Where I Lost Her

by T. Greenwood

  “Do you know his name?” he asks.

  “Nah,” he says. “He’s not real talkative.”

  “Does he ever use a credit card? Maybe you would have a copy of one of his receipts?”

  “Shit no,” the boy says. “Excuse my French. He always pays cash. Has a huge roll of cash usually. Must be thousands a dollars he’s carryin’ around in his pocket.”

  “Really?” I say. “Does he maybe have a girlfriend up here?” I ask, thinking of Lisa. “Have you ever seen him with anybody else?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. Just comes in, fills up his tank, buys a twelve-pack and takes off. Ain’t never said two words to me.”

  “So how long has he been coming around here?” I ask. Most people with summer camps on Gormlaith come and open them up after Memorial Day. Just at the end of mud season when the snow has finally mostly melted, and things are starting to bloom.

  “About six months, nine months?” he says, shrugging.

  “Wait. You mean in the winter too?” I ask, confused. Summer people don’t come up here in the winter. Especially not to do landscaping. “You sure it’s the same guy?”

  “Yeah. Guy with the dog. Messed-up ears,” he says. “I remember because it was like ten below windchill one day, and he had the poor dog chained in the back of his truck. No freaking ears. It musta been freezing. I’m an animal lover, and I remember it pissed me off. ’Scuse my French again.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say, nodding. My heart is pounding hard in my chest.

  “I even wrote down his plate number, thought about reporting him to the authorities. That’s animal cruelty, ain’t it?”

  “You wrote down his plate number?” I ask, stunned.

  “Yeah, course I didn’t wind up doin’ nothin’. Felt weird with him being a regular customer and all. Seems like a nice enough guy. And ever since then the dog’s been in the cab of the truck with him anyway.”

  “Do you still have it?” I ask.

  “The plate number?” he says.

  I nod.

  “What for?”

  “The police never talked to you about this?” I ask. “A few days ago, when everybody was still looking for the girl?”

  He shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. “Nobody talked to me about nothing.”

  I feel my body tremble. They never believed me. Not even enough to ask this kid a simple question.

  “I got it right here,” he says, bending down under the counter. “I wrote it down in the same place where we keep a list of folks who bounced checks with us.” He plucks out a sheet of paper littered with names, sets it down on the counter and turns it to face me. He taps at the paper. His cuticles are raw and scabby.

  “Right there,” he says. Dog/MA pickup 993 MX1.

  I pull my phone out of my purse and enter the info into my notes app.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Let me know if the gas still ain’t coming out,” he says as I rush out the door.

  The streets are busy when I get into town. It’s lunchtime, and so people are out on the sidewalks, headed to lunch at the Miss Quimby Diner, into the bank and post office to run errands. Quimby is a typical small town in that it has one main street, one place of commerce. Most businesses have been around since I was a kid, but a few others come and go, the storefront signs different each time we come to visit Effie and Devin. When we were kids we always used to dream about opening up a bookshop on this street, the kind of bookshop that has a big orange cat that sleeps in the window. But instead, Effie became a librarian, and I went to the city and became an editor. Funny how dreams change. How reality deviates from what it is that we truly want. I can’t help but wonder what this means for Zu-Zu. For Plum. For me and for Jake now.

  I make my way to the park, to Ryan’s office, nervous about spilling everything. He’s the only lawyer I’ve got, quite possibly the only lawyer (besides his partner) in town. I really can’t risk losing him in case the cops actually follow through with the charges against me.

  I climb the stairs, and this time the door to the offices is shut. I push it open gently, and poke my head into the lobby.

  There’s a woman sitting at the reception desk this time, and she looks somewhat familiar.

  “Tess?” she says, standing up. “Oh my God, I heard you were in town!”

  I feel my cheeks redden as I struggle to place her face. Jesus. Does everyone in town know who I am? Coming here has been like one endless reunion.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?” she says.

  I smile, hesitate, hope that it will come to me.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says, waving her hand in front of her face. “It’s Beth. Beth Fowler.”

  The name rings a bell, but a bell that is so far away, I can barely hear the jingle.

  “I was . . . um . . . bigger . . . in high school,” she says, standing up from the reception desk now. She’s an attractive woman, about my age. Athletic-looking. A blond bob and soft brown eyes. “I lost a hundred and fifteen pounds two years ago. Remember, we had Mr. Noonan for calculus senior year.”

  “Elizabeth Fowler,” I say, nodding. “I remember you! Wow! That’s amazing.”

  Elizabeth Fowler was in my calculus class, and I also remember she was on the track and field team: shot put and discus. She must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds in high school. Yet, her face is exactly the same. It’s as if this woman in front of me was hiding inside that girl all along.

  “It’s great to see you,” I say.

  And then we stand there, nodding. We really didn’t know each other in high school. I’m pretty sure this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.

  “Are you on Facebook?” she asks.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “It’s Tess Waters now. You should find me. Or I can find you?”

  She nods. I nod.

  “Um, is Ryan here? I called earlier but got his voice mail.”

