Seven Minutes to Noon (8 page)

“So now we’ve got a more focused area to search,” Frannie said, “between the canal and the Pilates place, where she never showed up.”

“What?” Alice said. “She never got to her class?” The instructor had never called Maggie back; the storefront classroom hadn’t been open since after the Friday class, and presumably no one had heard the message.

“The teacher saw the article in the newspaper,” Frannie said. “She called us. Alice, I know this doesn’t sound like good news to you, but it’s going to speed things up. You’ll see.”

Alice closed her eyes and summoned an image of the canal and its scant neighborhood. The limo place on the corner. The parking lot with all those Mr. Frosty trucks. The place that made cast plaster reproductions. There was at least a block before it really got residential again.

“Listen, Alice, I’ve got to get going,” Frannie said. “I’ll call you if there are any more developments. And if you think of anything, anything at all, call me or just stop by. This morning was good. We’re going to find her. Together.”

Together,
Alice thought, just as Frannie said the word.

Alice hung up the phone and told Mike everything.

“So that’s good,” he said in the same encouraging tone he used to placate the children when they were being irascible.

“You think it’s a bad sign, don’t you.”

“I don’t know. It’s just so specific. It makes me feel...” He shrugged his shoulders, clearly trying to slough off a sensation he didn’t wish to share with Alice.

“Say it,” she told him, fixing her gaze into his. “It’s creepy knowing someone actually saw her, and then she fell off the face of the earth. It’s bad news. Say it.”

“Okay.” He planted his hands on his waist, suddenly reminding Alice of Buzz Lightyear in the frilly apron at Mrs. Nesbit’s tea party, having given up the ghost of his identity. The lines of Mike’s face succumbed to gravity, vanquishing the essential yang of his personality. “It scares me.”

Alice nodded, grateful for Mike’s honesty in acknowledging that this could turn out to be something even his good humor couldn’t fix. She didn’t like to deny him the presumptions of his natural happiness, but she also didn’t like to pretend. The discovery of a witness might have been hopeful, but in truth it felt foreboding, pinning Lauren down in a specific place at a specific time heading in a specific direction. Her disappearance now seemed more tangible. Now they knew that between eleven forty-five that morning, when she was last seen, and noon, when she failed to arrive at Pilates, something had changed her plans. Possibly her life. In just fifteen minutes’ time.

“What do we do now?” Alice asked, surprised by the warble that had entered her voice.

Mike reached out to touch her belly and watched his own large, squarish hand circle their twins. Then after a moment he looked up to face her. Brown eyes, bright with a golden flint.

“I’ll tell you what I really think.”

She had seen this troubled mix of regret and resolution in him only once before, nine years ago when she had miscarried their first child. He had refused to let her believe they would never have a family, and had energetically rallied her back to the cause, even though, at the time, having a child was more her wish than his.

“What do you think, Mike?”

“I think — I
know
there’s nothing we can do about this.” His eyes narrowed, darkened. “And worrying won’t help.”

Alice felt a stab at that; it was one thing to joke about her nervous edge and wholly another thing to identify it as a weak link in their life’s overall perspective.

“Worry is normal,” Alice countered, “in a situation like this.”

“Yes, it is.” His lips seemed to stiffen and stretch into a forced, almost professional smile. She didn’t like it. “How much did you sleep last night, Alice?”

She looked away from him, at the linoleum floor, a sea of off-white squares nearly impossible to keep clean. “Not much.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

She shook her head. Counted the squares.

Mike leaned forward, raising his voice, forcing her eyes to acknowledge him. “You’re pregnant,” he said. “Not that I need to remind you.”

She smiled a little. “No, you don’t.”

“Try not to indulge in the anxiety, sweetheart, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

Alice nodded.

“I love you,” he whispered below the loopy refrain of SpongeBob SquarePants that sailed in from the living room. “We don’t want this to become worse than it needs to be.”

“I wish I knew what it needed to be.”

“So do I,” he said. “But we can’t know until we know. Even Tim can’t know. I called him this morning after I read that stuff in the newspaper. He’s a total wreck. We’ve got to hold ourselves together for Tim and Austin, okay? We have to keep reminding them that at this very moment we know nothing for sure, that Lauren is probably out there somewhere, that there’s still a good chance she’ll be back.”

