#36 - Put Your Hands Together (For The Missing Girl)
It must have been around twenty minutes into the play when it happened. Things had gone exactly to plan so far; not a single actor had messed up a line, there had been zero technical issues, and it seemed as though the audience members were fully engrossed in what, even Tori had to admit, was truly a piece of art. If she wasn't such an optimist, she might've seen that things were too good to be true. But, for the majority of Tori's life, when things had seemed good, they had almost always actually turned out positively, so how was she to know?
Out of the corner of her eye, Tori saw some kind of movement away from the stage. Her attention flicked from Cat's monologue to the audience, where a member of the crowd had stood up, straightened out their jacket and begun to walk towards the exit. A smart, suited man, with greying hair and a slight paunch. A man with a stern face.
Jade's dad.
She could tell Jade had also seen. Her fingers found each other and began to twist. It was strange to see Jade West so utterly affected. Tori was surprised to find that it made her feel uncomfortable. If Jade wasn't invincible then who was?
"I'm sure he's just going to the bathroom." Tori said, softly.
Jade showed no sign of having heard, and this made Tori yet more uncomfortable. Jade should've shot her a glare for 'trying to stick her nose in under the guise of being nice'. But, instead, she seemed utterly powerless to focus on anything but the man turning his back on her craft.
But he would be back, Tori assured herself. Her own father would never have left one of her plays - before the interval, before the end, before the last audience member had traipsed out. He would always be the last one there, beaming out of pride for the talents of his baby girl.
But the end of the scene came and went. As did the interval. And finally, the play had reached its climax, and Jade's dad still hadn't returned from the bathroom.
The first audience member's hands had barely clapped together before Jade had turned on her heel, desperately heading backstage.
"Jade, wait!" Tori called. "You need to go on stage for the bows!"
Jade simply ignored her.
"Jade, listen to the crowd! There were hundreds of people out there besides him who recognise how good it was!"
Jade whipped around, quick enough for her hair to slice the air. Tori had expected a few tears to have been travelling down her cheeks, but instead her cheeks were dry but her eyes glassy. It was an utterly haunting sight.
"What's the point?" Jade asked, her voice sounding in incredibly odd in its weakness.
"Jade-"
"I don't get why I tried. It was never gonna work."
"He came Jade."
Jade laughed bitterly. "And thought it was so terrible that he had to leave twenty minutes in."
"You know your play is good, Jade, if he can't see that then forget about him."
Jade shook her head sadly. "I wish I could." She took a moment before seemingly straightening herself out. "I don't know why I'm talking to you about this."
"Because you need a friend, Jade."
Jade scoffed. "If that out there proves anything, it's that I don't need anyone. Least of all people with their fake pity."
"It's not fake-" Tori began, before realising her mistake.
"So it's real pity?" Jade laughed. "Oh wow, lucky me. Tori motherfucking Vega thinks my life is pathetic."
She bit her lip and suddenly looked as though she might be about to cry. "Well you might just be right." She said, with a scarily inauthentic smile.
Tori opened her mouth to respond, but what could be said to that? The truth was she did pity Jade - she was a miserable person to whom fairly miserable things happened, but she also had the inability to recognise, acknowledge and accept the less miserable parts of her life, and instead spent her time inflicting misery upon others.
Jade picked up her possessions from backstage and headed towards the exit, Tori still trailing behind like a lost puppy that has forgotten how to bark.
"I- Toby's at home." Jade said, without even looking at Tori. She wafted a hand around, as though this was some kind of explanation, before leaving the theatre without so much as a second glance behinf her.
Tori, left behind, was dumbstruck. How was it that the harder she tried with Jade, the further away she felt as though she was being pushed?
Jade was merely ten steps outside the theatre when she called Beck. Honestly, she felt a little pathetic running to him after every minor inconvenience, but she just needed someone to whom she didn't have to explain her home life. She needed comfort, and he was a reliable source.
Or, at least he had been. Since he'd booked his big break, he'd been increasingly unavailable. He'd actually been annoyed a few weeks prior when he'd finally got back to her following her discovery of Tori's tampering. Thinking that several calls from her signified an emergency, his hasty questions about Toby's welfare quickly turned into irritation that she had simply wanted assurance following a fight with Tori. Safe to say, their argument had lasted long into the night.
Given that he hadn't been able to turn up that night, his excuse a grumbled "I'm on set" which she'd reluctantly accepted, she hoped that he'd at least make time for her calls. He knew how much the night meant to her and yet he hadn't been there, hadn't wished her good luck, and hadn't yet checked in to see how it had gone.
And to make matters worse, he didn't pick up the phone.
It was 9:30 now, and he'd missed school all day to film his show. Surely he had exceeded his legal hours and was no longer working?
Jade tried again. And again, clocking up missed calls in the double digits before she finally gave up. She was upset and she was annoyed, and she made no effort to calm herself down. Her feelings were valid, and if there was no one around to convince her orherwise, then she would allow herself to feel as such.
