Desire Lines

  At the door to the police station, Kathryn looks out at her car, parked fifty feet away. Then she glances up and down the street. A moon-faced woman is sitting in a pickup, tapping her fingers on the dash. Two boys walk by, a golden retriever trotting behind them. None of them so much as notices her. It’s an ordinary Saturday, and people are going about their business as they normally do. She goes out to her car, unlocks the door, and gets in, locking it again before she starts the engine.

  WHEN KATHRYN GETS home from the police station, in midafternoon, two lights are blinking on the answering machine.

  “Hey, Kathryn, this is Jack,” the first message says. “I’m trying to round up the gang for drinks at the Sea Dog before the party tonight. Your piece in the paper might’ve ruffled a few feathers, but I’m sure we can all put that aside for the evening and have a good time. For old times’ sake, right? So five o’clock. Hope to see you then.”

  After the second beep, there’s silence for a moment. Then a girl’s voice is saying, “God, I feel stupid. I hate it when you make me do this.” It’s Jennifer again—Kathryn knows instantly. “Besides, what are you going to do with it?” In the background a low voice, barely audible, answers. “Just keep it for yourself?” The girl giggles. “Isn’t that a little weird?” The message ends.

  Kathryn stands over the machine, staring at it as if it might provide an explanation. She rewinds the message and listens to it again. “What are you going to do with it? Just keep it for yourself?” Panic, like quicksilver, runs through her veins. “Mom? MOM?” she calls, but then she remembers: Her mother has gone away for the night with Frank. “Think,” she says aloud. She picks up the phone and calls 911, and after a few transfers she’s talking to Gaffney. She plays the message for him, holding the receiver up to the tiny answering-machine speaker. As soon as it’s finished she asks, “What should I do?”

  “Well, first thing, bring the tape in,” he says. “And then go to your reunion.” There’s excitement in his voice; she can hear it. “I know this is unsettling for you, Miss Campbell, but I have to tell you, it’s a major development in the case. We’ve had more action today than we’ve had in the past ten years.”

  Chapter 25

  At 5:15 P.M. the Sea Dog is packed, and there’s a line snaking out the front door. Kathryn walks past the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign and wanders through the bar area, past the tables surrounding the small stage where a three-piece band is playing “Devil in a Blue Dress,” and out onto the deck. It’s a humid afternoon, and several women are fanning themselves with menus and complaining about the heat.

  Kathryn already feels sticky, though she took a shower an hour ago. The outfit she’s wearing—a cream-colored silk vest and brown-and-cream palazzo pants raided from her mother’s closet—doesn’t quite fit, and she keeps having to adjust her bra strap surreptitiously to keep it from showing. For the first time in months she’s wearing shoes with narrow heels, a pair of her mother’s strappy sandals, and she feels as if she’s tottering on stilts. Her mother’s Lancôme foundation, clearly intended for a different type of skin, feels like fingerpaint on her face.

  Scanning the deck, Kathryn finally sees people she recognizes. Jack and Rachel are sitting alone at a table for six in a secluded corner, engaged in animated conversation. Kathryn threads her way over to them through the closely packed tables. “Hey, you guys,” she says.

  They glance up at her, and then their eyes go wide. After an awkward silence, Jack says, “Oh, my God.” Rachel looks down, shaking her head. She takes a sip of what looks like iced tea and stares out at the water, avoiding Kathryn’s eyes.

  “What are you trying to do?” Jack says quietly, a funny smile on his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look …” His voice falters. “You look just like her.”

  “What?”

  “You look like Jennifer.” “What?”

  Jack half laughs. “You just went blond for the hell of it?”

  Kathryn steps back. Rachel still won’t look up. “I—didn’t …” A wave of shame washes over her, and she mumbles, “I’m sorry,” and turns around, stumbling through the crowd and back into the restaurant, and then out the front to the dusty parking lot.

  As she stands at the drivers’ side of her car, pawing through her borrowed cream-colored leather bag for the keys, she feels a hand on her arm. She jumps.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Jack says. “But I don’t want you to leave.”

