Vanishing Girls Read online

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “I’m far too busy playing Ancient Civ. Besides, everyone knows the best time to study is first thing in the morning.”

  When it’s superhot, we take our shoes off and dunk our feet in the wave pool or take turns with a hose, passing the stream of cold water over our hair and emerging from the back of the pump house sopping wet and happy. He introduces me to the “Parker lunch classic”: pizza covered with the squeezy cheese we use for the nachos.

  “You’re disgusting,” I say, watching him fold a slice expertly into his mouth.

  “I’m a culinary explorer,” he says, grinning so I can see the mashed-up food in his mouth. “We’re very misunderstood.”

  The graveyard shift is the hardest and most labor-intensive. As soon as the park gate is shut behind the last family, the other employees rush to shed their T-shirts and duck out through a side exit—a long stream of them, miraculously morphed from identical red skins like a molting snake—before they can be roped into helping the nightly park shutdown.

  This includes emptying all 104 trash cans and loading up fresh bags; double-checking every bathroom stall to make sure no terrified children have been left behind by frazzled parents; sweeping up the debris in the pavilions; checking to make sure all entrances and exits are locked and secured; skimming every pool for floating debris and ramping up the chlorine levels overnight, to combat the daily influx of sunscreen-coated children and their inevitable pee; locking up the food carts against the intrusion of raccoons, and making sure no trash has been left behind to tempt them.

  Gary delivers our instructions to us with the intensity of a general giving marching orders to an invading army. I’m stuck on Zone B trash duty, which will bring me from the Ship Breaker’s Pavilion all the way down past the Gateway.

  “Good luck,” Parker whispers, leaning in so close I can feel his breath on my neck, as Gary distributes plastic gloves and industrial garbage bags the size and weight of plastic tarps. “Remember to breathe through your mouth.”

  He isn’t kidding: the park trash bins contain a disgusting jumble of half-rotting food, baby diapers, and worse. It’s hard work, and after an hour my arms ache from the effort of hauling full bags to the parking lot, where Gary will load them into the Dumpsters. The park looks strange, lit up falsely in the bright electric glow of the floodlights. The paths are striped with deep tongues of shadow, and the rides shimmer in the moonlight, seeming almost insubstantial, like fairy structures that might disappear at any moment. Every so often a voice carries to me across the distance—Caroline or Parker, shouting to each other—but other than the occasional whisper of wind through the trees, it’s quiet.

  I’m moving underneath the shadow of the Gateway when I hear it: a quiet humming, a singsong whisper.

  I freeze. The Gateway rises above me, steel and shadow, a tower made of silver cobweb. I remember what Alice told me. They say she still cries out at night.

  Nothing. Nothing but the crickets hidden in the underbrush, the faint hiss of wind. It’s almost eleven and I’m tired. That’s all.

  But as soon as I start moving again, the sound returns, like the faintest cry or a whisper of a song. I whirl around. Behind me is a solid wall of growth, an intricate geometric pattern of woods that divides the Gateway from the Ship Breaker’s Pavilion. My stomach is a hard, high knot and my palms are sweating. Even before I hear it again, all the hair on my arms stands up, as if something invisible has just brushed against me. This time the noise is changed, anguished, like a distant sob heard from behind three locked doors.

  “Hello?” I choke out. Instantly the sound stops. Is it my imagination, or does something move in the shadows, a bare ghost-impression in the deeper dark? “Hello?” I call out again, a little louder.

  “Nick?” Parker materializes out of the darkness, suddenly and harshly illuminated as he steps into the circular glow of a lamp. “You almost done? I’ve got a virtual half-constructed Roman-style temple waiting for me at home. . . .”

  I’m so relieved, I nearly throw myself into his arms, just to feel that he’s solid and real and alive.

  “Did you hear that?” I blurt.

  Parker, I see, has already changed out of his work T-shirt. His old backpack, made of corduroy so faded it’s impossible to tell what color it once was, is slung over one shoulder. “Hear what?”

  “I thought I heard—” I break off abruptly. Suddenly I realize how silly I’ll sound. I thought I heard a ghost. I thought I heard a little girl crying out for her father as she fell through empty space. “Nothing.” I peel off the gloves, which have made my fingers smell sour, and brush my hair back from my face with the inside of a wrist. “Forget it.”

