Springtime in Missoula

Erin Pringle

It’s a sunny Saturday evening in Missoula, close enough to spring to believe in it, and everybody’s remembered the ice cream shop for the first time since last fall. It was another long winter, always seeming to start earlier and end later than the year before. The ice cream shop is downtown, in a block-wide brick building shared with a fishing supply store and workspace lounge. The second floor is apartments, signaled by window air conditioners, ledge-living houseplants, and one contemplative cat.
Outside the ice cream shop, a couple shares a sundae at a metal bistro table. A group of lanky white kids with brightly dyed Mohawks gather against the far wall with huckleberry ice-cream cones. They wear respectably ripped skinny jeans and the oldest among them is one arm into his tattoo collection.
The kid with the purple Mohawk says, They make them at the store, you know.
Make what?
The waffle cones, he says, raising his as in toast.
The others nod.
So good, says another. He leans against the telephone pole to face the others. The pole is stapled with band fliers, parttime work ads fringed with phone numbers, and the smiling face of a woman missing since 2018. She looks out over the kid’s shoulder, toward the front door of the ice cream shop, which opened since she went missing.
Inside, it’s cold and loud with the thump of club music. Two teenage girls are working this evening. One blonde, the other brunette. They don’t wear matching shirts or nametags. Except their positions behind the counter and clear purpose to their movements, it’s otherwise unclear they work here.
The brunette pulls empty ice-cream tubs and drops new ones before disappearing through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. She returns with a new tub, arms straining and back arched to counterbalance its weight. She uses a thigh to propel the tub onto the counter. Nothing about her job seems easy.
The blonde sticks by the cash register, shifting her gaze from the customers to the front window until they begin to order. The register is at one end of the room, so that the line follows the wall to the front door—making anyone who enters the end.
Waiting are several sets of parents with children, a few university students slumped over their phones, and an older couple on a first date—arms touching as they examine the menu on the wall behind the counter.
Right now a grandmother of four is trying to order. She’s bent over the littlest, trying to see his face under his stuffed moose-head hat while the granddaughter with pigtails is asking for another sample. Another girl, smaller, stands tiptoe and clutching the counter to see the flavors. She’s in a cheap white bride costume and too-big flipflops.
The girl in pigtails asks to try the Rocky Road.
Me too! cries the little bride, jumping so the blonde sees her.
Watch it or you’ll bust your chin, says a tall boy at the other end of the freezer where the least popular flavors.
The little bride does stop but doesn’t look over at him because the blonde is handing her the tiny sample spoon.
I like your flower, says the blonde.
You can’t have it, says the bride.
The blonde laughs and looks to see if anyone else heard.
The bride sticks the spoon in her mouth and turns her back on the blonde.
A red felt poppy is pinned to the front of her dress. The VFW sells poppies on Higgins Avenue every Memorial or Veteran’s Day. The grandmother never remembers which until she’s at a traffic light and the old, uniformed men are out with their buckets and sashes of red flowers. Then she starts searching the console for change.
The ice-cream line shifts and grows.
Bodola! says the boy to his grandmother.
I don’t know what that is, says the grandmother.
Vanilla, says Pigtails, glancing over as she licks the sample spoon. He means vanilla.
Bodola, agrees the little boy. He grabs the moose paddles on his hat and bends them forward and back to make his moose nod.
Pigtails slips the sample spoon into her pocket and says she’d like to try Birthday Cake again.
Look at the line, the blonde wants to say. But it’s several more hours until close, so she’s got no place to be.
Order already, says the older boy.
Pigtails sticks her tongue out at him.
That’s okay, says the blonde, reaching for a new spoon. It’s my favorite, too.
The boy turns back to the missing woman on the cooler. She smiles all over town, beside band posters at the Wilma, from a billboard above the interstate, over grocery carts, and between farmer’s market posters in the library lobby. Sometimes, he walks into a new place and she’s there, as though waiting for him.
