Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  Eva had lost her daughter. All this time, all this distance, trying to make sure that that would never happen, and here it was. She had tried so hard not to feel that she and George were just borrowing Anne. Eva was the only mother who didn’t let her child run far on the playground, but who traipsed after her for fear her daughter would be stolen from her. She always tried to know where Anne was. To keep tabs.

  Eva remembered once, when Anne was only three, she had taken her to a department store to shop. Anne had been sitting quietly at her feet while Eva looked at dresses, and then, Eva had reached up to get another size, turning her back on Anne for just a second, and when she turned around, Anne was gone.

  Never had she been more terrified. She stared across the sea of racks, the milling crowds of people. The air tightened around her. “Lost child!” she shouted, because that was what the magazines all told you to do, but the only thing that happened was that other mothers clutched their children closer to them, averting their faces from her as if what had happened might be catching. The people without kids looked at her as if it were her fault, as if she must be a bad mother not to keep better track of her own child. She finally grabbed a saleswoman, who made an announcement over the PA and sent salespeople out to comb the store, and all Eva could think of was that she had read how people could take children into the washroom and cut their hair in the stall, how they could fit wigs on small heads and inject drugs and the child you had known could walk right past you and you might not even know it. All those thoughts flooded through her, cold as a stream. She sat in the back room, numb with fear, and then after an hour, a saleswoman had led Anne to her by the hand. Anne blinked up) at her and Eva leaped up and then crouched down by her daughter so she was at eye level. She cupped Anne’s face, stroking back her hair, staring into her eyes. “Where were you? Oh honey, I was so worried! Were you scared?” Anne gazed impassively at her and Eva turned to the salesgirl. “Was she crying?”

  The salesgirl patted Anne’s head. “She was sitting under a row of evening dresses playing with a beaded hem.”

  Eva started. “She was?”

  “She said she was there the whole time.”

  “I don’t understand. If she was there the whole time, then why did it take you so long to find her? Why didn’t you have me paged sooner?”

  The salesgirl gave Eva an impassive stare. “No one in the dress department thought she was missing. She was just sitting happily playing, so they thought her mother must be nearby,” The salesgirl shrugged. “Usually, missing kids cry for their mothers.”

  Eva felt as if she had been slapped. As if there must be something terribly deficient in her that her own little girl didn’t know enough to cry like other little girls when her mother wasn’t in sight. She left the store holding Anne’s hand so tightly, Anne began to whimper and complain. “You’re hurting me, Mommy.” A woman walking past gave Eva a funny look, but Eva didn’t care. She kept her hand clamped around Anne’s, and the whole way home, she kept watching Anne in her car seat from the rearview mirror.

  By eleven, George was home, but Anne still wasn’t, and Eva’s worry turned to anger, and in a way, she was glad because at least she didn’t feel so helpless. Instead, she felt fueled. Determined, she called Sara, punching down the digits, but no one answered. She leafed through the phone book, calling the friends of Anne’s she could remember—Flor, June—but Flor was out on a date, and when she called June, June’s mother answered and said, “Oh, Anne! We haven’t seen her around here for such a long time!” And then June’s mother told Eva that June had the flu and was’fast asleep.

  “I’m calling Sara again,” George said, “she’s as bad as Anne in all this,” and just as he reached the phone, it rang.

  “George?” Sara said, her voice tight with worry. “Is Anne there?”

  They all met at the police station. It was the second time in her life Sara had been in such a place with George and Eva, but this time, she wasn’t the one in trouble. This time, the cops were polite and concerned. “This way, ma’am,” a cop said. He was young, chewing gum, making it snap and pop. The air about him smelled like Juicy Fruit. Eva and George were already sitting around a desk, talking to a cop who was typing something into a report, and when Sara came in, they didn’t look at her.

  Sara sat beside George and Eva. “Maybe we should call people she knows—” Sara faltered and Eva shot her a look.

  “Don’t you think we’ve done that already?” Eva said, her voice sharp. “Of course we’ve called. All her friends.”

  “Who did you call?” asked the cop, and Eva rattled off names and Sara sat there feeling lost because she couldn’t remember Anne ever mentioning these people.

