Basic Page 10

  She laughed and I opened the door, eagerly hopping inside.

  “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so if you don’t like it we can go somewhere else,” Kimberly said. “But it’s a Vanilla Latte and the double smoked bacon cheddar and egg sandwich.”

  My mouth was already watering.

  “That sounds perfect, Kimberly, thank you,” I glanced at the Starbucks yumminess, but didn’t touch it. Instead, I reached into my pocket and retrieved my phone. “Let me just let my mom know you’re picking me up.”

  “Aw,” Kimberly said in a sing song voice as we pulled away from the curb. “You’re such a good girl.”

  “Not really, I’m just good at faking it,” I muttered as I composed my text and rechecked it for spelling mistakes:

  Hey Mom, Kimberly is bringing me to school this morning. I just got in her car! Love you!

  Satisfied, I hit send.

  “Well,” Kimberly said, a smile in her voice. “Then you’re going to love what we’re doing today.”

  “Huh?” Half-distracted by the smell wafting from the egg sandwich, I picked it up and inhaled the sweet scent. I hadn’t had anything other than fruit for breakfast for the past two weeks. And last night’s omelet had been the first non-rabbit food I’d eaten in a hot minute.

  “When I said I’m kidnapping you, I was sort of, like, serious,” Kimberly said with a nervous high-pitched laugh.

  I took a bite of the sandwich and spoke with my mouth full, “Right, sure. And like I said, I don’t mind.”

  She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye before returning her attention to the road. “Good. Because today is going to be, like, a lot.”

  I frowned as we slowed for the neighborhood exit gate, waiting for it to open.

  “What do you mean a lot?” I asked.

  My phone chimed with a text and I glanced at it.

  Mom: Great! Have a fabulous day, sugar plum xxo

  I took another bite of my breakfast as we pulled forward. But, instead of turning left, towards our school, Kimberly turned right.

  I set my sandwich down on my lap, and gave Kimberly my full attention. “Uh, where are we going?”

  She yanked at a strand of her long blonde hair, a nervous gesture. “I can tell you where we’re not going- to school.”

  “What do you mean we’re not going to school?” I slowly asked.

  Had Kimberly added bat guano to her morning coffee? Because she was coming across as even more insane than usual.

  She glanced at me and hesitated before saying, “I want to use today to find that missing woman. She deserves at least that much from her community. Don’t you think?”

  I sighed in irritation.

  Irritation with my own heart for softening and irritation with Kimberly for being so freaking caring and brave and kind and willing to skip school.

  “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s retrace the woman’s last steps.”

  ***

  We left our neck of the woods and went to a part of Sunnyville I didn’t even know existed. Let’s just say it was one of those areas where all of the streets are named after American President’s.

  “So, you know where we’re going first?” I asked, taking another sip of my latte.

  “Yep, I sure do!” Kimberly said, returning to her old bubbly self.

  My “yes” had clearly energized her and now she was pumped for our search and rescue. I didn’t have the heart to tell Kimberly we probably wouldn’t find anything. After all, it wasn’t like the police had done absolutely nada, they had a responsibility to at least try and find the woman. And I couldn’t see how a couple of teenagers were going to turn up any more information than they had.

  “Her name is Farrah Duncan,” Kimberly said. “And unfortunately for us, her address and phone number are unlisted. But, fortunately for us, we know that her parents live next door to Mr. Pruitt, whose home address is publicly listed.”

  I nodded, impressed. “Oh yeah, that’s right, he did say that during class. So, we’re headed to Mr. Pruitt’s neighborhood?”

  “Yep, and we’re actually here now,” Kimberly said as she turned off of the main highway and onto a street called Taft.

  Compared to the other neighborhoods we’d passed, this one was decent. The homes were small, brick and well cared for with neat little yards out front, most of them featuring small gardens.

  As I watched a slender dark-skinned woman walk out of her front door and head to the small blue Toyota in her driveway, I thought about my mom. If she had a regular job, we’d live in a house like one of these...

