We Run the Tides(23)

“How do you feel about going to school tomorrow?” my dad asks. “Do you want to—”

“She’s going to school tomorrow,” my mom interjects before my father can finish his question. I have never missed a day of school at Spragg. This is what happens when you go to a private school and your parents don’t come from money. They have done the calculations of what each day is costing them.

“I feel okay about it,” I say. I don’t admit that it’s kind of exciting with all the television cameras circling campus. I don’t say that even though the cameras aren’t in the classrooms, some of the teachers have started acting more performative, as though they’re being filmed. Especially Mr. London.

“We love you,” my dad says, and my mother nods. My mother shows her love in every way possible but has a hard time saying the word. My dad and I have had many conversations about why this might be; we think it’s because she’s lost so many people she’s said the word “love” to. Half her family is dead.

“I love you both, too,” I say.

When they leave, I stare up at my tilting canopy, contemplating the fact that Maria Fabiola is the heir to a sugar fortune. I picture her kitchen pantry, which we used to raid after school and on sleepovers. The pantry did have sugar, but I don’t remember her parents using it more than anyone else.

When I wake up the next morning my mom’s already left for work. My dad insists on driving my sister to school. He wants to drive me, too, but I remind him my job starts today. A neighbor up the street is out of town and she’s hired me to collect her newspaper each morning so potential burglars don’t realize she’s gone. The timing couldn’t be better. I want to read the news, to know about Maria Fabiola, but we don’t get the newspaper unless the Chronicle (the morning paper) or the Examiner (the afternoon paper) are running a special trial where you get the paper free for six weeks. These sorts of deals are offered all the time. The newspapers or magazine say you can cancel before six weeks, but they count on you not cancelling. My parents never forget to cancel.

“Why isn’t she just putting her paper on hold?” my dad asks. “That way she wouldn’t have to pay for the paper, or for you, while she’s gone.”

“She doesn’t trust the newspaper. She suspects the newspaper tells the burglars who’s going to be out of town.”

“Everyone is entitled to their crazy theories,” my dad says, using a shiny black shoehorn to slip on his shoes. From his reaction I can tell that he probably has some crazy theories, too.

I walk out the front door a few minutes before my father and sister leave through the back door. Our street, El Camino del Mar, seems longer today, and steeper. The neighbor’s home is nondescript. As far as I know, it has housed neither a magician nor a musician. It’s just a regular house in Sea Cliff. The Chronicle is on the brick path to the widow’s front door. A thin pink-red rubber band is stretched across a photo of Maria Fabiola’s face.

I roll the band off and place it around my wrist and open the paper. I know this photo of Maria Fabiola. It was taken of us together at her last birthday party at the roller-skating rink, the one with the multiple posters of Brooke Shields modeling Calvin Kleins. I was standing to the right of Maria Fabiola when the photo was snapped, but I’ve (obviously) been cut out of the picture. The headline is “Young Heiress Missing.” The story starts with some expected adjectives. Our school is “elite,” our neighborhood is “tony.” But then the word choices become more curious. Maria Fabiola is described as a “star student and devoted ballerina.” I don’t think Maria Fabiola would want to be described as a star student, but she’ll like the devoted ballerina part.

I hear a car horn honk. My first thought before I turn is that it’s the man in the vintage white car. But it’s my dad. He has Svea and her dour friend in the back seat and encourages me to jump in front. I place the newspaper in my backpack and get in.

“I just wanted to offer you chauffeur service today,” my dad says.

When we get to school it seems that everyone’s being driven to school by their parents. Some students are getting driven by their families’ official chauffeurs. Nobody trusts their kids to walk or take the bus today.

At school everyone’s abuzz—no one’s acting normal. Teachers ask if I’m okay and don’t wait to hear the answer. Throughout my classes, I snap the newspaper rubber band against my wrist to remind myself to act sad. The truth is I don’t believe anything bad has happened to Maria Fabiola. This is all a ploy for attention.

During lunch I go to Mr. London’s office. The door is propped open with a large dictionary, but still I knock.

“Come in!” he calls out. He’s sitting at his desk, with what looks like a student essay in his hand.

“Oh,” he says. He looks disappointed that it’s me. Maybe he was expecting a journalist.

“Are you busy grading?” I say.

“No,” he says, placing it down theatrically. “It’s Maria Fabiola’s essay on 1984. I was looking through it to see if I could find any . . . clues.”

Now I really know he was waiting for a journalist. He’s probably been pretending to read her paper for hours, just hoping someone will catch him in the act and deem him wonderful.

He places the paper down on the desk and I see the grade at the top: “A+.” The highest grade Maria Fabiola’s ever gotten is a B+ and that was in P.E.