Girl Last Seen Read online

  Girl Last Seen

  Heather Anastasiu

  Anne Greenwood Brown

  Albert Whitman & Company

  Chicago, Illinois

  To all the musicians in my life—AGB

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Heather Anastasiu and Anne Greenwood Brown

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Design by Ellen Kokontis

  978-1-5040-3161-5

  Albert Whitman & Company

  250 South Northwest Highway, Suite 320

  Park Ridge, Illinois 60068

  www.albertwhitman.com

  Distributed by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.openroadmedia.com

  TWISTED

  Lyrics by Lauren DeSanto

  Music by Lauren DeSanto & Kadence Mulligan

  It’s you who’s got me upside down

  and you don’t even know it.

  Your words they’ve got me spinning

  like a sick and twisted poet.

  Please, I’m begging, just come clean

  cuz you’re a cheat, a scarlet letter.

  I’m tangled in this twisted life;

  you always think that you know better.

  Oh, it’s such a twisted life.

  Don’t know which way is up.

  You got me turned around.

  I’m drowning in my cup.

  I’m at the crossroads of my own perplexities.

  You’re the beating heart beneath my floorboards, see?

  I’m swallowed up in guilt, my darling.

  I can hardly breathe

  cuz I’m twisted up and turning

  in my own Greek tragedy.

  Oh, it’s such a twisted life.

  Don’t know which way is up.

  You got me turned around.

  I’m drowning in my cup.

  Oh, it’s such a twisted life.

  Don’t know which way is up.

  You got me turned around.

  I’m drowning in my cup.

  Web-Streaming Video, Local KLMN News

  Friday, March 30

  6:50 p.m.

  Footage from the Night of Kadence Mulligan’s Disappearance

  A woman with shoulder-length blond hair and a plastered-on smile holds a microphone as she stands to the side of a crowded coffee shop. A makeshift stage can be seen beyond her shoulder. A small area is cordoned off so people can still make their way to the counter and order their drinks, but otherwise the patrons are packed into folding chairs, some sitting on laps. They turn around and wave, smiling at the camera. For several moments, the woman stands frozen, grinning as if waiting for an invisible countdown, and then she begins to speak.

  “Kristi Clemens, reporting from Cuppa Cuppa coffeehouse in Pine Grove, Minnesota, for KLMN 5 Eyewitness News. In our weekly Community Now web featurette, we join local teen YouTube sensation Kadence Mulligan to bring you this live-streaming concert.”

  Clemens continues smiling, and her bleached teeth flash with every word. “As many of you already know, Mulligan and bandmate Lauren DeSanto first shot to national attention last year when their songs “Sing to Me, Calliope” and “The Twisted Life” received over a million hits on YouTube and the duo was invited to participate on the national television broadcast America’s Talented Kids.

  “And no one is prouder of their talented kids than Pine Grove residents.” Clemens turns to the group behind her, then crouches to hold out the microphone to a girl who looks about eleven years old. Her hair is in ponytails with magenta streaks at the ends. “Can you tell me what’s brought you out tonight?”

  The girl’s eyes get big. “Because I’m a Kady-Did! I follow all her music videos and her fashion-tip tweets. She sings, like, oh my God, amazing! I want to be like her when I grow up.”

  Other tween girls bunch together to get in the camera shot and shout, “Kady-Dids forever!” with an ear-piercing screech. Clemens laughs and pretends to cover her ears. When she stands up, she holds out the microphone to the woman standing with the girl.

  “So I imagine that’s something you’re used to?”

  The woman laughs. “Yeah, well, at least Kady’s music is something I enjoy too. Plus, she’s a great role model for our daughters. That’s why we couldn’t say no when they asked us to bring them here tonight.” Some of the other women in the crowd nod.

  “And you?” Clemens holds the mic out to a teenage boy in black pants and a printed tee. “Why are you here?”

  “Kady’s music has substance. You listen to the lyrics, and it’s”—he furrows his eyebrows like he’s thinking of the right word—“deep, y’know.”

  “And she’s hot,” says another guy behind him, and the group laughs.

  “It’s not just Kady though,” says another person. Clemens is busy trying to chase the voices with her mic. “Lauren wrote most of their songs before she injured her vocal chords and had to stop singing.”

  “Aaaaand now she’s making coffee at Kady’s concert,” says another guy, maybe the same one who commented about Kady being hot. “Way to go up in the world.” More laughter.

  Several of the people in the group look over to the left. Clemens jerks her head in that direction in a less-than-subtle manner.

  The camera pans over to the coffee counter where a girl works feverishly, running between an espresso machine and the refrigerator. The guy at the register calls out another order to her from the long line waiting on the opposite side of the counter, and she nods as she pours dark liquid into a small cup. She spills some of it on her hand and winces.

  But then she stops her activity as her eyes lock on a point at the front of the shop. She just stops and stares, swallowing several times.

