Lisa McMann - The Missing

“Bored yet?” Kendall lies down on her back in the grass next to Nico. It’s a beautiful day, a few clouds, maybe seventy-five degrees.

Nico is quiet. Kendall pokes him.

“Hmm?”

“I asked if you were bored yet. With school.”

With visible effort he pulls himself from his thoughts. “Oh. No. I think I’m going to like physics.”

“I wish we had more options. You know. Ceramics. Drama.”

Nico rolls to his side and looks at Kendall. Touches her cheek. “Me too, for you. No mail?”

“Nope.”

“Good.” Nico falls back again. “I don’t want you to go.”

Kendall laughs and punches him in the shoulder. “Stop! You’ll jinx Juilliard.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just wish you weren’t going to be way out in New York . . . I haven’t gone a whole week in my entire life without seeing you—since before you were born.”

“Well, maybe you should consider coming out that way too. Why do I have to be the one to stay around here?”

Nico winces. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” She sits up. Closes her eyes and sighs. “But the truth is, I’m not going to get into Juilliard, and we both know it. So. Saturday I’m checking out State with you.”

Nico grins. “Awesome.”

Back in the classroom, though, Nico acts distracted. He rests his head on his desk, eyes half closed.

Kendall pokes him when Ms. Hinkler is working with the sophomores. “Are you okay?”

Nico turns slowly to look at Kendall, a faraway look in his eyes. “Fine,” he says. He faces forward once again, his fingers sliding across the edge of his desk.

“You’re acting really strange.”

“Shh,” Nico says, distracted. He shakes his head slightly and doesn’t answer further. Then he puts his head back down and closes his eyes.

At soccer practice Coach works the team hard. They run drills and suicide competitions. It’s hard work, but Kendall savors it. It keeps her mind busy. But as she runs, something Jacián said yesterday keeps repeating in her mind, a syllable with every step. Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.

Did Jacián say that to Tiffany Quinn, too, before he killed her? Kendall shakes her head, admonishing herself in jagged whispers as she runs the suicide drills. She glances at him. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Just run.

She beats everybody. It’s never happened before, but Kendall’s in her groove today. Jacián comes in second. Eli is third, with Marlena grabbing his shirt trying to pass him, but she ends up fourth. Nico’s off his game, coming in seventh out of the eight. Jacián walks away, gasping for breath.

Kendall smiles triumphantly before half the team shoves her onto the ground and piles on top. She gasps and laughs, trying to shield her face from kicking legs and waving arms. Briefly catches Jacián’s eye as he stands a few feet away, watching the congratulatory pileup. His eyes burn holes into hers. She flails and turns, and sees Nico, but he’s staring off at nothing.

In a minute she wriggles out from under the pile as Coach yells for everybody to get back to work.

At 11:05 p.m. Kendall calls Nico. “What’s up with you?”

“Huh?”

“You missed the call. You almost never miss the call.”

“Oh. Uh . . . I lost track of time, I guess. Got a lot on my mind.”

“You want to talk about it? Please? You’re starting to worry me.”

“No. No, thanks. I have to go.”

“Okaaay. . . .”

“Good night, Kendall.”

Kendall pulls the phone from her ear and stares at it for a second, and then puts it back up to her ear again. “Are you kidding me?”

But all she hears is a dial tone. Her stomach twists. Nico hung up on her. “Damn, boy,” she says. “This college thing must be huge for you, that’s all I can say.” She calls his private line again. Five times.

All she gets is a busy signal.

She checks her lock six times and then stares through the window, out over the front fields. Toward Nico’s house.

All is dark.

Kendall shivers.

The first week of school nears an end. The unspeakable absence of Tiffany Quinn is mostly forgotten, replaced by new assignments, new students, and a need for life to be normal. Kendall performs her morning routines—the wastebasket, the markers, the windows, the desks—and things are good. Mostly.

Jacián still doesn’t speak in class unless Ms. Hinkler asks him a question.

And Nico is completely lost in his own world, oblivious to Kendall.

He won’t discuss it.

Her brain goes into overdrive.

“Nico,” she says at lunch, outside on the grass. “Is it me? Is it something I did?”

He stares at the sky. His lips move, but no words come out.

“Nico?”

He turns to look at Kendall. “What?”

Kendall bites her lip, and tears spring to her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Monday you were normal, and now everything’s really weird.”

He just shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Are we still going to Bozeman tomorrow?”

“Bozeman. . . . Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“Are you mad at me or something?”

He stares for a minute as if he’s trying to comprehend the question, and then he takes her hand. “No, baby. I love you. Like always.” He looks into her eyes and brings her hand to his lips. But his look is vacant. He kisses her knuckles, drops her hand, gets to his feet, and walks back into the school.

There’s no soccer practice on Fridays—not until games actually begin. Nico starts home after school without Kendall. She watches him, incredulous, and then she turns and walks up the street into town.

The town portion of Cryer’s Cross consists of one four-way-stop intersection with a handful of stores, a restaurant, and a big indoor farmers’ market that doubles for whatever else might require a large organized space throughout the year. Kendall climbs the steps to the drugstore, in desperate need of tampons.

Outside the building is a porch with an awning, and under the awning, sitting in aged wooden chairs, are old Mr. Greenwood and Hector Morales. Kendall grins and waves. The two men often sit together in the early evenings during good weather, not talking, just sitting. Old Mr. Greenwood is grouchy, but Hector brightens up when he sees Kendall.

“Miss Kendall,” Hector says. “Come here, please.”

Kendall goes over to the men. “Yes, sir?”

“You are a good friend to Marlena at school. Thank you for that. You hear me?”

Kendall smiles. Hector is such a sensitive man, so kind. She wonders how his offspring could have produced somebody so awful as Jacián. “Marlena’s a great girl,” Kendall says. “Really good at soccer.”

“And Jacián, he is our soccer champion,” Hector says with a proud chuckle.

“Yes,” Kendall says, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Yes, he’s really talented.”

“He needs the friends too,” Hector says, a little softer, but somehow with more punch. “People need friends.” He glances at Mr. Greenwood, who shifts uncomfortably. “You’re a good girl. You give him a chance, okay?”

“Okay,” Kendall says. What else can she say? “I’ll try.” And before she can help it, she adds, “And he should give everybody else a chance too.”

Hector looks thoughtfully at Kendall, his finger on his lips as he thinks. “I agree, Miss Kendall. You are wise for someone so young, and I thank you.”

Kendall can’t help smiling. She reaches and takes his hand, holds it for a minute. “Good to see you again.”

She goes inside the shop and wanders around, looking at things. Thinking about Nico, and wondering what’s really going on with him.

Then she pays and walks the mile home, looking over her shoulder every thirty paces. Walking alone always reminds her of Tiffany Quinn.