  “Are you all right?” Parker does the thing he always does when he doesn’t believe me: tucks his chin down, stares at me with eyebrows half-raised. I have a sudden flashback of Parker, aged five, looking at me just that way when I told him I could jump across Old Stone Creek, no problem. I broke my ankle; I misjudged the bank height, crashed straight into the water, slipped, and Parker had to carry me home on his back.

  “Fine,” I say shortly. “Just tired.”

  And it’s true: suddenly I am—aching with an exhaustion so deep I can feel it in my teeth.

  “Need help?” Parker gestures to the two bags I’ve piled next to me: the last remaining load I have to cart out for pickup. He doesn’t wait for me to respond before leaning forward and swinging the heaviest bag over his other shoulder. “I told Gary we’d lock up,” he says. “Actually, there’s something I want to show you real quick.”

  “Is it a Dumpster?” I haul the other bag over my shoulder, like Parker’s doing, and follow him toward the lot. “Because I think I’ve had enough garbage for a lifetime.”

  “Don’t say that. How could anyone ever get tired of garbage? It’s so authentic.”

  Caroline is just leaving when we reach the lot. Her little Acura, and Parker’s Volvo, are the last remaining cars. She rolls down her window to wave as she passes, and Parker loads the trash bags into the Dumpster, throwing them like an old-school sailor tossing canvas bags of fish onto a ship deck. Then he takes my hand—casually, unconsciously, the way he did when we were kids, whenever it was his turn to pick the game we were going to play. Come on, Nick. This way. And Dara would trail after us, wailing that we were going too fast, complaining about the mud and the mosquitoes.

  It’s been years since I’ve held Parker’s hand. I’m suddenly paranoid that my palm is still sweating.

  “Are you serious?” I say, as Parker draws me back toward the park gates. There isn’t a single inch of FanLand I haven’t seen. At this point, there isn’t a single inch of FanLand I haven’t scrubbed, cleaned, or examined for stray trash. “I have to be on shift again at nine.”

  “Just trust me,” he says. And the truth is I don’t want to resist too hard. His hand feels nice—familiar and yet totally new, like hearing a song you only dimly remember.

  We loop around the path toward the Lagoon, leaving the Gateway safely in the distance, dim spires rising like a distant city over wide alleys of wooden stalls and concession stands and dark pockets of trees. Now, with Parker next to me, I can’t believe how frightened I was earlier. There are no ghosts, here or anywhere; there’s no one in the park but us.

  Parker leads me to the edge of the wave pool, an artificial beach made out of concrete pebbles. The water, smooth and dark and motionless, looks like one long shadow.

  “Okay,” I say. “Now what?”

  “Wait here.” Parker drops my hand, but the impression of his touch—the warmth, the shivery good feeling—takes a second longer to dissipate.

  “Parker—”

  “I told you to trust me.” He’s already backing up, jogging away from me. “Have I ever lied to you? Don’t answer that,” he adds quickly, before I can.

  Then he’s gone, merging with the darkness. I edge down toward the water, splashing my sneakers experimentally in the shal
lows, half annoyed at Parker for keeping me out here after shift and half relieved that things are so normal again that Parker can annoy me.

  Suddenly the motors rumble on, disrupting the stillness. I jump back, yelping, as the water is abruptly illuminated from below in crazy rainbow shades: neon oranges and yellows and purples and blues, shifting Technicolor strata. A wave gathers on the far side of the pool and works its way slowly toward me, causing all the colors to blend and break and re-form. I back up as the wave breaks at my feet, scattering into shades of pink.

  “See? Told you it was worth it.” Parker reemerges, jogging, silhouetted against the crazy light display.

  “You win,” I say. I’ve never seen the wave pool lit up like this; I didn’t even know it could be. Fingers of light, shimmering and translucent, extend up toward the sky, and I have a sudden, soaring sense of happiness—like I, too, am nothing but light.

  Parker and I kick our shoes off and roll up our jeans and sit with our legs half-submerged in the water, watching as the waves gather, crest, break, and retreat, every motion provoking corresponding shifts in the patterns of color. Dara would love this, I think, and feel a quick squeeze of guilt.

