The Third Eye (2 page)

A short time later, however, freshly diapered and tucked into her crib, she had settled into placid acceptance of the inevitable. With a thumb in her mouth and the other hand methodically twisting a lock of fine brown hair, she gazed up at Karen with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Sleep tight,” Karen said, bending to kiss her. The cheek beneath her lips was as smooth and soft as a flower petal.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered to the drowsy baby. “When you’re grown up, all the boys will be fighting over you.”

Leaving the bedroom door propped open a few inches, Karen returned to the kitchen. She picked up the overturned Jell-O bowl and rewet the dish towel to wipe down the high chair. Kids could be exhausting, she conceded to herself. She knew other girls at school who were adamant that they would never want kids.

For herself, Karen could not imagine a life without children. The restrictions imposed by parenthood would be nothing, she was certain, compared with the joys of mothering an adorable kid like Stephanie. Or Bobby. Exasperated as she got with him, she had to admit that he was lovable. With his dark wavy hair, he would probably grow up to look something like Tim. If she and Tim were to one day marry, their own child might—

She broke off that train of thought abruptly. Just because they were going out didn’t mean their relationship would be permanent.

There were dozens of girls who would sacrifice anything to go out with Tim Dietz. After that scene today, he was probably already having second thoughts about tying himself down to somebody like Karen.

What if I’ve lost him?

With a major effort of will, Karen set her mind on making lunch for herself and Bobby. She located the bread. The jam. The peanut butter. Was there fruit in the refrigerator?

Yes, oranges and apples. Which one did Bobby like better?
Well, that didn’t matter; she set out both. She poured the milk into two glasses, one for each of them. Cookies? She checked the ceramic jar on the counter. It was well stocked, as always.

It was seldom that the Zenners took an entire day for themselves without the kids. Today they had gone to the racetrack in Santa Fe.

“Some friends are celebrating their anniversary,” Mrs. Zenner had explained to Karen, almost apologetically. “They want us to spend the day with them. I told them we wouldn’t even consider it unless we could get you to babysit. There’s nobody else I’d trust the kids with for that long.”

“I have a date that night,” Karen had told her, “but I can watch them until six or so if that’s all you need. Don’t worry about anything. The kids and I always get along fine.”

The table was ready. She put the cookies on a plate and went into the living room to call Bobby in from the front yard. When she opened the door, the brilliant beauty of a New Mexico spring burst full upon her, crisp and sparkling and radiant. The rains that had fallen so heavily during the early part of the week had left the air fragrant and fresh. The poplars that lined the yard glistened pale green against the rich blue of the sky, and a slight breeze rustled through them, making them shimmer. The lawn still held the brown of winter, but daffodils and crocuses were like bright flags, bordering the slate rock path that led from the driveway to the house.

Yes, the day was beautiful. But where was Bobby? Karen scanned the empty yard in bewilderment.

“Bobby!”

She awaited a response, a burst of giggles from behind the flowering snowball bushes at the side of the house or a shout from a neighboring yard. The silence that she had been longing for earlier lay heavy about her.

“Bobby!” she called again and again with increasing impatience. Eventually, when it became apparent that there was no answer coming, she turned and reentered the house.

Karen’s immediate reaction to Bobby’s
disappearance was one less of worry than of exasperation. The Zenners lived in a pleasant suburban neighborhood where dangers were few. The people who lived in the attractive brick homes along the tree-lined streets all knew one another, and children wandered from house to house, shifting location when boredom set in or cookie supplies ran low.

The other kids who had been there playing that morning had not been invited over; they had simply arrived. Any reservations Karen might have had about asking them in had been overcome by the enthusiasm of Bobby’s greeting—“Hey, Pete! Hi, Kevin!”—and the momentum with which the three of them had gone bounding past her into Bobby’s bedroom. Now, just as naturally, they must have moved on to some other play
area. What was annoying was that, despite his promise not to leave the yard, Bobby had gone with them.

