“I know Angelique and her brother,” Frédéric confirms now. “Please. Come to my office. We can talk there.”
I think that’s a marvelous offer. I follow him across the hall, to a small, straightforward setup. Desk, ancient computer, coat rack, half-dead office plant. Frédéric has a brightly framed poster of a coat of arms on the wall. A palm tree upright in the middle of two golden cannons and what appear to be bayonets, cannonballs, anchors, bugles, all in patriotic colors of green, blue, and red. Below it reads L’Union Fait la Force.
“Our national emblem,” Frédéric tells me, following my gaze. “From Haiti, the country of my heart.”
“When did you immigrate?”
“Twenty years ago.”
Meaning he wasn’t caught up in the current visa turmoil of the earthquake survivors. “Do you still have family back on the island?”
“One brother, two sisters.”
“They don’t want to come here?”
“Maybe their children. For school. It’s better here than there.”
“I understand Angelique and her brother are good students. And Angelique is looking forward to studying medicine at a U.S. college.”
Frédéric shrugs. “I’m the executive director. We serve over five hundred families through our various programs. I know all a little, but none very well.”
“How does summer camp work? Do the kids sign up for specialized activities, something?”
Frédéric lays it out for me. Youths register for specific programs based on age and interest. After consulting his computer, he can tell me Angelique signed up for fashion camp while Emmanuel pursued basketball. I’m not sure why future doctor Angelique would choose fashion till Frédéric produces the program description. Apparently, fashion camp involves lots of sketching and art. Remembering the highly detailed medical drawings I’d found in in the teen’s collection, that makes sense. The activity director is a woman named Lillian, who is an art teacher from a local middle school and works for the rec center during the summer. Frédéric doesn’t want to give me her contact information but promises he’ll pass along my phone number to her.
He pulls up the program registration, showing eighteen kids: sixteen girls, two boys. Sure enough, Marjolie’s name is right after Angelique’s. Most likely they signed up together, the way friends do.
“Do you remember Angelique hanging out with anyone in particular?” I ask now, not giving away Marjolie’s name.
Frédéric pauses, leaning back his long frame and steepling elegant fingers together as he considers the matter. “There was one girl. They sat together. Also Haitian. Shorter, pretty. They seemed to know each other well. But this other girl didn’t care about fashion class so much. She spent more of her time in the gym.”
“Like playing basketball or something?”
“Like watching the boys playing basketball.” He arches a suggestive brow.
“Boyfriend, or boy crazy?”
“One boy in particular. I once had to interrupt a . . . social situation that had gone too far.”
I take that to mean Marjolie had been making out with said love interest in some random corner. Frankly, if I’d been at summer camp in this vast building at that age . . . Had to be secluded spots everywhere and I bet the kids knew every single one.
“What about Angelique? Ever interrupt one of her . . . social situations?”
Frédéric shakes his head.
“Did she have a tendency to drift out of her program to, say, watch basketball, boxing, baseball, whatever?” I’m pursuing the theory that Angelique had a secret romance. Especially with her best friend distracted by some basketball player, maybe Angelique had felt compelled to do likewise.
“She would go on occasion to watch her brother,” Frédéric supplies. “During breaks, though. She never missed class. At least not that I ever heard, and it is my job to hear such things.”
His picture of Angelique is consistent with everything else I’ve been told about the teen. For now, I table the boyfriend idea and return to my own thought from the night before: “What about another girl? A new friend Angelique bonded with while Marjolie was off drooling in the gym?”
Frédéric frowns, hesitates. “This was two summers ago . . .”
“And yet Angelique went missing shortly thereafter. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
He winces. I can’t even imagine how hard his job must be, trying to both corral and inspire hundreds of at-risk teens. Wanting to make a difference, knowing there are limits. And then when one of the kids who by all accounts should make it simply vanishes one fall afternoon . . . I have a feeling Frédéric has done nothing but replay the memories he has of Angelique over and over again.
“I wish I had noticed more,” he concedes now. “Paid more attention, made more effort. But Angelique, she was a good kid. She came on time. She stayed with her program. She produced many beautiful drawings. Lillian posted several around the halls. I remember congratulating Angelique on her work. She seemed shy, but again, not one to get into trouble. My time, my job, is spent more with those teens.” He shrugs. “It is regretful, but it is what it is.”
“You have problems with gang activity here?” I change gears.
“We are zero tolerance. Any gang signs, colors, activity leads to immediate expulsion. The kids know. Off the grounds, yes, there are problems. But when they enter this property . . . If they want to shoot hoops, they play nice. It works more effectively than you think.”
“Are there times all the kids intermix? I mean, regardless of fashion camp versus boxing camp or whatnot?”
“Lunch is within each group. It makes it easier for us to monitor. But there are breaks during the day. Kids wander. Some might go watch a part of a soccer game or gather to enjoy the sun outside. They are teens, and we want the programs to be fun, not just . . .” He struggles for the word.
“Glorified lockup?” I volunteer.
He sighs but doesn’t disagree.
“Can I get a copy of this list?” I point to the registration list for fashion camp.
“The police have it.”
“I don’t want to bother them. I’m trying to find new leads to move us forward, not make them go backward.”
He hesitates again, but my argument is a decent one. He prints me out a fresh list.
“One last thing. If you don’t mind. A simple memory exercise. You know Angelique’s face?”