Inside Out Girl

by Tish Cohen

  Rachel set a large pump-bottle of Purell hand sanitizer on the table. “We have one rule tonight, everybody. After every turn, you come and Purell your hands.”

  Piper stared. “You can’t be serious.”

  “They’ve done studies on bowling balls, subway poles, handrails. They’re covered in respiratory secretions, skin flora,” Rachel paused and leaned toward her mother, “fecal emissions…”

  “That’s repulsive,” said Piper.

  “The truth isn’t always pretty.”

  Olivia said, “Every team has a name, so me, Rachel and Janie are going to be the Six-pound Balls.”

  Dustin fell over giggling.

  “I said, I’m not here!” said Janie.

  Len laughed, explaining, “It’s the weight of her preferred bowling ball. Let’s just shorten it to the Sixers and leave it at that. What do you think for our team, Dustin? The Strikes? The Spares?”

  “No way.” He scrunched up his nose and thought for a moment. “The Grinding Rails.”

  Piper sat back in her plastic chair. “What?”

  “Skateboarding apparatus,” Rachel explained. “Much less lurid than it sounds.”

  “We’ll just shorten it to the Rails,” Len said, typing on the scoring keyboard. He turned to Rachel. “Should buy us some extra time before we get turfed out of here.”

  Olivia, having insisted the Sixers go first, clomped across the hardwood floor with her shoes on the wrong feet. She began shaking her hands. “Oh no. There’s no lime-green ball. I need lime-green!”

  Len jumped out of his seat and squinted down the lane next to them, where a group of unshaven guys in football jerseys huddled over two pitchers of beer.

  “Try a seven-pounder, Olivia,” said Rachel. “You won’t notice the difference.”

  “I need a lime-green!” She melted into a puddle beside the ball return they shared with the frat boys.

  Rachel stood up. “Let me try.” This was a clear-cut case of a child needing to benefit from someone else’s problems. Knowing they aren’t alone gives children hope. This Rachel knew for a fact. She’d had several letters from readers who’d had great success with this technique. “I know exactly how you feel. When I was a young girl, I took riding lessons and was in love with a palomino pony named Jazz. I rode him every Saturday morning. Well, one day I got there and another girl was putting on his saddle…”

  “I hate ponies!” Olivia shouted. “I only like LIME-GREEN balls!”

  “Oh God,” Janie said from beneath her camouflage. All that showed were her calves and feet. “Kill me now!”

  “Come with Daddy,” Len said, holding out his hand. “We’ll find you a green one.”

  Olivia didn’t budge.

  Rachel touched Len’s arm. “You go. I’ll watch her.”

  Len looked hesitant.

  “No pony stories,” she assured him.

  Len marched across the other lanes, approaching family after family, all of whom seemed hell-bent on hanging on to their lime balls. Olivia was down on all fours now, her watery eyes following her father like a lost puppy.

  Dustin stood up, walked toward the ball return, and said to Olivia, “Dude, can you, like, relocate?”

  Olivia shifted her weeping bones and cleared the path for the Grinding Rails’ first ball. Dustin had absolutely no interest in the weight or color of his ball, just grabbed the closest one, which happened to be navy blue, and hurled it along the gleaming floor-boards. The ball veered close to the left gutter, then saved itself and careened into the middle pin. The pins exploded in every direction.

  “Yes!” he shouted, jumping up to high-five the ceiling-mounted monitor, which shuddered its objection over their heads. Dustin looked at Olivia, waggled his thumbs, and said, “Look, dude. No tape!” Olivia reddened with fury.

  “Dustin!” said Rachel. “A little dignity, please?”

  “Whatever. It’s your turn, Mom. Or is it Janie’s? Jane dear, where are you?” Dustin sang.

  “SHUT UP!” said the coats.

  Rachel chose a ball swirling with colors. She stared down the pins, took three steps, followed by an impressive slide, then lobbed the nine-pounder straight down Lane Five. Her shot was doomed from the start. It came down with a mighty crash. There, in the middle of the lane, it slowed, almost stopped, before gaining just enough momentum to drop into the gutter.

  Len returned as Piper was coming back from her first strike of the evening. “There are no more six-pounders, Olivia,” he said. “You’ll have to make do with a seven.”

