Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “Do, please. I need them as soon as possible. I was hoping we could go over them tonight.”

  Arlene agreed to have hers this afternoon. No, she didn’t want the door closed, but Emily pulled it most of the way.

  Arlene sighed and tipped up her book again, crossed her legs under the afghan. She read a sentence and then the gray light from outside made her look up. The trees were calm now, a few leaves stuck in the lawn showing their pale bellies.

  One of the criteria was drugs and another was interstate transit, taking someone across state lines against his or her will. She pictured Eugene Ingram sitting in his seat, and then his terrible handwriting, only his name easily legible. When he disappeared two men from the FBI interviewed her in the teacher’s lounge. Arlene told them what she knew. Eugene was absent a great deal and sometimes didn’t bother to hand in assignments. His aunt had come to an open house early in the year and had been pleasant enough (in reality she was bored, but so were most of the parents, doing their duty), and Arlene had not talked to her since. The FBI didn’t say that the aunt and uncle were missing as well. She’d had to read that later in the paper.

  And eventually everyone at school found out what happened to Eugene Ingram. His uncle had been dealing dope and some local gang members decided to rob him. They kidnaped Eugene along with the aunt and uncle and kept them in an abandoned house down in Homewood. They tortured them to find out where the money was, and then, according to the Post-Gazette, killed them execution-style.

  She’d had students before who ended up dead—it was not the safest neighborhood—but much later, when they were in high school or beyond, dropped out or graduated to a harder life than she would ever know. Eugene was in the third grade and still had that annoying clown in him that some boys have in place of personality. He thought farts were funny and had trouble with math. After she heard what had happened to him (from the eleven o’clock news, a minute’s information), she tried to remember something he’d said to her, some moment of closeness the two of them had shared. She had a number to choose from—Eugene taping his Polaroid to the board by the door, Eugene reading his Thanksgiving essay in front of the class, Eugene singing in the third- and fourth-grade concert—but in the end she kept returning to the time he’d cut his chin at recess.

  He’d been playing on the Big Toy and another boy had pushed him off, and he came to her holding his chin.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said, and when he removed his hands, she could see there was blood and that he would need stitches. She asked Mrs. Casey to take over and escorted him straight to the nurse. “It doesn’t hurt,” he insisted on the way to the doors. It must have seemed like punishment to him, her dragging him along (he must have thought she was angry with him, or maybe he was thinking of his aunt and uncle), because all the way down the hall he repeated it, tears coming, planting his feet, his sneakers slipping on the marble, “It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t!”

  Her book lay open on her lap. She hadn’t thought of Eugene Ingram in years. It had to have been the mid-eighties, long gone. Her hold on him was fleeting, like the book’s on her attention, and maybe that was for the good. Later the neighborhood was worse, and the city had trouble finding teachers, with the result that she kept her job longer than she’d meant to. Some of the children she’d taught had probably gone on to college, and some were probably dead. The majority were no doubt somewhere in between, off to jobs or not, in love or alone, happy or unhappy or, like her, some muddled combination of the two. Marvin Liberty and his lisp, Crystal Worthington, who laughed at everything and made her a leather change purse. There was no way of knowing. She thought that if she began wondering what had happened to each and every one of them, she would never stop.

  So, though she couldn’t explain all this to Emily, there was no reason to make wild guesses. Eventually they would find out, whether they wanted to or not.

  5

  Before the children could go to the movies they needed their lunch.

  They were not going to eat in the living room, Emily decided, that much was certain. Somehow they would crowd onto the porch.

