Fragile

9

The watercolor sky-silver fading to blue fading to black, the high slice of moon and glimmering stars-reminded her that she’d always wanted to paint but didn’t know how, was in some ways afraid of the idea of putting brush to canvas, of making a mark that couldn’t be erased. The idea that she might create something that was laughable, pitiable, or silly had stopped her from ever taking a class or even buying paints. Foolish. It was foolish. If she had a patient tell her such a thing, she’d ask him why he would hold himself back from something that might give him pleasure and peace. Who constituted this imaginary audience of ridiculers and detractors? How might he defend his desire to create something beautiful just for himself? And what, just what exactly, was so horrifying about making such a harmless mistake as a mark on paper that couldn’t be erased? But she didn’t bother asking herself these questions. She just made false promises to herself. Years ago, she would tell herself that she’d have time when Ricky was older. Now it was when Ricky left for school, or when she and Jones retired.

Her father had been an artist. Her mother had an attic full of his oil paintings and watercolors-landscapes, portraits, still lifes. When Maggie was a girl, there had always been a work in progress on the easel he kept in the dining room, where he liked the light, the position of a mirror that gave him a different perspective.

In the evenings and on weekend afternoons, he’d stand there, fussing and musing over this detail and that. Sometimes she’d watch him. More often, she’d just walk past, knowing he saw little and heard less when he was engaged in a canvas. She could set the house on fire and he wouldn’t notice until he was engulfed in flames, maybe not even then. As a teenager, she took full advantage of the freedom this absorption offered her. She didn’t remember ever resenting it, or wishing for more attention.

Often, out in the garbage, she’d find a canvas her father had spent weeks working on-a beach scene, a stand of trees, an apple and vase placed just so on the table-discarded with the rest of the trash they generated. And when she did, she’d feel a rush of anxiety and sadness, have the urge to rescue the canvas, hide it in the attic-which she often did. She remembered thinking it was like throwing away time, time he’d have too little of anyway, time spent with his back to his wife and daughter. It wasn’t even as if there was any joy or passion to it, not that she could see. Because, for her father, it was all about the end result, the precision, the skill, getting it right. And if it wasn’t “right,” it belonged in the trash, away from his exacting gaze. Art was about more than getting it right, wasn’t it? And even though she knew it was, she couldn’t bring herself to put a brush to canvas.

The air inside Maggie’s Lincoln Navigator was thick with heat and tension. Melody gnawed at the skin on her thumb, stared straight ahead blankly. She’d been shivering when they climbed into the car, so Maggie had cranked the heat. Now there was a sheen of sweat on her brow. She reached to turn it down a bit, noticed that the dash had a thin layer of dust. She hated it when the car wasn’t spotless. Jones’s car was always filthy-soda spilled in the cup holders, crumbs in the creases of the seat, the reek of fast food. She didn’t know how he could stand it.

Melody hadn’t said a word since she listed off the names of friends Charlene might have run to, people she claimed to have called already. Tiffany Crowley, Britney Smith, Amber Schaffer. Maggie knew them all. Britney had struggled after her mother’s second divorce and had spent a year seeing Maggie once a week, but was doing better now. Ricky had taken Tiffany to the movies once in junior high. Amber was a gifted child who’d been in all Ricky’s advanced placement classes, whom she’d seen at various parties of Ricky’s and parents’ nights at school. A nice girl. More like the kind of girl she’d hoped to see Ricky dating. Someone who would not be missing on a school night after a fight with her mother. She knew their mothers, too. They’d all attended Hollows High together.

Melody and Maggie had had an English class together as juniors in high school. Then, Melody was regarded as a burnout, someone who hung around the breezeway smoking. She wore her hair long, almost to her waist, and seemed to have an endless collection of rock concert tees. Someone who’d slept with a couple of the popular boys, was generally regarded as trashy but could still be found at all the cool parties, might be seen with one of the beefy, beautiful football players leaning against her locker. She’d lived in a rambling old house with her single mother, a hippie artist who everyone knew dealt weed on the side. Maggie remembered envying Melody a kind of freedom she seemed to have, a lack of concern about the opinions of others. She carried herself with a pride uncommon in teenage girls, as if she already knew who she was and didn’t need to look about for validation. But somehow the years had robbed her of that. Now she wore her hair in a suburban, middle-aged bob and dressed without care in formless old sweaters and T-shirts, faded, tapered denims. Years of smoking had caused the skin on her face to crack and sag. The woman who sat before her seemed defeated by her life, withered and sick of it all. She bore no resemblance to the free spirit Maggie remembered.

“You’re so lucky to have a boy,” Melody said. “Can I smoke?”

