Finding Casey (7 page)

“Caddy!” she called as she hurried through the great room and flung open the French doors. A blast of cold air smacked her in the face. “Dodge, Caddy, indoors
now
!”

Her border collie came to her right away, but Dodge was being his usual asshole self, barking as if a rabbit in his yard meant Armageddon. Juniper sighed and crunched her way across the snowdrifts to fetch him. She slept in an old T-shirt, boxers, and socks, and her bare thighs were freezing. She grabbed hold of
Dodge's collar and hauled the sixty-pound heeler–golden retriever toward the portal. “What the hell is wrong with you, Dodge? You know better than to bark like a maniac and wake Mom up.”

Dodge wagged his tail as if she was congratulating him. Juniper watched as he trotted behind Caddy into the house and headed straight for the kitchen. It never ceased to amaze her what you could make a dog do if bacon was involved. The cafeteria at the University of New Mexico Albuquerque served “fakon,” a mysterious meat product that tasted like firewood. Their other specialty was unrecognizable casseroles that tasted so weird that Juniper had basically been living on vending-machine burritos since September. Her suitemates—Lily and Bernadette—had both put on twenty pounds since school began. No way that was going to happen to Juniper. She monitored her carbs, ate very little sugar, and ran thirty miles a week rain or shine.

“Morning, Daddy Joe,” she said and hugged her adoptive father as he flipped eggs in the frying pan and slipped the dogs a slice of bacon each.

“Chiquita, what are you doing up so early? I expected you'd sleep in.”

She smiled. “I wanted to, but the dogs had other ideas. Didn't you hear them barking?”

“They're dogs. Their job is to bark, and they do it very well.”

“I didn't want them to wake Mom up. Besides, now that I'm up, I think I'll go for a run. Where's Eddie?”

“Snuggled under the covers, I expect. Take a break from running today. Sit. I'll fix you a special breakfast.”

She filled and drank a glass of water. “Save me a plate. I want to run while the traffic is light. See you later, Señor Alligator.”

“In a while, Professor Crocodile.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Hey, happy ‘Gotcha' day.”

Her heart soared. Four years earlier, as a surly fourteen-year-old, she'd been dropped off on Glory Solomon's doorstep and everything changed. Glory adopted her, Joe married Glory, and then he adopted her as well. Today was the anniversary, and it just killed her that Daddy Joe never forgot, that he treated this day as if it were a national holiday aside from Thanksgiving. “Best day of my life,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

She pulled on her running tights and laced up her winter running shoes. After a brief stretch, she harnessed up Dodge, waved bye to her dad, and headed out the front door into the brisk winter day ahead. Daddy Joe had convinced her to take up running shortly after they met in California and he'd become her tutor. He promised that pushing her body physically would help her deal with the grief over losing her sister, Casey, a sorrow that never seemed to abate. By the time she got to thinking about Casey, gone nearly eight years now, she'd run five miles and soon everything fell back into place. She ran longer on the weekends, sometimes ten or twelve miles, which was how she'd met Topher.

Christopher Adams VI. Junior class, incredible musician, and so good-looking it was kind of criminal. He was her first real boyfriend, the kind who asked you out on dates instead of just showing up at your dorm room with a toothbrush in his pocket. Earlier this fall, at quarter to six one morning, before the heat index made running impossible, she was heading out for a few miles. Laguna de Vargas, the residence hall she lived in, was filled with girls sleeping off the previous night's party. Juniper didn't fit in with that crowd, and in fact hated dorm life, but
Daddy Joe insisted she stick out the term since he'd already paid for it.

Topher was just returning from a gig. He had a guitar slung over his back and was smoking a cigarette. He smiled and waved, then turned to watch her run off. She hated cigarettes, but with his turquoise eyes and spiky dark hair he looked so much like Jakob Dylan that people whispered maybe he was attending school under a fake name so the paparazzi would leave him alone. The next time she ran, there he was, in the same spot, sans guitar, waiting. “I'll meet you for coffee at the Standard,” he'd said, as if he was sure she wouldn't say no. The Standard was an Albuquerque diner in a yellow building with a red neon sign, and it had really great coffee. Lots of students hung out there, but Juniper rarely did, since she was usually studying. When she showed up, showered, her honey-colored hair brushed, blow-dried, and curled, there he was in a booth by the window, writing in his notebook. He was the same height as she was, and rock-star skinny. He wrote his own music, and he thought Juniper—and even her tattoo—was beautiful. Thanksgiving was always special to her, but this year would be insanely great because he was coming to her house for dinner, and
staying the weekend
.