  Soup would be too much, and messy, though it was cold enough, sweater weather. She had water on for tea. She thought the children could all have cold cuts, but Sam didn’t like cold cuts, or any kind of sandwich for that matter, because she tried to offer him a PB & J and was summarily rejected. The hot dogs were for dinner, she explained. Then they ran out of potato chips. There was leftover chicken, which was fine for her, but Kenneth didn’t like leftovers, and she could tell Arlene wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Margaret and Lisa were hiding somewhere upstairs. None of the children touched the coleslaw or the sliced tomatoes except Ella. Emily really did see so much of herself in her—the willowy arms, the restless intelligence. Then Justin knocked the fork for the pickles onto the floor and she got cross with him and he stood there terrified with his plate clutched in both hands until she told him to go. She wiped up the green juice with a paper towel and went to the silverware drawer. Kenneth and Arlene were milling around, waiting for the kids to finish.

  She had the glasses out for milk when Sam asked if they could have their plastic bottles of Kool-Aid that were taking up the bottom shelf, and Kenneth said yes. They all wanted the pink, and then they had trouble twisting the plastic tops off. The bottoms of the bottles were rounded so they couldn’t set them down, meaning in essence that they had to guzzle them or hold on to them the entire meal. She was sure she would find some of them half full on their sides and seeping sticky pink fluid.

  Arlene fixed a meager plate.

  “There’s enough for everyone,” Emily urged her.

  “This is more than enough for me,” Arlene said.

  “It’s a regular smorgasbord, isn’t it?” she asked Kenneth, who waited, plate in hand.

  “It looks great,” he said, “thanks,” and pleased her by taking some of everything, even the tomatoes, which she knew he didn’t like.

  That left Margaret and Lisa.

  She walked through the living room—a mess, the boys’ Star Wars toys strewn across the carpet like a plane crash—and called up the stairs, “Lunch is ready.”

  “Okay,” Margaret hollered back.

  Emily waited for her footsteps but heard nothing.

  “I’m afraid it’s buffet-style,” she called. “It’s all laid out in the kitchen.”

  “I heard you the first time,” Margaret shouted.

  “Fine,” Emily said, walking away.

  She fitted her paper plate into a holder and forked up a morsel of dark meat, a slice of salami, a spoonful of coleslaw. Her plate looked suspiciously like Arlene’s, but she had reason. Making lunch—handling the food, selecting and then arranging it for everyone—had naturally ruined her appetite. It would be nice, she thought, if for once someone else served her.

  6

  “My Kadabra just learned recover,” Justin said.

  “So what,” said Sam.

  “What level is your Kadabra?”

  “Fifty-eight,” Sam said, and when Justin didn’t say anything, did his Nelson: “Ha ha!”

  “I’ve got a Dewgong,” Justin tried.

  “Yeah? Well I’ve got an Articuno. And a Zapdos. And a Moltres.”

  “Don’t you guys ever talk about anything else?” Ella asked from the front seat.

  “No, they don’t,” Sarah said.

  “Be quiet,” Sam said, tipping his Game Boy so he could see the screen.

  “Sam,” Uncle Ken warned him, but he was driving. They were going to see X-Men. “Is your hour almost up yet?”

  “Almost.”

  Justin turned his off and set it in the perfect-sized slot in the armrest. Outside, pine trees and creepy-looking houses went by, and cars driving with their lights on. Raindrops hit the windshield with a loud plastic tapping. When he’d said he liked the Maxwells’ 4Runner better than
their van, his mother had told him it wasn’t safe, that it was too tall and because of that it could tip, and now he imagined them rolling over and over into a ditch with a stream in it, landing upside down so the brown water ran cold through the broken windows and over the ceiling and out the back hatch. Everyone except him would be hurt and hanging in their seat belts, and he’d have to crawl out and run to the nearest house and ask an old lady if he could use the phone. He didn’t know their number at the lake house, but he could show the police how to go after they’d saved everyone. His mother would call his father. So, his father would say, sounds like you were the big hero.

  His father would want to see him the day they got back, or maybe he’d get in his Camaro and drive straight here. Maybe Sarah would have a broken arm and he’d want to see her, or maybe he would have a broken arm, maybe he saved them all with a broken arm. That was better.

  “Magmar grew to level forty,” Sam said.

