The American Girl (8 page)

JULY 31, 2015

I
sipped my Jack Daniel's, my reflection vanishing by degrees as I eked out the last drops. I needed every last drop after my phone call to Quinn's father, the great Professor Perkins. I'd called him to head off someone else telling him that there was an aunt type hanging around his daughter. To cover my ass, I'd pretended to be one Mademoiselle le Mesurier, the local contact for Quinn's study abroad program, crossing my fingers that no one from the program had been in touch with him already.

“
Bonjou
r, Professor Perkins,” I began in my best impression of a French accent. I explained my “role” and expressed my condolences for what had happened as well as my assurance that we were providing all the support we could.

“While I thank you for your call, I must inquire as to what it pertains?” he asked, his voice charmingly polite and yet so unconcerned it sent a chill through me.

Surely he must be devastated about all this, I thought; even if Quinn wasn't a daddy's girl, she was his daughter.

“And what day do you plan to come for Quinn, monsieur? I ask because, of course, we shall send someone to ze
aéroport
.”

Huffy silence on the other end of the line. Then—

“Well, of course . . . ahem . . . I'm grateful for the offer. So helpful of you. I just don't know when I can be there, because, you see, my wife is very pregnant, so not until after the baby's born at the least and even then . . .”

I put him out of his misery by thanking him for his time and expressing my hope that he would contact the program if he needed anything. I even gave him Mademoiselle le Mesurier's real phone number, because by now I was sure he wouldn't bother. I'd been worried about Leo flying to his daughter's side and blowing my cover in the process, but I needn't have been. He was a cold fish, that much was clear—one that wouldn't swim over here anytime soon. But instead of being relieved, I just felt sad for Quinn, so lonely in her hospital bed. I wished I could go back to the hospital to sit with her.

I comforted myself with the company of Mr. Daniel's and the contents of Quinn's blog. There I read about the ups and downs you might expect on a teenager's first stay far from home: tension with her host; a rocky relationship with her French exchange; unwelcome advances from the local lothario, a kid named Freddie. And then there was something darker: threatening messages from an anonymous stranger, apparently including footage of someone being suffocated.

I'd taken a look at her Snapchat app and found zip, just as she said. The messages erased themselves, hence the appeal to teens. Reading further on in the blog, it was clear she'd had her own suspicions about whoever might be stalking her. These seemed to circle around Freddie, beginning on a day at the pool. As I looked through the comments section, her online friends seemed to agree:

Update:
Just looked at my blog and saw that all you guys came to the rescue on the stalking front!

loserguy38
: That guy Freddie has got to be the stalker. Sounds like a loser. Avoid.

gothgurl
: Maybe he did send you that snuff text, Q, then try to snuff you, too, but fight back: refuse to be scared.

malady_g
: Just checked this, the law can't help with stalkers. Unless he threatens you explicitly, police can't do jack. Sorry, Q

dr_kennedy
: Noémie's brother sounds supercute. Pics please!

Qriosity_cat
: Thank you, wonderful people
. I'll do my best.

Qriosity_cat
was Quinn apparently. Her reply to the comments made me sad. She'd put so much trust in these virtual acquaintances and not one of them had thought to call the police or do much of anything when she vanished.

Her story—what I'd read of it so far—gave me an uneasy sense that there was an awful lot going on under the surface of life in the Blavette household, and none of it had made it into the papers. Reading the description of the girl being smothered in
the video, I remembered what Marlene had told me about why the school shut down.
The poor girl suffocated. They said it was some sort of game that went wrong.
It was too much of a coincidence. I had to go talk to Marlene again, and find this Freddie, too.

The chair next to me screeched. “How's the aunt?” Aurelia Perla asked sweetly as she sat down and handed me her business card. Up close, I could see that she was very pretty in a put-together sort of way, her beige suit crisply dry-cleaned, the outline of her lipstick so neatly applied it looked machine-tooled.

“Holding up.” I smiled awkwardly.

I looked around the bar for a companion, but saw only the same journalists as when I came in, slouching on tables in groups of fours, smoking e-cigarettes and blending into the surroundings like oil blends into water. One table held a couple of hacks and a photographer. Judging from the amount of gear the cameraman was carrying, he was one of those mercenary mutant paparazzi that feed off of stories like this. I wondered if I'd missed a press release or something, if new details were about to emerge. Else why would the meat flies be swarming around me? It freaked me out.

“Excuse me.” Pushing my chair back, I started to get up.

“How are you coping?” Aurelia asked, the American word
coping
sounding labored in her accent. “It must be so hard.”

“Do you want something?” I asked, trying to sound naive and bewildered.

“It must be a very hard time waiting for your niece to be well again, not knowing . . .” She frowned sadly. “But the sisters say
she has every chance of being well. If she . . . when she wakes, what will be your first words to her?” She smiled expectantly.

