As Maud walked toward those waving arms, she could not remember the last time she had been inside this bar. She knew it was early on, when they’d first moved to town, and she’d gone on a few dates with that charming Hector Juarez, who up and got cancer the same year. She remembered Hector’s stark white hair—like Angie’s now—but she didn’t remember anything about the dark paneling, the neon signs, the clacking pool balls and murmurs, the muted televisions perched in the corners. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked into a place she did not know. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d faced noises and voices and walked toward them. She couldn’t remember the last time she had walked toward someone without an armful of mail, carrying only herself as an offering.
As she weaved through the tables, Maud thought of a different past, one before marriage and parenthood and divorce, before these years of loss and yearning: those fireflies on her grandparents’ farm. After her terrible fever broke, Maud, six years old, had folded herself onto Granddaddy’s wood-splitting rock near the barn at twilight. She couldn’t hear out of either ear then, and she was weak, disoriented, wrapped in a blanket despite the warmth of the evening. And there they came, flickering up from the grass with a yellow-green flash, hovering around the corners of her vision, like a magic trick she had seen at a fair, a man flicking silver coins between his fingers, like the colors and shapes she’d seen in her fever dreams. The strangeness of it made her clasp her knees, holding tight, as if she might disappear if she let go of herself. As she sat there, the world was both too big and too small, and she wanted all of it at once. She reached out and caught one, and the creature bumped against her palms, tickling. She peeked at its glow through the cracks of her fingers. It was like nothing she’d ever known, as if from another world, one with all her heart she wanted to find. She whispered, “Go,” and opened her hands. And it did.
Maud left the Pickaxe and drove up Roadrunner Lane to find a police cruiser in her driveway. Her first thought: stolen letter on the ottoman. The second: driving after two glasses of Chablis. It hit her as she pulled next to the cruiser and saw Gil Alvarez standing next to it.
Maud stepped out, unsteady both from the wine and the fact of Gil. Under the streetlight, his hair looked silver. She blinked and realized it was silver. She hadn’t seen him in person for more than a year, not since his wife’s funeral.
“Did you find her?” Her voice surprised her: steady and clear, despite the Chablis, despite the lurch of her heart into her throat.
“We don’t know yet, Maud.”
“But you found something.”
“We did. I didn’t want to call. But it’s late now, and you can come on down tomorrow.”
“I’ll come now.”
“It’s dark. We’re not going out now.”
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know it’s her—”
“Where?”
“In the wash. Past the bridge, past the old lake. It’s dark—”
“So get a goddamn flashlight.” Maud grabbed her keys and purse from her passenger seat and climbed into the front seat of his cruiser.
At the old lake, Maud followed him into the darkness. The flashlight beam jerked across the path. The sky had cleared, but the waxing moon was a mere thumbnail sliver. She kept her eyes on the ground, stepping only where Gil stepped. The thud of his footfalls seemed to come from a distance.
They reached the dry wash. Gil scanned with the beam, and he pointed at the trail down the slope. “Watch your step.”
Maud started down. Her shoes skidded on the loose dirt, and she threw her arms out, stumbling the last few feet but staying upright. As they walked through the wash, she stayed close to Gil’s back, and she almost bumped into him when he stopped. He lifted his arm.
The beam lit the wall of the wash, cordoned by yellow-and-black police tape. Maud stepped forward and lifted the tape.
“Maud, please don’t touch anything. The forensics team is coming up tomorrow from Phoenix. We need to keep it clean. I don’t need to tell you how much trouble I could get in for bringing you here like this.”
She leaned against the sloped wall, her knees pressing into the dirt. “Shine the light.”
He did. A pack of coyotes began to yip. The high-pitched calls bounced across the air, sounding to Maud as if they were feet away.
“We don’t know it’s her.” Gil’s voice, low, behind her. No, he leaned next to her.
“But it’s someone,” she said. Even through the dirt and brush, she could see the notched bone.
He clicked the flashlight off. The negative image floated in her vision, unearthly black, bone white.
“The rain,” she said. “The whole town was flooded that night.” She remembered the sky as vengeful, mythic with rage and thunder, as if it wanted to punish the earth, pummel it into submission. Body drowned, body bloated, body buried alive.
“We just don’t know yet. Those folks coming tomorrow, they’re good. They can tell a lot with bones. We’ll know more soon.” He patted her arm, his hand warm and assuring. He stood up. “Come on. It’s late.”
The coyotes howled. The sounds moved in from all sides. She pressed her finger against her ear, closing it off.
But she could not mute the sound of her own breath, as shallow as the crude grave just a few feet away in the dark. She could not stop the voice that lived on: Mama, look! Mama, Mama, watch me! X marks the spot. You Are Here. For god’s sake, don’t disappear.
The New Girl