“Where did she go?” I called to Fay and Claire. Claire held out both palms. Did she mean she didn’t know where Ruth had gone or that she hadn’t even seen Ruth? I jogged over to them. “Did you see where Ruth went?”
“Ruth left?” Fay said with a gasp. “See? We should have been in there.”
“You’re probably right.” We circled the room, like nincompoops, opening the supply closets to see if she was hiding in one of them. “Where would she go?”
“To her house,” Claire said. “Or to that restaurant. Although I can’t imagine her having the appetite for a Cobb salad after all this. She’s trying to get rid of us. Maybe she’ll really take off. Like gone. This time for good.”
But even Ruth didn’t have superpowers. She couldn’t simply disappear. She would need her clothing. Her medicines. Her passport. And she’d worked at this school for quite a while. Would she just take off without a word? She absolutely would. There was no sense trying to think about this as if the customary rules applied. The only rules were the ones Ruth was making up as she went along. I feared for the traffic cop who might try to pull Ruth over for speeding.
“Tell me how to get there,” I said.
“We’re all going this time, Reenie,” Fay said firmly.
“But what if she comes back, Fay? She left all her stuff here, her backpack, her books...”
“Her phone,” Claire said, emptying the backpack on a lab table and inspecting the contents.
“I’ll call you the minute I find her, if I find her.”
I glanced at the big gray aluminum trash can, at the paper cup in it and the residue. Bending to pick it up, I thought better of it.
“Don’t touch that cup, you guys. Tell somebody to come and clean up the juice and then put the mop and cup and stuff in some big trash bag or something, okay?”
“Could there be something in it?” Claire asked.
“She acted like there was.”
I grabbed the keys and looked up at the clock. It was high noon. Of course it was.
Sixteen
Roseate Spoonbill
Platalea ajaja.This large, bright pink wading bird is gorgeous at a distance and bizarre up close. The roseate spoonbill is common in coastal Florida, where they once were hunted nearly to extinction for their beautiful rosy feathers, used in the 1800s to trim women’s hats and make jewelry. That color comes from their diet, mostly shrimp and crayfish, in the same way as the color of flamingos. These birds forage in marshes, lagoons, ponds, and saltwater wetlands, in a nearly lying-down position, their bodies just above the water with head hanging down. The roseate spoonbill is often seen as a symbol of harmony with nature: Its population rebounded when hunting it was banned. Spoonbills are very gregarious and interested in others of their kind: When they spot a group of spoonbills flying overhead, they stick their necks and bills straight up into the air in a posture called sky gazing.
If I read in a novel about what happened next, I might lower my eyelids and say,Really?But if it was a news account, I wouldn’t be disdainful. I would only feel sad and sorry for the people involved, grateful and guilty that this time, it was someone else’s problem, not mine. Except this time, it was my problem, because I’d made it my problem. In real life, some things just crash the imagination.
It was no big deal for me to follow Ruth’s trail. It was a very short trail.
She had been living at her parents’ Florida residence, where all three sisters and their families spent vacation weeks for their whole lives. Fay and Claire gave me turn-by-turn directions when I confided that my brain seized up when I looked at a map. Once I was seat-belted into the rental, I drove a block or two before stopping to compose myself. I used an old therapy trick, literally going through the motions of brushing off invisible cares with flicks of my fingertips. This time, though, the problems weren’t just annoying mental lint but instead little imaginary flames, sucking up oxygen, getting brighter and bigger. Nightmares are dreams too.
It wasn’t that hard.
I had no memory of a life that didn’t include Ruth, not only as someone to say hello to, like the mothers of a dozen friends, but as someone I admired and trusted, someone I would drop by to visit even when Felicity wasn’t around, whose food I ate, whose counsel I asked for. Parking the car on the other side of the street from the Copelands’ rambling white stucco hacienda, I rolled down the window and, drowning in the heat, waited to see if anything moved before I even tried going to the door. Just then, as I watched, a car backed out of the garage and Ruth got out. Leaving the trunk open, she began tossing in duffels and totes. A little girl followed her in and out, handing Ruth a sleeping bag, then a miniature backpack.
Why was the little girl even there on a school day? Why was Ruth taking care of a kid even as she prepared to flee? I got out and, unnoticed, crossed the street.
The little girl called, “Granny, there’s a lady here.”
I looked hard at the girl’s face. The reels on the slot machine spun: one heart, two hearts, three hearts. Alarms pounded, bells rang, and silver dollars poured down.
“Hi,” I said to the little girl. “I’m a friend of your grandma.”
Ruth came to the door. “Reenie, just let us go,” she pleaded. “You don’t understand.”
I pretended to consider that. Finally, I said, “Well, it’s true, I don’t. So at least I’d like an explanation.” Clearly frightened, the little girl with the wispy dark braid wrapped part of her shoulder under the hem of Ruth’s sweater. It must have been eighty-five degrees, and Ruth, as ever, was shivering in her cardigan. Her pretty face was almost archaic, pale and fragile as a candle, as if from a photo taken a century ago.
Ruth said, “I don’t have much time, Reenie.”
