Missing Things

They sat side by side on the bench, holding paper cups of bad coffee, watching as two children played on an old swing set. Amanda sweated a mixture of anxiety and guilt, and the underwire of her bra was soaked with perspiration.

“Remember when Andy and Jenna used to play like that?” Amanda asked. It was a silly question. They both remembered, it had only been ten years.

“How’s Andy doing at Yale?” Kimberly asked, though her voice sounded pinched and tense to Amanda’s probing ear. The question felt accusatory. Two children, two very different paths.

“Great,” Amanda lied. “He loves his roommate, and he says his classes are interesting.” Andy had called three nights prior, a hitch in his voice, complaining about the difficulty of his classes, the competitiveness-cleverness of his classmates, and the snooty-East-Coast-snobbery of his professors. He didn’t think he could hack it. Amanda hoped her son was just lowering their expectations, but worried there was something larger amiss.

“What’s his major again?”

“He’s still undecided, but he’s thinking Pre-Law.” This, too, was a fabrication, or more accurately, a prayer. If Andy chose something useless, like history or philosophy, in a few years, they’d have an overgrown child living in their too-small basement. Only rich kids got away with choices like that.

“That’s a smart choice,” Kimberly said, taking a sip of her coffee. Amanda copied the movement, but didn’t drink. The liquid was unappealing in the too-bright sunlight.

“Let’s hope so,” Amanda admitted, honestly, for the first time.

“I’m so glad you called to catch up.” Amanda could spot the sarcasm as overdone as a late-night stand-up routine.

“We haven’t talked in so long,” They hadn’t talked since Andy’s scholarship.

“Thank you again for giving Jenna a job. I hope she’s working out. She wouldn’t be able to afford community college without the extra cash.” Kimberly said it like Amanda set tuition prices or handed out academic scholarships.

“Jenna’s doing great,” Amanda started carefully. “She’s very friendly with the

customers.”

“That’s good.” A dog walked past with its owner, and Kimberly reached out to stroke its golden fur. Amanda resisted. She needed to get to it.

“We’ve had some drama at the restaurant,” Amanda finally admitted. In her twenty years of running the eatery, they had never had so many thefts. Drama was an understatement.

“Yikes. What kind of drama?” Over the years, they had gossiped about their neighbors, about soap operas, and trashy tabloid stories stolen from illicit peeks in the supermarket line.

“Some customers have reported missing items,” Amanda said. Kimberly stiffened, the coffee cup frozen three inches from her lips.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Sunglasses. Sweaters. A purse.” Amanda’s heart pumped a flood of too much blood, mixed with too many emotions: light-headed, time-travel-wishing, stomach-churning, friendship-killing emotions.

“What are you saying?” Kimberly asked, still watching the children playing.

“A woman lost her purse,” Amanda said. “She didn’t have a lot of money in it, but her sister got it for her from Mexico, so it had a lot of sentimental value.” Amanda looked down at the red cloth bag that lay on the bench between them. A tattooed menagerie of hand-embroidered animals played helter-skelter across the purse’s pink background. Amanda didn’t know much about textiles, but she knew the bag wasn’t from anywhere nearby.

Kimberly’s hand went to the bag. She touched it with shaking fingers, pulling it slightly toward her hip.

“Jenna got this for me at a garage sale,” she said, but Amanda knew she was repeating her daughter’s lazy lie.

“A number of things have gone missing lately,” Amanda said. “In the last six months or so.” Since Jenna started, Amanda didn’t have to say. Didn’t have the guts to say to one of her oldest friends.

“I see,” Kimberly spoke quietly, and Amanda braced herself for shouting, a defensive gush of: ‘not my child, not my Jenna, not us, not me.’ None of that came. The air clogged like a hair-filled drain, no plunger in sight to dislodge the gunk.

“Jenna’s been talking about taking more time to focus on school,” Kimberly said after a pregnant minute. Amanda thought about how they had been pregnant together. Her belly had gotten so much bigger than Kimberly’s, and her birth had been much more difficult. They had joked that Adam’s big head meant that he would be a genius.

“Education is the most important thing,” Amanda agreed, a sigh of relief escaping like a lost balloon in the wind. Kimberly glanced at her quickly, and Amanda noticed a flush on her friend’s cheeks.

They hugged goodbye in a quick, one-handed embrace, coffee cups in their other hands, a perfunctory patting of backs, faces turned away, so that their once smooth cheeks barely brushed as they touched and parted.

Amanda’s pulse slowed on her long walk home, through the working-class neighborhood of matching 40s starter homes. Her heart lurched as her phone vibrated with an incoming text.

“Hi, boss. I hate to do this to you, but I need to focus on my studies, so I have to quit waitressing. Thank you again for the job, and I appreciate everything.”

Amanda tucked her phone back into her pocket, then opened the lid of her plastic cup and dumped its tepid remains on a patchy brown lawn. She kept walking, approaching her little house with red brick only halfway up the front, as if the house wore a pair of red pants. She stopped as she stepped onto the cement walk. On the top step of her stoop lay the embroidered purse, empty and alone, its fabric strap coiled in a neat circle beneath.

THE END

Julia Rajagopalan is a writer of speculative and literary fiction who lives just outside of Detroit, Michigan, with her husband and their very grumpy dog. For a list of her publications, check out her website: www.JuliaRajagopalan.com. 

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