Pretty Amy (26 page)

Officer Teesdale asked, “Do you know a Lila Van Drake?”

“She does,” my mother said. “Well, she
did
, anyway. Amy chooses not to see or speak with her anymore.”

“Is that true?” Kavanagh asked.

With my parents standing there and two policemen staring at me, I couldn’t really do anything but agree.

The policemen looked at each other and Kavanagh wrote something down. “Have you talked to her at all lately?”

“She just told you she hasn’t,” my father said.

“Then you don’t know she’s missing?”

I heard what he said, but I didn’t understand it. “What do you mean,
missing?
”

“Maybe we should come inside.”

We moved out of the way so they could enter. Kavanagh had to duck to make his way through the door and Teesdale knocked on the side of the doorjamb as he crossed the threshold. They were different from the guy who had arrested us. Who knew Collinsville was so well protected?

“Can I offer you some pancakes?” my father asked as they sat at the kitchen table.

“No,” Kavanagh said.

“Coffee,” Teesdale said, and then gestured for me to join them in one of the free chairs.

It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d been standing. I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t feel anything except hot, buzzing panic.

“Nice bird,” Kavanagh said, pointing at AJ’s cage.

“Did something happen to Lila?” I asked.

My father brought the coffee and bowed slightly as he placed it on the table. He looked down and realized he was still wearing the apron. “I don’t usually cook,” was how he decided to explain it.

“She’s probably on some bender, sleeping one off on someone’s couch,” my mother said.

“That’s certainly a possibility,” Teesdale said, latching his hands together on the table and leaning closer, like he was asking me to deny it.

“Is Lila okay?” I asked, feeling like she had been standing right next to me and I had lost her in a crowd.

Lila
, AJ squawked,
Lila, Lila, Lila
. I put my hand on his cage to quiet him. It was strange, having him repeat out loud the way her name was pounding against the inside of my head.

“Did she tell you whether she was planning on going anywhere?” Teesdale asked, watching me over his coffee cup.

“Where would she go?” I asked.
And why wouldn’t she take me?

“Has she contacted you at all in the last four days?”

“No,” my mother said, glaring at me, daring me to prove her wrong.

“She’s been gone that long?” I asked.

“Give or take. Her parents only reported her missing yesterday. I guess they thought she might come back.”

“They usually do,” Kavanagh said, and both of them nodded.

My father came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.

“Well, are you looking for her? She could be hurt, or lost, or tied up in some maniac’s garage,” I said, my voice escalating.

“I’m sure they are doing everything they can,” my father said.

“It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found,” Teesdale said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“He means she skipped town,” my mother said, sounding like Lila had spit in her face.

“She wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“Really?” she replied, snapping her head hard enough to sprain her neck in order to look at one of the cops. “How often does someone get kidnapped just as they’re about to go to trial?” She was doing her best
I guess I look like I was born yesterday
expression.

“She wouldn’t leave me,” I said.

“Well, she did,” my mother said. “She was smart enough to know that her life was more important than your friendship—something you should have realized by now.”

My father just rubbed my shoulders, I think less out of comfort and more because I was there and he could. I was there and Lila was gone.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to set up a tracking device on your landline,” Kavanagh said. “Just in case she tries to call you here.”

“Yes, whatever you need,” my father said.

“Someone has been calling over and over again and hanging up,” my mother said, sounding very sleuthy.

“That was probably Lila,” I said. “She might need help.”
Lila,
I thought,
or Aaron.
I tried not to think who I would rather it had been.

Lila
, AJ squawked again,
Lila, Lila, Lila.

“Could you identify anything from the calls? A sound? A location?” Teesdale asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, putting my hands on the table and leaning toward my mother.

“How could I have known?” she asked.

But then I wondered when she would have been able to tell me. We yelled about the arrest, we fought about the arrest, we stewed about the arrest. There wasn’t much room for anything else.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Kavanagh asked.

“She hasn’t used it in weeks,” my mother said.

“Do you mind if we check the phone records on it?”

“Whatever you need,” my father said again.

Who knew what they would find on those phone records? Would they be able to find
anything
, considering it had been turned off and hidden up on the high shelf? At least what my mother had said was true. I hadn’t used it in weeks.

“Looks like she made your decision for you,” my mother said, tearing up. “I’m calling Dick.” She wiped her eyes and left the table.

“We have some forms you’ll need to sign for the tracking system,” Teesdale said, looking at my father. “Why don’t you come outside?”

“Don’t worry,” Kavanagh said, “we’ll find her.”

My father squeezed my shoulder and followed the officers out, still wearing that apron. I knew they’d taken him outside so they could talk to him privately, tell him to watch me, to make sure I didn’t follow Lila’s lead and try to go anywhere.

Those calls had to have been Lila, checking in from the road. I could see her. In the distance was a green highway sign. The air smelled of gasoline and cows. Maybe there was the sound of crows cawing, or crickets thrumming, or corn growing. Maybe Lila wanted to apologize but couldn’t. Maybe she wanted to say good-bye without words.

