Luz pointed. “Packing tape. Can I borrow? Mine disappeared.”
Maud nodded and handed it to her. Luz’s side of the case was plastered with photos of her teenage girls, the gaps between their front teeth matching hers. One was an older high school portrait of her with her brother Roberto—Beto, everyone called him—both with long feathered hair and oversize collars; another was of a young man in a soldier’s uniform—her brother who’d died in the run-up to the Gulf War. Maud’s side of the case was blank. She reached up and scratched at a sliver of old tape and sticky residue where the Missing poster had once been; she’d taken it down in the tenth year, when Jess would have turned twenty-seven, far removed from the kohl-eyed teenager in the picture and long since local headlines had faded from view. That also was when Maud had stopped holding anniversary memorials or trying to get the paper to do a follow-up. People had begun to look away from the posters and from her, unsure of what to do with their pity. Sometimes people asked what she planned to do—a euphemism for the question they couldn’t ask: Will you declare your daughter dead? Her answer, always, still: I don’t know. Rachel Fischer had met Hugh Leitner and gotten remarried then, and her and Rachel’s strange, unexpected friendship, those lifeline meetings over coffee and wine in Maud’s living room or on Rachel’s deck, had dwindled to occasional phone calls. Of course, Esther still brought bagels or Danish on Fridays, and Iris called frequently and brought over bags of pecans every winter. Detective Alvarez still called or stopped by on occasion, and not only when bodies were found, either; he chatted with her about the weather or the Lobos’ winning season, his salt-and-pepper hair growing saltier over the years, as had hers. They never stopped checking in. They never asked what she planned to do, even after almost two decades.
Luz leaned around the case and handed back the tape with a smile of thanks, the gap between her teeth as thick as a penny. Luz had known Jess—she was a couple of years older, her brother Beto in Jess’s class. They knew the story. Even if they hadn’t known Jess, they would know. Stories like that never died in that town. Transmitted through water or something, like cholera. Or through mail carriers. Her customers told her everything, good and bad, unburdened themselves on their front steps: sore backs and bunions, busted appliances, nephews getting married, lecherous bosses, secret affairs.
For god’s sake, don’t disappear.
Maud shook her head at the inner voice, those old words.
Luz asked, “Any big weekend plans?”
Maud said, “Paris, London, Rome. Hot date with a trapeze artist. The usual.”
Luz’s eyes widened a moment before she laughed, and Maud reminded herself: Watch the volume, Maudly. When she was younger, Maud had trouble regulating, and kids would mock and tease her, cupping their ears and yelling, What? Pardon? Say what? Say again? Then Maud learned to let fly, jokey, outrageous. To hell with them. Jess had tried not to get embarrassed, tried to make a joke of it. You’re at freight train levels again, Mom.
Luz said, “We’re all going to the Pickaxe for happy hour after shift. Beto’s working—sorry, Roberto, he hates when I call him that. He’ll give us free drinks. You should come.”
Maud glanced at the bottom corner cell in her case, 125 Arrowhead, again feeling the tiny twitch in her heart. She said, “Thanks, but I can’t. Gotta wash my hair.” She pretended to toss back long locks and patted her fuzzy gray curls, which she used to color a glossy dark brown but had let go in the past few years.
Luz smiled. “One of these days I’m going to drag you out, mamí.”
Luz. A good egg. A good kid. Trying so hard to make it okay. Maud wrapped a rubber band around a stack and snapped it, remembering, every time, how Jess used to chew rubber bands like gum. She said, “One day, maybe I’ll let you.”
Maud finished packing her trays. She loaded her parcels into the large canvas roller bin, stacked the trays on top, and hauled the bin out to her truck. Before she headed out, she ran through her supplies: water, sun hat, lunchbox, pepper spray, pens, strap cutter, pink slips, phone, scanner, lip balm.