Finding Georgina Page 3

  “Your mom always thought she wasn’t dead is my point.” Makayla steps up on the curb on the other side of the street. “Remember that time when we were at Rouses and she left the grocery cart full of groceries with ice cream and everything in it and made us get in the car? We had to follow that guy and his daughter all the way to Kenner because your mom thought she was Georgina.”

  I don’t say anything because I don’t remember it. Not that I’m saying it didn’t happen. It’s happened more times than I can count. At least she didn’t call the police that time. That I would have remembered because I would have died of embarrassment. Because that has happened to me before, too.

  “Mom says she found Georgina in a coffee shop in Mid-City,” I say, keeping any emotion out of my voice. Mostly because I know that the things I’m feeling aren’t what I’m supposed to be feeling. I’m supposed to be thrilled, ecstatic, overjoyed. I’m none of that. Mostly I’m just annoyed. And I don’t believe it. Not for one sec. It’s just my whacked-out mom being whacked-out. “Near her office.”

  “Did you see her?”

  I don’t answer.

  Makayla pulls on the sleeve of my blazer. “Jojo, did you see her?” I guess she’s all excited for me. “Do you really think it could be Georgina?”

  “Mom took a picture of her with her phone.”

  “Does it look like her?”

  I make a face like that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, because it is. “I was, like . . . three months old when she was kidnapped.” I pick up the pace. “How would I know what she looks like?”

  “You know what I mean. Does she look like you? Like your mom?”

  There are other girls on the sidewalk ahead of us. Ursuline students. I spot Ainsley Royce and seriously think about crossing the street. I can’t deal with her bitchiness this morning. We used to be good friends but she got mad because I wouldn’t work on some lame science project with her last year and now she doesn’t talk to me. It used to upset me that she doesn’t want to be my friend, but I’m over it. Dad says this kind of thing happens as you get older; friends come and go as you find your place in the world. Of course he’s never been a teenage girl and he’s never attended a Catholic school for girls, but I try to cut him a break once in a while.

  “Does she?” Makayla is being pushy, which is weird because she’s usually pretty good at reading my moods.

  “I don’t know!” Ainsley glances over her shoulder at us and I lower my voice. I really don’t want to talk about this with Makayla for about a hundred reasons. But I know she won’t leave me alone until I tell her everything she wants to know. Or at least something. “Not really. I mean . . .” I exhale. I don’t want to talk about Georgina. I don’t want to think about her. People have been talking about Georgina my whole life. Everything in my house, with my mom in particular, it all revolves around Georgina.

  “I guess she kind of looks like me. A little,” I confess, “but with Dad’s hair. It was hard to tell. Mom’s not that good at taking pics with her phone.”

  I have my mom’s looks; we’re blond with green eyes. Dad has dark hair, dark eyes, and he’s not super white, like Mom and me. The Broussards have been here since the whites ran the Choctaw Indians out and made this city on the banks of the Muddy. There’s this old song I like that calls the Mississippi “the Great Big Muddy.”

  “So what’s going to happen now?”

  I slow down so we don’t run right up under Ainsley’s skirt. Which is definitely shorter than it’s supposed to be. Shorter than mine. I hope Miss Gerard catches her. Mrs. Blocker is always nice about it, but Miss Gerard is pretty sure that a uniform skirt half an inch too short will get a virgin pregnant before lunch. I smile to myself, thinking Ainsley’s probably going to get an after-school detention. She’s with these two girls that are the biggest snobs in the ninth grade, Suzanne and Carly. Makayla says they deserve each other.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I tell Makayla. “A DNA test, I guess. To see if my mom popped her out or not.”

  “Wait.” Makayla stops and grabs my arm. “This is for real.”

  I look at her blankly. “No, it’s for fake.”

  “Your sister?” She almost whispers the word.

  I start walking again. “We’re going to be late.”

  “We’re not going to be late.” She catches up with me. “Jojo, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You might have a sister. You know how much I’ve always wanted a sister?”

