“Well, look who the cat dragged in!” Monica Phillips dances over with her boobs swinging side to side like a pendulum underneath her sweater. “You handsome devil, you. I knew you would be here today!” She throws her arms around me in a strangulating hug, and Allison rolls her eyes at the sight. “I put a good word in to the boss for you and your wife,” she whispers directly into my ear, her lips molesting the hell out of it while she’s at it and I shudder.
So this was Monica’s doing. “I’m not sure if I should thank you just yet.” I offer up a forced smile.
“I’m doing you.” Her tongue does a quick revolution of her lips. Monica dusts my nose with her finger while pushing me back into a waiting chair. I give a nervous glance to my wife. Women coming on to me is what got us into this nightmare to begin with. Little did I know one tug at the string of lust and my world, our worlds would unravel like a cheap sweater. Allison pitches her brows, bemused as she settles next to me. A demure brunette with thick red glasses wordlessly gets to work on her, and I cringe at the torment that’s about to begin for me.
“Handsome here and I used to date.” Monica smacks my forehead with a sponge before aggressively dotting my face with it. “Isn’t that right? We were in l-u-v.”
Allison twitches a smile, but she’s too sane to give it. We are grieving our missing child for shit’s sake. How does any of this feel appropriate to this woman? She’s batshit all right. I called it years ago.
“But life happened, didn’t it?” She reaches for a pair of tweezers and gives a few quick pinches over the bridge of my nose, clipping over my eye like a fire line and I grunt through it.
“Painful.” I try to tough it out without squirming. This right here is why I could never have been a woman. I would have made a lousy tranny, too, failed Woman 101 right off the eyebrow plucking bat. She gouges into my skin, and I reflexively move her away. “Shit. Sorry.”
“Play nice.” Allison warms the room with her voice. I really do love that woman. I wish with everything in me that I could go back in time and say no to the damn pool party for two. The affair never would have started. Hailey would not be threatening to show me her stomach. God forbid. And we never would have moved to Timbuktu, Idaho to get the hell away from her. Reagan would be safe in my arms.
A wave of emotion sweeps over me and my insides buck in lieu of weeping.
And just like that, I forget how to breathe. I cheated on my wife and now my child is missing. My father’s favorite words come back to me—the wages of sin is death. I’ve done this. My randy balls and I have effectively taken down my entire family, and the most innocent party of all is suffering greatly for it.
A deep, guttural twist of grief envelops me. It churns inside of me until I can no longer breathe under its weight.
“So tell us about it.” Allison gives something just this side of a wink to Monica. A sign of eminent danger. That partial ocular twitch is what she likes to invoke while she’s sharpening the claws, out for blood. Her enemy just doesn’t know it yet. “Lay it all out. How did it go down? Was there a messy breakup involved?” Her voice is jubilant and light, but I see her ready to pounce and eviscerate. She’s just as pissed at Monica as I am.
Monica bucks with a laugh.
Shit.
“The prince and I dated for almost four years.” A smug look crosses her face with something vindictive layered just beneath. She pulls a comb from the drawer and rakes it over my scalp, hard, like razor blades.
“Four years?” Allison leans over to get a good look at me, her eyes wild with disbelief. “That’s incredible. You’ve never mentioned her. We’ve been married for six.”
“Almost seven.” I glower up at Monica. Obviously, she’s getting her sick little jollies off while extracting a little revenge.
“It was like a marriage.” The words strum from her lips almost catatonic. “At least it was to me. I appreciated every carnal inch of this boy.” Her eyes gloss over and she blinks back tears. “But then he was off to Wake. A college man. He didn’t have a need for a hometown girl. She dabs the sponge in pink powder before bouncing it over my cheeks. “Dumb ol’ girl like me. He wanted something fresh, something blonde, something only California could deliver in some spray tan—peroxide little package.”
“I was a blonde for a time.” Ally presses her lips together before giving a mock kiss to the mirror.