  She finds the keys and tries to unlock the car, but her hands are shaking, and she drops the keys in the dirt. Jack bends down and scoops them up in his hand, making a fist around them. “Nope, you’re not going,” he says, holding the keys out of reach.

  She halfheartedly attempts to grab them. “Just let me go.”

  “No.”

  “This was a bad idea.” She leans against the car and shuts her eyes. When she opens them, Jack is looking at her curiously.

  “Which part?”

  She thinks for a moment. Her face feels hot and filmy. Pushing out her bottom lip, she blows air, making her bangs flutter. “Coming here. Going to the reunion. Writing that article. Coming home. Getting married. You name it.”

  “You forgot the hair.” He smiles and pokes her gently in the ribs.

  “Fuck you, Jack.”

  “Now, now—”

  “I wasn’t trying to—Forget it, I’m not even going to try. Give me my keys.” She holds up her palm.

  Clasping his hands behind his back, he says, “Listen. I’m sorry. It’s just a little shocking to see you like this, because honest to God, Kathryn, you look like her, and it’s hard to believe you didn’t intend it. Not that it matters anyway—you can do whatever the hell you want. But you know, with the article and everything …”

  Kathryn kicks at the dirt with her sandals, covering her newly polished toes with a fine brown powder. “I don’t know why I did it,” she mumbles. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  He nods.

  “What’s up with Rachel?” she says, thinking about the expression of disgust on her face. It couldn’t have been just the hair.

  “She’s kind of pissed at you. She’ll get over it. She’s mortified that all of Bangor knows she used to have a crush on Brian.” He rolls his eyes. “So what. The story is strong. Provocative, gutsy. It’s a really good piece of writing.”

  She smiles cautiously.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day to tell you that, but you were never home.”

  “Well …” She debates whether to tell him now. She had planned to wait. “Some strange stuff happened,” she says. “Someone left an envelope in my car with a picture of Jennifer and a tape of her voice and her favorite song from high school. And when I got home, her voice was on the machine.”

  “She called?” Jack says sharply.

  Kathryn shakes her head. “I think it’s old. A tape from a long time ago.”

  “What did you—Did you talk to—”

  “I took everything to Gaffney at the police station. He’s having it analyzed.”

  “It could be a prank.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Or it could be from her, right?”

  “Gaffney doesn’t think so. Someone was trying to get her to talk into a tape recorder, and she was sort of resisting. It doesn’t seem like something she’d send.”

  “And the song?”

  “‘Missing You,’ by John Waite.”

  He makes a face of amused disgust. “Really?”

  “She used it for her yearbook quote.”

  Leaning back against her car, he says, “Wow.

  I guess that article had an effect, didn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Right.”

  He looks at her intently. “You need to be careful.”

  She nods.

  “I got you into this, didn’t I?”

  “Yep,” she says.

  “So do you hate
me now?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this,” she says, tapping her foot against the front tire to get off the dirt. “If I disappear, I’m taking you with me.”

  He pretends to think about it. “I could be up for that,” he says.

  BY THE TIME they get back to the table on the deck, Will and Brian have arrived. “We saw you two deep-throating in the parking lot and decided to leave you alone,” Brian says, standing up to give Kathryn a kiss on the cheek and shake Jack’s hand. Brian looks a little different than she remembers; it takes her a moment to realize it’s the glasses, gold-framed ovals. They’ve transformed his look from just plain nerdy to nerdy-hip. She sees him glance at her hair, but he doesn’t say anything.

  Will stands up, too, and reaches across the table to cuff Kathryn on the shoulder. “Hey, you. Quite a change.”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “Suits you. I like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rachel gazes at Kathryn and then looks down.

  Craning his neck to look around, Jack says, “Has anyone seen the goddamn waiter? He took my beer away.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kathryn asks Will. “I thought you were in charge of this thing tonight.”

