Shivering Mind

Chapter 57

‘Blue Book Boys, like we’re some kind of crew.’ Lonnie sniffed. ‘We’re not animals, asshole. We don’t steal women. People want to feel okay for not helping us. See, they don’t deserve it, they’re a bunch of rapists. Well, bullshit. I’d get the f**k out of this town if the plant would give me my back pay. But I got nothing. None of us got nothing. So here we are.’

‘We’ll give you money, good money, if you can tell us anything about Amy’s disappearance,’ I said. ‘You guys know a lot of people, maybe you heard something.’

I pulled out her photo. The Hillsams and Stucks looked surprised, and I realized – of course – this was only a macho diversion for them. I pushed the photo in Lonnie’s face, expecting him to barely glance. Instead, he leaned in closer.

‘Oh, s**t,’ he said. ‘Her?’

‘You recognise her?’

He actually looked stricken. ‘She wanted to buy a gun.’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

OCTOBER 16, 2010

– Diary entry –

Happy anniversary to me! One full month as a Missouri resident, and I am on my way to becoming a good midwesterner. Yep, I have gone cold turkey off all things E

ast Coast and I have earned my thirty-day chip (here it would be a potato chip). I am taking notes, I am honoring traditions. I am the Margaret Mead of the goddamn Mississip.

Let’s see, what’s new? Matilda and I are currently embroiled in what I have taken to calling (to myself ) the Cuckoo Clock Conundrum. My parents’ cherished heirloom looks ridiculous in the new house. But then all our New York stuff does. Our dignified elephant of a chesterfield with its matching baby ottoman sits in the living room looking stunned, as if it got sleep-darted in its natural environment and woke up in this strange new captivity, surrounded by faux-posh carpet and synthetic wood and unveined walls. I do miss our old place – all the bumps and ridges and hairline fractures left by the decades. (Pause for attitude adjustment.) But new is nice, too! Just different. The clock would disagree. The cuckoo is also having a tough time adjusting to its new space: The little bird lurches out drunkenly at ten minutes after the hour; seventeen minutes before; forty-one past. It emits a dying wail – coo-crrrrww – that every time brings Bleecker trotting in from some hideaway, eyes wild, all business, his tail a bottle-brush as he tilts his head toward the feathers and mewls.

‘Wow, your parents must really hate me,’ Matilda says whenever we’re both in earshot of the noise, though he’s smart enough not to recommend ridding ourselves of the thing just yet. I actually want to trash it too. I am the one (the jobless) at home all day, just waiting for its squawk, a tense moviegoer steeling myself for the next outburst from the crazy patron behind me – both relieved (there it is!) and angry (there it is!) each time it comes.

Much to-do was made over the clock at the housewarming (oh, look at that, an antique clock!), which Mama Maureen Dunne insisted on. Actually, not insisted on; Mama Mo does not insist. She simply makes things a reality by assuming they are such: From the first morning after the move, when she appeared on our doorstep with a welcome-home egg scramble and a family pack of toilet paper (which didn’t speak well for the egg scramble), she’d spoken of the housewarming as if it were a fact. So when do you want to do your housewarming? Have you thought about who I should invite to the housewarming? Do you want a housewarming or something fun, like a stock-the-bar party? But a traditional housewarming is always nice.

And then suddenly there was a date, and the date was today, and Dunne family and friends were shaking off the October drizzle from umbrellas and carefully, conscientiously wiping their feet on the floor mat Maureen had brought for us this morning. The rug says: All Are Friends Who Enter Here. It is from Costco. I have learned about bulk shopping in my four weeks as a Mississippi River resident. Republicans go to Sam’s Club, Democrats go to Costco. But everyone buys bulk because – unlike Manhattanites – they all have space to store twenty-four jars of sweet pickles. And – unlike Manhattanites – they all have uses for twenty-four jars of sweet pickles. (No gathering is complete without a lazy Susan full of pickles and Spanish olives right from the jar. And a salt lick.)

I set the scene: It is one of those big-smelling days, when people bring the outdoors in with them, the scent of rain on their sleeves, in their hair. The older women – Maureen’s friends – present varying food items in plastic, dishwasher-safe containers they will later ask to be returned. And ask and ask. I know, now, that I am supposed to wash out the containers and drop each of them back by their proper homes – a Ziploc carpool – but when I first came here, I was unaware of the protocol. I dutifully recycled all the plastic containers, and so I had to go buy all new ones. Maureen’s best friend, Vicky, immediately noticed her container was bMax-new, store-bought, an imposter, and when I explained my confusion, she widened her eyes in amazement: So that’s how they do it in New York.

But the housewarming: The older women are Maureen’s friends from long-ago PTA meetings, from book clubs, from the Shoe-Be-Doo-Be at the mall, where she spent forty hours a week slipping sensible block heels onto women of a certain age. (She can size a foot on sight – women’s 8, narrow! – it’s her go-to party trick.) All Mo’s friends love Matilda, and they all have stories about sweet things Matilda has done for them over the years.

The younger women, the women representing the pool of possible Amy-friends, all sport the same bleached-blond wedge haircut, the same slip-on mules. They are the daughters of Maureen’s friends, and they all love Matilda, and they all have stories about sweet things Matilda has done for them over the years. Most of them are out of work from the mall closings, or their husbands are out of work from the mall closings, so they all offer me recipes for ‘cheap and easy eats’ that usually involve a casserole made from canned soup, butter, and a snack chip.

The men are nice and quiet and hunker in circles, talking about sports and smiling benevolently toward me.