Without knowing what was happening, but understanding the sense of urgency, I ran to the kitchen to get the phone. It felt important to have a task. Francie just snatched it from me when I dashed back and punched a number into the speed dial. She fidgeted with her hair while she waited for the pickup. She wouldn’t look at me; she just stared at the ceiling.
“Dan? It’s Francie,” she finally said. “She did it again.”
A pause. Even though she wasn’t looking at me, I could see the familiar eye roll from the way her cheeks tensed. “I don’t care where you are. I need you. Get over here.” And “Asshole,” under her breath when she hung up.
At this point, I didn’t bother asking her any questions. I didn’t try to touch her. I sat on the couch and waited patiently for all to be revealed. She didn’t talk to me for a few minutes, just made herself busy with something or other in the kitchen, but then she reappeared with a bottle of wine and beckoned. “Come on,” she said. “Dan’s coming over. Let’s wait outside.”
Francie and I sat on the stoop together, each smoking our own cigarette and passing the wine between us. I was afraid to say anything, but finally I couldn’t help myself.
“Who’s Dan?” I asked. “You never said anything about anyone named Dan before.”
Francie sighed and took a deep drag before answering. “He used to be my mom’s boyfriend,” she said. “He lived with us for almost a year, but it was a long time ago. He’s actually not so bad; he’s, like, the closest thing I have to a dad, I guess. Okay, stepdad maybe? Uncle? I don’t know. He stuck around longer than anyone else. And…you know. He helps out sometimes.”
“Sometimes like when?”
“Sometimes like this,” she said. “Listen, in case you hadn’t guessed, my mom is crazy. I mean, really crazy. I mean, totally bonkers.” She twirled her finger at her temple as if it was a big joke, and continued. “When this happens, he helps. It’s the least he can do. I mean, really, he could do a whole lot more.”
“Oh,” I said.
Francie tossed her finished Misty onto the lawn and lit another one. “You’re going to see some real insanity tonight, believe me,” she said.
A few minutes later, a red Pathfinder pulled up and a guy climbed out. It was Dan. He was younger than I expected—maybe midthirties—and kind of hot, too, in a gone-to-seed kind of way. He pulled the broken gate aside and walked up to us in a weary lope. I saw a cheesy tribal tattoo inching out from under the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Francie, I thought I told you to stop smoking those fucking cigarettes. Do you really want to have lung cancer by the time you’re twenty-five?”
“I think if there’s a time for smoking, this is it,” she retorted, and blew a cloud of smoke right into his face. Dan glared at her. She made a face in return. “Anyway, this is Val.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said. “Put the cigarette out.” I did, and he shook my hand.
“Any idea where she went?” he asked Francie.
“I just hope she didn’t go to the homeless shelter again. That was ridiculous.”
“Tell me about it. I can’t believe she thought you were trying to poison her.”
I was pretty mystified as to what was going on, but I didn’t push it. I would find out.
“Want me to drop Val off on the way?” Dan asked.
“I’m coming,” I said firmly. He glanced sidelong at me with gentle suspicion.
“Okay,” he said. I reached into my purse and shut off my cell phone so my mom wouldn’t be able to bug me. We all climbed into the Pathfinder, Francie riding shotgun, and took off.
Heading off into the night, in the back of the truck, I felt as if I was embarking on a great adventure. I felt like we might not be coming back, like we were off on a grand quest; those funny gnomes in The Lord of the Rings leaving home for the first time and venturing into the unknown to save the world.
But the mood in the front seat was different. All I could see was the back of Francie’s body. From the way she held her head, the way her shoulder was slumped against the window, I could tell that this was no adventure to her. It was a chore, like taking out the trash. Maybe more upsetting, but no less rote. From time to time she and Dan would exchange a fatigued look.
From what I could tell, we were driving just to drive, without any idea where we were going.
“The library’s closed,” Dan said. “She can’t be there.”