“Never wrote, never called.” Monica dips the sponge back into the ruddy powder, then dab, dab, dab right over my flesh. I can feel my flesh lighting up like a rash. “I came out once, but he was already with you.”
I shoot a look to her. I have zero recollection of this trip. But then again, my mind has settled down in a very dark place and sleep is essentially a stranger to me. Monica could have camped out in my dorm for all I remember.
“I saw the two of you having fun.” She shakes her head, staring intently at my features. “Him sticking his hands up your shirt as if you were a common street whore.”
“Monica, enough!” the petite brunette working on Allison finally pipes up. Her face is flustered, and she says exactly what I’m dying to say. “We’d better get them on set.”
Monica spins me toward the mirror and I’m greeted with a clown’s face, pale, doughy, with cheeks that look as if someone spent a solid year slapping. Nice touch. It’s nice to know, despite the morbid facts surrounding my life, revenge still isn’t off the table. I head to the restroom and tone it down, smearing that strawberry stained crap all over the place. I look like hell. Infected. Disease-ridden. I probably should. My heart has been diseased for some time now.
I can’t help but note the studio is smaller than anticipated as they hook Allison and me up with mics. The morning hosts, two women who look interchangeable with their painted-on smiles, short blonde hair, have a chuckle over a parade of kids in Halloween costumes before losing their smiles as they segue into our segment.
They ask the routine questions who, what, where, when, and why. We offer our sparse answers, Reagan, missing, two weeks and counting, and we do not know why. That is the million-dollar question.
“As you’re aware, we have Dolla Chetney here, world-famous psychic who claims she does have news regarding your daughter.” Blonde number one looks into the camera. “We’ll be right back to hear just what that is.”
Allison lets out a sigh as if she’s been holding her breath and gives my hand a quick squeeze. “How did we do?”
“We did good,” I assure her. “We’re likable, normal people. This ends well for us.” I hope to God it’s true.
The makeup brigade stomps onto the set. Allison gets a quick swath of lip gloss applied while Monica slaps my forehead with a brush, the powder pluming from it like fog.
An older woman with gray hair yellowing at the tips, deep lines cut into her upper lip, a testament to the tobacco industry, takes a seat next to us. She offers a somber hello, and for once it feels as if we’re being paid the due respect we deserve after having our child vacuumed out of our lives by the devil himself.
Allison gives a tired huff her way. Neither of us believes in psychics, fortune-tellers, or any other charlatan who claims to have a third eye into the unknown. We certainly don’t look to the stars to determine whether or not we should leave the house or take a crap. This is simply a formality. A means to an end. We have to pander to the American public in an effort to get off the naughty list, and to do so we listen to this monster spin a yarn about our baby girl. She should be arrested right along with whoever the hell did this. On second thought, whoever gave this nutcase the green light to be here should be convicted. That’s the real nutcase. I’m betting it was Monica.
Lights, camera, action. Blonde One introduces Ms. Chetney. “The world is waiting to hear what you have to say, but before that”—the blonde squints a tight smile my way—“do you have any words you’d like to share with Mr. and Mrs. Price?”
Blonde Two leans in. “A reading! Something that might shed light on the case, of course.?
??
I cringe at how convenient it was for her to use my daughter to backpedal.
“Yes, I would love to.” Ms. Chetney sheds a matronly smile, dull, no joy in her eyes to support it. “First, let me preface this by saying I am so sorry for the hell the two of you are in. Nobody on this planet should have to face what the two of you are going through.” Those milk-coated eyes settle over mine. “Mr. Price, you are a very affable fellow—usually. But, unfortunately, this season of your life has been very trying for you—and I’m talking about before the abduction.”
My stomach clenches for two reasons: one, she’s right, and two, the word abduction sounds like a grenade going off in my ear each time I hear it. But there’s something about those pale soulless pits staring me down that unnerves me. Whatever the hell she thinks she knows about me, she’s wrong. I glare at her a moment before softening.