He leans toward her until his nose is inches from hers, and she becomes pixelated. Then he leans back.
She’s the same in every picture, smiling in black and white beside her name, height, weight, and where she was last seen in 2018. Spread beneath the text and her face is the watermark of a red handprint.
Enough trying, says the grandma.
Pigtails looks at her grandmother.
Her grandmother returns the look.
The blonde looks through the display glass at the girl.
Pigtails orders Birthday Cake. In a cone.
The blonde can’t hear her, and the girl says it louder to battle the freezer hum and the faster, more intense beat of a new song.
Kid’s scoop? says the blonde.
That’s right, says the grandmother.
The blonde wears a cropped sweatshirt that rises above her belly-button any time she reaches for a sample spoon and up her back when she leans over the cooler to scoop.
The little bride is tugging her grandmother’s purse to say she needs to go to the bathroom.
The little boy is using both hands to pull the moose’s nose down to touch his. One of the moose paddles is chewed in places and flops forward, tickling the grandmother’s arm. She lets out a gasp, then looks down.
The bell above the front door jangles, and a group of teenage boys stream in. They’re all dressed in athletic shorts just past their knees, slides, and baseball hats either forward or backward.
The blonde looks up and a blush starts beneath her makeup before she can steady her reaction into tepid recognition.
Can she tell them apart? whispers a woman in line to her husband. He chuckles. It’s their new running joke, having reached an age where the youth all look the same to them—inverse to when they were younger, and all older people seemed the same.
I hafta pee! says the little bride.
Do you know where the bathroom is? says the grandma to Pigtails.
Pigtails says, Yeah, but the door’s too heavy for her to open. And there’s a code.
A code? says Grandma.
The brunette overhears and stops with a barrel of banana mango to say that the code’s 8675.
Jenny, Jenny, says Grandma.
The brunette shows no sign of recognition and moves on.
Who’s Jenny? says the little bride.
I’ll tell your mother to play it for you.
Now little bride is bouncing foot to foot until she becomes distracted by her feet and trying to land toes in, toes out. Toes in, toes out.
Has everyone ordered? asks grandmother as she digs in her purse for her wallet.
None of the kids answer.
I guess that’s it, Grandma says.  
The blonde rings up the order.
Grandma frowns and asks if they take cards.
The blonde tries to shoot the boys a can you believe this? look, but they’re huddled around one boy’s phone.
Grandma drops her credit card on the counter. The blonde hands it back and points at the device by the register. Insert or swipe then press the green button three times, then it will ask—no, turn it the other way—the other way. There.
The brunette reappears and hands a cone to the bride who is reaching but not quite looking.
The people in line watch.
Both hands, says the brunette.
The little bride complies and immediately knocks the ice cream against her chin.
The brunette waits for the girl to cry, but instead she takes a lick and grins. Thanks!
Is that kid’s size? says Grandma.
Pigtails says, You forgot to tip, Grandma!
It’s an ice cream shop, says the grandmother.
Pigtails points to the register where a paper bowl labeled TIPS sits covered in intricate doodles that suggest a long, slow winter for the ice cream employees.
The blonde makes eye contact with the next people in line. They begin to step forward.
The bride notices her flip flop click on the floor. Must be a pebble. She tries to grab her foot and look but loses balance and falls against her grandmother, which makes Grandma gasp and raise her arms to save the boy’s bodola and the bride’s chocolate.
Why don’t you find a place to sit? says grandmother.
Then Pigtails is picking up the bride, hefting her onto her hip and walking toward the bathroom.
You put me down! yells the little bride, punching at her sister’s shoulders.
I’m taking you to the bathroom.  
I’ll tell Daddy on you.
Go on. He’ll be glad you didn’t pee all over yourself.
Pigtails continues taking the girl away.
