The Prodigal Girl

by Evan Ronan

  “To re-answer your earlier question, I am Greg Owen.”

  She almost smiles. The woman unzips her jacket and I force myself not to notice anything about her physicality.

  “Thank you for meeting with me.” She draws a deep breath. Then shakes her head. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “How about with your name?”

  She hesitates, and I realize the hat, the sunglasses, and the jacket were all very intentional. It’s like she didn’t want anybody to see her coming in here. Just who the heck is this woman? Now it’s really driving me nuts.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asks.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  She nods, glances back at the closed door like she’s thinking of leaving. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  And even though I wanted no part of another private investigation, I find myself saying, “We’re only talking. What’s said in this room goes no further.”

  She brings those almond eyes back around on me. She’s got screamingly artificial eyelashes. But I don’t mind.

  “My friend said I could trust you,” she says. “But this is very hard for me.”

  “It usually is, when someone comes to see me.” I lean back in the chair, as if to give her more space in the tiny room.

  She looks down at her hands. Her fingernails also long and screamingly artificial.

  But I don’t mind.

  “Look,” I say. “You’re here. You might as well tell me what’s bothering you. One thing you’ll get out of me is honesty. If I don’t think I can help, I’ll tell you that. I’m not one of these jerks who takes money from people he can’t help.”

  She looks up at me sharply. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve seen you somewhere, but can’t place you, lady.”

  We sit there quietly for another ten seconds, while she squirms in her seat and her eyes are all over the place.

  “I think this was a mistake,” she says. “I should go.”

  “Okay.” I shrug. “I won’t talk you into anything here. That’s not how I roll with these things.”

  I’m not a PI. Not really. I’ve got my businesses to run, including a new online thing where I’m reselling vintage t-shirts. That’s really a loss leader designed to get people onto our website to buy our other shirts. And, much less importantly in the grand scheme, I’ve got a nine-ball tournament to prepare for.

  Valley Forge Casino.

  Buy-in is $300.

  Winner takes home $10,000.

  It’s the perfect-sized local tourney for me. The purse isn’t big enough to attract any of the better national players, but it’s just big enough to get me back in the game. I haven’t played in a tournament in many years but got the itch to compete again a few months back. Since then I’ve been working on my game.

  But the lady doesn’t get up. She scoots forward on the seat more, till her bottom is right on the edge and she brings those eyes up to look at me.

  “I really need help, Greg,” she says.

  And, gazing into those eyes, another image comes to mind. For some reason, I can picture this woman at an airport surrounded by many people. I can picture her waiting for a plane, though that’s as far as I get.

  “Now you know who I am,” she says.

  I smile. “Almost. Were you on the news?”

  She nods. “My name is Tarika Lahill.”

  Holy.

  Four

  Crap.

  Five

  It’s Tarika Lahill. No wonder Bernie was freaking out when she came into the pool hall.

  “Tarika,” I say. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “You seem like a nice man,” she says. “But everybody can appear nice. It’s not always synonymous with trustworthy.”

  “You can trust me,” I blurt out.

  “That’s what my friend told me.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  She’s reluctant to give even this bit of information up, despite the fact she’s already told me her name. “Bob Hale.”

  I smile. “Bob’s a good guy.”

  “We’re in the same congregation,” she says. “Though I’m not as good as him about it.”

  “Few are,” I say, recalling Bob’s very passionate—and off-putting—faith. “Bob and I go back.”

  “You helped his daughter,” Tarika says. “I was wondering if you could help mine.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On a lot of things.” I sit forward. “Time to level-set here. I assume you did your homework before you came here, but let me tell you about myself anyway.”

  “You’re not really a PI.” She winks. “Bob told me you would say that.”

  I chuckle. “And he was right. I’m not really a PI. Over the years, I’ve helped out a few friends is all. I know a little bit about your … situation … but I don’t follow the news as much as other people. All I know is, your underage daughter ran off with her overage boyfriend a few years back and then she came home a month or so ago?”

  “Thirty-five days ago.”

  She says it like there’s a ticking time bomb somewhere. Maybe it’s her girl.

  “Okay.” I nod. “I don’t charge for my time just hearing you out, so you might as well take me back to the beginning, to where this all started, and then we’ll see if I can help.”

  She has already looked around my office, but she does so again, her eyes landing on the pictures of my fourteen-year-old daughter, Tammy.

  “You’ve got your own girl,” she says.

  Gulp. “Best thing I ever did with my life.”

  “Bob told me you were great with his daughter. He told me you actually cared about her, like she was your own. He told me you were a great father.”

  “Bob oversold me.”

  She manages to chuckle at this. “Humble, too? Your wife must be a very happy woman.”

  “She is now that we’re divorced,” I quip.

  “Oh.” She makes a face. “I’m sorry. I just assumed …”

  And why, my dear, did you assume I was married? “No big deal. We got divorced a while back now. For lack of a better term, I’m on the market though work and being a parent eats up all my time.”