Well, she would just have to find him and drag him back, Karen told herself. He had undoubtedly gone to Pete’s or Kevin’s house. This knowledge, while reassuring, was not particularly helpful. Although they had looked familiar, especially the freckled boy with the red hair, and she was sure they had been over on other occasions, she had no idea where either of them lived.

On the back of the kitchen phone directory, Mrs. Zenner had listed emergency numbers for the police, the fire department, and the family doctor. There was also a list of numbers of personal friends. Karen scanned these quickly. Most of the names came in pairs and were evidently those of couples, but toward the bottom of the page there were some boys’ names listed singly. Although there was no “Kevin,” she did find a “Peter Johnson.”

Dialing the number listed, Karen listened impatiently to the repeated sound of the ringing phone. Just as she was about to hang up, there was a click and the sudden background sound of a crying baby.

After a brief pause, a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”

“Is this Mrs. Johnson?” Karen asked. “Peter Johnson’s mother?”

“Yes, it is.” The woman sounded harried. “Pete’s not here right now.”

“I’m Karen Connors,” Karen told her. “I’m the Zenners’
babysitter, and I’m trying to track down Bobby. I was hoping he might be at your place.”

“Nobody’s here,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I thought Pete was going over to Bobby’s. That’s what he said when he ran out of here this morning.”

“He was here earlier,” said Karen. “Then they both took off someplace. There was another boy with them. I think Bobby called him ‘Kevin.’ ”

“That’s Kevin Springer,” said Mrs. Johnson. “They’ve probably gone to his house. You could try calling them, but the Springers never answer the phone. It’s the big, two-story house on the corner of Elm and Hawthorne, if you want to just go over there.”

“I guess I’ll have to, if Bobby doesn’t show up soon.”

Karen was growing increasingly irritated as the conversation continued.

“Do they always do things like this? Just go running off, I mean?”

“Let’s just say it isn’t the first time,” Mrs. Johnson said. “If you do go over there, you tell Peter—”

There was a pause. Against the thin hornet’s wail of the baby, Karen could hear the muffled thud of a slamming door.

“Is that you, Pete?” Mrs. Johnson’s voice rose sharply, channeled away from the telephone. There was a mumbled response; then Peter’s mother was back again. “It’s him, all right. At least he’s got enough sense to know when he’s hungry.”

I wish Bobby did,
Karen thought ruefully as she replaced the receiver on the hook.

The Zenners’ home was on Elm Street. The corner of Elm and Hawthorne was half a block away. Karen wondered whether she should try to go there now. Stephanie was sleeping soundly, and the round-trip to the Springers’ should take no more than ten minutes. At the same time, she didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone in the house, even for that short a period. Freak accidents did occur; you read about them in the paper. Fires broke out, or babies twisted in their sleep and got caught between the slats of their cribs.

If Bobby was old enough to wander, he was old enough to come home. It wasn’t as though there were anything to really worry about. Mrs. Johnson’s calm reaction had made it obvious that this disappearing act was nothing unusual for the neighborhood kids.

Karen set the second milk glass back in the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table to eat her own lunch. After the noise and activity of the morning, the house seemed strangely silent. With nothing to distract her, it was difficult to keep her mind from returning to the argument with Tim. If they
did
break up—

We won’t! We can’t!

But if they
did—

Would I go back,
Karen asked herself,
to what I was before?

When it came to that, what
had
she been before that had
been so markedly different from what she was now? It was not as if there had been a physical transformation. The pale hair and brown eyes that people now seemed to find attractive were the same hair and eyes she’d had the semester before. The slender, small-boned body that Tim thought was “sexy” had developed a few years ago, just like the other girls’.

So what had caused the strangeness? Even her own mother had felt it.

“Karen is not quite like other children.” How many times had Mrs. Connors repeated that statement? To relatives, to teachers, to mothers of elementary school classmates who expressed concern because “that sweet little girl seems to be alone so much”?

“Karen is different,” her mother would tell them, laughing a little as though to soften the starkness of the revelation. “She’s a very distinct individual, our daughter, Karen.”

