Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

Esme tried to roll up her sleeves, but Ida demurred. Said, “This place is creepy. Why are we in a hotel? ”

Esme looked to Martin, who was suddenly married to the reorganizing of his kit, and then to Crystal, still by the door, who smiled horribly and said, “I told Ida you’d explain everything when we got here.”

But how much was left to explain? And what were the odds Ida still didn’t know? CNN had been breaking revelations about the miscreant Esme Haas every five seconds. Ida was out of school, which meant Esme could not palm off the responsibility on some bratty kid calling her names and spilling the beans, because it was all the talk at breakfast and at dinner, too. In theory this should have come as a relief, but no. Esme didn’t want to be the one to tell Ida. Tell her what? Your mother is going away for a long time.

“Yeah,” Ida said. “There’s news vans on our front lawn. It’s kinda weird.”

Esme took her by the wrist but got sweater sleeve instead. “Did you talk to anyone? Did anyone take your picture? This is important, Ida. Tell me. I won’t be mad.”

She let go of the sleeve. She worried the vibrato in her voice communicated panic.

“Just one,” Ida said. “He was nice.”

“A reporter, honey? What did he look like?”

But Ida had grown shy. She toed the carpet with her boot and said, “I dunno,” shrugging and balling her sweater.

Esme asked if Crystal saw the guy. She had not. She was, she said, too busy patronizing the Helix coffers with her allowance to notice, not that Esme knew anything about it. Okay, so she was not just angry but hurt. And maybe even confused. The Helix was her first adult passion, and now it was being tested, and because in the nascence of any passion there was not supposed to be doubt, she felt cheated.

“Well,” Esme said, and she gestured for Ida to come sit next to her on the bed. She needed to regroup and adopt a suitable interrogation technique. “What did you do today, turnip? After skating, I mean.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Because I left you some DVDs for when you got home. They were on the kitchen table.”

Ida paused to recall which movies and did the thing Esme was hoping for, which was to establish a baseline for truth telling from here on out: she looked right and snarled her upper lip, which was already too thin and blanched to rank as an asset. Esme smiled. Amazing how the second you objectify someone you love, she becomes at once less and more beautiful.

“They were boring,” she said. “I’ve seen them. ScoobyDoo is for babies, anyway.”

“There were some other movies, too,” Esme said. “But I guess the reporters were more interesting.” She added this last bit casually, even sighed a little, like: Oh well, this country’s romance with the press has been in evidence for centuries untold, no harm done.

Ida perked up slightly. “Yeah, they were nice to me.”

They. So before it was one; now it was many. The DoD had arms.

“So you talked to them through the gates, honey? That’s a long walk from the house, and it’s cold out!”

“Mo-om,” Ida said, annoyed. “Don’t you listen? They came up to the lawn. The back patio, too.”

Crystal popped a candy in her mouth. She said, “I guess it won’t surprise you to find out Rita fired me.”

Esme shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You got fired?” Ida said. She was gauging the mood of the room, trying to decide if this was funny or not. It was not.

“Yes. Because when your boss’s husband gets abducted, sometimes your boss thinks it’s your fault. She fired me from her bed. How humiliating.”

“What’s abducted? ” Ida said.

“What, indeed,” Crystal said. “Sometimes it means being stolen from your perfectly honest life in foster care and thrown in with people you don’t know at all.”

“Sometimes,” Martin said, getting into the spirit of things, “it’s like those alien movies, you’ve seen those, where people get invited to hang out on another planet for a while.”

“Invited,” Crystal said.

“Enough,” Esme said. “Can we just talk about the reporters, please?”—forgetting she was trying to finesse her daughter and blowing the effort because Ida gave up on the adult discourse and retrieved an activity book from her knapsack. Esme could not help but notice that not a single animal was colored solid or even coherently. Why couldn’t her daughter keep to the lines?

“Ida, you only just got here. Don’t you want to pay me a little attention?” Esme was being weighed against the Little Mermaid and found wanting. “Just for a second?”

Ida rolled her eyes and said, “Ohhhkay,” and then, without prelude, knocked her head against her mother’s shoulder. Not hard, but insistent.

“Turtle, it’s okay. It’s your birthday soon, maybe we’re going to take a vacation. Just us two. Maybe sooner, if you can tell me something about the reporter you talked to.”

“Can we visit Ma and Pop?”

Esme nodded, and the words came out before she could stop them. “Sure, honey bun. Sure. Your grandparents miss you a lot.”

She was glad to be pressing Ida’s forehead to her neck, because in no way could she make eye contact with her. Already Crystal was remonstrating with jaw open and lids drawn so far back in disbelief they looked ready to dip behind her eyeballs. Even Martin shook his head.

What was worse than manipulating your daughter? Than lying in ways for which she would never forgive you? What was worse was your unstable DoD contact come to snatch your kid as collateral lest you cough up his name to the press. Jim had already left Esme unconscious on the bathroom floor. Who knew what he’d do next.

“So, the reporter,” she said. “Was he fancy? Like, in a suit and tie? Did he know your name?”

But Crystal had had enough. She said, “No, okay? No. Just normal press guys.”

“Okay, good.” It was the answer Esme wanted, the tension chased from her body, the lights gone out, only Ida saw it wrong and so, pawing in the dark, she said, “Yeah, but you didn’t see the one guy talking to me. You can’t see everything I do!” followed by her storming the bathroom. Slam went the door, though it was broken already.

Esme stood. Tried to think. Were there any safe places left to send Ida? School was out; even the English-speaking lycée in Haiti was out, because that was where all the spook kids went. As for the few at the DoD who had been briefed on the Taskforce for the Infiltration and Dismantling of the Helix, they were smote with amnesia — Esme Haas? Never heard of her — and thus unavailing of protections in vogue among mafia turncoats and spies. So that was out. Only place she could think of was her parents’ cabin in North Carolina, though Ida could hardly stay there alone.

Crystal said, “I’d better take her home,” and motioned at the bathroom. They could all hear Ida crying. Esme shook her head; there was only one thing to do. “Why not let Martin take her to the mall first. Buy some new clothes. Toiletries, too. Pajamas are fun.” Then, raising her voice, “That sound good, Ida? How about we take that trip right now.”

The door opened a wedge, the child nodding, eyes floorward.

Esme squatted. “Now, listen,” she said. “I know things seem a little weird, but everything’s fine. Even if they don’t seem fine, they are. Also, I have a surprise for you. Martin will tell you in the car.” And as Ida looked warily at her mother and her mother at Martin and Martin at his phone, to make sure it was on for when Esme texted him instructions the second they left the hotel, an NPR commentator broadcast the news: the FBI had just issued Thurlow Dan an ultimatum. Come out or we’re coming in. And, by way of subtext: If the hostages die, it’s on you.