What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen
Something cold smashes into my chest. Alex Maloy’s chocolate ice-cream cone.
“Shit.” That’s Alex. I’m thinking the same thing, but I hold it in.
“Sorry. Here, let me wipe that for you,” Alex says, napkin poised.
He blushes as he realizes where the ice cream landed. “I mean, here you go. Here’s a napkin.”
He chucks the remnants of his cone into a garbage can as I wipe.
“Guess I’ll get another one.” He looks me in the eyes. “You want a cone, Sara?”
I get this fluttery feeling in my stomach.
“Okay,” I say, even though I’m not hungry. I can stuff down an ice cream if it means spending a few more minutes with Alex.
I take a quick look around to see if my mom’s pulled up while I wasn’t paying attention.
“Oh, that’s right, you’re Zach’s girl,” he says, tapping his forehead.
“I’m not Zach’s girl.” I go with what I imagine to be a coy smile. “We’re friends, that’s all.”
“Huh. Does that make you available, then?”
Oh God. I nearly faint.
“Just for the next ten minutes.” After that, you’ll never see me again.
I can tell that he doesn’t know how to take that. He laughs. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Vanilla, please,” I say. I’m too wired to notice what I’m eating anyhow. I give my ponytail a nervous twirl.
“Two vanilla cones, please,” Alex says to Jessica’s mom, who’s working the lunch shift. Mrs. Hamilton was a stay-at-home mom up until last spring. I’m pretty sure the only reason she took the job is so she can keep tabs on her daughter. Jessica never goes to the Dairy Dream anymore. But Mrs. Hamilton still loves the job because she’s able to pump us for information about her.
“Hi, Sara, nice to see you,” Mrs. Hamilton says as she hands me my cone. “Have you seen Jessica today? She seemed a little down this morning.”
She seemed fine to me until I hit her in the nose with a volleyball. Amazingly no one has mentioned that to Mrs. Hamilton yet. Apparently I still have friends, even though I haven’t been all that social lately. “Yeah, she did look kind of depressed.” Maybe Mrs. Hamilton will think she got the puffy nose from crying.
“See, you noticed it too. Glad to know I’m not just imagining things.”
Mrs. Hamilton hands us our cones. I move away quickly before she can ask any more questions.
I scan the parking lot. Where’s my mom? Did something go wrong?
“So what is it we have to do for the history paper?” Alex asks, licking his cone.
Here I am, on the verge of totally and completely freaking out about my mom, and Alex is asking me about a history paper. I want to tell him everything right then and there. But, let’s face it: Besides the whole Cujo thing, Alex is basically a stranger. A dark-haired, drop-dead gorgeous stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. So instead I say, “No idea.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously, no idea. I wasn’t paying any attention and I didn’t take a single note.” I notice a streak of ice cream on his chin and point at my own chin as a hint.
He doesn’t get it. He just scrunches his eyebrows and says, “Hey, that’s my kind of girl. High five!”
I slap his hand back. Mine feels kind of tingly afterward.
“Hey, Alex!” shouts Jared from the sidewalk. “Ready to head back?”
“Go on ahead,” he says, waving. “Catch you later.” He winks at me. “Why don’t we sit at a picnic table?”
I shrug, as if I haven’t been dying for him to suggest it.
Alex sits down, facing the street. I sit next to him so I can watch the street too. He probably thinks I’m coming on to him. Maybe I am. Where is my mom?
“How about algebra for this afternoon. Can I copy yours?”
“Didn’t do it.” He still has that smudge on his chin. Can’t he feel it?
He looks at me suspiciously. “You always do your homework. You just don’t want me to copy.”
“Not last night.” You don’t do homework when you know you won’t be in class.
“So which do you like better, geometry or algebra?”
It isn’t the sort of question I expect from Alex. I look around to see if there are any teachers he’s trying to impress. Not a one. “Algebra, definitely.”
“Why?”
“If you follow the rules, you get the right answers.”
