Vanishing Girls(36)

He gives me a funny look. “Your mother and I—” His voice hitches. “Well, we were thinking we should all get together. Maybe go to dinner at Sergei’s.”

I can’t remember the last time Mom and Dad were in the same room. Not since a few days after the accident—and even then, they stayed on opposite sides of the minuscule hospital bedroom. “The four of us?”

“Well, Cheryl has to work,” he says apologetically, as if I would have invited her otherwise. Finally he releases his death grip on the wheel and turns toward me. “What do you think? Do you think that’s a good idea? We wanted to celebrate somehow.”

I’m tempted to say Hell no, but Dad isn’t actually waiting for an answer. He slides his fingers behind his glasses and scrubs his eyes. “God. Seventeen years old. I remember when—I remember when you were both babies, so small I was terrified to hold you. . . . I always thought I would crush you, or break you somehow. . . .” Dad’s voice is thick. He must be drunker than I thought.

“Sounds great, Dad,” I say quickly. “I think Sergei’s would be perfect.”

Thankfully he regains control. “You think?”

“Really. It’ll be . . . special.” I lean over to give him a peck on the cheek, extracting myself before he can wrap me in a bear hug. “Drive home safely, okay? There are cops everywhere.” It’s weird to have to parent your parents. Add it to the list of the two thousand other things that have gone to hell since the divorce, or maybe since the accident, or both.

“Right.” Dad seizes the steering wheel again, bobbing his head, obviously embarrassed by his outburst. “Looking for Madeline Snow.”

“Looking for Madeline Snow,” I echo, as I slide out of the car. I watch Dad reverse in the driveway and hold up a hand as he passes me again, waving to his dim silhouette in the window. I watch until his taillights turn to tiny, glowing red points, like lit cigarette tips. Once again, the street is quiet, silent except for the constant throaty humming of the crickets.

I think of Madeline Snow, somewhere lost in the darkness, while half the county searches for her.

And it gives me an idea.





JULY 28


Nick


It turns out that my failed turn as the mermaid wasn’t so failed after all—apparently the kids thought it was so uproariously funny that Mr. Wilcox decides to make physical comedy, and specifically my face-plant, a permanent part of the act. Since we can’t count on a real dog to reliably chomp down on Heather’s tail feathers, Wilcox invests in a big, floppy-eared dog puppet, and Heather works both identities at the same time—strutting in her costume while wearing the puppet on her right hand and miming a contest of wills until the culminating moment, when the dog gets hold of her butt.

Unfortunately I’m stuck in the role of the mermaid for the foreseeable future. No one else can fit into the tail, and Crystal never comes back to work. Rumor is that she got busted for something really bad—Maude even claims the police are involved.

“Her parents caught her posing for some porn website,” Maude says, gesturing with a french fry for emphasis. “She was getting paid to send naked pics.”

“No way.” Douglas, who is thin and sharp-beaked, like a bird of prey, shakes his head. “She doesn’t even have boobs.”

“So? Some guys like that.”

“I heard she was dating some old guy,” a girl named Ida says. “Her parents flipped when they found out. Now she’s on lockdown.”

“She was always bragging about money,” Alice says thoughtfully. “And she always had really nice stuff. Remember that watch? The one with all the little diamonds?”

“It was a website,” Maude insists. “My cousin’s girlfriend’s brother’s a cop. There are, like, hundreds of girls on there. High school girls.”

“Didn’t Donovan get busted for the same thing?” says Douglas.

“For posing?” Ida squeaks.

“For having access.” Douglas rolls his eyes. “A perv’s dream.”

“Exactly.” At last Maude pops the fry in her mouth. Then she drags her finger through a thick glob of ketchup on her plate. That’s how she eats fries, in stages: potato, then ketchup.

“I don’t believe it,” Alice says.

Maude looks at her pityingly. “You don’t have to,” she says. “It’ll all come out soon enough. You’ll see.”

The worst part about being the mermaid is the costume itself, which requires special cleaning and so can’t be washed more than once a week. After three days, the tail reeks, and whenever I’m suited up, I make it a point to stay as far away from Parker as possible.

But after a few performances, I find I don’t mind being onstage so much. Rogers even shows me how to cushion my fall safely—he was a thespian in college, he tells me, with no hint of irony and embarrassment—and after one show, a little cluster of kids even crowds me behind the potted palms and asks for my autograph. I sign: Stay cool! Love, Melinda the Mermaid. No idea where Melinda comes from, but it feels right. And suiting up as Melinda keeps me from having to skim the Piss Pool, or scrub puke out of the Whirling Dervish.

Slowly I’m getting the hang of FanLand. I no longer get lost on my way around the park. I know the shortcuts—cutting behind the Haunted Ship brings me straight to the wave pool. Walking through the darkness of the Tunnel lops a full five minutes from the walk between the Lagoon and the dry lands. I know the secrets, too: that Rogers drinks on the job, that Shirley never locks up her pavilion properly because she can’t be bothered with the faulty lock on the back door, and that some of the older employees swipe the occasional beer from the cooler as a result, that Harlan and Eva have been screwing around for three summers running and use the pump house as their own personal sex den.