Juno's Daughters (31 page)

Lilly chewed her lip. “Did he say anything about me?”

Jenny smiled. “He said you had a mouth on you. But of course, we both knew that.”

“He said . . .” Lilly's back straightened with outrage. “Well, I won't even tell you the things that he said.”

Jenny held the wheel with her left hand and rested her right gently on Lilly's arm. “It's done, baby. Really. Done.”

Lilly nodded and looked out the window. “Okay.”

“U District?” Jenny turned and followed the signs for I-5 and Seattle.

“Sure.”

It was close to eight p.m. now, but the line of traffic heading out of Seattle was still steady. The lights in the city had begun to pop in the dusk and the sky had one last streak of orange in it that was fading fast.

Lilly flipped open the glove box and began to fish through the odds and ends inside: random maps, flashlights, a takeout menu from the Chinese restaurant in Friday Harbor. “Didn't you used to keep candy in here?”

“There was an old Snickers bar.” Jenny glanced at her watch. “I ate it about two hours ago.”

Lilly forced a small smile. “Figures.”

Jenny said, “We'll get you something to eat.”

“No hurry.” Lilly pulled her knees up on the seat and wrapped her arms around her legs. The toes of her now-bare feet poked out below the hem of the skirt. “I'm not mad at you anymore, you know. About Trinculo.”

Jenny's face burned. “I shouldn't have . . .”

“There are
way
better guys in Marin. Bankers. Movie stars.”

Jenny gave her a sharp look and this time, Lilly's smile wasn't forced. “Just kidding.”

“Lil, you've got to stop that running around with different boys all the time. I'm serious now. It's not good to . . .”

“I will,” said Lilly softly. “I mean I
am
.” She glanced over at Jenny briefly and then looked out the window. An eighteen-wheeler pulled up alongside them with Cascade Farms written on it in cursive. “I guess I was just kinda bored. At home.” She dropped her feet back to the floor of the cab and slipped them into her sandals. “I think it's great, actually. About you and Trinculo.”

Jenny avoided looking at her. “I haven't spoken to him since Frankie disappeared.” She merged right toward Exit 169 and the University of Washington, glad that she could concentrate on her driving rather than the expression on Lilly's face.

“Did he break your heart? That
asshole
.”

“I'm sure there's a good reason why he hasn't called.”

Jenny's mind flashed to the mysterious laughter she'd heard on his end when she called from the police station and she experienced a moment of doubt. She pushed it out of her mind with an image of him sitting beside her on a rock after they had climbed Mount Finlayson. The peak of Mount Rainier stood jagged against the sky and a large navy ship inched its way through the sound like a toy boat in the tub. He had told her about being engaged when he was in college in Boulder. It had ended, he'd said, when he had changed his major from business to theater.

“Practical girl.” Jenny had stretched out on the rock to look at the sky.

“No doubt,” said Trinculo, and he had lifted her shirt to trace her navel with the tip of his finger.

Beside her, Lilly raised her eyebrows. “Oh please, Mom. Spare me.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What a total douchebag.” She added, “You know, I never knew why you and David split up anyway. It was fun when he used to come over and bring his harmonica.”

“Let's not talk about my love life, okay? We have more serious things to think about.”

They parked in the U District and walked through Ravenna Park for what seemed like miles, scanning benches and abandoned patches of grass. They peered into the faces of people as they jogged by, stopping to chat with dog owners, students, and a park worker who was emptying garbage cans near some tennis courts that had fallen into disrepair, the nets sagging and uneven. The sun dropped in the sky and the pedestrians and joggers thinned out. Neither Jenny nor Lilly said much when they were alone. They just walked and looked. Jenny's phone rang in her pocket and they both jumped.

The cop had called once before with a question about Frankie and this time his voice was grim. “Some kids at a squat near I-5 said they might have seen your daughter with a kid whose street name is Pyro. Look, Mrs. Alexander. I have to tell you that if she's with this Pyro character, it's not good news, but we will try to pick her up as fast as we can. I suggest you take your other daughter back to the hotel. We will call you the minute we find her.”

Jenny closed the phone and stuck it back into her pocket. She picked up her pace.

“What is it, Mom?” whispered Lilly. “What did he say?”

Jenny could see the park entrance now and the bright lights of the clubs and restaurants beyond. “He said that I should buy you dinner and take you back to the hotel.” She looked hard at Lilly. “Can you wait?”

Lilly met her eyes. “Of course.”

Jenny started the engine and headed toward the neighborhood of warehouses and industrial complexes near 1-5. She watched the road and wondered, why hadn't Frankie called when she found out that Ariel was gone? The kid across the hall had given her twenty dollars, which was plenty of money for a cab ride to the ferry terminal and a phone call. Why hadn't she simply gotten on the ferry and come home?

They came within sight of the Duwamish River for a stretch, their eyes peeled on the streets and doorways, not sure what they were looking for. They passed several abandoned buildings, a few with broken windows and a place that looked like an art studio that had a wire sculpture on a concrete post marking the door. After a while they moved away from the river back toward the highway where the sound of traffic was constant, like the roar of the sea.

“Stop.” Lilly had her hand on the door before Jenny could even pull over and cut the engine. “I thought I saw a light.”

Jenny followed Lilly toward a low dark building surrounded on all sides by a battered chain-link fence. As they got closer, she, too, could see a flickering glow coming from inside one of the windows, though it was faint in the now gray evening light.

She lunged forward and grabbed Lilly's arm. “No.”

