Then You Were Gone Part 2

"We're too exclusionary," Kate says, sighing. I smear a dab of pie custard onto her nose. "Mmm," she says, stretching her tongue over her upper lip. "Chocolate."

A piercing laugh from across the table.

"Do it again," shrieks Lee. Alice sucks, inhales, then exhales-forming her mouth into a pleasing, pouty O.

"Bravo."

Smoke ring pantomime. We all clap.

Teddy Walker-rich, stuck-up, into boys, into clothes-pa.s.ses Alice the lentil salad. "Here," he says. "Smoke this."

She takes the dish, serves herself, serves my boyfriend.

"A toast!" Kate's filling my cup to its brim with red wine.

"To?" I say, slurping the overflow off the top.

She faces me and, with a hand to her heart, says: "You."

"Oh, to me?" I fan my face with my free hand. "Really?"

"To Adrienne!" everyone screams, gulping wine and clanking cups.

Kate's fat, surly piggy waddles past me and plops down on the Persian carpet.

"To Darla!" shouts Lee.

"To Darla!" we echo. And for the first time all week I feel the teensiest bit happy.

We keep toasting. To sunny skies and starry nights. To taco trucks and cigarette breadsticks. To Dr. Strange, our princ.i.p.al. To Gwen Murphy's baby. To the Cannons, Kate's parents, for supplying us with booze but then taking our car keys. To Margaret's debate win. To Wyatt Shaw, Kate's crush. "To Dakota Webb!" screams Teddy. And with that, my buzz fizzles.

"Where is that girl?" Alice asks.

"On the lam," says Teddy.

"Yeah? What's she running from?"

"s.e.x," he says, laughing.

"Running from s.e.x?" I say, super annoyed while everyone giggles. "Not funny." I rearrange my silverware. "Doesn't even make any sense . . ."

"No, wait-" Teddy again. "Drugs."

More laughter.

"Running from drugs?" he ponders. "Running with drugs?"

"Moving on," Kate interjects. "Pa.s.s the peas, please?"

No peas. But Lee pa.s.ses the lentils and the bread basket.

I watch my lap. Sip some wine. Kate drills two knuckles into my kneecap. "Yeah?"

"You're wanted."

I look up. More giggles. More plate-pa.s.sing and blue-cheese/tomato-salad/dry-salami/lentil-eating. Lee's wiggling one brow at me, mock seductively. I grin a little. What? I mouth. He points left.

"Bathroom," I say to Kate.

"Sure, s.l.u.t."

I stand. Lee follows. We go to the guest bath down the hall. Lee locks the door. Lifts me onto the vanity. "You okay?" he asks.

"I'm okay," I say.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Nope." I lean forward, rub my nose against his nose. "Eskimos," I whisper.

"Eskimos," he says back. He licks my face. I kick him closer with one foot. We kiss slow, so slow, the slowest, most slippery kiss. I wrap my arms around his neck; my body settles. "Let's stay here for a while, okay?"

"Okay," Lee says.

I shut my eyes.

Everyone's saying it: suicide. All those sneaky s sounds.

From the LA Times blog: Eighteen-year-old Langley senior and Los Angeles resident Dakota Webb has gone missing. Webb fronts the local indie band Dark Star. Just last month, Dark Star played to packed audiences during its Monday-night residency at the downtown all-ages venue the Smell.

Webb's abandoned Jeep was discovered early Friday morning in a pay lot off Pacific Coast Highway. A note, allegedly written by Webb, was found inside the vehicle. The note's contents have not been disclosed.

Last month, another Los Angeles teen, Crossroads soph.o.m.ore Ca.s.sidy Chang, disappeared. Her Ford sedan was found in the same beach parking lot.

"I'm taking you home," Lee tells me. He's holding one hand and Kate's holding the other. "You're gonna be okay," they say. And: "Adrienne, hey, don't go crazy with this."

Princ.i.p.al Strange, moments ago: "Let's say a silent prayer for our s.h.i.+ning star, Dakota Webb."

Two squad cars are parked by the auditorium exit.

"Knox, hey, they have a note, that's all."

Absolutely not, no way, not possible. "She would never-not ever-" I hear myself stutter. Only, I dunno, would she? "Pills before razors. Razors before ropes," we used to joke. But drowning? Rocks in pockets? She didn't even like the beach. "You guys?" I'm being escorted somewhere. Lee's car? We're crossing the quad. Kate's palm trees swoosh overhead.

"Knox." Which one says this? Both their faces look flat and gloomy. "Knox, it's okay . . . sit."

I get in. Lee's to my left. Kate stays outside, one hand touching the car door.

"It's hot in here, are you hot?" I roll down my window. I'm shaky and flying and s.p.a.ced out. Two girls dressed in funeral black s.h.i.+ver and clutch each other by the old oak near the exit. "You're coming, right?"

