“Not if I see you first, little lady.”
I turn around and give him a professional thumbs-up with my right hand, and a decent A-OK gesture with my left, which is pretty difficult what with me doing three Dews and a bag of peach gummies, but I manage. I’m almost out the door when I pass a newspaper stand that about makes my heart stop.
Strike that.
The newspaper stand surgically removes my heart from my body, then stomps on it like it’s an empty soup can.
“You okay, hon?” asks Hefty Cashier.
I nod, but no, I’m not. I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am not okay. I am shocked.
A flyer, just next to the newspaper, just by the door, just at eye level, just right in my face . . .
I always hated that picture.
Always.
“Are you going to comb your hair, Mim?” I pull my long hair around one shoulder, then swallow a bite of waffle. “Dad. I combed it.” He stands by the toaster, waiting for his own Eggo. Long ago, we’d turned in our waffle maker for the frozen food aisle. “Really? It looks like you just rolled out of bed. Did you blow-dry it?” Mom walks in the room, wearing those ratty slippers, giant bags under both eyes. I pretend not to notice. “Mom, please explain to Dad the repercussions of me blow-drying my hair.” Mom says nothing, goes straight for the coffeepot. I look back at Dad. “They’re unfathomable, Dad. The repercussions cannot be fathomed.” At first, Dad doesn’t answer. Mom’s presence seems to have thrown him. I look from one to the other, wondering how many nights they can keep it up. Mom waits on the coffee. Dad turns, stomps out of the room. The second he leaves, his waffles pop up. “Mom,” I whisper. She looks down, opens her mouth, then whispers, “Not now, Mary.” Dad storms back into the room and tosses a green turtleneck at me. “What is this?” I ask. He pulls his waffles out of the toaster. “It’s school-picture day, Mim. You have to dress to impress.” I hold up the turtleneck, a Christmas present from last year, which I’d promptly buried in my dresser. “What does that even mean?” He takes a bite, looks to Mom for help, finds none. “You have to dress for who you want to be, Mim, not who you are.” I take a bite of Eggo, talk with my mouth full. “Well, I don’t want to be the keynote at an Amway convention. And I’m not blow-drying my fucking hair.” Mom stumbles out of the room. Dad chews his waffle, watches her leave. He turns to the cabinet and pulls out my bottle of Abilitol. “We’ve tried things your way,” he says, setting the bottle in front of me with a resounding thud. “And watch your mouth, for Chrissake.”
The memory fades.
As I stand in that hellish gas station, staring at myself in the picture, I have the overwhelming sensation that Myself in the Picture is staring back. She’s wearing the green turtleneck. Her hair is blown dry as the Sahara. And even though the black ink is faded, the words are blinding.
MISSING
MARY MALONE, 16
LAST SEEN IN JACKSON, MS, WEARING A RED HOODIE AND JEANS
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL 601-555-6869
My epiglottis can currently be found somewhere in Earth’s stratosphere.
I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze my mom’s lipstick. God, this is . . . this is . . . well, it’s certainly not nothing. It’s certainly something. The somethingest something there ever was.
I storm out of the gas station and hop back in the truck.
Walt raises his eyebrows. “Hey, hey, where’s my Dew?”
“Here,” I shove the bottle into his hands and tear into the bag of peach gummies.
“You okay, Mim?” asks Beck.
(Gummy one, down.) I really hated that turtleneck.
“Mim?”
(Gummy two, down.) What has it been, like, three days? Leave it to Kathy to freak out over three days. Probably trying to prove to my dad that she cares, but seriously, a Missing Persons report?
“Mim!”
I swallow my third gummy. “Yeah?”
“Are. You. All right?”
No. I’m all wrong. “Yeah,” I lie.
Beck shakes his head, brings the diesel engine to life.
“Wait,” I whisper.
(Gummy four, down.) My memory of that morning was identical to a thousand others, right in the middle of the darkest of days. Mom, slippers, silence. Dad, waffles, denial. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat . . .
“May we help you?”
Walt’s voice brings me back to the now. I turn in my seat, flick his cap up, and kiss him on the cheek. “Walt, my God, you are a thing of beauty.”
“Hey, hey, I’m Walt!”
“Mim, what’s going on?” says Beck.
“Nothing, it’s just—we need to make one last detour.”
Beck’s eyes are searching, as if he’s inside my head, walking around with a flashlight, inspecting a certain dusty corner. Oh, says tiny-Beck-in-my-head, I see. Yes, we really should take care of that.
“Where to?” he whispers, half smiling like he does.
I point back to the highway. “Next exit.”
“Wooooooooster,” says Walt between chugs of Dew.
(Gummies five through nine, down.) “Not Wooster, buddy. Ashland.”