Lilly tried to yank away. Jenny did not let her loose.

“Frankie might be in there,” hissed Lilly. “Let go!”

Jenny pointed to a cinder block that sat in the corner, near the fence. A step, most likely, to use in hoisting yourself over. “You sit there and wait for me. I will be right back.”

“But, Mom, no . . .”

“Sit!”

Lilly looked into her mother's face. She figured if Lilly could see even half of the resolve she felt, she would not dare to argue. Lilly crossed her arms over her chest and sat. Jenny left her there. Around the back of the building she found a steel door ajar and lightly pushed it open. She walked in and found herself in a storage area, or what might have been one once, cut off from the flickering light they had seen. A sofa was pushed up against the wall. There was a boy lying on it, asleep, his body curled around a sleeping dog.

Jenny paused to look at him. The white skin of his scalp was visible where he had shaved off part of his hair. He was as skinny as Frankie and Phoenix were, but he looked older, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She'd seen kids like this all through the U District that afternoon, in fact the whole city seemed to be filled with lost children and animals. Her heart was pounding. Another two steps in the dark and she would have stumbled and fallen on top of him.

A small fire was burning at the far end of the space and there were several figures sitting around it. Shapes in one corner looked like they might be the sleeping bodies of yet more people. It wasn't yet nine o'clock and it occurred to her that these kids might rise at night and stay up until dawn, like vampires. She swallowed. To get to them she would have to cross the entire room.

She started walking.

“Who is that?” It was a young girl's voice. “Who's there?”

“My name is Jenny.” She tried to speak loud enough so that the girl could hear her but not so loud that she would wake the sleepers on the floor.

“Jenny? Jenny who? What are you doing here?”

It was now almost certain that Frankie was not among them, thought Jenny. Her mother's voice was bound to bring her running. About twenty feet from the circle of light, there were three other kids sitting with the girl who had called out. They were all covered in layers of clothes and bandannas, with glinting nose rings and lip studs and several strands of beads. Jenny was struck by how theatrical they appeared, and how tired.

“I'm looking,” she said, “for a girl named Frankie.”

There was one boy among them, and at the mention of Frankie's name he snapped his head around to glare at the girl who had spoken first. He whispered, “Is that the new girl that Pyro brought? Jinx?”

“That's who I'm looking for. Jinx.” Jenny spoke directly to the boy now. She wanted to shout, but with great effort she was able to keep her voice even.

“Stupid fuck!” The first girl kicked him in the leg with her boot and then glanced sharply at one of the sleeping forms. It was a man wrapped in a blanket. His hair was bushy and blond against the backpack he was using as a pillow.

Jenny walked carefully in that direction. The earlobe she could see was stretched around a disk the size of a junior mint and the man had a series of Roman numerals tattooed crudely on his neck. Jenny knew without a shadow of a doubt that the person she was looking at was Pyro. She was about to kick him awake when the girl hissed at her, “She left.”

Jenny turned. “Where did she go?”

“She just booked out of here, okay? A couple of hours ago.”

Later when she was back at home, Jenny would remember the fear she heard in that girl's voice and feel faint. For now she just ran.

Lilly was pacing by the fence and smoking.

Jenny charged past her toward the truck. “We're going to find her.”

They hopped in the cab and Jenny began cruising at about the pace a lost thirteen-year-old girl might go. Corson led to East Marginal Way, and they followed it down to a little park overlooking the Duwamish.

Lilly saw her first. She was sitting on a bench near the water, hunched over so that all her long black hair was hanging forward over her face like a curtain.

Lilly made a sound and Frankie looked up. Her eyes locked on Jenny. “Mom?” Her face was bruised and bloody on one side.

Jenny drew in her breath and stumbled forward. The grass was muddy near the bench and she slid and almost lost her balance before righting herself and gathering Frankie into her arms.

“I'm sorry,” said Frankie, and she started to sob. “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't, baby. No. No. It's not your fault.” Jenny climbed onto the bench with her. She gasped for breath and her muscles shivered uncontrollably. “Shhh. Shhh. It's okay, now. I'm here.” Jenny held Frankie carefully around her thin shoulders so as not to brush against the parts that were injured. “We'll take you to the doctor, okay? Then we'll get you home.”

Frankie continued to sob and Jenny could hear both anguish and relief in her voice.

Standing over the bench, Lilly wrinkled her nose and pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to cry. “Frankie? What the fuck?”

Frankie gulped and swallowed. She looked up into her sister's face and then dropped her eyes to the clothes she was wearing. They were covered in blood and grime. She said in a tiny voice, “I shouldn't have taken your stuff.”

“Don't be an idiot,” said Lilly.

She and Jenny helped Frankie to her feet. The path was too narrow for them to walk three abreast, so Jenny and Frankie went first. Lilly followed close behind, with her hand touching her sister's back. Jenny and Lilly had flown down the trail in seconds, but climbing back up seemed to take forever. Jenny's mind raced ahead to where she had seen the sign for a hospital.

She had to take Frankie there, and yet all she wanted to do was pack her children in her truck and start driving north.

“Hey, lady, is this your truck?” A guy in a delivery uniform was parked with his flashers on.

Jenny ignored his impatience and walked only as fast as Frankie could go. She had taken the keys with her, but she saw now that in addition to blocking the driveway they had left both doors wide open. It looked like a scene from the rapture.

The man stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head while Jenny and the girls approached. Frankie shifted to climb into the cab and the man saw her face.

“Jesus!” he said. “What happened? Do you need any help?”

Jenny shook her head.