Benny Abbott Day Three
Benny Abbott
Day Three
Sarah and I wait anxiously in the shade of a patchy pear tree at the edge of the elementary school parking lot.
There are more people than I expected. A hundred?
Two hundred? Whenever I try to count, more arrive, THIS STORY MIGHT SAVE YOUR LIFE and WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU …
A SURVIVOR taunting me from hats and T-shirts in every direction.
Now our catchphrase feels glib. I want to gather up each piece of merch and burn the pile to the ground.
“Luna’s here,” Sarah says.
I lift my gaze to find my ex-wife approaching in oversized sunglasses, dark curls cascading out the back of her denim baseball cap.
“I didn’t expect so many people,” she says before registering Sarah’s presence. “Oh my god, you came.”
Sarah hugs her. “This must be so hard for you.”
It’s as if Luna’s waited her entire life to hear these words because her whole body sinks into the embrace. “God, it’s nice to see you. When did you get here? Have I missed anything?”
On the way over, I tried Keller’s direct line multiple times, hoping to share our speculations about Xander and ask if anyone else has brought forward similar information.
She didn’t pick up, so for now, Sarah and I have agreed to keep our theory to ourselves.
I half listen to Sarah’s response as my every other thought goes back to Joy’s password-protected file.
Piece together. What are you telling me, Joy? What am I missing?
Scanning the parking lot, I see the painter with the half-dollar stretched earlobes, and the man who walks his Australian shepherd off leash.
The midwife from the yellow craftsman. And Ted.
Paparazzo Ted, with a camera dangling from his neck.
I’m about to point him out to Sarah when I spot Judge Carlotta and Emil a few feet to the left.
Carlotta’s donning another silk wrap, deep blue, hair bound tight in a matching scarf. We exchange a solemn wave.
“How well do you know them?” Luna asks me.
“Not very. We chat every once in a while, but it’s usually about vegetables.”
“Emil seems intense.”
“He’s like a walking ad for whey protein.”
She nods. “Did you know he’s stunt doubled for Daniel Craig?”
“Bond? James Bond?” I deliver the words humorlessly, but Luna lets out a soft chuckle just the same.
“So he says.”
I give Emil another look through the crowd. He’s maybe ten years older than Mr. Craig, but I can see it. Thin lips, wide face, slightly bulbous nose. “When did he tell you that?”
“Last night, at the fence.” She shrugs.
How was that only last night? My body sags with a fresh wave of exhaustion as I remember us all standing there, grimly trading information in the dark.
“Come closer. Closer,” a woman who introduced herself earlier as Teresa calls into a bullhorn. “Come on in, no one’s gonna bite.”
Mallory and Quinn sidle up beside us as Teresa explains what to expect.
Groups. Leaders. Maps. Tape. This is a gathering for my missing best friend, orchestrated by strangers who love her.
It’s an odd thing, being loved by strangers, and even odder in this context.
I recognize more faces: the elderly man who sits on a lawn chair in his driveway hoping for a chat with passersby; the couple down the street with the impressive collection of wind chimes; the yoga instructor who teaches classes in the neighborhood rec center.
“Benny?” Teresa says.
I can see she’s expecting something from me.
Suddenly uneasy, I attempt to sort through the liminal part of my brain that might have heard what she said before passing over the metaphorical mic, but draw a blank.
It feels like a live show, all the energy pulsing in my direction, only everything’s gone haywire.
Half the entertainment is missing. “I’m sorry? ”
“Do you have anything to add?”
I’m not prepared for this, but I know I have no choice. “Yes. Yes, I do.” I take a deep breath and thank everyone for coming, for volunteering their time and energy. I mean the words, and I do my best to make this clear, but it’s an improv act I never wanted or expected to perform.
I finish just as the school bell rings for recess, and we break off into groups of ten. Sarah and I end up with Mallory and Quinn, while Luna joins Emil and Carlotta.
Teresa approaches with a map. “You’ll take this section,” she says, pointing. The map is separated into grids, and we’ve been given the steep slope on the south side of Mount Washington. She hands me a roll of brightly colored tape and a whistle.
“There’s water over there if you want to grab a bottle before you go.” She touches my arm. I’m expecting her to offer her sympathies when she says, “And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you to watch out for snakes.”
I look around and see that everyone else had the foresight to wear pants.
SHIELDING OUR EYES from the sun, the ten of us go around the circle somberly introducing ourselves.
I immediately forget everyone’s names and am grateful when Mallory assumes the lead, guiding us out of the parking lot.
The other groups splinter off into different directions, and I fall back to the caboose with Quinn and Sarah, who’ve never met before today and are quickly growing acquainted.
“Benny tells me you own a fifties-themed cupcakery?” my sister asks. Kindly using small talk to distract us from our grisly task. “What inspired that idea?”
“Cupcakes are happiness in a wrapper, for one. And I was already rocking the rockabilly, so…” Quinn makes an up and down gesture at herself—the lipstick, the headscarf, the bright red pedal pushers.
Like me, she didn’t cover her ankles, and I imagine she’ll regret the saddle shoes in a matter of minutes.
“Figured why not lean into it from the safety of the twenty-first century. Best of both worlds. I get to enjoy the fashion, and Mallory and I don’t have to pretend we’re two old maids sharing a house for financial reasons. ”
“How’d you two meet?”
I know this story, about a chance encounter while riding BART four years ago. A stalled train, a prolonged conversation, an exchange of phone numbers. Sarah nods along with interest.
“And how is Mallory doing?” my sister asks Quinn. “How is she handling all of this?”
Quinn glances ahead to where Mallory is veering east off the main avenue. “Not well.”
