Paullina Simons - The Girl in Times Square

Suddenly her father picked up the other extension. “Lil?”

“Papi?”

“Yes, why so shocked? I do live here, you know.” And he laughed.

Her mother said, “I barely spoke five seconds to my own child. Could I have her first, and then you’ll have her when I’m done?”

“Mom, let me speak to Papi quick now.”

As soon as Allison slammed down the phone, George said, “Yes, honey?” in his most casual, most unconcerned, most I’m-in-Hawaii-and-I’m-so-happy voice.

“I don’t understand. I thought you were staying with Andrew?”

“Oh, I was in D.C. on a little business. That’s all. Not a big deal.”

“So you’re … back?”

“Everything is fine, great even. I was getting the jitters, you know, having worked non stop for forty-five years. Well, you wouldn’t know. But someday you’ll work.”

“I work now. Fifty hours a week. Papi, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“Nothing to talk about. Do you know your mother has been coming to the beach with me every single morning? She loves it. She wasn’t feeling well when you were here. She is much better now. And she is cutting down on her smoking. She is looking beautiful, by the way, your mother.”

Allison came back on the line, and both she and George were on the phone now, clucking, joking, chuckling. “Lily, this is like a second honeymoon with your father,” her mother whispered. “I can’t tell you how happy we are.”

Could Lily hang up fast enough? She didn’t think so.

Now she had the strength to call Amy’s mother!

The voice on the other line was groggy and slightly slurred.

“Oh, Lily,” said Mrs. McFadden. “Where is she? Where is Amy? Why haven’t we heard from her?”

Lily wanted to say a few hollow words, and did, petering off, trailing off, she wanted to say more, about how she wasn’t worried—which was less and less true—and about how Amy liked to be independent and she hated accounting to anyone for her actions. (“That’s so true,” said Amy’s mother.) She said that she would call as soon as Amy came back, but she said it feebly, and it didn’t matter anyway, it wasn’t heard over Mrs. McFadden’s crying. There was no getting through to the mother, just as Lily had suspected, and she didn’t have anything in her arsenal with which to get through. Maybe Amanda would know how. After all, she had four children. Maybe if one of them went missing she would know what to say to Mrs. McFadden, who had had Amy with her first husband and was now remarried with two brand new children. She must have thought she was so close to not having to worry about Amy anymore.

Jan continued to cry, and Lily continued to sit on the phone and not know what to say except an intermittent and impotent, “ I’m really sorry. ”

Paul and Rachel, who were Amy’s friends and whose nucleus was Amy, wanted to talk only about—Amy. The conversation with Paul inevitably went something like this:

“Lil, where do you think she is?”

“I don’t know. What about you?”

“Have no idea. But then I didn’t live with her, I don’t know her everyday habits.”

“Paul, I might know how many times a day Amy brushes her teeth but I don’t know where she’s gone to.”

“I understand. No one is blaming you, Lil. Why so defensive?”

“Because everybody seems to think I have answers that I just don’t have. You don’t know how often that detective asks me where she is.”

“Where do you think she is?”

“I don’t know!”

“Do you think something happened to her?”

“No! Like what?”

And with Rachel:

“God, Lil, what do you think happened to Amy?”

“I don’t know. What about you?”

“I have no idea. But then, I didn’t live with her.”

Lily formulated her doubts. “Rach, the detective told me you told him that Amy was definitely seeing somebody.”

“That’s what she told me. Don’t you know? I thought you’d confirm for sure. Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?”

“She didn’t tell me, Rachel.”

“Why would she keep something like that from you? I thought you were close.”

“We were close. We are close.”

“By the way … is the detective married?”

“I don’t know. Why would I know that? And what do you care? How is TO -nee?”

“Tony is great,” Rachel said cryptically. “Never better.”

“So what are you asking about the detective for then?”

“No reason.”

Lily fell back on Amy’s bed. Did she have the answers? Should she have the answers? That was even worse. Should she and just doesn’t because Lily Quinn doesn’t have the answers to anything? Not to why she hasn’t graduated in six years, not to what she wants to do with her life, not to what’s wrong with her mother, not to just what it is that Joshua can’t love about her, not to where Amy is. Not to 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1.

MISSING: Amy McFadden

DESCRIPTION:

Sex:Female

Race:Caucasian

Age:24

Height:5'8"

Weight:140 lbs.

Build:Medium

Complexion:Fair

Hair:Red, long, curly

Eyes:Brown

Clothing/Jewelry:Unknown.

Last seen:May, 1999, in the vicinity of Avenue C and 9th Street in Manhattan, New York, within the confines of the 9th Precinct.

Lily and Rachel and Paul walked around the neighborhood and tacked the 8½ by 11 posters with Amy’s photo on the lamp posts of every block from 12th Street down to 4th and on three avenues, A, B, and C. Lily couldn’t help but be reminded of thumbtacking her lottery ticket to her wall, and every time she thought of it she felt stabbed a little in the chest, and walked on to the next lamp post without raising her head, careful not to look at her friends, nor at the homeless on the stoops who gazed at them from underneath their rags. Paul tied shiny yellow ribbons above the posters. Amy missing. 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1. Amy missing. 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1.

Allison showed up for their new conjugal bliss of a honeymoon three days straight. She went to the beach with him gladly the first day, reluctantly the second day, and on the third morning with hostility, complaining about the wetness of the water, and the sandiness of the sand, and the sunniness of the sun, and the steepness of the hill, complaining about his shoes, which as far as he could see weren’t bothering her . Complaining about the omelet he had yet to make (“I’m sick of your omelets.”) and the coffee (“You never make enough.”).

The fourth morning she didn’t get out of bed, telling him in a mumbled voice that she had had a late night and needed to sleep. The fifth morning, she said she wasn’t feeling well. Her legs hurt from all the walking. She was developing corns and calluses on her feet. She was getting a chill from the cold (??? 79ºF!) water so early in the morning. Her bathing suit was dirty and needed to be washed. The towels weren’t dry and she wasn’t going without the towels.

“Allie, want to go to the beach?”

“No. How many beaches can we go to? I’ve seen them.”

“You’ve seen a volcanic beach?”

She paused. “Sand and water, right?”

“No, volcanic pebbles.”

“You want me to walk barefoot on rocks? Don’t you remember how I cut my foot?”

“Allie, let’s go, for an hour.”

“I’m not going. I have to put the towels in the dryer, they’ll smell if I don’t. Why don’t you go?”