No Worst, There Is None. Eve McBride

shorts and the McDonald’s bag and carries her a short distance away to a sluggish industrial canal, fuller than usual because of the rain. He considers dropping her in the water like the Mayan maidens who were thrown into the cenotes. But he decides not to. He feels a pang of something like sympathy, as if immersing her in a stagnant pool would somehow degrade her. And he decides it would be better, anyway, if her body were discovered soon. So he lays Lizbett face-down on a stray clump of Queen Anne’s Lace growing out of a piece of broken concrete. He has to undo the duct tape on her wrists to get off the red striped T-shirt, but he wants it. He takes the mask and hurries back to his car, unobserved, folding her clothing and putting everything on the seat beside him with her purse. Only then does he remove his own mask and before he drives off, he tosses the umbrella in the water.

      Part Two

      FUNERALS

      5

      Waiting

      The rain is still teeming, the walkways flooded as they leave the studio building for the restaurant: Meredith and Thompson, Lew and Cindy, and Thompson’s assistant, Polly. They are going to Benvenuto, a pasta restaurant with one of those new, open-concept kitchens where the wine is served in tall balloon glasses.

      Thompson is buoyant, and, for him, talkative. The young women are clinging to him and laughing. He even has Lew chuckling. Editorial shoots are a challenge and that loosens him. It is banality that drives him inward. An editorial shoot has a connectedness that a shoot for single or even multiple dishes without a story line does not.

      After she orders — grilled quail on a bed of crispy sage noodles — Meredith suddenly feels another pang about Lizbett and goes to the bar phone and calls home. Darcy is back from Stephen’s, but Lizbett still has not shown up. It is past 7:30 p.m. Meredith asks Brygida if she has called Lizbett’s friends and Brygida says she tried but was unable to get them all. Many people are on vacation. Now Meredith feels a tightening in her gut, a distinct jab of alarm: that thought no parent ever wants to think. Where could my child be?

      She returns to her table where the banter has elevated. Thompson has finished his glass of white wine and has poured another.

      “Do you see that gorgeous woman over there?” Lew asks. “Irme Pormoranska. She’s your competition. An up-and-coming stylist. I know her. She’s very good.”

      But Meredith isn’t paying attention. “Look, Thompson, Lizbett’s not back. I think we should go home.”

      “You worried she’s been kidnapped?” Thompson quips and everyone laughs.

      “Come on, Sonny. Let’s go.”

      In the car they are silent. Thompson is peeved at having to leave when he was having a good time. Though she knows she has no right to be, Meredith is piqued with him for his behaviour with the women. She was finding his uncharacteristic gregariousness sexist and affected. All that touching. But she is mostly concerned about Lizbett’s whereabouts. This neglectful attitude is so unlike her.