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Paul frowns. “Why was I supposed to call you? You could have picked up the phone, too.”
“But you were...”—I scramble for a word that doesn’t sound too adolescent—“you were the head of the magazine. You were older. You were going to Princeton. I figured you were busy.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I thought you were a feminist, Willa Manning.” And then he looks at me with hesitation, almost like he wants to say something more but he’s not sure. Whatever it is, he decides against it, shrugging and shutting his mouth and turning back toward the window again.
I study the way his hair curls over his left ear. Whyhadn’tI just called him? My mind reels for bigger reasons, too. I think about what Paul just said.I thought you were a feminist.Which means he thought of me,period. I feel a bittersweet smile creep across my lips. I wish I’d known back then how I could have just called him. I wish I’d known he would have answered.
Cobalt hunches like a feral animal alongside the Allegheny River. The town’s main attraction seems to be a Dollar General, which stands next to a bunch of scrubby trees leading down to the river. Across the street is a hardware store that looks like it’s been open for a hundred years in a building that seems on the verge of collapse. The rest of the buildings in the row seem like set pieces on a studio back lot—their facades are convincing from afar, but up close they’re way too flimsy to be structurally sound. A very old sign marking boat rentals sags in the grass; a piece of paper pointing to a beer distributor is affixed to a stop sign with duct tape.
I pull onto a residential street. The houses are worn but occupied; a pink one a few doors down has cheerful Easter decorations peppered through the yard. “I wouldn’t have thought Raina would have come from here,” I murmur.
Paul nods, glancing at Raina’s Instagram page, which he managed to find after some digging. The page is private, so he can see only a tiny thumbnail of her profile picture, a close-up of Raina’s pretty face, red hair, and red lips. There’s something glam about the profile picture, something expensive. This is the kind of girl who’s told no one at snobby, class-obsessed Aldrich about her roots.
We step toward the house that’s listed in the name of Judy and Bill Hammond. When I ring the bell, a dog inside barks. I shift from foot to foot, shaking out my hands. I’m always nervous before doing an interview. I’m always afraid someone’s going to slam a door in my face.
The wooden door hefts open with a squeak. A redheaded woman with perky breasts and a thin gray T-shirt peers at us from behind a ripped screen. She has Raina’s oval face and bright eyes, though her skin is traversed with fine lines. With a little pampering, though, she’d probably be mistaken for Raina’s sister. “Help you?” She has the raspy voice of a smoker.
“Hi.” I step forward. “I apologize for bothering you, but you’re Mrs. Hammond, right? And you have a daughter, Raina?” The woman nods, looking nervous at the sound of Raina’s name. “We’re your daughter’s advisors at Aldrich University. We have some concerns about her, and we thought we’d come to see you in person to talk them over.”
“Wait.” Mrs. Hammond looks startled. “My daughter’swhere?”
“Aldrich University.” Paul smiles. “In the city.”
Mrs. Hammond’s eyes wander between the two of us. She lets out a bark of a laugh. “Raina’s not at a university! That’s bullshit!”
I glance at Paul. “Yes, actually, she is,” Paul says.
“Do you mind if we come in?” I ask.
Mrs. Hammond stares at us hard but finally opens the door. Inside, the house smells like something meaty has just been microwaved. A small, fluffy dog barks from behind a baby gate in the kitchen. A man with thinning brown bedhead, wearing a shrunken Steelers jersey, ambles forward to scoop the animal up. His eyes narrow when he notices us standing on the patchy carpet. “Who’re you?” he growls.
“Guess where Raina is, Bill?” Judy puts her hands on her broad hips. “Auniversity!” She says it like a punch line.
Mr. Hammond’s face sours. He gives a dismissive I-don’t-give-a-fuck gesture and stomps down the hall.
Judy Hammond turns back to us and shrugs. “He’s still sensitive about what happened.”
I feel a prickle of excitement. “What do you mean,what happened?”
“You want to sit down?” Judy walks over to a small, upholstered couch and clears off some magazines and laundry to make room. “Can I get you anything to drink? We got pop. And water. Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” I settle onto the couch. Paul sits next to me, declining a beverage, too. “So wait, you didn’t even know your daughter was in college?” I ask carefully.
“Nope.” Mrs. Hammond plops on a vinyl-upholstered recliner by the window. There’s something fragile about her, like she’s been broken and glued back together too many times. “She ran away in September. Just up and took off. We were worried sick. Bill, too, though he doesn’t like to admit it.” She clucks her tongue. “Butcollege? Well, it’s much better than sticking around this place. Though how’s she paying for it?” Mrs. Hammond sweeps her arm around the shabby room. “Wedon’t got the money.”
Bingo.I glance at Paul, trying not to get too excited. I had a hunch Raina’s parents weren’t paying for college. “Maybe you could tell me a little more about the person she was when she lived here? And why she would have run away?”
Mrs. Hammond’s gaze lands on me, suddenly distrustful. “Who did you say you were again?”
“We help out with students who are adjusting to Aldrich life. Sort of like therapists.”
Mrs. Hammond turtles her chin. “Therapists,” she repeats disdainfully.
“Listen, if you have anything to tell us about her, we’d be grateful,” Paul urges. “Raina’s doing great in school. Really on track. You want her to do well, right? Come home an Aldrich grad?”
Mrs. Hammond stares at her fingernails. Her hands are chapped and raw, her nails nibbled to the quick. “Raina was always smart. Way too smart to stay in this place. All the industry left this town decades ago. Now all you can get here are dead-end jobs. A lot end up hooked on opiates, meth. Get caught doing random shit. Hauled into jail for DUIs. That’s who Raina was drawn to, but I could always tell she was smarter. She loved to read. Andwrite.She was always writing stories.” She sighed wistfully, but then her expression turned bitter. “Good at telling stories, too. That’s what got her in trouble.”
“What do you mean?” I venture.