As the grandmother turns, herding the children with her, the boy at the far end of the counter follows—finally showing his belonging to the family. He’s clearly the oldest of the bunch, and the first owner of the moose hat just as Pigtails likely once wore a whiter incarnation of the little bride’s dress.
He gives a final glance at the woman and stuffs a pen and spiral notebook into his back pocket.
Come on up, says the blonde behind the ice cream counter.
The couple does and begins reading off the menu behind the girl.
The teenager rests her hands on the cash register, glancing from the window to the boys and back to the couple.  
The brunette is back with a new barrel of ice cream.
More huckleberry, too, says the blonde as she drags up the last scoop.
Now the line reaches to the door. But nobody seems impatient. Look at the sun shining down on the grassy medians outside. The vast blue Montana sky. It’s the first day the snow has fully melted away from the large white M on the hill. What a beautiful day.
Here comes the brunette with the huckleberry.
Hurry up and change it! says the blonde.
What do you think I’m doing? says the brunette.
No, no, says the blonde, trying to look at her from under the cooler lid, but she can’t while balancing a cone in one hand and reaching mid-dip into a barrel.
The brunette pauses.
The music! panic-whispers the blonde.
The brunette looks up the wall to the speakers.
In about eight beats, the singer will start talking about wet pussies.
Hurry!
Wet pussies certainly do not belong in an ice cream parlor on a spring evening. Of course, the rule is that music must come from the online station the shop subscribes to. The owners even upgraded to the subscription without commercials.
Where is it?
Over there!
The brunette rushes to the phone where the music is playing from.
The teenage boys are watching and elbowing each other.
The brunette reaches the skip button in time, and Johnny Cash starts in on poor Delia.
The girls look at each other, sighing in relief.
Murdered women are much more palatable than living women’s pussies.
By now, the grandchildren have moved into the seating area off the main room. Grandma’s in the bathroom with the little bride. The bride has wet herself, and Grandma didn’t bring any extra clothes.
She’d stopped by her daughter’s house on a lark to invite her and the children to ice cream. Her daughter seemed relieved but did not offer to join them.
Are you sure? she said to her daughter. It won’t be long.
You go on and take them. They’d love some Grandma time.
And that was that. Her daughter waved from behind the screened-in porch.
Grandma stands with her hands on her hips, and the bride sits on the toilet, dress bunched up around her waist, and feet dangling above the floor and wet underwear
Baby girl, says Grandma, it’d be best to throw away this pair. I haven’t anything to carry them home in.
I’m not a baby.
I don’t mean baby that way. I’ll buy you a new pair.
I don’t want a new pair.
Even dry, they’d be a sad pair. Elastic slack around the thighs, the decal picture of a smiling TV personality peeling at the corners.
Were these your sister’s?
The bride shrugs.
Grandma points at the face on the underwear. Who’s that anyway?
Me, says the bride.
That’s not you.
Yes, it is.
Don’t tell lies. Do you know her name?
The bride shakes her head.
Of course, even when Grandma’s own daughter was young, she didn’t recognize most famous young people. Not even the ones taped to her daughter’s bedroom walls and notebooks.
Grandma picks up the underwear by the tiniest bit of elastic. I guess I could wrap them in a towel. I’ll have to rinse them first.
The girl watches her grandmother figure it out.
But, says Grandma, I don’t have a dry pair for you to wear. You’ll have to be okay with that.
Not wearing any underwear?
That’s right. Now Grandma waits for the girl to figure it out.
Okay, says the bride. But you can’t have my flower. She touches the red poppy on her dress.
I didn’t ask for your poppy, says grandmother.
Not my papa, says the bride. My flower.
Your flower is called a poppy. Poppy is the kind it is.
Well, you can’t have my poppy flower even if you ask nicely.
That’s fine.
My daddy gave it to me special.
That’s nice of him.
Grandma sets the underwear in the sink and turns on the faucet.
Back at the counter, the teenage boys are up to order. The oldest and tallest of the boys steps forward. Hey, he says.
