I close the binder, return it to the shelf among the others, and go hunt for my boots. The search for Sam starts soon. I should go.
Chapter 20
Annie sits behind the wheel, Sam’s dirty T-shirt in her hands. She presses it to her face, breathing in the lingering scent of his sweat, imagining him coming home from the gym earlier in the week in this shirt. Four women pass in front of Annie’s car, wearing matching purple St. Ignatius Catholic Church raincoats. They open the door to the bowling alley and disappear inside. Lucky Strikes, the unofficial headquarters for the Search for Sam! event advertised on flyers some classmates from Sam’s high school photocopied and hung around town this morning, exclamation points in no short supply. “Meet at Lucky Strikes at 10 a.m.! Dress warm!” Annie’s been sitting in her car for twelve minutes now, watching cars pull up and people jog through the rain toward the entrance in waterproof boots and hoods pulled up under a misty rain.
She imagines Sam in the passenger seat beside her, the two of them just another couple here to join the search, happy for something exciting to do on a Friday morning.
Look at what you’ve done, she whispers. Moving home and bringing the town together like this. You should run for mayor when you reappear.
Good idea, he replies. Will you host the Greet and Meet? She can feel his hand reaching across the seat to take hers. You have to go inside.
I don’t want to.
Why not?
I don’t know, she whispers.
Of course you do, dummy. He threads his fingers through hers. It’s because you’re deathly afraid that at some point today someone inside that bowling alley is going to come across my car, and discover my remains, and you can’t bring yourself to face it.
Her phone rings on the passenger seat, startling her. It’s Gail Withers, the branch manager at the closest Chase Bank, twenty-nine miles away.
“Ms. Withers,” Annie says, snatching the phone. “Thank you for calling me back.”
“You left quite a few voice mails this morning,” Gail says. “How can I help?”
“My husband has a checking account with your bank, and I’m trying to find out the last time his ATM card was used.”
“Are you listed on the account?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone, calling different 1–800 numbers, trying to get some answers.”
“And what were they able to provide you with?”
“Jack shit.” Annie presses the ache that is building behind her eyes again. “Which is why I tracked you down. I thought talking to someone more local, that maybe . . .”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Potter, but the bank doesn’t share information with unauthorized users. It’s for our customers’ protection.”
“I’m not asking the bank to do this, Gail. I’m asking you.”
She hesitates. “I’m sorry, Annie. I wouldn’t be able to do that even if I wanted to.”
Annie takes a breath, resisting the urge to scream. “I haven’t spoken to my husband in two days,” she mutters. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Gail says again, sounding genuinely pained. “I saw the article this morning. I know how difficult this is.”
Annie wants to laugh. Is that right, Gail? So your husband also vanished into thin air, and to avoid the image of him dying a slow death under the world’s most douche-y car, your brain is keeping busy running in circles, trying to find out if his bank card was used? “Thank you, Gail.” She ends the call, opens the car door, and walks briskly toward the bowling alley, ready to get this over with. Inside, she’s hit by the scent of french fries and lane grease. A woman approaches with a clipboard and pen. She’s in her sixties, with hair the color of Concord grape jelly.
“Name, please?”
“I’m not staying,” Annie says. “Just dropping something off.”
A man rushes by with two fresh boxes of doughnuts, which he sets on a nearby table under a sign taped to the wall: WITH GOOD THOUGHTS FROM EILEEN’S BAKERY IN CENTERVIEW PLAZA. “Get one before they’re gone, Mrs. Escobido,” he says as he passes.
She shakes her head. “Day fourteen on this new diet, and the only thing I’ve lost is two weeks of happiness.” Annie walks past her. People are milling about, pouring coffee from pots set on the bar, Bon Jovi on low. An assembly line of women stand at the bar tables, spreading peanut butter onto stacks of white bread. One of them waves, sad-faced, and it takes Annie a minute to place her. Sidney Pigeon, the woman who lives across the street from the Lawrence House. Another ex-girlfriend making googly eyes at Sam from across the room. It was a political fundraiser, and Annie remembers getting in the car that night, pretending to be Sidney Pigeon, class of 1998. When they got home, she led Sam into the bedroom, tipsily describing the things she’d been fantasizing about doing with him during PTA meetings for the last fifteen years.