The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Page 11

  Micah, realizing what he had done, abandoned the bike and began to run, the empty soda can clattering in the road.

  A look of pure rage overtook the Creepers’ faces, and they set off.

  “Run, Micah!” I screamed. His purple cape splayed out behind him, the wind carrying it upward, revealing skinny legs and those silver, curly shoelaces sparkling in the last bit of daylight. Please . . . please, let that boy fly. A miracle, my father said, was a divine, extraordinary, and unexplainable event. As I clenched my handlebars, I suddenly understood that desperation, to believe in something that seemed absolutely impossible.

  Micah wasn’t going to fly without some help.

  I found my legs and began to pedal. I could see the Creepers gaining on him. Travis reached out to yank Micah’s cape. He pulled hard, and Micah tumbled backward onto the road.

  “No!” I yelled.

  And then our miracle came. Jimmy. He was riding fast on his skull-marked skateboard. He deftly brushed strands of hair off his forehead, the look on his face juxtaposed between intensity and ease. Pure confidence. He leaned back into the ride, coasting freely before pushing off again, like he’d been born with a skateboard glued to his feet. He jumped into their path, doing a trick.

  And this was what gave Micah his escape. He crawled forward, lifted himself off the pavement, and began to run again. I heard Eddie ask, “Why you with them, Jimmy?” followed by Travis’s horrible laugh. Distracting them, Jimmy did a flip trick.

  I rode fast while Micah ran to the safety of Nana’s porch, not looking to see what Jimmy did next. We huddled, me patting Micah’s back, thanking him for defending my honor with a Sunkist soda. All the while I could hear Travis saying, “I’m gonna kill that kid.”

  It seemed to take forever as we waited for Jimmy to appear again. Finally, he came, coasting down the road alone. He sighed when he saw us, Micah sniffling as we sat on Nana’s front porch.

  Instead of being grateful for my assistance, Jimmy lit into me.

  “You know what’s worse than Micah not being able to defend himself?”

  “What?”

  “You trying to defend him.”

  “Jimmy—”

  “You’re a girl.”

  “So?” I asked, rising.

  “So it just makes everything worse for him!”

  I pushed him off the steps just as Nana came out of the house.

  “Guinevere St. Clair,” she scolded. “Shame on you! You let Bitty come home alone, and now you’re fighting like a wild tomcat. It’s rude and impolite!”

  “Bitty wasn’t alone,” I began. “Jimmy brought her home.”

  “And this is the way you thank your friend? Thank you, Jimmy,” she said stiffly before turning back to me. “Gwyn, say good-bye and come in the house!”

  “Come on, Micah,” Jimmy said.

  Micah offered a wave and walked down the street after Jimmy. I watched after them, feelings raw as I looked down the darkened street, seeing the faint swoosh of a purple cape and hearing the rolling sound of a skateboard on a gravel road.

  • • •

  Later, I lay awake listening for my father to come home from the double date.

  When he did, he handed me the note I’d put in Jake Lytle’s pocket. The white paper glowed in the moonlight.

  I scowled, insulted at the lack of discretion and seriousness with which my evidence had been handled.

  “I didn’t read it,” he said. “But Jake said it’s about Gaysie.”

  I crumpled it up and stuck it under my pillow. Officer Jake was as traitorous as Queen Guinevere.

  “Gaysie is a good person,” he said. “She’s . . . had a really hard life, and I’d like you to show the same compassion to her as you’ve shown to your mother.”

  I covered my face with my pillow to hide my shame. Who was this girl he spoke of? Compassion toward my mother had always been in short supply.

  He gently lifted the pillow off my face. I sat up straight and folded my arms.

  “Daddy, she knows something about Wilbur. I know she does.”

  He looked at me awhile.

  “I think we need . . . to hope for the best outcome,” my father said slowly. “Who knows, maybe he’ll come walking home tomorrow and we’ll laugh that our worry was for nothing.” But even as he said it, I heard the doubt creep into his voice again.

  Suddenly exhausted, I scooted down into bed.

