The Girls Are Missing Read Online Free PDF Page A

fresh mint from her garden. “But there was Gail growing up in poverty while he chased rainbows.”
    “Where is Gail? I haven’t seen her. Isn’t she here?”
    “I have no idea.” Joyce realized that she had not seen Gail, either. Not since the car came up the driveway.
    Barbara said, “Excuse me for asking, but—what happened? About your husband. Was it an accident?”
    “It certainly was not an accident. He was mugged.”
    “Mugged?”
    “He was coming home late at night.” Very late at night, the way he always did. Much later than you have to for the theater. “And he was robbed and stabbed in a subway station. And now you can see why I was so glad to get out of the city, and why I love—” She choked back the rest of what she was going to say, for violence had come here, too.
    “Anyway,” she concluded, “this time, my life seems normal. The way it should be.”
    Barbara’s mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “Good for you.”
    Still bitter? Joyce sat back and watched her grind out her cigarette.
    “However,” Barbara added, “I think that’s something we’d better not discuss. Although I’d love to.”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Oh, well. How do he and Gail get along?”
    “Just fine.” If you could call it that. Most of the time they seemed to exist on parallel planes. “Why? How should they get along?”
    “I just wondered.” Barbara took out her cigarette pack, shook one loose, and stared at it.
    She said, “You seem like a nice, level-headed young woman.”
    “I suppose I am. Are you trying to tell me something, Barbara?”
    “Yes and no. After all, you’ve been married, what, a year now? Long enough to get acquainted. Maybe things are different for you.”
    It was almost funny, Barbara trying to spill out her resentment about him. Naturally an ex-wife would feel that way. She might even try to poison the second wife’s attitude.
    “I think,” said Joyce, “that’s a rather loaded subject for us to be talking about.”
    “Yes, that’s what I thought.” Barbara sounded relieved. “I did try to stop myself.”
    Not very hard, it had seemed.
    “Well, I’d better be going. You make excellent iced tea, I love the mint.” She rose from her chair. Joyce rose, too, and Barbara still loomed over her. She could have been quite formidable, in her tall, worldly way, but she was softened by a streak of warmth.
    “I am sorry, Joyce. I suppose when a marriage breaks up, there are bound to be reasons. Except I thought they were a little more—integral. I don’t know what I’m saying. Anyway, it was just a feeling I had.”
    “I don’t know what you’re saying, either.” Joyce followed her to the foot of the stairs as she went up to say good-bye to Mary Ellen.
    A few minutes later Barbara returned, ready to leave. “I hate to tell you this, but that lovely room is now a shambles.”
    “Again?” Joyce managed a smile.
    “Don’t tell me it’s a habit here, too. Oh, good heavens, and you keep such a neat house. I know Carl likes things neat.
    Well, I told her to pick it all up. Just keep after her, will you?”
    “I’ll try.”
    “It’s adolescence. I was terrible at twelve. Have a wonderful summer, all of you.”
    Joyce went outside to see her off. Mary Ellen did not appear, but when the engine started, she waved from an upstairs window.
    As soon as the car had gone, a shower of pebbles fell from the bank above the driveway and Gail came scrambling down through the rock garden.
    “Where on earth were you?” Joyce asked. “It would have been polite if you’d said hello to Barbara. She asked about you.”
    Gail mumbled something and started into the house. At the door she turned, holding her nose. The whole house smelled of cigarettes. Joyce emptied the ashtray, and washed and dried it. Carl disliked dirty ashtrays. He said they looked obscene. And if it was worth noting that Joyce “kept such a neat house,” probably that meant Barbara did not. It must have been one hell