Page 11 of The Missing Half

At 8:30 the next Sunday morning, Jenna picks me up from my apartment to take us to Holy Mount Presbyterian.

“You look nice,” she says as I climb into her truck and stuff my backpack into the space by my feet. I have a shift after the service, so it’s fuller than usual today with my uniform.

“Thanks.” I’m wearing the nicest thing I could find in my closet—a purple cotton dress with tiny white flowers that, from afar, look like spots. I couldn’t get myself to put on heels though, so I’ve paired it with my high-top Converse.

Jenna, on the other hand, looks like she’s made a real effort. She’s done her hair in loose ringlets and painted her lips pink. Her outfit though—a midnight blue satin halter dress and black slingback heels—makes me think she’s never been to church before. And the way she’s drumming her fingers nervously on the steering wheel seems to confirm it. I know with a sudden clench of dread that the good Christian socialites of this town will take one look at her and know she’s playing a part.

“Hey, do you want borrow a cardigan or something?” I say.

“Why? Do you think I need one? Is this not appropriate?”

“No, no, no. It’s not that. You look great. But these churches, they’re fucking cold.”

She lets out a relieved breath of laughter. “Okay. Sure. Thanks.”

I run back up to my apartment and grab a white, loose-knit cardigan from my closet. At least now the whispers won’t have the word slut in them. I wouldn’t care if they said it about me, but for some reason it bothers me to think of Jenna on the receiving end of that kind of petty cruelty.

“So,” I say after I’ve made it back to the truck and tossed the sweater into her lap. “You and Jules didn’t grow up going to church, huh?”

“No. I can’t imagine our mom ever stepping foot into a church. She never really believed in anything but herself.”

This is the same woman who rages at Jenna for not being Jules, the same woman for whom Jenna is doing all of this. It shouldn’t make any sense, but I understand. Family is complicated.

“What about you?” she says. “You and Kasey go to church when you were kids?”

“For a while. Kasey was better at it all than I was.”

Back when our parents still loved each other or at least pretended to, back when drinking was more of a hobby for our mom instead of the priority it eventually became, she used to wrangle us to church. We were never going to be an every-week sort of family, but every third Saturday or so, Mom would announce we were going to service the next morning. I didn’t know what the hell it meant to be Christian, but I did know that church meant putting on an uncomfortable dress and sitting still as some man droned on about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who were all the same person but also weren’t. Oh, and money. There was always a special part of the sermon to ask for money.

“Quit squirming,” Mom would say every time we went. “Quit tearing that program to shreds.” Even during the half hour after church when our parents would talk with the other adults and Kasey and I would play on the church’s playscape, I managed to get in trouble—for cursing, for getting my tights dirty, for messing up my hair. One Sunday morning, when our mom shepherded us to the car, I refused to get in. I was probably nine or ten at the time, and I stood in the driveway, arms crossed over my chest. “I’m not going.”

“Nicole Monroe,” Mom said. “You get in that car right now.”

I shook my head.

My mom looked to my dad, who just let out a weary sigh.

“Nic, you are a Christian and that means you are going to church.”

But I stamped my foot and used the word I’d learned only a few weeks earlier during, ironically enough, Sunday service. “I am atheist,” I shouted. “And I’m not going.”

This time, my mom looked to Kasey, the only one in the house I really listened to. “What do you want me to do?” Kasey said with a shrug. “Apparently, she’s an atheist.”

It wasn’t long after that that our parents gave up on church.

Holy Mount Presbyterian is one of the older churches in town, gray stone with ostentatious columns out front. We pull up beside an enormous magnolia sprawling over the lawn, its waxy leaves casting stark shadows in the summer sun. People are still milling around outside, but the men are glancing at watches while the women call out to their kids. It’s almost time for the service to start.

“I don’t see Lauren,” I say to Jenna as she walks around the truck to join me on the sidewalk. “Or Matthew or the kids.”

“They’re probably inside already.”

We file through the church’s double doors with the rest of the congregation, looking exactly like the wide-eyed tourists we are. People are shooting sideways glances at us and smiling too broadly when I catch their eye. We sit in the back, and I crane my neck to search the pews. There are dozens of women I think could be Lauren, but I watch each until they do something, turn their head or laugh, and I realize they’re not.