  “Daddy, remember I told you about the Creepers? They were so mean to Micah tonight when we were coming home. And Jimmy says I only make things worse by trying to help Micah, because I’m a girl. It’s not fair.”

  “Ah,” he said. “But you already know that.”

  I frowned. “Poor Micah.”

  “Why poor Micah?”

  “His father is dead, Wilbur hasn’t come back, his mother is guilty, and those Creepers are really out to get him now—and I think it’s mostly because he likes sparkly shoelaces! His life pretty much stinks.”

  “If you put it that way—but guess what? Life changes. It gets better. Nothing is permanent. And, Gwyn, no matter what Jimmy or anyone else says, you keep looking out for him. That quality is what I love most about you. Everyone is looking for a hero, someone to believe in. You can bet that even Travis Maynard is looking for one too.”

  I looked into his deep, dark eyes.

  “Now,” he said, tucking the covers under my chin, “go to sleep, my brave Guinevere.”

  “Daddy? Can I say . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes, even when I try real hard, I can’t remember what Mama’s face was like. I remember things we did, but—I can’t remember her.” Something in my father’s body shifted. There was a hardening in his grip, and he was quiet for so long I almost drifted off to sleep.

  But on the edge of my dreams I thought I heard him say, “Don’t be too hard on those boys. On Gaysie. On yourself. Not everyone gets the life they want.”

  CHAPTER 15

  MY FATHER WAS OBSESSED WITH the creatures upstairs, the creatures being the hundreds of neurons in our brains. He said they were busiest at night and even when we slept, the creatures upstairs kept right on problem solving. Often, when my father went to bed puzzled, the answer would be right there in the morning, like an unwrapped present. The brain was so alive to him that he spoke about it as if it were a real person.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table on Saturday morning when the creatures delivered the goods.

  “Ah!” I shrieked, standing up quickly, clattering the breakfast dishes. Startled, Nana turned.

  “I just remembered I had a dream about Gaysie!”

  “Your imagination is something I’m starting to worry about.” She said, “I keep telling your father you’re spending too much time down the street.”

  I clanged my fork down on the table, and Nana jumped again.

  “The search party is today!” I said. “That’s why I dreamed about her!”

  “For heaven’s sake, Gwyn!” Nana said, holding her heart like any great actress would. “You’re so dramatic! And you’re not going, so don’t even think about it.”

  “Oh yes, I am!”

  “Oh no, you’re not!”

  “You’re going, right, Daddy?”

  “I am indeed going, after I see Vienna.”

  “See? We’re going.”

  “I said I’m going.”

  “You’re not going anywhere near that search party,” Nana said. “Of course, it’s up to your father. . . .” Nana looked at him expectantly.

  “Gwyn will not be at the search party,” my father said.

  “I made Vienna a picture,” Bitty said.

  “Your mother a picture,” Nana corrected. “Bitty, you stay with me this morning. Your sister can bring it for you. Jed, please take Gwyn with you. She needs to burn off some energy.”

  • • •

  I skipped along the road, happy to have my father all to myself for a few minutes. The air had turned sharper, the leaves br
ight with color. It was almost easy to forget that in a few hours we’d be finding Wilbur. Despite my suspicions, I truly didn’t want to think about Wilbur as anything but alive, so I skipped over the dead-or-alive detail part. This was a case of a lifetime! Maybe they would even let me prosecute Gaysie!

  I breathed in the cold air, coughed as it hit my lungs, and skipped more quickly to keep up with my father. He was a very brisk and purposeful walker. The walks to and from home were the only personal time he ever had. He did not play golf or sports like other dads. He didn’t jog or have any hobbies besides painting, occasionally, and even that was always for Vienna. He had his children, a disabled wife, work, and a large collection of brain research that was always a mile high and never finished.

  “So,” I said, “do you think they’ll find him?”

  He looked sideways at me, and I tried to temper my excitement. “You’re still not going.”

  “Daddy!”

  “He’ll come home. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. He could be shopping for tractor parts, for all we know.”

