The Night Before(14)

“The phone is offline. Last place it was live was down by the water—just after eleven.”

“But that’s miles from Richmond Street—Joe just found the car there,” Rosie said. None of this made any sense.

“Rosie?” Joe was yelling now. She yelled back, into the phone, “Just hold on … she’s not there … she’s not on Richmond … she went to the harbor! Oh God! What the hell is going on here?”

Gabe walked to where Rosie was standing, and took the phone from her hand.

He was close to her now, in his navy suit with his serious face. He and Joe exchanged a few words. They would meet at the car. Joe had the spare key and would drive the car home. Rosie would take his car and follow Gabe to the harbor, where they would look for Laura. They had suddenly resumed their roles in the story. Gabe making the plan, Joe leading the charge.

“What do we do?” Rosie felt helpless as she waited for instructions.

“We need those photos. Where’s the printer?”

Rosie pointed to the stairs. “The attic—Laura’s room.”

She watched him leave.

Suddenly her throat tightened, choking her. This was real. This was happening. Laura was missing, and the worry had gone from her tangled thoughts to her husband, and now to Gabe.

Laura …

She hadn’t looked like a reckless tomboy last night. In that dress and those shoes. Her hair down, flowing around her shoulders.

Laura …

But that picture from their past—the sadness. The longing. And those little bloody fists.

Gabe came back into the room and stopped in front of her. His arms pulled her in.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise you,” he said.

But when she felt his shirt dampen against her cheek, the tears breaking free, she was no longer that helpless girl. And she was the only one among them who knew that he was wrong.





SEVEN


Laura. Session Number Two. Four Months Ago. New York City.

Dr. Brody: Why did you punch your fists through that wall? You were only six.…

Laura: It was probably nothing. My parents used to say I made mountains out of molehills. If someone gave me a rainbow of colors, I would mix them up to make black.

Dr. Brody: Look … your hand … your knuckles are turning white.…

Laura: Sorry … sometimes I still smell the plaster. Feel the bones bruising.

Dr. Brody: Children develop sharpened skills of perception if they’re always in danger. Sometimes they’re right about what they see, and sometimes they’re wrong. But they see everything.

Laura: I didn’t exactly grow up in the jungle.

Dr. Brody: Emotional danger—emotional neglect—those will do the trick.

Laura: You’ve lost me. How was I neglected?

Dr. Brody: I don’t know. You were the one who was there.





EIGHT


Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 8 p.m. Branston, CT.

There is something all wrong about Jonathan Fields’s car. Yes, it’s a Toyota and not a BMW, but there’s something else.

“Do you like music?” he asks as we stop at a light. Then he laughs, at himself I think. “That was stupid. Of course you like music. I meant to ask what kind of music. I can find something on the radio.”

That’s it. This car has a radio. An actual radio with knobs and buttons. The knob for the volume twists right and left. The one for the channels pushes up or down. Large white arrows lead the way. It has AM and FM. No satellite service. No iPhone connector, Bluetooth, or hardwire. And yet it’s not old. It smells new. Brand-new.

Jonathan hits a button to search for a channel. It stops on something with Top 40 stuff, and I feel like I’m in fourth grade again, riding with my grandmother.

“This okay?” he asks. He glances at me and smiles. The light changes. He makes a right from Schaffer Boulevard onto Grand Street.

I hesitate, but then I can’t help myself. Grand Street is way out of the way if we’re going to the waterfront, and let’s just say it’s not exactly a scenic route. It’s the part of town that’s suffered most at every economic downturn.

“Do you know a secret shortcut?” I ask. It’s not the best way to ask the question, but it’s better than saying, What the hell are you doing? Which is what I’m thinking and what I want to say.

Now he seems unnerved.

“No,” he says. He answers with the intonation of a question.

So I give him my answer.

“It’s just—Schaffer goes all the way down. Under the train and highway.” I’m pointing back toward the right direction, from which we have just departed.

“I go this way to avoid the lights,” he says. He’s very clever. Only, there are lights this way as well, and you have to drive slower because the forgotten teenagers who line the streets at night will walk right out in front of you and not give a shit. This is their neighborhood and they do what they want. We used to come here to buy pot, and from the looks of it, nothing has changed. There’s no reason to be here unless you live here or want to score weed.

Maybe that’s it, I think. Maybe he just smokes a lot of weed and so he made this turn out of habit. I can live with that.

Adele comes on the radio, and I find myself looking again at the dashboard. It’s not just the radio. The entire console is old-school. Analog. Red and white. Buttons and knobs to twist and push—not just for the radio, but the heat and the wipers and the odometer reset. It makes my sister’s minivan look like a spaceship. The seats are blue-speckled fabric. The armrests cheap plastic. No way this guy drives this car by choice. Not Jonathan Fields.