bed and flopped backwards, her dark layered haircut fanning out over my, yes, okay, vintage Japanese bedspread that had indeed been purchased from a market stall that almost certainly qualified as ‘hipster’.
We hadn’t done this in forever. Yes, she had a part share in my café now, and she’d been living in our third bedroom for most of the last year, but we rarely hung out, just the two of us. We were best friends in high school, but we had been distant for a long time. You don’t get back something like that — or at least, we hadn’t tried all that hard.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I found out at The Gingerbread House?’ she asked finally. ‘Or did you watch it live?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, joining her on the bed and grabbing my hairbrush and hair ties. I can’t sleep without braids these days, even if it makes me look like a deranged Heidi in the mornings.
‘Good, you watched it live, then. Saves time.’ Xanthippe looked wretched. ‘I can’t help myself. Can’t turn off wanting to figure out what happened. I think I upset them both, though, talking about it like that.’
I clamped my mouth shut so as not to point out that discussing the missing ‘Anna’ was good for their income stream. ‘Maybe it helps for them to talk about it,’ I said instead. Ah, tact.
Xanthippe glared at the ceiling. ‘They’re confused, like they don’t know how they’re supposed to feel. They don’t even know who she was. Who to miss.’ There had been a pause just after the ‘m’ sound which made me think for a minute she was going to say ‘mourn’. Possibly I was imagining it.
‘It’s only been a week,’ I said finally.
‘Eight days. It’s been eight days.’
‘In a way,’ I tried, ‘It’s better that no one knows anything about her. It means they can tell themselves she had a plan, somewhere safe to go. Isn’t that more comforting?’
Xanthippe glared at me. ‘Comforting that they can come up with some pretty fantasy where a girl they lived with for most of a year just appeared and then disappeared like Mary fucking Poppins?’
‘If I were them, I’d take what I could get,’ I snapped back.
‘Yeah,’ she said after a minute. ‘Me too.’
What we weren’t talking about was Carly. Carolyn Denver was one of our high school’s goodiest good girls. She always got As, even in subjects she wasn’t great at (she worked so hard you could see the steam coming out of her ears), she was talented at music and art. She even participated in team sports, which I couldn’t understand at all.
For a couple of months in grade ten, she started dropping by the shady spot behind the gym where Zee and I used to hang out, reading magazines and talking shit. We didn’t know what to make of her at first, but it turned out she was kind of funny when she wasn’t completely stressed out. We got used to her sitting with us, even though when it came time for class, she would ignore us as she went back into the orbit of her super normal friends.
Three days before the end of year exams, Carly didn’t turn up to school. By the next day, the police had been called, and we were all called into the guidance counsellor’s office one by one for informal interviews.
It was in the papers for a long time, until it wasn’t any more. Every now and then, Carly’s parents would set up some kind of information appeal, but eventually they stopped too.
Every year or so, around December, I Google her name and run it through Facebook just to see if she is miraculously — I don’t know. Living in Peru and married to a plastic surgeon, or something. But, no. There’s still a website set up by a family friend that chronicles the search for Carly, but they haven’t updated it for a while.
It’s ten years since she disappeared. Chances are she’s not coming back. But I’d been thinking about her a lot since this Annabeth thing started, and I figured Xanthippe had as
We hadn’t done this in forever. Yes, she had a part share in my café now, and she’d been living in our third bedroom for most of the last year, but we rarely hung out, just the two of us. We were best friends in high school, but we had been distant for a long time. You don’t get back something like that — or at least, we hadn’t tried all that hard.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I found out at The Gingerbread House?’ she asked finally. ‘Or did you watch it live?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, joining her on the bed and grabbing my hairbrush and hair ties. I can’t sleep without braids these days, even if it makes me look like a deranged Heidi in the mornings.
‘Good, you watched it live, then. Saves time.’ Xanthippe looked wretched. ‘I can’t help myself. Can’t turn off wanting to figure out what happened. I think I upset them both, though, talking about it like that.’
I clamped my mouth shut so as not to point out that discussing the missing ‘Anna’ was good for their income stream. ‘Maybe it helps for them to talk about it,’ I said instead. Ah, tact.
Xanthippe glared at the ceiling. ‘They’re confused, like they don’t know how they’re supposed to feel. They don’t even know who she was. Who to miss.’ There had been a pause just after the ‘m’ sound which made me think for a minute she was going to say ‘mourn’. Possibly I was imagining it.
‘It’s only been a week,’ I said finally.
‘Eight days. It’s been eight days.’
‘In a way,’ I tried, ‘It’s better that no one knows anything about her. It means they can tell themselves she had a plan, somewhere safe to go. Isn’t that more comforting?’
Xanthippe glared at me. ‘Comforting that they can come up with some pretty fantasy where a girl they lived with for most of a year just appeared and then disappeared like Mary fucking Poppins?’
‘If I were them, I’d take what I could get,’ I snapped back.
‘Yeah,’ she said after a minute. ‘Me too.’
What we weren’t talking about was Carly. Carolyn Denver was one of our high school’s goodiest good girls. She always got As, even in subjects she wasn’t great at (she worked so hard you could see the steam coming out of her ears), she was talented at music and art. She even participated in team sports, which I couldn’t understand at all.
For a couple of months in grade ten, she started dropping by the shady spot behind the gym where Zee and I used to hang out, reading magazines and talking shit. We didn’t know what to make of her at first, but it turned out she was kind of funny when she wasn’t completely stressed out. We got used to her sitting with us, even though when it came time for class, she would ignore us as she went back into the orbit of her super normal friends.
Three days before the end of year exams, Carly didn’t turn up to school. By the next day, the police had been called, and we were all called into the guidance counsellor’s office one by one for informal interviews.
It was in the papers for a long time, until it wasn’t any more. Every now and then, Carly’s parents would set up some kind of information appeal, but eventually they stopped too.
Every year or so, around December, I Google her name and run it through Facebook just to see if she is miraculously — I don’t know. Living in Peru and married to a plastic surgeon, or something. But, no. There’s still a website set up by a family friend that chronicles the search for Carly, but they haven’t updated it for a while.
It’s ten years since she disappeared. Chances are she’s not coming back. But I’d been thinking about her a lot since this Annabeth thing started, and I figured Xanthippe had as
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