Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

After we moved into the shitty rental house, I came home from school one day to find Mom sitting on the couch, staring at a letter in her hands with a half-empty bottle of vodka beside her. It looked like she’d been crying.

I said, “What’s wrong, Mom?” She just kept staring at the letter.

“Mom?”

Her voice was desperate. “I won’t let it happen again. I won’t.”

A jolt of fear shot through me. “What—what won’t you let happen?”

She held a lighter to the letter and dropped it in the ashtray. When it was gone she picked up the bottle and stumbled to her room. On the kitchen table I found an envelope with a prison as its return address. The envelope was gone by the morning, but she didn’t leave the house for a week after that.

I tuned back in when Mom said, “You know, Luke’s a lot like your father.”

“You think? I guess in some ways. He’s patient like Dad was, that’s for sure. We’ve been talking a lot recently, I’m going to help him with his bookkeeping.”

“Bookkeeping?” She said the word like I’d just announced I was going to become a prostitute. “You hate bookkeeping.”

I shrugged. “I need to make some money.”

“So you haven’t talked to an agent or a producer?”

“I decided I don’t want to make more money off what happened to me. It makes me sick that people, including me, have made any money off it at all.”

The first time I saw an old high school friend being interviewed on TV, I sat stunned on my couch while this girl I hadn’t seen in a decade told the talk show host about the first time we tried pot, about the outdoor party where I got drunk and threw up in the backseat of a car belonging to a boy I had a major crush on, then read aloud from notes we supposedly passed each other in class. That wasn’t even the worst of it—the guy I lost my virginity to sold his story to a major men’s magazine. Jerk even gave them pictures of us from when we were together. One of them was of me in a bikini.

Mom said, “Annie, you really need to think about this. You don’t have the luxury of time.” Her face was concerned. “You never went to college or university. Sales is just about all you can do, but try selling anything now—all people see when they look at you is a rape victim. And bookkeeping for Luke? How long is that going to last?”

I remembered a call a few days back from a movie producer. Before I could hang up on her she said, “I know you must be sick of people bothering you, but I promise if you just take a few minutes to hear me out, and you still say no, I’ll never call again.” Something about her no-bullshit tone of voice connected with me, so I told her to go ahead.

She gave me her pitch on how I could set the record straight and my story could benefit women all over the world. Then she said, “What’s holding you back? Maybe if you tell me what you’re afraid of I can see what we could do.”

“Sorry, you can talk, but sharing my reasons wasn’t part of the bargain.”

So she talked, and it was like she knew exactly what I was worried about and what I wanted to hear—she even told me I could have final script and actor approval. And she said the money could set me up for life.

I said, “It’s still a no, but if anything changes, I’ll call you first.”

“I hope you do, but I hope you also understand that there’s a time limit to this offer….”

She was right, and Mom was right. If I waited much longer I was going to be a hell of a lot more than a day late and a dollar short. But I wasn’t sure what was worse, going down in a ball of flames like Mom predicted, or actually taking her advice.

Mom looked away from the TV and took another slug of wine. I said, “Did you give a movie producer my number?”

She paused with her glass in midair and her forehead wrinkled. “Did someone call you?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m asking. My number’s unlisted.”

She shrugged. “Those people have ways.”

“Don’t talk to any of them, Mom. Please.” We held eyes for a moment, then she let her head fall to rest on the back of my couch.

“I know I was hard on you girls, but it was only because I wanted more for you than I’d had.” I waited for her to say more, but she just gestured to the TV with her hand holding the glass. “Do you remember when I let you and Daisy stay up late to watch that?” Now I realized she’d been staring at a preview for Gone with the Wind —one of her favorite movies.

“Sure. You stayed up with us and we all slept in the living room.”

She smiled at the memory, but her face was sad. It turned thoughtful as she turned to look at me. “It’s on in an hour. I could stay over tonight, if you’re sick?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’ve been getting up around seven and going for a run, you—” She turned back to the TV. The sudden withdrawal of her attention hurt more than I care to admit. “Okay, sure, it might be nice to have some company, probably stupid to run feeling like this anyway.”

She gave me a smile and patted my foot under the blanket. “Then I’ll stay, Annie Bear.” She dragged the cushions off the other couch and started building a bed in the middle of the living room floor. When she asked me where I kept my spare blankets, her cheeks pink with excitement, I figured what the hell. Beats another night lying awake in the hall closet thinking, Why didn’t the burglar take anything?

Later that night, after Mom sent Wayne home when he stopped by to pick her up, after we’d eaten popcorn, Annie Bear cookies, and ice cream while watching Gone with the Wind , Mom passed out with her small body pressed against my back and her knees tucked into the curve of mine. As her breath tickled my back and her arm lay over me, I stared at her tiny hand touching my skin and realized it was the first time I’d let anyone physically close to me since I came back from the mountain. I turned my face away so she wouldn’t feel my tears against her arm.

Just thinking, Doc, every time I say something bad about Mom, I have this urge to list all her good qualities right after—my version of knocking on wood. And the thing is, Mom isn’t all bad, but that’s the problem. It would be easier if I could just hate her, because it’s the rare times when she’s loving that make the other times so much harder.

On my way to your office I walked by a bulletin board, and a concert poster caught my eye. I was checking out the announcement, just about to take a sip of my coffee, when I noticed part of a different flyer underneath the poster. Something about it seemed familiar, so I pulled it out. And holy shit, Doc, it was a flyer with my face on it— my face—over the words Missing Realtor. I just kept staring, and until a drop landed on my hand, I wasn’t even aware I was crying.

Maybe I should put up my own flyers: Still Missing . That smiling face belonged to the woman I used to be, not the woman I am now. Luke must have given them the photo—he snapped it on our first Christmas morning together. He’d just handed me a beautiful card and I was grinning up at him, all happy and shit. My hand shook like I was holding ice instead of warm coffee.

The flyer is stuffed in the garbage can outside your office now, but I still have the urge to go back and pull it out. God knows what I’d do with it.

Now that the shock of seeing my picture’s worn off, I really want to talk about what happened when I finally sat down and made a list of all the people in my life like you suggested. Yes, Fraulein Freud, I actually gave one of your ideas a whirl. Shit, I had to do something—couldn’t keep sitting around freaking myself out over the break-in.