The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [139]
“Hey.”
“Hey,” said Pella. “Any luck?”
“We found a Skrimshander. But not the one we were looking for.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Sophie. Remember Sophie? Sweet kid you were supposed to watch out for? She was at Bartleby’s, totally ripped, with Starblind sucking on her face. So I dropped him, which I maybe shouldn’t have done, but hey.” Schwartz, riled afresh, banged a paw on the hood of the Buick. “What’d you do, get her drunk and raffle her off to the shadiest guy you could find? What were you thinking? Where are you?”
“I’m at your house.”
“I know where you are!” Schwartz yelled. “Why aren’t you with Sophie? Why do I have to babysit the whole goddamn school? Why can’t I just worry about what I have to worry about?” His voice carried down the windswept street. A gaggle of sophomore girls wavered by in their heels, en route from Bartleby’s to some house party. No two of their tube tops or flouncy miniskirts were precisely alike, in cut or in color, and these slight variations made the outfits look all the more carefully orchestrated as they linked arms and passed by, pretending not to listen. Schwartz tried to comfort himself with a long look at their ten slender thighs turned pink by the cold, the good odds that he’d been between four or six of those thighs on oblivious drunken nights, but it was useless, the girls looked absurd to him now, and it no longer seemed that the universe contained an endless supply of anonymous pink thighs to which he could escape from his troubles. Pella would never dress like that.
“Sorry,” Pella said, sounding more sullen than sorry. “After dinner we bumped into Adam, and I asked where the hotel was, and he said he was headed that way, he’d walk Sophie back. And why wouldn’t I believe him? And then I came to your place to see you.” She paused and, when Schwartz didn’t fill the void with yelling, ventured a change of subject. “Still no word from Henry?”
“Nope.”
“Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Schwartz said. “First I have to put Sophie somewhere. I can’t take her back to her parents like this.”
“Do they know Henry’s still missing?”
“I’m going to call them now. I’m going to tell them both their children are sleeping sweetly.”
“Okay.” Pella sighed that wounded-kitten sigh into the phone again. “Mike, I know it’s not a good time, but I really need to talk to you. It’s about my dad.”
“I’ll be there,” Schwartz said. “Just hang tight.”
By the time he phoned the Skrimshanders and climbed behind the wheel of the Buick, Sophie was curled up asleep on the queen-size backseat, site of most of Schwartz’s high school conquests. Her knees were drawn close to her chest, sunlight-white calves flashing out beneath the hem of her rumpled dress. If she wasn’t sucking her thumb, she at least had her thumbnail hooked thoughtfully between her teeth. Drunk and asleep, her face drained of its teenage-girl defiance and willful sophistication, she looked even more like her brother. Schwartz fired the engine as softly as possible, tried to get into gear without creating the usual impression of the undercarriage dropping out, and nosed away from the curb.
“I’m worried,” he said.
Owen nodded. They idled down Groome Street, Schwartz’s foot never touching the gas, silently scanning the bushes like a couple of cops who’ve been partners forever.
“We’ll take Sophie back to your room, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Schwartz parked in the service bay of the dining hall. Sophie showed no signs of waking as he scooped her weightless bird body into his arms and carried her across the Small Quad, the heels of her laced-up sandals banging gently against his thigh. The front door of Phumber Hall was propped open by a crate of art-history books, causing the swipe-card box to twinkle an inviting green. The hip-hop anthem of the moment blared from a ground-floor window, accompanied by a chorus of blurred and delirious voices. The song faded