waiting for me to come and play “Dance Dance Revolution” with them on their Wii. On the refrigerator, a twenty-dollar bill under a magnet with the Papa John’s delivery number on it.
Then I answer, “The quarry.”
FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010
Gone? Gone where?” My fingers clutch at the inner rim of the order window as if I’m preparing to leap into the food trailer.
The younger woman with the noose of thorns around her neck steps forward, snarls, “Why do you need to know?”
“I’m her mother, for Christ’s sake. She’s supposed to meet me today so we can go to the bank and get the money my asshole ex left for her college education.”
The older woman waves the younger one aside in the peremptory fashion that only a mother can get away with and I see that the younger woman is her daughter, not her lover. Mention of the asshole ex seems to have forged a common bond, because the mother’s tone is been-there sympathetic when she leans down on her elbows so that her eyes are level with mine and says, “Darlin’, I wish I knew more to tell you, but I don’t. I know she’s not anywhere around here, though. Pete makes everyone sign one of those noncompete deals.”
“Ten days?” I mumble, too stunned to form a coherent question.
“Least that. Pete demands two weeks’ notice or he keeps your deposit. But we just finished switching everything over yesterday and she gave us the keys last night.”
I try to wedge this new piece into the puzzle, but it won’t go. All I keep thinking is, Does this mean it is more or less likely that she’s pregnant?
“Did you check the bank?” the woman asks. “Maybe she thinks you’re meeting her there.”
Her daughter leans in. “Mom and I are always getting our wires crossed like that. She’ll think she said, ‘Meet me at the Safeway,’ but she really said Albertsons. So I’m over there twiddling my thumbs for an hour.”
“You weren’t there for an hour, and what’s so hard about keeping your phone turned on? Darlin’, are you okay?”
I realize that she’s asking me and mutter that I’m fine.
“It’s gonna get better,” she tells me.
Recognizing that I am talking to a woman who’s spent her whole life waiting for it to get better, I try to pull myself together and move out of the way of her customers. Instead, I hear myself saying, “Today’s her birthday. She turned eighteen today.”
The mother puts her hand on top of mine and sounds exactly like me talking to one of my mothers when she says, “Oh, sweetie, they always know exactly how to hurt you the most, don’t they?”
I nod numbly and back away.
“Good luck,” she calls out to me.
Back at the car, Dori’s response to this new development is “What the fuck?” Then she brightens. “Maybe the woman’s right. Maybe Aubrey got confused and is waiting for you at the bank right now.”
“Anything is possible, but why would she? She knows that the trust stipulates that we both have to be present for her to make the withdrawal for the first year’s tuition. As many times as I’ve hammered that into her, she should know that. What if she is pregnant? She could be God knows where, doing God knows what right now.”
“You mean an abortion?”
“I don’t know what I mean. I’m in shock. Why isn’t she here?”
“Cam, really, Aubrey is the sensible one. She’s going to be fine.”
“Fine? Like Twyla’s fine?” I regret the words before they’re out of my mouth. “Dor, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m a bitch. I don’t know why I said that.”
“No prob. You’re under a lot of pressure.”
I nod.
“And you are a bitch. So, we have to find her. What now? Coach Tighty Whitie?”
“No. There is no way on earth I am ever going to speak to that asshole again.” Coach Tighty Whitie is Coach Hines, the football coach Tyler lived with until graduation. As I understood it from what sketchy information I could gather from my limited Parkhaven High mom contacts, Tyler had been “recruited” from another school district by Hines. Hines let Tyler live with his family so that he’d have an official address within Parkhaven High boundaries.
Early in the summer I’d gone to Hines’s house trying to find Aubrey. When I introduced myself, he’d made a sour face at the mention of Aubrey’s name. While I explained my mission, Coach Hines had shifted his jaw back and forth like his dentures were bothering him, except