Vanishing Girls Read online

  Dara’s bedroom door is closed. One time after we had a fight she painted KEEP OUT in big red letters right on the door. Mom and Dad made her cover it over, but in certain lights you can still make out the words shimmering under the layering of Eggshell #12.

  I decide against knocking. Instead I fling open the door like cops do on TV shows, as if I’m expecting her to jump out at me.

  Her room is a wreck, as always. The sheets are pulled halfway off the bed. The floor is piled with jeans, shoes, sequined shirts, and halter tops, as well as a covering, fine as leaves, of the kind of thing that accumulates at the bottom of a purse: gum wrappers, Tic Tacs, spare change, pen caps, broken cigarettes.

  The air still smells, faintly, like cinnamon: Dara’s favorite scent.

  But she’s gone. The window is open and a breeze distorts the curtains, making ripple patterns, faces that appear and disappear. I cross the room, doing my best to avoid stepping on anything breakable, and lean out the window. As always, instinctively, my eyes go first to the oak tree, where Parker used to hang a red flag when he wanted us to come play and we were supposed to be doing homework or sleeping instead. Then Dara and I would sneak down the rose trellis together, trying desperately not to giggle, and run, holding hands, to meet him at our secret spot.

  There is no red flag now, of course. But the trellis is swaying slightly, and several petals, recently detached, twirl on the wind toward the ground. I can make out the faint imprints of footsteps in the mud. Looking up, I think I see a flash of skin, a bright spot of color, a flicker of dark hair moving through the woods that crowd up against the back of our house.

  “Dara!” I call out. Then: “Dara!”

  But she doesn’t turn around.

  JULY 17

  Dara

  I haven’t climbed down the rose trellis since the accident, and I’m worried my wrist won’t hold. It got pulverized in the crash; for a month, I couldn’t even hold a fork. I have to drop the last few feet, and my ankles let me know it. Still, I’ve made it down in one piece. I guess all that PT is good for something.

  No way do I want to see Nick. Not after what she said.

  I’m nothing like her.

  Perfect Nicki. The Good Child.

  I’m nothing like her.

  As if we didn’t spend practically our whole lives sneaking into each other’s rooms to sleep in the same bed, whisper about our crushes, watch moon patterns on the ceiling and try to pick out different shapes. As if we didn’t once cut our fingers and let them bleed together so we’d be bonded forever, so we’d be made not just of the same genes but of each other. As if we didn’t always swear that we’d live together even after college, the Two Musketeers, the Dynamic Duo, Light and Dark, two sides of the same cookie.

  But now Perfect Nick has started to show some cracks.

  The woods run up against another yard, neatly mowed, and a house staring at me through the trees. Turning left will bring me past the Duponts’ house to Parker’s, and the hidden break in the fence that Nick, Parker, and I engineered when we were kids so we’d be able to sneak back and forth more easily. I turn right instead and get spat out at the end of Old Hickory Lane, across the street from the bandstand in Upper Reaches Park. There’s a four-person band onstage, of a combined age of about one thousand, dressed in old-fashioned straw hats and candy-striped jackets, playing an unfamiliar song. For a moment, standing in the middle of the road, watching them, I feel completely lost—as if I’ve stumbled into someone else’s body, into someone else’s life.

  There was one good thing about the accident—and in case you’re wondering, it wasn’t the broken kneecaps or shattered pelvis, the shattered wrist and fractured tibia and dislocated jaw and scars where my head went through the passenger window, or getting to lie around in a hospital bed for four weeks and sip milkshakes through a straw.

  The good thing was: I got to cut school for two and a half months.

  It’s not that I mind going to school. At least, I didn’t used to mind it. The classes suck, sure, but the rest of it—seeing friends, skipping out between classes to sneak cigarettes behind the science lab, flirting with the seniors so they’ll buy you lunch off campus—is just fine.

  School is only hard when you care about doing well. And when you’re the stupid one in the family, no one expects you to do well.

  But I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to watch everyone feel bad for me while I limped across the cafeteria, when I couldn’t sit down without wincing, like an old man. I didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to pity me, or pretend to pity me while feeling secretly satisfied that I’m not pretty anymore.