  Parker leans back on his elbows, so his face is partially obscured by shadow. “Do you remember last Founders’ Day Ball? When we broke into the pool and you dared me to climb the rafters?”

  “And you tried to pull me in with my dress on,” I say. A burst of pain explodes behind my eyes. Parker’s car. The clouded windshield. Dara’s face. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if I can make the images disperse.

  “Hey.” He sits up again, grazing my knee, just barely, with a hand. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I open my eyes again. Another wave breaks over my feet, this one green. I bring my knees to my chest, hugging them. “It’s Dara’s birthday tomorrow.”

  Parker’s face changes. All the light drains from his expression at once. “Fuck.” He looks away, rubbing his eyes. “I totally forgot. I can’t believe it.”

  “Yeah.” I scrape at an artificial pebble with a nail. There’s so much I want to say—so much I want to ask him that I’ve never asked him. It feels as if I have a balloon in my chest; at any second it might burst. “I feel like I’m just . . . losing her.”

  He turns back to me, then, his face twisted with a raw kind of grief. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know.”

  That’s when the balloon bursts. “Are you still in love with her?” I blurt out. There’s a strange kind of relief in finally asking.

  Parker looks at first surprised—then, almost immediately, he shuts down, turns expressionless. “Why are you asking me that?” he says.

  “Forget it,” I say. I stand up. The colors have lost their magic. They’re just lights, stupid lights with stupid gels over them, a spectacle made for people too stupid to tell the difference. Like the mermaid costume, made out of cheap sequins and glue. “I’m tired, okay? I just want to go home.”

  Parker stands, too, and puts a hand on my arm when I turn in the direction of the parking lot. “Wait.”

  I shake him off. “Come on, Parker. Forget I asked.”

  “Wait.” This time, Parker’s voice stops me. He exhales a long breath. “Look. I loved Dara, okay? I still do. But—”

  “But what?” I wrap my arms around my waist, squeezing back the sudden sensation that I might be sick. Why do I care? Parker can love whoever he wants. He can even love my sister. Why wouldn’t he love her? Everyone else does.

  “I was never in love with her,” he says, a little more quietly. “I’m . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been in love.”

  There’s a long pause. He stares at me as if waiting for me to say something—to forgive or congratulate him, maybe both. Something passes between us, a wordless message I can’t begin to decipher. I’m suddenly aware that we’re standing very close—so close that even in the dark, I can see stubble on his chin, and see the beauty mark dotting the outside corner of his left eye, like a perfect pen mark.

  “Okay,” I say finally.

  Parker looks almost disappointed. “Okay,” he echoes.

  I wait by the water while Parker turns off the wave pool again. We retrace our steps to the parking lot in silence. I listen for the voice, for the singsong call of a ghost in the darkness, maybe crying out for her father, maybe crying out just to be heard. But I hear nothing but our footsteps, and the wind, and the crickets hidden in the shadows, singing for no goddamn reason at all.

  JULY 28

  Text from Parker to Dara

  Hey.

  I don’t know why I’m texting you.

  Actually, I do know why.

  I really miss you, Dara.

  JULY 28

  Dara

  Before we were born, the master bedroom was downstairs, and featured an en-suite bathroom with a massive Jacuzzi tub and cheesy gold fixtures. The bedroom was converted first into a den, and then into a combined office/massive closet for all the random shit we accumulated and then outgrew: paper shredders and defunct fax machines, broken iPads and old phone cords, a dollhouse that Nick was obsessed with for .5 seconds before deciding that dolls were “immature.”

  But the tub is still there. The jets stopped working when I was about five and my parents never bothered to replace them, but with the water running from all four faucets, the noise is thunderous and has almost the same effect. The soap dish is shaped like a scalloped seashell. There are divots in the porcelain where you can rest your feet. And for about ten years, my mom has kept the same jar of lemon verbena bath salts perched next to the tub, the label so warped with steam and vapor it has become unreadable.

  When we were little, Nick and I used to put on our bathing suits and take baths together, pretending that we were mermaids and it was our private lagoon. Somehow the fact that we wore bathing suits—and goggles, too, sometimes, so we could go under and blink at each other, communicating through hand gestures and laughing out big bubbles—made it fun. We were so small we could both stretch out easily, side by side, her feet at my head and vice versa, like two sardines packed together.

