Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,10
look at each other and shrug.
How safe these women used to make her feel. And now they’ve become her enemies. How could they let this happen? Charlotte let it happen. Nothing was ever safe.
“Legally,” says Mrs. Hernandez, “she was—”
“On the list,” says Charlotte. Oops again! She sounds curt and ungrateful. But don’t you get cut some etiquette slack when your child is missing? “Did they happen to say where they might be going?”
Tanya, Edditha, and Michelle—they all have photographic memories, but they’re having a hard time with this.
Charlotte is texting Rocco and talking to them at the same time.
CALL ME! NOW!!!!!!
There aren’t enough exclamation points for how urgent this is.
“Can you call the police?” Charlotte asks.
“You would have to make that call,” says Mrs. Hernandez. “Because nothing illegal has happened.”
“Call the police,” says Charlotte. “I’m begging you.”
“Let’s give it a few hours,” says Mrs. Hernandez. She smiles, as if to reassure Charlotte that this problem will be cleared up soon. They deal with these things all the time. Custodial parents, nannies, confusion. In fact this little problem is probably not a problem at all.
“We don’t have a few hours,” says Charlotte.
She runs outside with no idea where she’s going. She just needs air, light, space, and to be away from people who want to help her, who say they want to help her, but who can’t and won’t do one single thing to help her. She’d loved those women until now. Now she hates them all, even though she knows that this isn’t their fault.
Ruth was on the list.
Parents walk by, hand in hand with their children. Each loving, chattering pair is a knife in Charlotte’s heart.
She texts Rocco and Eli separately.
RUTH HAS DAISY. SHE TOOK HER FROM SCHOOL.
Rocco texts back right away. Jesus X.
A second text, moments later, also from Rocco: Ruth will come here. Soon. Trust me.
Trust me. At this point Charlotte will trust anyone who says trust me.
Bing bing. Eli texts: Rocco says meet him at Ruth’s. Wait there.
Seconds later Charlotte’s phone rings. Her ringtone is a spooky theremin woo woo woo she downloaded from the internet. She’s always been amused by its weird, ghostly sound, but now it terrifies her. It’s strange how your favorite jokes can turn into bad jokes. Warnings you should have heeded.
It’s Eli. Charlotte explains what’s happened, trying to speak slowly, comprehensibly, to not hyperventilate. For Eli’s sake. For Daisy’s. For her own. She can hear, in Eli’s voice, that he also is trying to stay calm. Charlotte loves Eli—she always has. She always will. No matter what.
“Should we meet at Ruth’s?” he asks.
“There was a man with her—”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. Not Rocco. That’s what scares me.”
“You want me to send a car to take you out to meet Rocco?”
“Subway’s faster,” Charlotte says. “I’ll call you from there.”
She calls Rocco, and miraculously, he picks up.
Charlotte says, “Is Ruth there? Is she back yet? Where’s Daisy?”
“No . . . I don’t think . . . I was sleeping . . .”
There’s a funny rhythm in Rocco’s voice. A slight drag and the hint of a slur. It reminds her of . . . when he was drinking.
Oh, no, please no. Not that too.
Has Rocco gotten drunk and done or said something to Ruth that set her off? Or has Ruth gotten Rocco drunk so she could leave him passed out—and she could go steal Daisy?
“Don’t move,” she tells her brother. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
2
Six Months Earlier
Charlotte
Early Saturday morning, Eli and Charlotte lie in bed drinking coffee, enjoying what grainy sunlight the park allows into their window. Their silence is so companionable, each other’s presence so soothing, that they can listen, in perfect contentment, to the noises outside their loft. Traffic, car horns, parents packing to leave for the weekend, shouting at kids, slamming car trunks.
They talk about Daisy, who’s begun kindergarten at the local public school and seems happy. They talk a little about their work.
It’s only when they get to the question of what to have for dinner that Charlotte says what she’s avoided saying too soon after Eli wakes up.
“You do remember that Rocco’s bringing his new girlfriend for dinner?” How could Eli remember when she hasn’t told him?
She’s never sure why her brother always wants them to meet his girlfriends, most of whom have turned out to be seriously unbalanced. He wants to see if they approve, but it’s never clear how, or if, their feelings influence his.