Marilou Is Everywhere Read online

  I liked Kayla. She was the only one who didn’t make up a story about why Jude was out of contact, and eventually she called the detective again to insist they open a file. Even months after the police had unofficially closed the case, she wouldn’t let it go. Sometimes I would run into her at Pecjak’s, and we’d stay talking by the hoagie counter, scuffing our shoes on the linoleum to keep ourselves going.

  “I just feel like if I go back, I could find her and she wouldn’t be gone,” she would say. “We should’ve never left her there. It was a terrible thing to do.”

  And I would tell her that sometimes, when I felt bad, I would just imagine the worst thing happening over and over until it got muscles, until it ran off the tracks, until it became completely monstrous and unbelievable, and then it wouldn’t be so bad. I had a waking dream that went on and on. It was a figure with big dark shoulders and it came into my bedroom. Nothing was worse than the moment before it kissed me. It swung its chin down and moved like liquid while my life exploded in lights, lights, trying to figure a way out. Trying like this was worse, which it knew, and so it looped itself. Again the big dark shoulders coming in, the liquid and swoop as it moved down to kiss me. It would not leave until I had given up and let it fall upon me and possess me completely.

  Bread was the main thing we could not manage to keep enough of in the house, even when Virgil got three entire loaves, one to eat right away and two to go in the freezer chest. We were crazy for bread. We made mayonnaise sandwiches. I sometimes put lettuce on mine when we had it, but they were mostly mayonnaise. Or I rolled them up single pieces in my hands until they were just white balls, heavy to chew through. They left white bits of stickum in my teeth because my teeth went all ways in my mouth.

  The problem with the frozen bread was we got a taste for that, too. All three of us, although I thought I was the only one doing it at first. Virgil and Clinton were always hungry from work. I was hungry just from being tired of myself, and the sun. The inside of our house would be invisible in the dark, after being outside, and then it would turn green and then I would see my brothers digging through the pantry for whatever was left. Donald Duck orange juice, all the time. We had a raft of cans that never ran out. I got cankers in the low parts of my gums, and I had a bad tooth in the back of my mouth that whined and sang and made me like it more, somehow, to eat frozen things. But after Jude disappeared, Virgil was spending all day at Bernadette’s house, trying to help her get through her grief, and he stopped paying the electricity. Then we just ate from cans or what didn’t need any preparation. It was like camping, except inside a house.

  Did everybody else know where she was? I didn’t like my mother, and I worried anyway. Sometimes I imagined her alone in a hotel room, trying to find her glasses. Or I imagined her on a dark street, on her hands and knees, trying to find her glasses. It was the only way I could feel a pang. And when I couldn’t feel a pang, I felt nothing at all.

  I didn’t like eating. It was the only thing that I liked, so I was depressed when it was over, even though it was the only thing. My tongue felt like a parasite apart from me, a lonely creature wandered far from its ancient ocean. I didn’t eat for as long as I could stand. I drank pop instead. I drank so much pop I couldn’t taste water anymore. It was too brackish. I realize that sounds unusual or unhealthy, but also the water where we lived smelled like eggs. It left hard white rings around the glass. You’d need a scrub brush to get them off, but why do that when the rings would come back again the next day? So I didn’t. Even though I was responsible for washing the dishes, I sometimes just rinsed them and let them dry and nobody had a problem with it.

  One day I walked all the way to Pecjak’s by myself. The air from the cars going by lifted my hair. Sometimes Sissy pretended she needed a corner swept and let me do it, and paid me in Cheetos or whatever. It was less cute now than it had been when I was ten, and I could tell she kind of didn’t want to let me anymore. We couldn’t pretend I was of any actual help. But I kept going because while she made my take-home bag of food, I could usually steal something more exciting. It made us even, I had decided. She got to pity me, and I got my ice cream bars. That day I was so hungry that anything I ate passed right through and didn’t stick. I was so hungry I had a stitch up my side and I had to walk a little leaned over. I wasn’t picking up my feet right. I kept skidding my toe on the road from walking heavy.

