“Three,” Lenhardt said. “That I know of.” He popped his eyes and let his mouth gape, but he was too tired to pull off his own shtick.
“Be good,” he said abruptly and ambled off.
Be good? Where had that come from? But she took his advice, took it across the board. Drove straight home, woke up her sleeping husband, and made love to him, which he assumed was her way of apologizing, and maybe it was, although she didn’t think she had anything to apologize for. Life was so short, and she didn’t want to be at odds with the person who knew her best. The person who loved her before, the person who loved her after, the person who swore he would love her always.
Andy went back to sleep, but Nancy never did, not that night. She stared at the ceiling, adding seven to eleven, then subtracting it.
The call had to be a wrong number.
Thursday, April 16
8.
The first child disappeared from the Rite Aid at Ingleside Shopping Center. She was strapped into a cart on aisle 11-Baby Needs, Foot Care, Feminine Hygiene-when her mother, Mary Jo Herndon, remembered a new kind of hair gel she had seen advertised just that morning. The gel promised to get rid of the frizz while adding shine. She saw herself with straight, glossy hair, tossing it around as she laughed with some man. Maybe Bobby, maybe not. The actual man was less important than the shiny banner of hair, flying around the way it did in commercials, warm as sunlight on her shoulders.
Hair care was one aisle over, but there was a woman between Mary Jo and the end of the aisle, a big-butted woman who was studying the Dr. Scholl’s products with fierce concentration, her basket placed at an angle that made it impossible for another cart to get by. And Mary Jo didn’t want to ask her to move because there was something obstinate in that big behind, the sense of a woman spoiling for a fight. It was easier to leave the cart, step around the woman, and jog to the hair care aisle. After all, she was just going to grab the gel and then go to the cash register. The trip was already out of control. Mary Jo had come for toilet paper and charcoal, and now her cart was almost full.
Rite Aid didn’t carry the brand she remembered from the commercial, but it had a dizzying array of alternatives and Mary Jo paused to consider her options. There was a whole line of products in sleek lavender bottles, but the manufacturer called it a system, suggesting it was all-or-nothing. Part of her mind knew this was a gyp, a bluff. There was no way you had to buy the whole set to get the benefits of the gel.
But Mary Jo also believed an expensive purchase could be transforming. The product might not be any better, but choosing to pay extra was a way of saying you deserved a little luxury in this world and that mind-set could make it so. Didn’t she deserve the best, or at least something better? That’s what everyone said: You deserve better. Of course, her friends and family were talking about Bobby and her living situation, but there was no product on the earth that could fix Bobby. She grabbed a bottle of the lavender stuff and trotted back to aisle 11.
Aisle 11 was empty. No Jordan, no cart, no big-butted woman staring down at the Dr. Scholl’s products. Mary Jo must have gone the wrong way, turned right when she should have turned left. No problem. She retraced her steps, heading to aisle 9.
That was empty, too.
The first empty aisle had made her nervous, but it had been a safe, contained nervousness, for she assumed she had taken a wrong turn, that Jordan was waiting for her around the next corner. Mary Jo had felt the way she did on the long, cranking climb of the roller coaster at Adventure World-scared for the sake of it, yet secure, knowing the climb was just part of the suspense, that the fine print on the ticket was just for show.
When she reached the second aisle, she no longer knew what was happening or how it would end, and then all bets were off, all promises voided. She started trotting the long, diagonal corridor that bisected the store, shouting out Jordan ’s name and trying to imagine the worst. Because if she could imagine a thing, it couldn’t happen.
A child cried, sharp and scared, and Mary Jo ran toward the sound with gratitude and relief. But the child she found on aisle 3 was a boy, his face red from where a hand had just lashed out, his mother glaring at Mary Jo, ready to defend herself. Mary Jo left them, thinking: You are so lucky to have a child to slap. No, that wasn’t quite right. She promised God she would never slap Jordan again, never raise a hand to her in any way if he would just give her back. She didn’t, not often, and she knew it was wrong. Never again, she promised. Never again. You hear me, God?
Other promises followed as she ran a serpentine path through the store, up and down the aisles, calling Jordan ’s name at intervals. She would be a better mother overall, patient and kind, not even yelling. She would be nicer to her sister, although Mimi did have a way of lording over her, making Mary Jo feel like a fuck-up because Bobby had proved to be so unreliable. What else? Oh God, she would be so perfect in every way if Jordan turned up.
“Ma’am. Ma’am.” The pharmacist’s voice was insistent, chiding, a voice of authority. He was going to tell her to stop shouting, stop running. Who was he to say she couldn’t yell, when her baby was missing? “Ma’am-please, ma’am.”
“I’m looking for my little girl, my Jordan. She’s three? Has long curly hair like mine, only kinkier and darker?” She didn’t understand why everything was coming out like a question, as if she needed this strange man to confirm what she was saying. “She was wearing-she was wearing-”
Oh, God, what was she wearing? A dress. Jordan was going through this stubborn phase where she insisted on wearing dresses every day. Green? Blue? A hand-me-down from Mimi’s three girls, something with smocking or embroidery at the top. In the car, Jordan had pulled the top off her Sippee Cup, leaving a dark red stain on the front. Mary Jo had screamed at her because Jordan knew better, she had taken the cup apart to be contrary. But Mary Jo wouldn’t do that, never again. Stains came out if you treated them right. Stains weren’t important.
“Ma’am.” The pharmacist grabbed Mary Jo’s arm and pulled her down a corridor leading to a rest room. There was her cart, with all her things-the toothpaste and the toilet paper and the potato chips and the charcoal and the two plastic lawn chairs in case they cooked out tonight, if Bobby stopped by for dinner. And there was Jordan in the booster seat. Her dress was blue. Right, she knew that. Her daughter’s dress was blue.
Jordan looked scared, and Mary Jo, who could not see her own face, didn’t realize her expression was not much different from when the Sippee Cup had come apart in the car. She grabbed the girl from the cart and covered her with kisses, asking what had happened, demanding to know who had moved the cart, but giving Jordan no chance to answer. She started sobbing, thinking of all the possible bad endings. Only then did Jordan begin to cry and babble. But her three-year-old vocabulary was not up to the task of telling her story.