I wander a little down the aisle to the fishing supplies, start picking through the lures. My dad tried to teach me how to fish once. Short-lived, failed experiment. I loved the lures, though. The flashers. They were too interesting for such a boring sport.
“Ken Davis near killed three kids out looking for her the other week,” Art is telling Todd. “Searching the back roads in the dark, none of them wearing reflective anything. I put a sale on some reflective tape. Thought it would drum up some business. That was right before they found her.”
“That’s … how about that.”
Missing girls. Good for business.
“How about you? You loving your domestication?”
“I got a family now, Art. What’s not to love?”
Art laughs. “You got a breadwinner, is what you got and now you have even less to do.” The ancient asshole. I glance at Todd and he just stares at Art, doesn’t join in on the laugh at his expense until Art is uncomfortable he made the joke in the first place. “Anyway—I missed what you needed. What was it?”
“I didn’t say. But a shelf kit. Those ones in the flyer?”
“Right. Yeah. Follow me.” Art shuffles out from behind the counter and leads Todd through the store. He could just tell Todd where it is—this place is barely two rooms—but no doubt he wants the excuse to keep talking. He touches my arm as he passes. “You doing okay there, Romy?”
I don’t look at him. “Yeah.”
They disappear, but Art’s voice carries. I tune it out and walk over to the front window. It’s raining harder now. The main street can’t even pretend it’s something nice in this kind of weather. I turn away and a display at the cash register catches my eye.
POCKET KNIVES
MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO PURCHASE
The knives rest in a box, propped up by a plastic display stand. One knife is open across the top and I can see myself, a distorted mess, in the blade. I scan the colors and patterns laid out below. The knives on the left side are different from the ones on the right. They are steely grays, forest greens, browns, and solid reds. On the right, the colors seem softer. You wouldn’t call them for what they are, but give them names like blush, rose … there’s a pink camo pattern. I’m sure it’s the perfect knife for some girl out there, but I wonder what, if any, kind of sincerity the manufacturer made it with. If they were thinking of that girl, or if they just thought it was a joke.
Maybe they don’t know how easily a girl could make this knife serious.
I reach my hand out.
“Romy.”
I step back. Todd and Art make their way toward me. Todd holds up his shelf kit.
“I’m ready. Are you?”
“Yeah.”
I stare at the open knife while he pays.
I wonder if it would have made a difference.
*
leon’s waiting outside for me when Mom drops me off at work. She honks the horn at him twice, and he waves. His eyes light on me, concerned, like when he first saw me after the road. I don’t like being reminded of that. He asks me if I’m okay and I tell him I’m not the one they pulled out of the river. He frowns.
“They’re not giving you a hard time about it, are they?”
“Leon, that’s what they do.”
“You can talk to me,” he says. “If you need to.”
“I know.”
“I’m really sorry, Romy.”
“It’s okay.”
We weren’t even friends when she died.
He hugs me before I can do anything about it. I like when Leon touches me, but not like this. I don’t want to feel anything about her in the way he’s holding me. He pulls away and I give him a weak smile and we go inside. Holly tells me she’s been having nightmares about Annie, terrible things happening to Annie.
“She won’t listen to me,” she says. “And I can’t watch her all the time. She just wants to push me, she doesn’t think. This thing with the Young girl—I can’t convince her to be afraid of it. I don’t know how to make her scared enough.”
“She’ll grow out of it,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.
Holly pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her apron pocket.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “If she lives that long.”
I work my station, try to lose myself in the repetition of walking the floor, waiting on the tables, taking orders, placing orders, but I can’t. I feel uneasy, like something’s not right beyond everything that’s already wrong and that feeling gets worse the more the night goes on. It gets so bad I end up stopping in the middle of my shift, looking for its cause, so I can make it go away.
Penny’s MISSING posters.
They have to come down. I can’t believe no one here has done that already, that it wasn’t the first thing they did. That not one customer has said anything about it yet.
But—they would have, if they’d seen her.
Penny stares at me. She stares at me until I rip the posters down.
They didn’t see her and now it’s too late.
when the weekend comes, Leon says maybe it would take my mind off things if we go to Ibis and see the baby and I say yes because there is no good way to say no. I paint my nails and my mouth and then I’m ready. I sit on the couch and watch TV until midafternoon, when Leon’s Pontiac pulls up. I have a feeling there’s no point in trying to beat Mom to the door, so I let her and Todd answer it while I fill a cooler with the week’s worth of frozen food she and I made for Caro and Adam.
“Uncle Leon!” Mom opens the door for him and he laughs. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah,” Todd says. “Good to have good news these days.”
I drag the cooler out. Leon stares, impressed. “You really didn’t have to do that but they’re going to be thrilled you did. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Mom says. “Give them our best.”
Leon and I leave. There’s a break in the rain today, clear enough to run and I’m sorry I’m not doing that instead. He turns the radio on and I don’t know what to talk about, so I let the music fill the silence until he can’t seem to stand it anymore.
“Reporters finally clear out?” he asks awkwardly, when we’re almost there.