The Mystery of Hollow Places(7)
So we weren’t always the happiest family in Happy Town. But I wasn’t a gloomy kid or, contrary to Dad’s predictions, a creepy kid, and life wasn’t so bad. The worst that happened in an average day was my dad forgot to buy hot-dog buns because he was wrapped up in writing Vital Signs, so we used folded white bread like a pair of losers. Just sometimes, usually at night, and especially when Dad was going through one of his bad times, there was this thing, a dumb hungry animal in my chest. And I didn’t know what to call it, but I knew that it was my mother. My dad must’ve felt it too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had the bad times, would he? At least, that was my theory.
On a whim I Google “Joshua Scott.” The usual turns up: “Joshua Scott is the author of a series of medical mystery novels following forensic pathologist Dr. Miles Faye,” yada yada. I scroll through, but there’s nothing about Joshua Scott disappearing. How long will that last?
I push myself back from the desk and hug the copy of A Time to Chill. I need to think. No, I need to think like Dad. How hard can it be to find him when I’ve been reading his mysteries since I was a kid? He even left a clue for me especially. The stone heart won’t be in Officer Griffin’s missing persons report. But then, I’m not sure Dad is missing. I mean, he’s clearly not here, but giving me the heart like this, it can’t be meaningless. He wouldn’t ditch me for any old reason. He must be searching for something. Or, considering what he left behind, for someone. And searching isn’t missing.
Well, I can search too.
I’ve even got an idea where to start. Whenever I’m trying to find a lost object—a favorite mystery, a very un-favorite textbook, my cell phone, a sneaker—Lindy’s well-meaning and unoriginal advice is: “Figure out where you last had it, and that’s where you should start looking.”
I don’t remember my mom, but the picture in back of this book is my proof that she was real, that she was a whole person who once held me. And if that’s the case, then maybe Good Shepherd is where I truly had her last.
FOUR
While Mr. McCormick fiddles with the volume on Love’s Labour’s Lost—not the play, but the musical where Alicia Silverstone’s Princess of France speaks with nearly the same accent as Cher—I reach across the aisle and poke Jessa Price with my pencil eraser.
It takes a few pokes to get her attention. Jessa’s face is forever blue-lit by the screen of an iSomething. iPod, iPad, iPhone, doesn’t matter. She rotates between them by the minute. Now she’s peeking at her iPhone below the lip of her desk, texting Jeremy White. I know it’s him because her texts are heavily sprinkled with winky-face emoticons. I prod her once more.
“What?” she huffs.
“Want to go into Boston this weekend?”
She looks up at last, big blue eyes surfacing to meet mine. “When?”
“Hmm,” I pretend to ponder. “When’s your mom working? Can she give us a ride?”
Frowning, Jessa sweeps her hair behind her ear and over one shoulder. It’s the rich red-blond of apple cider and she touches it all the time, the same way Dad pats his pockets to make sure he’s got everything he needs. It’s no secret that she’s gorgeous. She knows she’s beautiful the way I know yellow and blue make green. Some girls don’t like that. Liz Bash sneers about her in the second-floor bathroom and says she’s one of those girls (like there’s only two kinds of girls, and you’re one of those or you aren’t). I’m not exactly Jessa’s white knight, but I don’t see the point in begrudging her looks. I’m fine, possibly cute from certain angles and under the right circumstances and with enough work, but sometimes I think I’d eat live spiders and roll in rotten fruit to see what Jessa sees in the mirror, just for a day.
“Why can’t we take your car?” she asks.
“I need to bring it to the garage for the weekend. Something’s up with the starter.” This is a half truth, as there have been a few shaky starts recently. What follows is the total lie: “I really want to go shopping.” I slip a little whine in my voice.
“Fine, I’ll text Mom and find out.” She hardly bothers to hide her phone, but she won’t get caught. Mr. McCormick’s done fussing with the DVD player and has retreated to his desk, surrounded by copies of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and stacks of everyone’s essay but mine (Lindy went with “a family matter” in her note). Anyway, it’s Friday, and the last Friday before February break. Not a teacher at Sugarbrook High has their head in the game, hence Alicia Silverstone. In history next period, I’m betting we’ll watch a History Channel documentary on Nazis.
This is good. It gives me time to plan. I’d go into the city alone if I could. Technically, Jessa and I are best friends. We grew up in each other’s houses. Shared teething rings, then sleeping bags, then issues of Vogue. A few years ago we learned about mutualism in biology; how a certain kind of shrimp will drill a sandy home in the seafloor, and in will move a goby fish alongside it. Seems generous, but the shrimp is mostly blind and counts on the little bug-eyed fish to keep watch, and warn it with the flailing of its body if a bigger fish approaches. I hang out over at Jessa’s house and let her copy my English homework and sometimes math, which I secretly love because it’s just like a puzzle written in code. And while I’m there, Jessa polishes up my hopeless art assignments or paints my nails. Meanwhile I get to gaze at her big brother, Chad, who lives in their giant luxury basement and goes to college, and who I’ve had a lingering and unrequited crush on since fifth grade. I guess that makes me the goby fish?