“Not me, man. If they had geometry two instead of algebra two, I’d be acing it.”
I raise one eyebrow.
“What? You think I’m not capable of good grades?” he says, a touch defensively.
“Are you?”
“If I like the subject, I am. Gotta love those geometric proofs.”
I make a face. “I hate proofs. They’re too much like the puzzles my dad always makes us do while we’re on vacation.”
“So where do you go on vacation that you have time for puzzles?” Alex crumples his napkin into a ball and tosses it from hand to hand.
“We used to rent this cabin—Ramona’s Retreat—about an hour away on the Au Sable River. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Even more in the middle of nowhere than here. One of those places where there’s no street signs, just a bunch of markers with arrows pointing the way to various cabins.”
“You’re kidding—my folks own a cabin near there. I remember the signs for it. The name kind of sticks out. Our sign just has our last name on it.”
“Yeah, yours and pretty much everyone else’s.”
Alex drops his napkin ball under the table and bends to retrieve it.
A silver car approaches. I hold my breath.
Not Mom’s car. I let my breath back out and check my watch. What does “lunch” mean? Does my mom have any clue as to when my lunch is? Suppose she already came before I got here. She’d come back, wouldn’t she?
I pull out my cell and dial my mom.
“Who are you calling?” asks Alex.
I ignore him.
The call goes straight to voice mail. Figures. My mom doesn’t completely embrace technology and almost never turns on her phone except when she’s making a call. I put the phone back in my pocket and check my watch again.
“You seem worried about the time,” Alex says. “You want to head back?”
I shake my head. He still has that blob of ice cream on his chin.
“It’s only ten minutes before fifth period. You’re not planning on skipping, are you?”
Alex must see the “I’m about to puke” look on my face, because he stops grinning, leans in closer, and asks, “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head and try to smile so he’ll get up and leave. What I really want to do is hold on to his hand and make him stay here so I won’t be alone.
And because I like him.
“No, everything’s fine. I just don’t feel like going back yet.”
“Well, okay then. I guess I’ll be the good student for once.” Alex gets up and stands there awkwardly a few moments.
I hand him a napkin. “You’ve got ice cream on your chin.”
He wipes it off, stuffs the napkin in his pocket, and starts walking. “Don’t worry,” he says, looking back over his shoulder. “I won’t say anything.”
The wind starts to blow. We really should have had hot chocolate today, not ice cream. I wish I had worn a sweatshirt. At least there’s one in my duffel bag, which should be here soon. Has to be here soon. I want to lay my head down because it’s spinning, but I can’t because I might miss seeing my mom’s car.
Why isn’t she here yet? Panic bumps around inside me, like I’ve swallowed a jack-in-the-box and can’t get the lid closed again.
Mom, where are you?
CHAPTER 3
Tuesday
Pretty soon I’m the only one left at the Dairy Dream. All the high school students have gone back to class and the few adults who stopped by have returned to work. I can feel Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes on my back.
The problem with a town the size of Scottsfield is that there are no crowds to get lost in and no shops to even browse. Unless you count the Feed-and-Seed, which is where I stop. They have a display in front of the store. I pause to look at the salt licks. Sometimes we buy them for the deer that hang out in our field.
“Sara?”
I turn around. It’s Jack Reynolds. He stands so close I can smell his sewer breath. Jack and my dad both graduated from Scottsfield High the same year. They were best buddies. Still are. Jack is a cop, like my dad used to be when we lived in Philadelphia.
“Hi.” I try to sound nonchalant, but I can hear the quiver in my voice. I clear my throat. “How are you?”
“Fine, just fine. How are you all holding up? It’s been four months now since—”
Tact has always eluded Jack. “Yeah, about that,” I say. “We’re fine. Just fine.” If he believes that, he’s a moron.
“Shouldn’t you be in school now?”
I examine my watch—a scratched-up old Timex with a sun and moon that rotates as time passes. No need to read the time; I already have that memorized from when I checked a minute ago. “You’re right. I was at the Dairy Dream for lunch and I must’ve lost track of time. I better get back.”
