Heart of the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

to Logan at one time, but forgotten, what with all the people I’d mobilized in the last two days.
    â€œPaolina didn’t cab there,” Gloria said. “That was one of the first things I checked. And Lemon went airline to airline, showing her photo.”
    Lemon is one of Roz's many, many boyfriends. I used my cell again.
    â€œDid you question the screeners?” I asked him. “The Homeland Security guys?”
    â€œTried to, but I got in trouble, interfering with their duties and shit. Thought I’d wind up in the can. I mean, isn’t it their job to help?”
    I hung up without answering. I’d have to do it myself. I’d have to split myself in tiny pieces and go over everything myself.
    Gloria said, “Carlotta, calm down, okay. He's trying. We’re all trying.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhat are you gonna do now?”
    â€œIt's time to check her room. Nobody saw her with a suitcase, but it's the next step.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “Marta give the okay?”
    â€œNo.” I should have forced the issue, demanded entry, but I’d been convinced my litle sister was joyriding with Diego.
    â€œGood luck.” Gloria pressed her lips together.
    â€œWhat?” I said. “Spit it out.”
    â€œIf you find her, don’t smack her.”
    â€œGloria, I would never—”
    â€œYou look like you want to hit somebody.”
    I felt like punching my fist through the wall. I felt like grabbing the next stranger I saw and throttling him. I felt like running a red light.
    I used to have this neighbor, as proper an elderly Brahmin lady as ever you’d want to meet. One evening, well-lubricated by gin, she’d confessed her cure for frustration. When she wanted to maim and throttle her kin, she crept into her backyard in the wee hours and hurled ice cubes over the fence, punctuating each throw with a curse.
    â€œDrive carefully,” Gloria said as I zipped my parka and left.

CHAPTER 3
    Before heading to Marta's, I drove to my place, listening attentively to the kind of all-news AM sludge I never bother to tune to, an “If it bleeds, it leads” nightmare station, aware that in some recess of my brain I was waiting with dread for the tale of the unidentified corpse of a teenage girl found in an alley. Instead I got a fatal fire, Big Dig leaks, and political corruption hearings. At my Cambridge home, a quick shower in a steamy tub took the place of a night's sleep. I changed automatically into clean clothes—navy slacks, white turtleneck, navy zip-front sweater— forced down a breakfast more ample than the single Fig Newton, got back in the car, and sped down Mt. Auburn Street while the radio brayed. Mega-mergers: GSC swallows BrackenCorp; will Mark Bracken be forced to retire? Celebrity weddings: Will this superstar's nuptials trump that one's in cost, security, and elaborate paparazzi avoidance? When did this drivel become news? I switched channels: Iraqi war casualties, corporate scandals, a crop-spraying plane downed by gunfire in Colombia. While judging whether or not to speed through a yellow traffic light, I glanced in my rearview mirror and braked abruptly, transfixed by the desperation in my eyes, the same look I’d seen in the eyes of clients, parents or guardians of runaways.
    My beautiful girl, gone . Seven-year-old Paolina, with her red knit hat tied under her chin; nine-year-old Paolina, huddling under a blanket on the living room sofa, solemnly counting the seconds after eachlightning strike, scared of sudden thunder. Anyone seeing her now, on a bus, on a street corner, in her form-fitting clothes, with her world-weary pose, would see only the hardening shell of the teenager, nothing of the past that had shaped her. No wonder my clients had trouble describing their kids to me. Kids are layered, filled with hidden aspects, with mood-swinging smiles that change their entire faces. A self-contained banker