All Dressed Up (40 page)

“Oh,
honey…”

Terri came
out. “Dad called from Saugerties,” she announced. “I won’t worry so
much about him driving now that it’s light.” She shivered. “I can’t
stay in the house any more.”

Time passed,
sluggish and messy, while the day brightened.

Mac and Lainie
made toast and coffee for everyone, smiling at each other once or
twice, privately, about the harmony in the way they worked
together. It felt wrong to have this joy while Billy was missing,
so the smiles were tempered and complex.

Emma persuaded
Terri to take a shower, and Sarah went down to the beach, checked
under the canoes and walked through the woods calling for Billy.
There was no answer, she said, when she arrived back at the house.
Emma and Charlie decided to walk all the way around the lake to
ballet camp, then back to the house along the opposite shore. Terri
said, “Sarah, meet them there in an hour in case they’ve found
him.”

“It’ll take
longer than an hour to walk halfway around the lake,” Sarah said.
“It’s not like there’s a path. You have to skirt around swampy
places and fallen logs, and go across people’s docks and
yards.”

“Well, if
you’re not going yet, try lying down. Your eyes are like burned
holes in a blanket.”

“I’ll try, if
you will.”

“I can’t.”

Not long after
Emma and Charlie left, Terri began to listen for Eric’s car.

The woods were
quiet. It was around eight in the morning by this time, although it
felt like noon. Emma and Charlie said little to each other until
they’d left the house behind and reached a part of the lake
frontage where pines came right down to the water and there was no
human occupation in sight. “We should start calling.”

Charlie
cleared his throat and yelled, “Billy! Billy, answer us if you can
hear us.”

They came
across people from time to time, but none of them could say if any
of the various kids they’d seen could have been Billy. It was
summer. There were kids around. His clothing hadn’t been
distinctive. They called again. “Billy! It’s us. It’s Charlie and
Emma.”

Charlie and
Emma.

In the
listening silence that followed, they both heard the echo of the
words in their heads. Names linked by and. Names that belonged
together. Charlieandemma. Emma-n-Charlie. Two people who weren’t
perfect but who had a chance at being so much better together than
they would be on their own, a chance at bringing out the best in
each other. Two people who’d hopefully already cleared a fair
amount of junk from their emotional desktops. Two people ready to
cut to the heart of the matter and forget the trappings that had
made them both so lost.

Charlie
stopped her underneath a pine tree. “This could be some of the for
worse part that they talk about in the marriage service.” Emma
couldn’t speak, just nodded. Apparently this wasn’t enough. He
lowered his voice, close enough for his breath to whisper on her
face. “Do you still want to, Em?” He linked their hands together
down by their thighs, twisting his fingers softly in hers.

“How can you
even ask?”

“Oh God…” They
held each other, too emotional even to kiss. She could have crushed
him, covered him in kisses and tears. “Is it okay with you if we
don’t do the big wedding this time around?” he said. “Maybe just us
and family and Reverend Mac at St James?”

“Please! You
couldn’t make it small enough for me if you tried. Still wouldn’t
mind a big honeymoon,” she tried to joke.

He laughed.
They pressed their cheeks together and she felt his lips on her
skin. She turned her face toward his mouth and this time they did
kiss, and he tasted right because his heart was right. Right for
her, and no one else. “Emma, oh God, Emma.”

“And is it
okay with you,” she said, after a few minutes. “If it still takes
me a while to work out some of the other stuff? Like what I want to
do with my future? And how much time I want to spend with – ”

Billy. It hit
her again, suddenly, that he was missing, and Charlie proved his
staying power in her life by producing a handkerchief and water and
stroking her back while she got her shaking under control and wet
her mouth and throat with the cool liquid.

“Let’s keep
looking,” he said.

“No, let’s go
back. I can’t do it on foot, it feels too slow. I want to be back
at the house.”

“Okay, yeah,
okay,” he said, and they didn’t talk about small weddings or big
honeymoons any more.

