I said I was Nicky’s best friend’s mom. Valerie said she was sorry but Emily had stepped out of the office for a moment. I said no, I was sorry. Nicky had slept at my house last night, and Emily hadn’t come to pick him up. Was there someone I could speak to? I was thinking how every mom should have a Valerie of her own. An assistant! There are so many things we do—so much we need help with.
Davis had two assistants, Evan and Anita. Talented young designers. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the world without an assistant. I’m kidding, of course. We have so much more than most people, but still . . .
I could tell that something wasn’t right. Valerie said that someone would call me right back. But no one ever called.
I’ve blogged about the silly, hurtful divisions that often come between working moms and stay-at-home moms. I’ve kept it secret, but I’ve always been a teensy bit jealous of Emily’s career. The glamour, the excitement, the practically free clothes! The celebrities’ unlisted numbers, the runway shows . . . all the cool things Emily does while I’m home making peanut butter sandwiches and wiping up spilled apple juice and blogging. Not to underestimate how happy and grateful I am to be able to reach out to (by now) thousands of moms worldwide. I also know that Emily is missing out on a lot of things, on the ordinary fun stuff Miles and I do every afternoon.
Now no one at Emily’s company seems to be concerned. She’s worked there almost since she got out of college. Dennis should be going on the news and pleading with someone to find her.
Relax, Stephanie. Calm down. It hasn’t been all that long.
Thanks, moms. It comforts me just to know you’re out there reading this.
Love,
Stephanie
5
Stephanie's Blog
All My Fault?
Hi, moms!
What a typical mom I am! By now I’ve almost convinced myself that the whole misunderstanding is my fault. Emily must have asked me to keep Nicky for a couple days instead of for the evening. Then why do I remember her saying that Nicky wasn’t going to sleep over, that she would get him by nine?
Many of us have shared on this blog about how hard it is for moms to feel they’ve got a grip on reality—what day it is, what’s expected of us, what someone said or didn’t. Nothing is easier than convincing a mom that something’s her fault. Even when it isn’t. Especially when it isn’t.
By that afternoon, I had myself so psyched that I half expected to see Emily waiting under the big oak tree near the entrance to the school where she always is on Fridays. I was so positive she’d be there that, for a split second, I imagined I saw her.
It couldn’t have been her. For one thing, it was Wednesday. I had that sinking feeling—you can’t find your kid anywhere, and in the lifetime it takes to find him, you feel like your heart is going to explode. There was a period when Miles loved to hide from me, and I flipped out every time . . .
Wait. I have a plan. More soon.
Love,
Stephanie
6
Stephanie's Blog
A Visit to Emily’s
Hi, moms!
Normally, I wouldn’t go over to Emily’s house without calling. I did try her landline. No one answered. Emily had given me her keys and asked for the keys to my house. I’d been so impressed because it seemed like such a sensible, grown-up, mom thing to do. Plus it meant we were really friends. We could use the keys in an emergency. Or even if we just arrived early for a playdate and the other wasn’t home. This was an emergency. I didn’t want to invade Emily’s privacy, but I had to make sure that she hadn’t fallen or hurt herself, or that she wasn’t ill and in need of my help.
I couldn’t bring the boys. What if I found something dire? My imagination was running wild. I imagined her house smeared with blood, Charlie Manson–style. I pictured her in a bathtub full of blood.
I decided to stop by Emily’s on my way to pick up the boys at school.
Just pulling into her driveway felt dangerous and spooky. It was raining slightly; a wind was shaking the trees, and I felt like the branches were saying, Don’t go there. Don’t go there. I’m joking. I’m a sensible mom. I don’t hear the trees talking.
I felt a lot better when I spotted Emily’s housecleaner Maricela’s car in the driveway. Maricela told me she was just finishing up, which was comforting. If Emily were dead or lying helpless somewhere in the house, Maricela would have noticed.
Maricela is an angel. I only wish she worked for us, but Miles and I can’t afford her.
She said, “The senora said she’d be gone four days. She said I should come to clean and then again to see if the plants need water.”
Four days! What a relief!
“Have you heard from her?”
“No. Why would I?” Maricela asked sweetly. “Senora, are you all right? Would you like something to drink? Food? The senora left beautiful fruit in the fridge.”
Beautiful fruit was a good sign. Emily meant to return. I asked for a glass of water, and Maricela went to get it.
It felt strange to sit on the couch where I’d spent so many hours with Emily. Her big, comfy sofa felt suddenly lumpy and strange, like something you could sink into and never climb out of. Like a Venus flytrap couch. I considered searching the house for clues.
Why hadn’t Emily said she’d be gone four days? And why didn’t she return my calls? I knew my friend. Something awful had happened.
Being in Emily’s house made me feel even more jumpy and scared. I kept expecting her to walk in and ask what I was doing. First I would feel relieved, overjoyed to see her, and then maybe guilty, even though she’d given me plenty of reason to drop by.
Where is she? I felt like whining, like a child.
I looked above the mantelpiece at the photograph of the twins. There were so many gorgeous things in Emily’s home: Persian rugs, Chinese vases, iconic design pieces, masterpieces of midcentury modern furniture. Davis would have loved her house, if only he’d lived to see it. But Emily made a point of showing me the black-and-white photo of the two girls in their party dresses and hair bands, so oddly beautiful and so haunting, half smiling at some secret knowledge.
Emily said, “That photo cost more, and I love it more, than anything in the house. If I told you how we got it, our friend in the auction house would have to kill me. Which twin do you think is the dominant one?”
It was almost like déjà vu or a memory of another life. My other life—when I lived in the city and worked at a magazine. A home-decorating magazine you can buy at the supermarket checkout counter, but a magazine nonetheless: a cover, paper, text, photos. I used to have a life in which I met people who made odd comments and asked interesting questions and had beautiful, unexpected objects in their houses. People who talked about something besides what after-school lessons their kids were taking and whether you could know if the tomatoes were really organic. People who had fun!
“I don’t know,” I’d told Emily. “Which twin do you think?”
She said, “Sometimes I think one, sometimes the other.”
“Maybe neither,” I said.
“That never happens,” she said. “There’s always a dominant one, even in a friendship.”
Was Emily the dominant friend? I looked up to her, I know . . .
Now my friend was gone. And there were the twins, still looking at me with their tender, inscrutable little faces.
The living room was perfect. Naturally. Maricela was here. On the coffee table—Davis would have known what midcentury modern genius designed it—was a paperback book. A Patricia Highsmith novel. Those Who Walk Away. Sticking out from the pages was a bookmark from our local bookstore. That was when it occurred to me—not quite in a flash, more like a flicker—that Emily might have walked away. Left her son with me and taken off. People walk away. It happens. Their friends and neighbors and family members say they never ever suspected.
I decided to read the Highsmith book for information I might have missed. Information about Emily. I couldn’t take her copy. When she came back, she’d be annoyed. I’d order a copy if the library didn’t have it. If I could just keep cool and stay reasonable, everything would work out. All this would turn out to be a bad dream, a mistake, a misunderstanding that Emily and I could laugh about, later.