A man with thick dark hair and unnaturally white teeth stands in front of the crowd and welcomes everyone, inviting us to join him in a song of worship to get started. It’s then, as the congregation stands to sing, that I see her—a head of blond hair, an eyelet white dress, a baby in her arms. I elbow Jenna and nod in Lauren’s direction.

After the sermon, something about unconditional love that I only listened to pieces of, Jenna and I hurry outside and wait at the bottom of the stairs on the front lawn, where every person in the church will walk by on their way out. We wait for what feels like forever for Lauren and her family to emerge through the double doors, and I start to get antsy. I don’t have long before I need to leave for work. Finally, we see them.

“Lauren,” I call, waving a hand.

With Thomas in her arms, Lauren scans the crowd, a bright, expectant smile on her face. But when her eyes land on me, it falls. She turns to touch a man’s shoulder—her husband, Matthew—then slowly makes her way over.

“Nic!” She’s plastered a friendly smile back on, but I can see through it. She’s not happy to see me. “I’m so happy to see you! It’s been ages. Are you a new member here?” She knows I’m not. She knows why I am here.

“Just visiting,” I say. “This is my friend Jenna.”

“Hi,” Lauren says. Her voice has a put-upon sweetness that chafes my skin. It was obvious from her Facebook profile that she’d turned into somebody else over the years, but seeing it in person is disorienting. “I’d shake your hand, but as you can see”—she nods at her arm wrapped around Thomas—“mine are full.”

Matthew walks up to us, holding their daughter Beth Anne’s hand. “This is my husband, Matthew,” Lauren says, then introduces us. She doesn’t tell him how she knows me. “And this is Beth Anne.”

As Jenna and I shake hands with Matthew, Beth Anne starts to pepper him with questions and the two of them retreat a few steps away to talk. An awkward silence falls over the three of us that neither Jenna nor I try to fill. I’m hoping Lauren will take the bait, and she does.

“Listen, Nic,” she says, sounding somehow embarrassed, apologetic, and defensive all at once. “I’m sorry about not responding to your messages. I kept meaning to, but with two little ones running around, things can be chaotic.”

“That’s all right,” I say. “But since we’re both here, I’d love to talk to you now.”

“Oh!” Her eyes widen, and I can see her Midwestern manners battling her desire to get away from us. I just don’t understand why that desire is so strong. If I can stand here and talk about my own sister going missing, why can’t she? “You know, I’m so sorry, but we’ve got to get home to feed Thomas, and then there’s nap time. I’m not sure if you have kids”—she says this in a way that makes it clear she knows I don’t—“but if you get their schedule off by, like, a minute, the entire train can fall off the rails.”

“It won’t take long,” I say. “Promise. I have to get to work in a bit, so it’ll be few minutes, tops.”

Still, she hesitates.

“Lauren, please.” I think back to that first night outside Funland, to how Jenna lied to get me to talk. While it infuriated me then, now that I’m standing in front of a source of potentially new information, I understand. “She was my sister.”

Lauren stares at me for a moment, then lets out a breath. “I’m sorry. Of course. Sometimes, I just get wrapped up in parenting and…Anyway, I really don’t have too long, but I’ll help if I can.” She turns to Matthew, who’s now got Beth Anne on his shoulders. “Honey? I’m gonna catch up with Nic for a minute, okay? I’m fine with Thomas, but maybe the two of you could go to the playground for a bit?”

“Sure,” Matthew says as Beth Anne shrieks with delight. “It was nice meeting you.”

He walks off and Lauren turns back to us with a resigned-looking smile. “So.” She shifts Thomas to her other hip. “What do you wanna know?”

Jenna and I look at each other. I told her I wanted to take the lead, but I don’t really know where to start. “Well,” she jumps in. “You spoke to the police after Kasey went missing, right?”

“I’m sorry.” Lauren flicks her eyes briefly to Jenna’s satin dress. “What was your name again?” By her sweetly acerbic tone, it’s clear the real question is: Who the fuck are you? It’s weird. Kasey and I used to make fun of those people. Phony, we called them. Now her best friend is one of them.

