“I’m going to miss my flight!”
Kelsey looked over the railing at Peter, who was now in his camo. “Wow, you’re going now, huh? You’re off to the airport?”
Peter rubbed his head nervously. “We’ll have to take breakfast with us.”
Briefly, Kelsey considered going down the stairs to give him a hug. He looked so alone down there. Scared.
She put as much cheer behind her voice as she could. “Good luck, Peter.”
He flashed a grateful smile toward her, drifting toward the front door.
Inside her room, Kelsey lay back down beside Davis, bringing him to her, smelling like sleep. She hoped this Peter thing would work out for her sister.
Michelle should be so lucky, Kelsey thought. She really should.
CHAPTER THREE
It was six. The house was spotless, perhaps suspiciously so. Davis had left; Kelsey’s parents had come back. Quiet banging sounded as her father set out plates for dinner and her mother cleared space on her desk for stacks of student papers and giant volumes of constitutional law. Kelsey was trying to subtly move the Buddha statues an inch to the left. Then, after looking at them, she moved them back to the right.
“Turkey burgers!” her dad yelled. “Turkey burgers or nothing.”
“No bun for me, please,” her mother called back, bouncing on the large exercise ball she used for a desk chair.
Kelsey checked her phone.
Me (12:03): How’d the drop-off go?
Still no word from Michelle. It took thirty minutes tops to drive to Kansas City International, forty-five if she got stuck in traffic. But it was Saturday. And it had been seven hours since she left.
Me (2:16): ??
Me (2:30): Don’t tell me he missed his flight…
She’s probably being bummed out in a coffee shop somewhere, Kelsey had thought. Then two more hours had passed. Kelsey was checking the driveway every fifteen minutes or so for the 1992 Volvo they shared. The car could have broken down, but she would have called. Even if her phone had died, she would have found a way to call.
Me (3:52): Pls call when you can, mom and dad are on their way.
Michelle might have lost her phone, Kelsey figured, but that didn’t explain why she hadn’t come home.
Kelsey laid it out again, to try to soothe herself through a weird panic that had set in: If—no, when—Michelle came home without her phone, she would have to make a PowerPoint presentation, stating her case for a new phone. Whenever either girl wanted anything expensive, a computer or a phone or a three-day camping pass to Wakarusa Music Festival, the Maxfields made them prove their need in a cost-benefit PowerPoint on the monitor in their mom’s office nook. Kelsey’s sophomore year presentation on the desire for a Coach duffel, which had included animated fonts and a conclusion set to John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” had really set the bar high, in her opinion.
Me (4:17): For real Mitch. Where are you?
Kelsey had cleaned up Hannah’s (or somebody’s) vomit from the basement sink, getting stink all over her cardigan and leggings. She and Davis had rolled the keg to the back of his Jeep, and returned it to Jensen’s Liquor. And finally, she had put the jade Buddhas back in their prized place. Still no Michelle.
Me (5:23): Not funny.
Kelsey took a step back, surveying her handiwork. The Buddhas were a relic from her parents’ trip to Cambodia, before they were married, back when trips to Cambodia were rare and cheap and disconnected from modern life, her mother had explained.
“Kelsey? Burger?” her dad shouted.
“I can hear you when you talk normally, Dad.”
“Burger?” he repeated. “Burger? Burger?”
Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Yes! But without the chives and crap.”
“And one for Mitch, or what?”
“Um…” Kelsey hesitated. Michelle should have been back hours ago. She was supposed to come straight home from the airport. She was going to help Kelsey clean. More importantly, she should have been there to tell her own goddamn story. Their parents didn’t know about Peter. What was Kelsey supposed to do? Say that Michelle was probably painting lovesick portraits of a member of the US Army somewhere? Kelsey was starting to get nervous again. “I think she’s at the library or something. Plus, she’s still a vegetarian, Dad.”
“When is she going to give that up?” Kelsey heard her father mutter. It had been a few months on and off. The family’s interest in meat was a matter of personal pride to Kelsey’s dad, whose restaurants were called Burger Stand and Local Burger.
Kelsey flipped back to the texts she had sent her sister.
Me (6:05): Told em you were studying. You owe me one.
“Ha-ha!” Kelsey’s mom let out a laugh. Michelle always said their mother’s laugh sounded like the mating call of a tropical bird. She was reading through one of her students’ papers. “Listen to this one: ‘In a unitary state, the constitution will vest ultimate authority in one central administration and legislature and judiciary, though there is often a delegation of power or authority to local or municipal authorities.’”
Kelsey glanced at her mother, her dark, graying hair shooting out from her head in thick waves. “Funny, Mom,” Kelsey said. “So hilarious to all of us.”
“Good one, M,” her dad called from the kitchen. “We don’t know why that’s funny, but as long as you’re happy.”
Her mom was no longer listening, now making wide strokes with a thick red pen on the essay.
“Order up!” Kelsey’s dad yelled. “TB, 86 bun, side of Brussels.”
“That’s me,” her mom said, standing, putting the pen behind her ear. When the girls were younger, and her dad was just starting out, they used to pretend every dinner was at the Burger Stand. Michelle would make menus with crayon, and Kelsey would walk around in her princess dress, taking everyone’s order.
Her mom paused next to Kelsey at the mantelpiece, staring.
“Did you move the Buddha statues?”
“Huh?” Kelsey’s heart beat a little harder. “Yeah. I was dusting.”
“Right.” Her mother gave her a pat on the back.
The three of them stood around the counter, chewing.
Her mom stabbed a Brussels sprout with her fork. “Michelle’s out studying, you said?”
Kelsey coughed. Instead of answering, she took a sip of water.
“Rob, can you call her?”
Kelsey’s dad wiped his hands on his jeans, fishing for the phone in his pocket. Her dad always looked unnatural with the phone up to his bearded face, with his bushy caveman eyebrows. Silence. The sound of muted rings as he listened for an answer.
“You’ve reached the voice-mail box of Michelle Maxfield.”
He hung up. “Hmm.”
“Hmm,” her mother echoed. “What’s she working on?”
Kelsey snapped, “How am I supposed to know?”
Her mother’s eyes got wide. “I don’t know, hon, I was just asking.” Her parents looked at each other. They were beginning to suspect something.
There were two possible scenarios: Michelle would either walk in the door any minute, or she would come home much later, probably with a new dreadlocked friend who smelled like the Kansas River. No, wait. Kelsey held her breath, not looking at her parents.
There was a third option: Michelle wouldn’t come home at all. She would call them from Canada or somewhere, where she and Peter had eloped to a cabin or a commune or something.
Oh, God, Kelsey thought. Michelle’s recent hush-hush. Peter’s pensive, smiling good-bye. What if they took the car and ran away together?