  “Any other names?” the cop asked Sara and she shook her head, shamed that she couldn’t come up with any.

  “What places did she like to go?” the cop asked.

  “Bowling,” said Sara. “The movies.”

  “What bowling alley?”

  Sara blinked. “I don’t know—”

  “The Wal-Ex,” George said. “We used to go to the Wal-Ex all the time.”

  The cop tapped his pencil. “Any allergies or anything we should know about?”

  Something pulsed in Sara’s stomach. She remembered newspaper stories about kids who were lost who needed medication, who could go into shock if they were so much as stung by a bee. Helplessly, she looked over at George and Eva.

  “No, none,” said George.

  “Scars? Birthmarks? Tattoos?”

  Again, Sara felt that same swimmy helplessness. / know her, she told herself. I do.

  “A tiny scar, by her right thigh,” said Eva. “She fell from a bike.”

  “Was she upset about anything?” the cop said, and Eva looked down at her hands and then at George. “We have some family issues—” she said.

  “She was upset that I was leaving,” Sara blurted.

  Eva stared at Sara. “You’re leaving? When were you going to tell us this?”

  “She wanted to go with me,” Sara said, but to the cop, not to George and Eva because she couldn’t bear the way they were both looking at her.

  “You come here, disrupt our lives, get Anne all agitated and confused, and then you just leave and we’re here to pick up your pieces? Is that it?” George said.

  “I was coming back! I was going to do the right thing!”

  “Is this why she took off?” the cop said. “To go after you?”

  Sara turned to the cop. “She doesn’t know my address in New York City. She wouldn’t go there without me. She was just upset.”

  “I see.” The cop looked at Sara.

  “When will we know something? What will you do?” Eva said.

  “Well, with kids, we don’t usually do anything. Not for forty-eight hours. They usually come back.” He stood up and nodded at them. “But we have the report. Look, I’m sure she’s just upset, that she’ll come home, her tail between her legs. I wouldn’t worry. Call us if you hear anything more. And we’ll be in touch.”

  “We’ll go every place she’s ever been,” George said to Eva. “I swear we’ll find her.”

  They all walked out together, Sara trailing behind Eva and George. No one talked, but then Sara saw George reach out and grab Eva’s hand, pull her close, and then he put his arm about her, and she put hers about him. They pressed together like a seam. When they got to the front door, Eva pulled the door open and then stopped and suddenly began to weep. Her hands flew up to her eyes. “Eva,” George said, and held her, stroking her back, so tenderly that Sara felt like a voyeur, and then Sara saw that George’s eyes were damp, too. “My baby,” Eva said quietly. My baby, Sara thought, but she kept silent. She wavered, unsure what to do, and then Eva snuffled, digging into her pocket for a handkerchief, and when she looked at Sara, Eva looked tamped down.

  “I’ll help you find her,” Sara said, and Eva held up her hand.

  “No, you’ve done enough,” Eva said wearily. “Just go. Go home to New
York City the way you planned. Just go and leave us alone.”

  “No,” George said. “You stay. Please. Stay and help.”

  Eva looked at him, startled. “George!” she said.

  “We need all the help we can get, Eva,” he said. “Even if it’s Sara’s.”

  They drove around the town, Sara in the backseat. George drove to the bowling alley and went inside, and when he came out his face was so drawn that he didn’t have to say one word, both Sara and Eva knew Anne wasn’t there. They drove to the school, to a mall, to a dozen places Sara didn’t know about, and at each one, she felt more despairing.

  Finally, George and Eva drove Sara back to her hotel.

  “There’s nothing more you can do,” Eva said. “Just go. We’ll call you.”

  “I’m staying,” Sara said.

  By Friday morning, Anne was in Pittsburgh. It had taken her two days to get there. The first ride, a woman who barreled down the road in her little white car, took her across two states. At the side of the road, Anne gulped the soda she had packed, which was now warm, the fizz gone. She ate the candy and chips until she began to feel ill from the rush of sugar, the tang of salt, and then she threw them away. Her next ride was with a middle-aged woman who lectured her about hitching until she dropped Anne off at a diner in Virginia, and by then Anne was starving. She sat at the counter and scanned the menu for whatever would be the cheapest and the most filling. “Corn chowder,” she said, which turned out to be watery broth with a scrim of oil across it and not a kernel of corn in sight.