Hey, says the blonde. She runs her fingers through her hair, combing it down the front of her left shoulder.
A man in line turns to his wife and says, That’s a violation of health code.
His wife links her arm through his. I think it’ll be okay. She’s just a kid.
She’s a kid with a food license and working with the public.
I don’t think she even realizes.
The man frowns.
His wife kisses his arm. What are you having? she says.
You’re trying to distract me.
She points at the menu. What about that Bear Claw combo? Chocolate, vanilla, marshmallows, and graham cracker crumbles. And fudge. Yum.
Seems like overkill, he says.
We could share it.
He kisses her head. She grins up at him.
Outside, the university girls are at the bistro table, sitting on each other’s laps because there’s only two chairs. The punks watch over their cones. The girls have that healthy, showered look about them. The punks have grown up watching girls like this, sunbathing under pine trees along the river, jogging sidewalks, directing campus traffic during the Kyiyo Pow Wow. The punks’ mothers took them as kids to that pow wow. Their mothers insisted. It’s part of Missoula, and you’re part of Missoula. Besides, it’s free.
And in a goddamned gymnasium, they’d say now, if their mothers bothered trying to take them.
I don’t see your names on the list of volunteers, their mothers would counter, if they had the energy to argue with their teenage anarchists. At least the boys are still in school and attending all-ages shows and indie movies instead of in their basements gaming and watching porn like their friends’ kids.
Go ask her out, says one punk to the punk with the denim jacket armored with ironic buttons.
You do it.
Go on.
Not like this.
Like what, then? C’mon.
The university girls stand and begin to amble away. At the intersection, one turns and waves.
Jesus! cries the punk with the purple Mohawk, and grabs his chest like he’s been shot. He leans against the electric pole.
Now all the girls look and laugh but keep walking.
Above, from an apartment windowsill, the cat’s eyes open at the sound then lower.
Inside, Grandma and the bride have rejoined the other children at the only large table. The little bride stands on the chair where Grandma sits, one arm draped across her shoulders. Grandma forgot to order, so they’re sharing the bride’s ice cream. The bride insists on holding the cone and now and then remembers to share with Grandma.
Is it fake or killed? says the little bride.
What’s that? says Grandma.
She points at the large moose head mounted over the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. The tips of its paddles nearly touch the ceiling.
Kilt? says the boy with the moose hat is looking where the little bride is.
Grandma looks at the moose’s eyes, nose, and mouth. Those are always the places that seem most indicative of former life.
It’s real, says the little boy. Not kilt. The moose on his hat nods in agreement.
Real means dead, says Pigtails.
Or alive, says the older boy, glancing at his little brother.
See, says the little boy who reaches up to cover his moose’s felt ears.
Alive or dead, says Pigtails, but fake is neither.
The oldest boy glances from his little brother to the wall moose. Could be fake, he says, and the little boy’s shoulders visibly relax, and he pets the nose of his hat.
No way, says Pigtails. That’s real.
You said that about the talking one at Silverwood.
What’s that? says Grandma.
Oh, says the older boy, dismissively, Silverwood’s an amusement park. Water rides and rollercoasters.
I know what Silverwood is. I was going there before your mother was born. I mean, what talking moose?
So, says the boy, there’s this fake saloon
They do serve beer and food there, says Pigtails.
Yeah, but it’s made to seem old timey—not like the bar where Dad works.
Pigtails says, I wish Dad worked at Silverwood. Then we could go anytime we wanted for free.
The older boy sighs then turns to Grandma. So, in this saloon there’s this stage in the table area. And up above it hangs this big mounted moose head, and on the other walls there’s other animal heads.
Like a deer, says Pigtails.
And a mountain goat, says the bride.
And buffalo! adds the littlest.
Or bison, says Pigtails.
The older boy shrugs. Bison or buffalo. I never remember either.
The little boy looks at his brother in admiration.
