Liar, Liar

  What to do?

  She was so alone.

  The baby let out a soft little sigh, reminding her how wrong she was. She cuddled him close, his breath warm against her neck. She ran through the names of all the people who could help her: Didi and Seneca, both of whom were MIA, so they were out. And then there was Harold Rimes, her mother’s boss at the club, with his leering eyes and breath that always had a hint of liquor on it. Didi had warned Remmi about him whenever Remmi had waited in her mother’s dressing room. “Avoid Harold tonight,” Didi said on one occasion, her forehead pinched in a frown as she’d slid a Cher wig onto her head and adjusted the long strands of black hair around her face. “He’s had a little too much tonight, and sometimes . . . sometimes he gets a little handsie, if you know what I mean.” She’d met Remmi’s gaze in the mirror. “Don’t get me wrong; he’s a good guy, a little rough around the edges, but . . . well, just be careful.” She’d eyed her reflection as she’d stood and surveyed her body in the sequined, flesh-colored unitard. “Sometimes Harold oversteps his bounds.” She’d walked to the dressing room door and said over her shoulder as she swept the long hair over one shoulder, “Lock the door.”

  Remmi had understood, and from that point forward, she always slid the dead bolt into place if she was left in the dressing room, and she was on the lookout for and avoided the mercurial man who, because he had hired Didi, had some power over her. He liked that; it was obvious in the satisfied smile that played upon his lips whenever Didi acquiesced to his ideas of changes in her routine or songs or costumes. Remmi had learned at a young age that Harold Rimes liked power. She’d often enough walked by the open door of his office, where he was forever going over the books, ledgers, and bills littering his desk, a computer monitor filling a wide space, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Interspersed on the paneled walls were the trophies of the game he’d “bagged.” Deer, elk, and antelope horns were mounted, along with his business license and an award from the local chapter of the Rotary Club. A liquor cabinet held several bottles, and on the bookshelf were all kinds of books, everything from “how to” books and a worn copy of the Bible to volumes of Shakespeare to novels by the likes of Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King. She’d even sneaked into the office once, the scent of stale cigarette smoke cloying, and slipped a copy of King’s The Stand off the shelf, only to have Rimes say the next time he’d seen her in the wide hallway behind the stage, “Hey, Remmi. I know you took the book, okay?”

  She’d opened her mouth to deny it, and as he’d taken a step closer, she’d backed away. He was a big man and fit, worked out at a gym. His eyes were wide set and forever watching, his brown hair clipped short, and he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was going bald. He’d studied her at that moment, his gaze sliding down her body and making her skin crawl, before he’d met her eyes again. She’d felt sweat collect at the base of her spine at the hint of lust in his eyes, and her heart had knocked wildly in her chest. She’d realized then that he was thinking about her for the very first time not as a child, but as a girl on the verge of womanhood, with long legs and breasts that hadn’t existed eighteen months earlier. Her throat had turned to sand as his eyes had narrowed, and she’d almost been able to see the gears of his mind turning.

  Oh, God, why had she snooped and lifted the book?

  “I–don’t–I mean, I didn’t—”

  But he knew she’d taken the copy. Harold Rimes might have been many things, but stupid he was not. So she stopped lying and inched her chin up a fraction. “I like Stephen King,” was all she’d said, and that had seemed to surprise him.

  “Yeah? Huh.” Another appraising glance, but this one hadn’t been so sexual. “Me, too.” A beat. He’d been rethinking her. Again. Then, “Look. Just return the book when you’re done with it. Okay? And no more sneakin’ around my office. That’s off-limits. If you think I might have something you want to read, just ask. Otherwise, if you take something that doesn’t belong to you? I’ll have to make your mother pay for it. Get me?”

  She did. She left the book outside his door as soon as she’d finished it and hadn’t stepped inside his office with the glassy-eyed cougar’s head again.

  So now, in her hour of desperation, holed up in her room at the Star Vista Motel, she wouldn’t call Harold, who, she knew, had loaned Didi money on occasion, but no.