  “Oh, he just went to grab lunch. He should be back any minute,” she says. “Have a seat.”

  Ryan comes in just as I’m flipping open a tattered copy of People magazine. It’s at least a year old.

  He’s got a greasy paper bag in his hands and a fountain soda. “Tess!” he says. “Shoot. I didn’t think you’d get here so fast. Are you hungry? I would have picked something up for you too.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Do you want to eat first? I can wait.”

  “No, come in. If you don’t mind, I can eat while we chat.”

  “Sure,” I say. “It was nice seeing you, Elizabeth.”

  “I actually go by Beth now.” She smiles.

  And I think about reinventing yourself. About how the past always lingers. You shed a hundred and fifteen pounds, change your name, but your eyes are the same. The self-conscious smile remains.

  Ryan sits down and unwraps a big roast beef sandwich from a wax paper wrapper.

  “So, have you heard anything more from Andrews?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Have you?”

  “I called over after we spoke yesterday, told them that I would be representing you as your counsel. I let him know that any more communication with you needs to go through me. Other than that, no.”

  He takes a big bite of his sandwich, and I figure now is as good a time as any to talk.

  “Um,” I start. “I came in because there’s some new, um, information that I was thinking might help.”

  He chews slowly, cocks his head.

  “So, last night I went by Sharp’s house. . . .”

  His eyes widen.

  “Just to look around a little bit . . . to see if I could find anything.”

  He sets his sandwich down, chews and forces himself to swallow.

  “You trespassed on his property?” he says.

  “He’s got all these trailers, like a whole collection of them. It freaked me out the first time I saw them, and now, knowing what I know, I just kept thinking about that woman. Jaycee Dugard? The o
ne that man kept in his backyard. Or those girls in Cleveland? What if he has her? He’s a registered sex offender. What if she’s there?”

  He is shaking his head slowly. “You know you really shouldn’t be investigating on your own. Given the accusations, you might even want to stop joining the search party. . . .”

  “Wait,” I say. I need to at least get the story out. “There’s one trailer that isn’t on its wheels anymore. The windows are all boarded up. . . .”

  “You went inside? Jesus Christ, Tess. That’s breaking and entering.”

  “No,” I say. “It was locked. And then he came home, and get this, he was with the guy in that pickup truck. The one from Massachusetts I saw that night.”

  He’s not shaking his head anymore.

  “Did he see you?” he asks.

  “No. I left,” I say.

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? How illegal?”

  “Wait,” I say, pleading with him to just hear me out. “I found something. Something important.”

  I reach into the small pocket of my jeans and pull out the barrette. My hand is trembling. I set it on the desk next to his sandwich.

  “What is this?” he asks.

  “It’s hers,” I say. “It was in her hair when I found her.”

  He picks it up, studies it. A dollar-store piece of plastic, the only evidence that this little girl is real.

  “But here’s the problem,” I say. “I forgot to tell the cops about the barrette. I don’t know why it slipped my mind. I was so focused on what she was wearing, I forgot all about it.”

  He sets the barrette back down on the desk and pushes it toward me. Returning it to me.

  “You were trespassing. And you removed property from the premises.”

  I feel scolded. Like a child.

  “She was there. Maybe still is,” I say. “Should any of that matter if he did something to her? If he has her?”

  He sits back in his chair and pushes his hands through his hair. “Well,” he says. “There is some good news here.”

  “Yeah? How so?” I say.

  “If a police officer were to have found the barrette through what amounts, essentially, to an illegal search of this guy Sharp’s property, then it would be inadmissible.”

  I nod, waiting.

  “But, you’re a civilian. Not a cop. Usually, the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply when a civilian conducts an illegal search. Unless you’re working for the police, or as some sort of civilian police agent, the evidence won’t be suppressed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, you’re one lucky chick.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, first, that Sharp didn’t come out and blow your head off. Which he would’ve had every right to do, by the way. You might want to remember that the next time you think about snooping around. Second, I think this will force the cops to look into this guy.”

  “There’s actually more,” I say.

  “Oh Christ,” he says. “Do I even want to hear this?”

  One thing I have learned over the years is that people respond to good news a lot better after getting bad news. Even I am this simple. This predictable.

  “Yeah,” I say, and smile. “I have the plate number for the white truck.”

  After dinner, Effie and Plum lie together on the daybed on the front porch, reading. I sit in a rocking chair and linger, avoiding the inevitable, enjoying the sound of Effie’s voice as she reads to Plum, who is curled up next to her, her head in her lap. Effie told me that Zu-Zu stopped wanting to be read to when she was six, that she preferred to read to herself. But she suspects she’ll be reading to Plum even through high school. Effie’s voice is soothing, hypnotic even, and I find myself feeling drowsy. But I can’t fall asleep. I need to call Jake again. I’ve avoided it long enough.

  “I’m calling Jake,” I whisper.

  Effie nods.

  Plum’s eyes look heavy. She is fighting sleep.

  I slip outside with the cordless phone Effie keeps upstairs and sit down at the picnic table, where I am still able to get a connection, before dialing Jake’s cell number.

