Missing (12 page)

Renegade is standing quietly in the round pen, gazing out through the metal rails as usual. I've just put him through his paces. His turns were smooth and consistently to the inside. Now he's resting.

I make a kissing sound. He bends his neck and stares at me. Then he looks away.

I make the kissing sound again. He turns, and this time he makes steady eye contact. He holds it for two, three seconds. Then looks away.

Next time, he holds the eye contact for longer, at least ten seconds. I feel like we are looking right inside each other. The back of my neck prickles.

Then Renegade takes two steps and turns his whole body to face me.

I move sideways a few feet. Renegade moves his head first and then his feet, keeping up with me. I let my breath out. Marion is smiling broadly and she says, “That's marvelous progress, Thea. Marvelous.”

Her praise makes me feel warm inside.

But the person I really want to show is Dad.

T
hirteen

Tully has unearthed a box of photographs of the ranch. They look like the ones in the old guest books: grainy black-and-whites. Tully says they were taken with a Polaroid camera, the kind where you take the film out of the camera and watch it develop. He thinks they're probably fifty or sixty years old.

We're all looking at them: Tully, Dad, Marion and me. There are pictures of people piled into a hay wagon, riding horses, sitting in boats, playing horseshoes. There's one of a tall woman wearing an apron, and I wonder if it might be a much younger May.

We're passing the photographs around in a circle. Marion is quiet. She takes a long time with each photo, staring intently, as if she were searching for something, and a stack builds up on the arm of her chair.

I come to an abrupt stop when I get to a photograph of a little girl sitting on a pony. A man is holding the lead rope. I recognize them right away. Goose bumps prickle the back of my neck. I feel like I've seen a ghost. “That's Livia Willard,” I say. “And her father.”

“Who?” says Tully.

I tell them the story of Livia, how I found the newspaper article in the old guest book and how Van and I went to the museum. I leave out the part about Van's grandfather and talking to May. I'm not sure Van would like everyone to know that.

“That's sad,” says Dad. “I wonder if she drowned.”

“They searched the lake,” I say. “They didn't find anything.”

“Then someone must have abducted her.” Tully is distressed. “To think that it happened here. The poor child. It's horrible.”

Marion says nothing, but I know she's listening. Her hands, holding a photograph on her lap, don't move.

Now she gets up and murmurs something about looking at the rest of the photographs another day. Her face is pale, and I think again that she doesn't look well.

She's not. She has a headache, a migraine, she tells us. She's going to turn in early.

After Marion leaves, my cell phone vibrates. It's Van, texting me.

“Can I go to a party with Van on Friday?” I ask Dad.

“Where?” says Dad.

“A girl called Lindsay's.” Dad's frowning slightly and I add, “She's in the church youth group and she lives on a ranch somewhere near here. Van's dad said he'd drive us and pick us up.”

“What time will you be back?”

“He'll pick us up at eleven.”

“Is someone supervising?”

“Lindsay's parents.” I don't know if that's true, but I say it anyway.

I'm not that good at parties, and I usually avoid them, but suddenly it's the most important thing in the world to me that I'm allowed to go.

“Okay,” says Dad finally.

I text Van back the good news. I feel all zingy inside, like I want to dance.

Renegade won't do anything right today. His feet are firmly planted and he's not budging. I have to throw the rope hard, letting the end slap his legs, and that makes him buck. He bucks the entire way around the pen.

He's sulking now, staring through the rails as if he's plotting his escape.

I make the kissing sound.

He ignores me.

I'm hot and dusty, and at this very moment I hate horse training. I feel totally fed up with Renegade. Something tells me to stop before I do something I might regret.

Renegade raises his tail and lets loose a steaming pile of manure.

I can't help but laugh. “You win,” I say, “but just for today.”

F
ourteen

On the night of the party, Van's dad drops us off in the driveway of a large log house. Van rings the doorbell and a girl that I recognize from school opens the door.

“Hey, Lindsay,” says Van. “This is Thea.”

“Hi,” says Lindsay. She has long blond hair and she's gorgeous. “It's about time you got here. Come on in. Everyone's downstairs.”

Van knows the way. I follow him down a narrow staircase. About twenty kids are sitting around a big room in chairs and on the floor, talking and laughing. There's a Ping Pong table at one end and a largescreen
TV
. Boxes of pizza, bowls of potato chips and a huge plate of veggies and dip are set out on a table.