  “I am, I’m in complete control,” Will says. “Everything’s all set to go.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be handing out name tags at the door or something?” Rachel asks.

  Will slaps his forehead. “Name tags! Damn!” Then he laughs. “Remember Daphne Cousins? Class treasurer? She’s way into all this stuff, so I’m letting her run with it.” He glances at his watch. “I’ll head over there in a while.”

  “Delegating always was one of your special skills,” says Brian. “Remember that time I ended up washing your mother’s car because you had a date with Laura Sanford? How did that happen?”

  “Like everything else. I bribed you.”

  “How can you guys remember this stuff? I have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch,” Jack says.

  “Old grudges die hard,” Brian says. “And—oh, yeah—we drank your beer, buddy. It was getting warm anyway.”

  Jack flags down a waiter and orders a Geary’s. “Normally I’d order something decent,” he tells the waiter, motioning toward Brian with his thumb, “but this guy works for Geary’s, and I feel sorry for him.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Brian says. “We were just voted number one in New England in a blind taste test.”

  “Deaf, dumb, and blind,” Will says.

  They all laugh. “Why, I oughta …” Brian says, making a fist and pumping it in the air.

  “Where’s your little honey?” Jack asks Brian, settling back in his chair. “I thought we were going to meet her tonight.”

  “Couldn’t do it,” Brian says. “I was afraid if she met you guys before the wedding, she might call it off.”

  “Wise man,” Will says.

  The air is less humid now. A breeze ruffles the water, and waiters move around the deck with trays of lit votive candles, putting one on each table. For a moment all of them are silent. Rachel has her feet up on the railing and is looking out over the water, Jack is pouring his beer into a glass, Brian adjusts his glasses, taking them off and putting them on again. Will takes a sip of his root beer and puts it down. Just as the moment is stretching into awkwardness, he says, “I want to get this out in the open and be done with it.” He looks at Kathryn. “I’m sure you all saw the story in the paper this morning. There was some sensitive stuff in there.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kathryn can see Rachel nodding.

  “My mother hasn’t seen it yet, but she probably won’t be too happy about some of the things that came out,” Will says. “Then again, she refused to be interviewed, so she doesn’t have much of a right to complain.”

  “I didn’t refuse,” Rachel says in a bitter voice. “Hell, I invited her into my house. And then she fixates on petty high-school bullshit—” She stops, turning her face away and putting up her hand. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to get into it tonight.”

  “No, this is good. Let’s clear the air a little,” Will says.

  Kathryn starts to speak, but Jack touches her leg under the table. “Can I say something?” he asks mildly. “I assigned this piece because I really want to know where Jennifer is. I think we all do. I think it’s very important,” he says, looking at Rachel, “that we learn as much as possible about Jennifer’s state of mind in the weeks and months before she disappeared. That may mean getting into some petty high-school bullshit.”

  “Oh, come on,” Rachel snaps. “That stuff about the prom was completely irrelevant.”

  “I don’t think so, Rachel,” Kathryn says.

  “Well, of course you don’t.”

  Kathryn feels her face flush. “Jennifer used Brian, and she hurt you. It was totally out of character.”

  “I just don’t think you need to dredge up every little squabble,” Rachel says. “I don’t see what good it does anyone.”

  “Well, if you’d tell me the name of the guy she was seeing, maybe I’d have something real to go on.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Will says.

  Rachel ignores him, shakes her head. “You’re just jealous she confided in me,” she tells Kathryn.

  “Maybe I am,” Kathryn says. “So what? You’re still holding back an important piece of information.”

  “Important to whom? The general public? I don’t think so. It’s all about the story now, isn’t it? It’s not really about Jennifer at all.”

  “Okay, time out,” Will says, making a T with his hands. They both turn to look at him. “What do you know, Rachel?”

  “Nothing.” She folds her arms in disgust. “She’s blown this way out of proportion.”

  “Blown what way out of proportion?”