Anyway, says the older boy, every ten minutes or so the animals start talking to each other.
Not real talking, says Pigtails. More like puppets.
Yes, real talking, says the little boy who is surely dizzy from following the conversation from one sibling to the other.
Pigtails and the older boy look at each other.
Yeah, their mouths move in sync with whatever’s played over the speakers.
Sounds grotesque, says Grandma.
It’s supposed to be funny, says Pigtails.
Dad thought it was funny, says the older boy.
What did your mother think?
The little boy laughs as though to demonstrate.
The teenage boys file into the seating area with their ice cream. One boy points at the empty kiddie table and chairs in the corner.
No way, man, says one.
These are sturdy, says another. Old-school sturdy.
As one boy begins lowering to sit in one, another boy whisper-shouts Timber!
They laugh at their bigness. They look and feel like giants, all knees and torso. More than one of their mothers has called them wobbly fawns.
One finally slides his thighs beneath the table, but when he tries to sit straight, his knees lift the table off the floor.
Like a goddamned breakfast tray, says one.
All you need’s some flowers and a cup of coffee.
One boy holds the table’s edges and says, Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy.
His friend punches him in the shoulder.
They’re cracking up.
They’re gonna break the chairs! cries the little bride, pointing.
Hush, says Pigtails.
But they are! They’re too big for them. Like Goldilocks. She broke the chair!
You know that story? says Grandma. She’s been worried that kids these days aren’t learning the old stories.
I’m gonna tell on you! shouts the little bride. She starts shaking her pointing finger at them.
The boys glance up from their phones then back down.
The little bride raises her voice, And then they’ll never let you eat ice cream here—
Pigtails claps her hand across the bride’s mouth.
The little bride licks her sister’s hand.
Pigtails smears her hand across the bride’s cheek.
The bride screams the high-pitched cry of outdoor playgrounds.
The people in line look toward the sound.
The brunette rushes out of the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
The blonde leans so far over the counter her feet wave in the air, and the grandma can see her face from around the corner.
Pigtails is sliding down her chair until she can barely see over the table.
Inside voice, inside voice, says grandmother, patting the girl and offering apologetic looks to whoever meets her eye. Grandma assesses the kids’ ice cream and the likelihood of it dripping all over the car. She’d have them throw away what’s left if it hadn’t been so spendy.
The little bride rubs her cheek against her grandmother’s shoulder. Then licks their cone, nearly pushing the scoop off.
Careful now, says the grandmother, vaguely.
Assured that no little girl is in trouble, the ice cream shop returns to its bustle and thump.
My hands are sticky, and I hate it when she screams like that, says the moose in the little boy’s voice. He holds his hands for Grandma to wipe.
I can go louder than that, says the little bride.
Please don’t, says Grandma.
Definitely don’t, says Pigtails.
Unless you’re in real trouble, says the older boy. Like somebody’s hurting you. Then you scream all you want.
Pigtails nods. That’s when you scream your goddamned head off.
Grandma looks up.
That’s what Mama says.
Is that what she says?
The children nod their serious faces.
It’s true, says Grandma, slouching into her chair. Shove manners out the door when you’re in danger. Of course, lots of time people don’t know they’re in danger.
The little bride says sagely, That’s why we hafta wear life jackets at the river.
That’s not the danger they mean, says Pigtails.
What? says the little bride, looking across the older, wiser faces of her family.
Danger includes drowning, sure, says Grandma.
They mean rape, says Pigtails.
I don’t know that I mean that, says Grandma.
Or leaving your bones in the forest, says Pigtails.
Like a dog! says the little boy, giggling.
The older boy writes something in his notebook.
That’s a funny picture, says Grandma, pointing at the only picture in the room. It’s a framed picture of a black and white cow wearing large red sunglasses.
Why’s it wearing sunglasses, do you think? says Grandma.
It’s sunny out, says the little boy.
That’s a good guess, says Grandma.
