Her.
There’s a basket of white ribbons in front of Alek, for us to pin to ourselves. (What color would mine be?) A stack of MISSING posters and a sign-up sheet. Andy Martin hovers close by, his camera hanging heavily around his neck. His fingers tease the button, like he’s not sure if this is something he should be taking pictures of, for the yearbook.
I edge up to the table and everyone looks at me. Everyone. Alek’s breath gets caught in his throat. I hear it, the catch. Brock reaches across him and moves the ribbons away. I grab the basket before he can get it entirely out of my reach. I take a ribbon and pin it to my shirt.
“Take it off now,” Alek says. I move to the posters, grab a handful of them. He goes to snatch them back but stops himself when I clutch them to my chest. He takes a deep breath. “You take the ribbon off and give those back.”
“No. Tina told me I should help.”
Alek looks at Brock and I know Tina’s in for it later, so my work here is done. Cat Kiley steps forward, nudging me out of the way. Her doe eyes zero in on Alek.
She says, “I am so sorry about Penny.”
“Thank you,” Alek says faintly. He’s still staring at me.
“She’ll come back, though. I know she will.” She nods at the sign-up sheet next to the posters. “What happens when I put my name down?”
This is all becoming too much for Alek, so Brock takes over.
“You leave your e-mail and phone number and we’ll send you any and all updates relating to Penny, calls for action—like putting posters up in surrounding areas—and we’ll be in touch about the volunteer search party at the lake next Monday. Big stuff like the search party will also go out to the GHS student announcement listserv, but Diaz told us not to overwhelm it, so…”
“Wait, I thought the police already searched? You think they missed something?”
“I’m sure Sheriff Turner didn’t miss anything,” Brock says. “But a second look can’t hurt.”
Cat turns red. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She scribbles her name and then hurries away. I pick up the pen. It’s warm from her grasp. I stare at the paper. I think I did this wrong. I shouldn’t have come here but it’s too late to take back.
I put my name down.
“i went to the lake, now it’s settled down over there.”
It’s how Mom greets me when I come home from school. She’s at the door, like she’s been there for hours. I imagine her peering down the street, waiting for a glimpse of me, unwilling to believe I’ll be home until I am home, right in front of her. I take the missing posters out of my book bag before tossing it on the floor, so they don’t get wrecked.
“I looked everywhere,” she says. “But I didn’t find your phone.”
“You didn’t have to do that. Thank you.”
She squeezes my shoulder. “Could still turn up. It’s red, it’s got your name engraved on it. It’d be hard to miss, if it didn’t end up in the water.”
“I wasn’t by the water.”
But I don’t know if that’s true. I want to believe it is. I want to believe that whatever happened at the lake, no matter what anyone says to my face or said online, there were moments I could count on myself, even for something stupid like staying away from the water wasted.
She’s surprised. “You weren’t?”
I hesitate. “No.”
But it gives me away and all the sympathy I don’t want is in her eyes. The posters in my hand become a perfect distraction. I give her one and she holds it as carefully as a newborn, running her thumb over the side of Penny’s grainy face.
“You should take these to Swan’s, if there aren’t some already there.”
“Yeah,” I say.
But I don’t take the posters to Swan’s with me, not at first.
They stay on my desk and it’s worse, having them there, because I keep thinking about what else Tina said to me, half the sheriff’s department looking for me. Better hope that wasn’t the half that would’ve made the difference. Maybe there’s some trucker who’s seen Penny, and they’ll come through Swan’s and the only thing in the way of his saying so is whether or not the posters are up. I don’t know. I just want them both—Penny and Tina—taking up less of my thoughts, so I give in and bring the posters to work and Tracey gives me the go-ahead to tape them to the notice board out front. She looks at the awful black-and-white photo of Penny and sees Penny alive in it in all the ways I don’t. She murmurs, beautiful, she’s so beautiful and it makes me feel like the level of tragedy here is directly proportionate to Penny’s looks. I ask for Monday off, for the search party, even though I haven’t decided if I’ll go. She says, of course and on my way out of her office, adds, “It makes you think, doesn’t it? You’re lucky, Romy.”
I wonder if that means she thinks I’m beautiful enough to be as tragic.
But I say, “Yeah,” because it’s what she wants me to say.
Leon has time before his shift starts, so he helps me put the posters up, manning the tape while I clear away out-of-date flyers to make room.
“How is it in Grebe?” he asks, taping Penny’s corners down.
“How you’d expect.” I place another poster right beside the one I just put up. People will overlook one, but maybe not two or three. “Sad. There’s a volunteer search party next Monday. How was the doula appointment?”
He grimaces. “Gross. I mean, it was good. But now I know about something called a mucus plug? So…”
“Oh. Ew.”
“Yeah. I could’ve gone a little longer being ignorant of that.”
“How’s Caro doing?”