  “Could you please pass the salt?” she asked the person next to her, a burly man in a Yankees baseball cap. They started talking, and he told her his name was Charlie, and that he was a trucker.

  “Are you crazy traveling alone?” he said. “I have two girls about your age and I don’t even let them out of the house after seven, let alone hitch by themselves.”

  “You sound like my parents.”

  “Well, good. I would hope so. They must be fine people, then.” He studied her and bit into his burger, chewing thoughtfully. “Why Pittsburgh?”

  “My father is there.”

  Grabbing his napkin, he swiped it across his mouth. “Your father,” he said. His brow furrowed. “How come your father didn’t send you money to take a bus?”

  “I want to surprise him. I can’t do that if I ask him to pay.”

  “What about your mother? She in on this surprise?”

  Anne played with the salt shaker. “She doesn’t want me seeing him. They’re not together anymore.”

  “Ah—I see. That’s the way it is, then.” The trucker took another bite of his burger, considering her. “I’m going to Pittsburgh,” he said finally. “I’ll take you.”

  “Really? You will?” Anne brightened.

  His truck was shiny and red, with “Orson’s Sausages, The Links You Love!” scribbled on the side in bright yellow letters. “Up you go,” he said, taking her hand, helping her step up into the truck. There was a compartment in the back, with a pillow and a soft red blanket. She intended to stay awake, to talk to him, to tell him stories she’d make up so he’d be glad of the company, but as soon as she sat on the seat, her head lolled, and the next thing she knew he was gently shaking her. “We’re here, sleepyhead,” he said.

  And then she was there. Dropped off in the center of town, by the university, in the middle of a bright day, students spilling all around her. Pittsburgh wasn’t anything like she expected, not grey and unfriendly looking, not with a cloud cover of smoke. No, the city was green and leafy and sparkling, and there was a crunchy apple smell to the air. Anne strode down the street and two people passed her and gave her smiles so friendly, she had to turn around to make sure those smiles were really directed at her. Amazing, she thought. A good omen if her father lived in such a nice place.

  She stopped at a phone booth and called information for Danny’s address. “It’s 5525 Howe Street,” said a voice. She could find it.

  She started walking, stopping a woman to ask for directions. She reached in her pocket to check how much money she had left. Five. No six dollars. But there was something else. Three twenties and a scrap of paper. A phone number scribbled down. “You call if you need to,” it said. “Charlie.”

  Anne carefully tucked the bills and the number back in her pocket. He was a nice man. She bet his daughters didn’t realize how lucky they were to have a father like that.

  She turned down Negley and walked a few blocks. Howe. The street was lined with trees. There were a few people milling around, talking, walking dogs, riding bikes. A jump rope lay curled on the lawn of one house, a red tricycle was parked on a front stoop. She shivered. She hadn’t dressed warmly enough. And she was starving again.

  Anne’s father’s house was brick with a sort of ramshackle garden in the front, and a gold door knocker in the shape of a lion. Anne stopped in front, heart hammering. She wasn’t going to throw herself on these people the way Sara had with her parents. We’re not alike, she thought. / was wrong. She was going to scope these people out, figure what to do. She stood in front of his house and then the door opened and a woman with cropped yellow hair came out, a tiny baby, bottom heavy with diapers, held against her chest in a Snugli, and she opened the mailbox by the door, riffling for the mail. The woman hummed.

  Anne froze. A baby. She didn’t know there was a baby. She stared in wonder. She couldn’t tell if it was her half brother or her half sister, but it didn’t matter. It was incredible that such a person existed. And then, she stared at the woman. Her father’s wife. The woman he preferred to Sara, and that seemed impossible to her, too, because this woman wasn’t as pretty or cool as Sara. This woman was wearing a frumpy floral dress and had a faceful of freckles. And then suddenly, this woman was looking at Anne.