  “Oh,” she says again, like she’s embarrassed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Awkward moment. I get the insane urge to ask this woman out.

  “Tell me about your daughter,” I say, straining to recall her name.

  “Shannon.” She smiles, the proud mama coming out. “Oh, she’s so special. Her father left us when she was little, and I didn’t want to turn into another statistic. My friends at the church really supported me. I worked during the day, spent my afternoons with her, then went back to school to get my Bachelor’s. I did it at nights, on the weekends, all online.”

  “Good for you.”

  Her smile deepens. “From an early age, Shannon was very bright. She was reading before kindergarten. I remember all the other mothers being so surprised. All of them complimented me, told me how great of a job I was doing, but honestly? It was all Shannon. Yes, I read to her every day, but she just picked up those books on her own because she wanted to start reading. When it was time to start grade school, the principal called a meeting only a month in and told me Shannon should skip a grade. So she blew right by first and got started in second.”

  I sit back, enjoying the story. As a parent myself, I’ve no doubt bored other people to tears talking of my daughter’s many accomplishments. But unlike others, I’ve never minded listening to parents brag about their kids when it’s done out of love and not out of self-aggrandizement. Tarika Lahill is taking none of the credit for her daughter’s achievements, lavishing all her praise on the girl.

  “She continued to do well in school, and then she also took up sports. Like her father, she was quite an athlete. Soccer, basketball, and then softball. She was good at everything. Like that wasn’t enoug
h, in fourth grade she took up piano. It was such a joy to see her growing up. I found ways to attend her recitals and her games, and her report card was always perfect. Straight As.

  “This continued through middle school. She played team sports and in eighth grade she was captain of both the basketball and softball teams. They had a lot of good players on their teams so she was always in the playoffs, trying to win this championship or the other. She was on her way, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  She shifts in her seat. The first worry lines appearing around her mouth.

  “She started at Apache.”

  My old high school. It serves most of the county.

  “And at first, she was doing great. Just like she always had. Straight As on the report card, three different sports, still with the piano. By then we were traveling across the state for recitals. It was all so exciting. I’d gotten a better job and for once was able to start putting money away for college. Shannon was going. Not like me, not online, taking classes at night and cobbling a degree together. I wanted her to go away, and to have that experience, where she could find out who she really was. You know?”

  “My daughter has that coming up in a few years.”

  “Freshman year was fine.” The smile is gone. The eyes a little more unfocused now. “Even sophomore year started out well.”

  Long pause.

  Tarika Lahill repositions herself on the seat and grips the armrests, as if bracing for impact. “I don’t know what it was. It’s all I’ve thought about, all these years, tried to think of what exactly happened, you know, where did she get off her path.”

  I let her come to it in her own way.

  Tarika shakes her head. “She always had a lot of friends, and a lot of good friends. People from the church, or the team, you know. People she had a lot in common with. But sophomore year, something changed. She stopped hanging out with her old friends, before the soccer season ended she wanted to quit the team, then she also didn’t play basketball.”

  “Her grades begin to slip?”

  “Not right away. She told me she wanted to quit soccer and basketball because she was burned out and wanted to focus more on her studies. Of course I wasn’t going to say no to that.”

  “But her grades fell?”

  “Eventually. I’ll never forget during winter break. Every year we had been traveling for basketball, seeing her friends, spending time with her cousins. Without basketball games, I thought we’d do even more of that. But Shannon retreated inward. She didn’t want to go anywhere, and she didn’t want to see her friends. When I broached the subject, she wouldn’t give me any details. She just kept saying they were all bitches now and she didn’t want to be around them. I’ll never forget it. For two weeks straight, she only came out of her room to eat and use the bathroom. Otherwise, she was in there, on that computer a lot.”

  She takes a breath.

  “Can I get you a water?” I ask.

  “Got anything stronger?” she asks.

  “I do. Be right back.”

  Out in the hall, Bernie is waiting at the register with an expectant look. Even Roy stops shooting to give me the eye. I pretend like I don’t notice either of them. Behind the counter, I grab a few sodas and two red cups.

  “Is this business or pleasure?” Bernie asks.

  “Neither,” I say evasively. “Yet.”

  Bernie lowers his voice. “You do know who that is, right?”

  Excluding Roy, who’s not a Chatty Kathy, we’re only running three tables. But still, Bernie is sometimes slow on the uptake. “I don’t think anybody else noticed. Keep this to yourself.”

  “Why is she here?”

  “Just keep it to yourself.”

  Bernie nods, then makes a big show of going back to his laptop. If anybody’s watching him, they won’t be fooled by the act.

  In the office, Tarika is standing once more, her bag on the floor next to the chair. There’s not much room between my desk and the walls. As I squeeze past her, we exchange a glance that leaves me very confused and I catch a whiff of her perfume. It’s subtle and alluring.

  I slide a drawer open in the desk, take out the whiskey and vodka, put them on the edge of the desk.

  “What’s your poison?”

  “A long time ago, I was a vodka girl.”

