by Kim Savage
Should Vivienne wander, 911 should be called IMMEDIATELY. Parental notification of ANY wandering incident, including incidents where she may have wandered within the building, is required. Incidents should be well documented and include when and how the occurrence took place.
Please know that failure to address known, preventable escape patterns and security breaches puts Vivienne at great risk. We ask for your cooperation in working with us to report all incidents, to make sure the school premises have proper architectural barriers (locks, sensor alarms, and cameras) in place, to ensure all school staff members are aware of her tendency to wander, to ensure fences are gated at all times and exterior doors are always shut, and to ensure that Vivienne is never left unattended no matter what the circumstance.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Vonnie includes a definition of my “disorder,” which I am confident she has lifted from either Dr. Silver or the Internet, or both.
Bolting, also referred to as wandering, elopement, and fleeing, is the tendency for an individual to try to leave the safety of a responsible person’s care or a safe area, which can result in potential harm or injury. This might include leaving the classroom without permission. This behavior is considered common and short-lived in toddlers, but it may persist or reemerge in children and adults. This makes wandering a potentially dangerous behavior.
This is not amnesia, this is something else, something concocted. And I know enough to know that this is something I do not have.
There is even a plan if I should be found bolting:
Call office with name and last location. Office staff will notify all staff, “Code V, Room (last location seen).” When student is located, contact office and all staff will be notified with the announcement “Code canceled.”
All staff will look outside their windows and immediate hallway areas. Staff will search second-floor restrooms, work areas, and other nonclassroom areas. Staff will search first-floor restrooms, work areas, gym, cafeteria, and library. Staff will immediately search the outside perimeter of the building.
I am a code: a secret language specific to me if I try to leave school.
Everything in the room—the white tiles, the sea glass on the windowsills, the copper pans hanging from the ceiling—seems to expand and contract every time I breathe.
“Where are you?” you yell from the front hall, carrying in an armful of the blueberry branches that grow in the sandy strip alongside our rented house. “Look what I got to before the birds did!”
Your mouth is stained from the berries and you catch me closing out the open file on the screen. You set the berry branches on the white marble counter and walk to the computer. “Whatcha looking at?”
I swallow, woozy. “I wasn’t looking.”
One beat, then two. The silence is heavy. Then: “Your life is better now, Vivi. You can’t say it’s not.”
I can’t say it. “You’re right.”
You step behind and put your arms around me to tell me a story, about you and Vivi, the way you can now that I know you know I am Jo. It’s one I’ve heard before, about a boy who bullied all the girls in elementary school with crude suggestions about their “lips”—not the ones on their mouths, and something he’d picked up from porn or an older brother—but especially Vivi, and how you clotheslined him at school, with an actual cord clothesline, and your stories are fun, and I am grateful for this. You even tell me how brave Vivi was, leaning over and spitting in his face, and I know you’re making this part up, but it’s somehow for my benefit, this mythology about the girl I’m supposed to be.
I cross my hands over my heart and hold your wrists. Just when I am ready to harden my heart to you, you are so sweet. These are the moments when I imagine you and me growing old together, sitting in a café in France or maybe Spain, wearing smart clothes and smoking and being old and cool and free.
That night, slipped under my pillow in the airy loft room I share with you, is a tiny black velvet-covered box with BARMAKIAN written in gold. I creak it open. Inside is a pair of perfect sparkling diamond earrings, with a note.
The time has come for you to have your own. Kisses, T.
* * *
I used to think Wolf liked to come to the Glass Globe because Massachusetts was short on gaudy attractions like Disney World, for example. I never got why anyone would want to see a world map that hasn’t been accurate since 1935, but the glass room has one, is one, a “Mapparium” that’s really a big, old, hollowed-out, indoor stained-glass planet Earth that you can walk inside. They know Wolf by now and let him in free, and there’s always a mass of tourists, so it’s easy to get absorbed. Wolf likes to point out that it’s the only place where you can see the world without distortion, as it is, with the continents and the oceans all the right size. I never had the heart to point out that, like the audio says, which he’s heard a hundred times, even if the sizes are right, the Glass Globe represents a world that doesn’t exist anymore, because the political boundaries have changed. There’s no Indonesia or Israel, but there is still a Soviet Union and Siam.
