When I wake up next it is to the ring of the telephone. I hear the click of the answering machine, but the volume is too low for me to hear who is leaving a message. Sunlight carves ardent swathes through the opened curtains. I consult my watch: nearly ten o’clock in the morning. Friday morning. Rob is gone. On the coffee table is a cryptic note: I’ll be back. All my love, Rob.
My mouth is brackish from the night before. I wince in pain as I push myself from the comfort of the couch. The ice pack that Freddie made for me is now a sack of water on the floor. I pick it up, and walk gingerly, to the kitchen. A stack of mail looms next to the telephone, brought in presumably by Rob this morning before he left. I sift through the envelopes; the water bill, the PG &E bill, and three offers for credit cards. I punch the recall button on the answering machine. One message:
“Hi Sugar shorts. Just givin’ you a shout. Haven’t heard anything in a couple of days and wanna make sure everything there is hunky-dory fine. Got my test results back too.”
I play the message back a second time trying to get a handle on Gladys’ tone of voice. I sigh. I’m tired of lying to my mother; tired of dancing this tango of fiction, hiding behind this wall of illusion I have created about Robyn.
I move to the counter and make some coffee hoping the caffeine will clear my head. As I wait for the coffee maker to finish its distillation I pop a Rolaids, aware of an inner gnash of pain from deep in my gut. From the junk drawer I extract a small spiral notepad of paper and a pen. I sit down at the kitchen table and try to begin writing:
Dear Mama,
I haven’t been exactly truthful. There are some things that I need to.
I rip the page out of the notebook and wad it up into a ball, tossing it to the far side of the table. I try again.
Dear Mama,
I have some things that I need to tell you. Very important things. I had hoped to get back to New Mexico to see you, but so much has happened here, that I
I rip that page out of the notebook as well, mashing it into another misshapen ball and roll it next to its neighbor. ‘So much has happened’ being a euphemism for my daughter running away to walk the streets, and our entire family being terrorized by her pimp, and beginning its slow, agonizing disintegration.
I pour myself half a cup of coffee, in deep thought about what my next move to get Robyn back home will be. I drink the hot, black brew and burn my tongue.
“Ah!” I plunk the cup down.
There is only one place that I want to be; one place that holds my soul hostage; it is the place where I might find my beloved daughter. I pick up the phone.
“Sister Margaret?” I ask the voice that answers at the Sisters of the Presentation convent telephone.
“One moment, please.”
Half a beat later I hear Sister Margaret’s voice, her faint Scottish brogue still evident.
“It’s Margot,” I say. “Are you going to go feed the girls?”
I feel I can almost hear Sister Margaret smile in the quick silence that is between us.
“God willing and the creek don’t rise,” she says and then laughs.
“I’ll meet you at the convent,” I say.
It is just after four in the afternoon when I turn the corner onto my street from my adventures in the City with Sister Margaret. She gave my face with its gash over my right eye a long look but said nothing. I alluded to a confrontation with a closet door but she only pursed her lips and told me to help her with the cooler full of bottled waters. Girls came and went, most of whom I’d never seen before. One or two looked vaguely familiar. But of course no one had seen Robyn, though I showed her picture to everyone whether they showed interest or not. Before dropping me back off at my car, Sister Margaret and I sat together in the beat up old truck as she led me in one decade of the Rosary. The calming, nearly hypnotic force of our voices praying the Rosary inside the cab against the juxtaposition of madness outside the pickup created a palisade against the dross of the city.
As I edge the old Corsica towards the house, I see Freddie’s large blue van parked on the street. He is standing on the curb, leaning against the passenger side door of the van reading a newspaper. I park in the driveway and get out of the car.
“Hi,” I say, unsure why he is here.
I glance at the windows of the house; Rob must still be gone.
He nods once acknowledging me.
“You ready?” he asks.
“Ready?”
“Grab the Colt; told you I’d teach you how to use it. Sooner the better.”
“Oh.” It is then I catch sight of Mrs. Cotillo staring out at us, arms crossed against her chest.
“Unless now isn’t good.”
I look down at my watch. My body yearns for a long nap, but it’s good to see Freddie again. I can talk to him in a way that I can’t with Rob.
“Where does one shoot a gun in the middle of a city?” I ask, walking over to the van.
“ Martinez gun club.”
I nod.
“Where’s the Colt?” he asks.
I pat the side of my purse. He smiles and opens the van door.
Freddie drives the speed limit, north on 680 taking the Marina Vista exit. The day has been overcast, even out here in Contra Costa County, the air is knitted by filaments of the winter to come. The change is nice and I crack my window to let in the fresh air.
“So what’s next?” he asks.
“Next?”
“Next with Robyn,” he says.
I let out a sigh and gaze out the front window. Immense grey cotton ball clouds obscure the sky.
