I guess I was supposed to laugh at that, but when I didn’t, Trixie said, “That was a joke.”
“I know. It’s just, I don’t really know what you want me to do, Trixie. Maybe you’ll actually have to make a respectable living for a while as an accountant. I mean, you are good at it. You know everything there is to know about balancing the books.”
“Or making them appear to balance even if they don’t,” Trixie said, like she was remembering something that happened a long time ago. “And by the way,” she said, “thanks for not judging.”
“Huh?”
“‘A respectable living,’ I believe you said. That I might want to consider one, for a while.”
“Trixie, don’t try to guilt-trip me. You operate outside the law. Like most places, Oakwood has laws against prostitu—”
Trixie jabbed a finger at me. “I am not a hooker, Zack. I do not fuck these men. They don’t get so much as a handjob from me.” She became very serious. “I do not cross that line. I provide them an entertaining, fantasy-like environment.”
“Okay, but you might have a difficult time persuading the authorities of that.”
Trixie shook her head in frustration, then leaned forward in her leather chair, which drew me in as well.
“What I was thinking,” she said, “was that you could talk to him.”
“What?”
“Just, you know, have a little conversation with him. You’re a reporter with a big city newspaper. He probably wants to get on at a place like the Metropolitan. You could tell him no one gives a shit about two-bit stories like this, that if he really wants to make the jump to the big time, he needs to go after city hall. Politicians on the take, bad cops, that kind of thing. Not some woman trying to make a living.”
“Trixie,” I said. “Look, you’re my friend. I’d help you any way I can. But you can’t ask me to do this. I can’t, as a reporter for one paper, try to talk a reporter for another paper out of doing his job. I can’t begin to count the number of ethical violations. There’s just no way, I can’t, I’m sorry, I really am.”
She looked into my eyes. “I thought you’d be willing to help me.”
“I don’t want you to be in trouble, but what you’re asking me to do could get me in trouble at the Metropolitan, where, evidently, the boss already has it in for me. Imagine if he heard I was trying to persuade some community newspaper columnist not to write about a dominatrix.”
Trixie said nothing. Something caught her eye, and she looked to the front of the Starbucks. A leather-jacketed guy with a heavy beard and sunglasses strolled in. Outside, I could see a big motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson or something like that with raised handlebars, parked up close to the door.
Trixie shrunk back into the chair, turned and looked away.
“What?” I said. “What is it? You know that guy.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then what’s the problem? It’s just some biker or biker wannabe. He’s not bothering anyone.”
“It’s nothing. You know what, Zack, don’t worry about anything.” Her voice had turned snippy. “I’ll just handle my own problems myself.”
She was trying to make me feel guilty, so I decided to repeat what I thought was sound advice.
“Really, just lay low,” I said. “This Martin Benson guy will finally go on to something else, and then you can get back to doing what it is that you do.”
Trixie, her shoulder still turned to the front of the coffee shop, folded up the clipping and shoved it down into her purse. The biker already had his coffee in hand and was heading out the front door. “There, he’s gone,” I said.
Trixie relaxed, but only slightly. She slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“You do not understand, Zack. I cannot have my picture in the newspaper. Not any newspaper. Not even a piece of asswipe like the Suburban. They may be small, but they still have an online edition too, you know. They run my picture and it’s all over the Internet.”
“I can’t imagine anyone outside of Oakwood is reading the Suburban online,” I said, trying to calm her.
“I can’t take that chance. I can’t have my mug shot showing up anyplace.”
“Mug shot?” I said. “Why do you call your own picture a mug shot?”
Trixie blinked. “Figure of speech,” she said.
He would come in to see her at night, supposedly to tuck her in.
But Miranda, with some tips from her older sister, Claire, figured out a way to deal with this. She would tuck the covers in as tightly as possible on both sides, then crawl atop the bed and slide under the sheet and bedspread from the top.
Once she was there, she felt trapped, like a leftover sandwich Saran-Wrapped to a plate, but secure as well, because any attempts her father might make to touch his fifteen-year-old girl could not be disguised as inadvertent. He was very good at accidentally brushing his hand across her private places when getting her ready for bed. But those supposedly innocent touches weren’t possible when she had herself so tightly cocooned. That, and pretending to already be asleep, tended to thwart his efforts, most of the time.
Sometimes Miranda almost wished he’d be more blatant. She wished he could be as direct with his perversions as he was with his violence. He made no attempt at excuses when he took out his belt to punish her or her sister for some perceived misbehavior. At those moments, she could scream back, run out of the house.
But when he slunk into her room at night, he would hide behind pitiful slyness. He’d camouflage baser motives with apologies about losing his temper. But she knew he felt no regrets over that. If only he’d just admit that he’d come in to check on her progress at turning into a woman, that he wanted a form of intimacy he knew to be inappropriate. Then maybe she could react, holler at him to leave her alone. But his feigned innocence always gave him an excuse. “You’re just sensitive,” he’d say. “What, a father can’t give his little girl a hug?”
