Half In Love With Death (6 page)

Whoosh. I opened my eyes to see Dad hosing down the tiles. I expected him to yell but all he said was, “Looks like we have a case of upchuck here.” The stink of puke filled the air. He swayed on his feet. “I'm going to California to look for Jess, and I'll make sure to stop by Schwab's. I can see her doing something crazy like going to Hollywood all by herself.”

The next day I stood with Mom and Dicky on the front step, watching Dad leave for California.

As he drove away, Mom said, “I don't understand how he can leave me here at a time like this.” She gave me a look and headed back into the house, obviously in a mood. She'd started in on me at breakfast by slamming around the kitchen. Each slam made my head hurt. When I couldn't eat my scrambled eggs, she'd said, “Feeling a little sick? It's called a hangover.”

She went into the living room and sat down at the sewing machine. Pieces of yellow cloth were strewn all over the rug. She pressed the pedal with her foot, and the needle pounded into the fabric at breakneck speed. When she finished a panel she held it up against the picture window. Sunlight streamed through the material, illuminating the pale buttercups printed on it. She stared out, crumpling the cloth in her hand.

A sour taste filled my mouth. “Dad will find her. I know he will.”

Mom just stood there. “None of us knows anything.”

I thought of Ron's hand softly brushing her cheek, how she pressed her face into his shirt. And of finding the postcard and Dad finally listening to me, and of the things May said by the pool. Mom was wrong. I was starting to know things. I knew that Jess had probably taken off to pursue her dreams. But I also knew that she and Tony were in love. They had known it from the moment they first saw each other. She'd said though it seemed accidental, it was fate.

It
was
kind of accidental. Last fall, right after we'd moved here, Mom dropped us off at a public swimming pool because ours was being cleaned. Jesse wore her red bikini that fastened in front with a rose. I wore my black-and-white one.

As we inhaled the moist, chlorine-scented air, she'd nodded toward a boy climbing the stairs to the high dive. His dark hair was combed back from his face, and he was slim with broad, square shoulders. He placed his feet together, raised his muscled arms above his head, stood still to let the crowd admire him, and dove. The diving board made a springing sound as he sailed through the air and cut into the green water like a pale knife. When he emerged with a splash, everyone clapped. As he hoisted himself out of the pool, he stared straight at Jess.

A girl in the crowd turned to us. It was Debbie Frank.

“So what'd ya think of Tony?” she said.

Jess looked off to the side. “I guess he's good.”

Debbie touched the spit curl plastered to her cheek. “He's more than good. He was state diving champ.”

Before Jess could make some wise remark, Tony came over. Up close he looked like one of those Greek statues, only wet. Just a glimpse of his deep-set blue eyes made me shiver. He draped his arm around Debbie's shoulder. “Who are these two angels?”

Debbie introduced us and Tony fixed his eyes on Jess and said, “Hi there.” She fiddled with the rose on her suit. They stared at each other in one of those moments that are uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.

Finally Tony broke his stare, and said he had to go. As he walked away, he turned slowly, pointed at Jess, and said, “See you around.”

“He's
my
boyfriend,” Debbie said when he was gone.

Jess widened her eyes. “Really?”

“Don't act like that's so hard to believe,” Debbie said.

Later Jess confided in me that when she first saw Tony, he had the loneliest look she'd ever seen. She said that the darkness from when he almost drowned set him apart from everyone. Then she'd leaned close as if it were a very special secret, and whispered, “And when our eyes met, his loneliness became a part of me. It was love.”

Remembering the history of their love was reassuring. Even someone as stuck on herself as Jess wouldn't just run way from Tony and never come back.

• • •

I spent Sunday afternoon waiting for Dad to come home from California. He'd called a few times over the past week but never with any news, and I was starting to worry, but I hadn't given up hope. Ron came by once to consult with Mom about the private eye. Consult seemed to be a code word for drinking martinis until their voices slurred together. I wished I could ask Jess about Mom and Ron. I couldn't stop my imagination from running wild, and Jess understood people so much better than I did.

