The Missing Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

thigh, a giant green butterfly (really a moth named Luna) fluttered over a brilliant blue daisy-like flower?
    “Not very biologically sound,” the tattoo artist had said, holding his needle suspended over her bare thigh. “Sure you want the flower blue?”
    “I’m sure,” she had said, and closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to see the needle.
    40

    HER HAIR
    THE MAN ALWAYS looked at people’s hair. You could tell a lot about a person from the hair. Cheyenne, who worked in the next cubicle, had a short, spiky haircut.
    He hated it, hated her for having it. Girls should look like girls, not boys! One of his birds had long hair, and never wore a hat, no matter how chilly the weather, almost as if she were showing off her hair for him. If she only knew how much that pleased him, her bare head and the length of her hair, and the sheen, and the color, and how thick it was, thick and glossy.
    And here she came now, here they all came! His heart quickened, but he didn’t alter his pace, or the expression 41

    on his face. As he approached from the opposite direction, he studied the one with long hair. The five of them were all there today, all clumped together now on the corner, the gaggle of them, waiting for the light to change, twittering and giggling. The one with long hair was jumping from one foot to the other. Her hair flew out behind her, healthy hair, pretty hair, but too messy.
    Yes, too messy for his taste, all that hair just flailing around her head, without even a tie holding it back. Some days it was even worse, looked as if she’d forgotten to comb it. Didn’t she know that grooming was important for a lady? If he had a chance, he would certainly tell her that.
    He would be nice about it, of course, point out how easy it was to stay neat, then offer to give her a trim, even to style her hair. He could do that.
    In his mind’s eye he saw her sitting meekly in a chair, and himself standing behind her, brushing her hair for her. Brushing from the top to the bottom, his other hand following the brush, smoothing her hair, playing with it a little, lifting strands to sniff, winding it around his hand, winding it tighter and tighter. She would shriek, and he would reassure her, unwind her hair, slowly unwind it.
    He thought about this, and then he didn’t think it. The 42

    girls crossed the street, and he moved toward his bus stop, banishing the image, pushing it away, although there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with thoughts.
    Nothing wrong with his thoughts. They were just thoughts, ripples of the mind. They didn’t mean anything.
    And there was nothing wrong with looking at the girl, with looking at all of them. If anyone ever asked, he’d say he enjoyed looking at them the way any man would. It was a manly thing to do. He might admit that he was partial to the one with the long hair, because she was more ladylike than the others, and he would be respected for that.
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    HISSY FITS
    HERE IS WHAT you think in your heart, and here is the first thing you write in the notebook Mrs. Kalman gave you. My name is Autumn Jane Huddle, and this is my privite for me only diary journal. Mommy and Poppy are awful. That’s my true privite feeling. Well, Mommy is not so bad, but sometimes I hate her, too. Nobody read this!
    You are snooping if you read this. Poppy not getting work is making them both like crazy, fighting people. Poppy is sitting out in his truck and Mommy is talking to herself .
    You write that after the fight. You were all at the table, eating supper, when Poppy threw down his fork and swore. “Damn it, I’m fed up with macaroni every day.
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    Can’t you make any other damn thing, Blossom?”
    You wanted to sink right into the stool or get away or something, but Poppy was looking all around the table, not nice like he always used to be but glaring at everybody, and you didn’t dare move. You wouldn’t dare say a thing, either, not even pass the salt please , with Poppy all mad and