Her heart pounded at the thought of seeing him in just a few hours.

At her side, Dodge woofed at nothing she could see. He was being so bad lately, chewing up shoes, barking at the chickens, and not minding, that she'd decided to get him good and tired by making him run with her so that maybe they could enjoy dinner in peace. He liked to run and he had no trouble matching her pace. They ran past houses already decorated for Christmas. On the adobe walls, farolitos—little candles wedged in sand
inside paper bags—waited for dusk. Tiny electric fairy lights were hung across painted gates. Down the road a kid was half-heartedly working on making a snowman out of the snow dump they'd gotten in late October. Juniper pulled Dodge's leash close so he wouldn't bark at the child. He didn't mean anything threatening, he was just an oaf who forgot his manners the minute you stopped working with him. He gravitated toward young kids. Juniper always imagined Dodge's dream life would be as the neighborhood dog in a pack of kids that hung around the cul-de-sac. He was always up for fetch or Frisbee.

There was a hefty evergreen garland splayed across the faded purple gate of the artist-compound studios. On Christmas Eve, people who lived on Canyon Road and Acequia Madre lit little bonfires in their driveways—luminarias—and everyone strolled the streets as neighbors handed out bizcochitos, hot cider, and stronger drinks to total strangers. Juniper tried never to miss it. Every holiday with her new family she forced herself to do holiday rituals, like tree decorating, present wrapping, and making homemade farolitos to line the driveway. She did all this in an effort to be happy, and to counteract the tiny arrow that lodged in her heart. The arrow was a leftover sherd from the time when all holidays had screeched to a stop—the year her sister Casey disappeared. The search for her sister was considered a “cold case”; in other words, everyone knew she was dead even though her body had never been found. The courts said ten years had to pass before they could legally declare it. Juniper agreed it was the most logical outcome—who stays away from their family for eight years? But there was a part of her heart that held out this crazy glimmer of hope. On days like today, when the blues threatened to take over and ruin things, she fought it by running. You're a big girl, she told herself. So what
if your childhood basically ended at age eleven? Topher arrives today! Daddy Joe's making turkey dinner. Auntie Halle and Uncle Bart will be here, and Gran! Juniper loved Glory's mother with all her heart. She was a salty old lady who spoke her mind whether she was asked to or not. Focus on the family you have right here, she told herself.

She and Dodge crossed Paseo de Peralta to East Alameda, passing the Santa Fe River, icy this time of year. Bare cottonwood tree branches alongside it were stark against the blue sky. The smell of mesquite and piñon fires filtered through the chilly air as she headed toward Guadalupe, where she would turn right and run through the railyard. Some dork wolf-whistled at her and she felt a small flare of anger, but didn't bother to see who it was. Santa Fe had its share of freaks just as California had, and the best thing to do was ignore them. Here she was, running with a dopey dog that would probably lick a stranger's hand. Shit. Now she was thinking of Casey again, and whoever had taken her, and now that the door was open, images flooded her mind.

The first Thanksgiving after Casey disappeared, Juniper's father had already moved out.
I can't take any more of this
, he said, and left with only one suitcase, as if his whole life fit inside it. Her mother would only sleep on the living room couch that faced the front door, because what if Casey came to the door? The TV was always on, tuned to a news channel, because what if someone found Casey, but she had amnesia and didn't know her name? Holidays didn't mean anything. Juniper tried not to bother her mom, but that last Thanksgiving she'd thought, Maybe I could cook the turkey if she told me how.
If you're hungry, make yourself a baloney sandwich
, her mother had said when she
worked up the courage to ask. Then she changed the channel from CNN to local news.