“Guess you better. Be seeing you, then.” Jack runs his fingers through his greasy hair.
Neither of us moves. I pretend to check out the price of the salt licks.
“You shouldn’t put those out for deer, you know,” he says. “Some folks will hunt them that way. Takes all the sport out of it, in my opinion.”
What an idiot. As if we even keep guns in the house anymore.
Ignoring him, I walk away.
“Sara?”
I turn around and sweep my eyes across the Dairy Dream parking lot as I wait for him to speak.
“Say hi to your dad for me.”
I freeze. Jack is grinning like a wolf.
The day after my dad smashed the Statue of Liberty, my mom and I went to the Scottsfield police station to file a report. Jack took my mom’s statement, only he didn’t write anything down. He said, “I’ve known Ray a long time. He’s a good man. It takes a lot out of a man to see his son go that way. Give him some space. A little understanding. I’m sure things will work themselves out.” Then he gave Mom a pat on the shoulder and sent us home.
When Dad came home that night, we knew that Jack had called him. Dad stomped in, slamming the door. Mom’s hand jerked away from the wooden spoon she was using to stir the ground beef. I stopped drying the glass in my hands and clutched it to me like a baby.
“What lies have you been telling Jack about me, Michelle?”
“I just … I thought …”
Dad’s face was red, his eyes narrow. “You thought what? That you wanted me in jail? Is that what you thought? Do you know what they do to cops in jail?” Dad skipped over the fact that he’s no longer a cop.
“No, I … Of course I …” She stepped away from the stove to get further away from my dad. Big mistake.
My dad whipped the towel off the counter and pulled the cast-iron pan from the front burner. Then he flung it at my mom. Ground beef flew in all directions as the heavy pan hit her foot with a thunk. She was still wearing dress shoes and nylons. The nylons melted and stuck to her foot. I can still hear her scream when I close my eyes. Once again I did nothing, said nothing, changed nothing. What kind of daughter was I?
At the hospital she said it was an accident. She dropped the pan on her own foot. After that she stayed away from Jack Reynolds.
And now that same man is staring at me with his wolf eyes. “Okay,” I say.
I turn and walk away quickly, hoping his walkie-talkie will crackle to life with news of a crime or car accident to distract him. I know the odds aren’t in my favor. Nothing ever happens in Scottsfield. Except to my family, that is.
I force myself to count to a hundred before I look over my shoulder. Jack is still watching me. Why the hell can’t he leave me alone? I cross at the blinking light in front of the school and then dare to look back. He seems to be gone. I run as fast as I can back to the Dairy Dream.
I pull my phone out and try my mom’s cell again. I call her work number, but it goes straight to voice mail. Then I try our home phone. Nothing.
Next to the Dairy Dream is Dr. Duncan’s office. He’s the town dentist. We don’t go to him. I’ve heard he’s a hack. I can’t very well sit in the waiting room all afternoon for an appointment that I don’t have, or ask for a consultation and end up with a filling I don’t need. Since the parking lot is in the front of the building, I decide to hide out in the back. I still have a good view.
Pressing my back against the building, I turn my face so I can watch the Dairy Dream. I stay like that for about a half hour, until I’m sick of standing.
I try crouching down but that’s too much trouble, so finally I just sit on the grass. Which isn’t the greatest idea, because now it’s raining. The only way I could stay dry under the overhang would be if I were a superskinny person like Melanie Rogers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fat—but only thanks to my hyperactive metabolism and not my willpower. Big drips keep streaming off the edge of the overhang and landing in the middle of my hair.
I’m cold, tired, and wet, and I’m also freaking out. It’s past three o’clock and still there’s no sign of my mom. At least school is out, so I no longer have to hide behind a dentist’s office. I get up and walk like Frankenstein to keep my damp jeans from rubbing too much against my legs.
