Other People's Houses(89)
Milo nodded. “Yes, but it’s OK.” He looked across the street at the grown-up who was still watching them. “We’re with him.”
“You weren’t sitting with him before.” The guard might look like he spent all his time playing on his phone, but he had some standards. He monitored the environment. He kept tabs. Occasionally they had celebrities at the Palazzo, and he’d proudly thwarted paparazzi several times. “And he’s there a lot lately, but I haven’t seen you two before.”
Milo just smiled at him, and turned to head back across the street. He was good at small talk, for a ten-year-old, because he’d watched his mom a lot, and she could talk to anyone. But he also knew that he didn’t have small talk for this situation, and that a strategic retreat was probably the best option.
So, they went back to the wall and sat there. This time they sat closer to the grown-up, and Milo smiled at him as if they were old friends, and then looked over at the guard. He was watching, so Milo raised a hand and waved. The guard narrowed his eyes, but then his girlfriend texted him a picture of her boobs, and the little boys were immediately forgotten.
Milo sighed and looked at the grown-up, thoughtfully. He looked clean, normal, not like a homeless person. He looked a lot like the teachers at school, and Milo came to the conclusion that it was OK to say hello.
“Hello,” Milo said. “We’re waiting for someone who lives in that building. Is it OK if we sit here?”
“Sure,” said the guy. “I’m waiting for someone, too.”
“Is he out?”
“She,” replied the guy. “Yeah, I saw her leave a while ago. I’m waiting for her to come back.”
“I’m Milo,” the little boy said, reaching out his hand, after checking the guard wasn’t watching.
“Hi, Milo,” the man replied, shaking his hand. “I’m Richard.”
* * *
? ? ?
The first TV van showed up on Frances’s block about a half hour after the bulletin went out to the police. Just the local news, of course, but it had been a slow week, and a live hunt for two missing kids was always good for ten minutes at the top of the hour. After the newspeople arrived so did TMZ, the celebrity newshounds: The word was that Sara Gillespie was somehow involved, and celebrities crying was broadcast gold.
When the TV lights had first brightened the side of Anne’s face, where she sat in Frances’s kitchen, she’d just turned away. But Frances had gotten up to see what was going on, and now she turned to the other mom and said, “Maybe we could show pictures of the kids on the news, and someone might see them?”
Anne nodded, and Frances went to get that same Halloween picture. When she stepped outside, the local news reporter approached her immediately, microphone in hand.
“Hi there, I’m Clarissa Romero, Channel 7 News. Any news about the missing children? Do you have a statement to make?”
Frances shook her head. “No news. They’ve been missing since this afternoon, but we’re hoping they’ll be found soon.” She handed the reporter the photo, which was quickly handed back to a producer who got it on-screen in approximately twenty seconds.
The TMZ guy jumped in. “And is Sara Gillespie . . . ?”
“Sara’s my son’s aunt by marriage, yes. She’s out looking for him now.”
“And is it true that she and David Rapelli are having an affair?”
Frances looked at the reporter in bewilderment for a moment. “Who the hell is David Rapelli?”
“Her costar in the upcoming feature, A Grander Canyon.”
“No, of course she’s not having an affair. You understand that two children are missing, right?” Frances and the news reporter both looked at the celebrity-seeking guy in the same way a bird looks at a slug: a mix of revulsion and an evaluation of the quickest way to eat it.
“Yes, of course,” replied the reporter, beating a hasty retreat down the lawn.
Frances stared after him for a moment, then noticed Michael, Ava, Charlie, Iris, Sara, and Bill heading down the street toward them. The reporters followed her gaze and immediately scrambled their cameramen. There was an unseemly rush, and the crowd converged in a confusing melee of lights and microphones. Sara was used to it, but the others were alarmed.
“Please get out the way,” said Michael, trying not to lose his temper, and looking around for a policeman to give them a hand. “We’re trying to find our children, not film a reality show.”
“Sara,” said the TMZ guy, who’d been pushed aside by the best and brightest in entertainment. “Is it true that you and David Rapelli have been getting very close on set?”
Sara shook her head and kept moving.
“Is it true that you’re making another movie together in China, and that he’s planning on leaving his wife?”
Sara shook her head again, and added a frown for emphasis.
“Is it true . . .”
Charlie leaned into the reporter’s face. “I’ll tell you what’s true, asshole, my kid is missing. So get out of the way and have some respect.”
The TMZ guy hung on. “Sara, do you have any comment about your missing nephew?”
Sara stopped, finally. “Yes,” she said. “Milo, if you’re out there, please call home and let us know you’re OK.”