  A car blares its horn, and I move quickly out of the road, stumbling a little on the grass, but grateful for the sense of strength returning: this is practically the first time I’ve left the house in months.

  Instead of passing, the car slows, and time slows, and I feel a hard fist of dread squeeze in my chest. A beat-up white Volvo, its bumper attached to the undercarriage with thick ropes of duct tape.

  Parker.

  “Holy shit.”

  That’s what he says when he sees me. Not Oh my God, Dara. It’s so good to see you. Not I’m so sorry. I’ve been thinking of you every day.

  Not I was afraid to call, so that’s why I didn’t.

  Just: Holy shit.

  “Pretty much,” I say, since it’s the only response I can think of. At that moment, the band decides to stop playing. Funny how silence can be the loudest sound of all.

  “I’m . . . wow.” He shifts in the car but makes no move to get out and hug me. His dark hair has grown long and hangs practically to his jaw now. He’s tan—he must be working outside, maybe mowing lawns again, like he did last summer. His eyes are still the same in-between color, not quite blue or green but something closer to gray, like the fifteen minutes just before the sun rises. And looking at him still makes me want to puke and cry and kiss him all at once. “I really didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I live around the corner, in case you forgot,” I say. My voice sounds harder, angrier, than I’d meant it to, and I’m grateful when the band strikes up again.

  “I thought you were gone,” he says. He keeps both hands on the steering wheel, squeezing tightly, like he does when he’s trying not to fidget. Parker always used to joke he was like a shark—if he ever stopped moving, he would die.

  “Not gone,” I say. “Just not seeing anyone.”

  “Yeah.” He’s watching me so intensely I have to turn away, squinting into the sun. This way, he can’t see the scars, still angry and raw-red, flattened across my cheek and temple. “I figured—I figured you didn’t want to see me. After what happened . . .”

  “You figured right,” I say quickly, because otherwise I might say what I really feel, which is: not true.

  He flinches and looks away, returning his attention to the road. Another car passes, and has to pull out into the oncoming traffic to avoid Parker’s car. He doesn’t seem to notice, even when the passenger, an old man, rolls down his window and yells something rude. The sun is warm and sweat moves down my neck. I remember, then, lying between Parker and Nick last summer in Upper Reaches Park on the day after school ended, while Parker read out loud all the weirdest news he could find from around the country—interspecies relationships; bizarre deaths; unexplained agricultural patterns that could only, Parker insisted, be caused by aliens—inhaling the smell of charcoal and new grass and thinking, I could stay here forever. What the hell changed?

  Nick. My parents. The accident.

  Everything.

  I suddenly feel like crying. Instead I wrap my arms around my waist and squeeze.

  “Listen.” He rakes a hand through his hair, which immediately swings back into place. “You need a ride somewhere or something?”

  “No.” I don’t want to tell him that I have nowhere to go. I’m not heading anywhere except away. I can’t even go back for my car keys or I risk seeing Nick, who no doubt is finding reaso
ns to complain about the fact that I wasn’t there to cheerlead her arrival.

  He makes a face like he’s accidentally swallowed his gum. “It’s good to see you,” he says. But he doesn’t look at me. “Really good. I’ve been thinking about you . . . all the time, basically.”

  “I’m doing just fine,” I say.

  Good thing lying comes naturally to me.

  www.theShorelineBlotter.com/july20_breakingnews

  East Norwalk PD are reporting the possible abduction of nine-year-old Madeline Snow from a car outside Big Scoop Ice Cream & Candy off Route 101 in East Norwalk on the evening of Sunday, July 19, sometime between 10:00 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. Her family has released the accompanying picture of Madeline and asked that anyone with any knowledge of her whereabouts get in contact immediately with Chief Lieutenant Frank Hernandez at 1-200-555-2160, ext. 3.

  Please join me in praying that Madeline makes it home safe—and soon—to her family.

  This article is surprisingly undetailed. Was she with her parents when she was “abducted”? Statistically, it’s usually the parents’ fault when a child disappears.

  posted by: alikelystory at 9:45 a.m.

