My Last Innocent Year(56)
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“I HAVE NO idea where Tom is,” Connelly said. We were sitting in the front seat of his car, which was parked behind the computer science building. He’d asked me to meet him there instead of his office. With all the commotion surrounding Tom’s disappearance, he thought it best that we be cautious. “Everyone keeps asking, but I promise you, he didn’t say a word to me.”
It was early, just past seven. The sky was the color of a peach. I sipped my coffee slowly and watched a group of birds fight over a bird feeder someone had hung from a nearby branch. Tom and Igraine had been missing for nearly a week, but unlike the story of his jump in the lake the night of the Senior Mingle, this story was filtering slowly through the campus ecosystem. When we discussed it, we did so gravely, because, I liked to think, we understood how serious it was. Maybe we felt guilty for not having recognized the danger; we’d seen at least part of what Tom was capable of that night. Or maybe I was only speaking for myself.
What little I knew came from my conversation with Andy and an article in the Daily Citizen, which I’d dug out of the recycling bin during a shift at the information desk. According to the article, most of what Andy had said was true: the sister, the trip to Rhode Island. The divorce, by all accounts, was bitter, the marriage troubled. Police records revealed at least two visits to the house on June Bridge Road, including once when Joanna was pregnant. The police had labeled the incidents “domestic disturbances” and left it at that. According to an unnamed source, Tom had been behaving erratically since Joanna had filed for divorce in December, more so since she had sued for custody, but there had been no indication that he’d planned to kidnap Igraine, or worse. Wherever Tom was, the authorities didn’t think he’d gone far: his credit card hadn’t been used since the day he left, when he’d used it to buy gas at a service station a few miles from campus. There was some grainy surveillance footage of him pumping gas—no sign of Igraine, although there was no reason to think they weren’t together. After that, they fell off the map. I’d hoped Connelly could shed more light on what Tom had done. At twenty-two, I still believed adults did things because they made sense, that they had information I did not have, by virtue of being adults. I was beginning to think this might not always be the case. I would soon come to understand that adulthood was exactly this: the constant upending of everything you believed when you were young.
“Did you think he was capable of something like this?” I asked Connelly.
“No, of course not. Tom’s a peaceful, gentle guy. But who knows what goes on inside a marriage? A lot of marriages fall apart when kids come into the picture, squabbles about money, who’s going to take care of this or that. Some men get jealous when their wives become so devoted to this other little person. Then again, a marriage without kids loses something too. Momentum or energy. Oxygen.” He nodded, as if satisfied to have found the right word.
I spilled a little coffee on my shirt. I opened the glove compartment, looking for a napkin, and saw the ring of keys. I started to reach for them, then thought better of it.
“Did you ever want kids?” I sometimes thought about what Whitney had told me, about Roxanne being pregnant, but had never asked Connelly about it.
He was quiet for a while, and I thought maybe I’d pushed too far, but then he said, “I was going to say it was a long story, but it’s actually pretty short. Roxanne didn’t want kids and then when she did, it was too late. Women like to think they can ‘have it all,’ but there is a biological component to things, whether we want to admit it or not.” He looked straight ahead, and a ray of sunlight glanced off his cheek. “We did get pregnant once. Twins. Roxanne thought it was absurd to grieve for someone you’d never met. She wanted to try again, but…” He shook his head. “It was probably for the best.”
The sky brightened. “Whatever Tom’s guilty of,” he said, “he loves that little girl.”
17
I hadn’t seen Debra for a couple days when I bumped into her walking across the green with Crashy. I spotted her hair first, glowing like a candied apple in the moonlight.
“Izzy!” She ran over and grabbed me by the shoulders. It was ten o’clock on a Wednesday night, and she was already drunk. “Agora is having its leopard and lace party, and you have to come!” She opened her jacket and showed me her dress, short and black, and a pair of black lace stockings. Crashy had leopard-printed press-on nails poking out of fingerless lace gloves.
“I’m not really dressed for it,” I said. “Plus, I’m wiped.”
“Oh, come on! How many more nights do we have here anyway?” Debra placed a heavy arm around my shoulders. She smelled like pot and rotting flowers.
“Fine,” I said. Debra squealed with delight. A feather boa materialized. Crashy pulled a leopard scrunchie out of her hair and handed it to me, then steered me under a streetlight and smeared my lips with lipstick.
“This is perfect!” Debra cried. She linked arms with me and Crashy and the three of us marched over to Agora, like Dorothy on the road to Oz.
The party had the feel of one that had been going for a while even though it was still early. In Agora’s smoky main room, people were draped over each other, smoking or taking long, luxurious sips from plastic cups. Out on the dance floor, a shirtless guy in a rainbow wig was hanging off a girl in a low-cut top, his face buried deep in the line of her cleavage. Music throbbed through the creaky wooden floor, pounding bass notes that vibrated in the space behind my sternum. Three girls danced together in the middle of the room, a seductive tangle of arms and legs. One was wearing only a bra and bike shorts. There was a tattoo of an eagle across her shoulder blades; when she moved her arms, it looked like it was flapping its wings.