  There was a man I had never seen before in the restaurant part of the store. Sissy stood over him at a booth with a memo pad in her hand like a waitress, which she never did. Usually, you ordered at the counter, you paid, and then you sat—in that order, she would not hesitate to tell you. I recognized him from the TV—he was Jude’s dad, although I might have known anyway because I had never seen a black man in Sissy Pecjak’s store. It was strange, seeing someone I had never seen before. I know that sounds dumb, but in places like where I’m from, you really do know everybody, so it was a little thrilling. I knew he was some kind of pastor, but he wasn’t wearing anything religion-y, just a short-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the top and blue jeans. He pulled a pair of reading glasses down from his head and swiped at something on his phone, squinting.

  “Excuse me, miss, but is there a wi-fi password?”

  I caught Sissy’s face when she turned around. Her eyes were big. “Wi-fi? Oh no. No, we don’t.”

  “Ah. I’m not getting a signal, it seems.”

  “Well. You can drive up to the PennDOT gravel pit on 18. That’s usually high up enough to get a call out. Or Centennial Hill, in the graveyard. We’re a little behind the times out here.” She made up an ice water and pointed that I should bring it to him, and sucked her teeth like he was asking an awful lot.

  Mr. Vanderjohn was still looking over the laminated menu, although I don’t know why, because it was basically just a list of toppings you could get on a hoagie, or not. He ordered a chef salad with dressing on the side, so I knew he was about to be disappointed. The salads at Pecjak’s were just hoagie guts with white confetti lettuce and no bread. Beneath the menu he had a stack of hot pink flyers. I recognized Jude’s face, even though the image was blown out. It was a school portrait. She didn’t look anything like the picture from the news, I mean, she was wearing a turtleneck and a suede vest. It said MISSING and REWARD in huge letters and there was a phone number at the bottom. He seemed to sense my eye lingering.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Cindy Stoat.”

  “Aha, an old-fashioned name. I have one myself: Alistair. Perhaps you go to school with my daughter?” He pulled a flyer out from a tote bag at his feet and held it up next to his face. “This is her. I’m trying very hard to find her.” He pointed at Jude’s picture with his index finger. In the yearbook picture, Jude had a stiff smile, the kind you give to a person bothering you on the street.

  “I don’t really know her. But my brother was her boyfriend.”

  “Oh, of course—Stoat, Stoat. That’s right. How is Virgil?”

  “He’s, um. I don’t know.” I was going to say Virgil was sad, except that wasn’t exactly it. He was certain Jude had run away—and was it even running away when you were eighteen? He wished she had asked for help, but thought she could handle herself. “He’s been helping her out. Bernadette.”

  “Virgil has always been very patient with her.” He took a big breath and seemed to hold it in his chest. “Perhaps I’ll see him. I’ll be staying with Bernie a few days.”

  “I guess so,” I said. Was I supposed to say something else? It felt like I should, but I had nothing for him. His eyes stayed warm for a moment, and then a more desperate thread ran through them.

  “At school, was anybody—were there any—”

  “Cindy, stop bothering the man! Get over here. I got a little work for you to do.” She rolled her eyes like Mr. Vanderjohn was being ridiculous.

  Sissy gave me a wet rag to wipe on the shelves, so I had to go a
ll over the store and couldn’t watch him, except I did see his eyebrows go up when Sissy put the salad down in front of him. He ate quick after that, like something about his day had been decided. I heard him getting directions from Sissy to the post office in New Freeport, and Bell’s Grocery in Hundred, and all the other places to leave a flyer. The bell chimed behind him, and I felt for a moment unspeakably sad that he had to go around by himself with his flyers.