  Thanks for your comment, @alikelystory. The police haven’t released any further details, but I’ll be sure to update as soon as they do.

  posted by: admin at 10:04 a.m.

  @alikelystory “It’s usually the parents’ fault when a child disappears.” Where do you get this so-called “statistic”?

  posted by: booradleyforprez at 11:42 a.m.

  Poor Madeline. The whole congregation at St. Jude is praying for you.

  posted by: mamabear27 at 1:37 p.m.

  Hey all, for up-to-the-minute info, go to www.FindMadeline.tumblr.com. It looks like they just got the site up and running.

  posted by: weinberger33 at 2:25 p.m.

  see additional 161 comments.

  JULY 20

  Nick

  My new job starts on Monday, bright and early.

  Mom’s still sleeping when I leave the house at seven. Dara, too. In the two days since I’ve been home, Dara’s done a near-perfect job of avoiding me. I have no idea what she does up in her room all day—sleeps, most likely, and of course Mom never bugs her about it; Dara’s off-limits since the accident, as if she’s a glass figurine that might break if we handle it—and every morning I see broken rosebuds in the garden, evidence that she’s been shimmying up and down the trellis again.

  I know her only by the trace evidence: iPod left blaring through the speakers in her room, footsteps overhead, the things she leaves behind. Toothpaste crusted on our shared bathroom sink, because she always uses too much and never bothers to put the cap on. A bag of chips, half-eaten, discarded on the kitchen table. Thick wedge heels lying on the stairs; the faint smell of pot that filters down from the attic at night. This way I form an impression of her, of her life, of what she’s doing, the way we used to rush downstairs on Christmas morning and know Santa Claus had come because the cookies we’d left had been eaten and the milk consumed. Or the way an anthropologist does, constructing whole civilizations out of the scraps of pottery they left behind.

  It’s already hot, even though the sun has just edged over the horizon and the sky is still stained a deep blue. The crickets are going crazy, threshing the air into layers of sound. I peel the banana I pulled from the kitchen before realizing it’s rotten. I chuck it into the woods.

  On the bus, which is mostly empty, I take the last seat. Someone has carved the initials DRW into the window, big. Dara’s initials. I briefly imagine her sitting where I’m sitting, bored, taking a penknife to the glass while on her way to God knows where.

  The number 22 goes from Somerville all the way down the coast, and curves along Heron Bay and its clutter of cheap motels and faux-timber resorts, past a long blur of diners and T-shirt shops and ice cream parlors, into East Norwalk, a place thick with bars and shitty lingerie stores and XXX-video stores and strip clubs. FanLand is right off Route 101, only a mile or so away from the crash site: a no-name place of low-lying marshland and twisted shrubbery and studded outcroppings of rock, carried down to the beach by some long-ago glacier, still getting sawed slowly into sand by the motion of the waves.

  I don’t know what we were doing there. I don’t remember why we crashed, or how. My memory is looped over a single moment, like a thread snagged on something sharp: the moment my hands were off the wheel and the headlights lit up a wall of rock. Dad suggested not too long ago that I visit the site of the crash, said that I might find it “healing.”

  I wonder if my license plate is still there, lying mangled in the sun-bleached grass, if there’s glass still glittering between the rocks.

  By the time we reach FanLand—which shares a parking lot with Boom-a-Rang, the state’s Largest Firecracker Emporium, according to the sign—the only other person on the bus is an ancient man with a face the color of a tobacco stain. He disembarks with me but doesn’t even glance up, just heads slowly across the lot toward Boom-a-Rang, head down, as if he’s moving against a hard wind.

  Already I’m sweating through my T-shirt. Across the street, the gas station parking lot is full of cop cars. One of the sirens is turning soundlessly, sweeping the walls and pumps with intermittent red light. I wonder whether there was a robbery; this area has gotten worse over the years.

  FanLand has a mascot, a pirate named Pete who’s featured on billboards and placards all over the park, warning people not to litter and about the height minimum for various rides. The first thing I see when I enter the park through the gate, which is unlocked, is Mr. Wilcox, scraping gum off a twelve-foot-tall Pirate Pete grinning a welcome down to park visitors. A big, glossy sign is tacked to Pirate Pete’s shoulder, concealing the parrot I know should be there. It reads CELEBRATING 75 YEARS!!