“This is Jenna Connor,” I say. “Her sister was Jules Connor, the other girl who went missing from the side of the road.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m—” Lauren shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“That’s okay,” Jenna says.

“Um, but yes, to answer your question, I did speak to the police.”

“Do you remember who you talked to?”

“Some detective. He came over to my house. What was his name?” She clicks her tongue.

“Wyler?” I say.

“Yes. That was it. Detective Wyler.”

Jenna looks to me so I can take over, giving me an encouraging nod.

“Right,” I say. “So, that summer, you and Kasey—you basically saw each other every day, right?”

“Well, when I was working at the record store, we did.”

“What d’you mean by ‘when’?”

“I worked with Kasey at Rosie’s Records, the record store on Grape Road?”

“No, I remember that,” I say. “But the way you said it—it made it seem like you didn’t work there the whole summer.”

Lauren gives me a look as she hitches Thomas higher on her hip. “I didn’t. I worked there with her for about two months. Then I left to go waitress. Kasey never told you?”

Her words, spoken innocently enough, worm into my brain: Kasey never told you. But Kasey and I had told each other everything. For a moment I can’t speak, and Jenna fills the silence.

“Where did you work as a waitress?” she says.

“Just the place next door. It’s called Mesquite.”

“You worked at Mesquite Barbecue?” Jenna shoots me a glance. She looks as thrown as I feel.

“Yes…?” Lauren says.

“That’s where my sister worked.”

“Jules? Really? I don’t remember her there. I don’t think.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Jenna says. “By then, she was working in South Bend. She worked at Mesquite a few years earlier. Back when it was Famous Jake’s.”

“Oh.” Lauren’s voice is light. “Huh.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, and Lauren shifts her attention back to me. “You and Kasey were attached at the hip. She loved working at the record store with you. Why’d you leave?” I feel frustration wafting off Jenna and realize too late what I’ve done—bowled over the revelation about Jules to ask about Kasey.

“Bah!” Thomas shouts. Lauren brushes his wispy hair with her fingers, then says, “The waitresses there made really good tips. I was in college. I needed the money. Plus, it wasn’t like I was going far. It was literally next door.”

“When did you switch jobs?”

“July, I think?”

“No.” My voice is louder than I’d intended. A few of the church goers glance in our direction. “That can’t be right. You were working at the record store the day Kasey went missing—August 17th. I walked over after work to look for her and you gave me a ride home.”

“That’s not how it happened.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“I was working that day, but I was at Mesquite. I saw you through the window. You were on the sidewalk out front, on the phone. You looked upset, so I came out to see if you were okay and you asked me for a ride. I remember because I had to ask my boss to leave early and he was a jerk about it.”

I feel as if I’m in a snow globe that’s being flipped upside down. That day was the most pivotal of my entire life. It’s unfathomable that I could misremember it. And yet, Lauren’s memory is already distorting my own. I think back to that summer evening: crossing Grape Road, sweat rolling down my back. The sound of that obscure band over the record store speakers. Lauren working alone. “No,” I say. “I remember asking you where Kasey was, and you said you hadn’t seen her all day.”

“Right. Because I hadn’t.”

“But we were in the record store when we talked. Why would you have been in there if you weren’t working there?”

“I wasn’t in there,” Lauren says. “I wouldn’t have been. You probably went in looking for Kasey then came back out again. That’s when I saw you outside.”

Jenna’s eyes are on me. “Nic. It was seven years ago. It’s okay. You just misremembered something.”

I nod but feel unmoored. First I learn that Kasey hid something from me that summer, and now I find out my own memories have betrayed me.

To Lauren, Jenna says, “Can you tell us about that summer? What was it like working so close to Kasey?”

“Well, the record store was a pretty cushy job. It was super slow, so Kasey and I just hung out most of the time. Oh, and there was this cute boy who worked at the yogurt shop across the street. We’d take turns going over there and seeing what free stuff we could get from him. Usually, he’d just give us tastes of the different flavors, but sometimes he’d pour sprinkles into a little cup. We’d take it back to the shop and eat them as we talked.”