  He left behind a stack of them at the register. There was a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Judith Vanderjohn of Deep Valley, Pennsylvania. It said to call the Guardian Angel Foundation Clearinghouse Hotline with tips. I had only heard about that amount of money on a game show. It seemed pretend, like Jet Skis or a brand-new car. I had about walked out the door before Sissy reminded me about the bag of sandwiches and cottage cheeses expired by a day and like that, and she let me pick out a candy bar but made me promise I would only eat it after I had ate a real thing.

  “Can you believe it?” she said. “Wi-fi password. Huh. I didn’t even know you could get internet on an Obama phone. Just not fancy enough, are we, Cindy? Nobody ever gave me a damn thing, that’s for sure. I never needed a handout.” I folded up the flyer and put it in my back pocket when she wasn’t looking. I don’t know why I was sneaking. I wasn’t stealing it. It was there for anyone to take, even me.

  The plastic bag cut down into my hands and I stopped a few times along the road to let the blood back into my fingers, which turned yellow-white. When the trucks went by, I listened for the last moment when I could hear them. At some point, it was washed out of the air and it was just me listening to my head’s echoes. I could always tell when one was coming, the growl shifting up the gravel like thunder or a rumor, or someone about to shout.

  V

  A black car stopped in the mud. There was no place to pull over. The grass went right up to the road, and it was tall since Virgil never wanted to mow it after mowing other people’s yards all day. There was a man inside with rain on his leather coat collar. The car looked steamed from the inside. He couldn’t see me. There were vines. The dogs tasted the air after him. They didn’t have names, so I called them both You, privately, in my head. But I called them Black You and Blond You so I could tell them apart.

  The man came walking back a few minutes later. His curly hairs looked like they had been sewn in with a thick needle and his face was all putty. He came right up to the door and tried to see inside. Clinton was asleep on the couch. I shook his legs, and he swung out a hand that looked white like a blind fish leaping at me. The dogs were shivering. They wound around the man’s feet and left paw skids on his khaki pants.

  “Hi there,” he said when Clinton got to the door. “I’m just here to talk about something. I’m from the high school.”

  Clinton folded down his sweatpants. They had come right up over his belly and he looked like a stuffed doll with seams in the middle. There wasn’t any need but he turned on a flashlight and swam it over the man’s shoes, up and down his thick legs.

  “Hi there. I’m looking for Cindy Stoat. Does she live here? You the head of the household?” He had a folder of papers and he was licking a fingertip to get into them.

  “Nome,” Clinton said. “I’m not in charge of anything.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Better not. Power’s out.”

  “Is this 288 Wildman Run Road? I need to speak with Donna Stoat. Is she your momma?” The drops from the man’s brow were making dark blisters on the sheet.

  “She ain’t here.”

  “Ah, OK. Can you tell me when she’ll be back? I got a number here, but your phone’s out.”

  “Couldn’t say. When she’s coming back. The power’s out, like I said.”

  The man stepped back from the door to sight the house, as if he might discover me hanging out a window or waving from the roof. Somehow I knew I had to hide from him. I had been watching from under the windowsill, where I could see up into his big poky nose holes.

  “You’d be Clinton, is that right?”

  “Whatever.” Clinton had a high voice. Something had happened to his throat when his age started changing, and he got caught in this terrible middle place. Sometimes I could hear boulders squeaking against each other when he spoke. He sounded like a girl. There was something soft and foul about his voice, though I hardly ever noticed unless he was speaking to a stranger.

  “Listen. We both know you’re past school age. I’m not coming for you. But Cindy flunked ninth grade this year on bad attendance. Do you know about that?”

  Clinton knew all about that. He was the one who went out to wave on the school bus when I stayed in bed. He was the one who told me I had fevers from being delicate, although I usually felt just fine. It was in the eyes, he said, which is why he could tell and I couldn’t.

