“Would you believe ‘Women Who Got Robbed’?” Olivia asked.
“What do you mean you were robbed?” she said, not letting go of Olivia’s arm. “When?”
“Last night. This morning. I don’t know. While I was asleep.” Even now that the girl had taken everything from her, she still wanted Ruby to be a secret.
Amy was waiting for more, so Olivia said, “I woke up and everything was gone.”
This was exactly what Mimi had said, and it felt right to Olivia, until Amy said, “You didn’t have anything to take. Your house is basically empty.”
With great clarity Olivia remembered what was on that answering machine tape: “Hello, you’ve reached the summer cottage of Olivia and David. We’re outside playing croquet right now, but leave your name and our butler will get back to you.” It had been funny, she remembered. A joke for Rex, who liked to tease them about having bought a summer house. In fact, David had ended the message with: “Unless this is Rex. Then our butler’s butler will call you.”
“Olivia?” Amy said, and by the way she said it, Olivia realized her sister had been trying to get her attention.
“I had some jewelry and stuff.”
Amy’s face went all sad. “Like your wedding ring?”
“And Grandma’s pearls.”
Amy, so much shorter than Olivia, tried to hug her, but it felt awkward, her head pressed into Olivia’s breasts and their legs knocking together.
When they got back into the living room, Mimi had stopped crying. “This is so embarrassing,” she said. “Trey,” she began, then, to Olivia, added, “That’s my son.”
“He’s a JD,” Jill said.
Amy jumped in. “A juvenile delinquent. Ever since the divorce.”
Jill took over. This time, when Olivia could relate, Jill avoided meeting her eyes. “There’s a group of kids who are real trouble. High school kids. They run away from home and live in abandoned houses here at the beach or at the college in summer. And basically, they rob people. Break into houses and wipe them out. Trey has been caught twice already. He runs away for a couple weeks, until Mimi finds him and brings him back.”
“Where do these kids hang out?” Olivia asked. She thought of Ruby sitting at her kitchen table that day. She thought of how long her house had sat empty, inviting these kids, these J fucking Ds in. She thought about how stupid she was. Even as she waited for their answer, she was getting up to leave.
“At the A&W past the college,” someone said.
“Olivia,” Amy said, following her, “these are not nice kids. Don’t go down there thinking you can get your stuff back or anything crazy like that.”
But Olivia could not stop to explain. Ruby’s face floated in front of her, sure and smart-assed. Olivia held that image, and she let it lead her as she ran now down the wooden steps toward her car.
There was something creepy about this part of Rhode Island. Too far from the beach, too far from the orchards and chicken farms in the western part of the state, too far from the city or the suburbs, and too far from the college to be quaint or historic. It was, Olivia thought, nowhere. The road was dark and straight. Here and there, behind the trees that lined it, were some new housing developments, like Janice’s, and a few older ones, like Ruby’s parents’. There were also trailer parks and the remnants of communes. Then, out of nowhere, the old A&W, its sign slowly spinning, bright white and orange.
The parking lot was full of dented cars with rusty paint jobs and souped-up cars that sat on oversized fat wheels. In the darker corner of the parking lot, a group of teenagers sat around on hoods of cars, or on the asphalt itself. Amy was right—these were not nice kids. The boys had greasy long hair that reminded Olivia of the bad boys when she was in high school in the seventies. Some tied it back in loose ponytails. They wore faded jeans jackets, leather vests, tight jeans stained with grease. Their skin looked sickly, too white.
The girls were either waiflike, skinny and pale, with tangled long hair and wide eyes, or tough-looking, all large breasts and wide hips and too much makeup. Olivia watched them from the safety of the brighter area near the building. She didn’t see Ruby among them. In a way, Olivia wanted this to be a dead end. But there was only one way to find out. Olivia forced herself from her car, toward the group at the far end of the lot. She felt, walking toward them, as if she were in a Stephen King novel, that at any moment some sort of inhuman force would leap out at her. She remembered why she’d stopped reading Stephen King novels; they scared the hell out of her.