“I’m not sure, other than to keep going back to the city to keep looking for her.”
“Last night,” he begins. “when Peña got to you.” He looks at me and then looks back to the freeway. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I caught up with that guy I recognized. His name is Breed Love. He’s a CI for San Francisco PD. Used to be a big time dealer. He got clean and now helps the cops try to get the kids off the streets. He knows who Peña is, says everybody does. Has girls all over the City and in Stockton and Sacramento too.”
“My God,” I say below my breath. “Why can’t the police just shut this monster down?”
“I know,” Freddie says, “but it’s not as easy as you might think. They have to actually catch him breaking the law since every hooker that the cops arrest and try to pump for information refuses to divulge any details on Peña.” He pauses, and then adds, “And if it wasn’t Peña it would be somebody else. It’s the way of the world.”
“Well it sure shouldn’t be.”
Freddie wheels the van into the parking lot of the Martinez Gun Club.
“I gave Breed the picture of your daughter and your telephone number. He promises to keep an eye out for her and says he’ll call if he sees her.”
Freddie opens the door for me.
“Do you think we should try looking in Stockton or Sacramento?” I ask.
“No reason to yet.” He closes my door and leads me by the elbow into the main building of the gun club. “But you might want to think about investing in a cell phone.”
Inside the main building is a large snack bar with a tufted leather armrest running the circumference of the bar. Arranged in precise order around the snack bar are bright red stools with the word ‘ Winchester ’ running around the side of the leather seats in large white letters.
Freddie exchanges pleasantries with a portly woman behind the counter and gives her some money. Above her, on the wall are mounted various animal heads, nearly all with large, pointed antlers. She hands him two paper targets the general shape of a human torso with various lines and numbers on them. Next she gives him two large things that look like plastic ear muffs and two pairs of safety goggles.
We exit through the back door of the building onto the general shooting range. Since it’s a Saturday, the range is fairly packed with people. Mostly men sporting long shotguns, but I do see a couple of women amongst the groups, all in various stages of either shooting or consulting targets containing clean round holes.
Inside the handgun range, Freddie sets up a paper target and then shows me how to load my gun.
“Pop the bullets in like so,” he says showing me the chamber. Once full, he snaps it closed. He puts on his red ear protectors and eye gear and instructs me to do the same.
He hands me the gun.
“Now imagine that target out there is BLU BOY.”
I draw in a deep breath and focus on the shape that is yards away. If only the flat two dimensional figure before me was Antonio Peña. If only, by one small bullet that weighs less than an ounce, I could eliminate my most pressing problem and bring Robyn back home to me; would I do it? Maybe more importantly, could I?
Afterwards, Freddie drives me home. Dusk is rapidly being swallowed up the approaching night, lights from homes on my street wink out at us. I am thinking of a hot bubble bath to ease my aching body, and hopefully Rob will be home and amenable to going to get something to eat so I won’t have to cook. I close my eyes, allowing myself to sink deep into my thoughts.
“Is that cops at your house?” Freddie says, suddenly.
I lurch in my seat, my eyes pop open to see a Pittsburg Police Department black and white parked in my driveway behind the old Corsica. From the large living room window, I can see lights on and figures standing, talking, one of whom looks to be Rob.
“Let me off here,” I say, three houses ahead of mine.
I open the door and fly out of the van scarcely before Freddie has even come to a complete stop. My heart thuds in my chest as I fly across neighbors’ lawns and driveway bounding up the steps of my front porch. Mrs. Cotillo stands on her porch, clasping her jacket tightly to her body, peering intently at me. Her beady eyes remind me of a rat.
The front door hangs open, the wood at the top and bottom hinges splintered. Two policemen stand with Rob, their voices low, telling him something. As I walk into the room all eyes turn to me.
“Where have you been?” Rob asks, doing his best not to sound accusatory.
I look around. The living room is a shambles. Furniture upturned. The couch, lying on its side, sports a long knife-edged gash along the entire length of the backrest. The TV is gone. Mail from the kitchen along with various other papers lies ripped and strewn across the floor.
“What happened?” I ask. “Is it about Robyn?”
Rob shakes his head no. “Someone broke in,” he says.
I scoop the lamp up off the floor and deposit it to the easy chair. Then I right the coffee table, snatching up the remote control and TV Guide as well.
The police promised to interview neighbors to see if they saw anything suspicious, but all I can think about is Mrs. Cotillo’s accusing stare. I’m certain that this break-in was instigated by BLU-BOY or maybe his associates. I said nothing to Pittsburg ’s finest out of fear of further recrimination, and more importantly, not wanting to put Robyn’s life in any greater danger than it was already.
“Where were you?” Rob asks.
The afternoon with Freddie at the gun range seems a million miles away at the moment. Rob’s question snaps me back into reality.
