The Mystery of Hollow Places(37)
Would she shake her head and tell me I’m chasing ghosts? I remember Victory Island, and place my bet on the latter.
“So, Immy. Thinking about prom yet?”
That’s a topic switch. “Should I be?”
She smooths a napkin across her lips, starting from the center and working toward the corners. “It’s in June, isn’t it? Do you have a date in mind?”
As if all I have to do is think of a guy, and one will appear. I’m about to shrug it off, but this gives me a window. “Jessa wants to look at dresses tomorrow, before all the good ones are sold out.” I sigh and cast my eyes downward. “But I don’t think I’m going.”
“You’ve still got time to shop.”
“No, I don’t think I’m going to prom.”
She clinks her fork onto her plate, eyebrows screwing together. “I won’t say you should go. But that seems like a rash decision.”
“It’s not rash. It’s practical. I don’t even have a boy to take me.” It sounds pathetic—I have to swallow a healthy dose of self-loathing to get the words out—but I know the answer that’s coming.
“Oh, Immy, you don’t need a boy to go to your prom.”
“No, I guess not,” I reluctantly admit, tracing gloomy squiggles in my mashed butternut squash. “But boys usually buy the tickets. That’s how the school does things and it’ll look weird if I do.”
“That’s ridiculous! Not to mention a complete throwback to the fifties. You just march in and buy your own ticket.”
I snort. “Me and what trust fund?”
Confident that she’s facing a problem she can solve, Lindy picks up her fork and digs back in. “Well, don’t worry about that. How much are tickets?”
“Who knows. But first I have to buy a dress and shoes and . . . I don’t know.” Then, the clincher: “All so I can show up without a date?”
“Imogene Mei Scott, you need to realize that you’re a strong young woman who is perfectly capable of having a great time sans male. Tell me what you need.”
“Thanks, Lindy,” I gush, my smile genuine.
“Of course.” She pats my hand across the table, then clears her throat. “You know, while you were with Jessa yesterday, I spoke with Officer Griffin.”
I look at her. She smiles. Weakly, but at least she’s still wearing her work lipstick, and her hair is smoothed back in a French twist, so she looks more herself. “It’s not—there isn’t any information yet. But Officer Griffin thinks my idea of getting the media involved might be helpful.”
“The media? What, like, newspapers? TV?”
“Both. She thinks the story could really get some traction considering your dad’s well-known. To some, anyway. People could really pay attention. And the more people who pay attention, the greater the likelihood that someone will see something. It might help us find him, just in case he isn’t heading back this way already.”
“It’s only been a few days. Can’t we wait?” I stand. I can just see some Fox 25 reporter in her ice-cream-colored suit and plastic makeup, delivering the line: “A local mystery writer is now the star of his own mystery.”
Lindy looks up at me, her eyes sharpening. I now see the veins in them, the swelling in the soft pink corners I’ve been ignoring all this time. “This isn’t the kind of decision we should be putting off. You’re not a little girl, Imogene. You have a crucial role in this family, and I want you to be part of these decisions. I need you with me, and I need you to understand.”
“I know you’re worried.”
“You must be worried too, Immy, even if you won’t admit it.”
On the one hand, I can practically hear my shoulders creak under the weight of everything I know, and everything she doesn’t. She looks so sad, with her swimming eyes. But on the other hand, knowing what Dad is up to when no one else does almost feels like a superpower. And isn’t it? Sherlock Holmes is a morphine and coke addict and depressed as hell. Dirk Gently from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a fat gambler who was once arrested for psychically plagiarizing exam papers. Nero Wolfe from Over My Dead Body drinks like a fish during Prohibition, keeps track of his boozing by stashing the bottle caps in his desk. And Miles Faye: in ten books, he never once had an actual relationship, and every friend of his we hear about is a dead friend. All the great detectives are screwed up somehow, and those are just the men. But they have the truth. They have the big answer. Isn’t that the best power there is?
But I couldn’t tell Lindy the truth if I wanted; I don’t have it yet. So I duck the question. “Even Officer Griffin said he was, like, in control of his faculties. That he knows what he’s doing.”
“You heard that?” She sighs and digs purposefully into her stir-fry.
I stand. Let her think it’s too hard for me to talk about, if it will end this horrible conversation. “I just . . . I just want to go shopping with Jessa tomorrow. Is it okay if I go to bed early?”
“Of course, Immy. Of course. I’ll leave you some cash tonight for an outfit, to start.”
“Thanks.” I give my plate a lazy rinse in the sink, jam it in the dishwasher, and retreat to my room.
Like the rest of the house, my bedroom contains the same stuff it always has. Same twin bed, same sun-washed blinds, same pictures on the hand-me-down desk. Every book I’ve ever read, even the bad ones. I wouldn’t throw away a book any more than I’d toss a pet out on the street, if I’d had any pets since my ill-fated goldfish. Rebecca is currently being used as a coaster.