“The park would be dangerous. Even Sandy wouldn’t go to the park at this hour. Would she?”
“God,” Dan sighed. “It never changes, does it?”
We were heading into the city, I guess for a lack of anyplace else to go. Francie unrolled the window and lit another cigarette, and this time Dan didn’t bother to say anything about it. Instead, he flipped the radio on and tuned in one of those soft-rock stations that gives gooey dedications into the night. “I would like to request a song for my beautiful lady,” the guy on the radio was saying.
“We should request a song for Sandy,” Dan said. “She loves this show. Maybe she would hear and realize we’re looking for her. She always seems surprised, like it never would have occurred to her that we would be worried.”
Suddenly Francie squealed and tossed her just-lit cig. “I have an idea!” she said, clapping her hands. Her mood instantly changed; nothing cheered Francie like a brilliant scheme. She pulled out her cell phone and her wallet with her emergency credit card. She looked at the back of the card for a moment, returned it to her purse, and dialed a number. “I’d like to report a stolen card,” she said. “My name is Sandra Knight. I lost it three or four hours ago. Have there been any charges? No, I don’t know the number, but I can give you my Social.”
I could practically see Francie’s ears twitch as she listened to the person on the other end. She gestured frantically for me to give her something to write on, and I rummaged through my purse and tossed my notebook to the front seat. Francie began to scribble.
“Well, it’s official: my mother is crazier than ever,” she said when she’d hung up. “This is going to take forever. She’s checked into almost every hotel in the city.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, she’s been going to hotels all night. She goes to one; she checks in; she leaves. She goes to another one; she checks in; she leaves. Et cetera.”
“Why would she do that?” I asked.
Dan laughed.
“I told you,” Francie said. “Bonkers! Now let’s see…” She began to read off the list of hotel names.
“Let’s start with the Embassy Suites,” Dan said. “I think it’s closest.”
“Why don’t we just call?” I said.
“I’m sure she used a fake name,” Francie said, handing my notebook back along with her phone. “But it’s worth a try. Try ‘Darcy Farcy.’ It’s one of her favorites.”
I started dialing while Dan sighed and cruised down Wisconsin, into the city. There was no Sandra Knight—and no Darcy Farcy—checked in anywhere.
“Ask for ‘Dolores Pizza,’” Francie hissed, listening in. “She uses that one sometimes, too.” But it was no good.
We got to the hotel and double-parked outside. Dan went to the counter to try to explain the situation while Francie and I checked out the bar. She wasn’t there. We went from there to the Sheraton, the Hilton, and the Marriott, all of which she’d made charges at in the last three hours, according to the Visa lady. Still no Sandy. Francie tried to order a martini at the Hilton bar, and the bartender actually laughed in her face.
As the night wore on, Francie’s spirits seemed to waver again. We were on the right track, but the possibilities, however narrowed down, still seemed endless. Sometimes you could judge Francie’s mood from her hair, and the carefully teased mane she’d started the night with was sinking like a ruined soufflé. “We have to find her,” Francie said. “You have no idea what she might do.”
“I guess I don’t,” I said.
But we did find her, eventually. When we finally found Sandy, she was sandwiched between two men at the Doubletree bar, laughing her head off. She looked up with surprise when she spotted Francie, then beckoned her over. “Francie! What are you doing here? And you too, Val! Do you girls want a drink? Val, I think Greg here might be just your type.” She elbowed the chubby, bald old man on her left and winked saucily, making kissy noises. The guy leered at me.
Francie pulled him out of his seat and tossed him aside. “I’ll take a Long Island Iced Tea.” She plopped down in the newly vacated stool next to her mother and shooed Greg away when he tried to hover. Dan looked disapproving of the drinking, but we didn’t leave until Francie had swallowed the last drop.
“Your card’s been denied,” the bartender said when Sandy went for the tab.
There was a cop car parked outside my house upon our arrival. The sun was almost coming up.
“Shit,” I said.
