Someone I’d leave attached to the pole on that cold day, someone I’d never think of again in this lifetime.
But I knew she wasn’t just any girl. I had a glimmering pull of recognition, burning me through and through, so I couldn’t even sense the cold. I’d never felt anything like it before. All I knew is I was meant to find her.
The flyer had only facts. She was 17
—like I was; I’d just turned 17 the week before. She’d gone missing from some summer camp I’d never heard of— though it was around here, in the Pinecliff area, near this place that overlooked the frigid, gray Hudson River from the steep hill on which our town was built. The commuter train that ran alongside the river stopped here nearly every hour during the day, and crept past at night. The summer camp had to be close.
I tore the page from the pole, ripping it loose from where it was stuck fast with packing tape that had been wound and wound around the pole to keep her from falling face-first into the snow, or from getting carried away on a gust of exhaust and escaping into the traffic leading to the New York State Thruway.
It was the clear tape covering the details on the flyer that had kept it from disintegrating for all these months. It was also the tape, so much of it, that made it almost impossible to tear her free.
When I crossed the intersection again —more horns honking—and reached my van, I saw that some Good Samaritan (or a creeper disguising himself as a Good Samaritan) had stopped his own car on the shoulder to offer help. There was some tinkering with the engine, mention of a possibly busted fan belt, and a plume of gray smoke that spat itself into the man’s face and then lifted up into the bone-white air overhead, a blot of hate on the sky that already threatened more snow. There was a tow I couldn’t afford, and an hour waiting on a greasy folding chair in the back of the garage because it was too cold to wait outside. It wasn’t until they fixed my van and I was headed in late to school that I had a moment alone to take a closer look at the flyer.
I didn’t tell Jamie or Deena, or anyone. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to tell. This discovery was mine, and I wanted to hold it close.
My heart had an irregular beat that I can almost hear again now, like an extra thump was thrown in to make me think there were two hearts in the van, thumping.
There were—but I wasn’t aware at first. This was before I knew she followed me.
— 2 — I ’ D parked in the senior parking lot even though I wasn’t a senior, cut the engine, and was sitting there holding it.
The flyer. The paper was the same temperature as my fingers—cold—so I couldn’t feel either.
I tried to flatten the paper against the steering wheel, smoothing the tears and wrinkles from her face as best I could to study what they said about her.
“Endangered Runaway” they called her. A sliver of fear entered me when I saw they said she was in danger, but now I know that everyone under eighteen who goes missing is called endangered.
On Missing posters, if you’re not an “Endangered
Runaway,”
you’re
“Endangered Missing,” but you’re always in danger—it’s never a “She’s Probably Doing Okay, But We Have to Check Since It’s the Law” missing girl.
Besides, Abby was in danger. I felt it.
I pored over her flyer again, learning her hometown, her hair color, her eye color, her weight and height. I learned that she was gone before she was reported missing, and I didn’t understand why. I learned of her pierced nose. I didn’t learn about her habit of writing the name of the boy she liked on the inside of her elbow, then spitting on it and rubbing at it till it was clean. That information wasn’t on the flyer, and this was before she told me.
I would have pocketed the piece of paper and gone into the school building, and maybe all of what happened next would have been different, but that’s when I saw the light.
My Dodge van had one of those cigarette
lighters
built
into