And there was no use trying to talk to her mother about this. She numbed herself with scotch, cigarettes, and television, but mostly scotch. What chance was there that she would come to the defense of her daughters when she wouldn’t defend herself against her husband’s bursts of outrage and backhanded slaps?
It was older sister Claire she turned to. It was Claire with whom she shared her secrets. It was Claire who told her how to cope.
And it was Claire who begged her to leave with her. But Miranda said, “You’re eighteen. If you go, they can’t make you come back. I’m just fifteen. He’d call the police. They’d bring me back.”
“I wouldn’t let them,” Claire said.
But as much as Miranda admired, worshipped, her sister, she didn’t believe she had those powers. She wasn’t strong enough to protect her against her father and the authorities.
One night, it was Claire who came in to see her. Miranda pulled the sheets about her tightly, but when she heard her sister whisper her name, she relaxed.
“I’m going.” Claire said.
“Where? What do you mean?” Miranda asked.
“I’m leaving. Now. I’m not coming back.”
Miranda felt her heart in her throat. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
“I can’t stay here another night.” There were tears in Claire’s eyes. “Come with us.”
“I have a math test tomorrow,” Miranda said. Math was probably the only thing that gave her any sense of accomplishment, the only thing she was really good at. Her father was good at telling her she was pretty much useless, and it rankled him when she came home with perfect math marks, proving him wrong. “It’s worth fifteen percent,” she protested.
“Jesus, forget your math test. I’m talking about getting out of here!”
“Shhh!” Miranda said. She didn’t want her father coming in, taking the belt to the both of them.
“They’re asleep,” Claire said. “He’s passed out, they’re both passed out.”
“Where’s your stuff? How can you just leave???
?
Claire’s bags—and that’s what they were, bags—were all packed. They were already at the end of the drive. Her boyfriend, Don, was going to pick her up.
“Where will you go?” Miranda asked.
“Anywhere. Any place that’s not here,” Claire said. “If I stay here any longer, I’ll kill him. Please come. Don says it’s okay.”
Miranda liked Don. He was a nice boy. Not like most of the others. Claire was lucky to have found someone like that.
Miranda sat up in bed. She looked at her dresser, wondered what she would use to carry her clothes. She didn’t even have a suitcase. They had never gone on a vacation. They’d never been anywhere. She could put some clothes in some paper bags. Two or three would probably do it. A couple pairs of jeans, a couple of tops, some underwear. She could get a job, make money, and buy some other clothes, maybe from a secondhand shop, maybe—
No, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t run away. She was only fifteen. As horrible as home was, it was still a haven. She knew bad things happened here, but she knew what the bad things were. If she ran off with Claire, what different bad things might happen? Would they be worse than the things she had to deal with now?
“I can’t do it,” Miranda said.
“I can’t just leave you here,” Claire said. Her eyes were moist with tears.
“Just go.”
Outside, they could hear a car coming to a stop. Claire glanced out the window, and the tears running down her cheeks glistened in the moonlight. It was Don. He was putting Claire’s paper bags of belongings into the trunk.
Claire threw her arms around her sister, and they were both crying now.
“Soon,” Miranda said. “I’ll try to leave soon.”
Claire sniffed, wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I’ll help you. Whatever you need, anything, I’ll help you. I will always help you, no matter what.”
“I love you,” Miranda said.
“I love you too,” Claire said, and then she slipped out of the room.
Miranda watched from the window as Claire ran down to the road. Don threw his arms around her, opened the passenger door of his old Camaro for her, and then they drove off into the night.
Miranda did not cry long. You’re on your own, she told herself. Start getting used to it.
5
BACK AT THE OFFICE, I banged out the stun gun story after first placing a couple of calls, one to the chair of the police commission to see what her reaction was to officers meeting with a guy who was selling stun guns when such weapons were not approved for use.
“Go on the Net and read up on these things,” she advised.
A number of stories came out of Florida. A disabled man in line at a theme park, disgruntled because he’s had to wait so long, gets zapped with a stun gun by a security guard. A twelve-year-old girl, skipping school, is located by authorities hanging out at a swimming pool, smoking. When she tries to run away, she’s stun-gunned. A father who gets hold of one illegally uses it to keep his three kids in line. An off-duty cop pulls out his stun gun and shoots a buddy who’d just beat him at poker.
Just for a moment, I imagined the advantages a stun gun might offer an exasperated parent. And I recalled a comment Sarah once made, upon hearing a radio newscaster say, “Police do not understand why the mother of three small children snapped and wiped out her entire family.” She said, “Well, there’s your answer. She’s the mother of three small children.”
So I threw a bit of stuff from the Net into the story, put a “-30-” on the end, and sent it on to the cityside basket with a note that there were photos with it. I felt someone behind me, but I was sure this time that it was not Dick Colby. Especially when a pair of hands fell softly onto my shoulders.
“I tried to call you,” Sarah said.
“I must have been in a bad zone,” I said.
