Just My Luck(85)

‘Have you seen Emily?’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘Not at all? Not all evening?’

‘Well, a bit. Earlier.’ He’s clearly reluctant.

‘When? What time?’ His eyes are glassy and red. Drink, drugs, tears? I don’t really care. I just want him to answer my questions. ‘About eight.’ Over five hours ago. My heart sinks.

‘What’s going on?’ asks Jennifer. I’d been so intent on interrogating Ridley, it’s only now that I notice he is flanked by his mother and father. He looks protected, defended. My daughter is absent, Jake’s and my inadequacies bite. And although I hate Jennifer, loathe her with a base, visceral certainty, at this moment I just remember that she’s known Emily since she was a baby. Thoughts clash about my head, pleading for attention. Jennifer once drove us at breakneck speed to the hospital because Emily had fallen out of a tree which she, Ridley and Megan had been climbing. Jennifer makes separate gravy for Emily because Emily is veggie; so few people bother to do that. She has always sewn the name tags onto Emily and Logan’s school uniforms for me, because she has a sewing machine and it takes minutes, whereas hand-sewing swallows hours. She has driven to my house with Calpol because my kids were running fevers, Jake was away and I was housebound. She’s plonked a sunhat on my daughter’s head when she’s spotted her running in the garden unprotected. She taught Emily to sail. She might have let my husband fuck her but right now I don’t care. All I care about is finding Emily and I think that will happen sooner if the people who love her are galvanised. So I tell her, ‘Emily is missing.’ I see Jennifer’s face crumple in horror. I feel vindicated that she sees the agony as I do.

‘Has someone taken her?’ she asks.

I gasp. A new horror. ‘You think that’s possible?’ I had not thought of that. My fears just ran to alcohol and accidents.

‘Well, you are so wealthy now. She might have been kidnapped.’ My knees start to shake, I stagger, someone lowers me into a chair. I let them.

‘I’m guessing she’s just passed out somewhere,’ adds Jake. I see Jennifer’s face change, suddenly relieved.

‘Well, that would be better,’ adds Fred.

I know it would. A teen in turmoil, a teen in a sulk, a teen legless and lawless is infinitely preferable to a teen who’s been kidnapped and held for ransom, but I suddenly feel a deep despair crawl through my being and I’m certain Jake is wrong.

‘Yes, that will be it,’ says Jennifer. ‘I noticed she was drinking earlier on tonight. I’m sure it’s nothing serious at all.’ I hate Jennifer for instantly siding with Jake, for instantly accepting his version of events and diminishing my fears, dismissing them. But of course she would; sucking a man’s dick trumps putting a sunhat on a child’s head in terms of allegiances and commitment. I feel sick with anxiety and can’t be bothered with either of them. Now Jennifer has put the thought of kidnapping in my mind, I’m delirious with fear. Even whilst I looked for Emily and imagined her choking on her vomit, cold and unconscious, part of me doubted it, couldn’t accept it. She’s not the sort to allow herself to get into that much of a mess. She would have found help; even if she didn’t want us to see her hideously drunk, she could have gone to her friends or her brother.

‘Where is she, Jake?’ Jake doesn’t respond or move. I want to rip his head off with my bare hands. Why isn’t he more concerned? ‘Where is she?’ Obviously, he doesn’t know. I realise that but I want something from him. Anything! ‘Who has taken her?’

‘We don’t know anyone has taken her,’ he mutters impatiently, dismissively. He clearly thinks I’m being hysterical. He moves towards Ridley. ‘Ridley, mate. I know you think you are being a friend to her by covering but you’re not,’ says Jake. I am embarrassed for my husband that he called Ridley his ‘mate’. On no level is this appropriate and it’s so obviously a desperate attempt to ingratiate himself and pretend he’s somehow cool and down with the kids. Embarrassment flourishes into disdain when I consider that specifically, he wants to be down with the kid who broke his daughter’s heart. ‘Just tell us where she’s hiding out and we can all go home to bed. Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do. You’re just not telling us,’ says Jake a little more firmly.

‘I don’t.’ Ridley’s gaze is bolted to the floor.

I sigh. I fear he probably doesn’t. I watched him during the earlier part of the evening and from what I could gather, he didn’t seem in the least bit interested in Emily. She trailed after him, like a devoted dog, but he kept moving along. If he was at the Ferris wheel, over she’d saunter, only for him to leg it to the bouncy castle. When she turned up there, he went to get something to eat. Always with the girl he brought along. He seemed pretty focused on her, not interested in Emily at all. It was heartbreaking to watch. I was fuming with Jake for inviting him here and allowing him to rub Emily’s nose in his new relationship, or fling, or whatever it is. I believe him when he says he doesn’t know where Emily is. It’s just not what I want to hear. My desperation makes me focused, hostile and disapproving all at once.

I glare at him, every centimetre of my body emitting loathing.

‘Are you sure you haven’t any ideas, son?’ asks Fred, his tone jovial too. We’re the sort of parents who have read all the books telling us not to get riled with our teens because they simply shut down and you hit a wall. Better to create an environment that suggests safety and belief. Right now, I want to climb down Ridley’s throat and haul out his tongue to force him to spit out any words that might help.