Things We Didn't Say (11 page)

“Oh, does she now? Interesting turnaround.”

Julie, my dad’s sister, and her husband Rick always had a special connection with Billy, never having had any sons of their own. Rick, Dad, and Billy went hunting every November as soon as Billy could hold a rifle.

At the funeral she managed a limp condolence hug for me, and the rest of the time glared and whispered. Rick couldn’t even look me in the eye.

“They were grieving, too,” Mom says now, as if that makes it all fine. “They know it’s not really your fault.”

“Not
really
but kind of? Thanks for the ringing endorsement.”

“Edna, honey, that’s not what I meant, of course we don’t blame you.”

They may not have blamed me, but I do remember my mother grilling me for every detail of that night, and how she focused an awful lot on the fact that I talked my brother into coming to the party, and the reason he started fighting in the first place.

“Whatever, they could barely look at me back then, and now they want me to show up? Why, so they can gossip about me some more?”

“Maybe they want to make it right.”

“Sure they do. Well, tell them—”

The front door swings open. It’s Angel.

“If you care
, Dad has some clues about Dylan.”

“I gotta run,” I say, and “Love you, Mom” because even when we fight I say it, considering. You just never know what the future brings.

I walk back in, and Jewel wrinkles her nose. I know I’ve come in with waves of stench. I can’t smell it myself, I’m immune, I think, but I see it in other people’s faces.

“Go ahead,” I say, while I dampen my cigarette with water before I drop it in the kitchen trash, hurrying back to the front room.

Michael looks like a schoolteacher, still in his work clothes, standing up in front of the fireplace while everyone else sits. Jewel is cross-legged on the floor. Angel and Mallory sit like double vision on the couch. I take the uncomfortable wooden rocking chair.

“Well. This is what we’ve found. He’s been writing this Tiffany girl for months now. From what I can tell, they met on Facebook. They think they’re in love, and they decided to run away together.”

I sneak a look at Mallory. She’s staring with intensity at Michael, and worrying a thumbnail in her teeth.

Michael goes on: “It would seem they picked today to run away, and they’re trying to get to New York City.”

“And how did they think they were going to get there?” Mallory asks now, prompting, since she must already know the answer herself.

“They’re taking a bus. I think they dealt with specifics over the phone, though, because the messages get more vague as they get more recent.”

“Her number’s disconnected now, though,” Mallory says with a wave of her hand as I open my mouth to ask if they’ve tried to call it.

“So our next step,” Michael says, “is to call the police, because it seems that two minor children are alone somewhere out there on buses trying to get to a huge, dangerous city.”

Mallory leans back on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest, toying with the sleeves of Michael’s big sweater. “He was smart enough not to hitchhike, I’ll give him that.”

Jewel pipes up. “So he’s okay, then.”

Mallory answers, “You bet, J. The cops will find him at a bus station somewhere, and then we’ll tar his butt as soon as he gets back home.”

Michael swallows hard and then folds the printouts carefully, running over the crease with his fingers again and again. “I hope you feel better now, kids. It’s getting late, Jewel, you should probably get ready for bed.”

“Awwwww, Dad!”

“Mike, you told them they didn’t have to go to school tomorrow. What difference does it really make?”

Michael’s jaw goes tight, and he walks out abruptly. “I’m going upstairs to call the police station.”

“Mom?” Jewel asks. “Can we make popcorn? The old way, on the stove, with butter?”

“Sure, baby! You got it.” Mallory bounces off the couch and takes command in the kitchen. Jewel trails after her, talking to her about dinosaurs and alligators.

Angel remains on the couch, eyes fixed on the floor. She looks washed-out, her face blending into her pale hair.

I sit down on the couch, close enough to be considered next to her, but far enough not to be invasive, so I hope. I’ve never gotten good at this dance with her, this push-pull of too close, too far.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Fine.” She tries to say it forcefully, but her voice breaks.

“You can tell me.”

“If you can have secrets, so can I.”

The first time we’ve been alone since she read my diary. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh? You lied in your own diary?”

“I mean, you read things out of context.”