As I sat on my bed, waiting, I picked up my book. There were only a few days left to finish it before school started, but I was almost done. It wasn't as exciting as I'd imagined it would be, but I liked the parts where the author talked about taking peyote, a cactus that grew in the desert—how weird was that? When he took it, mostly he stared at ordinary things like the folds in his pants and saw them in a new and beautiful way. But it wasn't just the outside world that changed. Peyote could transport you to a part of the mind that he called the antipodes. It was like a forgotten neighborhood you never knew was there. Sometimes people saw jewels, islands of flowers, and magical beings; other times, things that were terrifying. It made me think of the vision I'd had inside my head of Jess by the pool. Did it come from the antipodes? But if it did, why was Jess
there
? It had to be some kind of sign that I was on the right path, though I had no idea where it would lead me.

• • •

When I came downstairs, Dad was sitting at the kitchen table with Mom and Dicky, and no Jess. My chair scraped against the floor as I yanked it out and sat down. Dad gave me a sad smile and reached into a plastic bag by his chair. “I stopped by the souvenir shop where Arnie works.” He handed Dicky a plastic Mickey Mouse hat, me a ruby-slipper keychain, and Mom a green bracelet.

She eyed it suspiciously. “It's nice for costume jewelry.”

“A little bit of the Emerald City,” he said. Mom slipped it on. He let out a long breath. “I found out Arnie has a girlfriend. He and Jess were just flirting. There was nothing between them.”

Mom fussed with the tablecloth. “I'd been hoping she'd run off with him.” She looked toward the window over the sink. Dicky put the hat on and began moving his face from side to side in front of hers. “Stop that,” she said, pushing him away. She glanced at Dad. “Did you find anything else out?”

He flicked his beer cap off the table. “I walked all over Hollywood. I went to places where runaway kids crash on dirty mattresses. Some of them were on drugs. Some of the girls looked like prostitutes. They were all full of stupid ideas about dropping out and being free, but none of them had seen Jess.” He wiped his forehead with a napkin and went on, “I saw a girl on Redondo Beach, wearing a red bathing suit just like Jess's. I followed her. She started to run. I ran, too. I'd almost caught up with her when she turned around and screamed. It wasn't Jess. Not even close. Everyone was staring at me like I was some kind of pervert.” He slumped in his seat. “I tried as hard as I could, but all I accomplished was scaring some teenage girl. I'm lucky I didn't get arrested.”

Mom touched his arm. “You did your best. That's what matters.”

He pulled his arm away. “Easy for you to say. You're not the one who told her never to come back.”

She placed her hands on the table and lowered her voice. “Ron thinks Tony might know something about the disappearance of Geraldine Keanen.” I caught my breath. I remembered when that happened.

Dad gave her an agonized look. “Isn't she the girl who went missing last fall?”

She nodded. I tried to swallow, but I couldn't. Geraldine had been in Jess's class. The newspaper said it was like she'd vanished into thin air. People talked about it for weeks, and then they stopped.

He tore at the label on his beer bottle. “I guess we have to hope Ron is wrong.”

“Joe's friends are going to put some pressure on Tony,” Mom said. “They'll get him to talk.”

“What?” Dad sat up straighter. “Was anyone going to ask me about this?”

She turned the bracelet round on her wrist. “Ron thought it was a good idea.”

“Ron? Did it ever occur to Ron or Joe that strong-arming Tony and his friends might not be the best way to get them to talk to us?”

Mom frowned. “Then what should we do, Jack?”

“There isn't anything we can do. Her friends might know more than they're saying. Tony might know more. But they don't trust us. They'll only talk to each other. We've gone as far as we can.” He took a long swallow of beer. “Our only hope is that a kid with some decency will come forward.” His shoulders sagged like he'd given up. I couldn't let that happen. I'd found the postcard. I'd had a vision.

“Dad,” I said, “you went to Schwab's Pharmacy, right?”

“Schwab's?” He stared at me blankly.

“You didn't go there?”

He started to say, “I meant to . . . .”

