Page 22 of The Thinnest Air
“Oh, goodness. Greer.” She fans the makeup artist away, rising to her feet and coming at me. Wrapping her arms around my shoulders when she knows damn well I hate hugs, she buries her face in my neck. “It’s so wonderful to see you, sweetheart.”
In over three decades on this planet, my mother has yet to refer to me as “sweetheart.” “Ungrateful brat?” Yes. “Little bitch.” Yes. “Biggest mistake of my life.” Yes.
“Sweetheart?” Never.
I almost remind her the cameras aren’t rolling yet.
“We just got here a little bit ago,” she says. “Wade’s in the other room with Andrew.”
“I had no idea there was a TV crew coming today.”
“Neither did I.” She smiles, as if the idea of being on TV makes her feel beautiful and glamorous and special. I wish I were surprised by this behavior. “Connie Mayweather fromTwenty-Four-Sevenon CNN is going to be interviewing Andrew. They asked if we’d make an appearance.”
“We?”
“Well, Wade and I. And you.”
“Wade met Meredithonce.”
Her smile fades, as if I’ve burst her bubble with the sharp tip of a little pin made from pure reality. “It’s a show of support, Greer.”
Showing my face on national television holds zero appeal, but this isn’t about me. If Mer is out there somewhere, I want her to know I’m looking for her, too. I refuse to give my spotlight-loving mother all the glory.
“Fine,” I say.
My mother flags down the hair-and-makeup crew, telling them they’ve “got another one to work on” before returning to her chair.
An hour later, my face is contoured and highlighted, my hair has been yanked from its messy bun and curled into something more appropriate for a Sunday-morning church service, and I’m asked if I have another shirt to wear, something less black and faded because it would “depress the viewers at home and appear as though we’re prematurely mourning her.”
They situate us on the sofa in the formal living room, placing Andrew next to my mother and Wade behind her. The lights are hot, raising the crisp temperature of this room in a matter of minutes, and the caked-on makeup on my face is beginning to melt into my skin.
Connie Mayweather acts like she’s a big deal, her blonde bob cut to her sharp jawline, her cheekbones sculpted, her lips painted in a neutral, camera-ready pink. She wears a Chanel suit and sits cross-legged opposite the four of us, her face shaped in sympathy that appears to be genuine, though I imagine years of practice could fool just about anybody.
“Andrew, please walk us through this,” she says. “Tell us where you were when you first discovered your wife, Meredith Price, was missing.”
He takes his time, and I have to wonder if his pauses are well placed or if he’s truly gathering his composure.
“I was at work,” he says, exhaling. “In a meeting actually. My receptionist knocked on the door, told me there was a police officer there to talk to me.”
Connie’s eyes squint as she pays close attention, giving slow, reaffirming nods when he pauses.
“An officer from Glacier Park Police Department met me in my office and asked me when I’d last spoken to my wife.” He stops, lifting his hand to his mouth and dragging his fingers down the corners. I try to imagine his lips trembling, but I can’t. I’ve never seen any real emotion coming from this man other than his flagrant, sticky-sweet infatuation with my sister. “I told him we’d spoken that morning, and she mentioned she was going to the grocery store later in the day. That’s when he informed me that a store clerk was running some trash out to the dumpster behind the building. He saw a car sitting there, the driver’s door wide open. Then he saw her things inside, took down the plate number, and tried to have her paged. No one claimed it, so he called the police to report an abandoned vehicle, and that’s when they tracked me down. About the same time, I received a call from the kids’ school saying no one had come to pick them up.”
His voice breaks. My mother reaches for him, placing her hand over his. Wade, who hadn’t taken the time to change out of his Hawaiian button-down and cargo shorts ensemble, rests his hand on my mother’s shoulder.
“So they were suspicious,” Connie clarifies.
Andrew nods. “It wasn’t a normal scene. Nobody leaves their car open like that, their purse and phone and keys inside.”
I sit, unmoving, watching this freak show and deducing that these people—my family—have become caricatures of themselves.
Is that what people do when a loved one goes missing? You act the way you think you’re supposed to act? And how are you supposed to act? And why would you give two shits when there are bigger fish to fry?
“Tell us what was going through your mind the moment you realized something was wrong,” Connie says.
He sits up a little straighter. “Just ... that I needed to find her. Nothing else mattered. I needed to find my wife. Honestly, everything from that day is kind of a blur at this point.”
“He hasn’t had much sleep,” my mother chimes in, rubbing his knee like he’s a small child.