I sat half on, half off the chair. I couldn't believe I was so slow to see what was going on—she had an audio recorder hidden on her somewhere and she was baiting me for a quote. Once I knew that, looking sideways at her was like looking at some weird, ghoulish, really well-dressed reflection of myself. This is what I did, sneaking up on people, asking sympathetic questions designed to pry revelations from them. Being on the other side of the questions made me realize how icky it felt to be soft-soaped.
Jeez
, I thought,
I hope I'm more convincing than this woman.

“Look . . .” I began in a firmer voice.

“Stop that!” A man stepped between us. He was beautifully dressed, in a dark suit and fedora. Inspector Valentin. He glared at our reflections in the mirror. “Get out.”

“Sorry,” I said, stumbling up. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be rumbled. And here it was, flung from the hotel, never to be allowed back in the hospital.

“No, not you, Mademoiselle Perkins,” said Valentin. He turned to the journalist, glowering, and said something angry in French.

She retorted just as angrily, her glossy red lips spread in a defiant grin. Valentin took out a piece of paper and flashed it at her. Whatever it said made Aurelia get up and move at speed from the bar. She hurried back to the table where the other hacks slumped with their beers, almost breaking a kitten heel. When she was out of earshot, Valentin climbed into the chair she'd vacated.

He took off his hat and laid it on the bar. “I am sorry about that.” He smiled apologetically.

“Don't worry, I'm getting used to it,” I said, gulping down the last few drops of whiskey, suspicious that he had changed his tune so much since we met in the café.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Journalists in the case are behaving reprehensibly—sneaking into the hospital, telling lies to the nuns to get information, and worse, sneaking in here to bother the girl's relatives. I have told this woman she will face jail time if she pushes this further.
Terrible, n'est-ce pas?
”

“The worst,” I said, gulping. There was something about him that made me nervous. I didn't know if it was my justified fear that he was onto me, or his annoying gallantry.

As if to underscore that point, he summoned the barman and ordered two more whiskeys.

“Is one of those for me?” I asked.

“It's the least I can do,” he said, patting my arm.

Back to that again. I just wanted to go up to my room and take a shower and dream up my next move on the case, but I remembered Bill saying I should press my advantage wherever I could. When the Jack Daniel's came, I chinked my glass on his.

“To . . . this place,” I said, for want of a better toast.

He stopped midchink. “The Napoléon? St. Roch? Be more specific.”

“To St. Roch, your beautiful town.”

He rolled his eyes and downed the whiskey in one. “
Mon Dieu.
If you only knew the reality. This town is nothing but trouble.”

JULY 16, 2015

Blog Entry

There's a sense of dread that settles on a house; not just houses with creaking roof beams and forbidden Bluebeard doors, or even houses where you get pinched on the wrist for sticking up for yourself with guys. You know what I mean.
The fear
: that weird foreboding, the
plinky-plink
of horror movie sound effects, the camera zooming out giddily as you realize how bad things are.

I remember it from the days after Dad left, watching my mom drift around with her bandaged wrists, her eyes blank as the windows of a derelict house. She tried to protect me, never crying where I could see. She reorganized the things in their bedroom over and over as if it would bring Dad back, or hide him away. Later, in group therapy, I found that was one of the signs that someone was planning to kill themselves: putting their affairs in order. She gave Dad's suits away to a neighbor and, in
a moment of sheer eccentricity, repotted all our houseplants in the park across the street with his Louis Vuitton shoes buried underneath.

I'd ask if she was okay; she'd say she was
so tired
. I knew what she meant, even if I didn't yet know the word to explain the endless creep of her fatigue, or mine, or our shared need to sleep hours into the day; the secret cutting we both resorted to, a little slice on the inner thigh to relieve the pain inside and a SpongeBob SquarePants Band-Aid to cover our tracks.

If I blamed my dad for leaving us, he blamed me for inheriting the shame of Mom's illness. Worse than that: he blamed me for watching her slide down into the darkness and doing nothing to stop it. Or maybe he was just projecting his guilt onto me—at least, that's what the therapist said to make me feel better. The day Mom died, the air was so thick with fear I couldn't see straight, and every moment leading up to the one in which I found her was a little car crash: the world slowing down for the collision as if it wants to watch just a bit more carefully. The shards of glass hitting you so gradually you don't notice that you are bleeding until later. Like when your guilt-stricken dad has slung you in the nuthouse for six months to “get well.” If there's one thing you get in a psychiatric hospital, it's time to dwell.

Whether because of the weird texts, or what happened yesterday (and the day before and the day before that), or just my meds not working, the fear has come to visit me once more, falling fine and plentiful as dust in an abandoned building. I lie in bed. It settles on me. I get up in the morning and it clouds my vision.

Today someone left a book on my bed. A weird kind of bloodthirsty guidebook about some local caves called Les Yeux. When I went to take my turn in the bathroom, there was nothing on my bed except for rumpled-up covers, my iPod, and earbuds. When I came back, there was the book.

Flipping through it, I don't really grasp a lot of the French. But I get the gist. There were murders there long ago. Witches walled into the rock. All the illustrations inside are really disturbing. I mean, I know I watch horror movies by the fuck-ton, but this is like a how-to guide for Spanish Inquisition wannabes. I stand spellbound for I don't know how long, clutching the book with sweaty hands, hearing the
plinky-plink
music, feeling the shaky zoom-out camera.

