Broken Marilyns

CASTAWAYS

CASTAWAYS

I thought I was prepared to face Jack until I saw him through the diner windows. 

Filling my lungs with air, I pushed the door open and sounded the bells as I entered.  “Let’s get this over with," I thought.  The more normal I tried to appear, the more awkward I acted.  I thought before each step, planned and judged every move.  Jack hadn't even noticed me yet and my heart was already jumping out at him.  Sitting down on the stool next to him, Jack looked up and smiled a stranger's smile.  His face didn't light up, his eyes were empty. 

I was an acquaintance, the person you say "hi" to out of civil obligation.  My pounding heart simmered to a weak flutter.  "Hey!" Jack stirred uncomfortably in his chair.  I was an ugly scar of a mistake he couldn't cover up.

"Hi!" I smiled the same polite smile I always gave before, only now I felt naked and vulnerable.  Jack knew me now in a way he shouldn't.  I had been conquered.

"I'm -," he started, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip before proceeding, "I'm sorry for the other night," Jack spoke low but casually so others couldn't hear, but also wouldn't think anything of our exchange.  “I shouldn't have taken advantage of you."  The glittering memories of the night we shared came crashing down - a giant heap of filth, shame, and embarrassment.

"Do you remember what happened?  What you said?" my stomach churned nervously at what Jack might say.  Grinning as he stared blankly at me, Jack drove the dagger in all the way.

"No, I don't remember."  I died.

“The search for a young woman from Sutton began this morning.”  The bravado of the overly tan anchorman sounded in the background, disrupting my heartache for a moment as Jack and I turned our attention to the real world.  Sutton was just twenty minutes from Aldbrook.  The woman on the screen was both beautiful and familiar.  “Kelly Eisner’s -,” Eisner…Julia’s sister, “vehicle was found abandoned this morning.”  Kelly’s picture glowed through the static of the diner's ancient TV set.  Kelly looked like a porcelain doll in the picture - young, innocent, and fragile.  A completely different person than the girl I’d seen on the bridge.  The news reporter badgered friends and locals who spewed a tangled web of “facts” about Kelly's life.  The details of Kelly's disappearance were bizarre; her car was found in the parking-lot of an abandoned building and all of her belongings were still in the car.  I had to get back to work to see what I could find out.

Jack chugged the last of his coffee and stood up to reach into his pocket for a few dollars.  "You okay?"  Jack wasn’t the type to get frazzled.

"Yeah...I remember her.  I suppose I've got some work waiting for me at the station." 

Jack exhaled heavily and pushed his chest out, cracking his back.  Jack looked angry and nervous as he searched his pockets again with shaking hands for the money he'd already left on the counter.  When the waitress returned with his change, Jack made an inaudible noise that suggested embarrassment.   "Well...I'd better get going," Jack scooted his stool out and grabbed his jacket.  Everything felt so artificial between us now.  I laughed under my breath and rolled my eyes.  I thought of Anne as the fool being played when all along it was me.  I was nothing special to Jack, that night meant jack shit.  Right now I felt like a common street whore bumping into one of her Johns.  Jack looked at me for a moment but said nothing and then walked away as if he didn't have a care in the world.  Bravo I thought.  Good show.

In the office everyone was buzzing around.  Sutton was a town we didn’t normally cover since they had their own paper, but Kelly being Julia’s sister made things different.  Bree was quickly browsing through her picture files; I caught some mug shots, some portrait-style photos, and some low-grade pictures, all of women.  “What are you doing?” I called over the wall.  Bree jumped, not knowing I was back from lunch.

“Jesus…I’m looking through all the missing persons photos.  I remember seeing Kelly Eisner in one but I don’t know when.”  Holy shit.  I’d forgotten that The Drift ran a missing persons ad.  People didn’t go missing often around here, so the ad wasn’t a frequent thing. 

"How does that work?"

"What, the missing persons page?  We get flyers faxed over from the Police Department whenever they get a new face.”

If someone was kidnapping and killing these girls, it was unlikely they'd stick to one town - it would be too obvious.  I searched online for missing persons in nearby counties and struck gold, or blonde, rather.

All of the girls in Bradley’s pictures plus the two I couldn’t find from Maddie’s list were from different cities in neighboring counties - all of them nobodies going nowhere.  Most of these women had priors including drug use and/or prostitution and some had made running away a habit.  They were the town castaways, the troubled.  Most had given up on them, but not me.