Before She Disappeared(6)

This time of evening, that strategy is easy to accomplish. Five p.m., buses are screeching to a stop, disgorging piles of weary locals grateful to be heading home. The sun is still out but lower in the sky, a fall breeze starting to kick up, carrying with it the stench of diesel, grime, and human sweat.

I catch the occasional whiff of fried food and savory spices. My stomach rumbles again. I’ve never eaten Haitian food. Judging by the smell, however, I’m looking forward to trying it.

For now, I keep hoofing it. I don’t really understand Boston’s mass transit yet and I have at least a mile to cover, from Stoney’s place to the side street where Angelique’s aunt lives. Everywhere I look are tired buildings and worn faces. Bit by bit, I start to parse it out. The groups of teens with thousand-yard stares, peering out sullenly from beneath their hooded sweatshirts. The wide streets jammed with brake lights and blaring horns. Intermittent booms of music, from reggae to rap, blasting out of various vehicles. A crowd of older Black men, probably returning from a local construction project given the dust on their clothes, laugh and clap one another on the back, grateful for the end of the workday.

Ahead of me, another city bus screeches to a halt. This time a group of Black women in pink hospital scrubs and bright-colored headscarves disembark. Local healthcare workers. I fall in step behind the last member of the line as they stream forward into the night. The woman directly in front of me notices the slowing of my gait as I slide in behind her. She nods once in acknowledgment of my presence. I’m no threat to her, and she clearly recognizes my strategy. Safety in numbers.

I think of this often, drifting from community to community, always being the stranger and never the neighbor. People all over really are the same. They want to fall in love. They’re glad to survive each day. They pray their children will have a better life than they did. These truths bind us. At least I like to think so.

The sun sinks lower but the street grows brighter: more car lights, shop lights, streetlamps. My lead companion peels off to the right with a parting nod. I return the gesture, plodding forward on my own.

At the end of the next block, I have to pull out my printed map. I hate doing that in the open, as it marks me as lost, and even now I can feel gazes boring into my back.

I wasn’t lying to Stoney when I told him all I had to rely on was my quick wit. Which, interestingly enough, can be very useful when dealing with people above the age of twenty-five, but completely irrelevant to anyone younger.

I didn’t grow up in a city. Nor as a young girl did I ever picture myself doing this kind of work. I was raised in a small town in Northern California. My father was a drunk. As an adult looking back, I came to recognize his addiction as I learned to fight my own. But for most of my childhood, I associated my father with silly adventures and sloppy smiles, as well as the smell of beer.

My mother was the intense one. Worked two jobs, the first as a secretary in a law firm, the second doing the books for mom-and-pop businesses. I don’t remember her smiling, or playing, or even stopping long enough to give me a hug. She got up early and worked late, and in her brief moments at home, mostly gritted her teeth at the dishes my father hadn’t done, the meals that hadn’t been cooked, the dirty clothes that hadn’t been washed.

I think my father loved my mother for her fierceness, and she loved him for his sense of fun. Until they didn’t.

I ran around outside a lot. Through woods and scrub brush and winding streams. In my childhood we didn’t have Amber Alerts or stranger danger. Even seven-year-olds felt free to dash out their front doors and ride their bikes for miles. I had friends who were latchkey by nine because why not? We didn’t worry. We just were.

I don’t think any of us realized that was a magical moment future kids would never get to experience. Certainly, we didn’t understand what bad things lurked out there. Until one of my classmates went missing in high school. Then another girl from the town over. And four more girls quickly after that.

The police caught the killer when I was twenty-five. By then I’d moved down to L.A. with no real plan other than to get the hell out of small-town life and party like a rock star. Turned out I was damn good at the partying part. And pretty enough for others to buy my drinks, my meals, maybe even a new dress or two.

I’d like to say those were my free spirit days, but the truth is, I don’t really remember them. It was a rush of drugs and booze and sex, and that I’m alive at all . . .

Paul. He saved me. At least until I grew strong enough to save myself.

House, white picket fence, suburban bliss.

Funny, the things you can grow up not wanting, then suddenly crave with single-minded obsession.

Funnier still, the things you can end up having only to realize you’d been right the first time.

But I loved Paul. I still love him. Even now.

I arrive at my targeted block, which peels off the main road in a sharp diagonal. Definitely no grid system here. Instead, the streets come together, then explode in a crazy hub-and-spoke system. This is not going to be one of those places I learn to navigate quickly or easily. My best guess, weeks from now I’ll still feel exactly as dazed and confused as I do at this moment. Maybe Boston neighborhoods aren’t meant to be understood. You either know where you are, or you don’t. I definitely don’t.

Now, the rows of squat, brick commercial buildings are replaced by a wall of triple-deckers, wedged shoulder to shoulder like a line of grumpy old men. I make out chain-link fences, dirt patch yards, and sagging front steps that delineate each residence. Some have new vinyl siding in shades of pale blue and butter yellow. Others appear one strong breeze from total collapse. Mattapan has some of the last affordable housing in the city for a reason.