I don’t have a lot of time. In the two days we’ve been back in the city, they’ve been watching me closer than ever.
What Wolf likes best is to watch the workers clean, and that’s how I’ll find him. A cherry picker sets up on the glass bridge that spans the width, and a worker gets lifted on its arm three stories up to clean each panel with a long broom. Wolf doesn’t need to tell me—people are simple—for me to understand that he likes the fact that here, the world can be made clean.
Wolf stands in the dead center of the wide bridge, ignoring irritated tourists who want his prime viewing spot. The lights reflect blue on his bare arms. He’s staring at Africa, and his hair fans over the left side of his face, so I cannot read where he is. He coughs into his hand every few seconds, a juicy cough, and people move away. I hold my breath, hanging out by the Indian Ocean, because the Glass Globe is also a whispering gallery where you can hear in Australia things people say in Greenland. Wolf knows my breathing.
I pass right behind him. It is everything I can do not to touch his shoulder as I slip the note into his backpack, but he would startle, the reaction of one used to pickpockets and other kinds of thieves. He will hate this note that puts him on call, that asks him to do, at my bidding, the unthinkable. But when you’ve done the things Wolf has done, unthinkable is relative.
I have purchased equipment that should make his job easier.
When I finally reach the South Pacific, I make the mistake of looking back. Wolf feels me, snaps his head, but I am off, through the lobby, shoving tourists—always tourists!—through this fairy-tale place, with high arches and lights, but I am less distracted by such spaces than I used to be. Vivi has seen more refined things from the inside than Jo has seen from the outside, and the effect is dulling. Also, I need to escape before Wolf follows me. I cannot explain that note, cannot risk Wolf arguing me out of it. I need him reading that note alone in our tent (if he is still alone in our tent) and remembering his promise to do anything for me.
I am running now across Massachusetts Avenue against traffic and I pass the Symphony T stop because there is no waiting for a train, not with Wolf on my trail, though I got a head start because he had to manhandle those tourists between us on the glass bridge, and for sure the Christian Scientists who built the place aren’t letting him into the Mapparium for free anymore. Wolf forces me to run up Mass Avenue, around strollers and students, and it’s amazing no cops have stopped us yet, and it helps that Wolf keeps slowing to cough, and I’m faster, one quick turn onto Hemingway and across Boylston, here are the Berklee students moving in sofas and luggage and Wolf won’t dare follow me up Newbury, it’s too busy, but he does, coughing, and I am panting, and I duck onto Dartmouth and up, up, up the stairs and I don’t know if he’s still back there but I slam the door anyway and slide down it until I’m sitting on the cold marble.
The fire escape.
I run up the staircase, using
the banister to hurl myself up even faster, because my legs are junk, and I rush into my room, fumble with the lock, and slam the cracked window down, locking it shut. There is more danger now, Wolf cannot show up here, and—
“Are you being chased?” you say, laughing, standing in my doorway, your hip jutting out. You’re wearing your white fencing knickers and jacket with the strap that goes between your legs. “Maybe I should call Gerry. Gerry!”
I storm out of my room past you because I know you will follow me and I don’t need you there when Wolf comes to the window, which he will, and it will be locked. Sweat pours off me. I stick my head in the fridge so I don’t have to look at you.
“You didn’t tell us where you were going,” you say.
“Your parents have been meeting in the office with Gene all morning. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re full of it. You locked your bedroom door and went down the fire escape. I’m going to tell them to take it down.”
“Then how will you sneak out at night to Mont Vert?”
You raise your eyebrows. “Yeah, well, you can’t start disappearing now that we’re back. It won’t be tolerated.”
