Lisa Scottoline - Save Me

Kristen was saying, “Melly, I’d better go, and I know you’ve gotta get to the lake. Rose, are you there? I’ll give you my cell and email.”

“Right here.” Rose picked up her phone, but the battery icon had turned red and it needed charging. “Hold on,” she said, moving John to her other hip and finding a scrap of paper and a pen. “Go ahead.”

Kristen rattled off her number and email, then said, “Well, good-bye, both of you. I’ll talk to you again, and you guys stay in touch.”

“We will,” Rose said, buoyed. “Thanks again. Stay well.”

Kristen added, “Melly, have fun at the lake.”

“I will, I’m taking my Hermione wand!”

“Good. See you!”

Rose hung up the phone, then crossed to Melly and gave her a hug. “You know what I was thinking? Maybe for our next family vacation, we can go to the Harry Potter theme park in Florida. Would you like that?”

Melly’s eyes lit up. “Is that a real thing? One of my friends in Club Penguin said they have that, but I didn’t think it was real.”

“Sure it is.” Rose gave her an extra squeeze.

“Yay! We can show Johnnie.” Melly boosted herself up in her chair and grinned at John, who leaned over and reached for her.

“Then let’s go to the lake!” Rose felt her spirits lift, but three hours later, everybody’s good mood had evaporated.

Rose was in the driver’s seat with Melly in the backseat, unhappy. John was gurgling in his car seat, transfixed by his amazing plastic keys, and Princess Google was curled up next to him. They were an hour from the lake house, stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in rush-hour traffic when Melly announced that she wanted to call Kristen back. But Rose had left her cell number on the scrap of paper at home.

“Why didn’t you bring it with you?” Melly asked, frowning.

“I forgot, and it’s not in my phone because she called us on the house phone. Why do you want to call her back anyway?”

“I want to tell her about the Kristenburgers and a drawing I made for her.”

“We can tell her later, or email her.”

“Do you have her email?” Melly asked, with hope.

“No. It’s on the paper at home, too.” Rose couldn’t remember the email, which was an incomprehensible combination of letters and numbers, more password than email address. “We can write her when we get back.”

“Can’t we turn around?”

“No, honey. It’s too far.” Rose gestured at the traffic, red lights in a line like an airport runway, heat broiling from their hoods in wiggly waves. The clouds had cleared for another unseasonably hot day.

“I really want to talk to her, Mom. She loves Kristenburgers. I told her I would make them.”

“We can tell her another time.”

“And the picture I made for her, it was of Albus Dumbledore, and she loves him. I never got to give it to her.”

“We can send it to her when we go home.”

Melly looked out the window, quieting.

Rose felt a pang. She knew it wasn’t really about the drawing or the Kristenburgers. Melly was having a hard time saying good-bye to Kristen. “You okay, sweetie?”

“Fine.”

“Wait, I have an idea.” Rose reached into her purse and extracted her cell phone. “I don’t need her cell phone. I have her parents’ number and I can call her at the house.”

“Good!” Melly looked over, smiling. “But not while we’re driving.”

“We’re stopped now.” Rose double-checked. They were not only stopped, they were practically parked. She thumbed to her phone log, got the Cantons’ home number, pressed CALL, and let it ring. The call was picked up almost immediately by an older woman, probably Kristen’s mother. Rose said, “Hello, Mrs. Canton?”

“No, I’m sorry, who’s this?”

“Rose McKenna, the mother of one of Kristen’s students. We spoke with her this morning, and I wanted to tell her one more thing. Is she in?”

“Oh, you must be the woman leaving those messages.”

“Yes, sorry, that’s me. Thanks for giving them to her.”

“I didn’t. Is she the daughter?”

Rose didn’t understand. She felt like they were having a conversation of non sequiturs. “Do you know where Kristen is?”

“No, I never met her or the Cantons. I’m the housesitter. I was sent by the agency. They do the interviewing.”

“Is this her parents’ home, the Canton residence?” Rose asked, confused. The address she’d written down the other day at school popped into her mind. “Roberts Lane, Boonsboro, Maryland?”

“Yes, this is the Canton residence, but the professor and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Canton, are on sabbatical in Japan. I don’t know the family.”

“But isn’t Kristen living there?”

“No. Nobody lives here this year, but me and two cats.”

Rose felt mystified. Kristen had said she was home with her parents. “Do you have any address or number for Kristen?”

“No. You’re the second person who called for her today, though. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Sure, thank you.” Rose pressed END, and Melly looked over, frowning.

“What’s the matter? Did she go out?”

Rose didn’t understand, and she didn’t want to tell Melly that Kristen had lied. “The woman said she wasn’t there.”

“Maybe she went to her other house.”

“What other house?”

“Her house in Lava Land.”

“What’s Lava Land?” Rose looked over, confounded. “Is Lava Land a real place? Is this a Harry Potter thing?”

“No, Mom.” Melly giggled. “It’s real, it’s near a beach.”

“Ms. Canton has a house at the beach? Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Rose gave up. It didn’t matter where. “How do you know about her beach house?”

“She told me. She loves the beach. We talk about it. I like the lake, and she likes the beach. She says I’m a lake person, and she’s a beach person.”

The traffic loosened, and Rose fed the car some gas, then braked, checking John in the rearview mirror. His pacifier had dropped out, and he was gnawing on his keys, but he looked happy.

“Ms. Canton said we could come visit her in Lava Land, in the summer.”

“Really.” Rose kept her foot on the brake. The traffic had stopped again. There must be an accident somewhere; lately, there was always an accident somewhere. Something had gone wrong with the world, and now Kristen was behaving strangely.

“So how can we talk to her?” Melly asked.

“I don’t know if we can. Let me think a sec.” Rose tried to process what was going on. She hadn’t realized how close Melly had gotten to Kristen. “You miss Ms. Canton, don’t you?”

Melly turned her head away, to the window. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay to miss people.”

“You told me that, about Daddy.”

“Right.” Rose flinched. Melly could be so direct, sometimes it came out of left field. “Someone doesn’t have to die for you to miss them. It’s a loss for you, just the same. You don’t get to see that person, or hear their voice.” She was thinking of her father, whom she barely remembered, except for his voice. Low, deep, and gentle. “When you lose someone, it’s a sad thing, and it helps to talk about it.”

Melly remained silent, and Rose drove forward.

“Mel, what do you like about Ms. Canton? What will you miss?”

“Everything. We like to talk in class, and at lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Yes, like when she saw me in the handicapped bathroom. She would tell me to come eat and talk, with her.”

“Over Kristenburgers, like on Fridays?”

“Yes.” Melly nodded, still facing away. “She doesn’t have anyone to eat with then, and she’s left out.”