LITMIR.BIZ

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job with motherhood and a new boyfriend. The teenage girl missing just as the boyfriend spent his first night in the family home.

      “You sure there’s not someone else your daughter might be staying with? Maybe she just needed a break.”

      In other words, you’re one fuckup of a mother, and your daughter finally made a run for it. Suck it up or go cry to your boyfriend, lady.

      But Joann knew the truth behind the stereotypes that were dominating this police officer’s conclusions.

      Joann had already called every last one of Becca’s friends. According to them, she’d gone to the library that morning, just as expected, to finish her chem lab report with her class partner, Joel. Went to Sophie’s house afterward, just as she told Joann she would. The girls met Sophie’s boyfriend, Rodney, at the Rockaway Town-square mall to check out the new gadgets at the Apple store, then headed back to Sophie’s again to pick up Becca’s backpack. Sophie, whose parents (unlike Joann) could afford to buy their daughter a car, offered Becca a ride, but Becca (as was often the case) wanted to burn a few calories with the five-block walk. No one had seen Becca since.

      These were the facts Joann knew. Not only knew, but trusted. Would swear by. Because Joann, unlike this cop, had known Sophie Ferrin for three years. Had carpooled her around through junior high. Had stayed up in her pajamas with her and Becca for late-night gossip sessions over chocolate-chip cookie dough. Joann, unlike this cop, knew Sophie wouldn’t lie to her.

      Becca had been frustrated, even angry, at her mother for failing to give her the thorough explanations she was looking for about her childhood. About her very existence. And she had gone through a troubled few months as a result. And Joann—as always—had more on her plate than any one person should have to handle alone. But Joann, unlike this cop, knew something else: she and Becca had a bond.

      Sure, they were mother and daughter, but they were also friends and confidantes. Becca would know how the sight of her empty bed in the morning would affect Joann. She would know that just one look would devastate her. Break her to the core.

      As angry as Becca could sometimes be with her mother, Joann knew her daughter—her best friend, her everything—would never voluntarily destroy her this way.

      Joann had made mistakes as a mother, there was no question. And she would work every last day of her life to remedy them, if given a chance. But at that moment—as she watched a police officer run his fingertip along the edges of the baby photos on her mantel—all she could do was close her eyes and pray that she be the one punished—not her baby, not her Becca.

      Please, God, not my precious Becca.

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      Alice blew hot breaths into her cupped fists, trying to warm her fingers before they numbed. With a puff of warmed air trapped between her hands, she’d then rub her palms together before balling them into her coat pockets once again. She’d been in this rotation system since she stepped out of the gallery ten minutes earlier—warm breaths, brisk palm-rub, coat pockets—but there was no curing the chill that had already set in.

      She finally gave up and tried following the advice Ben used to give when she was young. She must have been about nine by the time her parents entrusted her older brother to escort her around the city on their own, and Ben took full advantage of every opportunity to roam Manhattan on foot.

      “Stop hunching. Just relax your shoulders and let the cold in. You’ll adapt. I promise.”

      Ben could stroll for miles in single-digit temperatures with that strategy, but Alice inevitably wound up with her shoulders near her ears, her arms folded against her body, fighting desperately for every single degree of her body temperature. Since then, she’d adopted her own coping skills. Heavy wool coat. Thick socks. Warm boots. Good gloves.

      Where the hell were her beautiful gloves—the crocodile-embossed leather ones, with the cozy fur lining she blissfully chose to believe was faux? She’d rather lose a kidney than those gloves.

      Alice had yet to take a break or leave the gallery before eight o’clock, until today. For three weeks, she’d lived with the frenzy of launching a new business. Renting the furniture. Hiring painters and a cleaning service. Connecting the electrical and phone services. Communicating with the diva Hans Schuler via his chosen medium of text message. Finding a mover specializing in art to deliver hundreds of Schuler’s prints from a warehouse in Brooklyn to the gallery’s stockroom. Getting one of each print from the SELF series framed for display. The press releases. The phone calls. The online marketing. Until opening day, Alice had been a one-woman manager-slash-decorator-slash-publicist.

      But after last night’s fanfare at the opening, she was looking forward to finding a rhythm to her new employment at the Highline. This morning was marked by the bus ride to Ninth Avenue, a Starbucks stop, and then crouching down, brass key in hand, to release the lock on the pull-down security gate. She loved the clacking sound of the old gate as it retracted.

      Inside the gallery, she’d finished her coffee while checking the Web site for new online orders. She’d been worried about keeping up with the shipments as a one-woman operation, but she quickly had the packaging process down cold: tightly rolled print, one of Schuler’s thumb drives, and a letter to explain the concept, all tucked inside a cardboard tube to be picked up by Fred the UPS guy before two o’clock. Other than walk-ins, the rest of the time would be her own. She planned on splitting it equally between publicizing the gallery and researching emerging artists for the happy day when she could show her own selections.

      Alice had been glued to the gallery for the last three weeks not only out of necessity, but also because she loved being employed again. She had missed having a place where she was needed. She’d missed having a schedule. All those months of waking up and knowing that no one cared where she went, what she did, or whether she changed out of her pajamas had worn her down in ways she hadn’t realized at the time. Maybe one day she’d go back to being like everyone else. She’d have mornings when she wouldn’t want to work. She’d complain about the job.

      But maybe not. Maybe she’d continue to come in early and stay late, simply out of gratitude.

      Lily had been the one to insist that her new routine include the occasional break. According to her, the patterns of employment set in early. Breaks were use ’em or lose ’em, she said. If the boss got too accustomed to her constant presence at the gallery, he’d come to expect and then require it.

      Alice had tried to explain to Lily that Drew wasn’t exactly checking in on her, but her friend had finally persuaded her to go for a walk when she e-mailed her a link to the day’s Wafels & Dinges schedule. One small but significant upside to Alice’s unemployment had been her discovery of the culinary wonders that are served from the windows of New York City’s food trucks. Tacos. Burgers. Dumplings. Cupcakes. And, in the case of Wafels & Dinges, Belgian waffles made to order. The truck’s online announcement that it would be parked mere blocks from the gallery had done the trick, proving once again that Lily Harper knew her well.

      “I’ll have a waffle with strawberries, bananas, and butter, please?”

      She would have killed for a scoop of ice cream on top, but it was just her luck that the first time she gave herself a break from the gallery, the temperature would suddenly drop back into glove-wearing weather. And her, with no gloves. She shook off the thought as soon as it formed. No more bad luck. No more beating herself up.

      She felt a buzz from the cell phone in her coat pocket. It was a text from Lily. Fresh air yet?

      She typed in a return message: Fresh, freezing air. Yes.

      Waffle?

      Just ordered. Strawberries & nanas.

      Ice cream, woman!

      Too brrrrr … Bye. Waffle here!

      Alice returned her phone to her pocket and grabbed her lunch through the truck window, grateful for the warmth against her fingers. Even more grateful for the mixture of the sweet flavor of fruit with the crisp buttery waffle.

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