.”

  “Whose hand?”

  “One of the kidnappers. I touched him, Mom. One of the men, he picked up Grace’s shoe. It fell in the struggle.” Amy looks up at her mother. “We reached for it at the same time and his hand covered mine.” His hand must have touched her daughter’s foot, too. Slipped on the shoe. She prays for a kind touch. “He’s got Grace now.” She drops her mother’s hand and walks to the sink while peeling off her bandage. Running the water hot, she scrubs her own hands raw. “Why didn’t I hold on or make him take me? Or reach for his gun and turn it on him?” Blotting her hands on a dishtowel, then hanging it over the back of a chair, none of it erases the thought of his touch. “Why didn’t I do more?”

  “Listen. You did all you could. It was a life or death situation.”

  Amy squeezes her eyes shut against the image of her tiny daughter jostled in the struggle.

  “You did what you had to for Grace,” her mother continues.

  “But she’s not back.” She turns and listens to the evening sounds for a long moment before moving to the cutlery drawer. Handful by handful, she drops first forks, then spoons, into the sink. Water runs hot and soapy over them.

  “What are you doing?” Ellen asks.

  “I can’t just stand here. I can’t just think. It’s driving me crazy.” She picks up a dishcloth. “I have to clean up. I have to be busy, to do something.”

  Ellen steps behind her and embraces her, resting her head on Amy’s shoulder. “I know,” she whispers.

  “Can we go look for her, Mom?” In the window over the sink, Amy’s kitchen is reflected back in the glass. Antique china plates hang in a collage beside a heart-shaped twig wreath, a painted ceramic chicken sits on the far shelf and tiny blue hearts dot all the wallpaper. “Would you drive while I look?” she pleads to her mother’s reflected face. “Maybe we can find her. You and me.”

  “Shh. No, Amy. We have to wait here. Everyone has to be able to reach you. The police. The kidnappers. They might call with instructions.” Her mother adds a splash more Scotch to their glasses and puts Amy’s beside the sink where she scrubs the cutlery. “We have to think positive. We have to believe she’ll be back … That’s why I dressed up.” Ellen sips her drink. “Don’t you remember? Gracie loves this jacket.”

  Amy looks at the paisley print swirling over the cream fabric.

  “I dressed up for her,” Ellen says, then reaches into the cabinet, lifts out clean plates and stacks them near the sink. From another cabinet, she sets a dozen coffee mugs beside the plates. “You wash, I’ll dry.”

  Lowering her hands into the soapy dishwater, Amy sponges off a fork, rinses it and places it in the dish drainer. Her mother opens the cutlery drawer, picks up each piece Amy washes, carefully dries and neatly restacks them.

  The sound of dropping cutlery strikes Amy as very lonely. Someone is putting away the silverware. A day is done. It is night. She silently slips the plates into the dishwater. The only sounds in the kitchen are her hands dipping into the water, the gentle stream of the tap rinsing the dishes, and the chink of forks and spoons. She has never known such long moments when words won’t work and there is only sound.

  An officer in the house intercepts all phone calls, fielding the media, taking messages from friends, keeping the line open as best he can. So when the phone rings, Amy turns off the faucet to hear the drone of his deep voice in the living room. Listening, she picks up a plate and silently drags the dishrag over it, her hand moving slowly until it finally stops.

  “What’s the matter?” Ellen asks.

  Amy turns toward the living room. She has listened keenly to Officer Pine’s unyielding voice all day and knows it well. It sounds different this time; its tone has changed. She drops the plate into the sink and runs through the kitchen to the living room.

  The officer has disconnected the call and is nodding at Celia when Amy and her mother rush into the room. Celia stands and loops her arm around Amy’s waist.

  “Mrs. Trewist,” Officer Pine says. “They’ve found your daughter and I’m happy to report that she appears to be fine and unharmed.”

  “Oh thank God,” Ellen cries as she collapses in a hug with Amy.

  “She’s coming home,” Celia says from behind tears. “Grace is okay.”

  “Where?” Amy asks. Her mother and Celia each hold one of her hands. “How did they find her?”

  “Apparently Grace was dropped off in a grocery store parking lot and left with a passerby. He immediately called the police and she is in their custody as we speak.”

  “Yes!” Celia exclaims, punching the air. “Yes! Yes! She made it!”

  “Please,” Amy asks. “I have to see her. Can I go to her?”

  “They’re bringing her here, Mrs. Trewist.”

  Amy sinks into the couch with the realization of his words. Grace is safe and on her way home, home, home. Home to simmering chicken soup and her grandmother’s favorite swirled jacket and a warm kitchen filled with hearts and love and laughter. Celia sits beside her as Ellen rushes to the front window. “An ambulance has also been dispatched here. She’ll need to be examined at the hospital right away, once she’s with you.”

  Amy nods. “And when will she be here?” She feels as though she has just emerged from beneath the sea, a sodden drowning victim given one last reprieve as she gasps in relief. The sound of sirens approaches.

  “Well, I’d imagine that’s her right now.”

  * * *

  Grace sits in the back seat of a police van with George. The cardboard box is between them; a female officer sits across from them. “You’re going to see your mommy now,” she tells Grace softly.

  Once George took Grace from Litner’s parking lot, he wanted to stay with her until she was back in her mother’s arms,
so the officials allowed him to accompany her home. Grace doesn’t recognize him from the morning. He reaches over now and checks the child’s shoe. It is still double-tied snug. So that’s what the day comes down to. Pink saddle shoes and dark weapons. One versus the other, for hours on end. The day shows in the child’s weary face, in her misshapen blonde ponytails and lopsided hair ribbons. Elliott thought a kitten would keep her occupied while the day passed. Every now and again, the black and white kitten cries a soft mew from the box.

  “She’s okay?” George asks the officer, nodding at Grace.

  “Seems to be. They’ll be bringing her to the hospital to be sure.”

  Grace pops her thumb out of her mouth and looks at the carton. “Kitty there?” she asks.

  “You can show the kitty to your mommy,” George says. “Pretty soon, okay?” He tries to smile as Grace stares at him. The van slowly drives down a long side street, then pulls into a driveway crowded with official vehicles. “Look,” George says, bending low to watch. “There’s your house.”

  One steep peak crowns the farmhouse’s white façade, an open porch hugs the front and a deep green trim outlines the structure. Lamplight spills from the windows in a warm yellow glow and a twig and forsythia wreath hangs on the wooden front door. A towering old maple tree reaches for the sky just beyond the house, and the lawn looks thick and jewel green. The blue flashing light casts distorted shadows on the plain detective sedans dotting the front driveway and the police cruisers lining the street.

  When they pull into the long driveway, George doesn’t recognize Amy Trewist waiting on the open front porch. He has to look again to be sure the woman standing there in fitted jeans and a white oxford blouse is, in fact, her. But he’d recognize those brown eyes anywhere after locking on to them that morning. It occurs to him that Amy might recognize him, but then it’s apparent she is no longer in that morning moment. She runs down the steps, bending forward, straining to see her daughter. George and the police officers step out of the van, and he leans inside to lift Grace out to the driveway. Before he can turn back with the kitten in the carton, Grace is gone. As quickly as she had been ripped from her mother’s grasp today, her mother has taken her back. She spins around, her arms wrapped tightly around her girl. A crowd of people swarms them, cheering and hugging little Grace. The entire time, Amy never lets her out of her embrace, her fingertips floating over the child’s face, unable to stop touching her.