  Nor would she try to locate either of her two stepfathers, both men having been the closest thing she had to a father. The first was Ned Crenshaw, a rodeo rider who had taught Remmi a lot about horses and fixing things around his small ranch, but the marriage had lasted less than five years, and he’d moved on, to Montana, she thought. Or had it been Colorado? She hadn’t heard from him in forever. The second was Leo Kasparian, the magician now married to his much younger assistant. Leo’s breakup with Didi had been brutal. No, Kaspar the Great was out of her life, too, and couldn’t be depended upon. She thought of her own father, the grand secret of Didi’s life—well, that and bearing twins recently—and discarded the idea. He’d never been around, maybe didn’t even know she existed.

  Remmi had a few friends she could call, and maybe their parents would take her in, but not with a baby, and not without a lot of questions she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to stare into some mother’s concerned eyes and spill her guts, then end up in Child Services or wherever. No sirree. The same went for Didi’s friends, the few that she’d collected. Trudie Whoever, someone who smelled of too much perfume and cigarettes, a flamboyant woman Remmi had only met once. She could call Philippe, another friend of her mother’s, a handsome black dude whose Diana Ross routine was spot-on. Didi had a love/hate relationship with Philippe, as they had vied for the same jobs in the past. Other than to call him and ask if he knew where her mother might be, Remmi thought it best to leave him alone. What would he want with a fifteen-year-old and an infant? Nothing, that’s what.

  So that left Noah Scott, a boy she barely knew. Her heart ached even more when she thought of him and the very real fact, she decided, that she’d never see his rugged face again. Maybe that was for the best.

  With a sigh, she said to the sleeping infant, “I guess it’s just you and me.” But she remembered she had relatives on her mother’s side tucked somewhere deep in Missouri. As far as she knew, her grandparents were still alive, though she’d never met them. She knew their names, Frank and Willa Maye Hutchinson and, from what Didi had mentioned now and again, had pieced together that they had owned a farm in the southern part of the state. And Didi, born Edwina, was the middle child, with an older sister named . . . Vera, that was it. She was married and probably had kids of her own, cousins Remmi had never met as they lived in California, she thought. The same with Didi’s brother, Billy—presumably William, though Remmi wasn’t certain. Didi never spoke to or of her family. It was as if they’d done something horrible to her, something unforgivable, but knowing her mother, who probably was the same drama queen as Edwina, that wrong against her had probably been amplified and magnified over the years. Whatever the reason, Remmi wasn’t going to travel to the Midwest and search out relatives who might not even know she existed. The way Remmi figured it, doing the math, her mother had gotten pregnant soon after landing in California, probably to someone who promised to make her the next Demi Moore or Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz or some other big name, which had all been hogwash, of course. Didi had either never told him he was about to become a daddy, or he’d suggested she end the pregnancy. He was probably powerful, at least in Remmi’s fantasies, so Didi, fresh off the farm, so to speak, wouldn’t have had the courage or money to fight him for fear of losing her dream of becoming a Hollywood movie star.

  “Oh, geez,” she said to the dark room as she held the baby tighter. “We’re in a world of hurt,” and for the first time, she let the tears she’d been holding back drizzle from her eyes and track down her cheeks. How had this happened? What could she do? How would she care for herself, let alone a months-old baby?
Where the hell was her mother?

  “Mom,” she said on a broken sob, and Adam stirred and let out a faint whimper.

  This would never do. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t help her and certainly wouldn’t help her brother. If she’d learned anything from her mother, it was self-preservation and how to adapt. Remmi knew she was just as cunning as Didi, maybe even more so, so she would have to use it to her advantage.

  Somehow.

  Someway.

  She finally drifted off to sleep and was awakened by her brother who, squirming against her, started to cry. Groggily, she found the things she needed to make a fresh bottle of formula, then, with her own stomach grumbling, made her way outside and around the corner, where she fed the few single dollars she had into the soda and snack machines, then drank a Coke and ate two packages of small, frosted donuts for breakfast. She snapped on the television and searched through the pathetic menu of channels until she found a news station out of Las Vegas. It was spotty and offered nothing of interest, nothing about Didi’s disappearance nor the explosion in the desert.

