You Can Run (5 page)

“That was inconsiderate,” my father said. “I'm sure she's sorry for worrying you, aren't you, Robbie? We got a late start on dinner and Robbie lost track of the time. Isn't that right, Robbie?”

“You're wearing a watch, Mac,” my mother pointed out. “And you know I always call Robyn before I leave the house. Didn't you think that maybe something was wrong?”

“You're absolutely right,” he said again. “I should have paid more attention to the time myself.”

My mother eyed him suspiciously, as if she suspected that he was trying to hide something from her. Finally she said, “Get in the car, Robyn.” She started for the driver's side.

“Wait a minute, Patti,” my father said.

“Patricia,” my mother corrected. She hates to be called Patti. She says it makes her sound as if she's five years old. My father, on the other hand, loves the name. He loves it so much that he persists in using it despite my mother's preference.

“You remember Carl Hanover?” my father said.“You met him a few times when Robbie was a baby.”

My mother nodded. She still had a suspicious look on her face.

“He came to see me today. His stepdaughter is missing. He wants me to help him find her. The girl goes to Robbie's school. I thought we could all go upstairs for a few minutes and I could ask Robbie some questions.”

I tensed up at the thought of my father grilling me. My mother tensed up at the thought of entering my father's place.

“Forget it, Mac,” she said.

“But Patti, a girl is missing.”

“Does Carl think she's in danger?” she said.

“No,” my father admitted. “She's run away before. But he is worried.”

My mother turned to me. “Do you know this girl, Robyn?”

“Not really. She's in one of my classes, but she's not a friend or anything.”

“Do you have any idea where she is?”

“No.” And that was the truth, so help me.

My mother looked at my father. “I don't see how Robyn is going to be able to help you,” she said. “Shouldn't you be concentrating on the girl's friends?”

“But—”

“Get in the car, Robyn.”

I climbed obediently into the passenger seat. It took all of two minutes from the time we pulled away from the curb in front of La Folie for my mother's cell phone to ring. She pulled over and answered it. She listened for a moment. Then she said, “I am not her receptionist,” and hung up. She glanced at me.

“Do me a favor, Robyn,” she said. “Turn on your phone.”

I did. My phone rang—well, it played “My Girl”— almost immediately. My mother shook her head as she pulled back into traffic.

“Hi, Dad.”

“She's mad at me, huh?” he said.

“You have to ask?”

“Call me when you get home, okay? I want to talk to you.”

“What about?” I said, as if I didn't already know.

“Please, Robbie?”

“It's late, Dad. I haven't finished my homework.”

My mother shot me a disapproving glance.

“It won't take long,” my father said. He hung up.

“Well,” my mother said, “what does he want now?”

“Nothing important.”

My mother didn't push. In fact, she didn't say anything at all, which wasn't normal. Before my mother went to law school, she took so much of an interest in every detail of every day of my life that Morgan used to tease me about it. Morgan's mother was much better than my mother at separation, according to Morgan. Morgan's mother felt no need to live vicariously through Morgan the way Morgan thought my mother did with me, at least until she started law school. Then, I guess because she felt bad about being away so much and having to bury herself in her books when she was home, she put aside what she called “talk time”—time to discuss my day. It's a regular part of life now. If she's home for dinner, we talk while we cook and while we eat (but never with our mouths full; my mother has a rule against that). If she isn't home for dinner, we talk when she gets home. If I've been staying with my father, we talk when she picks me up. Always.

“Everything okay, Mom?”

“Everything is fine,” she said.

Then why didn't it feel fine? Not only was my mother uncharacteristically quiet, she also seemed preoccupied.

“Did you see Ted this weekend?”

Ted Gold is the man my mother has been seeing. He's a financial analyst. I'm not one hundred percent sure what a financial analyst does, but I know that Ted is good at it. He's made a lot of money. He isn't one of those flashy rich guys, though. He dresses down more than he dresses up. He loves to cook, especially for my mother. He also loves to listen to jazz, although he's flexible. He volunteers as a basketball coach one night a week at a youth center not far from where my father lives. He never misses a game. And even though he's a short, balding, nerdy-looking guy, all the kids seem to like and respect him. I like him too.

“I worked all weekend,” my mother said.

“Even Saturday night?” No matter how busy she was, my mother usually reserved Saturday nights for Ted.

“I had an important case dropped on me at the last minute.”

I didn't doubt that. But something was wrong. I was sure of it. Except for Saturday, when he was with my mother, Ted usually called her every night. But, I realized, he hadn't called her at all last week.

“Did you and Ted have a fight or something?” I said.

“What makes you think that?”

“He hasn't been over to the house in a while.”

“Scheduling problems,” she said. “It's been hectic.”

“You were home every night last week,” I said.

“I mean his schedule has been hectic,” she said.

“Since when is Ted ever too busy to see you?”

That's when my mother did something that she always claims she tries to avoid. She got angry with me. “For heaven's sake, Robyn, stop giving me the third degree,” she said. “You sound just like your father.” Believe me, that wasn't intended as a compliment.

“Thanks a lot,” I said. If she didn't want to talk to me, fine. After what she'd just said, I didn't want to talk to her, either.

It was quiet in the car. I stared out the passenger window.

“Robyn?” my mother said after we had gone a few more miles.

