Evening News Page 3

  Giselle didn’t really know where to look. His only real friend within walking distance was Eric Beemer, but she didn’t think Teddy would be over there, and she didn’t want to see them. Especially Bill. If he hadn’t bought that fucking gun that Lois never wanted in the first place . . . He was one of those guys who always thought he knew best, who was always bragging about getting the best deal on a car or big screen TV or whatever. Lois was okay, though. Giselle knew that Lois must be feeling terrible. If she were in Lois’s position, she supposed she wouldn’t know what to say or do. But she wasn’t. And she didn’t have any sympathy to spare. Lois could have put her foot down, for once, about that goddamned gun. She should have been upstairs, keeping an eye on the boys, instead of sweating off calories on some fancy Exercycle (which Bill had picked up for “next to nothing, just like new”) in some vain attempt to hang on to her asshole husband.

  The playground at the end of the street was deserted except for a father pushing his little girl on a swing while her brother was trying to climb up the slide part of the slide instead of the ladder. The father yelled at him to knock it off: “Use it the right way or not at all!” The little girl was blond and blue-eyed, maybe a year old. The boy was sulking now, throwing rocks into the sandbox. His father looked at Giselle and heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Kids,” he said, shaking his head. He smiled, obviously happy to see another adult, a member of the same oppressed tribe. She couldn’t bring herself to smile back, and his smile faded.

  “I’m bored,” the boy pouted. “I want to go.”

  “We just got here!” his father barked back.

  She looked inside the fort, built on top of a complicated climbing device that looked like a brightly painted nuclear reactor, but it was empty.

  “You seen a nine-year-old boy, blond, red T-shirt?” she asked him.

  The man shook his head again. “We just got here,” he repeated in a more civil tone. “I guess everyone thinks it’s going to rain.”

  Giselle nodded. “Would you tell him his mother was looking for him if you see him?” She was amazed by how normal she sounded. Your daughter is dead, she told herself. The man was looking at her intently. She supposed her eyes must have been red and puffy. She wished she’d thought to put on her sunglasses even though it wasn’t sunny.

  The boy throwing rocks looked up at her. “What’s his name?”

  “Teddy,” she said, and waited for a moment to see if the boy had anything else to say, but he didn’t. So she turned around and left the playground.

  It started to rain as she walked back down the block. Slow, heavy drops. She didn’t know where else to look. It occurred to her for the first time that maybe he had done something really crazy. Run away. Hitchhiked. Taken a bus. Did they sell bus tickets to nine-year-olds? She should have checked the stash of money that he kept in a Stars and Stripes Band-Aid box in his dresser drawer, gifts from his father and grandparents. She had no idea how much he actually had; he never seemed to spend anything. The last she’d heard, he’d been saving up for his own video camera, but he hadn’t mentioned that in a while. Or maybe he had and she just hadn’t been listening. Maybe she had been too busy worrying about some exam.

  Teddy was a shy and cautious kid. He wasn’t the type to run away. But then he wasn’t the type to mess around with a loaded gun either. He was a worrywart really — the result of living for so long with a moody single mom. When Trina was born, they got a crib monitor. Teddy had asked what it was for, and Dan explained to him about SIDS. For days after that Giselle would find him in his sister’s room, hanging over the crib, checking for signs of life.

  If it was true what Dan said about Teddy’s being the one who shot the gun — and she didn’t believe it was — she couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling, what he must be thinking. Scared to death. Sick with guilt. Her parents had, despite her protests, managed to instill in him a heavy dose of Catholic guilt. Sin and damnation. After he’d spent Easter weekend with them one year, Teddy had started to cry when Ed built a fire in the fireplace, something Teddy usually loved. He clung to her, sobbing and whimpering about hell. Only three years old. Neither Dan nor Giselle believed in God, but she knew from her own childhood how hard it was to shake off those Catholic bogeymen. Just the other day, out of the blue, Teddy had asked her if taping rented videos was a sin. Manslaughter. The syllables kept thudding through her head. They couldn’t be serious. It was absurd, unreal. They were talking about a nine-year-old boy who still liked to watch Saturday morning cartoons in his pajamas. And aside from all that, Teddy didn’t do it. Eric was lying. He had always been afraid of his father, afraid to own up to even minor infractions — a broken dish, a bicycle left outside in the rain. The kid seemed to shrink inside his clothes the minute Bill walked into the room. It was sad to see.

