“Listen,” Carmen whispered, leaning over the counter, “the cops are going to find out that there’s a missing person. And if they find out you knew and didn’t report it, they’re going to suspect you.”
Carmen had no idea what she was talking about. Everything she knew about police procedure came from TV and movies. But it didn’t stop her from speaking confidently. She figured the kid needed a push.
“You listen to me. You’re gonna have to deal with cops, one way or the other,” Carmen found herself saying, mimicking the shows she watched. “The question is: you gonna be the worried sister or a suspect? Your choice.”
April nodded slowly.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Carmen said, switching back into her real voice. “Now . . . how are you doing?”
“Me?” April said, and made a sound that was either a laugh or a whimper—Carmen couldn’t tell. “I’m a complete and total mess.”
April told Carmen a story that made her head spin. April was doing a court-ordered Narcotics Anonymous program; if she missed any NA meetings without a good excuse, it was over for her. She would be immediately arrested and forced to serve six to twelve months in prison. The judge who’d ordered it had literally pointed at April and said, “Don’t mess up this time, or you’re going to find yourself in a tiny prison cell. I promise you that.”
The words had chilled April to the bone. She’d had a lot of run-ins with the law, from drug possession charges to small-theft charges. So far, she’d managed to avoid jail time. But her luck was running out and she lived in deep fear of prison.
“I can’t go there,” she told Carmen. “I know what goes on in there. I got friends who’ve told me. And I’m claustrophobic. I can’t be in a locked room. I can’t do it. I’ll go insane.”
But, at this point, April was in the system. And being in the system meant there was a force as strong as gravity pulling her toward prison. She hadn’t missed any meetings yet, or the community service that she had to do, but she’d been very close a few times. She’d passed the first urine test. But it had been a huge battle for her. She didn’t think she’d be able to keep up for six months.
“And it’s not just ’cause I’m messed up,” April told Carmen. “I mean, okay, I am messed up, right? But it’s more than just that.”
Last week, for example, April had had a chance to get a job—making sandwiches at a Subway—but the manager had wanted her to start on a night when she had to do community service work and he wasn’t willing to be flexible. So she lost that chance. And another prospective employer, in another shop, almost physically kicked her out when she said that she’d have to work around her NA meetings and community service work. A temp agency laughed in her face when she arrived underdressed and without a resume. April was broke and becoming desperate.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” April said.
Everything, Carmen thought to herself. You are doing everything wrong.
And then, of course, there were her problems with men. April had a type: beautiful boys, who were incompetent criminals. And who were just generally incompetent. “This kid didn’t even know how to tie his shoes,” April told Carmen of her last boyfriend.
Carmen snorted.
“I’m serious, though,” April said. “He literally didn’t know how to do it right. I taught him Bunny Ears. Like I’m his momma. He got mad at me when I did it but then he totally used it.”
He also didn’t know how to put on his sweatshirt. He would struggle inside of it, like a chick trying to hatch from an egg. April used to watch the process with amusement. It had endeared him to her. She was charmed to see this tough guy vulnerable for a moment. But, later in their relationship, when things had gotten bad, she was far less amused.
He’d developed a pill addiction that ravaged his body, his mind, his life, and, eventually, April’s life, too. Her first major court case came from her involvement with him: she was caught helping him break into a house—the house of his best friend’s mother, no less—to steal some jewelry and electronics to sell to support the habit. April had figured that, if she helped him, he was less likely to get caught. Instead, she was the one who got caught.
Carmen listened quietly to everything April was telling her. Suddenly, without thinking, she said, “How would you like a job here at the bakery?”
Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she found herself thinking: What am I saying? Someone tells me ‘I’m an addict and a felon’ and my response is ‘Hey, come work for me’? Carmen was beginning to doubt her sanity.
But she’d made the offer, and April’s response, she had to admit, was rather winning. April ran around the counter and threw her arms around Carmen’s neck.
“You don’t know how much this means,” she said, as she hugged Carmen. “I’m gonna work really hard. Not gonna let you down.”
Carmen really wanted to believe it.
* * *
April was late to work the next morning. And, the next day, she arrived even later. After a week, it was official: April was incapable of arriving on time. Each morning, she had an excuse. Of course, Joseph, watching from afar, didn’t mind. He was just thrilled that April was suddenly working only a hundred feet away from him. It seemed like a gift.
Carmen didn’t mind April’s constant lateness either—she was just worried about what it meant: what other problems April might bring to the bakery.
The ongoing situation with Rose’s disappearance made Carmen very nervous. What kind of mess was that? At the end of the workweek, April had finally called the cops to report the disappearance. Carmen had made it a condition of her working at the bakery—but she still didn’t know the exact reason April had been so uptight about the police to begin with. Was April concerned about her own legal problems or was there something more? Carmen wanted to know the answer, but she also really, really did not want to know. She didn’t want to hear something that would pull her deeper into whatever kind of mess this was.
Carmen watched, nervously, as April made the rounds in Reading Terminal Market, chatting with the market’s shopkeepers about her missing sister, asking them to help keep a lookout, and giving them an official “Missing” poster. Carmen wanted to help with the search, too. But every time she saw April, wearing a Metropolitan Bakery apron—which April had done intentionally so she would be taken more seriously for these little meetings—Carmen winced. All around the market, April’s troubles, whatever they were, were becoming synonymous with the bakery and, by extension, with Carmen herself. Carmen knew these shopkeepers well, and she knew that they would want no part of whatever kind of trouble was behind Rose’s disappearance. She knew that they, like Carmen herself, worried that this mess would eventually intrude on their businesses.
* * *
One afternoon—the day before the police had come to take April’s statement—Carmen noticed April standing by the door, watching something outside the bakery.
“Come here,” April said, motioning to Carmen. “Check this out.”
Carmen and April watched a young, tall Amish man posting Rose’s “Missing” posters on a wall across the way, next to the Amish diner. They watched as he posted another one on the door to the market itself. And on a pillar in the middle of the market. And, then, on another door. The Amish man, in fact, had an entire stack of “Missing” signs under his arm, and he was posting as many as he could, on any surface he could find.
Carmen sighed.
“April . . .”
“I had nothing to do with this!” April said. “I didn’t even talk to the Amish diner people about Rose. I have no idea where he got the signs.”
Carmen