  Actually, I liked school sometimes. I liked the classes where I didn’t have to talk. I liked when we read about older worlds because I could imagine myself a lean little life of carrying wheat stalks and seeing demons and sleeping every night with rushes over my head. And I liked reading. Something happened to me where the words trailed off to the side and instead I saw the movie in my mind of whatever the words said. It was like walking into deep snow. Just at once, gone everywhere and the trees parsing themselves out of shadow, then shadow again. At home I had only one book. It was the folk tales of China. Mr. Loughman had given it to me in the third grade. I had to handle it very nicely because the pages were yellow at the edges and would snap off if I opened it too wide. Demons came out of the sea. In one story, a girl got a peach pit stuck to her forehead, and when it fell away she was marked ugly and made fun of. I tried to stick peach pits to my forehead after that. I don’t know what I thought would happen, even if it had worked.

  Clinton hated school, and never finished. He got beat up a lot, I don’t remember why. He said it was OK that I felt sick sometimes. He said sometimes sick is something somebody else can see on you, and it sneaks up and you don’t know that you’re acting weird. Clinton always told me when I was acting weird, but it was news to me. When I stayed home, we watched TV together. When the power got shut off, we started running it off the generator, a squat clanking thing we moved from room to room. It was so loud you had to turn the TV to max, but I liked the static washing through what people said on the screen.

  “I don’t know much, sir, to be honest with you,” Clinton said. He let a big spit fall out of his face onto the man’s shoe. It stretched out a glittering moment before it fell.

  “Look, someone’s gotta sign this.” He held out a packet where some of the words I could see were in bold letters. “She’s gonna have to repeat the grade or go to summer school.”

  “Oh sure,” Clinton said. “I’ll drive her there myself! In my limousine!” He held the pen cap in his teeth while he signed.

  “OK,” the man said.

  “I’ll pick her up, too. In my dune buggy! Shit. We’ll ride a white horse.”

  “OK, thank you,” he said, and turned to go back in the rain. Clinton followed a few slack paces behind to make sure the man got all the way into his car and got it in gear and everything. The dogs rushed the fence as the car sped up away from us, and Clinton went out in the rain with them and pet them and wrestled them down till they were sickly excited.

  “Yes, yes, babies,” he said, smushing their faces. “Murder, murder. Kill, kill.”

  The responding officer, so I heard from Kayla, took a long time to understand what he had been told. He thought Kayla was the missing girl’s sister. Bernadette would not let him in the house at first. She insisted he hand over his badge for her inspection through a slit in the screen door. According to Kayla, she brought out a spike of quartz on a thread and dangled it over the lump until the pendulum began to inscribe a clockwise course. Bernadette squinted at him, but let him in.

  Kayla had to
show Bernadette photographs from the wedding to prove to her it had already happened. She had pictures, too, from the campsite. Here they all were crushed in together with half their teeth showing in their smiles in front of the gorge at the lookout point. The flash had flared B.D.’s eyes into animal darts. In one picture, Jude stood behind the fire giving the middle finger to the camera. It was an unkind picture of her, from a bad angle, but the time stamp was true. In another, one of the girls was mooning the camera, her head cracked around to see Jude’s reaction, Jude laughing and shielding her eyes.

  “Isn’t that something,” Bernadette had said when Kayla pointed out the date in yellow numerals in the picture’s corner. But her voice was vacant, the kind of thing you say when you don’t quite understand the person you’re talking to.

  “Yes, this was two weeks ago, Mrs. Satterwhite,” Kayla said.

  “So you mean to tell me the girls already went on the camping trip,” Bernadette said. Mondo was sitting at her feet and she chugged the loose skin on his back while he made a low, tense huff.

  “Ma’am, this girl here says she was on the trip with your daughter.”

  “You—” She looked at Kayla, sitting in a small wedge of the overstuffed couch with her bony knees almost vibrating in front of her. “You’re Marlon Whipkey’s girl.”

  “Yes,” Kayla said.

  Bernadette stared into her hands and looked up between Kayla and the officer.

  “Why don’t I get us all a gin and tonic?” she asked. “Hot enough today.”

  “I’m afraid I need you to file a report, ma’am,” the officer said.

  “A report! Why would I do that?”