  “You can have her.”

  “Jojo, don’t you—” Makayla cuts herself off.

  I don’t know what she was going to say. I don’t want to know. But I doubt she was going to say how sorry she was that my life, as I know it, could be about to end. We walk in silence for another block. We’re almost to school. The street is busy. Cars dropping off girls and the usual morning traffic.

  When Makayla speaks, her tone is gentle. And kind. She’s a way better person than I am. “Jojo, I know you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared. It’s just that . . . I have a perfectly good life as an only child. What’s going to happen if it really is her? I mean, it’s not, but what if it is? Am I going to have to share my bathroom? Because I’m not sharing my bathroom.”

  “Jojo, your mom still cries for her at night. Your parents divorced because—”

  “My parents divorced because my mom wouldn’t stop acting crazy in grocery stores.” We’re in front of the school now. It’s a big brick monstrosity that takes up a whole block. It’s, like, the oldest girls’ school in the country. Dad’s mom went here. Georgina was going to start nursery school here the year she disappeared. I never had the choice to go anywhere else when Dad said Mom couldn’t keep homeschooling me. I mean, it’s okay, but because of her, I didn’t even get a choice. A lot of things in my house are the way they are because Georgina got herself kidnapped.

  “When will the results come back?” Makayla asks me.

  “What results? Can I copy your English homework? I didn’t do it.”

  “The DNA test. When will you know if this girl your mom saw in a coffee shop is Georgina?”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Mom got a call from the police this morning saying that the girl she saw at the coffee shop might be her.” I shift my backpack on my shoulder. If we don’t hurry up, I’m not going to have time to copy her homework in the bathroom and I’m going to be in so much trouble with Miss Gerard. She not only checks skirt lengths, but she checks homework, too. Every single freakin’ day. “The cops told her it takes twenty-four to forty-eight hours for the test to come back from the lab. But it depends when they get the blood or spit or whatever to the lab and then the weekend is coming up, so . . .” I stop and look at her. “So, I guess I’ve got at least through the weekend before this potential sister comes and ruins my life that she’s already ruined.”

  Makayla laughs. “You’re such a drama queen. Come on, let’s get your homework done.”

  She walks past me and I just stand there for a minute. For some crazy reason my throat is tight, like I might cry. Because Makayla is right: I am scared. What if the coffee shop girl really is Georgina? She’s so much a part of my life, of Mom and Dad’s life, dead. If she really is alive, will that make me dead?

  4

  Harper

  “Monday? They can’t tell us anything until Monday?” I’m pacing my tiled kitchen floor. Pacing and gesturing. And I’m sounding a bit manic, as if I need a Xanax. Honestly, I’d probably take one right now if I had one. Which is why I don’t keep them in the house. I went down that road after Georgina disappeared. It was a road too often taken by women like me, neither grassy nor wanting wear. And a bad choice. “And they say that would be the earliest.” I go on with my rant. “It may be Tuesday. Possibly even Wednesday.”

  “Why so long?” Ann’s tone is patient. She’s always patient, particularly with me. Saint Ann I like to call her.

  Ann’s my best friend. Who am
I kidding? One of my only friends. I’m too sad for friends. Too intense. Too neurotic. I’m just . . . too much. Not that I blame anyone; I’m too much for myself sometimes. Ann’s lived down the street for years. She and I were in a birthing class together when we were pregnant with Jojo and her Makayla. That’s where we met. She’s the only person I still see regularly, other than Rebecca at the office, who knew me when I was the mother of two. I’d argue that I’ll always be the mother of two, even if my Georgina really is dead. So I suppose I just mean she knew me when I was whole.

  “The police picked up Georgina from the house where she was . . .” I take a deep breath. “Being held.”