Van introduces me around. There's no way I can remember all these names. For a few seconds, everyone stares at me. My smile feels wooden and now I regret coming. They're probably all good friends. I feel like such an outsider.

Van gets a slice of pizza, but I can't eat a thing so I just grab a can of Sprite out of a cooler. I'm mad at myself for feeling so nervous, but I can't help it. I have no idea what to expect. These kids are supposed to be religious. What am I doing here?

The chairs are all taken, so Van and I sit on the floor, our backs against the wall.

Van gets into a long conversation about boats with a boy with blond dreadlocks. I sip my soda and pretend to be interested. To be honest, I'm a little surprised. I haven't been to a lot of parties, but this seems pretty normal. I'm not sure what I was expecting: hymns and prayers?

Someone calls Van over for a game of Ping Pong and he says, “Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I say. “I'm fine.”

The conversation floats around me but I can't think of a way to make myself part of it. Everyone's talking about the usual stuff: computers, movies, music, parties, summer plans. I'm starting to feel stupid, sitting there not saying anything. I glance over at Van. He's teamed up at the Ping Pong table with a short boy with red hair who I remember is called Mike. At the other end are Lindsay and another girl. They're all laughing and shouting a lot. Van high-fives Mike when they win a game.

I get up, put my empty can of Sprite on a table and head for a door in the corner of the room. I'm pretty sure that no one even notices that I'm leaving.

I slip outside into the backyard. There's a full moon so it's almost as bright as day. I take in a deep breath of the cool night air. Then I notice that I'm not alone. A girl is sitting on the step. She has dark brown hair, streaked with red and cut in feathery layers around her face. There is a ring in her lower lip. She's smoking a cigarette.

Dad used to smoke a pack a day. I hated it—the way it made his clothes smell, the way his fingers turned yellow. Not to mention that I was scared to death that he might get cancer. I guess something shows on my face because the girl waves her cigarette and says, “Sorry.”

I shrug. “It's a free world.” I figure I need to offer some explanation as to why I'm out here, other than to spy on her. “I just felt like a bit of fresh air,” I mumble.

The girl looks at her cigarette and we both giggle. “I'm Chloe,” she says.

“I'm Thea.”

“I know,” says Chloe. She makes a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Sit down.”

I sit down on the step beside her.

“You came with Van,” she says.

“That's right.”

“Are you guys going out?”

“No,” I say quickly. “He's just a friend.”

“Hmmm.” Chloe gives me an appraising look, and I feel my cheeks flush. “He's available, you know.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“He and Lindsay broke up a couple of months ago.”

Van went out with Lindsay
. I try to arrange my face so nothing shows, but I'm not sure how I feel about this. Lindsay is so pretty, and she seems really popular.

“We're just friends,” I repeat.

Chloe takes a final drag on her cigarette and then drops it on the ground and puts it out with the toe of her runner. She picks up the butt and lays it carefully on the step beside her. “I don't smoke nearly as much as I used to,” she says. “But you know—it's a party.” She smiles at me, her teeth white against her olive skin. “Van says you're into horses.”

Van has been talking about me?

“I used to ride all the time,” I say. “I kind of grew up with horses.”

“Me too,” says Chloe. “I ride almost every day. Do you have a horse now?”

“No. Well, I'm sort of borrowing one.”

“Like a lease, you mean?”

“Not exactly.” I find myself telling her about Renegade. I tell her about how I'm working him in the round pen and how he's starting to make eye contact with me. I talk more than I mean to, and I cut it off abruptly, embarrassed. Chloe will think I'm a motormouth.

But she looks fascinated. “I'd love to see him,” she says. “Maybe I could ride my horse over one day.” Now it's Chloe's turn to look embarrassed. “Not that I'm pushy or anything,” she says.

“No, I'd love that,” I say. “You can come anytime.”

Van comes outside then, the screen door banging behind him. “There you are,” he says. “I've been looking everywhere for you. You're on for Ping Pong.” He smiles at Chloe. “Hey, Chloe,” he says.

“Hey,” says Chloe. She puts up both her hands.

“No cigarette.”

“We're trying to get her to quit,” says Van.

“Yes, Mother,” says Chloe. “Wait a sec,” she says to me. “Phone number?” We exchange numbers and enter them into our cell phones. Then she gives me a little nudge with her foot and I get up. I glance back at her as Van and I go inside and she mouths “He likes you” at me.

She grins. She has a great smile. It's contagious. I grin back.