  Tonight, after I’ve completed the ritual—all four faucets running, a scoop and a half of lemon verbena, wait until the water’s so hot it turns my skin pink, then ease in and turn the faucets off one by one—I take a deep breath and go under. Almost instantly my pain evaporates. My broken put-together body turns weightless, my hair fans out behind me, brushing my shoulders and arms, tendril-like. I listen for echoes, but all I hear is the rhythm of my heart, which sounds both loud and strangely distant. Then a secondary rhythm joins the first.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The sound reaches me even underwater. Someone is knocking—no, pounding—at the front door. I sit up, gasping a little.

  There’s a temporary break in the knocking, and for a moment I think, optimistically, that it was a mistake. Some drunk kid has mistaken our house for a friend’s. Or maybe it was a dumb prank.

  But then it happens again, slightly quieter but still insistent. It can’t be Nick; I’m almost positive Nick is home and asleep, no doubt mentally preparing for our family dinner tomorrow. Besides, Nick knows we keep a spare key under a fake rock next to the planter, like every other family in America.

  Annoyed, I haul myself out of the tub, moving carefully on legs that go quickly stiff. Shivering, I towel off, then pull on a pair of thin cotton sleep pants and an old Cougars T-shirt that belonged to my dad in high school. My hair hangs wetly down my back—no time to dry it properly. I grab my phone from the back of the toilet. 12:35.

  In the hallway, the latticed windows cut the moonlight into geometric patterns. Someone is moving just beyond the glass, backlit by the porch light. For just a second I hang back, afraid—thinking, irrationally, of Madeline Snow, of hysterical rumors about perverts and predators and girls caught unawares.

  Then someone cups a hand to the window to peek inside, and my heart contracts. Parker.

  Even before I open the door, it’s obvious he’
s drunk.

  “You,” he says. He leans heavily against the house, likely to keep himself on his feet. With one hand, he reaches out as if he’s going to touch my face. I jerk away. Still, his hand lingers in the air, hovering like a butterfly. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

  I ignore the words—I ignore how good they feel, how badly I’ve wanted to hear them. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” He straightens up, runs a hand through his hair, swaying a little on his feet. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m drunk.”

  “That’s obvious.” I step out onto the porch, easing the door shut behind me, and cross my arms, wishing now that I weren’t wearing my dad’s old T-shirt, that my hair weren’t wet, that I had a bra on, for Christ’s sake.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . the whole birthday thing really fucked me up.” Parker looks at me in the way that only he can: chin lowered, watching me with those huge eyes and the lashes thick as brushstrokes, which on anyone else would look girlish. His perfect upper lip, shaped exactly like a heart. “Remember last year, when we all went to East Norwalk together? And Ariana scored beer from that sleazy guy who worked at the 7-Eleven. What was his name?”

  A memory rises up: standing with Parker in the parking lot, doubled over laughing because Mattie Carson was peeing on a Dumpster next to the nail parlor, even though there was a bathroom inside. I don’t even remember why Mattie was there. Maybe because he’d offered to bring Super Soakers he’d borrowed from his younger brothers.

  Parker doesn’t wait for me to answer. “We tried to break into that creepy lighthouse on Orphan’s Beach. And we had a water fight. I creamed you. I totally creamed you. We watched the sunrise. I’ve never seen a sunrise like that. Remember? It was practically—”

  “Red. Yeah. I remember.” It was freezing by then, and my eyes were gritty from the sand. Still, I was happier than I’d been in years—maybe happier than I’d ever been. Parker had lent me his sweatshirt (National Pi Day), and I still have it somewhere. Ariana and Mattie had fallen asleep on a big flat rock, huddled together beneath his fleece, and Nick, Parker, and I sat side by side, a picnic blanket draped around our shoulders like an enormous cape, passing the last beer back and forth, our toes buried in the cold sand, trying to skip stones across the waves. The sky was flat silver, then a dull copper, like an old penny. Then, suddenly, the sun broke free of the ocean, electric red, and none of us could speak or say anything—we just watched and watched, until it was too bright and we couldn’t watch anymore.