We Run the Tides(49)

Jazmin takes some tissue paper and wets it and aggressively pats the side of my head. “Ow,” I say.

“I’m just trying to get it clean,” she says.

The wet towel makes the blood run more; a thin pink stream trickles down my face. Jazmin takes out an Ace bandage from the cabinet and tries to wrap it around my head. Her long nails repeatedly poke me.

“It really hurts,” I say when she fastens the Ace bandage. I start to unravel it.

“Fine,” she says, not sounding like it’s fine. She leaves the bathroom and I finish removing the bandage. It’s now stained with blood and ruined but I roll it up and put it in the medicine cabinet anyway. Then I remove the Oil of Olay and apply it to my face with small circular motions the way my grandma taught me.

When I come out of the bathroom Lazlo is sitting in the den shuffling a deck of cards and I sit down across from him. Just when he finishes dealing, I hear people climbing the stairs. Zsolt, the builder who’s supposedly related to me, enters the room. He’s in his late twenties and wearing a shiny suit. His wife, Eileen, walks up the stairs behind him wearing a dress with shoulder pads. She has a vast mane of black hair that climbs precariously high from her forehead. Her blouse is missing a button so I can see her beige bra. She makes a big production of hugging me. She’s wearing my grandmother’s rings.

Neither of them seems very surprised to see me at the house and I deduce that Jazmin told them on the phone. No one asks why I’m not at school that day. While Eileen makes dinner—I can smell the cabbage cooking—Zsolt comes into the den and turns on the TV to watch the news. He sits in the reclining chair where my grandfather used to sit.

The volume is too low for me to hear what the anchorwoman is saying, but I see the headline flash across the screen: “Another Missing Child Case in Sea Cliff.”

They must not have found Keith. I blink hard. Then I see a familiar face on the screen. It’s me. My photo from last year’s school yearbook is on TV. In the photo, I’m standing in front of the bush at Spragg where the butterflies gather. It takes me a minute to make sense of what the news is saying: it’s me who’s missing, not Keith. I am missing. And then the segment is over and I’m followed by a pile-up on a freeway.

“Eulabee,” Zsolt says.

I turn to him but can’t speak. It seems too soon to be missing on TV.

Lazlo turns to me. “You have to call your parents.”

“Okay,” I say. “Where’s the phone?”

I follow Lazlo into the kitchen, where Zsolt and Eileen are setting the table. The phone is on the wall by the bread box. I pick up the receiver.

“What are you doing?” Eileen says, alarmed, like I’ve picked up a gun.

“She needs to call home,” Lazlo says.

“No,” Zsolt’s wife finally says. “We’re still on that phone plan your grandma had. We only get three calls a month.”

I remember the system. When I would call my parents from my grandma’s house, I’d let the phone ring twice and then hang up. That was the signal to my parents to call me back. I consider doing that now—dialing their number and letting it ring twice so they know to call. But they won’t be expecting me to be calling from my grandma’s house.

Lazlo reads my mind. “Can’t she use it this once?” he says.

“Let your dad sweat a little,” says Zsolt. “What has he given us? Let him get us a better phone plan. He can afford it.”

“This is crazy,” Lazlo says. “Eulabee’s on TV. Joe and Greta think she’s dead or kidnapped.”

“She’s fine,” Eileen says. “I’ll call them later.”

“But the cops?” Lazlo said. “They’re looking for her.”

“Fuck the cops!” Zsolt scoffs.

Eileen places bowls of cabbage soup on the place mats. The table is too big for the small room and there are too many chairs. There’s no room to move.

“Sit down, Eulabee,” Zsolt says, gesturing at the last chair.

I can’t get out of the house fast enough. I run down the stairs, and down the street. The bus comes right away, like it’s been waiting to take me home.





28


I get off the second bus at 25th Avenue and as I approach my house I see two news vans. The lights in my house appear to be off, but I’m sure my parents are home. An anchorwoman is standing in front of a palm tree giving a live report. I turn around and run without stopping until I get to the ballet school.

I open the door to the shed and find a figure sitting on the couch. I scream.

“Well done,” Maria Fabiola says. “I never knew you wanted to be in the spotlight.”

Seeing another person in the shed seems like a terrible invasion. Maria Fabiola appears outsized, like a fairy-tale wolf.

“What?” I say, closing the door behind me. “You’re totally wrong.”

“Um, then why are you hiding in this shed?” Maria Fabiola says. She gestures around the room, as though to remind me of my environment.

“I did something bad,” I say.

“Yeah, everyone knows that you wrote the valentines,” Maria Fabiola says. “There aren’t that many clever girls in our class who are also that stupid. And when you didn’t show up for school it was obvious it was you.”