is he in high school with my daughter. He’s not a school kid. No droopy drawers and skateboards for him. He’s into airplanes, motorcycles, high-speed machines.
Have him arrested, that’s my first dark impulse. Send this handsome, grinning man to jail. How dare he take my daughter up in a small plane without my permission? How could he let her jump into the bare blue sky. What was he thinking?
Because I know what comes next, even before I flip the page. A shot of Kelly waving bye-bye from the open door. Pale sky all around her. A wobbly, slightly blurred shot of an open parachute, a slim figure dangling beneath it. Then the reunion on the ground, with Kelly looking triumphant as she folds up her colorful parachute. A parachute that looks about as substantial as the silk scarves displayed next to her counter at Macy’s.
It feels like I’ve been kicked by a mule. At the same time, in some weird way, everything has gone numb. How could I have been so stupid, not to have had an inkling of what was going on with this boy? Never knew he existed until yesterday, and yet he and my daughter have, obviously, been executing a series of death-defying stunts. No doubt there’s more going on than motorcycles and parachute jumps.
Suddenly, whether or not Kelly has decided to have sex is a lot less important than the fact that she’s risking her life to impress an older, thrill-seeking boyfriend. Save that hogwash about skydiving being as safe as going to the supermarket. If my purse doesn’t open, I don’t end up embedded in the concrete, okay? When I make a mistake parallel parking, do I drift into the high-tension wires? No. Skydiving is about certain death being averted at the last possible moment, that’s what makes it exciting. I may be a stick-in-the-mud, the type who always fastens her seat belt, but I know that much.
When Kelly calls with whatever lame excuse she’s cooked up, what should I do? What can I say that won’t make it worse? Fern’s idea of chaining her to the radiator is starting to sound reasonable. I’m at a complete loss here, but whatever I decide to do, it means clearing my calendar for today. No way can I meet with clients, or deal with Alex over lunch.
First call is to Alex. Unfortunately, I get him, not the machine. “Janey doll,” he says, chipper as ever. “I have you down for Cholo’s at one.”
“I’ve got to cancel,” I tell him. “My daughter.”
“The divine Miss Kelly? Is she okay?”
Just like that I spill the beans. Everything, more or less. Alex makes all the usual sympathetic noises, but he sounds slightly impatient. “So your daughter has a boyfriend, Jane. It’s not the end of the world.”
“She ran away! She’s jumping out of airplanes!”
“She left a note,” he reminds me. “She’ll call. And by the way, more people get struck by lightning than die while skydiving.”
“She’s a child!”
“No,” Alex says firmly. “Kelly is no longer a child.”
I could strangle him. How dare he?
“She’s a totally amazing woman,” Alex concludes. “Very much like you.”
It’s a great relief when my accountant doesn’t pick up and I’m able to leave a message about the quarterlies. Ditto for my contact person at East Coast Wedding Wholesalers, imploring them to put a trace on the Norbert and Spinelli orders. Both calls seem to take a tremendous effort on my part, as if merely thinking about work is exhausting. Luckily Tracy has her schedule and can take care of herself, workwise, because I can’t bear the thought of another phone call. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel so hollow and shaky?
Food. Haven’t eaten since I got up and discovered Kelly gone. And I’m one of those people who simply must have something in her stomach in the morning—must be a blood-sugar thing.
That’s probably why my hands are shaking when my cell phone rings. I’m thinking it can’t be Kelly—it’s not quite noon and she never calls early—but that’s her name glowing on the little screen.
“Kelly honey? Where are you?”
There’s a delay, a pause, long enough so I’m almost convinced the connection has been broken. Then her voice comes through. Not her bright, confident chatty voice. Her whispering voice, as if she doesn’t want to be overheard. As if she might be afraid.
“Mom, I need your help. Please call—”
That’s it. The call cuts off in mid-sentence. No static, no nothing. Just a final, overwhelming silence.
9. Watching The Detectives
Kelly and I watch a lot of movies. Started out with kiddy stuff, of course. When she was hospitalized or enduring chemo, movies were an escape, a way to avoid the harsh reality of our situation. Early on I stopped worrying about how a violent or racy scene might affect her. When an eight-year-old stares death in the face every day, can you tell her she can’t watch a car chase, or cartoonish villains firing automatic weapons at infallible heroes, or someone saying a bad word?
Some parents did. Not me. Kelly wouldn’t let me. If a movie had a kid with cancer in it—not many did, actually—she always insisted on seeing it. Even if the child died. As she told me, her face screwed up with righteous indignation, she knew plenty of real children who had really died. Okay, four or five at least, which is way more than the average kid. So a character dying in a movie was no big thing to her. It was pretend. Sometimes she’d cry, but that was because it was a sad story, not because she thought the actor really died.
Movies were movies and life was life, and they were connected, but not in a scary way. Not for my Kel. And we’ve continued our habit of watching films together. Lately I’ve had to keep my comments to myself, so as not to endure her “please, Mom, give it a rest” reactions, but we still screen two or three movies a week, more if she’s in the mood.
One of her favorites is The Usual Suspects. That comes to mind because I’m waiting in a Nassau County Police Department office, at the Fifth Precinct, in the Village of Valley Stream. My very first visit, although I’ve often driven past the building. From the outside it’s a blocky, innocuous kind of place, plain as a potato. Inside it’s all cop, purposeful and a bit macho—a banner declares “The Fighting Fifth”—though it’s a lot less frantic than what you see on TV.
Detective Jay Berg has a cork bulletin board behind his desk and that’s what reminds me of The Usual Suspects. Kevin Spacey staring at the stuff on the bulletin board, using it to make up a story. Not that Detective Berg thinks I’m making up a story about a girl, a boy and a motorcycle.
“We treat every missing minor report seriously,” he intones, tenting his fingers together as if in prayer. He’s a pleasant-looking guy, very earnest, with a thinning widow’s peak and jowls that make him look just a tiny bit like Kevin Spacey, which is probably what got me started, come to think of it. “Even when the minor may have left of her own accord, we take it seriously,” he says. “Runaways are still missing, however it started.”
Not for the first time I remind him, “She didn’t run away. Something’s wrong.”
“It’s always wrong when a minor leaves parental custody.”
“She called. Said she needed my help. But when I called back her phone was off and I got her voice mail. That’s not like Kelly. She never shuts her cell off.”
He