  I frowned.

  …and I’d actually be okay with that. In fact, I think that might even be better than the way we live now. We wouldn’t have to lie so much.

  “Truth,” Kimberly’s voice broke into my thoughts. I jumped, slightly startled as I turned to her. “I have no idea which house is Farrah’s parents. I just know that Mr. Pruitt’s is 1605, the little red brick one with the blue curtains.”

  She pointed to the house and I followed her guidance to the small red brick home with blue curtains. The house to its left had a dog carrier in the driveway and a couple of toys in the yard. Not the home of an older, retired couple. I set my attention on the house right of Mr. Pruitt’s. It was quiet, spotless, and had a neat row of white roses near the front door.

  “That one,” I said, pointing to it. “I bet that’s their house.”

  “Okay, let’s give it a shot,” Kimberly said, parking parallel to the curb in front of their home. I glanced at her in surprise as she opened her door and said, “Let me do the talking.”

  “Are you sure you know what to say?” I asked. “I mean, we can’t just go up there and tell them we’re looking into their daughter’s disappearance. That would freak them out.”

  I didn’t know Kimberly well, but I knew her well enough to know that she didn’t think the way most people did. She had a very odd sort of logic that was almost child-like and when she tried to explain her reasoning to other people, they didn’t really get it.

  I didn’t want to see that happen in this situation.

  But, Kimberly smiled and waved off my question while she reached into the backseat and grabbed her purse.

  I followed her out of the car and along the cement path leading to their front door.

  “I’ve got this,” she said nonchalantly as she readjusted the large purse on her shoulder.

  I shrugged.

  Fine. It was her funeral.

  Kimberly rang the doorbell and turned to me, whispering, “That’s kind of a weird first name, isn’t it? Farrah. I mean, is that like, foreign or something?”

  “I don’t think so,” I quietly said. “Maybe one of her parents really liked Farrah Fawcett.”

  Kimberly gave me a blank look. “Who’s Farrah Fawcett?”

  All at once the door opened and Kimberly turned away from me, a bright smile on her face. “Hi, I’m Kimberly Ventress, a student of your neighbor’s, Mr. Pruitt. How are you holding up?”

  I glanced at the person who’d opened the door, a portly brown-skinned man with sad eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a button down blue shirt and a pair of nice pants, like he was headed to work. But he couldn’t have been any younger than sixty, I wondered why he was dressed for work if he was retired.

  He glanced from Kimberly to me.

  I suddenly remembered to smile and said, “Hi, I’m Libby. Also a student of Mr. Pruitt’s at Sunnyville High.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  Before he could say anything Kimberly reached into her bag and handed him a card. Surprised, I glanced at it closely and saw that she’d handwritten a rather lengthy message inside.

  Good for her.

  “This is for you and your family.” Kimberly said, her tone grave. “We just want you to know that you all have the full support of Sunnyville High and we’ll do all we can to help with the search and rescue. Is there anything specific that we can assist with?”

&n
bsp; The older man accepted the card and looked down at it, silently.

  For a tense moment, he didn’t say a word. He just kept staring at the card.

  Finally, he sighed and spoke quietly, “I can’t think of anything. But thank you, this means a lot… to know that people want to help.”

  “We just can’t believe this happened. Did anything else unusual happen that day?” Kimberly gently asked.

  “No,” the man said, his voice weakened by sadness. He looked up, meeting Kimberly’s eyes as he cleared his throat and said, “Her co-workers say she showed up for work that morning, like always. Then, around noon she left for her lunchbreak, like always, but she never came back to work because that man- he took her.”

  He gulped and his eyes watered.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kimberly said soothingly.

  “Farrah had her faults,” he said with a sob, a tear rolling down his cheek. “God knows, she had her faults. She quit coming to church, said she couldn’t be a hypocrite. But whatever she did wasn’t something to warrant this. Being taken in broad daylight, around witnesses who stood by, doing nothing to help her!”

