He nods and smiles but they seem to look more through him than at him.
“Ladies, what time did that Jazz gal leave? That would have been yesterday morning. I crashed hard around three, I think, and when I woke up about ten, she was gone. This is her brother and he’s looking for her.”
Dana shrugs and looks down, hair sweeping over her face. Crystal stares blankly at Matt.
“I think it was like eight,” says Crystal. “I was experiencing in the big room, working up a song on one of the acoustics. She came downstairs, went outside. She didn’t look at me or say anything. She didn’t talk much that night. We all hit the hookah and danced, then ended up in the pool. We flopped in Austin’s waterbed — your sister and me. And of course, Tarzan himself. But the acid hit me weird and I couldn’t sleep.”
Austin turns his back and picks his guitar.
Crystal offers Matt a hit and he says no thanks. “Your sister is one of those chicks who’s too cool for school, you know? Thinks she knows everything and has everything under control. She acted kind of superior. She writes songs. So what? I think she wanted Austin for herself. Didn’t she, Austin!”
He stops playing and flips her off without turning around.
“Anyway, she wanted no part of me, which Austin likes to watch. Through a window I saw her drive off in that funny old van. It smoked.”
“Was she loaded?” Matt asks.
“Everyone was loaded. I don’t know if she was tripping or not.”
It’s hard for Matt to picture Jasmine in Big Yellow, partying with the musicians and druggies. Jasmine actually is too cool for school — an A student who rarely studied, a former cheerleader who quit because she thought leading cheers was asinine, a girl with a knowing air and a sharp tongue. Maybe her better-than-you attitude had worked against her, prodded her to prove she wasn’t really that way, got her stoned and into bed with a popular musician and one of his girlfriends. Pretending to be a bad girl. He remembers something she’d said just a few weeks ago, with graduation only days away: The second I throw that cap in the air, Matt, I’ll be free. And I’m going explode on the world!
“If you see her again, tell her to come home,” says Matt.
“Right on, brother,” Austin calls over his shoulder, still picking the guitar.
Matt is climbing onto his bike when quiet Dana catches up with him.
“Hey, Matt — Crystal’s just jealous. Your sister really is cool. Good on that ukulele and she writes quirky songs. She has a sense of humor, too.”
“Sounds like her.”
“Look, she talked about these parties in Sapphire Cove. A house on the cliff, overlooking the bay. Fridays into Saturdays. She said the people were classy and smart, older guys, like professors and lawyers and doctors. They had money. Some Hollywood types, too. Thrown by a guy named Cavore, I think. So, I mean, maybe like, you could look there. Today is Saturday, so maybe it was meant to be that you find her there. Like, Karma.”
“Thank you,” says Matt.
“Give me your number and I’ll call you if I see her.”
“Wait right here.”
He gets an old sketchbook and piece of charcoal from the basket on the Heavy-Duti, writes his mom’s number on one corner of a drawing, tears it off, and runs it back to Dana.
8
Later that day, Matt and his mother walk to the Laguna Beach police station in the warm afternoon. It’s less than a block from where they live. Jazz has been missing from home for almost forty-eight hours.
Julie wears her wench’s getup for her upcoming five-to-midnight at the Jolly Roger, camouflaged by a batik wrap she got at Mystic Arts World. Matt has on his Endless Summer T-shirt, faded blue Jams, and the same red Keds slip-ons he wears for fishing. The big nightshade in the neighbor’s front yard steeps Third Street in its sweet, heavy scent.
Matt feels good but hungry. He’s always hungry; always trying to figure a better paycheck. His current paper route earns him twenty-five dollars a month. But he knows that if he learns to drive better, gets his license and uses his mother’s van, he can get a much larger route, make more money, and buy more food and art supplies. However, gas just hit thirty-four cents a gallon, so he’d have to factor that against his weekly take-home.
The Saturday desk officer is younger than Matt’s mom. Maybe like, under thirty. He’s never seen her. In fact he’s never seen a female police officer in uniform other than the unarmed meter maids who write parking tickets.
Her badge says B. Darnell. Her blond hair is in a tightly braided ponytail, and her face is pleasant. Blue eyes and freckles on her nose. Matt sees that her arms are tan and muscled.
She holds open the countertop lift-door, then leads Matt and his mother to a small interview room. Closes the door.
Matt and Julie face Officer Darnell across a stainless-steel table bolted to the floor tiles. Matt sets his best sketch of Jasmine on the table facing the policewoman, and Julie brings one of her daughter’s senior portraits from her floppy, bead-laced bag.
They talk family for a moment: Officer Darnell remembers Kyle set records at track, then was sent off to war. She does not ask about him. Darnell’s own son is seven and goes to El Morro. She looks at the sketch and the photo of Jasmine.
“I’ve seen her around town,” says the officer.
“She was a cheerleader, if you went to any high school games,” says Julie.
“Yes, I went to the homecoming game last year. Artists fifty-four to zero!” A darkness crosses Darnell’s formerly sunny face. She takes the pen from her uniform blouse and squares the yellow pad in front of her. “When is the last time you saw Jasmine, Mrs. Anthony?”
“I saw her before she left for Miranda Zahara’s, two evenings ago now. Thursday. I loaned her my van. We’d had words. Although it hurts me to say this, I’m worried that she might not want to come home.”
Matt’s heart sinks. He’s been thinking the same thing.
Julie explains that Jazz had done some “creative storytelling” about staying the night with Miranda, the reverse of what Miranda had told her mom. Julie says Jazz sometimes fabricated alibis for being out late, but had never not come home for the night, let alone two in a row.
Matt adds that his sister left the Sandpiper lounge Thursday night with the singer Austin Overton. Stayed overnight in Big Yellow and left at eight the next morning.
Julie straightens and gives Officer Darnell a brisk look, as if to underscore that she is not judgmental of her daughter for probably sleeping with the older singer. Matt has heard his mother encourage Jasmine to be open to life and love and experiences and different relationships. Like she has.
Again that darkness as Officer Darnell looks down and writes on the yellow pad.
“That’s the last place any of us know she was, for sure,” Matt adds. “So, that’s almost exactly forty-eight hours.”
The officer smiles slightly. “Don’t worry about the number of hours.”
An uncomfortable silence then, and Matt guesses the reason but says nothing.
“Was Bonnie Stratmeyer friends with Jasmine?” asks the officer.
“Not close,” says Julie. “Different sets of friends. They were both good students, though.”
Officer Darnell considers. Matt hears the voices coming from the station lobby, a door closing.
“How did her ankles get bruised?” he asks.
Julie’s head pivots.
“I can’t comment on that,” snaps Darnell.
“And the top of her head?”
“No, Matt,” says the officer. “You should not have that information. None of it has been verified or released to the public.”