With every passing minute, Linda's annoyance grew, and with it her indecision. She didn't want to be that kind of Aunt, she really didn't. She wanted to be the cool Aunt, the Aunt her niece could come to about boys, and clothes and anything else she didn't want to go to her parents about. In other words, she wanted to be the exact opposite of her sister, the mother of the niece in question.
Linda knew her niece was a good kid. But even good kids sometimes made bad decision. And Linda's sister was the mother, after all; even if she sometimes acted like she had a Louisville Slugger up her ass. She had a right to expect her child would be supervised. And if she called right now, and Linda was forced to admit she had no idea where Heidi was, well, how would that look? Linda knew how it would look, and she knew how it would sound. It would sound like never hearing the end of it.
And then was the real problem. Linda truly had no idea where Heidi was, and very little to go on if she tried to figure out where the girl was. Linda's annoyance flared anew ... all of this could have been avoided with a simple phone call that began with the words, "Aunt Linda, I just wanted you to know..."
Linda walked into the kitchen, reviewed the voluminous instruction Heidi's Mom had stuck to the fridge, and revised her options. She's just been reflecting that she had few options for figuring out where Heidi was. In fact, she had precisely one, and it was located across the street and 2 houses down, that being the residence of Kelly O'Malley, Heidi's best friend. All Linda really knew was Heidi and Kelly were together, so if anyone would know where the two girls were, it would be Kelly's mom. She hoped.
Linda made her decision, then she made the walk. 3 minutes later, she was knocking at the door. When it opened, Linda said, "Mrs. O'Malley?"
"Yes?"
Something about Mrs. O'Malley struck Linda as odd. Here a perfect stranger had just knocked on her door, and already knew her name, but Mrs. O'Malley was as placid as a lake at dawn, "My name is Linda Beris, I'm Heidi's aunt and I'm watching her for the weekend while my sister's out of town."
"Ohhhhh! Heidi's so great. She's just ..." Mrs. O'Malley paused to find just the right word, "... great!"
Mrs. O'Malley had a low, breathy quality to her voice that Linda was sure was affected. She hoped her disapproval didn't show, "To tell you the truth, I'm not thinking so right now. I hate to ask you this, but do you know where she and Kelly are? Heidi was supposed to call me 4 hours ago."
Mrs. O'Malley looked at Linda as if the answer were self-evident, "She's ... she's at the party."
Linda's annoyance transmuted into anger, "A party?"
"That's right."
"And you know about this party?"
"Of course. In fact, I was just about to head over," Mrs. O'Malley looked Linda over carefully. "Would you like to come along?"
"Yes, I think I would, though I don't think Heidi or I will be staying very long."
Mrs. O'Malley shrugged as if to say 'suit yourself', "Let's go. By the way, my name is Emma."
The two piled into Emma's SUV and buckled themselves in. Linda expected a short drive to another girl's house, or maybe a rec center of some sort. She was surprised when Emma pulled onto the freeway.
"Where is this party?"
"Oh, downtown," Emma said absentmindedly.
Linda realized absentminded was probably the perfect word to describe Emma; that, or maybe distracted. Everything about the woman gave the impression she had something else on her mind. Whatever elation Linda had felt in discovering Heidi's whereabouts was washed out by the sense that she was in the hands of a complete space cadet.
Emma's distraction extended to her driving. Emma didn't seem too worried about staying in her lane. Mercifully, the traffic was light this time of the evening, and 25 minutes later, they pulled up to a 5 star hotel. Emma dropped her key off with the valet, and Linda scrambled to follow, wondering what sort of party was being held at a place like this.
Emma strode quickly to the front desk. That was another thing Linda had noticed. The longer they'd driven, the more agitated Emma seemed to become. Maybe agitated was too strong a word, antsy was more like it. Now that they were in the hotel, Emma seemed to be in quite a hurry.
"Hello Mrs. O'Malley," a perky blond greeted Emma. The blond also managed a respectful nod to Linda.
"Hello Cindy," Emma replied, and held out her hand.
Cindy handed over a white card, the size of a credit card, with a black magnetic strip, "They're waiting for you up in the Penthouse."
"Thank you," Emma started for the elevator.
Linda still stood by the front desk. This was all starting to get a little too weird.
"Well," Emma snapped. The breathiness had been replaced with impatience. "Come on."
Despite her better judgment, Linda followed.