  He brought a large hand to his face, removed his glasses and wiped his tears away. My mouth went dry and I glanced down, unsure of how to react.

  Kimberly set her purse down on the porch, took a step forward and wrapped her arms around the man’s large frame, hugging him.

  I watched, shocked, as he stopped trying to restrain his tears and, instead hugged her in return, weeping into her shoulder.

  “There’s no justice,” the man quietly said, his words muffled by his sobs and by Kimberly’s jacket. “Because she’s black, no one cared. No one helped her. And no one’s helping her now.”

  He dropped his arms and took a step back, easing out of the hug.

  I blinked back tears of my own. He was right. No one in authority seemed to care. Not even the people who saw the poor woman being kidnapped. No one had come to Farrah’s aid, until now…

  I glanced at Kimberly.

  Her chin was thrust forward in determination.

  I took a deep breath.

  Now, we were going to help Farrah. Even if the police had given up, we wouldn’t.

  “Where did you say Farrah worked?” I asked.

  “She was a receptionist at Monroe’s Physical Therapy, on Honolulu Ave,” he said, wiping his eyes and sniffing. “I’m so sorry, would you all like to come in? My wife put on a pot of coffee, if you’d like some.”

  I started to decline, when Kimberly smiled and said, “Absolutely, but only for a few minutes. We don’t want to take up your entire morning.”

  “Great,” he nodded and tried to smile, but it was a sad attempt, to be honest. “I’m Eddie Duncan, by the way. And my wife is Marcia. Please, come in.”

  With this, we stepped into the Duncan’s home and stayed there for the next forty-five minutes, learning as much as we could about their missing daughter.

  ***

  It turned out that Farrah was the daughter of a Baptist preacher. Pastor Eddie had been a man of the cloth for exactly twenty-five years, ever since Farrah’s birth. And she’d been a regular church-goer until three years ago.

  According to her father, she’d fallen on hard times due to student loans and other bills, and instead of turning to her faith for help, she started hanging around with “a bad crowd.”

  “Who were these people she started hanging around with?” I asked as I took a polite sip of Ms. Marcia’s sit-up-and-make-you-scream coffee. It was the strongest coffee I’d ever had in my entire life.

  Pastor Eddie shifted on their red leather couch, inadvertently making it emit a fart noise. I pretended not to hear it and simply listened as he said, “I never met any of these people, but I’d hear her phone conversations with them when she’d come over for Sunday dinner. They cursed like sailors and the things they talked about…” His voice trailing off, he shook his head. “I don’t even want to repeat it.”

  “Do you think one of those people might be responsible for what happened?” Kimberly asked. She was seated to my right, on a straight-backed wooden chair like mine, both had been brought into the den from the dining room.

  “Yes,” Ms. Marcia said simply, her face drawn and sad. She was older but very pretty, with deep chocolate skin and hazel eyes that made her look exotic. Like her husband, she was slightly dressed up in a pale blue dress with a tiny silver cross hanging from a necklace that I bet she rarely removed. “I think she wanted to get out of whatever it was she’d gotten into, and they didn’t like that. So, they… they…”

  Ms. Marcia didn’t complete her sentence, she simply looked down at her lap, her eyes filling with tears.

  “We’re going to arrange a candlelight vigil at Sunnyville High,” Kimberly said.

  I turned to her, surprised.

  Were we?

  “And if you feel up to it, we’d love for you to come,” she said.

  Ms. Marcia leaned forward and clutched Kimberly’s hand. A tear ran down her cheek as she said, “God bless you, girls.”

  We said our goodbyes and both of the Duncan’s walked us to the door.

  As Kimberly pulled away from the curb I noticed that her nose was pink and her eyes were glassy.

  “That was rough,” I quietly said.

  “Yeah,” she nodded, her voice small. “Seeing them makes it so much more real, you know?”

  “It does.”

  “And, it makes our town so much more stupid,” Kimberly said, her voice stronger. “The fact that this case is being ignored by the media, and probably by the Police too.”