  “Are you lost?” the woman said. “Can I help you?”

  This was it. All Anne had to do was say who she was. All she had to do was ask to see her father, but she couldn’t do it. She lost her nerve. “Looking for Rushmore Street,” she blurted, feeling suddenly ridiculous.

  “Rushmore? Can’t say that I know that street,” the woman said. “But if you go up there, that’s the main drag. I’m sure someone could help you there.”

  Anne nodded. She walked to the end of the street and then turned around. The woman was gone. Anne circled back around, standing in front of the house again. All she had to do was walk up four stairs and press her finger to the bell. All she had to do was open her mouth and say her name. What was the matter with her that she couldn’t?

  She walked to the side of the house and sat down, circling her knees with her arms, resting her head. The grass was cool and green. There was shade from a maple. Inside the house, she could hear music, a swell of piano notes that made her shut her eyes for a moment. Drifting, she was half-asleep, the occasional insect a kind of lullaby.

  Someone shook her. Anne’s lids fluttered and she looked up and there was the blond woman, the baby in the crook of her arm. The woman stooped down, and as she did, the baby laughed and cooed. “You don’t live around here, do you?”

  Anne started to lie, but the woman’s gaze was so clear and steady that she thought better of it. “And there’s no Rushmore Street, now is there?” the woman asked, and Anne dug her hands in her pockets.

  “Well, you look harmless enough. I’m Charlotte. This little one’s name is Joseph. Why don’t you come inside and we’ll figure out what to do with you.”

  Charlotte’s kitchen was bright and cheerful with a big green clock in the shape of a dinner plate, the numbers different foods, and the hands a fork, spoon, and knife. “Isn’t that clock fun?” Charlotte said, following Anne’s gaze. “My husband’s surprise.”

  My husband, Anne thought. She tried to imagine her father buying something for his wife, thinking: oh, she’ll love this. Meaning, oh, she’ll love me.

  Clumsily, she sat at the Formica table. There was a big old-fashioned baby carriage in the corner and C
harlotte gently lowered Joseph into it, and then wheeled it closer to Anne. “He likes to be part of things,” she said. She bustled around, opening cabinets, finally pulling out a can of Campbell’s soup. “Beef okay?” she said. Anne, whose mother never fixed soup that wasn’t made from scratch, nodded. She was so hungry she could have eaten the can.

  The baby cooed, a peal of sound, and Charlotte turned to him and smiled. “You peach,” she said.

  “Is that your baby?” Anne said carefully, and Charlotte burst into laughter.

  “Now who else’s baby would it be?” Charlotte asked. She reached into the cupboard again. “And these,” she said, taking out oyster crackers.

  The soup was hot and sugary tasting, the oyster crackers were too salty, but Anne ate every bit, scraping the bowl, not protesting when Charlotte filled up her bowl again.

  “There’s thirds if you’re still hungry after this,” Charlotte said. And then she studied Anne. “What’s your name?” Charlotte asked.

  * * *

  Danny was in a meeting about ways to make the bank staff more efficient when someone came in and told him he had an urgent call. He didn’t like that word, urgent. It made his heart jump, his thoughts race. Charlotte, he thought. Joseph. If something happened to either one of them, he didn’t know what he’d do. He walked out of the meeting and strode into his office, picking up the phone. “Hello?” he said quickly, and then he heard his name, he knew the voice, and he had to sit down to hear it again.

  “Sara,” he said, resting his forehead against the receiver. He sat down, trying to think what to do. “Sara,” he said again, trying to compose himself.

  “I’m sorry to call you at work. I’m sorry to call you. Did Anne come there?” Her voice rushed over him like a tide.

  “Anne? Who’s Anne?”

  “Our daughter Anne.”

  His mouth went dry. Anne. He thought of that day at his house when Sara had come by on her bike, a shock because he had never thought he’d see her again, he had never imagined she might want to see him, and for a moment, he had been so ridiculously happy. Sara! Sara was here! And then she had told him about Anne and then everything that he had struggled so hard to build up, to make right in his life, seemed to falter.