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He was snoring.
“Dad?” I wanted to ask him if there was anything left, but he was snoring so loudly that I didn’t want to listen anymore.
I went outside, strolling down the sidewalk in front of our house, spinning the friendship bracelet Donny had given me. “Now you won’t forget about us,” he had said when he pressed it into my palm and kissed me on the lips. My first kiss. My heart had melted.
“Do you want to tie it on my wrist?”
“Okay,” he said.
“I wish I had something for you.”
“That’s okay.” He’d tied it, nervously, and then he had kissed me again. This time longer. We were both smiling really big when we stepped back from each other. We had stood there blushing and smiling, his hands on my hips and mine on his shoulders, like we were at a dance.
“I’ll never forget you,” he promised.
“I will never forget you either.”
“Will you write to me?”
“Yes, Donny. All the time. Will you write to me?”
“Of course I will. Will you be at camp next year?”
At that, I had deflated. I told him my first whole truth, “I doubt it. My parents can’t really be counted on to follow through on things like this. I can’t believe they even found this place and mailed a check in, and then drove me here. It must have required a lot of planning and even looking at a map. So honestly, Donny, I don’t know if we will ever see each other again. But I will sure try to be here.”
He’d never heard me talk so much. His face clouded over a bit and I sensed I had ruined some of the magic between us. I smiled and kissed him again, and this seemed to reset things. When we parted ways, he had looked back at me with heartbroken pain on his face, a look I’d never dreamed would be meant for me.
Thinking about it made me feel all flushed and butterfliesy again, and I pressed my palms to my face. I glanced toward the front window, somehow thinking my parents could read my mind, but no one was watching me.
I sat down on the sidewalk in front of our house, like a little kid. Ants ran over my toes and up my legs but I made a game that unless they reached my knees I couldn’t brush them away. I just spun the bracelet and waited for something to happen. I wanted to call Donny but Seventeen swore it was best to let him call me.
Somewhere was a land of crystal blue lakes and campfires, just waiting for me. Nothing to do but be happy and paddle around in canoes. That’s where I needed to be. I couldn’t just settle back into my mundane existence on ranch house road. It was like feasting on a buffet of pizza for a week and then being told to eat brussels sprouts for the rest of my life. There must be some way to break free. But if I ran away where would I go? My parents would catch me and ground me forever.
Then it became obvious: I needed to get kidnapped. I had been warned my whole life about it. How hard could it be? In the 1980’s kidnapping was supposedly as commonplace as jelly shoes. The message had been pummeled into our young brains, from the mouths of teachers and the backs of milk cartons: Predators prey on children! Don’t hang out in parks by yourself! Stay away from big vans with no windows. Beware of men looking for lost puppies!
I went back inside and changed into a black tank top and a mini skirt. It seemed appropriately risqué. While I listened to my dad snoring, I smeared red lipstick on my mouth, and then I ran out the door, straight to the park. When I got there I was huffing and puffing. The whole park was deserted, which at first made me disappointed, but then seemed like a good omen. Kidnappers liked their privacy.
I crawled on the monkey bars, slid down the slide, even played in the sand until I saw a used condom and started to gag. Was I too old to get kidnapped? After all, I wasn’t exactly a baby anymore. I was twelve. Sure, I looked ten, but kidnappers liked ‘em young. Really young, unless you’re a boy. Then they want you to be about thirteen. We had learned all this in school. This, multiplication tables, news about Ronald Reagan. Not much else.
I wondered what might increase my odds, racking my brain to remember the filmstrip ‘Staying Safe in the Neighborhood.’ I could picture two towheaded little girls, running with a kite, and a big white van, slowly approaching. Danger! Danger! Avoid that stranger, sang Chippy Chipmunk, the ‘Staying Safe’ mascot. I hummed the song we’d learned over and over again at the start of each school year, willing it to come back to me. I could picture the filmstrip better now: As the van approached, one of the little girls stopped to tie her shoe.
“Hello there, little girls,” said a man with a beard and dark glasses, leaning out the window of the van, “Would you like some candy?”
The little girl with the kite ran towards him, nodding in a fake, head bobbing manner, but her little friend, after pulling the bow of her laces firmly into place (Smart as a whip! Could tie her shoes and save her foolish friend!), stood up and began singing along with Chippy, “If you want to be safe, travel in twos! Say no to candy or you’ll surely lose!”
They made it look so easy. Just stand there and wait for the van. But here I was, plunked down on a teeter-totter, trying to make it teeter all by myself in a deserted park. No kidnappers, not even a scary, lurky dad.
The sun was going down. Just twenty-four hours earlier, Donny and I had been singing by the campfire. A year earlier I had been watching my sister and brother pack for college. I stayed there until the sky filled with stars and a big white moon. I looked at my bracelet and spun it some more, dreading going back home to my hushed, empty house. I started to cry and just let the tears run down my face, not caring, not even wiping them away. Mosquitoes were biting. Next time I would remembe
r the Off.
While I swatted at them, I watched as a big white van rounded the corner and approached me. Was it slowing down? For me? I stood up and watched as it came to a complete stop by the edge of the park and a man got out. No beard or dark glasses, but he would do.
“Hi,” I called out, wondering if I should try to act sexy or innocent. Thinking quickly, I slid the straps of my tank top off my bony shoulders for what I hoped would be an alluring look.
“Are you okay?” he asked. I noticed he was wearing white powdery clothes. I figured he must be a drywaller or something.
“Are you here for me?” I asked him, wiping away my tears and practically starting to skip, “Cause I’m not going to fight or anything. Where are we going?”
