Pretty Girls Dancing(4)
A car door slammed, and her spine shot with tension. But Matt Thorson—another employee several years older than Janie—just hurried through the parking lot toward the back door. He passed within a foot of her but never even glanced at her as he entered the building.
She relaxed again as the screen door slammed behind him. It was inevitable, she supposed, taking another puff, for any missing female in the state under nineteen to elicit the media hysteria that always led back to the Willards’ door. And probably to the killer’s previous victims’ families, too, now that she thought about it. Worse still were the times when unidentified female human remains were discovered. The inevitable calls about testing the remains and comparing the results to Kelsey’s DNA always had her mother in bed for days. The aftermath of Kelsey’s kidnapping was a carousel of horrors they could never escape.
She sank along the chilly siding to sit on the frigid cement sidewalk. A better person would be concerned about the unknown girl from Saxon Falls. And maybe Janie would have been if she hadn’t experienced this so many times. The idiot would show up eventually, after running away, joyriding with a friend, or shacking up with a boyfriend. They always did. But not before reporters started dredging up the past, leaving her mom an emotional basket case and her dad just a little more detached than before.
It’d be easy to hate journalists for that alone. She brought the cigarette to her lips again. They’d been all too quick to forget the Willards when leads on Kelsey’s case started drying up. When the police came by less and less frequently. That was about the time her mom and dad’s friends—the ones who hadn’t started avoiding them altogether—started wearing this totally fake cheerful expression when they talked about anything and everything other than Janie’s sister. Finally, the cops just stopped returning phone calls. More than a year went by, and still no Kelsey. Even at eleven, Janie had realized what that meant. Kelsey wasn’t coming back, no matter what her parents said. Her life was divided into a Before and After, two chapters in the same book. First, she had a sister. Then she didn’t.
She ground her cigarette out on the cement next to her. Then lit another. You can’t consider the meds a crutch and not realize cigarettes are serving the same purpose. Dr. Drake’s words echoed in her brain. Sometimes what he said made sense, whether she wanted to hear it or not. But some things he just didn’t have a clue about. Like how she was always going to be defined by Kelsey’s disappearance.
And how that could ruin her memories of her sister if she let it.
A mental image floated across her mind. She and Kelsey when they were kids, arms out to their sides, twirling in endless circles across the yard, pretending to be butterflies. Fly high, Janie! Fly high. Their mom had even bought them matching butterfly necklaces for Christmas that year. She smiled a little at the memory. Abruptly sobered when she recalled that Kelsey had been wearing hers when she vanished.
She exhaled, and like the stream of smoke, the memory dissipated to be replaced with thoughts of the unknown teen from Saxon Falls. No matter that she was likely off on a lark; her disappearance was doing a number on those she left behind. It was hard to summon sympathy for a girl who intentionally churned emotional waters in her wake. She didn’t know what Janie did. That tragedy changed a family. Sometimes it shattered it. Parents split up. The surviving kids developed coping mechanisms. She smiled grimly. Coping mechanisms. A $200-an-hour phrase that meant searching for normal. God knew that was what she’d spent too many years doing before she was old enough to realize that “normal” was unattainable because it didn’t exist. At least not for the Willards. Not anymore.
The chimney stack on the restaurant next door belched a thin thread of smoke not unlike the one she expelled. Her sister’s kidnapping hadn’t destroyed them. Not totally. But it was as if someone had taken an eraser to her family. Smudge, smudge, smudge. One fraction at a time, Kelsey had faded away until there was just the slightest shadow. And the rest of them were a bit fainter around the edges. Still there, but they were all a little . . . less.
She flicked the ash off the end of the cigarette into the graveled parking lot that hemmed the walk. Watched the embers glow. Knew she’d have to keep a close eye on her mom for the next few days. Turn off the phone. Try to keep her away from the TV. Lose the morning paper. Because it didn’t take much these days to spin Claire Willard off her carefully constructed orbit. Janie knew just how fragile her mother was beneath her elegant, stylish exterior. Claire played bridge with friends twice a month, volunteered at church, and had her city clubs—the ultimate suburban housewife. If anyone else knew how much time she spent sitting on Kelsey’s bed with a glass of vodka, they didn’t talk about it, not even Janie’s dad.
Especially not her dad. Janie’s mouth tightened. Years ago her parents used to have some pretty ugly fights about her mom’s drinking, about his work and, God, why couldn’t Claire just put the damn past behind her? But somewhere along the line, they must have called a truce. Sometimes Janie missed the fighting. At least that emotion had felt real.
She watched the traffic on the road in front of the business without really seeing it. Life had a way of moving forward from even the worst circumstances. Eventually, everyone resumed their roles. Janie thought her parents deserved awards for theirs. They came to school conferences; they told her how proud they were of her grades. Getting up in front of the class for a speech could still turn her into a quivering case of nerves, but there was nothing wrong with her brain. Which was why, now that college acceptance letters had started rolling in, she finally had her ticket out. Until graduation, though, she was content enough with the part she played: the quiet loner everyone overlooked. Because most of the time that suited her just fine.