  I don’t allow my mind to go in the direction of what that could potentially mean. I don’t think about Jaycee Dugard or Elizabeth Smart and the hell they endured as female captives. On January first, I started a fifty-four-day rosary novena as I do every year, praying for the return of my Georgina. I used to pray to keep her safe and bring her home, but over the years, my prayers changed. I’m not even sure if this year I was praying she come home alive, or if I just wanted closure, even in the form of remains. Now that I’m realizing my prayers may have been answered, I’ll take her any way I can get her. Whatever trauma she’s suffered, we’ll deal with once she’s home.

  “They picked her up an hour ago,” I continue. “They didn’t give me details, but I got the feeling . . .” I halt in front of her. Ann’s seated on the other side of the granite island, sipping coffee from a blue mug. Mine’s green. I reach for it. It’s my fourth or fifth cup, so I’m wired. Though maybe it was being up all night that’s wired me. “Ann . . . I think the police might have gotten some kind of confession.”

  “From Georgina?” She’s got milk foam above her upper lip. She comes to my house most mornings that I don’t have to work, after the girls have gone to school, to have a cup of coffee. She teases me that she comes more for the fancy coffee from my fancy coffeemaker than for the company.

  I touch my lip. Our signal. She reaches for a napkin and wipes her mouth.

  “I don’t think so.” I try to recall what the police officer who called said. It’s all a blur. It was a woman who called. She told me her name, but I was so excited, so scared. I don’t remember who she said she was, only that she was with the New Orleans Police. And she had a British accent. I remember that because you don’t hear it every day. “If Georgina knew she’d been kidnapped, wouldn’t she have told someone before this?” I think aloud. “A sixteen-year-old girl who’s allowed to work in a coffee shop would have had the opportunity to tell someone. And she goes to school. She was on her way to school when the cops picked her up. She was living in Bayou St. John. I don’t think the policewoman was supposed to tell me that, but she was almost as excited as I was when we spoke on the phone.”

  Ann adjusts a chandelier earring. One she’s made herself. An intricate copper-and-bead sculpture. She’s an artist and works with whatever medium strikes her fancy. She paints, she sculpts, you name it. And while she does make money on the sale of her artwork in its various forms, she doesn’t do it for a living. She says she has no problem being a kept woman. It’s every woman’s dream, according to her. And man’s. “Did the police say who had her? Was he the man who kidnapped her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any details?”

  “The police said they couldn’t tell me anything because nothing has been confirmed yet. Even that she’s really Georgina.” My hand shakes a little as I set down my mug. “But it’s her, Ann.” My eyes fill with tears. “I know it’s her.” I look down at my hands on the counter. Artist’s hands, Remy used to say. He always thought I should have been an artist. The fact that I have no artistic ability never seemed to bother him. “It’s her,” I whisper.

  “Okay, so where is she now? Will they let you see her?”

  “She was taken to . . .” I push the damp hair out of my eyes. I jumped in the shower as soon as Jojo left for school. After I stood on the front porch and watched her turn the corner onto St. Charles to Makayla and Ann’s. She’s supposed to text me when she gets there. The four minutes she’s out of my sight before she texts me are the longest four minutes of my day. I’d prefer to walk or drive her to Ursuline where she goes to school, but there was a big brouhaha when she started high school in the fall. An intervention of sorts. Jojo, Remy, Ann, her husband George, and Makayla all ganged up on me and insisted it was time the girls were allowed to walk to school together alone. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. To let Jojo out of my sight in a public place.

  I meet Ann’s gaze. “I think she’s been put in some type of temporary foster care. We’re not allowed to see her. Not until the DNA test comes back, but the sample hadn’t even been taken yet when the police called. There needs to be a court order or something. Which they said they can get today, but . . . Apparently there are rules set in place for how this is done. To protect the kidnapper’s rights, I’m sure.”

  She ignores my sarcasm. “Where’s the guy who had her?”

  “Hell, I hope.” I pick up my mug, but don’t drink from it. I begin pacing again. “Or the gallows.” I whip around to face her. “Did you know we used to have public hangings here? I don’t remember if it was when we were under French or Spanish rule.”