  She looked at her watch. Teddy must be home by now, she thought, and started jogging toward the house. She worried that Dan wouldn’t handle it properly, that he’d lash out at him, say things he’d regret later, once he could think clearly again. What would this do to Teddy, a thing like this? She didn’t really want to think about Teddy at all right now. She just wanted to lie still and think about her baby. She resented having to worry about him, to chase after him, when all she wanted to do was to lie somewhere quiet and dark, hidden and soundproof. All she wanted to do was lie perfectly still and contemplate the enormity of the loss. Which she still couldn’t quite fathom. It was too large, like trying to imagine a million billion. She could imagine maybe a day without Trina. A week. Maybe even an entire month. But a million billion days without her was inconceivable. Her mind just went blank.

  Dan’s mother’s Buick was parked in the driveway. Luisa was sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and crying, clutching a monogrammed handkerchief in her fist. Her mother-in-law was the only woman Giselle knew who actually used handkerchiefs — embroidered, from Mexico. Her dark, silver-streaked hair, usually twisted into an elaborate chignon, was hanging in a braid, as if she’d been ready for bed when her son called her, even though it was only seven-thirty. Ever since her husband died three years ago, Luisa rarely ventured out after dark. Trina was her only granddaughter. Dan’s brother in Tucson had three boys. When she saw Giselle, she let out a strangled sort of high-pitched wail — like a bat in a cave. Giselle walked over and bent down, allowing her tiny mother-in-law — just barely over five feet tall — to embrace her awkwardly and briefly. Luisa was a painter — she had known Frida Kahlo back in Mexico City, in her youth, before she married Dan’s father and moved to L.A. It was the first time Giselle could remember seeing her without her mascara and silver jewelry.

  “Is Teddy here?” Giselle asked, out of breath from the short sprint. Her only exercise of late had been chasing Trina around, picking up her toys, lifting her in and out of her car seat. Before Giselle got too pregnant, she used to meet Dan at the gym on campus three days a week. They would work out on the machines for forty-five minutes and then eat lunch together at the student union. A pleasant routine that she missed.

  Her husband and mother-in-law both shook their heads.

  “The poor boy,” Luisa moaned, but she was looking at a framed portrait of Trina on the dining room wall. Last Christmas, wearing a red velvet dress with a lace collar that Luisa had given to her. A coquettish little señorita.

  Lying in the hospital bed with her dark bangs still damp from swimming, her cheeks burned pink despite Giselle’s vigilance with the suntan lotion, a white sheet tucked under her chin, Trina could have been sound asleep. She had always been an arrestingly beautiful child with her dark Gypsy eyes and long lashes. Strangers on the street would exclaim over her. Giselle and Dan used to worry that someone would steal her; they never left her unattended for even a moment in a shopping cart or in her car seat. Not for a single minute.

  “I couldn’t find him.” She noticed the open bottle of bourbon on the counter and poured herself a shot, grimacing at the taste. She rarely drank hard liquor. She saw Luisa frown and loo
k away. Giselle knew that she did not measure up to Luisa’s image of the ideal daughter-in-law. Luisa had never approved of Giselle’s leaving Trina at day care while she attended classes. And now look what had happened! Even though Giselle had been home, right there, when it happened.

  “Did you check next door?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to go over there,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you.” He held out his bourbon glass for a refill.

  “I don’t think he’d be there anyway.” Giselle sighed and paced around the small yellow kitchen.

  “Maybe we should call the police,” he said. “Jesus Christ, the police, twice in one day. Any minute now I’m going to wake up on the tennis court with Harvey, and none of this will have ever happened.” He took a slug of his drink. “Damn. I promised him I’d call and tell him how she was.” Harvey was his best friend on the faculty. His main ally. “I just don’t feel up to it.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “Maybe I should call Ed.”