  “Who cares?” Ella said.

  Justin didn’t have a Magmar. It made him want to play, to catch up, but they were almost there. They’d already gone by the place where they went for ice cream. He didn’t see anyone inside, just a yellow light. He hoped they’d be able to get candy at the movie, but he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t have any money.

  “Here we are, right on schedule,” Uncle Ken said, and in a minute Justin could see the sign over Ella’s shoulder, all the different movies lit up and the rain falling through the blue neon. Sam turned his volume on, the plinky music filling the car.

  “Sound,” Uncle Ken said, and Sam turned it off. “And we’re not bringing our Game Boys in with us.”

  They had to wait for the other cars to park, and then there was a long line for tickets. The girls were going to Charlie’s Angels all by themselves, which Sam said wasn’t fair. Justin stood off to the side with them while Sam and Uncle Ken went up to the window. The sidewalk by the doors was dry, a straight line between the brown and the white. The rain shone on spots of old gum.

  They waited. More cars were turning in. Parents stopped and dropped kids off and went around and out the same way. Two older kids were messing around, pushing each other, and the one wearing a Pirates cap backward said, “Fuck you.” Justin looked to see if Uncle Ken heard them. He was next in line.

  Sam came running over to Justin. “It’s sold out.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Nothing. Rugrats in Paris.”

  Uncle Ken gave the girls their tickets and some money and they disappeared. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We chose the next best thing. I hope that’s all right.”

  “No, I wanted to see that,” Justin said. “It has good commercials.”

  “Are we going to get candy?” Sam asked inside.

  “You can each get one thing,” Uncle Ken said.

  Justin got Sour Patch Kids and Sam got Gummi Bears so they could trade. Uncle Ken didn’t get anything, which was weird. His father always got a large popcorn and a jumbo soda to share with everyone. Justin looked around for Sarah but they must have already gone in. If there was a fire, he wouldn’t be able to find her.

  Their theater was all the way at the end, and almost empty, just some little kids with their mothers. They had good seats, right in the middle. The dumb trivia questions were running, with the scrambled names. Sam went to the movies a lot, because he knew all of them. Uncle Ken sat on the far end, looking everywhere except the screen. Justin was done with his Sour Patch Kids before the lights went out. He found the red EXIT signs and figured out which one was closest to him. It would be easy. There weren’t that many people.

  The previews looked good. “I want to see that,” Sam said to everything. The Grinch was the best, except it wasn’t coming out until Thanksgiving. And then the lights went completely out and the movie started.

  Justin wasn’t afraid of the dark; it was just that no one was sitting on one side of him. At school Michael Schulz told him about a kid who went to the movies by himself and when his mother went to pick him up, he wasn’t there. They found him sitting in the theater he was supposed to be in, all by himself. He looked okay from behind, except when they came around the front of him, they saw that someone had stabbed him right through the back of the seat. It was just a story, Justin knew, but he couldn’t stop himself from picturing it happening. Even now he looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was sitting there.

  Once the movie got started he stopped worrying. He only remembered the story when a scene was really bright and he could see the rows of seats in front of him, or a scene was so dark that all he could see was the exit lights. Most of the time he was fine.

  7

  “God, get me out of there,” Meg said when they were on the road. “If she mentions the Lindbergh baby one more time I’m going to scream. And I don’t care if we go to McDonald’s, I’m not eating that chicken again.”

  “There’s always cold cuts,” Lise reminded her.

  “And sliced tomatoes. Does she think we won’t recognize them from yesterday?”

  “Don’t forget the coleslaw.”

  “It’s the kids I feel sorry for,” Meg said, stopping and looking both ways. She was a notoriously bad driver, and Lise leaned back to give her a better view. “It’s hard enough getting Justin to eat regular food.”

  “Justin’s better than Sam.”