  “Nick!” When he sees me, he puts an arm above his head to wave, as if I’m four hundred feet away from him instead of fourteen. “Great to see you. Great to see you. Welcome to FanLand!” He pulls me into a crushing hug before I can resist. He smells like Dove soap and, weirdly, car oil.

  Two things about Mr. Wilcox: he always says things twice, and he obviously missed a few educational seminars on sexual harassment. Not that he’s a creep. He’s just big into hugs.

  “Hi, Mr. Wilcox,” I say, my voice muffled by his shoulder blade, which is roughly the size of a ham hock. Finally I manage to extract myself, though he keeps a hand on my back.

  “Please,” he says, beaming. “Here at FanLand, I’m just Greg. You’ll call me Greg, won’t you? Come on, come on. Let’s get you suited up. I was thrilled when your mom told me you were back in town and looking for work, just absolutely thrilled.”

  He pilots me toward a small yellow building half-concealed behind a wall of fake potted palms, and in through a door he unlocks with one of the keys he has strung to a massive key ring on his belt. The whole time, he never stops talking, or smiling.

  “Here we are, the keys to the castle. This is the front office—nothing too fancy, you’ll see, but it does the job quite nicely. If I’m not out and about, I’ll usually be in here, and we’ve got some first aid kits, too, if anybody loses a finger. Kidding, kidding. But we do have first aid kits.” He gestures to the saggy shelves above a desk cluttered with receipts, rolls of ride tickets, and various scrawled drawings that look to be from children thanking “Pirate Pete” for such a great day. “Don’t touch the Coke in the fridge, or Donna—she’s my secretary, you’ll meet her soon enough—will have your head, but you’re welcome to any of the waters, and if you want to BYO lunch and keep it cold, go right ahead.” He slaps the refrigerator to emphasize the point. “Same thing with valuables—phone, wallet, love letters—kidding, kidding!—we can lock ’em up right here at the start of your shift and they’ll be safe as anything. Here you are. Throw this on”—this, as he tosses me a scratchy red T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Pirate Pete’s grinning face, which I can tell is going to sit right over my left boob—�
�and we’ll get you started. Welcome to the team! Bathrooms are just past the photo booth on the left.”

  I leave my bag in the office with Mr. Wilcox and head to the bathrooms, which are indicated by means of a wooden parrot sign. I haven’t been to FanLand since I was maybe eight or nine and much of it feels unfamiliar, though I’m sure it hasn’t changed, and I have a brief flash of memory as soon as I enter the bathroom stall of standing with Dara in our wet bathing suits, water pooling on the concrete, shivering and giggling after a long day in the sun, our fingers sticky with cotton candy, running ahead of our parents, holding hands, while our flip-flops slapped on the puddled pavement.

  Just for a second, I feel a moment of grief so intense it hollows me out: I want my family back. I want my Dara back.

  I quickly swap out my T-shirt for the official uniform, which is about three sizes too big, and return to the office, where Mr. Wilcox is waiting for me.

  “Nick!” he booms, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Looking good, looking good.”

  He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pilots me down one of the paths that wind through the park, past fake shipwrecks and more plastic palm trees, plus rides with names like Splish ’n’ Splash or the Plank. I see a few other employees, quickly visible in their vivid red, sweeping leaves from the boardwalk or changing filter traps or calling out instructions to one another, and I have the weird sense of walking backstage just before a play and seeing all the actors in half makeup.

  Then Mr. Wilcox is pumping an arm high in the sky and calling out to another girl, roughly my height, wearing all red. “Tenneson! Over here! Tenneson! New meat for ya!” He lets out a booming laugh. The girl begins jogging toward us, and Wilcox fires out another explanation: “Tenneson’s my right-hand man. But a girl, of course! This is her fourth summer with us at FanLand. Anything you need, you ask her. Anything she can’t answer, you don’t need to know!” With another laugh he releases me and retreats, waving again.