  “Daddy,” I said. “It’s been weeks.”

  He looked at me and blinked. “No. Really?”

  “Yes! Ask Gaysie. The last time I saw him he was at her house.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Isn’t it obvious!” I said, trying not to raise my voice. “She SNAPS. Just the other day—and I didn’t tell you this because I’m still gathering evidence—she threw a coffeepot so hard at me, I was nearly decapitated!”

  He looked at me. “At you?”

  “Well, at the garbage can, but I was right behind it.”

  “Is this the evidence you gave to Jake? Circumstantial? Speculative? That she has a bad temper?”

  I mulled that over. Circumstantial. Speculative. What I needed was a direct link.

  And I was going to get one.

  We walked past my father’s office, admired his newly hung dental sign, but didn’t stop until we were in front of the care center. Instead of going in right away, my father sat on a bench next to a yellow-flowered bush, just past its prime. This was fine by me. I was never in a rush to see Vienna.

  “Gaysie planted this bush and did all the landscaping.” He nudged me. “You know, Gaysie does many nice things you don’t even know about.”

  “You never told me you were friends,” I said darkly. “She did! She even told me about the sledding accident.”

  He looked at me, surprised.

  “And you’re offended by it?”

  “You never told me.”

  “I apologize. It happened a long time ago. And it’s a painful subject.”

  “How could you ever be friends—I’m surprised she didn’t try to drown you!” My tone came out as an accusation.

  “Gwyn,” he admonished quietly. “That is a terrible thing to say.”

  I looked at my shoes.

  “The fact is, Gaysie Cutter saved my life and your mother’s life that day.”

  “What!”

  I frowned at this new and heroic portrayal of Gaysie. It was an incongruous twist to my investigation. “How could you even be friends with her?” I burst out. I meant now, but my father looked backward.

  “When you’re kids, you don’t care so much about what people think or wear or look like—adults condition you to that. Gaysie was funny and whip-smart and had a wicked imagination. She made up the best games. But afterward, Gaysie was in the hospital for a long time. During that time there was a . . . shift in the way the town saw the whole event.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t we all try to find someone to blame? A reason for everything? And, Guinevere, I’m not sure there always is a reason. For a man like me who has spent his whole life relying on facts and concrete answers, that’s a hard truth to reconcile.”

  I was about to protest when he kept going.

  “Myron.” He swallowed, like it was hard to say the name. “He was a well-liked child. Gaysie . . . was just different, and it was her sled. No matter what we said, people went for the easiest scapegoat. After the accident it was just never the same for her.”

  “Because Myron died?”

  My father’s eyes looked sad. “Yes. We grew up that day.”

  He sighed. “This Wilbur business. It’s no good for Gaysie.”

  “Why?”

  “Wilbur’s the closest thing she has to a friend since Vienna and I left.” He took a sideways glance at me. “Missing for weeks, you said?”

  I nodded. “That’s why you should let me come to the search party—we’re bound to find something!”

  My father closed his eyes. “I pray that’s not how we find him.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Think about this,” he said, looking at me. “Who has the most to lose by Wilbur being gone?”

  “Gaysie,” I conceded.

  “So why would she be involved in his disappearance?” He fingered the yellow bush again. “It’s a shame there was a frost last night.”

  I felt an abrupt chill, thinking of old Wilbur, badly hurt or lost somewhere, shivering through a cold, dark frost. My father kept referring to the sledding incident as an “accident.” But I wondered. A dead friend. A missing friend. A coincidence . . . or a pattern?

  There were so many things I wanted to say and ask about Gaysie Cutter, but I silenced myself when my father leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes again, the sun bright and shining on his face.

  His cell phone rang.

  “One minute, Vienna, I’ll be right there,” he murmured before turning it off. I pretended there was a tied knot on my lips that wouldn’t open unless carefully untied. I sat as quiet as a caterpillar. I did not understand Gaysie Cutter, but I did know my father. He needed this minute.