  Rolling her eyes, she says, “This is so ridiculous I can’t believe I even have to engage it. I said one little off-the-cuff thing and suddenly it’s this big deal. Well, listen,” she says, reaching into the shoulder bag hanging over the back of her chair and pulling out her wallet, “I refuse to let this spoil my reunion.” She finds a five-dollar bill and drops it on the table. Then she stands up. “I’m heading over there now. I’ll see you guys later.”

  Jack reaches up and touches her arm. “Rachel, Rachel,” he says lightly. “Jeez. Sit down.” She pulls away. “No.”

  “Is this how it’s going to be all night, each of us getting insulted about something and storming off? C’mon, Rach. Sit down. Okay? Sit down.”

  She stands there for a moment, like a deer sniffing the wind. Then, reluctantly, she sits on the edge of her seat. “Good. Okay,” Jack says.

  “I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t think you should have assigned this piece to her,” Rachel says stiffly. “I don’t think she has any distance.”

  “That’s the idea. She isn’t supposed to,” he says.

  “I think it’s a mistake.”

  “Objection sustained,” Will says, slapping his hand on the table. He looks at Kathryn sharply, as if to say We’ll talk about this later, and changes the subject.

  AT MILLER’S RESTAURANT, a red-painted one-story building on Outer Main Street, the sign out front that usually advertises steak and lobster specials says WELCOME CLASS OF ‘86! Kathryn pulls into the gravel parking lot in a convoy of cars. They scatter to find spaces, and when she parks and gets out, Jack is the first of the group she sees.

  “Hang in there,” he says as they walk to the entrance.

  “She’s tough.”

  “She’s a good person, you know that. Just very private.”

  “I hate the way you stick up for her,” Kathryn whispers.

  He nudges her with his elbow. “She’s right. You are jealous.”

  “I didn’t deny it.”

  Inside the restaurant a hand-lettered sign points them to the left, where two vaguely familiar women and a bald man Kathryn doesn’t recognize are presiding over a table of name tags a
nd collecting money in a black tin box. Through the closed doors behind them, Jefferson Starship can be heard singing “We built this city …”

  “Jack Ledbetter!” one of the women trills.

  “Daphne, how’s it going?” he says.

  “Have you seen Will?” she asks, looking worriedly at the clock above the door. “He said he’d be here by six-thirty, and it’s almost seven.”

  “He’s right behind us. Daphne, you remember Kathryn Campbell …?”

  “Sure. Hello, Kath. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Daphne. How are you?”

  “Good, good.” Daphne raises her eyebrows. “Boy, you look different.”

  “You, too.” It’s true; Daphne’s put on weight. Kathryn smiles.

  “I saw your story in the paper this morning,” Daphne says. “Quite a reminder.”

  “I hope it’ll help turn something up.”

  “I hope so, too. I really do. It’s just that …” Her voice trails off.

  “What?” Kathryn asks.

  “I just feel—well, I guess I shouldn’t say anything.” Daphne’s eyes dart around at her companions at the table, who are looking elsewhere. Clearly, they’ve been talking about it. “And I hope they find her, I really do. I just feel it’s a shame that our class reunions always have to be linked with this,” she says. “Sorry. That’s just how I feel.”

  Kathryn glances at Jack, who nods empathetically. “I know. It sucks,” he says. “But it’s important for us to keep it on the table. And look at it this way: It does put us on the map. Why else would anyone remember the class of ‘eighty-six?”

  “Well, I, for one,” says Daphne, putting her hand to her chest, “have plenty of reasons. There’s a lot more to our class than just this one weird thing that happened. But that’s just how I feel.” She glares at her friends. “I can’t speak for anybody else.”

  Jack nods again, and everyone else stands around awkwardly. The bald guy smiles at Kathryn as if he’s been waiting for a break and holds out a large sticker. “I found your name tag,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember me, Kath, but I’m Pete Michaud. I used to do magic tricks at assemblies.”

  “Oh, yeah!” She does remember; she loved those magic tricks—doves out of top hats, handkerchiefs out of his throat. She peels the paper backing off the name tag and puts it on her chest.