Maggie nodded, pressed the button on the center console to lower Melody’s window. She didn’t mind the smell of smoke so much. It reminded her of other days, city nightclubs and bars, even her father hiding behind the toolshed sneaking a cigarette away from the watchful eyes of her mother. The smell of it made her oddly nostalgic, made her remember the time before she really understood the power of consequence, the fragility of the human body.

Melody rooted around in her purse, pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and a red lighter. She held the pack out to Maggie, who hesitated just a second before shaking her head.

“You used to smoke, once upon a time,” Melody said. A slight, knowing smile turned up the corners of her thin lips. And Maggie saw her then, the girl that Melody had been.

“A long time ago,” Maggie said. She found herself smiling, too, a little.

“You can always take it back up. Keeps you thin.”

“No, thanks.”

The comment made her feel a little self-conscious. Was it a dig? Her skirt had been a little tight when she buttoned it this morning. Extra weight always went to her bottom first. And she always gained during times of stress because she was a comfort eater. Although she wouldn’t say she’d been stressed about anything in particular lately. She’d just been feeling edgy, out of sorts.

Melody took the pack back sullenly, tapped out a cigarette, and lit it in one practiced motion. The deep inhale, the crackle of paper and tobacco; Maggie could almost feel the smoke filling her lungs, the surge of nicotine in her blood. She almost changed her mind. Then she glanced over and thought that Melody looked like a witch in the glow of that cigarette. Her shoulders bony and hunched, hands gnarled, deep shadows on her face.

“So what did you and Charlene fight about, Melody?” she asked.

Melody exhaled a cloud of smoke, turned to look out the window.

“This is it,” she said. “This is Britney’s house.”

Maggie pulled into the large circular drive and killed the engine, was about to climb out when Melody said something she didn’t quite hear.

“I’m sorry. What?” Maggie said.

“Do you remember her?”

“Who?”

“Sarah.”

The name caused Maggie to draw in a sharp breath of surprise. She just stared at Melody, who was watching her closely. The cigarette was forgotten in the other woman’s hand, the ash starting to dangle.

“Of course I do,” Maggie answered.

“She was my best friend.”

“I know that. Why are we talking about this now?”

“She had a fight with her mother on the phone. Remember? She missed the bus-again. Her mother was mad, thought she’d just been screwing around. She told Sarah to walk.”

“It wasn’t far,” Maggie said. She could remember the narrow road that ran past the school. About half a mile down, a rural road intersected it and ran off into the woods. Sarah’s house was back there, near Melody’s. The Meyers had a big, beautiful home, different from the tract homes that characterized the developments at the time. Sarah’s parents-her father a poet, her mother a painter-had designed the house, had it built. There was a long, winding, treacherous drive that was occasionally impassable in winter until the hired plow got to it.

On that day, Maggie remembered riding the late bus home after drama rehearsal and seeing Sarah along the side of the road, her backpack looking heavy. She was limping a little, as if one of her shoes hurt. It wasn’t Sarah’s bus, but the driver stopped all the same. It was getting late, the sun sinking fast below the horizon. The early spring air was still cold. There weren’t many kids on the bus-a few boys from the science club, and one of the three Asian kids who attended the school.

“I can drop you off, Sarah. No problem,” Maggie heard the driver say.

Maggie could make out Sarah’s voice but not her words. Maggie saw her point at the road that was just a few feet away. Her house wasn’t more than half a mile through the trees.

“All right. Watch yourself, you hear?”

And the bus hissed and lurched forward, leaving Sarah behind. Maggie looked back to see her turning off the main street and making her way toward the tall stand of trees. It seemed like a hundred years ago.

“Don’t go there, Melody,” Maggie said. “This is not the same.”

“How do you know?” The other woman turned pleading eyes on Maggie. She seemed to remember the cigarette then, tossed it out the open window.

“Because it’s not.” Maggie couldn’t think of anything more convincing to say. The fear on Melody’s face was a contagion.

“Does Jones ever talk about it?” Melody said.

“Jones? No. Why would he?”

The other woman just shrugged and shook her head, glanced away from Maggie. Melody might have been about to say something, but the front door to Britney’s house opened then, and her mother stepped onto the porch. Denise was as petite and pretty as she’d been in high school. Good genes, old money, married rich-twice. It showed. Even in velour sweatpants and bare feet, baggy pink sweatshirt, obviously roused from dozing on the couch, she was a perfect ten.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” she asked. She hugged herself against the cold.

“Is Charlene here?” Melody asked, stepping down out of the car.

Denise shook her head. “Not on a school night. Brit has a test first period. She’s sleeping.”

“Can we come in?” asked Maggie, walking up the steps to the porch. “I think we need to talk to Brit. Charlene is missing.” There it was, the word spoken and out there, floating on the air. She regretted it, should have been more vague. She should have said something, anything, else. She couldn’t take it back.

Denise looked stricken, moving back toward the house and pushing the door open. “Of course. Come in.”

