We go out and get a pizza for dinner. That normally would be kind of a fun thing. Tonight, it's very quiet. Nobody has any- thing to say. We mechanically chew and then leave.
When we get back, I make both of the kids do homework for school. I don't know if they do it or not. I go to the phone, and after a long debate with myself; I try to make a couple of calls.
Julie doesn't have any friends in Bearington. None that I know of. So it would be useless to try to call the neighbors. They wouldn't know anything, and the story about us having problems would spread instantly.
Instead, I try calling Jane, the friend from the last place we lived, the one whom Julie claimed to have spent the night with last Thursday. There is no answer at Jane's.
So then I try Julie's parents. I get her father on the phone. After some small talk about the weather and the kids, it's clear he isn't going to make any declarations. I conclude that her parents don't know what's going on. But before I can think of a casual way to end the call and avoid the explanations, her old man asks me, "So is Julie going to talk to us?"
"Ah, well, that's actually why I was calling," I say.
"Oh? Nothing is wrong I hope," he says.
"I'm afraid there is," I say. "She left yesterday while I was on
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a camping trip with Dave. I was wondering if you had heard from her."
Immediately he's spreading the alarm to Julie's mother. She gets on the phone.
"Why did she leave?" she asks.
"I don't know."
"Well, I know the daughter we raised, and she wouldn't just leave without a very good reason," says Julie's mother.
"She just left me a note saying she had to get away for awhile."
"What did you do to her?" yells her mother.
"Nothing!" I plead, feeling like a liar in the onslaught.
Then her father gets back on the phone and asks if I've talked to the police. He suggests that maybe she was kidnapped. I tell him that's highly unlikely, because my mother saw her drive away and nobody had a gun to her head.
Finally I say, "If you hear from her, would you please have her give me a call? I'm very worried about her."
An hour later, I do call the police. But, as I expected, they won't help unless I have some evidence that something criminal has taken place. I go and put the kids to bed.
Sometime after midnight, I'm staring at the dark bedroom ceiling and I hear a car turning into the driveway. I leap out of bed and run to the window. By the time I get there, the head- lights are arcing back toward the street. It's just a stranger turn- ing around. The car drives away.
Monday morning is a disaster.
It starts with Davey trying to make breakfast for himself and Sharon and me. Which is a nice, responsible thing to do, but he totally screws it up. While I'm in the shower, he attempts pan- cakes. I'm midway through shaving when I hear the fight from the kitchen. I rush down to find Dave and Sharon pushing each other. There is a skillet on the floor with lumps of batter, black on one side and raw on the other, splattered.
"Hey! What's going on?" I shout.
"It's all her fault!" yells Dave pointing at his sister.
"You were burning them!" Sharon says.
"I was not!"
Smoke is fuming off the stove where something spilled. I step over to shut it off.
Sharon appeals to me. "I was just trying to help. But he wouldn't let me." Then she turns to Dave. "Even / know how to make pancakes."
"Okay, because both of you want to help, you can help clean up," I say.
When everything is back in some semblance of order, I feed them cold cereal. We eat another meal in silence.
With all the disruption and delay. Sharon misses her school bus. I get Davey out the door, and go looking for her so I can drive her to school. She's lying down on her bed.
"Ready, whenever you are, Miz Rogo."
"I can't go to school," she says.
"Why not?"
"I'm sick."
"Sharon, you have to go to school," I say.
"But I'm sick!" she says.
I go sit down on the edge of the bed.
"I know you're upset. I am too," I tell her. "But these are facts: I have to go to work. I can't stay home with you, and I won't leave you here by yourself. You can go to your grandmother's house for the day. Or you can go to school."
She sits up. I put my arm around her.
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After a minute, she says, "I guess I'll go to school." I give her a squeeze and say, "Atta way, kid. I knew you'd do the right thing."
By the time I get both kids to school and myself to work, it's past nine o'clock. As I walk in, Fran waves a message slip at me. I grab it and read it. It's from Hilton Smyth, marked "urgent" and double underlined.
I call him.
"Well, it's about time," says Hilton. "I tried to reach you an hour ago."
I roll my eyes. "What's the problem, Hilton?"
"Your people are sitting on a hundred sub-assemblies I need," says Smyth.
"Hilton, we're not sitting on anything," I say.
He raises his voice. "Then why aren't they here? I've got a customer order we can't ship because your people dropped the ball!"
"Just give me the particulars, and I'll have somebody look into it," I tell him.
He gives some reference numbers and I write them down.
"Okay, I'll have somebody get back to you."
"You'd better do more than that, pal," says Hilton. "You'd better make sure we get those sub-assemblies by the end of the day-and I mean all 100 pieces, not 87, not 99, but all of them. Because I'm not going to have my people do two setups for final assembly on account of your lateness."
"Look, we'll do our best," I tell him, "but I'm not going to make promises."
"Oh? Well, let's just put it this way," he says. "If we don't get 100 sub-assemblies from you today, I'm talking to Peach. And from what I hear you're in enough trouble with him already."
"Listen, pal, my status with Bill Peach is none of your damn business," I tell him. "What makes you think you can threaten me?"
The pause is so long I think he's going to hang up on me. Then he says, "Maybe you ought to read your mail." "What do you mean by that?" I can hear him smiling.
"Just get me the sub-assemblies by the end of the day," he says sweetly. "Bye-bye."
I hang up.
"Weird," I mumble.
I talk to Fran. She calls Bob Donovan for me and then noti- fies the staff that there will be a meeting at ten o'clock. Donovan comes in and I ask him to have an expediter see what's holding up the job for Smyth's plant. Almost gritting my teeth as I say it, I tell him to make sure the sub-assemblies go out today. After he's gone, I try to forget about the call, but I can't. Finally, I go ask Fran if anything has come in recently that mentions Hilton Smyth. She thinks for a minute, then reaches for a folder.