I take out a bottle of orange juice and swig it from the mouth. You wrinkle your nose. When I want space, I do Jo-like things to offend you. We are from different worlds, you and me, but I don’t care if you know anymore, and in that way you are losing your power over me.
Puppy-Wolf pads into the kitchen. I scoop her up and bury my face in her warm back.
“You went to see your boyfriend, didn’t you?” you say sharply.
I give you my blankest look.
“He doesn’t fit into your life now. You know that better than anyone.”
“I’m going to lie down,” I say, heading for the parlor, which is the last room I spend any time in; that’s how badly I want to get away from you. Yet you follow me anyway, and there is the sound of the pocket door to the office sliding open. Lawyer Gene is dragging a hand down his cheek as he emerges. He startles when he sees me. Behind him come Mrs. Lovecraft, Mr. Lovecraft, and Harvey Silver. They mumble hellos and head for their suit jackets on the coatrack by the front door. Mrs. Lovecraft darts into the kitchen for her pocketbook as the men leave.
“Clarissa, I’m leaving my phone, do you have yours?” Mr. Lovecraft yells back.
“Yes!” Mrs. Lovecraft calls. She turns to me. “We need to run an errand. You girls must have lots to do—unpacking, online school shopping?” She looks at me pointedly. “Gerry is here if you need anything.”
“All four of you? Together?” you say, as if the weird formality of that needs to be pointed out. This makes you nervous too—something is up—but you care less than I do, and I bet I will find out first.
Mrs. Lovecraft frowns. “I know someone who has a fat math packet that was supposed to be completed by the end of the summer. How far along are you?”
You duck back into the kitchen. I set Wolf on the floor and reach around to hug Mrs. Lovecraft, which I’ve taken to doing lately because the way she stiffens in my arms reminds me not to be fooled by her. Also, it’s easier to slip my hand into the bag on her shoulder and steal her phone.
She can’t get away from me fast enough.
I shut down her phone and place it inside the vase on the table in the middle of the foyer. I lift Wolf to my face, light as bones and fur, and breath her sweet doggy smell in, listening for where Gerry is in this godforsaken house. Something about leaving the puppy makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t have much time if I want to follow the Lovecrafts, Lawyer Gene, and Harvey Silver to where I think they’re going. I use the front door in case the real Wolf is floating around and wait for Lawyer Gene’s car to pull away from the curb with the Lovecrafts following behind, a caravan of mysterious intentions. I use my wire cutter to snap the lock on one of the bikes always tied to the meter in front of the Lovecrafts’ brownstone and ride as fast as I can toward the police station.
* * *
You wouldn’t think someone would be able to hang around the window of a police station and hear things. And you’d be right. I stalk the entire station, and though I know where Detective Curley’s office window is, it is barred and painted shut. This was a wrong move, and as soon as you and Gerry discover I’m gone, and call Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft’s phones over and over and don’t reach them, I will be screwed without benefit. I am about to mount my stolen bicycle and meet my fate when I see the Lovecrafts, Gene, and Harvey Silver emerge from the station. They decide to debrief at an outdoor café next door, where it is incredibly easy to slump against a wall with my face in my knees, pretending to be homeless.
They sit at a lovely table within hearing distance. Convenient.
“There’s nothing Curley can do with a diagnosis. A bolter bolts. That’s what they do by definition. We can’t conclude that’s what happened to Vivienne at nine. But the statement of the social worker is helpful,” says Harvey Silver.
“But if the school accepts it, and the social worker accepts it, the police have to accept it, right?” asks Mr. Lovecraft.
“What doesn’t help us is the girl’s claims when she first came in. Curley can’t get those out of his head,” says Lawyer Gene.
Harvey Silver rubs his chin. “It would help if the girl would admit to running away. Are you sure we can’t get her to?”
“We’ve tried,” lies Mr. Lovecraft.