A year later, her mother took an overdose of sleeping pills and Juniper figured that she went to wherever Casey was and she hoped that made her happy, if you got to be happy after you died. Juniper moved into her dad's apartment, but then one day he didn't come home. He basically left her at the curb like some ratty old couch. That was the start of being homeless, followed by foster and group homes. A frozen turkey dinner and instant mashed potatoes with something that was the color of gravy, but tasted like snot.

Then along came Glory.

What a miracle she and Daddy Joe were. “Am I ungrateful to think about these things?” she asked Dodge, who was considering chasing a squirrel that existed only in his mind—she could just tell. “Knock it off,” she said, and his ears flattened in shame. She picked up the pace so he would have to concentrate.

She'd given up on finding Casey. So was it too much to ask for a little peace on the subject? The Kübler-Ross model said there were five stages of grief, but Juniper knew that was bullshit. Early in the first year Casey was missing, she realized the sorrow would last her lifetime, and what do you know, she was right. That was some hellacious backpack to carry around, but there was no law that said you had to talk about it.

She'd passed her GED at sixteen, and then Joe had pulled strings to get her into college here in New Mexico. She had a 4.0 average, volunteered twice a month at the women's shelter in Albuquerque for extra credit, and planned on graduating with the most academic bling possible. That would be a start on paying back Joe and Glory for giving her the opportunity to leave
that miserable old life behind and start a new one. She forced herself to stop thinking about it by remembering how Topher kissed, which was strong and gentle at the same time, and how just being around him made her heart feel as if it had big old dragon wings, impervious to fire, scraping the sky, gathering in all the stars as if they were jewelry meant for her heart alone.

In the master bathroom with the talavera sink barely big enough to cup your hands in, Glory paused in brushing her teeth to sneeze into a tissue. She hoped she wasn't catching a cold. Obviously that would not be good for the pregnancy, but it would also ruin Thanksgiving. She wanted things to go well, because in addition to Juniper's first serious boyfriend's visit, her mother, Halle, and Bart were coming to Santa Fe for the long weekend. This would be their first stay at their house, now sufficiently remodeled to accommodate houseguests. She leaned in to turn on the shower and the baby kicked hard. Of course, as soon as she pressed her hand on her belly to feel it, she stopped. Eddie sat on the bathroom rug and looked up at her.

“Will you stop worrying about me?” she asked the Italian greyhound. From the day she first felt nauseated to the present, Eddie had followed her from room to room as if he was personally responsible for her safety. He sat on the bed while she dressed, and then preceded her into the kitchen as if she needed him to show her the way.

“Joseph?” she called out.

“In here,” he said, coming out of the pantry with a box of Mexican cocoa. “I made you eggs, bacon, sausage, and Mami's torrejas.”

She groaned. “That sounds so good. I'd love to eat all of that,
but I think I'll just have eggs. Dr. M says I need to eat more protein. It's supposed to help with my blood pressure.” Recently her blood pressure had soared into unhealthy numbers, forcing her to take early maternity leave—unpaid.

Joseph handed her a plate with two perfectly fried eggs and a side of steaming green chile from his dad's farm in Hatch. Then he set a platter of bacon and a bowl of torrejas on the table. “In case you change your mind,” he said.

“Joseph, I'm turning into a blimp.”

“You are not. You're gorgeous.” He pushed the torrejas closer to her. “Just try one bite. I have to get the recipe perfect for the cookbook.”

“All right,” she said, knowing she couldn't resist the Mexican version of French toast, made with authentic piloncillos (brown sugar cones), cinnamon, cloves, and bolillos, a kind of Mexican bread roll fried in a mix of eggs and butter. “What's different about this version?”

“I used the Madagascar vanilla beans I stored in sugar for six months. I scraped out their innards and put the pods back into the sugar. I'm done with bottled extracts. Too much variation. You can't count on them. And I cut out two-thirds of the piloncillos when I made the syrup, but I cooked it nearly to the candy stage. Look at the surface where it's hardened. Perfect for cracking open with a spoon, and it keeps the syrup warm.”

“I think I just gained five pounds listening to all that.”

He ignored the comment. “Tell me truthfully, is it better? If I don't get the cookbook to the printers on Monday it won't be ready for Christmas.”