“We don’t know—”

“It’s all we
can
know right now, Alice.” He laid his
hand over her stomach again. “I’m telling you, don’t go to that other place. Okay?”

Alice placed her hand over his, stilling the restless babies under the weight of both their hands. This was the real Mike she married, not the comedian, not the hyperactive creative director, not the humble carpenter, but the man who cared and felt deeply, who for better or worse never let her slide.

“Okay.”

Mike ran a hand through his hair, dislodging his largest cowlick. “The risotto’s gonna be mush if I keep turning the heat on and off.”

“Go cook, then.”

“Are we square?”

“I don’t know about you,” she said lightly, “but I’m pretty round.”

“Ha ha ha.” His tone was sarcastic, but his smile was pure love.

“I’ll try not to worry so much,” she said.

He nodded. “We should concentrate on finding a house.”

“Right.”

“Getting out of here.”

“Right.”

“The police will find Lauren,” he said. “That’s their job.” He got up and resumed his place in front of the stove. Relit the flame, knocked the glob off the spoon, gently stirred.

After a minute, Alice asked, “Do you think a person can be too nice?”

“You mean Tim?”

“I was thinking of Frannie. Did I make a mistake going over there this morning?”

“No. Definitely not. It’s always better to be honest.”

“Frannie said it wasn’t me who lied.”

Mike smiled. “That
was
nice of her!”

“It made me feel better, you know, less guilty. Because Maggie was the one who spoke the words, told the lie, not me.”

“Lies of omission,” Mike said, “are probably just as bad.”

“Anyway, Maggie thinks Frannie’s much too nice.”

“Maggie would.” Mike twisted around to look at her, the spoon now stilled in the risotto. “If a person’s really nice, there’s not enough margin of error to mess with their head later.”

Alice believed Mike basically liked Maggie but had grown to distrust her since she walked out on Simon for his alleged unfaithfulness. That was why he taunted her whenever he got a chance; if he spoke his real mind, it would be too painful.

“Then why does she like
me
? I’m nice.”

The habitual glint in Mike’s eyes snapped into tight focus. “You’re not
that
nice, sweetheart.”

“Asshole.”

“See?”

For the rest of the night Alice’s thoughts wandered through the mirrored corridors of what
niceness
really meant. She considered the merits of intention versus deed, unable to decide on the value of plain honesty, no matter what the fallout. She, for one, chafed under the yoke of dishonesty; lies made her deeply uncomfortable. She didn’t know whether she
should
tell Maggie about the betrayal to the police of her well-intentioned lie about Ivy, but Alice decided she
had
to. The proverbial chips of friendship would have to land... wherever.

On Monday morning, when Alice pushed open the door to Blue Shoes, the tinkle of the welcome bell didn’t register over The Blind Boys of Alabama playing on the stereo. She had expected a quiet morning, alone at the store, figuring out how to confess yesterday’s visit to the precinct. She had given Ivy up, against Maggie’s judgment, delivering the
sisters’
secret to the world. If Lauren came back — no,
when
she came back — it would be Maggie who had kept strong and true, and Alice who had buckled.

“What are you doing here?” she called through the
noise to Maggie, who was perched behind the counter at the back of the store, rifling through a shoe box of receipts.

When Maggie raised her eyes, Alice saw they were badly bloodshot; so Maggie hadn’t slept well either. For Alice, a second night in a row of insomnia, drifting between half sleep and worry, had propelled her out of bed again to work on Lauren’s Web site. Now, faced with a new day and business that would never be as-usual again, she was feeling mildly delirious.

Maggie reached below the counter to switch off the music, creating a sudden, welcome quiet. “We have Martin at noon for our quarterly taxes. Did you forget too?”

“Shoot!” Alice
had
forgotten. “Can’t we put it off?”

“We’ve already rescheduled twice. I sensed he was annoyed last time, and we don’t want to lose him. He’s a good accountant.”

“But—”

“Shh. Darling. We must go forward.”

Maybe Maggie was right. Lauren had been missing three days now, three endless days and nights of waiting and hoping. But hope, it seemed, had a diminishing return, its potency devoured by the passage of time. They had to move forward, over the quicksand, grabbing on to the simple, necessary guideposts of their routines.