“When I woke up you weren’t here,” I answer. “I met Sister Margaret in the City.”
I move to the kitchen and grab the broom and then return to the living room and begin sweeping the shards of broken glass of the light bulb from the lamp. I choose to omit my outing to the Martinez Gun Club.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“Meetings.”
“Meetings? What kind of meetings?” I ask.
“AA meetings.” He makes a step towards me. “Margot, there’s so much I have to tell you.” He reaches for my arm, drawing me to him. “Stop for a minute. Look, everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be,” he says. The look of earnestness in his face defies logic.
I step away from him, spreading my hands over the air in the living room.
“That’s what you call all of this?” I ask, incredulous.
“I know, I know. But we have to accept things as they happen. Acceptance, Baby, that’s the key to everything.”
I move away.
“Help me with the couch,” I say. All I can think about is that if I can just get the house in order my mind will follow. The physical act of doing something mollifies the nearly palpable feeling of violation that is surging through my body. A part of me even sniffs the air to see if I can detect any odor of the persons responsible for the destruction.
Rob just stands there like a mute.
“Have you seen Pickles?” I ask.
He shrugs no. After I get this mess cleaned up I will have to look for the cat. If she got out, she could be hiding out somewhere afraid.
“Are you going to help me?” I ask.
“Nothing happens by accident,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“I mean that everything happens for a reason,” he says.
I struggle with the armrest of the couch, trying to yank it upright, but stabs of pain at my surgery site prevent me from exerting any more energy. Rob makes another move towards me.
He grabs my arm. “Everything,” he says, his eyes shining with intensity.
I huff out a sigh of exasperation.
“Now that I’m sober, I see things so much more clearly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean us, here. Robyn.”
“What about Robyn?”
“We keep looking and looking for her. But maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
A sheet of red flashes before my eyes. I slap his face.
“She is a fiftten year old little girl,” I growl. “A child.”
“She hasn’t been a child since we moved to California,” he says. “Have you been blind to the fact that she’s been out of control ever since we’ve been here? The friends she hangs out with, the kind of clothes she wears? The way she talks to us, like we were lower than pond scum? Criminy, Margot, can’t you see what’s been happening around here?” Rob’s face is animated. An untenable mixture of anger and enthusiasm.
“How dare you!” I shout. “You have nothing to say, do you hear me?” I am screaming now, and I don’t want to stop. “I haven’t been the one staying out till all hours, coming home drunk, or not even coming home at all!” My hands are in fists at my side. “I’m not the one who can’t be bothered to do one single thing to lift a finger around here; and that includes being a parent to our child. And I’m not the one who can’t even keep a job!”
This last chastisement wipes the smug, holier-than-thou look off his face. But I can’t stop now, even if I wanted to. My thoughts of rage spew out into every crack and crevice of the room.
“And now you come waltzing in here with a whole week of sobriety, telling me that everything is as it should be? That I have to accept the fact that Robyn is out there somewhere, selling her body to the lowest form of dirt and filth?” “Don’t you even go there,” I menace. I hold my hands in the air defensively.
“In fact,” I add just for good measure, “I think I liked you better when you were drunk.”
The end of this tirade produces the look of hurt I so vehemently intended.
Rob crosses his arms in front of him and glares at me.
“Yeah? Well at least I’m not screwing some guy in our home.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mustache man, that’s what I’m talking about!”
“You mean Freddie?” I ask.
“Are there more?” Rob says sarcastically, shoulders shrugged, palms in the air, animating his question.
And on it goes; the fighting and evisceration of each other’s hearts, carving away every last vestige of care and affection that ever had hoped to exist within the gossamer mantle of our marriage. The rubble and draff that I had so hoped to leave behind us in New Mexico has caught up with us and is here now; a firestorm of fury and discontent that threatens to burn up both of us, leaving nothing but cinders.
“If you were ever around, you would know that Freddie was recommended by the private eye, Bart Strong,” I spit back at Rob.
“I told you to let the police handle it,” Rob retorts. “But noooo; you’re on a freakin’ crusade. You’re gonna save every hooker in San Francisco with your buddy, Sister Mary of the Bleeding Heart Liberals!”
“Stop it!” I shout. “Just stop. Fighting isn’t helping anything. And it certainly isn’t going to bring Robyn back home.”
Rob wipes the sweat from his forehead, chuffs out a sigh of exasperation.
“I’m tryin’ here Margot, I really am. I just wish you wouldn’t make it so freakin’ hard.”
He bear hugs the end of the couch and flips it upright in one motion.
When the doorbell rings, I wonder momentarily if I imagined the sound. But as Rob turns his head in the direction of the front door, scarcely dangling from its hinges, I also look and see the shadowy figure of a young girl. My heart spills out of me.
It is Robyn.
“Hello Mama.”