  CHAPTER 16

  THIS IS BORING,” JIMMY SAID, legs hanging out of Micah’s second-floor bedroom window while dangling a yo-yo. “If Wilbur was out there all this time we would have found him five times by now.”

  “The entire town is here,” I said, holding up my binoculars.

  Ms. Myrtle, of course, was spying from her own window, while Mr. Thompson was loudly asking about his missing cat.

  I saw Penny’s father and older brothers, a pack of police officers, including Officer Jake. Pastor Weare and his sweet-as-pie wife, Luanne, were herding people into groups. There was Petey, the diner owner; our gym teacher, Mr. Zabriski, and Mrs. Law, wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap. I spied the Creepers hanging out on the perimeter on their bikes. From the way they were ducked down, I could tell they weren’t supposed to be there either.

  Technically, Nana could not be mad at me, since I was not actually at the search party. I was just playing at Micah’s, merely a passive observer who happened to be perched in a second-story window at the same time as the search party. It was an excellent loophole.

  I held my law book and binoculars while dictating notes to Micah, who typed out my brilliant observations on his typewriter. Jimmy was supposedly handling surveillance. Attached to the house was a zip line that could carry Jimmy a hundred feet across the yard if needed. I looked down and felt faint.

  “Hey,” Jimmy suddenly said. “Where’s Gaysie’s coffin?”

  Bitty and I looked. Sure enough, the commissioned coffin was gone. What was left was a worn patch of dead grass.

  Micah shrugged.

  “Seriously, Micah?” I said. “A missing man and a missing coffin? A coincidence? I think not!”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Jimmy said. “The only reason she had it made was because she had wood from an old closet she didn’t want to go to waste.”

  “And yet,” I said testily, “it’s gone.”

  Jimmy climbed out the window to get a better look, but his foot slipped. Bitty and I made a grab for him.

  “If you fall out, it’ll ruin the search party,” I yelled. “At least wait until it’s over to kill yourself!”

  Jimmy, happy to make me so angry, laughed
and climbed back onto the windowsill.

  Micah came to join us at the window. Instead of looking down, he looked out into the fields. Most of them were finished for the season, but without Wilbur, Gaysie’s hay hadn’t been cut or baled. A small patch of depressed-looking corn stood abandoned too.

  “There’s Daddy!” Bitty said.

  “Quick!” I said, pulling her down. After a few minutes we peeked back out and saw Gaysie appear, her large backside facing us. I looked through the binoculars.

  “Holy heck,” I said, my eyes opening wide. “She’s holding a shotgun!” Micah groaned and typed. I could feel excitement fizzing inside me like Pop Rocks. The gun was pointed down, the length of it parallel to her body. I watched as Officer Jake walked over to Gaysie, his face serious. As they spoke, Gaysie nodded, then shook her head in short, vigorous jerks.

  “Absolutely not!” Her voice rose above the crowd.

  Micah lay down on the typewriter keys and covered his head.

  The crowd went quiet. Officer Jake put his hands on his hips and turned to address them.

  “Thank you all for coming. As you know, this is an informal search party for Wilbur Truesdale, who hasn’t been seen for a few weeks now.”

  “Officer Jake was here last night,” Micah whispered.

  “And you’re just telling me this? Micah! What did Officer Jake say? Did he accuse her of a crime? Did he read you your Miranda rights?”

  “I’m not guilty, I swear,” Micah said.

  “And that’s all?”

  “I was trying not to listen,” Micah sniffed.

  “Micah!”

  “Spread out in a line and go slow,” Officer Jake yelled.

  “It’s starting!” Bitty said excitedly.

  Micah began typing.

  “This isn’t a foot race,” Officer Jake yelled. “We’ll start in the back of Ms. Myrtle’s house, but under no circumstances are you to search Gaysie Cutter’s property.”

  My reaction was the same as the crowd’s.

  “Why in the world not?” I exclaimed.

  Jimmy crowed, bouncing up and down.

  My eyes flicked to the tacky fluorescent NO TRESPASSING signs stapled on her house and fences. I had long thought she was either paranoid or guilty. Maybe it was both.