“Her attraction to cars and traffic is still apparent. We have to be constantly alert, living on Commonwealth Avenue. You can imagine!” exclaims Mrs. Lovecraft. “We’ve added bars to our windows. Our private security person is kept busy, I’ll tell you that. We let go of our original man because he couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t understand the endless vigilance required by Vivienne’s affliction.”
I am sickened.
“Clarissa bears the brunt of it for sure. You just have to hope that Curley can wrap his brain around the fact that Vivienne bolted once before: that foul play wasn’t a factor,” says Mr. Lovecraft.
A man drops a dollar on the ground in front of me. I stare up at him, my eyes angry slits.
“You know what I’m going to say, Clarissa,” says Harvey Silver.
“I know,” Mrs. Lovecraft replies. “She’s likely to bolt again.”
“It would be best if you document her attempts,” adds Lawyer Gene.
My heart starts thumping in my chest. Document my attempts?
“You mean in case she succeeds?” asks Mr. Lovecraft.
“Yes, God forbid, in case she succeeds,” says Harvey Silver.
Documented attempts. A school aware of my “disorder.” A police detective aware of my “disorder.”
A new hole in the wall.
The Lovecrafts have gotten what they needed from me: redemption. Now that their daughter has told me everything, Vivienne Weir has become a liability. Where I thought I had the best of them, they had the best of me. A con is another con’s easiest mark.
I snatch the dollar from the ground. The Lovecrafts may have made Vivienne Weir disappear, but they won’t make Jolene Chastain.
It’s time to go back to being nobody.
* * *
The party in celebration of the two-month anniversary of my adoption is to be held at the Christian Science ballroom, home of the Glass Globe. This is your idea, and not a coincidence. I used to think you followed me places—once I was even convinced you had cameras in my room—but I’ve come to believe you learn things the old-fashioned way. A ticket stub from the Mapparium in my jacket pocket. A phone left on “record” on a shelf ledge during my tutoring sessions. Your techniques are not fancy or sophisticated, but they get the job done, and that is where the con goes wrong, when they try to get too fancy. You’re one to watch, Temple Lovecraft.
Anyway.
As best I can tell, this party serves as a big splashy public display of the Lovecrafts’ love for me, the love they have crafted. It will make clear to all the pretty people who matter that the only reas
on I would ever run away (again? Do you think she did that first time?) could be due to a diagnosed illness, a compulsion to bolt
wander
elope
which of course the school knew about, and the police knew about, and Harvey Silver can explain, and what a tragedy. A missing-person case will open, but the Lovecrafts will not worry. They know that the police never look in the walls.
You are in good spirits, because school will start soon, and you do love school, I was wrong that day in the library, about so many things. School is a structured routine and you thrive on routine, where you can prove that you are the best at everything. You are also in high spirits because you love a good party, especially when it is a prelude to a kill.
You shake out your hair in my doorway. “Ready for your ‘coming out,’ Vivienne Weir?” you ask. You are wearing a black dress that is one-shouldered and sophisticated and you look hot and that makes me cold.
My dress is the color of membranes; a color as raw as I feel. “I’ll be there in a second,” I reply. When you leave, I smell the white flowers of your perfume, an expensive smell that comes from a black lacquered bottle. I reach into my drawer and pull out the lime-green sweater and ease open my window, my always too-loud window, and lean out, tying the sweater’s arms to the railing of the fire escape. The wind makes it hard, weird alley-wind that kicks up and makes no sense, and the sweater gets caught, streaming, less like a flag screaming help than like a skinny girl holding on for dear life.
If Wolf doesn’t get my call, he’ll see her.
“Vivi, we’re going to be late!” Mr. Lovecraft calls, his voice booming.
“Coming, Dad!” I call, shutting the window.
* * *
To my earlier point: cons are never focused on the right thing.
In their minds, this night is about what happens next. The Lovecrafts will spend the evening working toward this future-thing, the moment when they get rid of me—later tonight, tomorrow, two months from now—because I became something dangerous rather than something helpful.