“You”—she squints into me as if she were a voyeur into parts unknown—“have some unsettled issues in your past.” I swallow hard. She doesn’t know anything real. She’s a charlatan, a fake, nothing but a wrinkled up fraud. She squints hard. “Something that you’ve done has yet to come to light.” She holds a hand out to the two blondes seated at the edge of their seats. I offer a quick glance to Allison who looks less than fazed. “Again, this is prior to the event. But I really do see this coming to a head very soon in your life. There is something you’re either hiding from yourself or you’re working very hard to hide from somebody else. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s something very good. A blessing.”
A blessing. My body heat spikes unnaturally. They say a baby is a blessing—only in my case it will amount to a death sentence. The women in Ally’s family are known to be historically brutal. My wife may smell like roses, but she’s a briar patch under that smile.
I take a deep breath.
“And you.” Dolla Chetney sags contently toward Ally as if she were her favorite niece. “There is something from your past as well.” Her brows hike as she doles out a knowing look.
My antennae go up, but I know for a fact Ally isn’t running around knocking anybody up. I’m the only douchebag doing that.
Our very own psychic network friend raises a finger at my wife. “You be careful. You are treading into unchartered territory, and you know it. The better part of you wants to steer clear, but your curiosity will lead you down a thorny road. You can avoid this. Just stay strong. You’re above it all. Sometimes taking the high road is exactly what keeps us safe and sane.”
Ambiguous enough. Both Ally and I nod into her bullshit as if to say let’s move it along.
Blonde One gives a solemn sigh. “And now for the moment everyone has been waiting for.” For a second I expect to hear a drum roll. My entire life has been upturned, and here they’ve turned us into something equivalent of a game show. “Tell us what you know about Reagan.”
A spear of heat slices through my gut at the mention of my daughter’s name. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s painful for me to hear it. It hurts like hell. So, in a move that I could have never seen coming, I stopped using it. Allison doesn’t use it anymore either.
“I’m sorry to have to say this.” The charlatan bows her head a moment. “But I’m not feeling very good about this.” She takes up Allison’s hand and Ally is quick to retract. I almost want to laugh. Take away our hope and you don’t get to touch us, lady. My wife will knife your balls off in your sleep. It’s what, deep down, I expect to happen to me one day.
“I do feel very strongly the child has left us.” She nods to Blonde One and Blonde Two who both groan as if they felt an ounce of genuine sorrow. “She has. She’s crossed over. She’s safe now.” She looks to me with those tired eyes. “She was taken away far too soon. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” A long pause ensues. You could hear a mouse fart in the studio, and right about now I’d welcome it. “She wants me to tell you that she’s okay. You can move on with your lives.” She pretends to listen to some nebulous voice. “She likes that you’ve kept her room the same, but she wants you to donate her toys. There’s something big in there. Something that was special to her. Did she have a dollhouse?”
My stomach bottoms out. Do not buy this bullshit. Every little girl in the world has some sort of housing for their cache of Barbies. This isn’t true. This is insanity. My chest bucks as I try to hold it together.
“She did.” Allison blinks through tears. “She has a big one.”
“She wants you to donate it. There’s a children’s hospital nearby and she wants you to give it to them. She doesn’t want any child to suffer.” Another lengthy pause. Allison is bawling. My chest bucks like a seizure. “She wants you to dedicate your life to helping children who are suffering. You’ll know what it is when the time is right.”
Blonde One leans in. “And the whereabouts of the child, or the mystery girl that was with her?”
“You know”—the Queen of Lies cocks her head to the side—“I can’t quite get a read on the other girl. It’s strange. That doesn’t happen very often. But I do feel like the authorities will find little Reagan soon. Actually, it will be an ordinary citizen who will bring you to her.” She offers a sorrowful nod. “She’s in a river. Her coat or shirt caught on a branch and she’s waiting there for you to find her.”
“Oh God.” Allison buries her head in my chest and I lose it.
