“Well, wake up. Something is really wrong with Faith. I was just texting with Olivia.”
Heaving a deep breath, Jim opened one eye.
“Who and what are you talking about?”
Carol told him everything, and Jim’s other eye popped open. She was grateful that he recognized that this was more intrigue than they had seen on a Friday night in a long time.
“So what in the world do you think could have happened?” Carol asked. “I’m a little nervous.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe a misunderstanding, or she forgot her phone somewhere and got a flat tire. Isn’t Channel 9 out on Metropolitan Road? It’s kind of the middle of nowhere. If you got a flat out there and didn’t have a phone it could take a bit to get to a gas station and call a tow truck.”
“So she’d be walking on some dark road by herself at night?” Carol asked, shuddering at the image.
“I don’t know, hon, but I’m sure she’ll be back Monday.”
Carol chewed at her fingernail. What if Faith wasnotback Monday? Wherecould she be?
They turned their attention to the newscast and sat through Roger’s sportscast. Roger was doing a story on a swimming team, and he had all kinds of terrible water puns: “They really dunked their opponent,” “They made a splash,” “They dove right in…” Carol would have normally made fun of him, but she just didn’t have it in her. Instead, she stared at the screen in numb silence.
The eleven o’clock show always had a final short segment on an uplifting subject; tonight Tom and Veronica read a story about a squirrel who would actually stand on little water skis and zip around a pool at a county fair. Carol tried to remember the TV term Olivia had taught them for this kind of silly story to end the newscast—a sticker? A flicker? No, it was a kicker, that’s right. Now she recalled because it had seemed like such an odd word to her and Jim.
“A kicker? A kicker is a player in the NFL,” Jim had said as they sat at the table eating dinner one night during Olivia’s spring break. “And the Lions haven’t had a good one in way too long.”
“Yeah, Uncle Jim, but in TV it’s called a ‘kicker’ too. My professor explained it to us like they kick out the show with something. The professor used to be a producer and she said she was always running around asking, ‘What are we going to run as a kicker tonight? Who has a kicker idea?’”
So the water-skiing squirrel was a “kicker.” Carol wanted to feel proud of her newfound TV knowledge and excited by her insider access, but the major emotion engulfing her was still worry.
All four of the on-air personalities laughed as the squirrel zipped around, a tiny red bandana around its neck. Jim even chuckled, but Carol remained silent. As the broadcast ended, Jim reached for the remote.
“Ready for bed, hon?”
She wasn’t tired—she could actually feel the adrenaline in her body from the Faith mystery—but she didn’t want to sit there any longer either.
“I guess so. I’m not really in the mood for any late-night comedy shows tonight.”
“Me neither, let’s hit the hay.”
Carol blew out the Spiced Apple Pie candle as Jim began turning off lights. He walked to the front and side doors to check the locks and stopped at the thermostat to lower the air-conditioning down to sleeping levels.
They did their usual bedtime routine, changing into pajamas next to each other, brushing their teeth at side-by-side sinks while spitting nearly at the same time, washing hands and faces. Carol brushed her hair, while Jim merely ran his hands through his. She put on specialized face cream and used a more standard lotion for her hands and forearms.
They climbed into bed, their spots well worn and each smelling like them, Jim’s the Bearglove brand of Old Spice deodorant and aftershave he wore and Carol’s a body wash in a peach scent from Kohl’s. They each had a favorite pillow, his flat and firm and hers large and fluffy. She always wrapped herself up in the majority of the floral comforter without any complaint from him; he usually kicked off any bedding during the night anyway.
Jim rolled to his side facing her back and put one hand on her waist in the sort of loose spoon position he favored. The heaviness of his hand through the blanket felt comforting. Normallyshe would fall asleep fast, but she couldn’t stop her mind from going topsy-turvy about Faith, and she stared at the wall, even as Jim began to snore.
Strange how she could feel so viscerally about someone she had never even seen in person, she thought. It probably went back to her youth, when she started being interested in celebrities; they always seemed to have these amazing, glamorous lives, so different from her own humdrum existence. She had plastered her bedroom with posters of cute actors and beautiful actresses and read all about them in teen magazines. Celebrities just seemed like aspirational people, so gorgeous.
After an hour of lying in bed, Carol thought she might not sleep at all that night and debated moving Jim’s arm and getting up, but somewhere after oneAMshe finally must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew sunlight was peeking around the edges of the curtains.
Her first thought was that she couldn’t wait to speak with Olivia for more details. Trivial things like how tall Roger was or if Tom and Veronica were nice had gone by the wayside. Carol wanted answers regarding her favorite meteorologist.
But it was only 7:30AMand Olivia might not be up. Olivia was heading into her senior year of college, and Carol remembered how college students liked to sleep. Forcing herself to wait until 9:30 to be respectful, Carol finally was unable to go a minute longer, and she called.
“I don’t know anything more,” said Olivia, her voice still thick with sleep. “But I guess it must have leaked out that they couldn’t reach her, and Matthew had to be called in, because someone started a Reddit thread already called ‘Where’s Faith?’ and people on X are speculating everything from she quit or wasfired to she has some incurable disease or even… I hate to say this, that she was abducted.”
Carol sucked in her breath. “Abducted?” She could hardly say the word.
“It’s just wild speculation, Aunt C. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
