All the Rage

todd is on the front porch when I get home.

He sits on the lawn chair, his feet propped up on the blue cooler, a half-drunk bottle of beer resting between his thighs. His head is tilted back and his eyes are closed. It looks like a life worth having and it’s strange, appreciating his repose. Whenever I’d see a glass or bottle in my father’s hands, my whole body would steel itself for the inevitable drama of a man who didn’t know when to say when. Todd—I know he’ll stop here, at this one drink, and if he doesn’t, he won’t go past two. I push through the screen door and he cracks his eyes open.

“Your mom’s running errands. How was school?”

“It was school.”

But it wasn’t, not really. Penny’s absence is changing the landscape and it feels less and less like a place we go to learn and more a place we exist just to soak in the shock of it.

This morning, I watched Alek watch himself on the video announcements. His chin rested in his clasped hands as he mouthed along to his lines about the search party next week as he spoke them on-screen. It was like he was dying in two realities—on TV and in the flesh.

Brock, who always waits for Alek between classes they don’t share, who always plays errand boy for Alek for whatever Alek might need, who always provides a barrier between his best friend and the rest of the world like a personal bodyguard, now filters this routine through her disappearance. Brock waits by doors dutifully, so Alek won’t walk alone, Brock stands in the lunch line and gets two lunches so Alek won’t have to receive sickly sweet condolences from the cafeteria workers who slop food onto his tray, and Brock stands in front of any questions about Penny Alek might not want to answer himself.

“You doing okay?” Todd asks.

“Sure.”

He picks at the label on his bottle. I can tell he doesn’t buy it, but I don’t know what Todd’s definition of okay is. Maybe it’s some impossible standard we’re all going to fail to meet. Besides, I don’t see how I’m not okay, all things considered.

Before he can reply, the phone rings from the kitchen and a half second later, the ring echoes upstairs. The landline is a holdover from Mary’s time. Mom tried to convince Todd to get rid of it because we all have cell phones now—well, most of us—and it’s just one extra bill to pay, but Todd refuses. He says the day one of us needs an ambulance or something will be the day every cell phone in our place dies. The way our luck runs, I think he might be right.

He gets up slowly and follows me in. I toss my bag on the floor while he goes into the kitchen to answer the call.

“Bartlett here,” he says and it makes me smile. I don’t even really know why. I slip out of my shoes. “Uh, just a—hey. Romy?”

I turn and he stands in the hall, the phone cord stretched all the way from the far kitchen wall, the receiver pressed against his chest. He looks at me weird. It makes my skin prickle.

“It’s for you,” he says. “It’s the sheriff’s department.”

*

the grebe sheriff’s Department is hidden behind the main street, across the road from the post office. I coast up to the small building on my bike, hop off and rest it flat on the sidewalk, blocking the entrance. I hesitate at the front door, my palm flush against it. It’s not that I expect everything to stop when I walk in. It will go on like however it always does, but whoever sees me— When I’m gone, they’ll open their mouths.

I exhale and step into the frigid cold of the place, cold enough to make me shiver and rub my hands together. I step through another set of doors and a metal detector and head to the front desk where Joe Conway—the Conways’ youngest son—sits. Todd told me he’s been working here about a month, I guess, and everything gets back to Dan, so be careful what I say. I can’t think of anyone worse for the job. He gives me a toothy smile, eyes flickering over my body. Paul Grey’s kid. That’s what he’s thinking. She— Whatever thought he has after that, he can’t make me take.

“Leanne Howard said you had my phone. Found it at the lake.”

He blinks. I took the hello right out of him. He looks around, like he doesn’t know what to do about it and he probably doesn’t.

“I’ll just look into that for you,” he says.

He gets up and slips through a frosted-glass door. I lean against the counter. The quiet is unexpected. For some reason, I thought this place would look like in the movies, maybe, Penny’s disappearance being the life in the room, making it frantic, but it’s not. That’s just what I want to see, I think. How can they find her if it isn’t?

When the frosted-glass door Joe Conway left through opens again, Leanne steps out. She’s in full uniform. Her hair is knotted back into a bun and she’s thick on the eyeliner today. She’s got my phone and it’s a relief to have this one thing from that night back where it belongs.

“Do you need my ID?”

“I think you’re who you say you are.”

She sets the phone down on the desk, back facing up, etching in clear view.

Romy Grey.

“Where did you find it?” I pick it up.

“Just off the path, in some bushes, some of the boys did,” she says. “We’ve had it since Sunday night and I told them to call you about it, but—” Big surprise, they didn’t. “When I saw it still sitting there today, I just thought I’d get the job done myself.”

“Thank you.”

“Glad you look better than the last time I saw you. You feeling it?”

I can’t tell if it’s a jab at me or not. I glance at her and she looks soft, not vicious, but a lot of people in this town are a soft kind of vicious. I say sure but instead of leaving, something keeps me where I am, something I need to know.

“Can I ask you about Penny?”

The door behind her opens again and Joe comes out. Before Leanne says anything to me, she turns to him. “Joe, you want to go upstairs and get me those reports I asked you for over an hour ago?”