  The wail began low. It sounded as if it were coming from the parking lot or maybe the dog groomer next door. Growly and pulsating, like the distress call of a wolverine tangled in barbed wire. Then the pitch rose fast and feverish, where it remained until Olivia crawled out from beneath the ball return and threw herself, chest-first, onto the floor, arms reaching for the ball she’d never had the chance to love. Dirty fists pounding furiously, the child wept with abandon.

  Trying to ignore the stares cast their way, Len said. “You’ll barely notice the difference. Look.” He picked up a pink seven-pounder. “It’s light as a feather.”

  Olivia lifted her tear-stained face and, for a moment, seemed convinced. The sobbing stopped and she twirled her feet in the air, one untied bowling shoe dropping to the floor with a thud. “I don’t want to do bowling anymore,” she said with a sniff.

  Len put down the ball, his shoulders sagging. Looking exhausted, he sat in a chair opposite Rachel. “Piper,” he said. “Why don’t you take your shot?”

  As Piper tightened her laces and began to pick through the balls, Len caught Rachel’s eye. “You okay?” Under the table, he trapped her ankle between his feet and squeezed.

  Rachel pumped hand sanitizer into her palm. “I’m fine,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

  “Good.” He took her fingers in his. “I was thinking, maybe after bowling, you and I—”

  “I’m a bit tired, actually.”

  “Tomorrow then.”

  “Maybe.”

  He stared at her. “Rachel, I understand if you’re still upset, but try to understand my position—”

  She felt hot blood rush through her body. Pushing her chair back with a loud scrape, she forced her face into a false smile, looking at the kids. “Who wants candy?”

  Olivia jumped up from the floor. “Me! Additionally, I want to pee.”

  “Okay. Put on your shoe and let’s go.”

  “No. It smells.”

  Piper said, “I’ll take her to the restroom, you get the candy.” She walked past Olivia’s discarded shoe and held out her hand. “Come on, Olivia.”

  “She has to wear the shoe inside the bathroom,” Rachel said.

  Piper sighed and led the child away, leaving the shoe on the floor. With a groan of exasperation, Rachel scooped it up and trotted after them.

  “What? You think I’d let her step anywhere unsanitary?” Piper asked Rachel when she caught up. “I’d like to believe, after all these years interacting with my grandchildren, that you’d begin to trust me. A little.”

  The coat pile grunted. “Yeah, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!”

  It seemed, as they passed the snack stand, Olivia didn’t need to go to the restroom quite as badly as she needed a Snickers. Still holding the cast-off shoe, Rachel peered through the scratched glass counter at the candy spread out beneath. The one remaining Snickers looked like it had been there since opening night, some forty years prior.

  “How about chocolate raisins, Olivia? They look a little less…ancient.”

  Pressing her face against the glass, Olivia considered her choices. “Do they have chocolate peanuts?”

  Piper repeated the question to the teenage boy behind the counter, who shook his head sadly. “We only got the raisins left. You want ‘em?”

  A family gathered on Rachel’s right side. She glanced over to see a shortish couple in their early fifties, with a teenage girl. The daughter, plump like her parents,
had gorgeous wavy hair, long and black. Then she turned around and Rachel saw her face for the first time.

  One chromosome too many.

  The girl had Down’s syndrome. Rachel’s pulse quickened. Of course, it wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Hannah would be sixteen, and this girl had to be…oh God, she could definitely be the same age. Rachel leaned over the counter to look closer at the parents, searching for some sort of family connection. The parents were gray, but even without knowing their original hair color, Rachel could see from their mousy eyebrows they’d never been dark-haired like their daughter.

  If she was their daughter.

  Olivia tugged on Rachel’s shirt. “I don’t want the raisins. I wanna go to the bathroom.”

  Piper said, “Take her in, Rachel. I’ll buy candy for everyone.” To the boy behind the counter, Piper pointed at a series of candy bars, which the boy began laying out on the counter.

  Rachel was so busy noticing that husband and wife wore matching Scottish flag sweatshirts, she didn’t answer her mother.

  Piper nudged her. “I think someone’s in a hurry.” Rachel looked down. Olivia was dancing from foot to foot.

