Leaving Time(87)

“We don’t need Jenna’s help. We just have to get to Nashville …”

“She doesn’t deserve to be left behind.”

For a moment Virgil looks like he’s going to argue. Then he reaches for his phone and stares down at it. “Do you have her number?”

I called her once, but it was from home, not my cell. I don’t have her number with me. Unlike Virgil, however, I know where to look for it.

We drive to my apartment. He glances with longing at the bar that we have to walk past to access the staircase. “How do you resist?” he murmurs. “It’s like living above a Chinese restaurant.”

Virgil stands in the doorway as I rummage through the stack of mail on my dining room table to find the ledger that I make my clients sign. Jenna, of course, was the most recent acquisition. “You can come in, you know,” I say.

It takes me another moment to locate the phone, which is hiding underneath a kitchen towel on the counter. I pick it up and punch Jenna’s number in, but the phone doesn’t seem to have a dial tone.

Virgil is looking at the photograph on my mantel—me sandwiched between George and Barbara Bush. “Nice of you to go slumming with the likes of Jenna and me,” he says.

“I was a different person back then,” I reply. “Besides, celebrity isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. You can’t see it in the photo, but the president’s hand is on my ass.”

“Could’ve been worse,” Virgil murmurs. “Could’ve been Barbara’s.”

I try Jenna’s number again, but nothing happens. “Weird. There’s something wrong with my line,” I tell Virgil, who pulls his cell phone from his pocket.

“Let me try,” he suggests.

“Forget it. I can’t get cell service here unless I’m wearing tinfoil on my head and hanging from the fire escape. The joys of country living.”

“We could use the phone at the bar,” Virgil offers.

“The hell with that,” I say, imagining myself trying to pry him away from a whiskey. “You used to be a beat cop before you were a detective, right?”

“Yeah.”

I stuff the ledger into my purse. “Then you can direct us to Greenleaf Street.”


The neighborhood where Jenna lives is like a hundred other neighborhoods: lawns trimmed neatly in patchwork squares, houses dressed in red and black shutters, dogs yapping behind invisible fences. Little kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk as I pull the car to the curb.

Virgil glances at Jenna’s front yard. “You can tell a lot about a person from their house,” he muses.

“Like what?”

“Oh, you know. A flag often means they’re conservative. If they drive a Prius, they’re going to be more liberal. Half the time it’s bullshit, but it’s an interesting science.”

“Sounds a lot like a cold reading. And I’m pretty sure it’s about as accurate.”

“Well, for what it’s worth—I guess I didn’t expect Jenna to grow up so … white bread. If you know what I mean.”

I do. The cul-de-sac, the meticulous houses, the recycling bins stacked at the curb, the 2.4 children in each yard—it feels so Stepford. There’s something unsettled about Jenna, something ragged at the edges, that does not belong here.

“What’s her grandmother’s name?” I ask Virgil.

“How the f*ck would I know?” he says. “But it doesn’t matter; she works during the day.”

“Then you should stay here,” I suggest to Virgil.

“Why?”

“Because I have less of a chance of Jenna slamming the door in my face if you’re not with me,” I say.

Virgil may be a pain in the butt, but he isn’t stupid. He slouches in the passenger seat. “Whatever.”

So I walk solo up the cobblestone pathway to the front door. It’s mauve, and there’s a little wooden heart nailed to the front of it, painted with the words WELCOME FRIENDS. I ring the doorbell, and a moment later it swings open by itself.

At least that’s what I think, until I realize that there’s a tiny kid standing in front of me, sucking his thumb. He’s maybe three, and I am not all that good with small humans. They make me think of rodents, chewing your good leather shoes and leaving crumbs and droppings behind. I’m so stunned by the thought that Jenna has a sibling—one that was apparently born after she moved in with her grandmother—that I can’t even find the words to say hello.

The kid’s thumb comes out of his mouth, like the plug from a dike, and not surprisingly, the waterworks start.

Immediately a young woman comes running and scoops him into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t hear the doorbell. Can I help you?”

She is screaming this, of course, because the kid is wailing even louder. And she’s already glaring at me, as if I actually did physical harm to her kid. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out who this woman is and what she is doing in Jenna’s home.

I offer my prettiest television smile. “I guess I came at a bad time,” I say. Loudly. “I’m looking for Jenna?”

“Jenna?”

“Metcalf?” I say.

The woman jostles her kid on her hip. “I think you have the wrong address.”