  The phone rings once.

  “Hey,” he says, breathless. “Did you get my text? Why didn’t you call this afternoon? I was worried about you.”

  I wince. I don’t want him worrying about me. I don’t want him feeling compassion or concern or tenderness toward me. It makes it too hard. It confuses me.

  “How did the auction go?” I ask.

  He pauses. “It was wild. We got offers from FSG, Knopf, Simon and Schuster, and Harper Collins.”

  “How much?” I ask. Because this is, ultimately, what matters. We can pretend otherwise, but the bottom line is always the bottom line in publishing, as it is in any other industry.

  “All but one are offering six figures,” he says.

  “That’s great,” I say, trying to muster enthusiasm for Jake despite my feelings about Charlie. That smug asshole. “Who are you going to go with?”

  “Wait. Three of them are offering six figures, but Judy at Knopf is offering one-point-five,” he says. He is giddy, like a child. “Million.”

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

  This is Jake’s first seven-figure deal. It could be a real game changer for the agency. These days a seven-figure advance is practically unheard of.

  “How is Charlie handling it?”

  “Well, he’s Charlie,” he says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he doesn’t want to give up world rights.”

  I picture him, the petulant little shit. The newest fist-pounding, feet-stomping Veruca Salt of the publishing world.

  “How long do you have?”

  “Until Friday,” he says. “I’m trying to keep them from figuring out that he’s putting up a fuss. But I feel like I’m dealing with a child.”

  I could have told him this would happen six months ago. Meanwhile, most of Jake’s other clients are pulling in twenty-thousand-dollar advances, keeping their day jobs, and hoping for their big break. I have a half dozen writer friends who write brilliantly, beautifully, who have no retirement savings, no way to pay for their kids to go to college. This is a cruel, cruel industry. The spoils seem always to go to the spoiled.

  “I’m sure he’ll come around,” I say, though I have no idea if this is true. And, though I should, I really don’t care.

  “How are things there?” he asks.

  So much has happened in the two days since he left, I’m not even sure where to begin. Once, a long time ago, I would have gone into excruciating detail about the conversation, the accusations Andrews made. I would have told him about my midnight trek onto Sharp’s property. I would have confided in him how scared I am. For the little girl. For myself. And he would have helped me work through it all. He would have helped me come up with a concrete plan, a step-by-step solution that would get me from point A to point B. Once, he wouldn’t have even left me here to deal with this shit on my own in the first place.

  But nothing is the same anymore. I am Alice on the other side of the looking glass, where things are both the same and completely different than they should be. Where the words are jumbled, and I can barely remember the way things are supposed to be anymore.

  “Okay,” I say. “The police called off the search. But people are still looking. Really holding out hope.”

  Hope. The word stings us both. I can feel his chest heave on the other end of the line. It’s a sword, that word. A dagger.

  Silence. And then finally, “Anything new at all? Has anyone else come forward? That guy with the truck?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “But there are a couple of leads.”

  “Like what?” he asks, and now it just feels like he’s challenging me. Questioning me.

  “Well, I found out some stuff about one of the neighbors. He’s a registered sex offender.” I figure this is the most compellin
g and concrete and convincing thing I’ve got.

  He pauses.

  “Tess, I read online that the police are calling it a hoax.”

  I feel my whole body grow hot, my nerve endings raw. I look toward the porch, where I can see Plum and Effie curled up together still, the orange glow of the light turning them into shadows.

  “Do you think about her?” I ask.

  On the lake, a loon calls out to another in that familiar mournful keen. But its cry goes unanswered.

  Jake is quiet.

  Once, he would have known right away what I was talking about. But now, I suspect his mind goes first to the woman he’s sleeping with. To Jess. That Esperanza, like the little girl, has disappeared into the dark woods of his imagination.

  “No,” he says, a deep sigh that sounds both exasperated and exhausted. “Not anymore.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, feel tears. When I open them, the lake and trees blur together in front of me.

  “She would be ten,” I say. “Like Plum.”

  The solitary loon cries again. Unanswered.

  “She is ten,” he says. “She’s not dead.”

  I shake my head. It is impossible for me to imagine her still alive. Still on this earth. The day that we flew away from Guatemala, I had to pretend that she was dead, or I would never have been able to leave.

  “I feel like you will never let this go,” he says. “Never let her go. And I am so tired of competing with a ghost. I can’t win.”

  I hold the phone away from my ear because his words hurt.

  I want to tell him that I am tired of competing with all the others. With his clients. With his colleagues. With Jess and all the possible others. I am tired of competing with his papers and his laptop and his cell phone. Because that is a competition I can never, ever win.

  “When are you going to come back?” he says. “So we can deal with this? Figure this out?”

  I study my hands in the dark. The long fingers. The nails bitten to the quick. I feel strangely unattached from myself. Both inhabiting my body and outside of it.

  I turn to the window and watch as Effie leans over Plum, tucking her into the daybed, where she has fallen asleep. The simple gesture, the way she leans over and kisses her, is almost unbearable.