  The family on Rachel’s other side moved closer to the candy. “You take her, Mom,” said Rachel, hoping to get rid of Piper before she realized what her daughter was up to and blew her cover. “I’ll buy the candy.”

  “Come on, Olivia. Let’s go.” Piper took hold of the child’s hand and turned away.

  “Mom, wait,” said Rachel, tossing Piper the shoe. “Go into the ladies’ room with her. You know, so she’s not in there alone.”

  “Oh, come on. We’re in a bowling alley. What could possibly happen?”

  “The same thing that happened to a nine-year-old girl at a St. Louis truck stop last month,” Rachel called after her. “In the ladies’ room.” She turned to smile at the man with the flag shirt, who was now holding Olivia’s Snickers bar. “You can never be too careful,” she said to him.

  “My wife still goes into public restrooms with our daughter,” he said as the girl picked up the Snickers and smelled it.

  “I want it,” she said in a monotone voice.

  “Is this your daughter?” Rachel asked. “She’s lovely.”

  It was clear they’d rarely heard such a compliment. Believed it themselves, but probably didn’t hear it much from strangers. The man placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. He seemed to be assessing the girl, nodding with enough pride to rip Rachel straight down the middle. “Yes,” he answered. “This is Molly.”

  Molly.

  “Hi, Molly,” said Rachel. “How old are you?”

  Molly looked up, smiled, and looked back down at the candy bar. “I want that.”

  “Molly’s shy,” said her mother.

  Rachel’s heart thumped. “I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. And a twelve-year-old son. Both born in winter.” She leaned against the counter and slipped her hands into her pockets, trying not to burst with exhilaration. “How about Molly? When was she born?”

  “She was born at Hillsdale sixteen years ago,” said her father.

  Rachel tried to breathe. Hillsdale Hospital. It was where she gave birth to Hannah.

  Molly’s father pointed to the Snickers bar. “Were you planning to buy that?”

  “Take it. It’s paid for,” Rachel said, plunking a twenty-dollar bill on the counter. “It’s my gift to Molly.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Very kind.” He turned to Molly and asked her to thank Rachel. Molly smiled her thanks as she carefully peeled away the wrapper, as if she was going to reuse it.

  “Hillsdale is a great hospital,” Rachel said. “I delivered there too. Nice nursing staff.”

  “Oh yes,” said Molly’s mother. Maybe adoptive mother. “The nurses were just wonderful.”

  How to wrench the conversation away from the nurses and back where it belonged—pinpointing Molly’s exact date of birth? And what, exactly, would she do if Molly did turn out to be Hannah? It probably wouldn’t be too brilliant to admit it. These two would never believe the coincidence. They’d think she was crazy. Maybe even a stalker.

  Rachel smiled again. “I read somewhere that people born in December are luckier than others. Was Hannah a December baby?”

  The woman crinkled her nose. “Who’s Hannah?”

  “Molly!” said Rachel. “I meant Molly.”

  Molly’s father shook his head. “Cicely had Molly in April. But

  we don’t go in for that astronomy crap.”

  Rachel’s whole body shrank. Deflated. Molly was born in April. To Cicely. Of course. So stupid to have thought…sixteen years later, that she’d find her, here, in a dingy bowling alley twenty minutes from home. Molly wasn’t Hannah. Or was it that Hannah wasn’t Molly? Rachel laughed silently in misery as Molly and her parents walked away.

  Molly was the lucky one after all. Whichever month she’d come into the world, no one even thought of giving her up. Molly’s dad was right. Astrology was crap.

  Just then, Piper meandered out of the ladies’ room, stopping to rifle through her purse. She strolled toward her daughter. “Are we ready?” Tucked under her elbow was Olivia’s bowling shoe.

  “You didn’t make her wear it?”

  Piper set it on the counter. “Olivia’s absolutely right. It smells like cheap air freshener.”

  Rachel looked past Piper toward the restroom. “Where is she?”

  “I thought she was with you.”

  “With me? You took her to the bathroom!” “Calm down, Rachel. The girl isn’t a toddler. She finished before

  me and left. I’m sure she ran back to her father when you weren’t looking. Honestly, do you know how much unnecessary stress you bring upon yourself? You create your own problems. You always have.”