  “I know,” I agreed, sadness settling down on my heart. I sighed, determined not to let it overwhelm me. “So, let’s focus now. Where do we go next?”

  Kimberly shook her head and laughed, but it wasn’t her regular crazy-woman laugh. It was more like a sarcastic chuckle.

  I glanced at her and she was frowning.

  “How do you do that?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re so calm, Libby,” she quietly said. “It’s almost like you… well, it’s almost like I care about this more than you do.”

  I balled my hands into fists until I realized what I was doing and made myself relax.

  “It’s not that I don’t care,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible. I turned to the window and watched the scenery as we passed an assortment of abandoned buildings and fast food restaurants. “It’s that I care so much if I let myself think about it for two seconds too long, I would literally hate the entire world.”

  In the corner of my eye, I could see Kimberly looking at me. So, I turned to her and pointed to the passing scenery. “You see this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are the grocery stores with actual food? Where’s the Whole Foods? Where’s the Costco? The Trader Joe’s?” I took a deep breath and stopped trying to be calm. “It’s not here, Kimberly. Do you know why?”

  “Um-”

  “Because our society doesn’t think people of color deserve to have what everyone else has,” I said. “We don’t even get the same food, because we’re not good enough for fresh food. We get that.” I pointed to a Popeye’s that looked like a relic from the 90’s.

  “And do you know why our society thinks we don’t deserve anything more than this?” I asked, gesturing to the passing scenery.

  Kimberly said nothing, she just watched me, her eyes wide and her mouth tightly shut.

  “Because they believe we haven’t earned it. They can’t understand why black people haven’t pulled themselves up by their bootstraps,” I said. “after being enslaved, raped, mocked, demeaned in every way, and then offered a taste of freedom only to have it stolen and held hostage with laws like “separate but equal.” They don’t get why it’s so difficult for black people to succeed in a world that literally hates them because of the color of their skin. They don’t get it, and they don’t care. So, they pretend we don’t exist.
They pretend that women like Farrah, and her parents- those lovely, sweet parents of hers- they don’t exist. Because they don’t matter.”

  My heart pounding, I went on, “So it’s not that I don’t care. It’s that they don’t care, this world doesn’t care. And if I think about that for too long, I will become so bitter and sad, that I won’t be able to function. So, I have to tell myself that prejudice is a fact. It’s a cold fact I can either swallow down and accept or dwell on and get so angry that I can’t function. Do you understand?”

  Kimberly nodded. “Yeah. I wish I could… I wish I could take it away.”

  I sighed. “Me too.”

  With this, I balled my hand into a fist and hit my knee. “So, where are we going next? Farrah’s job?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Kimberly said, her voice quiet.

  I nodded and turned to the window.

  Already, the scenery was different.

  The houses were slightly bigger, nicer, and we’d just passed a Walmart.

  As if reading my thoughts, Kimberly said, “This is the middle-income white part of Sunnyville. So, at least they get a Walmart.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know,” Kimberly gently said. “I think it’s okay to get angry about… everything. I think that might be kind of, like healthy even.”

  I shook my head. “You have no idea, Kimberly. If I got angry every time a salesclerk ignored my mom I’d be angry every time we went shopping. There’s prejudice around every corner. Like, my mom doesn’t go through one day without experiencing it. If we let ourselves get angry every time, we’d stay angry. And they’d win.”

  Kimberly nodded. “I hate that.”

  “But, you know what?”

  “What?”

  I gave her shoulder a light punch. “People like you make it better.”

  She smiled. “You say that a lot.”

  “Because it’s true. People like you and Jonathan are like unicorns,” I said. It felt weird to say one of my most personal thoughts out loud. But for once, I also felt like I was talking to a friend who I could trust. So, I turned to Kimberly and said, “You and Jonathan are a rare breed of privilege. You don’t look at people and make quick decisions about them based on their skin color. And even though maybe you haven’t personally experienced racism, you understand how bad it must be for people who do, and you… I don’t know, you just get it in a way most privileged people don’t.”