Of course he'd forgotten. No one ever listened to me. And they didn't get it. Jess wasn't some grimy runaway. She was obsessed with getting what she wanted. She always had been. “Dad,” I said, “I still think Jess is in California. We just have to look harder for her, because she ran away to become a star. And she doesn't care how much that hurts us, because she only cares about herself.”

Mom grimaced. “Caroline, how can you talk about your sister that way?”

“Because it's the truth.”

May called on the day before school started and invited me to go shopping with her and her best friend Sheila. As I brushed Jess's blue mascara down to the tips of my lashes, Mom walked into my room. I glanced at her uneasily. We'd hardly talked since Dad got back. The two of them fought all the time now.

“I'm glad you're doing something with May today,” she said. “It's good to distract yourself.” She reached into a satin makeup bag on the bureau and took out some light green eye shadow.

“Try this color.” She stepped back. “I always thought your eyes were hazel, but they're more unusual. They remind me of this stone called tiger's eye.” Tiger's eye, I thought, as if she had given me some rare clue as to who I was. She handed me some money and gazed at me sadly, as if I was the one who was missing.

• • •

May and Sheila were best friends, but they weren't much alike. Sheila had frizzy brown hair. She wasn't as pretty as May, but she had a clean, pale look and she worshipped May, as most people did. I was anxious for the three of us to become friends, and also for the chance to ask May more about Jess.

When we got to the store, I chose a sleeveless mini-dress with black and white squares on top, and red and white ones on the bottom, and shoes with chunky heels and tiny dots on the toes. They were exactly like May's, only in black patent leather instead of suede, but if she minded she didn't say so. Sheila bought a low-cut dress that showed off her cleavage, and May bought a black hip-hugger skirt that Sheila said looked amazing with her long legs. May hated being tall, and Sheila tried hard to make her feel better about it.

When we were done shopping, we took the bus to Speedway Boulevard to get something to eat. We stopped at a place called The Flying Saucer.

“Johnie's is much better,” I said. “Tony hates this place. He says he wouldn't waste his time at a second-rate place, with second-rate people, and waiters dressed like the creature from the black lagoon.”

Sheila and May exchanged an awkward glance. May swept her long hair off her shoulder. It fell in a shiny straight sheet, perfectly even at the bottom, milk-pale strands blending in with slightly lighter and darker ones.

“I love your hair,” I said.

May smiled. “Anyone can have this color. It's called Ivory Chiffon.”

Then Sheila said she would die of hunger if we waited a minute longer, so we went in and sat down in a booth covered with fake alligator skin, and ordered Alien Burgers, Pluto Fries, and Saturn's O-Rings from a waiter in a lizard suit.

I was preparing to ask May more about what she'd told me by the pool when she took a tiny bite of her burger and said, “Billy called me last night.” My stomach lurched.

Sheila tapped a nail coated with clear polish on the table. “What did you talk about?”

“About Steve being in Vietnam.” She hunched her shoulders as if trying to appear shorter.

I said, “He talked to me about Steve, too.”

The two of them turned to me. “He did?”

“Yeah. We talked about how hard it was with Steve and Jess being gone.” I tore the paper off my straw. “And then he kissed me.”

Sheila blinked her dark eyes. “He kissed you?”

I nodded. May shot me a look. “Billy's been a mess since we broke up. He calls me every night. And he's drinking too much.” She licked her glossy pink lips. “He's doing all kinds of crazy things.”

I pushed my plate aside. Billy hadn't spoken to me since the kiss, but apparently he was talking to May all the time. I had some fries left, but I'd lost my appetite. When the lizard waiter asked if anyone wanted dessert, I was relieved that no one did. I couldn't wait to leave.

As we handed the cashier our money, she said, “You girls be careful. It's getting dark out.” May and Sheila suppressed a giggle. The cashier looked up at us with sad eyes, her skin pasty and damp-looking, clusters of fake silver pearls dangling from her ears. “You might think this is funny but my Geraldine, she never came home. There's not a night I don't leave a light on for her.”

I froze. Geraldine. The cashier stared straight at me, as if she knew my sister was missing just like Geraldine was, and saw right through my pathetic attempt to be happy. May grabbed my wrist and pulled me away.