  Rachel smirked. “Right. You lose a ten-year-old girl and I’m the one who’s creating problems. So typical! I should have taken her myself.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. And by the way, don’t think I don’t know about you letting Dustin watch The Shining last time you babysat!”

  “I did not—”

  “He had a nightmare about finding REDRUM written in blood on his closet door!”

  Piper tightened her mouth. “He might have watched a bit. Half at the most. Do you know he’s the only child going into seventh grade who hasn’t seen it? It’s considered a classic.”

  Rachel felt someone standing just behind her. She turned to see Len stretching out his fingers. “You ladies missed my strike. And my spectacular choice of following it up with a gutter ball.” He glanced around with the untroubled demeanor of a man who trusts his girlfriend not to lose his child. “Where’s Olivia?”

  Rachel and Piper locked eyes, then turned back to Len. “She’s not with you?” Rachel whispered.

  In an instant, the color drained from Len’s face. Eyes darting around, Len marched around the counter, then poked his head into both restrooms. “She’s not here.”

  Galaxy Bowl was one large, open room with the snack bar and shoe rental in the center and a dozen lanes, two steps down, lining the back wall. If she wasn’t hiding in the bathrooms, glued to the candy window, or gamboling around down by the lanes, there was no mistaking it—Olivia was gone.

  But how? The child couldn’t have sliped out the front door, the one that led back out into the parking lot. It wasn’t possible, Rachel would have seen her.

  Just then, the double doors connecting the bowling alley to the mall next door opened. Two couples strolled in, bringing with them sounds of the Woodfield Mall, one of the busiest shopping centers in the region.

  “No,” said Rachel. “You don’t think she’d…?”

  Len didn’t answer. He was already racing through the doors.

  CHAPTER 29

  Code Adam

  The single most important thing parents can do to protect their children from predators is to supervise them at all times—even while playing close to home. In eight
y percent of child-abduction murders, the victim is approached within a quarter-mile radius of where she was last seen.

  —RACHEL BERMAN, Perfect Parent magazine

  When a shopping mall issues a Code Adam alert over the speaker system, they rarely broadcast the child’s name, for fear of giving the potential perpetrator too much information. Typically, the child’s parent or guardian notifies a mall employee—a store clerk or, better yet, a security guard—and gives them a description of the child. Their gender, race, age, approximate height and weight, hair and eye color, and—if the shattered parent can remember—a description of their clothing and shoes. The mall employee then arranges for a Code Adam alert to be announced throughout the shopping center, along with a description of the child and where he or she was last seen.

  So, while the parent goes into emotional freefall listening to his or her child’s description read out over the PA system and tries to mentally block out words such as “abducted,” “pedophile,” and “murder,” store employees rush to monitor entrances and exits, and hunt for the missing child. Employees are expected to abandon their customers and search for any child matching the description. Toy departments, parking lots, and bathrooms get special attention.

  Piper stayed with Dustin and Janie at the information booth while Len and Rachel split up. By the time the somewhat garbled announcement was made, a minute or two after Len gave Olivia’s description—right down to the missing bowling shoe—Rachel had already raced through three women’s shops, calling Olivia’s name, statistics swirling through her mind.

  Fact: 74 percent of abducted children who are murdered are killed in the first three hours. Most missing-children cases aren’t reported for two hours.

  Fact: children abducted by strangers are three times more likely to be murdered than those abducted by family members or acquaintances.

  Fact: it was all her fault. If she hadn’t been mentally abducting Molly, Olivia would be eating a stale Snickers bar off the dirty floor back at Lane Five.

  Rachel jogged into the food court, racing passed rows and rows of tables, slowing to peer underneath. Once she’d covered the eating area, she ran down the hall to the restrooms. Rushing past the lineup of women waiting for stalls, she shouted, “Olivia?” and bent down, checking each of the locked stalls for anything other than women’s shoes, faced forward. She turned to the women in line. “Did anyone see a girl? Ten-years-old, pink sweatpants, one shoe…?” Two of the women shook their heads, the other three looked around, as if the child might suddenly materialize from behind their pant legs.