  “We’re old news,” she told her brother and wondered what she was going to do about the Toyota. It had to be fixed, wouldn’t run far without overheating; she knew that much about the car, but where could she drive it to? She could check the yellow pages of the phone book sitting beside the telephone. Or she could find a computer and log onto the Internet with her mother’s AOL account; that would certainly make things go faster.

  Though it was still early, not even six in the morning, she picked up the phone and, using the instructions, dialed Seneca’s number one last time. The phone rang once, twice, a third time. She was about to hang up when she heard a groggy voice on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

  Remmi’s heart soared. “Seneca?” she cried automatically, though of course she recognized the midwife’s voice. “Oh my God, where have you been? It’s Remmi.”

  “Remmi? Oh, thank God! I’ve been worried sick. Where are you? And Adam?”

  “He’s–he’s with me,” she said, fighting a new wash of tears, this time of relief as she glanced at the baby, who was staring up at her. “We’re at a funky motel off the Interstate. Star Vista—about, I don’t know, fifty or sixty miles out of Las Vegas, on the way to San Francisco.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “Oh, thank God. Mom never came back, and I freaked out and, and . . .” She was talking faster and faster, anxious to explain everything, grateful to finally connect with someone, anyone. Seneca would know what to do. “And then the car broke down—not really, but it was overheating, and I was scared to death and Adam was screaming his bloody head off, and—”

  “Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hold on. Just slow down, okay? Take a breath, and then tell me,” Seneca said in that slightly accented, patiently calm voice.

  Remmi did. She explained about waiting and finally deciding to leave and said that she feared Social Services would take the baby away, if they found that Didi had abandoned them, and dump her into foster care. She told Seneca about getting the call from Didi’s boss, then packing everything up and heading west, not knowing what to do and landing at this dump of a motel when the Toyota started to overheat.

  But she never admitted to knowing what went down in the desert the night before Didi took off, and she left out the part about taking her mother’s things, money, and credit cards. Seneca, as it turned out, didn’t ask about any of those things and told her to “sit tight. I’m on my way. We’ll deal with the car.”

  Three hours later, she showed up at the Star Vista in her Ford Escort. In a gauzy white dress, clipped tight at the waist, with a wide braided belt and oversized sunglasses, she looked as exotic as ever. Her hair was braided and wrapped into a tight bun, and she was nothing but efficient as she ordered a tow truck to haul the ailing Toyota back to Las Vegas, then drove Remmi and her brother home. Remmi, though, now that she’d been “saved,” as she saw it, was fit to be tied. Where the hell had Seneca been? With her back wedged against the passenger door and seat, Remmi eyed the taller woman and demanded to know why she couldn’t reach her earlier.

  “I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. I couldn’t get hold of you, and I had Adam, and the manager almost didn’t rent a room to us, was nasty and awful, and . . . and . . .”

  “Shhh.” Seneca put one finger to her lips while she drove with the other hand. “I know, sweetie, and I’m so sorry about that,” Seneca said, shaking her head as she drove her hatchback eastward. She flipped down the visor, as the sun was already harsh, heat rising in waves on the asphalt ahead. “Really sorry. My mistake. The phone was off the hook, and I didn’t know. Then when I discovered it, I replaced it, and then this morning you called. Thank God!” She sent Remmi a sad smile. “I would’ve come sooner. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” Remmi said without enthusiasm. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything right now.

  “Oh, Remmi,” Seneca reproved softly. “I called the house over and over. Left messages on the answering machine. You’ll see. When we get back. You can check.”

  “Oh, no.” Remmi flashed her an uneasy smile. “I believe you.” She had no reason to mistrust Seneca, but everything was topsy-turvy right now, and she didn’t know who or what to trust. So she lied. “It’s okay,” she said, forcing a brightness into her voice that she didn’t feel. “We’re together now. You and me and Adam.”

  “Yes. And we’ll find your mum.”

  “You’ll call the police?”

