What a Mother Knows (5 page)

“
Bien
sûr
, for charity. You were a bit more, shall we say,
zaftig
then.”

“A few extra pounds are not the same as fat, Mother. I ran three times a week.”

Elyse rubbed her own svelte hip. “In any case, your suits won't fit you now. And black is no good. No need to look like you're going to a funeral. Or like you missed one.” She raised a penciled-in eyebrow.

Michelle sipped her juice. “Point taken, mother. But I work in Hollywood—everyone wears black.”

“
D'accord
, but no one has gray hair.” She turned Michelle gently toward the oven until she could see her homely reflection in the glass window. “Go blond. The roots will barely show.” She tapped the small scar on Michelle's forehead. “And you can cut your bangs to cover this scar.”

Michelle pushed her mother's hand away to feel the now-familiar scar from the accident. “I'll ask Sasha, my old stylist, to come by. She can color my hair in the sink. May I borrow your phone?”

“
Non
, I've made you an appointment for later this week at a spa in Beverly Hills: facial, mani-pedi, the works.” She pressed the loose skin on Michelle's face. “Your eyes are hollow and your lips have thinned, but fillers can fix that.”

Michelle scoffed. “I'm not going to a spa while my daughter is missing.”

Elyse continued, undeterred, and reached into her purse for a silk drawstring bag. “Let's start with these.” She pulled a strand of pearls from the bag and hooked it around Michelle's long neck.

Michelle rubbed her fingertips over them. “Were you planning to donate these or sell them?”

“I was saving them for Nikki. They're of little value.”

“
Au
contraire
, Mother,” Michelle said, spying Drew in the doorway.

He stepped inside and kissed her on the head. “I gave you those for our first anniversary,” he confirmed. “Good morning, ladies. How is everything?”

“
Bon
,” Elyse said. “If you don't count the breakfast.” She set his plate of eggs in the microwave and pressed Start.

Drew was already eating when Tyler burst through the front door with Bella. He locked her in the backyard, then returned for a stack of pancakes.

Drew downed the last of his black coffee at the sink. “Be quick. Security at LAX is a bitch.”

Elyse took Drew's empty mug. “I don't like my grandson driving in LA traffic.”

“Not much traffic on Sunday. He'll be fine,” Drew said, rubbing his lower back. He gave her a hug and slipped the copy of
Variety
under his arm.

Michelle blocked Drew's path out of the kitchen. “Please don't go.”

“Oh, honey. I'm doing this for you.” Drew kissed her cheek, then saw her tap her lips. “Sorry, I didn't want to wreck your lipstick.”

Michelle glanced at her mother, then clutched his denim sleeve. “We need to talk.”

“I'll call you,” he said as she walked him to the door. He pulled a petty cash envelope from his wallet and fanned it to show her the $50 and $100 bills inside.

Michelle shoved it in her bathrobe pocket. She used to pass out per diems in the same kind of envelope during production. “Do I have to sign a receipt, too?”

He chuckled and pulled on his jacket. “I'll send you a debit card, but first you need a new ID to prove you exist.”

Michelle raised her eyes to his. “What do I need to convince
you
I exist?”

“Please, Michelle. Don't make this harder than it already is.”

“You're right,” Michelle said. Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes to the
Variety
pinned beneath his arm. Then she tilted her head to see the photo of the woman on the cover. The headline screamed about a three-picture deal at Paramount. “Is that Becca? We used to make up headlines like that in film school! I can't believe she didn't mention this when she visited me in the hospital. She did visit me, right? I didn't make that up?” When he nodded, she smiled. “Let's call her. She'll give you a job.”

“I already have a job, Michelle.” He opened the door.

“You know what I mean.” She clung to him, but he peeled her off like Velcro. “At least let me call Victor—I need to thank him for the orchids.”

“Get some rest,” he said, leaning down for a real kiss. She sighed into his lips. This was how she wanted it to be. She wanted to forget about yesterday, to remember the good times, the soft kisses, like this.

“Be nice to your mother,” Drew said, zipping his jacket. “She talked the rabbi out of performing last rites.”

“Last rites?”

“Whatever they call it in Jewish.” He meant it as a joke, but she could tell by the way his eyes darted past her that it was true. He pulled her into his arms. “Promise you'll go back to bed and rest.”

Michelle nodded. She would promise him anything right now. She didn't even mind the stench of tobacco imbedded in his jacket. She could live with that, with anything, if only he'd stay. “I'll miss you. I've been missing you forever.”

“Me, too, honey.” He blew her a kiss and left.

Michelle ran her hand through her hair, then saw the gray strand caught between her fingers. She hurried outside to the porch and waved to him frantically. When the passenger window rolled down, she called out. “How would you like me as a blond?”

Drew smiled and rolled the window up as the Volvo backed out of the driveway. The tires bumped over the curb.