The problem was, however, that she'd got it in her head that she needed Beck, and now she really, really felt like she needed him. It was almost like an addiction, an irresistable pull. She knew she just had to see him, no matter how hard she tried to ignore the urge.
It only took her twenty minutes to drive from the theatre to Beck's house. So, if he had returned from the set, it would've only taken him twenty minutes to take up a seat in the audience and support her work. This was a fact that made her angry to think about, so she let herself.
The lights were off in his RV but that wasn't exactly unusual, given he could play video games in the dark. Bypassing the gate with practiced ease, Jade rapped smartly on the metal door of the 'tin can' for which she harboured mixed feelings. There was no response.
With growing frustration, she knocked again but louder. Impatience eventually took over and she was marching towards the main house before her hand had even left the door after the third knock.
She didn't often go up to the main house, and certainly not without Beck. The chance of bumping into Beck's parents, who openly hated her guts, was enough to deter that impulse. But Jade was done with choosing sensibility. She wanted to see her boyfriend and if there was a chance that he was in the house then she was sure as hell going up there.
Sanah's face fell as soon as she opened the door. Jade wasn't sure who, or what, she might've been expecting at nearing ten at night, but whatever the possibities could have been, Jade reckoned that her presence must have been the least desirable option.
"Oh, hello Jade." She said, with poorly-masked discomfort.
"Hi Sanah, is Beck in?" Jade replied, too irritated to bother with pleasantries.
"No, he's still on his TV show set."
"Do you know when he's coming back?"
"I don't. You have his number don't you?"
"He's not replying."
Sanah pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, in a manner that seemed to suggest that she didn't blame him. A wave of irritation rippled through Jade.
"Well," Sanah said after a pause. "I'm sure he's very busy and probably can't afford to be disturbed."
Jade bit back a remark. "Well, I think he can afford to take two seconds out to reply to his girlfriend."
Sanah almost seemed to roll her eyes. "He's working Jade. Please understand that."
"I do. I just want to speak to him, and I know he can't be busy for 12 hours straight!"
Sanah shook her head. "He's a very hard worker. You could do well to try and emulate that."
Jade scoffed. That jibe wasn't even thinly-veiled. "I've just come from a play that I wrote, directed, and organised to be staged. Don't ever tell me that I don't work hard."
At the sound of raised voices, footsteps came out into the hall and, before long, Jeff Oliver was peering over Sanah's shoulder.
"Jade? Can we help you?" He asked, his tone indicating that there was nothing he would like to do less.
"She's looking for Beck. Although I have told her a number of times that he isn't here." Sanah said, with exasperation that would have one believing that Jade had been interrogating her as to Beck's whereabouts, refusing to accept that he was in fact not in the house.
"He's not here. You can see him tomorrow." Jeff said, with a sense of finality.
"Well please could you tell him to come see me when he gets home?" Jade asked, her manners coming out as she realised she was fighting a losing battle.
Jeff shook his head. "I'm sure it'll be far too late for him to be driving across town at that time. You can see him tomorrow. I'd advise that you go home."
"If it's important then I'm sure he can manage it regardless of the time."
"Well is it important?" Sanah asked, tiredly. "Is it to do with Toby, or is it to do with you?"
Jade tried not to think about the sign of relationship failure that was Sanah's belief that nothing solely regarding Jade could be important.
Jade had nothing to say to that. She wanted to say her, but it was important, but even in her head this sounded pathetic. And despite the temptation, there was no way she would say it concerned Toby. She might not be the world's most ethically-aligned person, but she wouldn't have Toby's father and grandparents fretting over a non-existent ailment.
"Well, I think that's our answer." Jeff said, his lips twisting into a smug smile. Jade had no clue how Beck had come out of his balls - Jeff had always enraged and repulsed her in equal measure.
Jade huffed like a frustrated bull, knowing she was giving them what they wanted, but too annoyed to stop herself.
"Just get him to call me then." She spat, turning her back on the couple.
"Please just prioritise picking Toby up from whoever you've left him with." Sanah called after her.
Jade shot a glare over her shoulder.
Whomever. If Sanah was going to insult her, she could at least make it gramatically correct.
Jade would never admit that she had been influenced by Sanah, but she did find herself following the woman's instructions. It was close to 10:30 by the time she was turning her key in the lock of her home, and she had surely long missed Toby's bedtime. As had Beck, of course, for the last six nights in a row, in fact. But no one was going to call that out, were they?
She had expected the house to be quiet when she entered, given how much Amber complained whenever Toby was woken up. She'd been put in charge of looking after Toby whilst Jade was at the play, for a fee of course. Free-of-charge favours for her sister did not take up space in Amber's arsenal.
Despite her assumptions, however, Jade was met with the sound of roaring (if voices that high-pitched could be described that way) laughter coming from the den.
She entered cautiously, knowing that she would regret this moment of curiosity. Her last interaction with Amber's friends hadn't exactly been positive.