  “That loser,” Dan snorted. “And tell him what?”

  “That Teddy’s lost his sister.” Giselle glared at him. She almost snapped, What’s come over you? but then realized how ridiculous she’d sound. They both usually made a point of not bad-mouthing Ed, even outside of Teddy’s presence. She stared at the phone, thinking she should call but not wanting to. Somehow it would make it all seem more real, more terrible, if possible, than it already was.

  The clock on the wall above the sink read 7:40. Almost Trina’s bedtime. On any other night they would have just given her a bath. The water would be draining out of the tub, leaving half a dozen rubber toys beached on the bottom, which Dan had covered with safety nonslip adhesive decals in the shape of smiling fish, and Giselle would be rubbing a fluffy towel over her sweet flushed baby flesh, her sturdy little legs, her distended tummy with its “outy” belly button, her dimpled butt, the rosebud vagina. She would be half asleep on her feet but struggling valiantly to uphold her end of the conversation. She was just learning her colors. She would point to Giselle’s water-spotted blouse (“Pink!”), the curtains (“Yellow!”), the sailboat capsized in the dry tub (“Blue!”), and Giselle would nod and smile, kiss the top of her damp head and murmur, “What a smart girl you are!” Then Giselle would slip on one of the dainty nighties trimmed with lace that Luisa had made for her granddaughter and carry her into her bedroom, where Dan would tuck her in and read her Koko’s Kitten, Trina’s current favorite book, which she demanded to hear every night. She knew and would complain if you omitted so much as a single word, but usually she would fall asleep before the end, hugging her stuffed monkey, Mookie.

  As Giselle picked up the toys from the tub and folded the towels, she would hear Dan’s voice grow softer and softer, fading to a whisper; then she’d see the light blink out and hear him tiptoe down the hall to the living room, where Teddy would be watching TV for another hour, until his bedtime. And if she wasn’t distracted by some worry about her coursework or bills or what she could scrounge up for Teddy’s lunchbox, she might think to herself how fortunate she was to have somehow been granted this second chance, this whole new winterless life in California.

  Occasionally, by way of contrast, she would flash back to Ed getting up in the dark, scraping the ice off the windshield of his old truck while the engine feebly warmed up, and as she struggled to spoon some baby cereal into Teddy’s reluctant mouth, how depressed she’d feel at another day stuck alone in the small apartment with a fussy baby while Ed was off working at a job he hated, so that they could all keep on keeping on, just like thousands of other young and careless couples who had made the same stupid mistakes. Sometimes at night she had this dream that she was at an abortion clinic — there were protesters yelling outside the window — but the nice doctor and nurses seemed not to hear them; soft, serene classical music was playing inside the clinic. They had given her an injection of something and she felt floaty, above it all, free as a bird. Then Teddy’s shrill crying would wake her up and she would lumber out of bed, heavy with fatigue and guilt, to nurse him back to sleep while Ed buried his head under the pillow and resumed snoring. It wasn’t that she didn’t love them. She did. It was just that she hated their life.

  Giselle noticed Dan staring at the wall clock. Then, abruptly, he scraped his chair back and walked down the hall to Trina’s room and shut the door. She held her breath. She was afraid that any moment she would hear his voice reading the first sentences of Koko’s Kitten: “Koko’s full name is Hanabi-Ko, which is Japanese for Fireworks Child. She was born on the Fourth of July. Every year I have a party for Koko with cake, sparkling apple cider, and lots of presents.”

  Although normally Giselle conversed comfortably enough with Dan’s mother, tonight they seemed unable to think of anything to say or even to look at each other. It dawned on her that most of their conversations had been about Trina. When they heard what sounded like a hoarse sob from down the hall, Luisa stood up and refilled the teakettle, diplomatically blasting the water to preserve her son’s dignity. She liked sweet herb teas that smelled of oranges and roses.

  “I’m going to check the garage again,” Giselle said. Luisa looked startled and confused. “For Teddy,” she added. Her mother-in-law nodded vaguely, as if the name didn’t quite ring a bell.