It didn’t take long for tensions to build. The three of them-the pretty cheerleader, the sexy burnout too old, too knowing for her age, the geek with gothic leanings-they were all there, these representatives of the perennial high school subcultures, squirming and pink beneath the shells of their adulthoods. Maggie thought that childhood things would be left behind, these silly groupings would fade and become meaningless, but they never were. Not in a town like this. Those teenage girls, each awkward and unsure in her own way, never left The Hollows.

Brit stood sleepy before them now, every bit as beautiful as her mother. Maybe more so. Also with no trace of the high school angst and insecurity Maggie remembered so well. The girls of Ricky’s generation knew their power better, didn’t seem to be casting about as much for approval and validation. Though, of course, Brit had her own set of problems, occasionally throwing up after bingeing, reacting to some terrible pressure she claimed she didn’t really understand herself. I’m not perfect, she’d said to Maggie in a session. That’s what they think, but I am so far from that.

“I have no idea where Char is. I’m sorry.” She huddled in close to her mother, was half-hidden behind her. A protective posture.

“You didn’t hear from her at all tonight?” asked Melody. “She didn’t call to tell you she’d left home?”

Brit shook her head quickly.

“Brit,” her mother urged, nudging her gently with a soft shoulder.

“What?” the girl snapped, moving away from Denise. “I don’t know where she is.” Denise hung her head and moved away, traced a circle on the floor with a perfectly pedicured toe.

Britney and Charlene were unlikely friends. Brit, the athlete scholar, not a cheerleader like her mother but a track star, the fastest girl Hollows High had ever seen, a record breaker, and one of three girls in a heated competition for the valedictorian spot. The girl before Maggie was a textbook overachiever.

And Charlene, the resident gothic queen, singer in Ricky’s band, smart enough in her own right but not inclined to academic achievement, pouring her energy into her music-she sang and wrote lyrics. She was a talented, intelligent girl, artistic and wise beyond her years but not cast from the same mold as Brit. They were as different as two girls could be but had been friends since the third grade.

“This is not the time to be protecting Charlene, Brit,” Maggie said gently. “We know she’s your friend. But this is serious. If you know her plans, or you know where she is, you need to tell us.”

Brit released a sigh, lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

“Please,” said Melody. “I know you guys think you’re grown up, that you know everything. But she’s just a girl. The world is not what you want it to be. It’s an unforgiving and dangerous place. Some consequences are forever.”

Maggie flashed on Sarah’s lean form, a hundred years ago, walking into the tall, black woods, the sky a slate slab above her. From Melody’s pleading tone, Maggie expected to see her tearing. But her face was grim, a stone mask of tension.

“Sometimes home is not a safe place, either,” said Brit, looking pointedly back at the older woman.

Melody blinked and shook her head as though she’d been struck. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Britney narrowed her eyes. “You know.”

The eruption was quick and fierce. Melody moved in to Britney, shouting something unintelligible, her face gone from stone to fire, flushing a hot red. Denise stepped forward to put her body between the two.

“Stay away from her, Melody,” she said firmly. “Stand back.”

When Maggie put her hands on Melody’s arms and pulled her back, Melody began to sob. It started low, then turned to a wail. She doubled over with the force of it. It was a terrible sound, something that frightened Brit, caused her to go white, her face to go slack. The sound connected to a place in Maggie’s center. Denise felt it, too, Maggie could tell. A mother’s fear for her child. Denise moved to Melody and put her arms around the other woman, led her away.

“What was she afraid of at home, Britney?” Maggie asked. They were good with each other; she knew Brit trusted her, knew that Maggie understood and accepted who she was, flaws and all. You’re everything you need to be, she’d told Britney in a session. It’s enough to just be who you are.

Britney looked up at the ceiling, then back at Maggie. “She was afraid of Graham,” she said.

Melody’s wailing grew louder; Denise had taken her to the couch in the sunken living room off the foyer. Calm down, Mel. It’s okay. We’ll find her. We’ll find her.

“How so?” Maggie asked. She was trying to be the measured and even one; but the stress of the situation was starting to get to her, too. “Did he hit her?”

Maggie remembered the shadow under Char’s eye a few weeks back. She’d asked the girl about it, but Char had laughed it off. Hit her head on the faucet in the tub when she bent down to pick up a dropped bar of soap. Silly. Stupid, she’d said. It didn’t ring true, but Maggie hadn’t pushed. Charlene didn’t present like an abused kid. Maggie knew Melody wasn’t a perfect mother, and Graham Olstead wasn’t anyone’s idea of an ideal stepfather. But what did an ideal parent look like? She wasn’t arrogant enough to think she knew.

Britney shook her head, seemed to measure her words. “He was inappropriate with her. Crude. Suggestive. She thought it was only a matter of time.”