  After a couple of hissing noises and the reporter’s whispered, “The stage, pan to the stage!” the camera finally swings that direction as well.

  A girl with bright magenta hair that’s teased and shaped into a low beehive steps onto the small stage. She’s wearing a vintage-looking blue-and-white polka-dot dress. She grins and raises her arms to wave at the crowd as she steps up to the microphone. The crowd is already clapping and screaming for her.

  “Oh my gosh,” she says, laughing and looking overwhelmed. “This is so awesome! I can’t believe all you guys came out tonight to hear me sing.”

  The screams get louder and some wolf whistles join in. There are a few calls of “We love you Kady” from the young girls, and then all at once their young voices screech together, “Kady-Dids forever!”

  Kadence grins. “So how about we play some music!” she says, raising one fist and then grabbing her guitar. The crowd roars its approval.

  She begins to strum and then leans so close to the mic that her lips seem to brush it as she begins to sing:

  It’s the last chance for Calliope.

  One last song for you and me.

  Dance on the island,

  Dance on the sea.

  It’s good-bye, baby,


  Good-bye to you and me.

  One

  Lauren

  Cuppa Cuppa

  Saturday, March 31

  5:50 a.m.

  The song ends.

  Before the morning DJ can tell me what a grrrreat day it’s going to be, I kill the radio and silence him. I’m not ready for words. Not this early. Not today. The parking lot outside Cuppa Cuppa is still cast in deep purple, the sun about as excited to start the day as I am. Which is to say, not at all.

  I don’t make any effort to unbuckle my seat belt. Instead, I reach into my bag and pull out a pen and small notebook. Purple sifted, sifted light. It’s against doctor’s orders, but I can’t help humming as I scribble across the page. If I don’t get the line down now, I’ll forget it later. Then I write, Everything’s gonna be all right, which will do for a rhyme. For now. I’ll come up with something better later.

  I toss the notebook onto the passenger seat and face the inevitable. I need to get out of the car. I have to get out of the car. I have to get out of the car. My shift starts in ten minutes, but I do not want to go back inside. Last night was crappy, and the memory of it is still going to hang thick in there, mixed with the smell of roasted beans and scalded milk.

  I closed up the place after Kady’s show, less than seven hours ago, then never fell asleep. I wonder if it’s too late to call in sick. From the parking lot.

  I pick up my cell phone and think about that, turning my phone over and over in my hands. The fact that I can think about anything is give-me-a-gold-star amazing because God knows my head is a twisted mess.

  I glance up at the coffee shop again, then roll my eyes. This job is all I’ve got now. It’s enough reason to get out of the car. Besides, a hot mug of rejuvenating decaf green tea might do me some good. Detoxify the night and all that.

  I roll up the sleeves on my flannel shirt and push my glasses up my nose (too tired for contacts this morning). Stepping out of the car, I adjust the long strap of my bag across my chest. The tassels that hang from the bottom of the bag snag on the thick, black tights I’m wearing under my favorite cutoff shorts. It’s not quite April. Still cold, but I’m so ready to be done with long pants.

  The closed sign still hangs on Cuppa Cuppa’s front window. I knock on the bright green door, and after a few seconds Charlie, my boss, lets me in.

  “Good morning,” I whisper.

  I’m not whispering because of the early hour or because Charlie is hungover—which he probably is. I’ve been whispering since Halloween. That’s when I got food poisoning so bad I had to go to the hospital, which is where I picked up some lovely throat infection. I haven’t been able to talk any louder than a rasping whisper since then.

  “What’s with the flannel?” Charlie asks. “Where’s your uniform shirt?”

  So much for trying to detoxify the memories from last night. Bam. Front and center. That didn’t take long. “Um, hello? You told me to toss all the old ones out. You said the new ones had come in.”

  Charlie grimaces. “They have, but when I opened the package this morning, I saw that the logos say Pucca Pucca. I have to send them all back.”

  When I raise my eyebrows at him, he adds, “Hey. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Ha. He probably screwed up the order. “Fine by me,” I croak out.

  “Jesus,” Charlie says as the phone starts ringing. “How long are you going to talk like that?”

  I shrug in response because I don’t like going into the details, like how when things didn’t get better with my voice right away, I had to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor. Like how the ENT first put me on total vocal rest for two months and handed me a mini whiteboard and a black marker. So I could continue to communicate.

  I remember thinking, This has to be a joke, right? I mean, it had to be a joke. She was so blasé about the fact my life was ending.

  But things only got worse when I told Kadence later that night. Or rather, wrote it on my whiteboard.

  “But it will get better,” she said, looking up from the board to my face. “Right?”

  Hopefully, I wrote.

  She glanced down at the word, then back up at me. “Hopefully?” Her voice rose, pitch by pitch with each syllable.

  They don’t know how long it will take. It’ll just happen one day.

