Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [115]
Rafael tut-tutted. He said, “Womens always got so many emergency backups.”
“Tell about the neighbor,” Greg said, nudging Bert in the ribs.
“Jeannie goes, ‘Uncle, your neighbor Mr. Hoffberg is missing too. His wife is just about frantic.’ Know what he says? Says, ‘Why!’ Says, ‘Why, it’s a rash of kidnaps!’ ”
The three men chuckled. Ian frowned at the bureau he was working on. He should have given Mr. Brant some warning. He wished he had it to do over again.
Unexpectedly, Gideon and the redhead strolled through his memory. Framed by the church’s doorway, they kissed, and Ian all at once straightened.
What if that was the sign he had prayed for inside the church?
But if it was, he had no idea what it meant.
The others went for their break and Ian drove off to pick up Daphne. It was a crisp, glittery day, and the leaves were at their brightest. He found the ride so pleasant that when he reached the school, it took him a moment to notice the place was deserted. Not a single car sat out front; not a single student loitered on the grounds. He got out of the car and went to try the main entrance, but it was locked. A janitor pushing a broom down the hall saw him through the glass and came over to open the door. “School’s closed,” he told Ian. “There’s a teachers’ meeting. Kids got out at noon.”
“Oh. Great,” Ian said. “Thanks.”
He walked around to the phone booth at one side of the building and called home. “Mom?” he said. “Is Daphne there?”
“Why, no, I thought she was at school.”
“They got out at noon today.”
“Well, you might try calling the Locklear girl,” she said. “Shall I look up her telephone number?”
“Never mind,” Ian said.
He wondered how his mother could stay so naive. She must work at it. She still thought the biggest issue confronting a teenaged girl was whether or not to kiss on the first date, and the answer (he’d heard her tell Daphne) was no, no, no. “You have years and years to do all that. You don’t want them saying you’re cheap.”
He drove to Gideon’s—a sagging, unpainted house on Greenmount—and parked sloppily and crossed the porch in two strides and rang the doorbell. No one answered, but he sensed a sudden freezing of movement somewhere inside the house. He opened the screen and knocked on the inner door. Shading his eyes, he peered through the windowpane. He saw a threadbare rug, part of a banister, and then Gideon lumbering down the stairs, tucking his shirt into his jeans. For a moment they faced each other through the glass. Gideon yawned. He opened the door and stuck his head out.
“I’d like to speak to Daphne,” Ian told him.
Gideon considered. “Okay,” he said finally.
He had a burnt, ashy smell, as if his skin were smoldering. And although his shirt was more or less tucked in now, it wasn’t buttoned. A slice of his bare chest showed through. “Daph!” he called. “Your uncle’s here.” He went on facing Ian. Up close, his hair was brittle as broom straw. The color must come from a bottle.
“Ian?” Daphne said. She came clomping down the stairs in her combat boots. Her face looked puckered, the way it did when she first woke up, and her eyes were slits. “What are you doing here?” she asked, arriving next to Gideon.
“I might ask you the same,” Ian told her.
“We had a half day. I forgot to mention.”
“Did you also forget the way home?”
She adjusted an earring.
“Let’s go,” Ian told her. “I’m running late.”
“Can Gideon come?”
“Not this time.”
She didn’t argue. She tossed Gideon a look, and Gideon gazed back at her expressionlessly. Then she unhooked her leather jacket from the newel post. She shrugged herself into it, slung her knapsack over her shoulder, and followed Ian out to the car.
When they’d been driving a while she said, “You didn’t have to be rude to him.”
“I wasn’t rude. I just want to talk to you alone.”
She clutched her knapsack to her chest. Now that she sat so close, he realized she too had