Why had she been different? She hadn’t tried to be. She had, in fact, gone out of her way to conform. She wore jeans when the other girls wore jeans; she wore skirts when they wore skirts. When straight hair was the “in” thing, she had grown hers long and let it swing loose and shiny over her shoulders. When curly hair was in, she had used a curling iron. She had performed well in school, but not so well that she stood out from the others. She was not an overachiever any more than she was a slacker. She was average. Just like everybody. Except…

Except that she
wasn’t
.

The difference could not be seen, but it had existed for as
long as she could remember, separating her from her classmates like an invisible wall. It wasn’t that they didn’t like her; they were simply not quite comfortable around her, and when they formed their cliques, she did not have a place in them. When she was younger, this had hurt her. Eventually she had managed to convince herself that it didn’t matter. She had her reading, her babysitting, and her summer job at the day care center. She did not need friends. There was nothing they could provide for her that she could not equally well provide for herself.

Or so she had rationalized. It had not been true.
We’re not breaking up. It was just a little argument. I won’t think about it,
Karen told herself firmly. There are other things to think about.

For instance, Bobby. Something had to be done about locating Bobby. It was now two o’clock, a full hour past his usual lunchtime.

Shoving back her chair, Karen got up from the table and went to look in on Stephanie. The baby was sleeping heavily. Her thumb had slipped from her mouth, and the small, soft hand was curled against her cheek like an unopened flower. Her chest rose and fell with her slow, steady breathing.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Karen said softly. “I know it’s not fair to disturb you, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Bending over the crib, she made an awkward attempt to gather the child up into her arms. Stephanie whimpered and bunched herself together, refusing to open her eyes.

When Karen finally had her hoisted against her shoulder,
she sagged there, limp as a sack of potatoes, making small, pathetic snuffles of protest.

“I guess you’ll have to make the trip by stroller,” Karen said with a sigh.

She had to return Stephanie to the crib while she went in search of the stroller and got it unfolded. Then she got the baby up again and put shoes on her feet and worked her arms into the sleeves of a sweater. By the time she had completed preparations, another twenty minutes had elapsed and it was practically two o’clock in the afternoon.

There’s no excuse for this,
Karen fumed silently as she hurried along, trying to keep from jolting the nodding baby.
Bobby knows better than to run off this way.

It was obvious immediately that the brick house on the corner was one in which neighborhood kids habitually congregated. An assortment of bats and balls and other toys littered the front lawn, and a bevy of bicycles crowded the driveway. A blue Windbreaker (Bobby’s?) was draped across a bush, and three skateboards were piled in a heap on the front doorstep.

The moment she rang the bell, Karen could hear pounding feet stampeding from several directions, and when the door was thrown open she found herself confronted by two small blond girls and a red-haired boy whom she recognized from that morning.

“I’m here to get Bobby,” she told them.

The girls stared at her blankly.

The boy said, “Bob’s not here.”

“Where is he, then?” Karen asked impatiently. She could imagine Bobby crouched, giggling, just out of sight behind the door.

The boy shrugged. “I guess he’s back at his house.”

“If he were,” Karen said, “I wouldn’t have had to come over here to find him. Is your mother home?”

“Yeah. You want me to get her?”

At Karen’s curt nod, all three children disappeared from the doorway. The boy reappeared a few moments later, accompanied by a woman with the same rust-colored hair as his own.

“Kev says you’re looking for the Zenner boy,” she said. “I haven’t seen him at all today.”

“Are you sure?” Karen pressed her. “Mrs. Johnson seemed to think that all the boys were playing over here.”

“Pete was, for a while, but I don’t think Bobby was.”

Mrs. Springer turned to Kevin. “Was he over here, Kev? Don’t play games, now. I’m going to be real upset if you know where he is and you’re not telling.”

Kevin shook his head. “We wanted him to come, but we couldn’t find him.”

“Couldn’t find him!” exclaimed Karen. “What do you mean?”

“We were playing hide-and-seek,” Kevin told her. “I found Pete right off, but Bobby hid real good.”