  “That’s all the doctor said?” she asked.

  I understood Kadence’s frustration. I had already bailed on three of our performances by that time, and we hadn’t been able to record any new videos for our YouTube channel. She was getting irritated by how long I’d been out of commission. The same anxiety I’d felt when Kadence and I first became friends roiled through my belly.

  I’d been on the cusp of Loserdom—with a capital L—when Kadence moved to town in seventh grade. She was popular within five minutes of walking in the front door. Why she picked me to be her best friend I’ll never understand. That first year I lived in fear of her dropping me like a lead balloon. When I lost my voice, that fear came roaring back.

  That’s all, I wrote.

  “So what do I do?” She twisted a long bit of magenta hair around her finger.

  I sighed and used a tissue to clean off the board. Writing everything out was exhausting. So much went left unsaid. I wrote: What do you mean?

  “It’s been three weeks since we put out any new music. We have fans,” Kadence said. “Fans with expectations. Have you looked at the views on our YouTube videos? We’ve gone from one-point-three million views on “Twisted” to only three hundred thousand on “Calliope,” and the view count on all of them is leveling out. No growth. That’s like a death knell. And in the comments, people are starting to ask when we’ll have a new song.”

  They’ll have to wait, I guess.

  “Have you even tried to sing?”

  I could only stare at her. Was she even looking at me? Did she not see this freakin’ whiteboard? Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. I opened my mouth to say something but then closed it again. What did she expect of me? I couldn’t even talk, for God’s sake!

  “Things are building for us, Lauren,” Kady said, apparently not noticing my distress, “but Internet fame is fickle.” She threw up her hands. “We either have to build on our momentum or forget it. It’s about number of views. The numbers grow, or they go stagnant. We need new material.”

  This isn’t my fault, I wrote, still fighting back tears. Kady never appreciated tears. She always snapped at me that the Major—her dad—hadn’t defended this country for thirty-five years just so we could be crybabies. She only cried when it was useful, to get what she wanted. Like an extension on her math homework.

  Kadence rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying you did this to me on purpose.”

  My eyebrows shot up. What did she mean, to her? I would’ve thought she’d be more empathetic. Kadence had once been hospitalized with a horrible allergic reaction to peanuts, and I’d visited her every day.

  “We need a plan for going forward,” she added quickly, so maybe she was empathetic enough that she could easily read my thoughts. I guess that was something.

  Well, I can’t sing. I’m not even supposed to play guitar. This was the most surprising part of the doctor’s orders. I swallowed hard and looked away from Kadence.

  “You can’t even play guitar? You can’t even play backup for me?” Kadence’s voice was rising again. Pretty soon only dogs would be able to hear her.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to write down the reason. It would take too long to explain how playing our old songs would trigger the muscle memory in my vocal cords, how they’d flex and rub together, and how it would slow down the healing process. So the doctor said anyway.

  It was going to be a tough rule to follow. Maybe I could avoid our old music, but how could I walk away from my guitar? My ukulele? I already had new lyrics running through my head. Life sucks and
then you die.

  Kadence shifted uncomfortably and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  What??? I wrote.

  “Would you be mad if I put something out on my own?” Or…in other words…your life is over. We’ll reassess in two months.

  My stomach knotted. She was going solo? I scrubbed out the previous messages and wrote, You mean without me???????

  “Just this one time,” she said.

  “Just this one time, Mark,” Charlie says into the phone.

  My mind snaps back to reality like a rubber band. I recognize the look on Charlie’s face, not to mention the name of the person he’s talking to. It’s the landlord calling again. Cuppa Cuppa is behind on the rent.

  “We’ve got a new plan for bringing in more business. Kadence Mulligan played a show here last night…Yes, her. My number one barista is Kadence’s best friend.” Charlie glances over and winks at me. Nervously, I pull my dark brown hair forward over my shoulder and start to work it into a braid.

  “Lauren set it all up. The place was packed, and the local news even did a piece. Can’t beat free advertising,” Charlie says. All last night he’d been practically fangirl-ing over Kadence. It wasn’t a good look on a twenty-seven-year-old pre-alcoholic. He’d been bouncing around, making sure Kadence had plenty of water and that the news people got a good shot of the Cuppa Cuppa sign on the back wall.

  I’m sure I was the only one not digging the show.

  Last night, everyone could see that Kadence had star potential. Only I knew how much went into the act. How choreographed the whole thing was. How I was the one who had written the lyrics that she was singing with such a pang of personal angst.

  I mean, come on. I was the word girl. It was the fortunate consequence of being a total bookworm for the first twelve years of my life. Kadence might have brought me into the land of the ridiculously cool and beautiful, but I was still a literary nerd at heart.

  We’d argued over the second verse of our song “Twisted.” She wanted to change the line that went “I’m twisted up and turning in my own Greek tragedy” to “I’m twisted up and turning cuz you’re so super sweet.”