“Yeah. Context makes it all better.”

“Why were you even in my desk?”

At this she flops herself back on the couch, folding her arms tight across her. “None of your fucking business. Now go run along and tattle to my dad about how I read your diary and said ‘fucking.’ ”

“I’m not going to tell him.”

“Oh, so he won’t ask me what’s in it?”

“That’s not why.”
Because I’m leaving.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I was asking about Dylan, and about you.”

“He’s fine, isn’t he?”

“Probably.”

“Thanks for being so reassuring.”

“It won’t help him if you hide things from us.”

“Hypocrite.”

She stands up and whirls on me, and for a moment I think she might hit me, with her hands balled up into fists, the memory of Mallory grabbing me by the arms so fresh in my mind.

She stomps off to her room and slams the door in such a way that would normally earn at least a mild reproof from Michael, but today nothing is as it should be.

I venture upstairs to Michael’s room again. This time when I crack the door he’s alone.

He’s on the phone, clearly with the police. In one hand he’s clenching the receiver. The other hand is wrapped tightly around a piece of bedsheet, which he keeps unwinding and winding again as he talks.

“Look, I tell you, this isn’t like him. He’s a good kid, he’s hardly ever been in trouble before . . . What good will that do in the morning? Do you know how far away he could be by then? Dammit, he’s fourteen years old! . . . It just doesn’t feel right to me . . . What happens if you’re wrong, then, huh? What happens if—”

Michael’s voice cracks. He lets go of the sheet, cradles his head in that hand.

He nods a few times, and then punches the hang-up button without saying good-bye. He tosses the phone down, and it slides off the edge of the bed, landing with a plunk on the floor.

“All the times as a reporter I’ve spent on the phone with upset, grieving people, trying to be calm and professional. I never realized how much they must have hated me.”

I sit down on the bed and pick up the phone, putting it on the nightstand after checking for serious damage.

“What’s happening?” I prompt, as Michael remains silent, staring at the floor between his feet.

“They’ll put a
report
in some database. The desk lieutenant said he’d have an officer check the bus station if I e-mail him a picture of Dylan to show around. And if he still hasn’t checked in by morning, they will have a detective check it out. By morning!”

“What did you mean by ‘doesn’t feel right’?”

He raises his face to look at me. “I don’t think he’s meeting a girl at all.”

Chapter 11
Angel

S
tupid Casey and her stupid questions.

I get a text from Hannah.

Dylan OK?

I hate how all these kids are making my drama into theirs to get attention. Like, if he totally disappeared for real, by next week they’d be on to the next thing, like that kid whose brother died of cancer and everyone was acting like their own brother died and then within a week it was all, whatever.

I don’t even think Hannah likes me. Last week, I came up to her and the girls at play practice, and the minute I walked up, everyone stopped talking and they all stared at me, and I swear Emma was smirking. So it’s not like she really cares. It’s not like any of them do.

I shut my phone off and put in my earbuds, cranking it up so loud that Dad would say I’m ruining my hearing.

Who gave Casey the right to come into my house and start acting like she knows so much? And getting on me for having secrets when she’s the one writing about Tony. Calling Tony. Tony said this, Tony said that.

And she used to drink herself stupid all the time, too. Bet Dad doesn’t know that. He thinks she doesn’t drink because she doesn’t like the taste.

For a reporter he can be pretty stupid sometimes.

My stomach rumbles, and I grab a bottled water that’s sitting on my dresser and take a swig. It helps a little. I couldn’t eat that greasy, nasty pizza for dinner. And I didn’t eat much for lunch today. Later, I’ll go back down and get an apple or something.

I pick up my script for
The Miracle Worker
. I should practice some of my lines, especially because I skipped rehearsal and we’re supposed to be off-book by next week, but they’d hear me and someone would stick their face in here and try to “help.” Like Casey, putting on a supportive, sweet act when I know what she really thinks of me.

I can’t remember the exact words, but it was something like,
can be such a bitch
.

I wanted to rip her journal in half and in fact I gave it a try, but that’s harder than it looks, so instead I found this red marker and let her know that her secrets aren’t so secret anymore.

