That’s when I saw movement on the other side of the bandstand. People parted as someone pushed through the crowd. He climbed up the steps toward Lizzie’s mom. Shoulders slouched, hands shoved into the pockets of a wrinkled gray cardigan. His longish, dark hair hung in his eyes. Lorenzo Calvetti, late for his own girlfriend’s vigil.
Even from where I was, I could see the head of police frowning at him. Ms. Lovett paused and motioned Lorenzo to her, wrapping an arm around his skinny shoulders.
“Elizabeth’s absence has left a hole in many lives. She… I know my daughter. She didn’t run away. She’s out there in those woods, and she’s alone and scared. I just want her to come home safely. I need her to come home.”
Ms. Lovett broke down. Lorenzo shifted his weight, like he knew he was supposed to comfort her but didn’t know how. Mayor Thompson ended up being the one to do it. He stepped forward and whispered some things in Ms. Lovett’s ear and pulled her back from the microphone.
The police officer took over and talked about where the search parties would be meeting the next day and what people could do to help. Then the priest led the gathering in prayer. I watched the people on the bandstand. Ms. Lovett wiping her eyes. Lorenzo Calvetti running his hands through his hair. Lorenzo Calvetti looking down at his feet. Lorenzo Calvetti looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. Lizzie was missing, but Lorenzo was the one who seemed in need of rescue.
It wasn’t until people started waving their daisies in the air that I pulled my attention away from the bandstand. It seemed spontaneous but probably was planned, because somehow, everyone else knew that’s what the flowers were for. People held them above their heads and swayed back and forth. Father Patrick prayed, and hundreds of tiny white petals blew around in the breeze, making something beautiful out of something ugly.
I didn’t wave my daisy. I felt small, the way an ant must feel looking up at a field of wildflowers. I was nothing. I was trapped below the flowers, buried under them, while girls like Lizzie Lovett danced overhead. That was life. We all have a place.
I wondered where Lorenzo Calvetti belonged.
Chapter 6
Under the Light of the Moon
I pretty much expected my parents to drop the whole part-time job idea, but they didn’t. That’s why, on the Saturday after the vigil, I spent the day driving around, pretending to look for work.
Except at first, I wasn’t pretending. I went to the video rental place that had been on the verge of closing for, like, five years. They weren’t hiring. So I went to the trendy shoe store next door. It’s a place I’d always hated, not just because they call themselves a boutique, but also because all their shoes are ugly. I wanted to tell my parents I’d put in a lot of applications though, so I was about to fill out the paperwork when Mychelle Adler appeared from nowhere. She was all, “Oh my God, don’t tell me you’re actually applying to work here.” I put down the application and walked out.
After that, I drove to the sporting goods store where the jock manager didn’t look interested in hiring me and looked super uninterested once I told him I didn’t have a cell phone where he could reach me. I do have a cell phone, but it usually sits on my desk or in the bottom of my backpack, uncharged. What did it matter? It’s not like people ever called me. There was a sign outside the fast-food taco shop saying they were hiring, but the greasy teenager behind the counter gave me a creepy look, so I walked right back out.
That’s when I decided to spend the rest of my day driving around aimlessly and making up places I could tell my mom I’d applied.
I ended up in Layton, and that made me think of Lizzie, and that made me think of how she’d worked at some diner. Since I was already in town, I decided to look for it.
It was actually pretty easy. Layton only has a few major streets running through it, so there wasn’t a lot of area to cover, and I only saw one diner that fit the newspaper’s description of where Lizzie worked. The Sunshine Café. I pulled into a parking spot.
The café was a sad brick building at the edge of an even sadder shopping center. It looked like it had been painted yellow a billion years before and never touched again. The name of the diner was written on the side of the building next to a big, orange, smiley-faced sun, and the specials sign in the window still said it was June.