It was then, out of the corner of her eye, that she caught sight of a foreign body at rest in one of her sugar bowls. As the silhouette came into focus, she dropped her purse and pitched backward, tripped on a heel, and collapsed on the cold floor. Looking up at the doll’s ominous brown face, its arms clutching the rim of the bowl, a tiny microphone in its tiny hand, she thought: This will not do. This will not do at all.
Anger lifted her off the floor and she grabbed the doll, careful not to disturb her bowl, and carried it, a plastic foot pinched loosely between two delicate fingers, down the aisles of Hall One. This was, in her opinion, grounds for eviction, and she was sure, if she reminded them of how loyal a renter she’d been these many years, Keith and Stacey would agree.
2 KEITH
Just last week Keith Stoller had had a very promising phone chat with an assistant producer on the new Pickin’ Fortunes spinoff. The network was optimistic, she’d said. Ratings for all Mark-and-Grant-related programming were at a record-breaking high. And—she shouldn’t be letting this out of the bag just yet but what the hell—Mark and Grant had an ulterior motive for their excursion across America and through its many inspiring small businesses. They were looking to expand their Antiquarian Pickporium retail franchise well beyond their flagship Nashville location. During the season finale, they would offer to purchase a stake in their favorite stops.
In Keith’s wildest fantasies, the television exposure brought not riches or fame but merely relief. If he could get out without losing too much money, great. If Mark and Grant put him in the black enough to pay off the mortgage of his exceedingly overvalued Eastborough home, miraculous! No more scary Loan People calling at all hours and intimating threats. No longer would the house lie teetering on the precipice of foreclosure. And if there was enough left over to replenish the coffers of his daughter’s college fund, well then, shit, maybe—just maybe—he would once again be able to sleep at night instead of lying awake inventorying his innumerable shortcomings.
For instance: everyone else on his block seemed always to know when the garbage pickup schedule had changed and only he ever dragged the bins to the curb a day early or a day late. Unlike Keith, these were decent, earnest folks who lived their lives without grousing internally about every perceived slight or inequity, who worked hard enough day-to-day that they never had time to ask themselves whether they loved or hated their jobs. They considered their children their greatest achievement and wouldn’t hesitate to say as much if asked, and were moved to tears by television commercials for greeting card companies and cell phone plans. They understood the rules of every sport and could name their favorite books, movies, songs, etc., and explain with no small amount of passion why those were their favorites. Meanwhile, after nearly five decades on earth, Keith: had no hobbies or interests or friends; was in debt to such a degree that he worried even thinking of the amount he owed would trigger cardiac arrest; had lost track of how long it’d been since he and his wife had touched one another even platonically; had a beautiful grown-up daughter who hated his guts; was haunted by an unending sensation of dread, a feeling like knowing your shoes are untied and you will sooner or later fall flat on your face but you’ve forgotten how to tie a knot.
For although the “Peddlin’ Pair” were due to arrive in just a few days—Monday at three o’clock, to be precise, as he’d written in the e-newsletter encouraging dealers and shoppers to show up in their telegenic best—the assistant producer had stopped returning Keith’s calls. Finally, this morning, on his fifth attempt, someone at the production offices answered, an intern who would not tell Keith his name and refused to forward him to anyone important. “You say you’re calling from Wichita?” he said as if the city were as remote as Narnia. “Hmm. I don’t see it on the schedule, except—hold on a minute.” After a wait of nearly ten minutes, he returned. “Yeah. There’s a bit of a snag in the plan.” The missing girl had made national news, he explained, and Mark and Grant were concerned about coming across as callous. “It wouldn’t be a good look for them to go around appraising bottle cap collections with BTK Part Two stalking the streets.”
“I’m sure that’s an overreaction,” Keith said. “The girl’ll be found any minute now, camping in the backyard or something. I ran away as a kid once. My parents didn’t even notice I was gone.”
“We can only hope that things will work out.”
“But you’re coming, though, right? If not Monday, then another time?”
“Our schedule is tight. We’re going to have to get back to you. Let us know what happens with the girl. Mark and Grant are praying for her,” the intern said and hung up.
One little girl out of the six hundred thousand who lived here! Who knew what kinds of terrible things were happening in all the cities Mark and Grant toured, but they didn’t cancel the whole show because of it. Okay, so a child in peril was unfortunate, but it would be worse to let one tragedy beget another—namely, the tragedy of the Stoller family’s financial collapse. Without a Mark-and-Grant buyout, the Heart of America was doomed.
So when Veronica Samples, the midcentury modern maven of Hall Four, had met him at the doors during opening that morning and accosted him with a bouquet of neon flyers, he’d had more important things on his mind—more important to him personally, at least—than Lindy Bobo. “We need to take action before it’s too late,” she said as he struggled with the door’s sticky lock. “Ninety-four percent of missing children are recovered within seventy-two hours. There’s no time to waste. Things aren’t just going to go back to normal on their own.”
It struck him as the key finally clicked into place: She was right. Find Lindy and everything would go back to normal—including Mark and Grant’s tour schedule. In fact, once he called up the producers and told them that he himself, proprietor of the Heart of America Antique Mall, Kansas’s largest year-round antiques market, had been the one to lead the search effort that found lost Lindy Bobo, there’d be no way they’d turn down such a compelling human-interest piece. Mark and Grant would have to reward Wichita’s own hero with a stake in their lucrative Antiquarian Pickporium franchise. At once Keith became a willing conscript in Veronica’s CHAANT (College Hill AMBER Alert Neighborhood Taskforce) group, offering to devote that afternoon’s Dealer Association meeting to rallying volunteers.
He was back in the lounge stapling the very last of the two hundred packets he’d had copied at the nearby FedEx Office when Veronica came in and joined him at the table. “Just in time,” he said. “I’m all finished.”
“It’s wonderful you’ve taken to the cause with such enthusiasm,” Veronica said.
“No problemo.” Keith surveyed the neatly stacked papers. Although it was menial, he could not remember the last time he’d felt such pride for a job well done.
Veronica adjusted her cat-eye frames. “It’s just that…” She removed and unfolded a paper from her purse. “What I gave you before. It was missing a page. Would it be much trouble to ask you to run back to FedEx Office to make enough copies of this?” The page was titled “Abduction Glossary.” “I’d do it myself but I’m expecting a really important call from Detective Skinner. My police contact.”