Pacific Views

Rebecca's House

Rebecca lounged on the couch arm near the open front door, the skirt of her long button-front dress partly undone from the bottom so it fell back revealingly when she sat. Loren faced her from a chair looking at the front window. He was amusing, strange, and swore he'd cleaned himself up. Endearingly, he'd kicked everyone out of the back room the night before so she hadn't had to sleep on the couch again.

He was older than the herd of former and current pot smoking teenagers that hung around the Gregg house. Ms. Gregg was barely home, her son Paul never seemed to care who was around, or what they did.

Loren was the one that spotted the police car pull up. He had a warrant out on him, and bolted with speed for the back of the house. Four extra buttons got fastened by the time they got to the door.

"Can I help you?"

"Are you Rebecca Wilson?"

"Yes."

"Your parents have reported you missing, we'd like you to come with us."

"But they know where I am, they dropped off some of my things last week, I don't understand." She'd left home with 2 layers of clothes on, and a few things stuffed in her school bag. It was the third time, and seeing the writing on the wall, a bunch of boxes and some bags of clothes had been dropped off at the Gregg house.

"Well, we wish they would have told us that. We still need to bring you down to the station, have them come pick you up."

"Can I go to the bathroom first?"

"Sure."

When she came out, every last button had been fastened. No one said much walking to the car, at least they didn't cuff her, like the last time a few months ago when a jealous ex had turned her in. The hard, plastic backseats were uncomfortable enough all by themselves.

"How did you know where I was?"

"You applied for a state ID card a few days ago. This was the address you gave."

Oh yeah, she thought. Dumbass. But if you want a job, you have to have an ID card. On leaving home at the age of 17, she'd never used the bus, washed her own clothes, or more pressingly, had an ID or driver's license.

Down' the Station

At the station, she was ushered into a room with a pleasant seeming woman who tried to be friendly while she explained things. Did Rebecca know how serious this was, that her parents could send her straight to juvenile detention that afternoon for running away?

"But you don't understand, they know where I am. I wasn't missing at all, they dropped things off for me at the house."

"That kind of bad attitude will get you in a lot of trouble in juvenile detention. I suggest you behave yourself."

Rebecca didn't say anything more besides yes and no to the other questions when she could. She didn't bother trying to explain about anything else, which was apparently an act of such disrespect it didn't bear thinking about.

The woman finally left, Rebecca waited there until a uniformed officer came to tell Rebecca that her mom had been reached and said she'd be coming to pick her up. She could wait up front, behind the desk.

It was about 1pm, the officers behind the desk talked with her a little. They grumbled a bit about the missing person's notice not being retracted, said it was a waste of their time. Apparently her mom confirmed that yes, the family knew where she was.

She told them her standby Polish solidarity worker joke that she'd read in the Reader's Digest in elementary school. They seemed to find it funny, but she wondered for the first time if perhaps it wasn't a little dated. The USSR had crumbled years ago. It was the last time she'd ever tell it.

Long Way Home

Around 3:30pm, mom showed up. Flanked by her sister, Angela, and Angela's husband, Dean. They looked uniformly grim, like they'd practiced matching glares. Then her mom smiled at the officers, very politely signing the papers.

The door to the outside had barely shut when it started. Apparently, Rebecca was too unpredictable for mom to come pick her up alone. And angela wouldn't have been enough company, so they had to wait until Dean could get off work to pick her up. God was very disappointed, and so was the whole congregation back at church.

"You look like you've aged, Rebecca. When was the last time you plucked your eyebrows?"

"I don't know what I'll tell your father when we meet him in heaven."

"Look at that lipstick, you look like a tramp."

"Don't touch that, who knows what filthy diseases you've picked up." Yes, of course, she'd dated someone outside the church. Everyone out in 'the world' was simply crawling with disease from the orgies they went to and the drugs they injected.

She'd been gone for a couple months, she hadn't seen any orgies. In fact, it had taken a while to dawn on her that she probably wasn't going to see any. Ever. That was fine all around.

The car finally pulled up at the weatherbeaten Gregg residence. An idly smoking teen went inside when they got out, and more faces appeared at the door, pulled back the front curtain to see what was happening.

Dean unloaded more of Rebecca's things, some stuffed animals, books, extra clothes. The boxes were dropped on the porch with her. She watched them drive away, and nobody waved.