Lauren smiles softly, and I can see that to her, this memory is golden and light. If it were mine, it would carve a hole in me.

“And we worked well together too,” she continues. “At first, we both did a bit of everything around the store, but Kasey was the one in love with the music. She’d spend hours deciding which records to play and in what order. She was a real perfectionist about it. You know how she could be. And she loved getting in new albums and making sure they were shelved properly. She even started joking about dropping out of nursing school to work there full-time.”

“I remember that,” I say. It sounds defensive.

“And I didn’t really care about the music. So, I worked the cash register and answered the phone.”

“What did you guys talk about?” Jenna says.

As Lauren had spoken earlier, I was starting to catch glimpses of the girl I used to know. But now, she clears her throat, straightens Thomas’s shirt, and continues in her sweet, airy tone. “Oh, Lord, who knows? School, friends, Channing Tatum or whatever actor was hot that year. We were teenage girls.”

“Did she ever say anything about leaving?” I ask. “Or even just taking a trip? Like, do you have any idea where she could’ve been going the night she went missing?”

“Well, by then, I was working at Mesquite, and we weren’t really seeing each other as much.”

“Yeah, but you were still friends. You talked. She didn’t say anything about where she was headed?”

“I’m sorry,” Lauren says. “No.”

“What about…Did you ever notice that she was scared that summer?” I’m not being methodical about any of this, but I don’t care.

“Scared? I…no. No.”

“What about guys?” Jenna says. “Did she ever talk about who she liked?”

“Kasey was pretty focused on school.”

It’s true. And while my sister might not have mentioned her friend changing jobs, she would have told me if she had a crush. Of that, I’m certain.

“Plus”—Lauren shoots me a look—“she probably would’ve told you before she told me.” It feels like a finger prodding a fresh bruise. Kasey never told you. I can’t tell if it was intentional or not.

“What about the guy who worked at the yogurt shop?” Jenna says before I have the chance to respond.

“Oh. That was nothing. He was just fun to look at.”

“Can you remember his name?”

Lauren’s eyebrows jump. “You think he might’ve had something to do with Kasey’s disappearance?”

“Right now, we’re looking for anything.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t think I can remember. John, maybe? Drew? I don’t know. Something short. Ben? No, that doesn’t sound right.” Thomas suddenly grabs her necklace, a diamond cross on a silver chain, and tugs. “That’s Mommy’s necklace, baby.” To us, she adds, “I should probably get going. He really will get fussy soon.”

“Real quick,” I say, “can you think of anyone who was interested in her that summer? A customer or someone who worked nearby? At Mesquite maybe? The police always said the person we’re looking for wouldn’t have known Kasey well. He probably crossed her path a handful of times and she caught his eye.”

“Well,” Lauren says, “Detective Wyler asked me more or less the same thing back then, and I gave him the name of someone, but it never amounted to anything, so it must’ve not been anything.”

My heart starts thumping hard. “Who?”

“My old boss at Mesquite. He was”—she glances over her shoulder, but the nearest church goers are a good ten feet away—“pretty sleazy. Always staring at the girls’ chests and saying gross stuff. Whenever someone would call him out on it, he’d laugh and say they needed to learn how to take a joke. There was an alley behind the restaurant where a handful of the places shared a dumpster. It was the one we used at the record store too. And all the girls who worked on the strip knew not to take out the trash alone, because sometimes he’d be out there smoking and…you know. You wouldn’t want to get stuck in a back alley with him at night. I guess you could say that about a lot of guys though.”

“What was this guy’s name?” Jenna says.

“Steve McLean. But we all called him Skeevy Steve.”

“And you gave his name to Wyler?”

She nods.

“His full name? You said Steve McLean?”

“Yeah.”

Jenna glances at me, and I can see the unspoken question in her eyes. This was a solid lead. What had Wyler done with it? She looks back to Lauren. “Do you know how long he’d been working there by the time you started?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but he was the manager, and from the way people talked, it seemed like he’d been around a while. A few years at least. Oh,” Lauren adds with a look at Jenna, “I guess that means he was there the same time your sister was.”