The Scottsfield Public Library is on the other side of the Dairy Dream. As I walk into the tiny building, the head librarian, Mrs. Evans, looks up and frowns at me. I wish the other librarian, Mrs. Scott (Scottsfield is named after her family), was here. Mrs. Scott always greets me by name and asks how she can help. Mrs. Evans is about twenty years past a normal retirement and seems to deliberately not recognize me, even though I’m what anyone would consider to be a regular. I’m glad I didn’t try to hide out there while school was in session. She would have called the school on me within minutes.
The library is made up of a single small room sectioned off by a bunch of strangely painted bookshelves. I sit down at a table in the children’s section because it’s directly in front of the big picture window.
“What are you doing here?” says a little voice. “This is the kids’ section.”
“Billy!” His mom, Mrs. Harper, gives me an apologetic look. She’s a sweet lady who owns a riding stable over in Brookton, where you can rent horses by the hour. Matt and I used to go there sometimes. She always fed us cookies after we’d ridden.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say to Mrs. Harper. I try to feel flattered that I’ve just been referred to as an adult. Even if it was by a five-year-old. “I’m watching for my mom.” It’s refreshing to actually tell the truth.
“Oh. You want to read me a book?” Billy holds up a big book with a dinosaur on the front cover. Matt was obsessed with dinosaurs too at that age.
“Billy, I’m sure she’s busy.”
“Actually I would, but I don’t want to miss seeing my mom. She’ll be in a hurry to pick me up.” Billy looks so disappointed that I wish I could change my mind.
Billy and his mom leave, and the library is empty for a while. Mrs. Evans rearranges the books displayed in the window. I get the urge to shout “Get out of my way! I can’t see!” but I don’t want her calling the cops (i.e., Jack Reynolds) to throw me out of the place, so I keep my mouth shut.
Mrs. Evans comes over to the table and makes a big production of reaching around me to put away books that have been strewn all over. She sighs as if I’m responsible for the mess. Some kid left a drawing on the table. Mrs. Evans picks it up. With a disgusted frown, she crumples it and throws it a
“Hey, wait,” he said. “I’ve heard of this place. They specialize in languages. You’re assigned to dorms based on the language you’re studying and you have to sign a pact that you’ll only speak in that language.” Matt was a whiz at languages. Mrs. Jameson said that Matt was the best Spanish student she’d had in years. Spanish is the only foreign language you can take in Scottsfield, but Matt didn’t let that stop him. He borrowed Teach Yourself Chinese CDs from the library and listened to them at home for fun.
“You don’t need to learn a foreign language to live in Scottsfield,” said Dad. “Everyone speaks English here. Besides, we don’t have the money for a fancy private college. Brookton Community College will do just fine. You can live at home and work at the hardware store on weekends to pay for it. End of story.” Dad snatched the flyer from Matt’s hand, ripped it in half, and stuffed it in the trash.
Matt reached defiantly into the garbage can and pulled it back out. Then Dad punched Matt in the face.
When people asked, Matt said he got the black eye playing baseball with his sister. Which fit really well, since everyone knows I’m terrible at sports. It didn’t of course explain why I would have agreed to play baseball with him in the first place, but most people didn’t make that connection. Just Zach.
At five minutes before seven, Mrs. Evans flicks the lights, even though I’m the only person there. I stay where I am. At seven o’clock, she turns them out completely. I use the bit of light coming through the picture window to find my way out of the building. Mrs. Evans locks the door behind us and takes off down the street without even a glance at me or a good-bye. It’s only drizzling now, and I’m somewhat dried out from the library, but I’m still miserable from the cold and from how I’m feeling inside.
In front of the library there’s a red bench next to a planter of flowers. I lay my backpack on the bench and sit on top of it, vaguely hoping it’ll keep the water on the bench from soaking through my pants. I slope forward a little because my history binder is still in my backpack from before lunch. Which, come to think of it, I never ate. Unless you count the ice-cream cone. Which I don’t. I like to eat, most of the time.