"I gotta stay," Kate says, leaning forward, kissing my cheek. "Call you later?"

I feel like a f.u.c.king hot-air balloon. "She didn't kill herself," I blurt. Lee rubs my shoulder. "No way would she copy some sad soph.o.m.ore from Crossroads."

At home, Lee sits with me in the den.

"You want anything?"

We're waiting on my mother, who's heading home from a design job in the Valley.

"Is this my fault?" I ask Lee.

"No." The o in the 'no' is long and insistent.

"I waited. I waited four days to call back. She wanted help and I just-"

"You don't know what she wanted," Lee says. And, "Hey." His hand moves to my thigh. "She wasn't nice, Knox. She was s.h.i.+tty to you."

True and not true. She was s.h.i.+tty, sure. Also? She was funny and magnetic and nutso-crazy fun. "Don't say 'was.'" I flick his fingers away.

Keys jingle, the door creaks, and: "h.e.l.lo? Babe?"

Lee stands, says, "In here," then greets my frazzled mom with a quick, loose hug.

"You guys okay?" She's at my side now, rocking me, smothering my face with kisses. "Babe, you okay?"

I say, "Yes, okay," then shoot Lee a frosty look. Mom's face is inches from my face. "Oh, babe." She looks so brokenhearted. Everything about her looks gray and miserable, even her hair. "She wasn't a happy girl."

I stand up, stepping backward. "Stop saying 'was.'" I'm furious and dizzy and completely perplexed. Why's no one asking questions? What if she's been abducted or hurt or worse? What about the yellow Bug Sam saw Sunday night? "Where's Sam?" I say.

"On his way."

"You called him? You told him?"

"Babe, come'ere, yes." She clutches my head to her chest. Something wet drips into my hair part.

"Are you crying?" I sit up. "Stop it." She's blubbering. Her b.o.o.bs are heaving and she's swiping her tears away faster than they're falling. "We don't know anything yet. Don't act like that."

"She was so small, when you guys were kids, remember? Just-really tiny."

"Stop!" I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from slapping her. The sadder she gets, the more miserable I feel. I don't want to picture small, sweet Dakota. Ten years old-stringy hair, at the back of the bus with her lunch pail. That girl faded once p.u.b.erty hit, and in her place grew something dark and s.h.i.+ny and diamond-hard.

"She needed parents, better guidance, love-"

"Please," I plead, and Lee yanks me to my feet, pulling me away from my mother and into the kitchen.

"Look at me," he says sharply, grabbing my chin and backing me against the fridge. "She loved her too, okay?"

Immediate remorse. Lee exhales and I wind my arms around his torso.

"We don't know anything yet, okay?"

"Okay," I say. I cling a little tighter.

Sam spends all Sat.u.r.day afternoon buying me c.r.a.p. Stuff I normally love that I just can't choke down now-chocolate croissants from Casbah Cafe, hazelnut gelato from that place on Hyperion, a fish taco from my favorite stand on Sunset. I take two bites and he finishes the rest. Later on, we walk the Silver Lake Reservoir twice. It takes about an hour, and I make Sam tell me all over again each detail from the previous Sunday.

"She kicked the car, you're sure?"

"Right, a couple of hard kicks," Sam says.

"And you're sure it was yellow?"

"Absolutely," he says with a firm nod. "Yellow and dented and old."

I watch the lake: stagnant, glossy, black. Nothing like seawater. Still, I make myself see it: Dakota floating faceup. Facedown. Drifting along the cement sh.o.r.eline. The image won't stick. Doesn't feel real.

Sunday's like this: Lee picks me up at ten a.m. and takes me to Kate's place. They've plotted my perfect day: packaged snacks from Little Tokyo (rice crackers, red-bean cakes, mochi b.a.l.l.s), Zeppelin and Deep Purple on the stereo (seventies metal, my fave), G&Ts by the pool (a tradition Kate cooked up last year after reading Play It As It Lays by Didion: afternoon c.o.c.ktails, sixties casual-wear, bleak tete-a-tete). Kate even gives me my very own copy of The Secret Language of Eating Disorders by Peggy Claude-Pierre, a book she's been inexplicably obsessed with since tenth grade health ed.

"Thanks," I say. I flip through the book, sip my G&T, watch Kate and Lee stuff their faces with powdery rolls of mochi.

"Have some."

"No."

They look at each other. They look at the pool, they look at the pig. "Darla," Kate coos, and Darla waddles across the lawn, toward me. "She's incredibly sensitive," Kate insists, licking white dust off her fingertips. "She wants to kiss away your woes . . ."

I pat the pig's rump, then scooch forward, slipping my feet into the cool pool.

"Should we swim?" Lee says.