I continued to stare out the window.

“Honey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It's just that. . . .”

I turned and saw a troubled expression on her face.

“Ted and I are taking a little break, okay?”

The look on my mother's face told me that it was not okay. I wondered whose idea the “little break” had been. I wondered if it would turn out to be permanent. Most of all, I wondered how my mother was feeling about it— whether she was hurt or angry or confused or all of the above. But she didn't tell me, so I didn't ask. She was quiet the rest of the way home. It wasn't until we pulled into the driveway that she finally reverted to standard mom mode.

“Didn't you promise me that you would clean out the garage?” she said as she nudged the car inside.

And I had promised—right after my mother had ordered me to clean it out. But talk about a Herculean task. Ask almost anyone and they'll tell you that my mother is a neat freak. She keeps the house in impeccable order. A lot of times, though, she accomplishes this by piling stuff willy-nilly in the garage.

“I'll do it, honest,” I said.

“When?”

I hate being put on the spot, especially when a miserable, thankless chore is involved.

“Probably next weekend.”

“Probably?” my mother said. “Make that definitely, Robyn.”

Right.

When we got inside, my mother headed straight upstairs. She said it had been a grueling day and that there was nothing like a long Sunday in the office to make a person want to soak in a hot bath. I went into the kitchen and stared at the home phone for a few minutes. I didn't want to call my father. I knew what he wanted to talk about, and I didn't want to talk about it. But if I didn't call him, he would keep calling until he got hold of me and by then he would know for sure that something was wrong. Probably better to get it over with. I picked up the handset, punched in his phone number, and spent the next few minutes telling him everything—well, almost everything—I knew, had ever heard, and was willing to admit about Trisha Carnegie. It didn't take long.

“Do you have any idea who she would confide in, Robbie?”

“No, Dad.”

“Who does she talk to at school?”

“I already told you. No one.”

“Everyone talks to someone, Robbie.You can't spend five days a week in a building with fourteen hundred other human beings and not talk to any of them.”

“Yes, you can, Dad. You can also spend five days a week in a building with fourteen hundred other human beings and have them not talk to you.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.

“So you're saying that this girl not only has no friends, she has no acquaintances either, no one she might talk to regularly?”

“If she does, I don't know who they are.”

“What about teachers?”

“What about them?”

“Is she close to any of her teachers?”

“I don't know, Dad.”

“It's just not possible that no one knows anything about this girl,” he said.

“I worked on a project with her and I don't know anything about her,” I said. There, it was out in the open. Now nobody could rat me out.

“What do you mean, you worked on a project with her?”

“In history,” I said. “I told you. She's in my history class.”

“She didn't mention anything about what was going on in her life?”

“No.”

“She didn't mention any names to you? People she might know, places where she hangs out?”

“No.”

“She didn't mention her mother?”

“No.” I was glad I was talking to him on the phone and not in person. If he had seen my face, he would have known that I wasn't being completely honest with him. “Dad, for the millionth time, she doesn't talk much.” She didn't work much, either, which had been my number one problem with her.

“Well, thanks, Robbie,” he said at last.

“Sorry I couldn't be more helpful,” I said. Then, mostly to change the subject, I said, “Dad? I forgot to tell you. I saw Mr. Jarvis yesterday. He said the baseball tickets worked out great—the kids he took had a good time.”

My father said he was glad. Then he said, “Where'd you see him, Robbie? Don't tell me you were protesting again.” He was referring to my scrape with the law the past summer, which had ended with an agreement that I volunteer at an animal shelter in return for a storeowner not pressing charges against me. Long story.

“Very funny, Dad. I ran into him downtown. Nick was with him.”

“Oh?” That was all he said, but there was something about the sound of that one syllable—caution?—that caught my attention like a whiff of smoke. And where there's smoke. . . .

“Did he say anything to you, Dad?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Jarvis. Did he say anything to you about Nick when you gave him those tickets?”

“Like what?”

“That's what I'm asking.”

“Not that I recall. Why?”

I knew then that there was something he wasn't telling me. For one thing, his voice was pitched a little higher than normal. For another, he was answering my questions with more questions, a sure sign of evasion. It probably served me right.

“So Mr. Jarvis didn't say anything to you about Nick?”

“No,” my father said. Then, after a tiny pause, he said, “Your mother looked a little out of sorts when she picked you up. Is she okay?”

One more thing to hide.

“She's fine, Dad.”

After I hung up, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on with Nick, maybe something to do with his appointment, and that my father had an idea what it was.

"S
low down for a second,” Morgan said. “Where's the fire?”

She had caught up with me at my locker, where I was cramming textbooks and binders into my locker as fast as I could.

“I'm going to see Nick,” I said. Our school works on a two-day cycle. On day one, I have a full load of classes. On day two, I have a free period right before lunch, which gives me enough time to get across town to meet Nick at his school if I want to.

“Oh?” Morgan said, grinning. “Are you going to come back with that same goofy expression on your face that you had on Saturday?”

“Goofy?” I said.

“As in, crazy in love,” Morgan said. “He's
hot
, Robyn. What are his friends like?”

“Nick kind of keeps to himself,” I said. I jammed my math textbook onto the already tightly packed top shelf of my locker and slammed the door. “Gotta run.”