“Why were you even in my desk?” she asked, like she’s the poor victim here. I just needed a piece of paper. I didn’t expect to find out my dad’s girlfriend secretly hates me. I mean, I knew we didn’t always get along, but “bitch”?

How many other people hate me in secret? Hannah, Emma, their friends, and now Casey, too?

I know that Eleanor hates me out loud, already. Everyone thought she’d get the part of Anne Sullivan in
The Miracle Worker
. She’s pretty much the best actress in school and she’s always in community theater, too, and I heard she even has head shots and almost got an agent once when she went out to L.A. She’s so beautiful the guys all cling to her like they’re metal and she’s a magnet.

But then I got it, and Eleanor is my understudy, which means she’s loving today because she did the part at rehearsal. She’s probably already off-book for my part, too. She’s got a freaky ability to memorize lines.

I was so shocked when I saw the cast list, I thought Mrs. Nelson made a misprint, so I asked her. But she said no, she thought my audition had been “earnest and soulful” and she knew I had it in me.

So she might as well have put a target on my back. I mean, some people think that Eleanor is overrated and a ham and that she waves her arms like she’s a cheerleader every time she reads a line.

But mostly they’re all waiting for me to fuck it up.

Maybe if Dylan stays gone I can quit the play.

Oh, that’s terrible. I curl up on my bed and scrunch my eyes.
I didn’t mean it I didn’t mean it I didn’t mean it
, I say in my head, in case I somehow jinxed him.

I don’t know what to do with myself now. I don’t feel like reading lines. I have permission to blow off homework.

My big plan for the evening had been to tell my dad all about the diary, and then he could promise not to marry her and I’d know at least I wouldn’t be having a stepmother who hated me. But I can’t really do that now.

I sent Dylan a text earlier that said “WTF? Where r u?” And then I sent some more that were nicer and more concerned, but now I find out he didn’t even take his phone.

I should probably tell my dad what Dylan told me last week about hating his new school, but he swore me to secrecy. And that’s different than reading Casey’s diary, because I didn’t mean to do that, I just stumbled on it.

But Dylan’s my brother, and I promised.

Anyway, it’s probably not related. It sounds like my brother thinks he’s in love, the idiot.

My door opens and it’s my dad, and he’s got this big frown. I can’t hear him, but I can read his lips. I sigh and take out my earbuds and sit up cross-legged. He sits on the edge of my bed.

“Angel, I’ve got to ask you something.”

“What?”

“You know something’s up with Dylan. Casey said you were looking really guilty when I was talking, and you were evasive just now.”

“I didn’t realize I was being
interrogated.
”

“You need to tell us what’s going on.”

“I don’t
know
. Anyway, you guys know that he’s going to New York by bus. The cops will find him, right?”

“ Look . . .” My dad runs his fingers over his hair and pulls at his tie. He’s never gotten out of his work clothes. “You can’t tell Jewel this, okay?”

“Tell her what?”

“Promise me.”

“Okay, fine, I promise. What?”

“I’m worried that he’s not really meeting a girl.”

“Who else could he be meeting?”

While my dad tries to figure out what to say, suddenly it hits me. He thinks it’s like the
Dateline NBC
show where they catch perverts trying to meet up with young kids.

“No, it’s not like that,” I say. “He’s not that dumb to fall for some sweaty pervert pretending to be a girl.”

Without saying anything else, my dad pulls out a printed photograph. I take it in my hand, and it looks like a fashion model. The girl’s hair is windswept, and she’s gazing off to the side. There’s a beach behind her.

“This girl doesn’t look fourteen, and she doesn’t look like an ordinary girl. This looks like the kind of picture you’d download off the Internet if you wanted to impress a teenage boy. If you wanted to lure him somewhere.”

Now I start to feel kinda light-headed.

“Angel, please.”

“I don’t know anything about the girl.”

“What
do
you know about?”

“Nothing. Honest.”

My dad looks like he might cry. I’ve only seen him cry once before, when Mom and Jewel had that wreck.