“Have you been on any dates?” Constance asked. “You’ve gone on a couple, haven’t you?”
“Three,” I said. “Not disasters, but not great, either. Mostly people kind of get together. There’s always a function at the office. Someone’s getting married, or a promotion, or—”
“Or an ass lift,” Amy jumped in.
“Or an ass lift,” I agreed.
“My mom always says boys spend their twenties chasing girls, and girls spend their fifties chasing boys,” Constance said.
“How about you, Amy? Give us the lowdown.”
“Nothing to report on the man front.”
“I thought you were dating Mr. Belt Buckle,” Constance said. “The guy you told us about.”
“Bobby,” she said and smiled. “He’s an idiot, but I like him. Nothing serious. We’re just play pals.”
“And work?”
“I don’t care about work, really, but I’m hammering nails for Habitat for Humanity on the weekends. I’m kind of digging that. I get to wear a tool belt. I want to buy a pickup truck. I swear, I’m going redneck.”
The waitress came with our bill. I put my credit card down on it and told them it was my treat.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I would have ordered another drink if I had known you were picking up the tab,” Amy said. “Thanks, Heather.”
“I have one more thing,” Constance said, and she grasped both of our hands. “I want you both to be my bridesmaids. No maid of honor. Just you two. Co-bridesmaids or whatever that’s called. It’s going to be small. Very small. In Paris. I’m sorry to drag you all the way to Paris, but if we book early enough, it won’t be too bad.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said. “And it’s Paris, not Cincinnati.”
Amy nodded. Then she burped. It was a long, hissing burp that sounded like air seeping from a punctured tire. She smiled when she finished and then exclaimed, “Constance, how could you?”
The waitress picked up the check. Lunch was over.
44
Amy left first.
“See ya, dolls,” she said, and she plunked herself in a cab. She had an appointment uptown.
We waved her off, then I walked Constance to the Port Authority. On the corner before we left and went our individual ways, Constance told me Raef had still not heard from Jack. It was our usual conversational touchstone. We always reviewed the Jack situation when we got together.
“Nothing?” I asked, my stomach rising, the pedestrians around us moving fast.
“Nothing. He said Jack hasn’t been in touch. The few contacts they had in common … no one knows where he went. It’s really very odd.”
“So he’s gone? Truly gone?”
She nodded softly.
“What does that even mean?” I asked. “Do we know if he’s alive? Should we try to track down his parents? I might go see his parents or at least call them. I could say I want to give back the journal.”
“I wouldn’t do that, sweetie. He’s dropped out. With all the ways to be in contact now, it has to be by choice, right? Pick up a phone, Facetime, text, e-mail, tweet—you name it. He has removed his electronic footprint. He’s not on Facebook, and you know how freaking hard it is to get your account deleted from Facebook. Nothing. Raef is worried about him. Really worried about him.”
“Does Raef think he’s dead?” I asked, naming my deepest fear.
“No, I don’t think so. Do you remember that day in Paris when they went off together and we went to Notre Dame and looked at the statue of Mary?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Raef refuses to talk about it, but I’ve thought about that day a lot. It was a curious thing to do at that moment. Why leave us when we only had a little time left in Paris? And what did they have to do that was so secretive?”
“Right,” I said, pulling Constance a little to one side to avoid a teenager pushing a clothes cart on the sidewalk. “Jack never said where he went. I guess I never actually asked. I assumed they were up to some sort of boy mischief. Or maybe they were planning a surprise for us. I was a dope, now that I think about it.”
“Well, I’ve always wondered what that might have been. I wonder about that a lot.”
“You think something changed his mind? Something that he went to see that day?”
She shook her head to indicate she didn’t know. It was a mystery. I kept my eyes on hers. She smiled softly.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I would tell you if I knew. I promise. I don’t have a clue.”
“I can’t even put my mind around this.”
“Does it still hurt as much?”
“Yes. As much as ever. More in some ways. You know what adds to it? Because he was so adamant about not taking pictures in important moments, I have next to nothing to look at. It’s like a dream. I mean it. Was he real? I can’t even go back and look at him, really. It’s almost as if he planned to disappear right from the start.”
“Well, stay strong. I promise to get in touch the minute I hear anything about him, but I honestly don’t have an inkling. He’s just gone. He evaporated.”
“I have his grandfather’s journal. But I can’t predict where he will be or when.”
“Does he have a copy?”
I shrugged.
“He does. But he memorized a lot of it. He probably cares more about that journal than anything else in his life.”
“And he let you keep it? And he hasn’t called or written to ask for it back? That seems significant to me, cowgirl.”
“I don’t speak Jack any longer. I’m trying to forget that language. I had a Jack-a-cism.”
Constance leaned forward and hugged me.
“I have to go. I miss you already.”
“And I you.”
“It was good to see Amy. She’s still the tiger woman.”
“She’s strong. We’re all strong, right?”
She nodded, then hugged me one last time and hurried off.