Sarah widens her eyes at me, once, and suddenly I understand. She’s not distracting us with small talk; she’s building rapport. Left to my clumsy devices, Mallory and Quinn have kept mostly to themselves. In Sarah’s capable hands, however, we might be able to draw out some real answers.
“Has she spoken with her parents yet?” I ask. Last I checked, she hadn’t been able to reach them.
“Her dad, yes. Her mom, no. She’s MIA at the moment. Could be on an African safari for all we know.”
“I take it Mom doesn’t keep in touch,” Sarah says.
“Neither of them do. Narcissistic assholes, both of them.”
“That’s a shame,” Sarah says. “Mallory and Xander are super close, though, right?”
Quinn huffs. “Well, like I said, their parents weren’t really around, so they only had each other.”
“But they’re a whole different kind of close,” Sarah presses on. “Benny and I like each other, but that doesn’t mean we’d want to work together full-time.”
I catch her eye, understanding. “We’d be butting heads the first week,” I lie.
We turn left onto a winding road. Our group is a full twenty feet ahead of us now. Quinn squints, chewing on her lip. “Mallory was a pretty sick kid, did you know that?”
I shake my head. “How so?”
“Not like cancer or anything. Chronic ear infections, mainly. But bad ones. Bad enough to make her vomit. Like, all the time. This was after they moved here, so it was just Niels in charge, and he has some sort of panic disorder when it comes to vomit. Or so he says. So guess who ended up taking care of her?”
“Big brother,” Sarah says with a frown. “Wasn’t he just a kid himself?”
“Teenager. But yeah.”
“That’s messed up,” I say.
“Like I said, model parents. Vomit is gross, but also fuck you, it’s your daughter.”
I stare down at the hot pavement passing beneath my feet as I reconcile teenage Xander with the Xander I know.
It doesn’t endear him to me, especially now, but after seeing the role he’s taken with Joy’s health, I can imagine him signing on as Mallory’s caregiver.
In fact, it makes perfect sense. “I always thought they had an unusual sibling dynamic.”
“Funny you say that,” Quinn says. “She doesn’t see it.”
“But you agree,” I say.
She nods. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we moved here.”
“In what way?” Sarah asks.
Quinn flicks her eyes toward me. “I mean, I get why she’s so loyal to him.
You should’ve seen how happy she was when he called to offer her the position.
I thought, sure, why not, this will be an adventure.
She gets a cushy job with fun coworkers; I get to start the cupcakery I’ve been talking about for ages.
We’ll have family to celebrate holidays with.
And then we get here.” She sucks on her teeth.
“Not what you thought?” Sarah asks.
Quinn glances briefly at Sarah, then shoves her hands into her pockets. “You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“You’re safe with us,” Sarah says as we round another bend. “This is stressful, what we’re doing right now. It’ll help to let your thoughts out.”
Quinn takes a second, then exhales noisily, like Fine, have it your way. “Xander’s a fucking dick.”
I nearly choke on my spit. “But you just said—”
“I know what I said. That doesn’t make him any less of a dick.” She lowers her voice as the group slows to a stop at the next bend in the road. “I know you agree.”
Sickness swirls through my gut. I’d been genuinely, desperately hoping Sarah and I were wrong, but to hear this now, from Xander’s sister-in-law, while he’s actively missing?
“What were you and Mallory fighting about last night?” I don’t see the point in tiptoeing anymore. “Was it about Xander? About the divorce? Do you know what he was doing to Joy?”
Quinn lets out a surprised bark, between a laugh and a cough. “What the fuck?”
“Tell me the truth. You know something, don’t you?”
“Stop.” She shushes me as the rest of the group forms a loose semicircle ahead of us. “I know as much as you do.”
I pull out my phone and scroll until I find Joy’s text. My hand shakes as I hold it out. “Joy sent this the night before she went missing. Do you know what she might have meant?”
Quinn squints at the screen. “Piece together? XYZ?” She shakes her head.
I don’t believe her. “You’re hiding something.”
“What?”
I widen my eyes at Sarah. That wasn’t a no. “Just tell me, Quinn. Please.”
“Tell you what? Where the fuck is this coming from?”
“Quinn—”
She holds up both hands to make clear the conversation is over, then joins Mallory at the guardrail. My breathing shallows. I stare down the hillside covered in sagebrush, milkweed, and palm, and my legs go weak. I grab Sarah’s arm to steady myself.
“It’s okay,” Sarah whispers to me. “It’s gonna be okay.”
But is it? Until this point I’ve been able to maintain a small but necessary suspension of disbelief, convinced there might still be an innocuous, logical explanation for all of this.
I held on to this hope even as I was calling the police and posting the episode begging for help.
Even as they were searching Joy’s home, even as the hours passed without a single lead. But now?
Another woman who came prepared with hiking boots and a walking stick offers to go first. Quinn looks over her shoulder at me as she and Mallory follow. The rest fall into line. One by one, they clamber over the guardrail and trudge down the hill, strung hand in hand in a human chain.
“Benny…” Sarah glances down, and I realize I’m still squeezing her arm.
Loosening my grip, I study my texts with Joy again.
Joy: Might need you to piece together some tracks for XYZ.
Me: More info, please.
Joy:
Me: Mmkay… and…?
“You coming?” Mallory shouts up to me.
Attic, dismemberments, appliances. Floaters pass before my eyes. I look up and my vision narrows on the human chain lumbering down the hill. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
“I understand it now. I know what it is.”
“What what is?”
Leave it to Joy to make it so obvious and so difficult at the same time. “The password.”
I don’t wait. I turn my back on the search group and start running.