“Until what?”

“Until, you know, he hit on her or something. Tried to touch her.”

Maggie looked back at Melody, not far from where they stood. If she heard Britney, she didn’t make any protestations. She had her head in her hands, was rocking slightly back and forth.

“But he’d never touched her before?”

Brit shook her head. “He said things to her-like, told her that she looked good, in a dirty way. Or he’d come into her room wrapped in a towel after his shower. Things like that. That’s what she told me.”

Maggie was aware suddenly of a terrible tension in her shoulders, a clenching in her stomach. She realized that Melody had never answered the question she’d asked on leaving the car.

“The stepfather thing is not always cool, you know, Dr. Cooper.” Britney had lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned in close to Maggie. Brit was remembering her own stepfather, Maggie knew, Denise’s second, very rich husband. There’d never been any hint of abuse, just a sense Brit had that he didn’t want her around, that she was a nuisance in his marriage to her mother. But Denise had divorced him years ago, never married again. I have money; I don’t need a husband, Maggie remembered her saying. I just want to be myself for the first time in my life.

“Was she here tonight, Britney? I need you to be honest with me now. Have you heard from her?”

Denise had joined them again. “No one’s going to be mad. Okay, Brit?”

Britney looked at her mother. Denise’s beauty was maturing-fine lines and a softening around the jaw didn’t diminish her prettiness; Britney was blossoming-her face narrowing, losing its childish fullness, her prettiness becoming something more luminous. Maggie could see their closeness as Denise snaked an arm around Brit’s middle and the girl rested her head on her mother’s shoulder.

“I got a Facebook message from her earlier,” she said finally, pulling away from her mother. “I’ll show you.”

They walked through the house, Britney and Denise leading the way to the computer room, Maggie and Melody close behind. The long hallway was a photo shrine to Britney-the little blond cherub morphing into a fairy princess, at Disney, in Paris, climbing on a jungle gym, on her grandfather’s shoulders at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade-the privileged life of an adored child.

“What did you and Charlene fight about?” Maggie asked Melody again.

“What don’t we fight about, Maggie?” It wasn’t an answer. Maggie detected a stall. But she didn’t press; Melody was getting a glassy, haunted look that Maggie didn’t like.

Brit sat at the computer, and her fingers started dancing expertly on the keyboard. Some low music came from the monitor, and Maggie leaned over Brit’s shoulder.

“She updated her Facebook page. So I got an alert, but that’s it. She hasn’t called or sent me a personal message. So I don’t know where she is right now.”

“What does it mean that she ‘updated her page’?” said Maggie. She was annoyed with her own ignorance on this subject. Ricky had been urging her to get more current, even to create a page for herself. You could connect with your old friends, he’d said. I’m too connected to them as it is, she’d countered. Your patients will think you’re cool. I don’t need my patients to think I’m cool.

“There’s a box on the top of your page where you can type in what you’re doing at the moment. Like mine says, ‘Brit is studying for her biology exam and wishing she was watching American Idol!’”

“What does Charlene’s say?” Melody asked.

Brit pointed to the list of status updates on her page. It read: Charlene is getting out of Dodge. Finally.

“I sent her a message to ask her what she was talking about.” She clicked over to her mail page and showed them the message: What’s wrong??? Call me!!! They were all looking over her shoulder; Denise had put on a pair of glasses. Melody was squinting at the screen.

“But she hasn’t answered,” Brit went on. “She updated at 7:09, and I sent her a note at 8:04. I tried to call her, but the call went straight to voice mail.”

“Is it unusual for her not to get back to you right away?” Maggie said. It was something Jones might ask.

Brit nodded, gave a slight shrug. “A little.”

Melody started to cry again. Then there was a loud, authoritative knock at the door, followed by an urgent, staccato ringing of the doorbell. Denise startled at the sudden sound and went quickly toward the door.

Maggie found herself following. As she moved from the hallway into the grand foyer, there was an odd, disconnected moment where she took in the triple-height ceiling, the marble beneath her feet. A round table stood in the center of the space, topped by a gigantic vase of flowers that gave no noticeable scent.

What had seemed opulent on entering suddenly felt disturbingly fake, the studied and purposeful display of wealth. She detected an emptiness beneath the beauty, a new-money cluelessness about taste; rooms chosen from a catalog or choreographed by a decorator but not reflecting the true style of the owner. But it was just a moment that passed and was forgotten when the room filled with cops, Jones first in the crowd, looking grim with purpose.

“What are you doing here?” she found herself asking her husband. But of course he would be there. There was a missing girl; she’d said the words herself. He was head detective at the Hollows Police Department. She didn’t hear his answer, but when they locked eyes over the escalating noise, she saw something foreign on his face, a look she’d never seen before and couldn’t name.

It was 12:32 A.M.