“I can do better than that,” I said. “She can visit the set if she wants. Listen, though-”
“Oh, my God. It would be like the Second Coming- Emma Amanda Quinn!” Maizie’s voice changed drastically. “Don’t you go near that ironing board. Lupe! Dónde está?”
I spoke quickly. “Maizie, I’m close by and I wonder if I could bring a friend to meet-”
“Yes, fine- Emma! Wollie, I’m sorry, I have to deal with this. Come on over. Bye.”
I drove from Sherman Oaks and Lauren Rodriguez drove from Lost Hills, both of us heading to Encino. As I’d expected, when she heard Annika was an au pair, Lauren wanted to meet the host family. I drove as fast as Ventura Boulevard allowed, anxious to brief Maizie on the sensitive nature of this visit. I was putting her on the spot, but I couldn’t see her refusing, and I was glad not to have to meet Lauren alone. There is something scary about grief.
Lupe and Mr. Snuggles escorted me into the kitchen, where Emma sat at the table with a plastic plate in front of her and a bib around her neck. “Emma eat lunch,” the child informed me, holding up tiny silverware.
“Looks good.” Turkey, stuffing, and peas sat on the plate, each food forming an island, nothing touching. A tiny, perfect wedge of apple pie occupied its own plate, just out of reach.
Maizie came through the doorway, aproned, carrying a large Tupperware bowl. “Hey, there,” she said, heading for the counter. “What can I get you, Wollie? Actually, you might want to help yourself-we’re doing sausage, and it’s not pretty. Gene took one look and went to play golf. City boy. There’s fresh-squeezed juice in the fridge.”
“That’s the fridge,” Emma said, pointing to the paneled-front appliance. “It’s a refrigerator fridge.”
“I see,” I said. “Maizie, you make your own sausage?”
“Yes, I’m taking a charcuterie class.” She poured the contents of her Tupperware into an enormous bowl, added a measuring cupful of what appeared to be spices, and plunged her hands in. “Oh, Lupe, I have the three-eighths-inch blade chilling in the fridge, could you get it? Anyhow, Wollie, come to our Christmas Eve open house. Grammy Quinn comes in the day before-oh-” She looked up. “Did you say you were bringing a friend?”
“She’s on her way,” I said. “And she’s not precisely a friend.” Maizie looked curious but continued kneading. I said, “Her name is Lauren Rodriguez. Her son was Annika’s boyfriend, Rico. He’s missing. Have you heard about this? It’s been on the news.”
Maizie stopped working, hands suspended above the bowl. She stared at me. “His mother is coming here?”
“Yes. I think she’s in bad shape, understandably, and she’s trying to… um, retrace the steps of her son’s-I’m sorry, this is very awkward. Is it a problem?”
Maizie glanced at Emma, a stricken look on her face. I felt my own face go red, as though I’d just burped loudly. I said, “I guess it is a problem. I-wasn’t thinking.”
A buzzer rang.
“Lupe,” Maizie said, “please show our guest in.” She stepped over to the sink and washed her hands. She dried them on a dish towel, removed her apron, inspected her nails, then moved to Emma’s high chair. She smoothed the flyaway hair until Emma batted her away the way you’d shoo a fly. Maizie smoothed her own hair. The seconds dragged by. She gave me an uncertain smile. “It’s fine, really, I just can’t… fathom what that woman is going through. I have seen the news. It’s every mother’s nightmare, you know.”
I didn’t know. I wasn’t a mother. I could only guess.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. We all watched the doorway.
Lauren Rodriguez was medium height, shorter than Maizie and me, and ballerina slender. She preceded Lupe into the kitchen like a gazelle, long-necked and fragile. She looked nothing like Rico, her sandy hair pulled back into a ponytail and held with a tortoiseshell barrette. She wore khaki pants, a white blouse, loafers without socks, and carried a purse. Her only jewelry was a gold watch and a wedding ring. Her pierced ears were bare. She shook hands with us, with a strong grip. I remembered she was a politician’s wife.
“You’ve both met my son.” It was a voice unadorned with inflection.
Maizie asked Lupe to finish with Emma’s lunch. Then she led Lauren and me into what would’ve been described in another era as a parlor. It was a room suited to tense conversation. The furniture was antique mahogany with needlepoint cushions, small, dark, and hard.
“I met Rico-Richard-very briefly, last Thursday,” I said. “To talk about Annika.”
Maizie cleared her throat. “Two or three times he came here to pick up Annika for a date, or just to visit. Once I made pizza and we all watched the World Series in the den. A charming young man. Extremely well mannered.”
“Yes, he is,” Lauren said. “Thank you. What can you tell me about this girl?”
“Annika?” Maizie said. “Wonderful with children, excellent English. Good personal hygiene. A little… withdrawn, the last month or two, but I chalked it up to hormones or homesickness. An ideal employee in every way, until she disappeared. Such a bright girl.”
I nodded. “Really smart. And energy-volunteer jobs, projects, college courses… generous and goal-oriented.”
A fleeting smile appeared on Lauren’s face. “She doesn’t sound like Richie’s type.”
“What’s his type?” I asked.
“Trouble.”
“Annika is very pretty,” Maizie said, almost defensively.
“Yes, of course.” Lauren’s eyes darted around, her social mechanism breaking down. Already she looked older than she had on TV days before. A beautiful woman, affected by sleeplessness, anxiety, and heartsickness. She wore no makeup. Her pallor unsettled me.
“Lauren, I have a question-” I started, then stopped. There was really no graceful segue from teen dating to crime.
“Ask. I’ve been asked everything this week.”
“Was your son ever involved in-or were his friends into… um, drugs?”
Both women looked at me with blank expressions.
“No,” Lauren said. “Richie was never a problem, even as a little boy. He never liked guns or swords. Just fire engines and cars. His train set, of course. Then girls.”
What a strange answer. It told me nothing about him, but something about her, what she could bear to think about.
“I have this hope,” she said, “that they ran off together, Richie and this Annika. He never brought her home. His roommate, Kevin, tells me my husband might have found her… unacceptable. Do you think that’s possible, that they eloped?” Her face was a plea.
I looked at Maizie, who studied her hands, frowning as though trying to understand the question. I swallowed. “That wasn’t the impression I got from him,” I said. “But of course, I’d just met him; he’d hardly confide in me.”
Lauren’s thin fingers worked the clasp on her bag. “It’s a silly theory. Who elopes?”
“I believe Annika felt herself to be-” Maizie chose her next words carefully. “In love with your son. I can’t say whether it was reciprocated. He seemed to come around less in the last few weeks.” A strained silence followed. “Can I get you anything?”
Lauren appeared not to hear. “Also, he would never let me worry like this. He called Saturday from school to say he would sleep in on Sunday, but he’d be home to watch the game. Football. And dinner. He said he had a mountain of laundry. He would never lie to me, you see. He’s a good boy. Not with his father, not always, but with me.”
She went back to rubbing the clasp on her purse. It was Prada, I noticed. How far from these women I lived, with no children, no husband, no holiday open house. I had odd jobs. And I was dressed in orange spandex bicycle shorts and a blue, red, and yellow rugby shirt, clothes belonging to dear gay Hubie, found in the bottom of a closet. I had no costly accessory to fidget with. The only thing I owned as expensive as that Prada handbag was my car.