While my mother was upstairs plotting Lila’s murder and my father was in the driveway with a frilly pink apron on talking to policemen, I grabbed the cordless phone and AJ and went down to the basement to call Aaron. Taking my chances before the tracking system was installed.

“Do you know where Lila is?” I asked as soon as he answered.

“Who?” he asked.

“Lila.” I paused. “Brian’s Lila.” I wondered if anyone would ever refer to me as Aaron’s Amy. It was doubtful, considering no one had ever seen us together.

“No,” he said. He had me on speaker. I heard music in the background. I heard him spinning a wheel on his skateboard, but no laughter. He was probably in his room. It was only then that I realized I had never seen his room, had never even seen his house.

“The police were here,” I said. I was out of breath, like I had just run a long distance. “She’s missing. No one knows where she is.”

“Wait, what?” he said. I heard him take the phone off speaker. “Police?” he whispered. “Where’s Brian?”

“I don’t know.” AJ stared at me from his cage, his eyes like shiny black beads. “They say she’s been missing for four days.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

“I don’t
know
anything.” I pulled my comforter off the floor and wrapped it around me.

“You didn’t say something to the police?” he asked again.

“No,” I said. I was starting to feel defensive and I wasn’t sure why.

“Well, why would she just leave?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

I heard Aaron put me back on speaker. I heard him opening drawers, heard him breathing and texting.

“Aaron?”

“I have to go,” he said.

“Are you going to look for them?” I was hoping he would say yes
.
I was hoping he would say,
Yes, I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go look for them together.

“Just call me later, okay?” he said.

“When?” I asked before he could hang up. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. He might be the only one who would be able to tell me that Lila wasn’t really missing, that she was just hiding out at Brian’s house. That she hadn’t really left.

When, when, when?
AJ tweeted.

“Later.” He paused. “Or tomorrow,” he said. “Just don’t do anything without calling me first, okay?”

What did he think I was going to do? I could hear footsteps upstairs in the kitchen, my dad throwing out all those pancakes, pouring hot coffee down the drain.

“Amy?”

“Yeah,” I said, “okay.”

“Don’t worry,” Aaron said as he ended the call.

I picked up AJ’s cage and put it on my lap, holding it to my chest like a pillow. Lila was gone. Cassie wasn’t allowed to talk to me. AJ really was the only friend I had left. At least he could never leave me. I thought about Annie saying I shouldn’t keep him in a cage, but this was why. I knew if I ever gave him the choice, if I ever took him outside and opened his cage, he would just fly away, too.

Twenty-eight

When I woke up the next morning, it was silent, so silent I couldn’t fall back asleep. Something was different; something was wrong. As AJ snoozed in his cage, I crept upstairs. I checked the kitchen first—empty. The family room, living room, computer room, and dining room were all empty.

I listened for noise above me. It was possible my parents were still asleep. I tiptoed up the blue-carpeted stairs to find their bedroom door open, bed made, pajamas folded like small presents on top of it.

My parents were gone, together, without me.

I brought AJ up from the basement and put him on the kitchen table while I made coffee and eggs. I hadn’t eaten anything since my father’s pancakes the morning before. I hadn’t even left the basement.

After I’d gotten off the phone with Aaron, I smoked and cried and watched AJ breathe, watched the yellow feathers on his chest move up and down like a tiny rising and setting sun.

The police were wrong. Lila couldn’t have just taken off into the night. Rappelled down from her window with her bed sheets and hopped into a running maroon van with a back window in the shape of a star, lugging a backpack with her green Chuck Taylors hanging from it, spinning like a baby’s mobile as she pulled the door closed behind her.

But why could I see it so clearly if it weren’t true?

I think my father had tried knocking at one point, but I ignored him. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about Lila. I wasn’t ready to say what I knew: she had left. She had left without me.

Good morning
, AJ squawked as the eggs sizzled in the pan.
Pretty Amy, pretty Amy,
he tweeted as I fed him toast crumbs.

I wondered how much longer I had before my parents got home and I was bombarded by their questions about what I was going to do. Their demands about places I had to go and people I had to see.

I took a bite of eggs and washed it down with a big gulp of sweet, creamy coffee.

“Where are they?” I asked AJ.

Good morning
, AJ squawked in response.

I didn’t know, either, but at least they weren’t here.

I decided to take the chance while I had it to grab my phone from the cabinet on the high shelf. I could call Aaron and see if he’d found her, without fear of the stupid tracking device. Maybe Lila had sent me a text. Maybe she had called me. Maybe Cassie had called while her mother wasn’t looking. If the police were going to know about any of that,
I
wanted to know it first.

It wasn’t until I pulled out the desk chair to use as a step stool that I realized exactly where my parents were. I saw it, written on the calendar in my mother’s script. It was Sunday. My parents were at my high school graduation.

They had actually gone without me.

I felt myself go cold and start to sweat, the way you feel when you overhear someone talking about you.

I threw the eggs and toast down the garbage disposal, grabbed AJ, and went to the basement to try to go back to sleep. It was obvious I had made the wrong decision in even attempting to be conscious. I lay down in my sleeping bag, closed my eyes, and tried to forget, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was.

My parents were at my graduation without me.