Tyler had been home from the airport for over an hour before Michelle could shoo Elyse to the mall. Although the Van Nuys Police Station was open twenty-four hours, Saks closed early on Sunday. There was no time to waste.

Michelle gazed out the window as they crested the on-ramp to the Ventura Freeway. From here, she could see the San Fernando Valley, lush and green and teeming with life. The mountains rimming the north side looked close enough to touch, with gray peaks edging the sky like knives. Michelle's Hollywood coworkers used to make fun of her Valley life, but where else could you find sidewalks for skateboarding, public schools that won Academic Decathlons, and pristine baseball fields? Without winter? And yet none of that mattered now; all she could see was the grid of red traffic signals, like the flashing lights of an ambulance. Nikki could be strapped inside one, breathing her last breath.

“You all right, Mom?” Tyler asked. “You look sort of pale.”

Michelle smiled at the irony. “Remind me to get a spray tan.”

Tyler laughed. He had been so quiet when they started out that Michelle thought he was simply focusing on the road. But now she realized that this was the first time they had been alone since the accident. She had missed him so much that the air was awkward between them.

His phone buzzed and he checked the number. “Cody. I forgot his dad wants you to call him.”

“Please tell him I don't have a phone yet. And I already said you could play—my memory may be spotty, but it was only two days ago.” So much had changed in such a short time. She didn't want to think about it. “Tell me more about your new school, honey. Any favorite teachers? Girlfriends?” Tyler began filling Michelle in on his life at Rutgers Prep. She cherished every word, every intonation, every moment of his attention.

Michelle smiled and caught his eyes as he checked the right-hand mirror to exit the freeway. She marveled at their color—the same opaque green as his father's. It reminded her of the algae-rich quarry she used to swim in when she was a little girl. Cool and refreshing, but there was no telling what swam below. Tyler's thoughts were more transparent as he navigated the parking lot at the police station. He'd always been easier to read than his father.

***

“Mrs. Mason, hundreds of runaways end up in Los Angeles every month—and that's the half we know about.” Detective Alvarez, a portly man with silver hair stretched like telephone wires across his head, opened the drawer of his scarred wooden desk and took a hit of Mylanta.

Michelle scanned the bullpen, where cops interviewing witnesses and processing suspects created a mighty din. She raised her voice. “I didn't come here for a lecture, Detective. I need you to find my daughter.”

“We may be close to Hollywood, ma'am, but this isn't a TV show with an entire squad assigned to one case.” He tapped a stack of folders cluttering his desk. “These are from the last twenty-four hours.”

“How many Nicole Deveraux Masons could there be?”

“None, according to our records.” He tilted the computer screen toward her, revealing columns of names.

“Please, it has to be there. My husband said her calls couldn't be traced.”

“Could be misfiled, misspelled, or just plain lost. We have twenty-five thousand cases on a public database you can search online. The only thing more I could try is to look up the report log. What was the date?”

“Year before last. Late November, I think.”

“You don't know?” He appraised Michelle, from the gray hair against the Burberry collar framing her pearls, down to the flip-flops peeking from her hospital pants. He took another swig of Mylanta.

Michelle dug her bad arm deeper in her pocket. Maybe she should have taken more time to dress. She called over to Tyler, who was sitting on a bench across the room. Tyler pulled one of his earbuds out, but not because he heard her. He was saying something to the man next to him, a stringy rocker type in a black T-shirt with a red
R
on it. Something tugged at Michelle's memory until her view of him was blocked by a hug from a friend who looked exhausted, as if he'd spent the night in jail.

Giggling erupted as a few teenage prostitutes in trashy lingerie surrounded Tyler. Detective Alvarez whistled sharply and the whole room stopped cold. A female officer clucked over and hustled the girls to a holding pen farther down past the rows of detectives' desks. The youngest girl pulled down her tube top and flashed Tyler before being yanked away.

Tyler hurried over to Michelle, his cheeks flushed with blood. “Mom, remember when you pointed out those girls walking to Nikki's school with bare bellies and you said they'd end up pregnant and working at McDonald's all their lives?”

Michelle nodded. She used to think that was the worst thing that could happen, to have Nikki end up working at McDonald's.

Tyler laughed nervously. “I thought it meant they'd get free french fries.”

Michelle longed to tousle his hair and kiss his cheek, but he was on her right side. She introduced him to the detective. “Tyler, do you remember when the missing persons report was filed? We need a date.”

Tyler shrugged.

“That's okay. Why don't you go see if the snack cart has fries? I'll be out in a minute.” Michelle doubted that, but she wanted to spare him the nightmare of envisioning his sister as one of those giggling girls. As he left, she could hear the girls reciting their names, Dot and Taffy and Sugarbaby. A cop tossed over a handful of condom packets and the girls fought over them like candy at a piñata party. She turned back to the detective.