“Bullshit,” she whispered. “I’m sorry about this morning.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m still finding this hard, being the person who you most often have to report to.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“Listen, if I get the foreign editor thing, we won’t have these kinds of problems, unless you get posted to Beijing or Baghdad or something.”
“If you could get me sent there now, maybe it wouldn’t be as urgent to become the foreign editor.”
I felt her hands lightly squeeze my neck. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it.”
I waited a moment, and then said, “There’s something I want to ask you.”
Sarah’s hands stopped moving. I could sense her wariness. “What?”
“Can you name two German political parties?”
Her fingers tensed. “Okay, hang on. There’s a couple that sound very much alike. There’s the Christian Democratic Union, and the Social Democratic Party.”
“Correct. Now, a bonus question. Can you name a third German political party?”
Sarah was hunting in some inner recess of her brain. “Well, there’s the Green Party, right?”
“That’s correct. You’ve won what’s behind Zipper Number One.” I reached up and touched one of her hands. Sarah laced her fingers into mine.
“We okay?” she asked. I nodded. Then, “Did you see Trixie?”
“Yeah. She had a problem I couldn’t help her with.”
“What was it?”
“I can tell you all about it later, but I can say that it involved a violation of journalistic ethics. I think she was pissed.”
“So she didn’t ask you to run away with her?”
“I suspect she was working up to it, but when I turned her down on the other thing, I think she abandoned the idea.”
Sarah had things to do. I was pretty much done for the day, but there were some things niggling at me that I wanted to look into before I left the building.
I knew I couldn’t do what Trixie’d asked of me, to try to scare another reporter off his story, but I was feeling uncomfortable with the way we’d left things. Trixie, who’d never worked in journalism and probably didn’t fully understand how impossible her request was, had left our meeting feeling betrayed. She’d thought we were friends, and no doubt believed I’d let her down.
It’s not that I was unsympathetic. I could understand why Trixie wouldn’t want any publicity for her business. She was probably getting all she needed now. Word of mouth, as they say, is everything. When you’re the best dominatrix in the burbs, your reputation gets out there. You hardly need your picture in the local paper telling the world how you make your living.
But Trixie’s concerns about her picture running in the paper seemed to go beyond how it might disrupt her livelihood. She seemed terrified by the repercussions of Martin Benson running, as Trixie called it, her “mug shot” in the Suburban.
Was Trixie on the run from the authorities? Had she been on some episode of America’s Most Wanted that I’d missed? And what was to account for her skittishness when that biker came into the Starbucks?
I typed “Trixie Snelling” on the Google page. The only thing that came back was a reference to a woman by that name who, at the beginning of the last century, married a man who wrote a cantata for a church in England. I didn’t think that was my Trixie. Next I tried a Yahoo “people search” and came up with a big fat zero. I tried Google and Yahoo again, this time with the name “Trixie Snell,” who, I learned, was a character in the 1933 movie called Sensation Hunters that featured a young Walter Brennan as a stuttering waiter. But I didn’t learn anything more useful than that.
I went into the paper’s library and checked our own database. It would find any story the Metropolitan, or any other major North American newspaper, had run with the name Trixie Snelling. I figured, if police were looking for her, her name could have been mentioned at some point.
But I came up with nothing. Which seemed, on the face of it, to be a good thing.
I returned to the newsroom, found an Oakwood phone book on the shel
f where we kept directories from all over the country—even though more and more of them were online—and looked up Snelling. Nothing. I guess all that proved was that Trixie had an unlisted number.
Of course, if the police were looking for Trixie, and given her line of work it was not beyond the realm of possibility that they might be, chances were pretty good she was not using the same name today that she was using when she’d originally come to their attention.
If she’d come to their attention at all.
Maybe she’d come to the attention of someone other than the police.
Whoever might be looking for her was going to have a hard time finding her, at least if they looked for her under the name I’d always known her by. Because, using the most conventional resources at my disposal, it appeared that no one by the name of Trixie Snelling had ever actually existed.
I was home before Sarah and started throwing something together for dinner. I concluded, from the presence of the backpack full of books by the front door and the absence of Paul, that he had preceded me home and gone back out again. Clearly, not to the library to work on an assignment.
I had some pasta on the counter and was looking in the fridge for a half-full jar of spaghetti sauce when Angie came into the kitchen. I felt the same thing I always felt when I saw her—that I had the most beautiful daughter in the world, and I’d be a fool to think I could take any of the credit.
“Hey, stranger,” I said. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you.” She hugged me and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You here for dinner?”
“What are we having?”
I love this question, the one that says, Hey, there’s nothing like getting together with family, so long as you’re serving something decent.
“Spaghetti,” I said.
“Don’t worry about me,” Angie said. “I’ll grab something somewhere. I’ve got to go back downtown tonight for a lecture anyway.”
She blew threw the kitchen like a twister, there one moment, up the stairs the next. I heard the front door open, a new storm system approaching.
“Well, I hope you’re happy now,” Paul said, forcing me out of the way as he reached into the fridge for a can of Coke.