  “We also had public lynchings,” Ann, always the politically correct one, points out. “That doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

  I worry at my lower lip, which is already puffy from me gnawing on it. “Okay, so Guantanamo?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  I go back to pacing; the hand-painted tile is cool on my bare feet. It’s the first week of January and the Louisiana heat has finally let up. I look up to see Ann watching me.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  I nod, stopping to lean on the island again. I turn my coffee mug in my hands, feeling the weight and warmth of it.

  “You’re okay?” she repeats. “You’re sure?”

  “They might have found her.” I choke up. My gaze meets hers. “Ann, my baby might be coming home. My Georgina is coming home.”

  She reaches out and squeezes my hand. She’s tearing up, too. “You need to prepare yourself, you know,” she says softly. “In case it isn’t her.”

  “It’s her.”

  “But if it isn’t . . . Harper . . .” She says my name in an exhalation.

  I try to let myself go to that place. Just for a second. A place where the girl from the coffee shop isn’t my missing baby. But I can’t do it. Mostly because I know it will be my undoing. If the girl called Lilla isn’t my Georgina, my family will be visiting me on the psych floor at Tulane Medical Center, or maybe in some quiet, private place in the country.

  But that girl was my daughter. She is my daughter. I’d bet my life on it. She’s my daughter and she’s coming home to me. Please, God, bring her home to me. Lord, hear my prayer. I brush my fingertips over the tiny platinum crucifix I always wear. A gift from my grandmother on my first communion, which was a gift from her grandmother.

  I wonder if Georgina has had her first communion. Which, of course, is ridiculous. Who kidnaps a child and then makes sure she has a sound religious education? As soon as Georgina is home, I’ll make arrangements for her to start preparing for her first communion. Because of her age and circumstances, I know I can convince Father Paul to tutor her privately. And I’ll give her Grandmama’s crucifix when she walks down the aisle in her white dress.

  I meet Ann’s gaze as I pull my hand away that she’s holding tightly. She’s still staring at me. Weighing the odds of me stepping over the edge, right here in front of her before she’s finished her first cup of morning coffee.

  “I’m okay,” I repeat. I open my arms as if that’s proof. Raise my voice. “I’m okay, Ann.”

  “Where’s Remy?”

  “Work. Of course.”

  “That’s not fair, Harper.” She reaches for her coffee. “Your ex-husband is more attentive to you than any husband I
know. More attentive than my husband.”

  I point at her. “George is a good man. A good husband and a good father.”

  “He is.” She raises her mug to take a sip. “But Remy goes above and beyond. And you know it. Divorced, you’re more married than most couples I know.”

  I glance away. She’s right. I know she’s right, but I’m being stingy with my Remy points right now. “He said he’d be over as soon as he could. He had something to do at work first. The comptroller position is going to be open sometime in the next few months and he’s paranoid he isn’t going to get the job. Even though he’s clearly the best candidate. Internally, at least.” He’s been the assistant comptroller for years. And for all those years, he’s worked toward taking over the comptroller position at Tulane University when his boss retires.

  “You going to work?”

  “I’m on the schedule for a half day. I’m supposed to go in at one. Last appointment is six,” I say. I don’t always work Fridays, but business has been brisk and with Jojo so busy all the time, I’ve started filling up my empty hours with work. It’s what people do as their children get older, Remy explained to me.

  “You should go.” Ann gets up, taking her mug with her.

  I watch her make herself another cup. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I can . . .” What? Think? Breathe? Care for my patients the way they deserve to be cared for?

  “It’s going to be a long weekend, Harper. You stay home for the next three or four days drinking coffee and pacing, you won’t just make yourself crazy, you’ll make us crazy, too.” She leans against the counter as the coffee machine warms up with a steady hum.

  “Need more milk?” I ask.

  “I can get my own if I do. I’m not going to let you redirect. I’m serious. Go to work. The girls have basketball after school. I’ll pick them up afterward, get Thai. Come for Jojo at our house after your last appointment. Have dinner with us.”