“I don’t suppose you want me to go alone to Martin’s?” Maggie asked. It was a ridiculous suggestion given her dysfunctional relationship with numbers, hard facts beyond dispute.

“Definitely not,” Alice said. “I’ll go.” She pulled the shoe box of receipts across the counter. “We’ll split it in half and get it all categorized before I have to leave.”

They sat together behind the counter, building neat piles of receipts in broad categories of expense, and sub-categorized by vendor and account. Every now and then Maggie glanced at Alice and Alice thought
now,
now I’ll tell her. But each time Maggie’s gaze slid away, she sighed or rubbed her eyes or made some gesture or remark
that underscored her special fragility today, and Alice couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Forty-five minutes later, not a single customer had come in, allowing them to burrow in the details of their task until Alice’s stomach rumbled so loudly, even Maggie heard it.

“Hungry, are you?”

“Starving. I didn’t realize it until now.”

“I could use a cappuccino. Why don’t I run out and pick us up something?”

Maggie reached under the counter for her purse, un-snapped it and rifled inside for her sunglasses.

Now,
Alice thought, and began, “Mags—”

“Let’s don’t forget
this.”
Maggie pulled a pair of dinosaur-festooned pajamas out of her purse and shoved them onto the shelf under the counter. “Ethan’s. It’s Simon’s night, and Sylvie’s coming by for these.” Distress gripped Maggie, and her bloodshot eyes seemed to ignite. “Can you believe he phoned me this morning to say he didn’t have any clean pajamas for his son? Of course, he couldn’t get to the washing machine. Oh no, not Simon. Probably too busy boffing Sylvie.”

“She’s been
sick,
Mags.”

“Yes,” Maggie sniffed. “So she says. Her claiming sick time these past few days has made all this with Lauren so much harder for me.”

Alice couldn’t think of what to say. Lauren’s disappearance and Sylvie missing work were not comparable; linking them was almost beyond belief. Alice took a deep breath, and another, before finally swallowing frustration at Maggie’s histrionic jealousies along with her own urge to confess the possible lapse in friendship. She was glad she hadn’t blurted her confession to Maggie; chances were it would have been misunderstood.

“Try not to think about it.” Alice stood to give Maggie a few dollars from her purse to buy her customary yogurt smoothie. “Strawberry-banana, please.”

“Oh, shoot, look at the time. If I don’t hurry up, you’ll
be late for Martin.” Maggie slipped Alice’s money into her purse and hurried out, the welcome bell jangling behind her.

Sitting alone in the shop, in a growing silence, Alice thought the floor seemed oddly shinier, the walls bluer, the ceiling more reflective. She didn’t like the heightened sensations. For a few minutes she didn’t want to
feel,
didn’t want to
think.
She loved Maggie, they
were
sisters, but she had to be managed and it could be exasperating, especially now.

Alice reached down to put on more music, slipping in a Norah Jones CD. Maggie had had the volume so high, the opening guitar riff blasted. Alice dialed down the volume, and only then, in the ebb of noise, did she realize someone had come into the store.

It was Sylvie. She smiled when she saw Alice and crossed the store with her casual, lilting walk. As always, a deft line of kohl accentuated her smallish, dark eyes and by contrast brightened the blond hair that frizzed and kinked to her shoulders in stylized chaos. She wore charcoal capris with a short white blouse that revealed a glimpse of belly button pierced by a ruby stud. A tattoo bracelet wrapped around her right ankle. Red leather flip-flops encrusted with rhinestones brought attention to her fresh pedicure, red to match the shoes.

She kissed Alice on both cheeks.

“Feeling better?” Alice asked.

“Ah, yes, it was stomach flu.” Sylvie grimaced, but even that sounded pretty in the French accent that lay like golden sunshine over her otherwise fluent English. “Any news about Lauren?”

Alice explained about the witness and Sylvie, of course, was very interested in this.

“Maybe she ran off with an Italian lover,” Sylvie suggested.

In the direction of the Gowanus? Doubtful. It was well known that Sylvie consumed romance novels and the suggestion of an
Italian lover
was straight from that fantasyland. Sylvie’s hopeful youth and lightheartedness
were suited to expatriate nannyhood. But not to this conversation. Alice decided to let her off the hook.