Dan looked at me like I was crazy. “Didn’t you tell your parents where you were going?”
I shrugged.
“Why do I do this?” Dan wondered aloud. “I can’t believe I’m still doing this crap. Do you want me to come in and explain?”
“No,” I said. “I think that might just freak her out even more.”
“Valentina’s mom loves strange older dudes with tattoos,” Francie said.
“Maybe I should talk to her,” Sandy said. “I’m reputable, after all!” She winked at me in a just-between-us-girls kind of way and giggled and tossed her hair.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, and I hopped out of the truck and scrambled up the lawn.
I was grounded, but it didn’t matter anyway, because Francie was gone again. At least this time she told me she was leaving for a while. Off 2 Bahamas again! B back soon! she’d texted me. Not funny, I texted her back.
I spent my time in lockdown in my room listening to music I knew my mom hated and catching up on my homework. I was getting an F in French, having done practically nothing in the class, but my teacher had told me I could still make up the work and maybe pull out a C. “Etre, être, être,” I wrote. “To be (infinitive). Je suis, je suis, je suis. Nous sommes, nous sommes, nous sommes. Tu es, tu es, tu es….” And like that. After a while it started to feel good, just the repetition of it.
It took me a couple of days to finish every last assignment. At first I was at a loss for what to do next, but then I decided to play dress-up. I laid out all my clothes on the floor of my bedroom and surveyed them. I retrieved all the makeup I’d stolen, almost none of which was even opened, from its hiding spot under the bed. “What would Francie wear?” I asked myself.
But that wasn’t really the right question to ask. I had been imitating Francie’s style since I first met her. And that time in her bedroom, she had given me that makeover and turned me into a bizarre version of herself. It hadn’t worked.
“What would Francie not wear?” I asked myself instead. I picked out my old baggy mom-jeans and an ugly cable-knit turtleneck sweater from the back of the closet. I put them on and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was chin-length now, and greasy and lifeless. I looked like I was wearing a costume. It wasn’t right. It was not who I was. I’m not sure if it was who I had ever been.
And then I asked myself: What would I wear? And I put on my black jeans and my black knee-high boots. I zipped my motorcycle jacket up over bare skin, just high enough so you couldn’t see my nipples. I greased my hair back into a slick pompadour.
“What are you wearing?” my mother asked when I went downstairs for a glass of milk.
“It’s my new look,” I told her. “Do you like it?” It was the same thing I had been wearing since at least December, except usually I wore a shirt under the jacket. I guess she just hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe it somehow looked different on me now.
“You look like a witch,” my mother said. I made my witchiest face, and she actually laughed.
My mother had been making an effort to be nicer to me since my grounding. I don’t know if she felt guilty about it or what. But she had actually been acting like a real person. It was weird.
“When you say this is your new look,” she asked, “does this mean you’re going to be dressing like this all the time?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Hmm,” she said, and she nodded impassively.
When I turned around to leave, she added, “I don’t care what you wear. I really don’t. But don’t do that to me again. Having to worry about your brother constantly is about as much as I can possibly handle. I rely on you to be good.”
“The good times are over,” I said.
Francie returned a week later. My mother had wanted me to be grounded longer, but she didn’t have the energy to keep me all locked up and everything. For the first time ever, Francie wasn’t in the mood for the mall, so we went for a walk instead. It was a little awkward being around her again; I honestly had no idea what to say. It seemed like she didn’t, either. I sort of thought she was actually embarrassed.
We went to the park and strolled together for what seemed like forever, down the winding asphalt bike path, across University Boulevard, farther out than I had ever walked before.
“Well,” Francie said, “I guess you figured out I never went to the Bahamas. We never went anywhere at all. I mean, we did, just not the Bahamas. I’ve never even been to the Bahamas. We did go to Hawaii once when I was little.”
“So where were you over Christmas, then?” I asked.