“If we don't find her file can we start a new one?”

“You said she was sixteen when she disappeared.”

“A young sixteen. Not like them,” she said, nodding toward the girls.

“But she'll be eighteen by the end of the year, no longer a child. Unless there's a warrant out or new evidence of foul play…” The desk phone rang. He answered it and grumbled in Spanish.

Michelle saw the portrait of a cherubic teenager on the desk. The girl smiled like a princess in a white gown with sleeves shaped like puffy clouds. It was typical for a
Quinceañera,
the Latina version of a debutante party. Michelle wondered whether a party would have made a difference for Nikki. She pointed at the photo. “Is this sweet girl yours?”

“Granddaughter,” he said, beaming as he covered the phone. “I bought the gown.”

“How would you feel if you never got to see her in it?”

“I hear you, ma'am. But in twenty years behind this desk, I've learned a few things. These kids don't take off for no reason. Usually they're being abused or—”

“Excuse me?”

“Nobody leaves a warm bed and food on the table unless something's going down. It ain't called ‘running to.' It's ‘running away.' Half of 'em end up in County.” He lowered his voice. “And between you and me—I'd rather my granddaughter be on the streets than in County. Too many of them end up in the morgue with slit wrists.” He resumed his phone conversation.

Michelle looked at the photo again, trying to picture Nikki in that fluffy gown flitting about at a party. She couldn't. During preschool, Nikki cried when her classmates ran to the gate to greet her. At Brownies, she'd spent every meeting hiding under a desk playing with plastic unicorns. She was never picked for plays or invited to slumber parties, and puberty hit so hard she punched holes in the wall. If only slit wrists weren't so easy to imagine.

Detective Alvarez pointed to his business cards.

Michelle stood up slowly, so straight and tall that even her mother would be proud. She put her left hand on his phone. “Pardon me, but I don't have Internet service. Do you mind giving me a few more minutes' worth of my tax dollars to check the database again?”

Her crippled right arm swung out of the pocket. She pulled it back, but not before he cringed at the sight of the scar tissue wrapping her right hand.

“You're not on the dole yourself?”

“The what?” Michelle asked.

“Disability.” He pointed at her limp arm.

Surprised, she looked down and saw where her power lay. She had thought of herself as injured, not disabled. It hurt to think that's how others saw her now. But if it helped her find Nikki, she would use it to her advantage. She cleared her throat. “Detective Alvarez, are you discriminating against the handicapped?”

The room quieted as others turned to look. He saw them and ended his phone conversation. He put his hands on the keyboard. “Name?”

“I gave you her name. Can you try different spellings?”

“Let's start with the correct one.” He gestured to the chair.

Michelle spelled out Nikki's name. She estimated Nikki's height to be the same as hers, five foot eight, and her weight at 130. She had mousy brown hair, brown eyes, the gazelle-like gait of her
grand-mére
, and a wee bit of her father's Irish pallor. The detective promised to do what he could, but now she understood. He couldn't do much.

Outside, Michelle scanned the quadrant of dead grass between the courthouse and the county offices, then spotted Tyler at the food truck.

“Get any answers?” Tyler called, waving a half-eaten churro.

“Just more questions,” Michelle said, spotting a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. She tossed it in the trash and wondered if Drew's plane had landed. She wanted to call him, but he had already refused to talk about this today. She could try tomorrow, but how would it help to interrupt his first day of preproduction meetings? She knew firsthand how hectic that could be.

They walked to the car. Michelle wished she had brought her cane, but at least she had Tyler to lean on. If only he didn't walk so quickly. She watched him take another sugary bite. It was satisfying to watch him eat—must be the Jewish mother in her. She hoped he didn't have to go back to school anytime soon. “Are you on Spring Break?”

“Not for a couple of weeks. But this is an excused absence. The attendance lady loves me.”

Who wouldn't? Michelle thought. Then she realized that Nikki's school had an attendance office, too. If she could find out the first day Nikki missed school, Detective Alvarez might have a better chance of tracking down that file from the report log. Michelle was reluctant to get her son more involved, but she didn't see a way around it.

She couldn't imagine how hard the whole thing must have been for him. Aside from the usual problems of puberty, with his voice breaking up and his face breaking out, his entire life had been turned upside down. One day, he was playing baseball and all he wanted to do was pitch. The next day, his pitching coach was dead, his mother was gravely injured, his sister had disappeared, and he had to leave the only home he'd ever known to attend school clear across the country.

When they reached the car, he opened the passenger door for her. She gave him a kiss before getting in. “I'm so sorry, Tyler.”

“For what?”

“For putting you through all this.”

He shrugged and helped her with the seat belt. “It's not your fault, Mom.”

She nodded, but it didn't make her feel any better.