I thought Richard was working himself up unduly. I was upset too, but I believed Laura had merely wandered off-been distracted somehow. That would be more like her. She'd got off at the wrong station, forgotten our telephone number, lost her way.
Winifred said we should check the hospitals: Laura might have been taken ill, or had an accident. But she was not in a hospital.
After two days of worrying we informed the police, and soon after that, despite Richard's precautions, the story hit the papers. Reporters besieged the sidewalk outside our house. They took pictures, if only of our doors and windows; they telephoned; they begged for interviews. What they wanted was a scandal. "Prominent Socialite Schoolgirl in Love Nest."
"Union Station Site of Grisly Remains." They wanted to be told that Laura had run away with a married man, or had been abducted by anarchists, or had been found dead in a checked suitcase in the baggage room. Sex or death, or both together-that was what they had in mind.
Richard said we should be gracious but uninformative. He said there was no point in antagonising the newspapers unduly, because reporters were vindictive little vermin who would hold a grudge for years and pay you back later, when you were least expecting it. He said he would handle things.
First he put it about that I was on the brink of collapse, and asked that my privacy and my delicate health be respected. That made the reporters back off some; they assumed of course that I was pregnant, which still counted for something in those days, and was also thought to scramble a woman's brain. Then he let it be known that there would be a reward for information, though he did not say how much. On the eighth day there was an anonymous phone calclass="underline" Laura was not dead, but was working in a waffle booth at the Sunnyside Amusement Park. The caller claimed to have recognised her, from the description of her that was in all the papers.
It was decided that Richard and I would drive down together to reclaim her. Winifred said Laura was most likely in a state of delayed shock, considering Father's unseemly death and her discovery of the body. Anyone would be disturbed after such an ordeal, and Laura was a girl with a nervous temperament. Most likely she hardly knew what she was doing or saying. Once we got her back, she must be given a strong sedative and carted off to the doctor.
But the most important thing, said Winifred, was that not a word of all this must leak out. A fifteen-year-old running away from home like that-it would reflect badly on the family. People might think she'd been mistreated, and this could become a serious impediment. To Richard and his future political prospects, was what she meant.
Sunnyside was where people went in summer, then. Not people like Richard and Winifred-it was too rowdy for them, too sweaty. Merry-go-rounds, Red Hots, root beer, shooting galleries, beauty contests, public bathing: in a word, vulgar diversions. Richard and Winifred would not have wished to be in such close proximity to other people's armpits, or to those who counted their money in dimes. Though I don't know why I'm being so holier-than-thou, because I wouldn't have wanted it either.
It's all gone now, Sunnyside-swept away by twelve lanes of asphalt highway sometime in the fifties. Dismantled long ago, like so much else. But that August it was still in full swing. We drove down in Richard's coupe, but we had to leave the car at some distance because of the traffic, and the throngs jostling along the sidewalks and the dusty roads.
It was a foul day, torrid and hazy; hotter than the hinges of Hades, as Walter would say now. Above the lakeshore there was an invisible but almost palpable fog, composed of stale perfume and the oil from tanned bare shoulders, mixed with the steam from the cooking wieners and the burnt tang of spun sugar. Walking into the crowd was like sinking into a stew-you became an ingredient, you took on a certain flavour. Even Richard's forehead was damp, beneath the brim of his Panama.
From overhead came the squealing of metal on metal, and an ominous rumbling, and a chorus of female screams: the roller coaster. I had never been on one, and gaped up at it until Richard said, "Close your mouth, darling, you'll catch flies." I heard an odd story later-who from? Winifred, no doubt; it was the sort of thing she used to toss out to show she knew what really went on in life, in low life, behind the scenes. The story was that girls who'd got themselves in trouble-Winifred's term, as if these girls had managed the trouble all by themselves-that these troubled girls would go on the roller coaster at Sunnyside, hoping to start an abortion that way. Winifred laughed: Of course it didn't work, she said, and if it had, what would they have done? With all the blood, I mean? Way up in the air like that? Just imagine!
What I pictured when she said this was those red streamers they used to toss from ocean liners at the moment of sailing, cascading down over the spectators below; or a series of lines, long thick lines of red, scrolling out from the roller coaster and from the girls in it like paint thrown from a bucket. Like long scrawls of vermilion cloud. Like skywriting.
Now I think: but if writing, what kind of writing? Diaries, novels, autobiographies? Or simply graffiti: Mary Loves John. But John does not love Mary, or not enough. Not enough to save her from emptying herself out like that, scribbling all over everyone in such red, red letters.
An old story.
But on that August day in 1935 I had not yet heard about abortions. If the word had been said in my presence, which it was not, I would have had no idea what it meant. Not even Reenie had mentioned it: dark hints about kitchen-table butchers was about as far as she had gone, and Laura and I-hiding on the back stairs, eavesdropping-had thought she was talking about cannibalism, which we'd found intriguing.
The roller coaster screamed past, the shooting gallery made a noise like popcorn. Other people laughed. I found myself becoming hungry, but could not suggest a snack; it would not have been apropos right then, and the food was beyond the pale. Richard was frowning like destiny; he held me by the elbow, steering me through the crowd. He had his other hand in his pocket: this place, he said, was bound to be crawling with light-fingered thieves.
We made our way to the waffle booth. Laura was not in view, but Richard did not wish to speak with Laura first, he knew better than that. He liked to fix things from the top down, always, if possible. So he asked to have a private word with the waffle-booth owner, a large dark-chinned man who reeked of stale butter. The man knew at once why Richard was there. He stepped away from his booth, casting a furtive glance back over his shoulder.
Was the waffle-booth owner aware that he'd been harbouring a juvenile runaway? asked Richard. God forbid! said the man, in horror. Laura had got round him-said she was nineteen. She was a hard worker though, she'd worked like a horse, keeping the joint clean, lending a hand with the waffles when things got real busy. Where had she been sleeping? The man was vague about that. Someone around here had given her a bed, but it wasn't him. Nor was there any funny business, we had to believe it, or not that he knew about. She was a good girl and he was a happily married man, unlike some around here. He'd felt sorry for her-thought maybe she was in some kind of trouble. He had a soft spot for nice kids like her. Matter of fact, it was him who'd made the call, and not just for the reward either; he'd figured she'd be better off back with her family, right?