Sarah had done
her best to please Mom by trying to sleep, but it didn’t work. She
lay like a spring on her bed, with her stomach ill and her eyes
aching. She heard Dad arriving, and Mom running out to greet him.
Heard his gruff attempts to comfort her, his groan, her tears. They
came inside. She closed her eyes, but they wouldn’t stay shut. Her
body wouldn’t stay still on the bed. She heard Emma and Charlie
coming back, Emma’s voice saying, “I couldn’t. I don’t know where I
want to be. I don’t know what I should be doing.”

And then she
heard another car slowing to a halt outside, and when she looked
out of the window to see who it could be, there was a zippy little
blue Hyundai with Miss Frances from ballet camp – except that she’d
aged by about fifteen years – climbing out of it and opening the
rear door.

And it was
really true what Sarah had said to Lainie last night about
important things only happening in some way you hadn’t already
thought of, because in the back seat of Miss Frances’s car was
Billy, with a blanket pulled up around his shoulders.

He’d fallen
asleep in the car. Miss Frances gently shook him to wake him up.
Sarah started yelling. “Mom! Mom! Emma! Dad!” Then she started
crying too hard and had to wipe her eyes fiercely with her sleeve
to un-blur them enough to run safely down the stairs. She reached
Miss Frances and the car just as Billy climbed out.

Mom came
behind her, tottering toward him, legs unsteady, arms outstretched,
sobbing and laughing. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”

She fell onto
her knees on the sharp gravel and hugged him while Sarah gabbled
out, “Miss Frances… I don’t understand… you don’t remember me… I
used to come to ballet camp… Sarah Dean… I danced Swanilda one
year… how did you find him?”

And dainty,
white-haired Miss Frances, who looked about ninety years old,
smiled at her and said, “Sarah Dean, of course I remember you. Your
little brother explained to me that you used to come to camp, and I
remembered. We still have your pictures up.”

Sarah laughed
and cried. “Please tell us how this can be happening.”

“An old friend
called me last night,” Miss Frances explained, “to say she’d seen a
car turning into the camp entrance at dusk and she was concerned. I
drove up first thing this morning – I still have my license; I have
a little place in Steeple Point – and there was a boy washing his
face down at the camp beach. We talked a while and decided it might
be the right idea if I brought him home.”

“Oh, thank
you… thank you…”

They were all
crying. Except Mac, who had his arm tight around Lainie and just
looked happy. And Dad, who’d started to wonder out loud about big
plates of eggs and bacon and grilled tomato for a brunch. He
laughed at himself because his hands were shaking.

“I’m sorry I’m
crying so hard, Billy Boy,” Mom said. She grinned through her
tears.

Sarah covered
Billy’s back in little butterfly pats. Lainie stepped forward and
offered Miss Frances a cup of tea.

“I know you
hate me crying,” Mom went on. “I’m just so happy you’re safe.”

“Am I staying
with you and Dad?” Billy said. He stuck out his chin. “I am.”

“Yes, of
course you are, but Emma loves you, too. You mustn’t think – ”

Tactfully,
Billy lowered his voice. Probably not low enough. Emma’s ears
visibly strained. “She never came to see me until she lived with
us. She never talked to me.” Emma closed her eyes. “I don’t want to
have to go live with her. If I have to go live with her I’ll run
away again. I like her… now… I’m getting to… but I don’t want to
have to live with her and Charlie, even if they get married.”

Emma almost
started forward, but Charlie held her back. Not yet, said his arm.
This is not about you yet.

“You won’t,”
Mom said. “But she might want you to go visit sometimes.”

“I could
visit,” Billy cautiously agreed. “I’m never calling her Mom.”

“No, that’s
okay. No one says you have to.”

“Trent in my
class lives with his grandmother, but he knows who his mom is.” He
screwed his face a little tighter. “She’s messed up, or something.”
It was a question.

“Emma’s not
messed up, honey.”

Emma shrugged
at this, and Charlie let her come to Billy.

“Here she is,”
Mom said. “She and Charlie looked for you in the woods for hours
last night and this morning. We all did. We had the police going
door to door. How come you didn’t answer at ballet camp when we
went there and called for you?”

