It wasn’t until we were all seated inside that the shift supervisor counted us and we realized someone was missing. Gavin, the kids said, before the adults figured out who it was. Diane and I hurried off the bus. Now the park seemed vast — there was a playground I hadn’t noticed before; the beach wrapped around meadows and parking lots. In the other direction was the woods.
Frank was walking toward his truck, about to load his boat, when Diane called to him sharply and waved him over. He didn’t get upset. This kid’s not like the other one, he said. Then he added, in a voice that made Diane frown at him, Gavin’s a coward at heart. He won’t find his way out of the park. Frank spoke slowly, as if he were reading lines he couldn’t quite make out in dim light. Or as if he’d been caught unawares — well, of course he had been, just like the rest of us; but he was claiming that he wasn’t surprised, that this was almost ordinary.
I told myself that he was right, and that Gavin’s disappearance probably had nothing to do with other things that had happened. Downtown New Haven is at the bottom of a U-shaped curve in the shoreline, and the park is at one tip of the U, separated from the rest of the city by a narrow residential area next to the water, and then the mouth of a river that’s crossed by a highway bridge. This was unfamiliar territory to our kids.
Nothing to worry about, Frank continued. I’ll drive him back. Then I’ll return to load the boat. No, wait — Gavin will help me load the boat. It’ll do him good.
But we don’t even know where that child is! Diane said.
He’s behind a nearby tree, Frank said, patting her on the arm. I know Gavin, he continued. All the trouble is bluster. He wants to be found — just not in front of his friends.
We’ll keep the kids on the bus, I said. We can wait.
I didn’t think all Gavin’s trouble was bluster, and I knew Frank didn’t think that either.
Absolutely not, Frank said. They know I take him places. Tell them I’m driving him back to the house.
I hesitated. Frank, I said, at least I should stay. I’ll help you look.
Nonsense, he said, and all but pushed Diane and me onto the bus.
I’ve asked myself many times why I allowed myself to get on the bus. There was no reason why two searchers would be any less effective than one — obviously they would be more effective, no matter who they were. The truck was big enough that all three of us could have ridden back to the house together. I think Diane didn’t chime in and encourage me to stay because she was desperate to pretend things were normal — and Frank alone with one of his own clients would be very normal. He’d taken two girls hiking in a different park a few weeks earlier. Diane was arguing with herself, I found out later, about whether it was essential to call the police immediately. Gavin was sixteen. If the police were alerted it would be terrible for the residence, terrible for Diane. It might also be terrible for Gavin if he were found by the police: he was a known juvenile offender; he was a black teenager. It would be much better if we could consider his disappearance something that concerned no one but us, a problem we could solve easily.
My immediate response when Frank sent me off was shame, as if I’d proposed a sexual encounter and he’d said he didn’t find me attractive. Or attractive any longer.
One afternoon a few weeks after I was hired, I stepped out of my office and observed Frank, whom I scarcely knew, peering through a corridor window. Something about the way he stood, or his amused expression, drew me in. He seemed as if he were about to say something outrageous: I was detecting that he wasn’t a docile follower, but a skeptical observer. I was not happy in the job, which would lead nowhere. The administrators were competent but unimaginative. I needed a friend who’d raise an eyebrow — and Frank had such grand eyebrows.
Out the window, sitting on the front steps — though it was winter — were two girls. They’re deciding whether to sneak out, Frank said.
The kids were allowed on the porch, but no farther.
How do you know? I said.
Nobody sits on the steps in this weather. They’re making sure nobody sees them, but they’re not too bright — they haven’t thought of windows.
Will you stop them?
No. He shook his big blond head.
They could get into trouble, I said.
Girls get into trouble by getting pregnant, he said, but they won’t want to miss supper, and they can’t get pregnant between now and supper. They’ll just walk to the convenience store and buy cigarettes.
They’ll get lung cancer, I said.
That I can’t prevent, Frank said. He turned from the window. He was outrageous but not too outrageous, I decided. He took an emphatic step or two, then called over his shoulder, I hear you’re from Philly.
So I caught up to him.
Me too, he said. We should get coffee.
I’d like that, I said.
The first time we had dinner, we ended up at my apartment. I’d never slept with a man who had such big bones, such vigorous arms and legs. Frank was on all sides of me: we were Leda and the Swan. His arms glowed — his arm hair was golden too. When eventually he got out of bed that first night, he clutched his lower back and then pulled a vial from his pants pocket, swallowing a handful of pills without water.
What’s wrong?
Sciatica.
I’d have brought you a glass of water! I said.
He said, I can find the faucet. I don’t need water.
He took many pills and never with water. You’re addicted to prescription painkillers, I said a few weeks later, and he shrugged, which startled me: I had intended hyperbole. By then I was dependent on the sex, maybe a little in love, or, at least, more vulnerable than I liked. Frank would stick his head into my office and say Tonight? or Dinner? without bothering with conventional greetings and inquiries. That felt thrillingly intimate. He couldn’t get enough of me — but then he might become impatient and resentful, as if we were only in the same room at the same time because I’d tricked him. My stories about my middle-class, ethnically mixed family (I’m half Korean, half Jewish) bored him, and he said so. His cynicism about the job went beyond my irreverent jokes about Diane’s love of rules or her assistant’s fussiness about paperwork. He dismissed the administrators from his mind, as if of no consequence.
When Frank talked about himself, he generally began with ambition, though I sometimes learned about something else as well. Hearing about a prestigious conference in Vancouver at which he’d been invited to speak, I learned that he was afraid of airplanes, though he flew often. I learned about the conference in bed, when he took a call after we’d finished.
I’ve been hoping for this, he said. I know what I want to do.
What do you want to do?
His talk, he explained, would include videos of him working with Gavin. He said, One of my students is taping us. And after I show the videos — then I introduce Gavin himself! He paused, then added, I’d better bring a chaperone. He has an uncle. My research money will pay for their plane tickets.
Frank had some kind of university appointment.
Videos? I said. What about confidentiality?
No last name, Frank said. He stood up, rubbed his back, and went to the bathroom.
But still, I said when he returned.
Still what? I just wish I didn’t have to fly!
Confidentiality.
No last name, he said again. I have his permission, of course. And he’s being photographed from behind.
Why bring him? I said. If you’ve got him on video...
Q&A, he said. They’ll eat it up. It all has to do with teenagers getting past anger — not letting it get them into trouble.