  A beat, just a second’s hesitation, before Seneca stretched her fingers over the wheel. “Yes, if we need to. But first, I think, considering everything . . .”

  Like the exchange of money for a child.

  “We’ll try to find her ourselves. I know a private investigator. He’s very good and very . . . discreet. I, um, I think your mum would want that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess. But if he can’t find her . . .”

  “Then we’ll definitely go to the authorities,” she said. “We’ll have to.”

  “And . . . and what about Ariel and the money?”

  “Maybe we’ll find your sister, too. As for the money and how your mum came to get it, well, we’ll just have to tell everything we know and let the chips fall where they may.”

  Remmi thought of the night in the cargo hold of Didi’s huge car and what she’d seen. Could she tell the police? Would they believe her? Would they think she was just some weird teenager telling tales?

  “Okay,” she said, thinking she would feel better with this new plan, but she didn’t.

  “We’ll find her,” Seneca said, though she didn’t look at Remmi again.

  Oh, please, God. Remmi stared out the dusty windshield to the blue, blue sky and the fading line of a jet trail slowly dissipating as a plane soared out of sight. She wondered if she’d ever see Didi again, then closed her mind to that traitorous thought and felt her heart surge a little at the sight of the small house in the cul-de-sac that she’d called home for all of her remembered life.

  She threw open the car door the second Seneca had parked in the drive and raced into the house, which, of course, was still and lifeless. Not completely convinced that Didi hadn’t returned, she ran through all the rooms and ended up in the garage, which was empty, the cement floor stained where the Cadillac had once leaked oil. Her heart shattered. She hadn’t realized that she’d held out hope that her mother had returned.

  How dumb are you? Didi bailed. It’s obvious.

  But she wouldn’t believe it.

  While Seneca tended to Adam and unpacked the belongings, Remmi holed up in her room and flung herself over her bed; she buried her head in her pillow and let loose the tears she’d fought since the night before. She knew it was crazy, that crying wouldn’t help anything, but she couldn’t stop. Where was Mom? What had happened and why, God, oh, why, couldn’t she have a normal mother, one who had married her father and had a couple more kids? One who was content to stay at home or be a t
eacher or a waitress or anything other than some dumb impersonator, a damned showgirl? How come her mother couldn’t stick around and care for her kids?

  She didn’t hear the door to her room open, but when she looked up, she saw Seneca in the doorway, her smooth brow wrinkled, sadness in her near-black eyes. She didn’t ask the stupid, Are you okay? question, because obviously Remmi was not. “I’ll make you dinner,” she said in that calm voice, and for once Remmi wanted to lunge at her, to shake the taller woman and ask her how she could be so serene, so unemotional, so in charge when everything, every damned thing was falling apart. But instead she turned away from her, shunning Seneca as if Seneca was somehow behind that fateful and fatal exchange in the desert, or as if Didi had driven off into the desert in a state of enraged pique the next day when she’d discovered that she’d been conned, as if somehow, Seneca—ever sedate, ever collected and patient, the “cool head,” as Didi had referred to her—could somehow have prevented all the horror of the past few days.

  That was ridiculous, of course. Seneca wasn’t to blame. All of the pain landed squarely at Didi’s feet. And yet, as difficult as living with Didi Storm was, Remmi missed her and was worried sick that something horrid had happened to her.

  Blinking against a flood of tears, Remmi wiped her nose and rolled onto her back, crushing her pillow to her chest and trying not to wonder what had happened to her mother. It proved impossible, of course, and eventually, from sheer exhaustion, she fell asleep.

  When she awoke, the house was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and checked the bedside clock. Nearly midnight. She’d been asleep for twelve hours. Yawning, she stretched, made her way to the bathroom, used the toilet, and splashed water onto her face. She glanced at the shower, but waited. First, she had to make certain everything was okay. Well, as okay as it had been the night before.

  She walked through the house on bare feet, but there wasn’t a sound. The living room and kitchen were empty, her mother’s bedroom untouched, the babies’ nursery as she’d left it, Adam not in his crib.