“At my grandma’s,” Francie said. “My mom went to the hospital. Same as this time. It happens sometimes. She loses it and checks in for a couple of days until the insurance people tell her she has to leave. Of course, she’s never totally better; give her three months and it’ll be the same old story. This time was actually no big deal, really. Over Christmas she tried to kill me!”
“What?”
Francie nodded furiously with a triumphant grin. “She thought I was the devil!” Francie chirped. “So she came at me with a potato peeler!”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Oh,” I said. “She really tried to kill you?”
“Well, no, but she did wave a potato peeler at me, like an inch from my face. It was so ridic.”
“Isn’t your grandma concerned about this insane situation?”
“Ha! My grandma is a total bitch. She would make you want to puke. I mean, there’s really no question about how my mom turned out so fucked-up in the first place.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her. “Why did you lie? You could have at least told me you were going away. It was so weird.”
“A person can have secrets,” Francie replied. “It’s nothing personal. You have secrets. All those secrets about your brother. And I’ve barely even met your mom.”
“You know basically as much about my brother as I do. I hardly know my brother at all. And anyway, it’s different,” I said.
“How?”
“I don’t expect secrets from you because you act like you have none.”
Francie and I had traveled out to the edge of the park, and we’d taken our shoes off and had sat down on the rocky bank of the creek, where we dragged our bare toes through dirt and pebbles. I tried to skip some rocks across the surface, but I couldn’t quite master the flip of the wrist. They kept sinking.
“What I act like has almost nothing to do with the person I actually am,” Francie said.
“Pardon me if I say that comes as a surprise,” I told her.
All of a sudden, it was spring, and I glanced over at Francie, who was standing and dusting off her ass, and there she was at her most shining. She was untroubled and epic; bigger than her own body. Francie’s hair was blonder and longer and wilder than ever, just the way it sometimes looked in my dreams. In fact, she was exactly how I had always imagined her.
But then a cloud passed in front of the sun, and the sky darkened—only a fraction, but still darkened—and spring was go
ne. Francie was not how I imagined her but how I knew other people saw her. I was only starting to understand that it might be how she saw herself, too.
It made me sad.
“I’m sorry,” Francie said. “Things are complicated sometimes. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Francie stood and stripped down to the lacy frillery we’d stolen together, months ago, from Victoria’s Secret, and waded into the dirty, slimy, and probably toxic creek until she was in up to her hips. Her teeth started chattering. Despite the warmth in the air, it was still only barely spring. But she fell backward into the water and was totally submerged save for the tangle of hair floating on the surface like a wayward bird’s nest.
She stayed under until I thought she might be dead. When she finally emerged from the water, her underwear was see-through and dripping and her hair had turned green. I half expected her to have transformed herself into a sea monster, or a yellow bird that could take off now for another life. But she had not. She just moved toward me, rising with every step.
“Did you hear about the blonde who…” she started.
“Yes,” I cut her off. “I already heard about her.”
Chapter Seventeen
Francie wanted me to come over, but I wasn’t in the mood. I walked her back to her place and then headed to the mall by myself.
It had been forever since I’d ridden the J-12 without her. Sitting on the bus alone that day, I felt outside of myself. I was floating; I was looking down over the suburbs with a clear eye. Here is Sandra Dee Senior High School. Here is my house. Here is the hospital, and the mall, and the creek that touches everything. Like the creek and the mall, I am part of all of this.
I was perversely angry that Francie wasn’t with me. She was a part of everything, too. Even though I’d basically ditched her, I wanted her with me anyway. And when I climbed down onto the sidewalk and looked up at the fortress of the mall, I was filled with—I don’t know—like, this infinite longing.
The mall had been good to me. It had brought me Francie. I had thought that would be enough, and for a while it had been. Now I was asking it for something more, but exactly what I wanted, I couldn’t start to say. I scrambled over the break in the chain-link fence and climbed the grassy hill into the parking garage, like I’d done so many times before.
The Blonde of the Joke Page 12