"Can you imagine? I'd die before moving to Wyoming - the nightlife there is tragic."
Amber was lying on one of the couches, her legs draped in the lap of her friend Marie. Marie had gone to the same elementary school as Amber, and Jade would always remember her as the girl who'd wet herself at Amber's eighth birthday party. She might now be a slender, five foot ten budding model, but to Jade she would always be the girl who wailed over her father's shoulder as she was carried out, sodden and embarrassed, to his car.
Across from the pair was another girl Jade recognised. Emily Sanderson, in an embarrassing cliché, had been the star cheerleader at Amber's high school, and the pair had been firm friends since the age of fourteen. She was what Jade liked to consider an actual mean girl, someone entirely selfishly motivated who would throw her friends under the bus for a candy bar. If she ate candy, that was. She also had a soft spot for Beck, and had once asked him to apply her suntan lotion as he and Jade were walking through the house up to her room. The typically obvlivious boy that he was, Beck had begun to move towards her before Jade had jerked him back, shooting him an exasperated glare, before sending a much more contemptuous look in Emily's direction.
The other two girls in the room were unknown to Jade, but they fitted all the usual categories. Made-up and manicured, with a look on their face that displayed complete self-assuredness and personal superiority. To Jade's discomfort, these identical faces all turned to look at her as she entered the room.
"Finally." Amber said, rolling her eyes. "I thought you said you'd be back at 9:30. You owe me another twenty."
"Where's Toby?" Jade asked, ignoring the demand with which she had no intention to comply.
"In bed, obviously."
"Where's the baby monitor?" Jade asked, looking around the room, failing to spot the device.
Amber shrugged. "I don't know. Your room?"
"What? He could be-" Jade gasped, enraged, before bursting out of the room, to the great hilarity of all of Amber's friends. She took the stairs two at a time, almost barrelling through her bedroom door in her haste to find Toby.
The sight that met her was such a relief that she almost doubled over and retched, the fear of the last few moments rushing over her.
Toby was sat up in his crib, very much alive, as proven by the redness of his face and the low whimpers that left his mouth. His eyes were puffy, leaking wet tears down his chubby cheeks, and his chest seemed to be heaving to a greater extent than seemed possible for such a small thing. At the sight of Jade, his little hands unclenched and reached out for her, his cries gaining volume.
Barely a moment had passed before Jade had scooped up her baby, cradling him into her neck and dropping kiss upon kiss on top of his soft head. Firmly in his grabbing phase, Jade so often objected to Toby's pulling hands. Now, however, she could not have been more grateful for the way he grasped her clothes and skin, needing her just as close as she needed him. Running a hand along his back, she drew soothing patterns, just like his father did to her, hoping that her presence could rectify the extended solitude that Amber's social gathering had subjected him to.
Jade let Toby cry into her arms until he'd fallen asleep from the exhaustion of it. Letting several minutes pass before she could bring herself to part from him, Jade softly lowered him back down into the crib, resting his head against the mattress and stroking his belly to keep him calm. Once sure that he was completely settled, she picked up the baby monitor that Amber had chosen to ignore, and marched back downstairs.
Having thought she was rid of her younger sister, Amber was less than pleased to see her re-enter the room.
"What?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"With me? What the hell did I do?"
"He was crying his eyes out up there and you just left him."
Amber gave a look of incredulousness. "He was fine. Or at least he was, before you came home. We didn't hear anything until then, did we girls?"
The group all shook their heads in tandem, smirks poorly hidden within their features.
"You wouldn't have been able to hear anything because he'd cried himself to exhaustion whilst you were shirking responsibilities so you could invite your friends over. How long did you ignore him for him to realise that no one was coming?"
Amber scoffed. "He's a baby, Jade. They don't have big psychological revelations like that."
Amber was a psychology major, which meant that she thought that her opinions on human thoughts and feelings were gospel. It also meant that she used phrases like 'psychological revelations' quite often, largely, in Jade's eyes, because they were the biggest words she knew.
"You may not like me, but don't you dare take it out on him." Jade warned. "He's a child. He didn't ask for any of this."
"Any of what? I was doing you a favour, Jade."
"Yeah, well I won't ask again."
"Oh no, what a shame." Amber sniggered sarcastically, her friends joining in.
"Hey Amber, you haven't introduced us." Said one of the girls unfamiliar to Jade, once she'd stopped laughing at her expense.
"Ugh." Groaned Amber. "Jade, this is Sophia and Jenna, from college. Girls, this is my sister Jade. Obviously, the one with the baby."
Amber shot Jade a smirk. So clearly, her pregnancy, of which Amber was both ashamed, and glad, because it provided her with ammo with which to make fun of Jade behind her back, was a well-known topic among Amber's social circle.
Jade turned to leave.
"As you can see, she's not the nicest. Let's hope you don't meet again."
Jade stormed back up into her room, where even the pillow she scrunched around her ears could only muffle their laughter, but never fully mute it.