  It was pitch dark in the garage. The light had burned out weeks ago, and Dan hadn’t got around to changing it. That was one of the few things she missed about Ed — how handy he was, how efficient at fixing things around the house. She stumbled over to her old Honda Civic and opened the door for the overhead light. For an instant she thought she saw Teddy curled up in the backseat but in the next instant realized it was just an old blanket thrown over a pile of accumulated junk. Then she checked Dan’s car, which was identical to hers, only a year older, one of the coincidences that had seemed so remarkable when they were first getting to know each other. The same shade of blue and everything. His car, however, was much neater than hers — nothing but Trina’s car seat and a FisherPrice busy box in the back. In the kitchen the phone rang. She heard Luisa say, “Just a minute, please.” Then she came to the garage door and said, “It’s for you.”

  “Teddy?” Giselle asked hopefully even though she knew that Luisa would have said so if it were.

  Luisa shook her head.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “It’s Teddy’s father.” Luisa frowned. “Calling from Nebraska.”

  Giselle could hear the faint disapproval in her voice. Dan’s mother didn’t believe in divorce. Usually they all tried to pretend that Teddy was immaculately conceived. Giselle hurried inside and grabbed the receiver off the counter. Her heart was hammering. She knew that Ed wouldn’t be calling unless he had heard something. He always called Teddy on Saturday morning — nine o’clock on the dot. You could set your watch by it.

  The parking lot of the mini-mall is nearly deserted. Sunday evening all the stores close early. Although even on a Saturday, there wasn’t much activity. It was just another tacky strip mall with a dry cleaner, florist, copy center, beauty parlor, deli, shoe repair, and an all-night drugstore. But it was the only shopping center within biking distance of his house. He’d had to cross a busy four-lane highway, which his mother had told Teddy he was not allowed to cross — when they moved into the house on Buena Vista, she had drawn him a map of the area in which he was allowed to ride his bicycle — but he figured that, under the circumstances, breaking that rule was the least of his worries.

  To kill time, Teddy drank a couple of Cokes in the deli until it closed. Since then he’s been hanging out in the drugstore, pretending to look at magazines. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, really; he just knows he can’t go home. He feels sick to his stomach every time he even thinks about seeing his mother and Dan — or walking past his sister’s room with its bright posters and mobiles. When they moved in, it was a thin pale blue, like skim milk. He helped his mom paint it pink with lavender trim. Teddy got to use
the roller while she painted the windowsills with a small brush. She was studying for a Spanish exam, listening to Spanish tapes while they painted. They still sometimes joke around, repeating the dumb sentences on the tapes, making up ridiculous nonsense conversations when they’re waiting in line or stuck in traffic or something. ¿Que hora es? El sombrero de medico es en la mesa. He and his mom share this goofy sense of humor that Dan doesn’t really appreciate. But Teddy knows Trina would have. You could already tell by what she laughed at.

  He buys a Snickers and a Goosebumps paperback so that the store clerks won’t think he is a shoplifter and sits down in one of two folding chairs by the prescriptions counter. An old man with a metal cane is sitting in the other chair, waiting for his medicine. Teddy notices the man is wearing a hearing aid and breathing heavily. He looks like he might die sitting right there in the chair before they get his prescription filled.

  There is a whole series of these Goosebumps mysteries, and Teddy has already read most of them, including this one, which is one of his favorites, Trapped in Bat Wing Hall, but he doesn’t actually own a copy of it — Eric and he trade them back and forth. It is one of the cool kind — sort of like a video game — where you can choose what is going to happen next. It would say something like “If you want to open the door, turn to page 76. If you want to go back downstairs, turn to page 35.” So there were actually two or three different ways the story could go. And you, the reader, were sort of, like, in control of your destiny. You could make good or bad choices. If your first choice didn’t turn out so hot, you could turn back and do something else instead. When Dan first saw it, he skimmed through the book and said to Teddy’s mother, “Hmmm, interesting. It’s like metal fiction. Those experimental writers like . . . ,” and he rattled off some foreign-sounding names that Teddy had never heard of.