“It took me a
long time to get there. Maybe I hadn’t gotten there yet. I tried
someone’s summer place first, but then they came and I had to
hide.” He accepted Emma’s hug. “I went to ballet camp because it
was for sale so I knew no one was there. I was going to hide if you
came, anyhow, and not answer if you called. But I didn’t hear Miss
Frances. She parked up by the gate and she walks too soft.”

Emma said,
“I’m sorry if I scared you, Billy. I’m sorry I didn’t explain that
things would stay the same. I don’t want to make a big deal out of
this any more than you do, okay?”

He seemed
relieved. “It’s okay.”

“I think Miss
Frances would like some tea,” Lainie said quietly to Sarah.

“Oh, yes. Miss
Frances? Come in, we shouldn’t all be standing out here.”

Miss Frances
had begun to look a little unsteady on her feet. Dad continued to
outline ambitious brunch alternatives but couldn’t get himself
together enough to do anything about them. He remembered out loud
that the police should be called and told that Billy was safe. Then
he started singing Message in a Bottle half under his breath.
Everyone went inside.

“You should
make her an offer for the camp,” Lainie suggested to Sarah. “I
don’t want to keep pushing the idea, but please will you think
about it a little?”

“My tennis
money’s not enough,” Sarah said slowly. “I’d need to take out a
loan. There’s a lot needs spending on the place.”

Emma had been
listening. “How about a joint ownership, Sar?” she said, as if she
potentially liked the idea but wasn’t sure, either. “Could we think
about that?”

“We’re crazy
to be talking about it now. I can’t decide anything. Could we
really work together, Em? Us? Do you think?”

“I’m only
saying think. I’m not saying decide. Think about the whole thing. I
could put together the arts and crafts, and you could do drama and
dance. We could talk about how we would work together, make sure we
didn’t mess it up. Only we couldn’t use our tennis money to buy it
because, don’t forget, that’s only for something important.”

Mom had been
listening, too. She let Billy go, stood up and hit Emma playfully
across the top of her head. “You kill me, both of you. Go on,
Sarah. It’s a good idea. Think about it. Take it seriously. Try it
on for size.”

“Try it
on?”

“Like a
dress.”

“Like a
dress…”

“I’ll help
organize the sports program, if you want.”

“Charlie…?”
Emma said slowly. It had taken her less time than it would have a
few months ago to realize she had someone else to consider. “How
sold are you on staying in the city? Can we think about this?”

“You want me
to come back to my village to heal my people?”

“Something
like that. If you don’t hate the idea. Can we do what Mom says? Try
it on for size?”

“I don’t hate
it. I don’t even hate that you’ve sprung it on me without warning
with your own agenda ringing out clear as a bell.”

“No, well,
good, because that’s what I’m like. It still means you’re allowed
to say no. I like that when I push you, you push me back. It’s good
for me.”

“I’ll come up
with a list of counter demands. Such as that we’re building a log
home on some land, not living in a Victorian in Warrensburg. I do
like it up here, Em. I was born here, remember?”

Sarah saw
Lainie’s face light up, saw her try to hide her expression in case
lighting up wasn’t what Charlie wanted, saw Mac not fooled about
how she felt for a second, saw him put an arm around Lainie’s
shoulder.

Billy
eventually ate Dad’s huge brunch and went to sleep in his room
upstairs. Mom began to yawn. Dad called the police and the Deans’
neighbors in Jersey. Lainie called Angie, and something Angie said
made her start crying on the phone. “It’s okay, honey,” she said.
“Just in your own time. Brooke’s right. In your own time.”

Miss Frances
seemed so happy about the possibility of Emma and Sarah even
thinking about buying her camp that it was difficult to get her to
leave. She handed out her business card with her details printed in
a font so fancy it was almost illegible. She was all pink-cheeked
and excited. Lainie had to go into realtor mode on everyone’s
behalf and promise to organize building inspections and meetings
with the bank, if they reached that point.

“I need to go
see it,” Sarah said to Mom. “I can’t make this decision right now,
no matter how much Emma might want to squander her tennis money on
a whim, while Charlie comes home to heal his people. I need to just
be there without looking for Billy or showing Lainie’s nasty
clients around, and just – ”

Try it on for
size.

“Go,” said
Mom. “Do you want me to come with you?”