  “Can’t be that long ago.”

  She smiles.

  There’s nothing girl about Tarika. She is all woman. Both bottles of booze are old, a little dusty, and almost empty. I pour out a couple fingers of vodka into one of the cups and then add a little soda. Then I repeat the process for my own drink, using the whiskey though.

  I hand her the vodka and soda. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.”

  She makes the most godawful face as she drinks. Alcohol doesn’t cross those lips often.

  “It’s good,” she lies.

  I don’t want a drink really, so I just sip the whiskey and soda and put the cup down. Not too much booze has passed my lips recently either. The drink burns all the way down.

  We look at each other for a long moment. Even though she hated the drink, she’s holding onto that cup for dear life. Tarika forces more of the vodka down, doing her best not to make another disgusted face. Once the aftertaste has passed, she offers me a cute smile. But I don’t notice. I really don’t. She might turn into a client, and I can’t notice a thing like that with a client.

  I retake my seat behind the desk, my drink all but forgotten.

  “So winter break, sophomore year,” I prompt.

  “Winter break, sophomore year,” she repeats. “Shannon barely leaves her room. She’s on the computer all the time and I start to get curious about what she’s doing. You know, you hear all these things about the internet, about guys and girls hooking up, about, well, about all sorts of things.

  “I felt this great distance building between us but no matter how many different ways I approached her, I couldn’t get a thing out of her. Not once did she have any outbursts or explain what was bothering her. As a matter of fact, she never admitted anything was bothering her. She just stayed in that room of hers. Till one morning, she came out and said one of her friends was coming over.

  “I had no idea who it was. I just assumed it was one of the girls I already knew. My daughter didn’t say otherwise. I had begun to really worry about Shannon, so I was just happy she had a friend visiting.

  “And then Olivia showed up.”

  Tarika breaks to take another sip of her vodka. This time she doesn’t even try to hide how much she doesn’t like the taste.

  “Who’s Olivia?”

  “Olivia was much older than her,” Tarika says by way of explanation. “Eighteen and … I’m not trying to stereotype, but Olivia was very different than all of Shannon’s other friends.”

  “How did they meet?” I ask.

  “At school. Olivia had been held back and was a junior. That was what they told me, anyway. I later found out Olivia had dropped out of school.”

  “Before or after she and Shannon met?”

  “After. But not long after.”

  I sit back in my chair, settling in. I remember a few of the headlines from the news, but never got enmeshed in the details. This Olivia person is not ringing any bells.

  Tarika continues. “Olivia was …”

  “Just say what you’re thinking. No judgment.”

  “Rough around the edges. You know, tattoos, nose ring and … I know how old-fashioned I sound, but it wasn’t just her appearance. She had no manners, you know? When she came into my house she wouldn’t look me in the eye or shake my hand or introduce herself. It was so weird. I had no idea what she and my daughter had in common.

  “They stayed in Shannon’s room the whole time. And every time she came over after. It was odd. Shannon had always been very confident, and self-assured, but when she was around Olivia she was not herself. Olivia basically bossed her around the whole time, told her to get her a drink or
some food. I didn’t understand what was happening.

  “Soon Shannon was asking if I could drop her at Olivia’s house, but I didn’t feel comfortable. Whenever I asked her about Olivia, how they had met, what they did, what they talked about, Shannon gave me zero details. I got a very bad feeling. I knew something wasn’t right. Shannon was no dummy, but she was also a young fifteen, if you catch my drift. Olivia, on the other hand, she’d been around the block. And when I found out she’d quit school? I didn’t want my daughter anywhere near her.”

  “I understand,” I say. “You want your children to be around other successful kids.”

  “Yes.” She nods. “Exactly. Bob told me you would get it.”

  I sit forward. “So what happened?”

  “School started again. I was beginning to get really worried about Shannon, and I suggested we try family counseling. All my friends told me I was jumping the gun, but I knew better. I didn’t want to wait for it to get really bad, I wanted to take proactive steps to better our relationship right away. She wanted no part of that. Without saying anything was wrong, she admitted that she did feel a little down and regretted not playing basketball. Even though she had more time to study, her grades actually slipped a little during the second quarter.” She holds up a palm. “When I say slipped, though, I mean she got a B plus in a couple classes. Again, nothingothing that would alarm anyone who didn’t know her better.”

  “But you knew her.”

  “I did.” She takes another drink. “I don’t anymore.”

  “Let’s stick with sophomore year for now.”

  She nods. “I felt very strongly that we needed to try counseling, because she was not herself and I wasn’t reaching her anymore. I pressed her hard on that, but Shannon didn’t want to go. After I scheduled our first appointment, she came home from and told me she’d started working on the school newspaper. She said she’d made some new friends and wanted to give it a try. That night we had what felt like a regular dinner. We actually talked.”

  She is tearing up.

  I reach for a tissue, then remember that the box on my desk has been empty for at least four months. At least. To add insult to injury, the empty tissue box sits no more than three feet away from the trash can under my desk.