  While they talked, Lise tried to ignore the raft of torn cigarette packs and fast-food wrappers her sneakers rested on, the Chap Stick that had melted into the change tray under the emergency brake, coating the coins like Vaseline, a fur of dust beginning to accumulate. Even through the stale air of the heater, the car smelled like old dope—no surprise. Lise was not the most organized person herself, but had grown used to Ken’s maniacal tidiness, and there were times when she couldn’t believe he and Meg were brother and sister. Too often Meg seemed strange to her, alien and almost comic in how completely she played the black sheep, her problems piled up like a guest’s on a talk show. She was such a magnet for bad luck that Lise would honestly be surprised to hear something had gone right for her.

  She was grateful to Meg for getting her out of the house, away from Emily. It was a bad habit of her mother’s to judge everyone against her perfect parents. Lise needed to guard against it, to see her own position more coldly.

  She could. Sometimes she was dissatisfied, and when she said anything, Ken made her feel like she expected too much. She felt caught in an opera, wanted daily to be ravaged by passion, and then, doing the dishes, picking up after the kids, thought it was just her age. She wasn’t the only woman bored at forty, wondering what had gone wrong.

  The rain turned the highway into a black mirror, taillights caught in spangled drops on the windshield, then swept away.

  “What’s the weather supposed to be like tomorrow?” Lise asked.

  “The same.”

  “Don’t tell me that.”

  “Wednesday too.”

  “No,” Lise said. “Someone kidnap me, please.”

  “You can’t let her get to you.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing. You haven’t said two words to her since we’ve been here.”

  “Is it that noticeable?”

  Meg laughed. “Only to everybody.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “The same way you do it with your folks—just ignore them.”

  “No, they drive me crazy too.”

  They went on like this, skimming the surface. They could have had the same conversation last year or a decade ago—it was a relic, like Emily’s lunch. Out of politeness, Lise stayed away from the two most tempting subjects, Meg’s rehab and Jeff. She wished Meg would breach them first, but as the cottages and wet cornfields slipped past, and then, like a highlight, the Book Barn (packed), Lise realized that wouldn’t happen. And why should she, she thought. She wasn’t eager to discuss what she and Ken were going through, or her fears about money (whi
ch she couldn’t even talk to Ken about without making him feel bad). The silence reminded her of how little she knew Meg. There were no magic words that would bring them closer, no instantaneous heart-to-heart talks. Meg would not ask her out of the blue what she was thinking or how she felt. It seemed like a missed connection, but missed so long ago and so consistently that Lise wondered why it bothered her now.

  The miniature golf went by on their right, streams gushing down the papier-mâché rocks in the rain. The movie theater was jammed, and she was glad that Ken had volunteered to take the kids.

  “Where do you want to eat?” Meg asked.

  “I don’t care. Not McDonald’s. Somewhere we can sit down.”

  “How’s Chinese?”

  “I know the place you mean. Sure.”

  It was cheap, a family buffet, chafing dishes over Sterno, yellowed reviews framed in the hallway. Better than the chicken, she figured.

  But the place was closed, killed by a brand-new Denny’s across the road. Its windows were dark, blinded by butcher paper, a big FOR LEASE sign on the door proclaiming their failure. Meg slowed and they gawked as if passing an accident, then drove on.

  “There’s a Red Lobster by the mall,” Meg suggested.

  “What the hell,” Lise said. “We’ve got to go to Wal-Mart anyway.”

  Finding a parking spot was a chore, and then when they got inside, they found the vestibule crowded. Where did all these old people come from, Lise wondered. It was a small town, and fading, from the look of the mall. The hostess told them there was a ten-minute wait, maybe less, so they stood by the bubbling lobster tank, Lise feeling conspicuous with her peeling nose.

  It was a safe place, she thought. No one would be abducted from a Red Lobster.

  Meg leaned over and whispered, “We’re the youngest people in here.”

  It was true. The padded bench along the wall was all seniors, the men in obsolete suits and wide ties, the women’s hair sugar-white and stiff as fiberglass.