In the mirror they regard each other. Louisa’s blue eyes are softer and kinder than they were at the grocery store. Maybe this is because of the wine she had with lunch, or maybe she’s simply in a better mood.
“I got it.” Louisa snaps her fingers. “You looked familiar to me and now I’m remembering... I saw you in Hannaford, right? Last week?”
“Maybe,” says Kristie. “I’m not sure.”
“And, oh, hey, by the way. I’m sorry if my mom was rude to you. She’s not usually like that.” Louisa looks down and tells the sink, “She’s been under a lot of stress lately. My dad’s sick—well, I won’t bore you with the details, but she’s not herself.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Kristie. “Hazard of the job. I’m used to it.”
“Yousureyou’re okay?”
Kristie nods. “I’m just tired. Thank you. I’ve been working a lot. But I’m not sick. I don’t want you to think that I served you food while I have like a stomach flu or something.”
“Maybe you’re pregnant.”
“No!” says Kristie, horrified.
Louisa shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know you from Adam, but if you’re tired, and you got sick for no reason—if I were you, I might take a pregnancy test. If nothing else just to rule it out. Trust me. I’ve been through it three times.” She swings the door open and steps back into the restaurant.
Kristie waits a beat, then leaves the bathroom herself. Fernando is waiting for her. “You’re not supposed to take a break when you have tables,” he says.
“It was an emergency,” Kristie says. “A female matter.” That explanation typically renders men quiet.
He considers her. “Your pretty eyes are all red. Either you were crying in there or getting high.”
“I’m not high,” she says, trying to move past him.
“You smell nice,” he says. “What’s that perfume you’ve got on there?” He sniffs at the air around her neck. He’s so close that she can see the little dark hairs he missed when he shaved.
“Eau de Kitchen,” says Kristie. It’s a joke, obviously, but she’s not smiling and Fernando doesn’t smile either.
“You’d better watch yourself, New Girl,” he says.
“I have a name.”
“Not to me, you don’t.” He puts his hand on her arm.
To keep from smacking him, Kristie bites the inside of her cheek so hard she thinks she’s probably drawn blood. Restaurants are full of Fernandos. Another one is nothing she can’t handle. She shakes his hand off her arm and stops short of telling him to screw himself. She needs this job.
11.
Louisa
As she drives home Louisa’s eyes flick to her children in the rearview mirror. Matty and Abigail are each looking out their respective windows and Claire, in the middle seat, always in the middle seat, is looking straight ahead, her lips tucked and her eyes narrowed, as though she is concentrating on memorizing a physics equation. The wine has made Louisa sleepy, almost slipping over the edge into cranky; she’s already behind on her three-plus pages a day, but she won’t get any work done without a nap first. They probably should have stayed home and given the children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to take down to the rocks after all. The day has grown darker: clouds scudding by in front of the car, the air through her cracked window carrying an unexpected chill. Maybe it’s those slight alterations in mood and atmosphere that feel portentous, or maybe it’s something more nebulous and internal, but either way when Louisa pulls the minivan into the driveway and the dooropens and Barbara comes out of the house—not running, not exactly, she doesn’t seem like someone to whom running would come naturally—but moving quickly, holding the cordless house phone, what happens next seems like it might have been inevitable all along.
“Oh, no,” says Annie. “No.”
“What?” says Claire. Annie shakes her head and opens her door, out of the car in an instant. Abigail’s eyes go wide, and they all see now that Barbara is crying. One by one, they disembark.
“I only went to visit the ladies’ room!” says Barbara. Her cheeks are red and her voice is wobbling. “Not even thirty seconds, and he wasgone.I’ve looked everywhere. Everywhere.”
“Did you call the police?” Annie asks.
“I was wondering if I should. But I thought, he must be somewhere in the house. He couldn’t have gone far! So I started with the downstairs—”
“Of course you should have called the police,” snaps Annie. “Here, give me the phone. I’ll do it.”
First to come out to the house is a deputy officer—so young, he can hardly have had time to earn a high school diploma, baby pudge still visible in his cheeks, kind blue eyes, short-sleeved dark uniform with the nametremblayover the right pocket.
