might, if canny, disconnect the brake-light wire? We’d watched that movie, together, hadn’t
we, lying on the family room floor? Maybe Evie remembered the way the girl had been so smart and kicked out the taillight
and pushed her arm through the broken plastic and waved and waved until the handsome police officer spotted the arm, the white,
waving arm. Dusty, wry on the couch above us, saying it must be an old movie because all trunks have emergency releases now,
but Evie wasn’t so sure and I wasn’t either.
Thinking of Evie trapped in some dark space like that, it makes me want to tear and tug, and I pull at the silvery plastic
dress bag until the plastic pops over my knuckles and the dress slides from its padded hanger to the floor and I kick it into
the back of the closet.
I slam the door and the mirror on it rattles, and I feel verydramatic: this is what you do when your best friend has been taken, it’s what you do. You fear for her and feel for her and
slam doors and sob.
But there is something creeping in the back of me, and it makes me know things. Like that Evie was never in Mr. Shaw’s trunk.
This, I know. I don’t know how, but I do. Like I know too that she is not dead, not buried in three feet of dirt, not coated
in pearly lime. No, she is not dead, she is lost, lost. Missing. Gone. There’s lots of things behind those words, and I can’t
look at them now. But I feel them.
T he next day, I wake up, and I don’t know what I think, but I guess it was that there’d be news. That all those police skittering
across the state would surely have found the breadcrumb trail. But my mother, hand perched on the kitchen radio, keeps shaking
her head.
“… Verver girl… Police have received more than two hundred calls on the tip line, but have nothing to report…”
What I thought was this: I’d given them what they needed, hadn’t I? The cigarette stubs, the car? What was stopping them now?
Couldn’t they just hurl out their long hook and pull him—both of them—in?
T ed picks me up again, but he forgets his Spanish book and we have to go back to the high school.
While he’s inside, I wait in the parking lot, kicking at one of the curbs and looking out to the hockey field, thinking of
things, dreaming things into their right places, versus how they are, so broken and askew.
I see someone running, a green flicker. I find myself reaching for the car door, but when I spin around again, the flicker’s
not there and instead it’s Dusty, in uniform and a thick runner’s turtleneck, stopping now, wrapping her stick with tape,
her knee raised high on a wood bench, her shin streaked with dirt.
I start to say something and stop myself, but she hears me, lifting her head and looking at me through the blond disarray,
her fulsome bangs loose from her tight, toothed headband.
“You want me to drill you?” she says.
I think of walking by the Verver stairwell, hearing her crying upstairs.
“I didn’t know you were in school,” I say as she stands upright.
“Here I am,” she says, composed, but, for a second, something hitches in her face. How could it not, even as serene as she
is, so serene and poised.
“Get midfield,” she says, picking up one of the composite sticks left behind after practice and handing it to me. “I’ll shadow.
See what you learned last week.”
I don’t know what to say, but I don’t see how it can be no, so I take the stick and breathe in hard, hard as I can, because
I feel like she’s going to pitch everything at me, just to get it off herself, lift it from her shoulders, and I need to be
ready. Before I can think, the ball whistles toward me like a battle shell and I drop to the ground to stop my face from splitting
in two.
I keep trying spin dodges, but she’s everywhere all at once, her arm like a scythe, and I wonder if my brother will arrive
to save me from certain death.
It’s five terrorizing minutes before
we, lying on the family room floor? Maybe Evie remembered the way the girl had been so smart and kicked out the taillight
and pushed her arm through the broken plastic and waved and waved until the handsome police officer spotted the arm, the white,
waving arm. Dusty, wry on the couch above us, saying it must be an old movie because all trunks have emergency releases now,
but Evie wasn’t so sure and I wasn’t either.
Thinking of Evie trapped in some dark space like that, it makes me want to tear and tug, and I pull at the silvery plastic
dress bag until the plastic pops over my knuckles and the dress slides from its padded hanger to the floor and I kick it into
the back of the closet.
I slam the door and the mirror on it rattles, and I feel verydramatic: this is what you do when your best friend has been taken, it’s what you do. You fear for her and feel for her and
slam doors and sob.
But there is something creeping in the back of me, and it makes me know things. Like that Evie was never in Mr. Shaw’s trunk.
This, I know. I don’t know how, but I do. Like I know too that she is not dead, not buried in three feet of dirt, not coated
in pearly lime. No, she is not dead, she is lost, lost. Missing. Gone. There’s lots of things behind those words, and I can’t
look at them now. But I feel them.
T he next day, I wake up, and I don’t know what I think, but I guess it was that there’d be news. That all those police skittering
across the state would surely have found the breadcrumb trail. But my mother, hand perched on the kitchen radio, keeps shaking
her head.
“… Verver girl… Police have received more than two hundred calls on the tip line, but have nothing to report…”
What I thought was this: I’d given them what they needed, hadn’t I? The cigarette stubs, the car? What was stopping them now?
Couldn’t they just hurl out their long hook and pull him—both of them—in?
T ed picks me up again, but he forgets his Spanish book and we have to go back to the high school.
While he’s inside, I wait in the parking lot, kicking at one of the curbs and looking out to the hockey field, thinking of
things, dreaming things into their right places, versus how they are, so broken and askew.
I see someone running, a green flicker. I find myself reaching for the car door, but when I spin around again, the flicker’s
not there and instead it’s Dusty, in uniform and a thick runner’s turtleneck, stopping now, wrapping her stick with tape,
her knee raised high on a wood bench, her shin streaked with dirt.
I start to say something and stop myself, but she hears me, lifting her head and looking at me through the blond disarray,
her fulsome bangs loose from her tight, toothed headband.
“You want me to drill you?” she says.
I think of walking by the Verver stairwell, hearing her crying upstairs.
“I didn’t know you were in school,” I say as she stands upright.
“Here I am,” she says, composed, but, for a second, something hitches in her face. How could it not, even as serene as she
is, so serene and poised.
“Get midfield,” she says, picking up one of the composite sticks left behind after practice and handing it to me. “I’ll shadow.
See what you learned last week.”
I don’t know what to say, but I don’t see how it can be no, so I take the stick and breathe in hard, hard as I can, because
I feel like she’s going to pitch everything at me, just to get it off herself, lift it from her shoulders, and I need to be
ready. Before I can think, the ball whistles toward me like a battle shell and I drop to the ground to stop my face from splitting
in two.
I keep trying spin dodges, but she’s everywhere all at once, her arm like a scythe, and I wonder if my brother will arrive
to save me from certain death.
It’s five terrorizing minutes before
Similar Books