A knock on my door. I drop the book. Noémie pokes her head around.

I bite it off. “You put this here?” I hold up the book.

She shrugs. “No.”

I take a step towards her, hands shaking. “Know who did?”

“No. Are you . . . okay?” She swallows nervously.

“Yeah . . . I just feel like. I don't know. Someone put this here to freak me out or something.”

She closes the door behind her. “Listen. What happened yesterday—”

“You going to tell me off, too? Because Freddie's an ass-hat and I'm glad I slapped him. I mean, you know that creep sent me texts and this awful video. And then he kissed me and the other day he almost drowned me . . .”

Noémie puts her hand on my arm. Her eyes are soft. “Hey.
I know. I know. He is always like that with every exchange that comes here,” she says, shaking her head, and rubs her hands over her face. “Like touching them in the pool,
quoi
. It's gross. I have no reason why Maman is not stopping him.”

I swipe angrily at a tear running down my cheek. “Then why do you invite him along to everything?”

She shrugs. “St. Roch is small small. Everyone knows everyone and there are not always other young people to hang with. Maman asks someone like Freddie so there will be young people for you to meet.”

“You serious? He's—”

“Hey, look, let's have fun today. Just us!” She smiles wide, suddenly throwing everything into being cheerful. “We may take the bus to the town and go shop.”

It melts my heart a little to see her work so hard to distract me. Maybe she feels like we got off on the wrong foot, too, though I still have my doubts. “Won't your mom mind? She seems pretty strict . . .”

Noémie rolls her eyes. “She's the worst. I know. But she's not here today and tonight she's staying with her boyfriend. Raffi is in charge,
en fait
. And he is not here either. So I say we do what we want. Go wild,
quoi
!”

It turns out Noémie doesn't go wild by halves. In St. Roch, we shop and we eat ice cream. We tie up our T-shirts to show our midriffs and compete to see who gets the most wolf whistles. We take in zero tourist attractions and many bars where guys keep buying us beer. I never do this back home. I mean, I've maybe used a fake ID once, but it didn't look like me, and the second a
doorman confronted me, I freaked and ran away. Somehow Noé makes me bold and I no longer care if what I'm doing is wrong. Boys ask for our numbers and names and we give them fake ones, laughing behind our hands. We drink demand shots. Red Bull and vodka, Jägermeister, Sambuca. Every time I slow down or get sleepy, Noé starts her Little Miss Crazy routine again.

Night falls. Somehow we end up at a nightclub known as La Gorda, on what Noé gigglingly informs me is the wrong side of town. I can see what she means: there's a pest control joint on every corner, a hookup Hilton over the crosswalk from a Mickey D's. According to her, every night, regular as acne, this place turns on its neon and draws in new blood, pulsing hot and intimate as soon as dusk settles. Luckily I'm too drunk to feel fear anymore.

Inside, it's packed out with punks, headbangers with dreads sweeping the floor, and tall, pale chicks with cat's eyes and nose-rings. Atmosphere gushes from the band, burning the air with electric crazy.

Noé's arm steals around my waist. “Let's dance.”

“You're so drunk,” I say admiringly.

“So are you,” she screams, and laughs raucously.

Arms linked, tossing our hair, we push towards the back of the club, to a stage that's not a stage, so tight to the wall it's in the toilets, drawn forward by punk band pheromones. The music kicks off again and people gather in the tiny space pogoing or just standing as still as statues, soaking it in. Noémie and I thrust our bare-bellied bodies into the fray and shake our hips and whip our hair alongside the chicks with blue bangs and the
angry guys with gelled black hair, that guy with the leather vest and cop hat who's going wild in the corner.

Noé grabs my hips and grinds against me. We dance pressed close, our sweat making us cling. There are men watching. Leering. We lap it up. Halfway through the set, it gets rough at the front, where two young punks dance like bumper cars, their studded jackets bruising our flesh, splitting us up.

I suddenly feel like I've had enough. When the growling stops, I look for Noé and can't see her. Everyone's pressed in too tight. I can't find her anywhere. Standing on tiptoes to see above the crowd, I scan the bar. She's not there. A ripple of panic goes through me, thinking how drunk she is. How drunk I am. My head spins. The band starts up and the fray sucks me in, but my heart's not in it anymore. I watch the lead singer growl his lyrics, lips glued to the microphone, pushing his face against it with all he has, screeching words I can't make out.

A hand clamps my wrist and a pale face hovers before me, glassy with sweat. “Come on,” says Noé. “We need to get out of here right now. It is fucked up.” Her lipstick is smeared over her chin like she's been making out with someone and her bottom lip is bleeding.

I touch her cheek. “Someone hurt you?” I look around. “Where is he? Want me to talk to him?”

She grabs me, holding me close. “No,” she whispers in my ear, “you must not. He is a very bad man.” Then she starts out across the dance floor as if borne on the angst of the crowd, and all I can do is follow.