Dammit. Damn Dolla Chetney and her ridiculous claims to the darkest, deepest pit of hell.
Allison and I sob convulsively as the cameras stop rolling, long after they pluck the mics from our bodies.
I hope Rich and McCafferty are happy.
They got their money shot.
* * *
Back at the house Allison takes a heavy nap that spans the afternoon straight through evening. She probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, but I don’t have the heart to wake her. That meet and greet with the Witch of the West really shook her up. Dolla Chetney is a lying bitch that will burn in hell one day for making miserable people like Allison and me that much more agonizingly miserable. I spent the entire drive home trying to convince my wife that our daughter was not facedown in some fucking river having her flesh nibbled off by errant fish. We should sue. In fact, once Reagan comes home, we will. And Reagan is coming home. Every ounce of me insists on believing it.
When the sun takes its final bow, I head into the dark living room with Dad where the television flickers in spastic seizures.
“Want some?” I offer him a slice of pizza. I ordered two large—our sole sustenance as of late. Neither Allison nor I have fired up the stove since Reagan disappeared, so our eating habits have reverted to the ones we had in college. Not that either of us is scarfing anything down. Ally’s face has thinned out, her cheeks drawn in, her eyes, bulging and red, and I’ve had to cinch up my belt a few extra notches. We’ve become a skeleton crew without Reagan, literally. The nightshift that doesn’t sleep.
“No, thanks.” He lifts a hand, his gaze never wandering from the screen, some shoot ’em up flick that sends grenades exploding all over the living room.
A light knock comes from the door and I head over, spotting Rich from the window before I open it.
“What’s up?” I extend a hand to him, but he refuses the offer, taking his hat off instead. For a second I fear the worst. Reagan has been spotted by some ordinary citizen facedown in the river.
“Just driving by the neighborhood and wanted to see how the two of you were holding up. That was pretty rough to hear this morning.”
I cast a quick glance at my father before jumping onto the porch with Rich. A herd of trick-or-treaters bounces by in a mob, and I can’t help but look away. “We’re fine. We’re well aware of the fact it was pure bullshit. It’s a miracle someone hasn’t stoned the hag yet. We’re going to find Reagan.”
Rich solidifies those steadfast citrine eyes over mine. Rich has always been awash in the color orange to me, the hair, the freckled skin, even his eyes had adopted that curious
hue—a tangerine aura that consumes him. But in the night without the right amount of light to expose that Halloween coloring all I see is my mother, the look of horror and concern etched on her face.
“I’m glad you’re hanging in there.” He slaps his hand over my arm and pulls me out of my trance. “We’re going to bring her home for you. Don’t you think otherwise.” He nods toward the house. “Good thing they didn’t pull open the old man’s closet.” He gives a wistful shake of the head. “The judge has more skeletons than the cemetery.”
My chest bucks with a silent laugh as I look into the living room. My father is a tomb, all right.
“He sure was happy the three of you were moving out this way.” Rich moves in close. “He confided in me that you and the Mrs. were having some trouble.”
“Oh?” My chest cinches into a knot that’s become all too familiar. The one in which my own heart turns into an arrow of regret and tries to stab its way out.
“He was pretty broken up at the prospect of a divorce. If it’s one thing your father is famous for it’s—”
“Living by the rules.” I can’t take my eyes off the old man as he sits mesmerized by the blinking screen, hypnotized like a child.
“You know it.” He sinks that cowboy hat back over his head. “He sure loves that little girl of yours.” Rich winces in my father’s direction. “He went on and on about the effects a divorce might have on a child. He was downright terrified for her. My mother always did say he has the ability to love to a fault—and that the fault was usually his.” Rich gives a quick wink. “Let’s get together when it’s good for you and Ally, and we’ll look at putting together a new game plan.”
“Sounds good.” I watch as his patrol car rolls out into the night, silently swallowed by the darkness just like Reagan.
I head back in and take a seat on the couch, unsettled, prickled by his words, or more to the point, those of my aunt’s.