You mean, there’s a right answer? says Pigtails.
Grandma turns to the little bride. What’s your guess?
The girl’s distracted, but Grandma wants to pull her further down the path of anything else. She can already hear her daughter asking how visiting the ice cream shop became a lecture series on the things we do to women’s bodies.
Because that cow thinks it’s fun to get ice cream, says the little bride.
Grandma smiles.
And because of where ice cream comes from, says Pigtails.
I bet they don’t even know where ice cream comes from, says the older boy matter-of-factly.
The store! shouts the boy in his moose hat and jumps with emphasis.
The older boy gives a knowing look.
The freezer! shouts the moose boy and prepares another jump, bending both knees deeply before he lifts off. The moose paddles flop, tipping the hat forward.
Cows, you dope, says Pigtails.
Cows make ice cream? says the little boy, wide eyed.  
That’s right, says Grandma.
Cow’s milk, says Pigtails.
Cows make milk? says the little boy. Even his moose seems shocked.
Everyone’s imagining what the little boy must be picturing. A kitchen of cows in chef hats, measuring ingredients into milk cartons? A row of cows at pottery wheels, sculpting old-fashioned milk bottles? Or maybe he’s imagining the bar where his Daddy works, but Daddy’s a bull cow with giant horns dispensing milk into a pint glass.
The older boy laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, and not one he usually makes. All of his siblings stop to admire him.
The little boy looks hard at his bodola ice cream. It that why it’s white? he says, hardly noticing it melting over his fingers.
Grandma cups her chin and takes a bite of the cone.
The little bride looks at the crumbs in her grandmother’s palm.
The framed picture of the sunglasses-wearing cow is slightly tilted, and Grandma notes that its glass needs a good cleaning. Why didn’t someone take care of that over the long winter? If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean. That’s what her father always said.
He’d owned a small neighborhood grocery when she was a kid, and all her siblings were expected to help after school, on weekends—and summers, once they were old enough. Stocking, checking expiration dates, hauling rotten produce to the dumpster, bagging and carrying groceries to customers’ cars.
Maybe she should ask where the ice-cream girls keep the window-cleaning caddy, and she’ll do it for them. Of course, people doing their chores is why they never do them and why her daughter lives in a constant state of dirty laundry and paper dinnerware.
What I don’t get, says the boy with the notebook, is why a missing woman gets a little piece of copy paper with words so small you have to read them up close while some dumb AI cow is blown up and framed.
Do you think it’s AI? says Grandma, looking again at the cow but not knowing what distinguishes an AI photo from a real one.
Pigtails groans and says please don’t start in all that again.
Start what? says Grandma. I suppose it’s a fun, silly picture either way.
Pigtails rolls her eyes. Him. He’s always droning on about the missing girl he’s in love with.
He’s gonna marry her, says the little bride, clasping her hands at her heart with reverent sincerity.
Too bad she’s dead, says Pigtails.
Who’s this? says Grandma. A girl from your school?
Can we please stop? says the older boy.
Sensing distress, the little boy yells Watch! and pulls his hat down so he’s all moose. He holds up his arms and waggles his fingers. Then peeks out to see if anyone’s laughing.
Pigtails leans in until her elbow’s touching Grandma’s. You see, she says, he goes in for older women.
Shut up, he says.
Of course, says Pigtails, she was too old for him when she went missing eight years ago, much less now. She’s the same age as Mom. But Mom doesn’t know her. She says lots of people in Missoula are her age.
Watch it, says the boy whose jaw is rippling under the skin, his eyes watering.
The little bride says, That’s right. We can love anybody we want. Richer or poorer or gay. Or old.
What even makes you think she’d like you back? Even if she wasn’t missing and you weren’t some dumb kid.
The bride says, I’m gonna be the flower girl at their wedding. Just like Missy got to be for her mom’s wedding. She got to carry a whole basket of flowers. Pink flowers and white flowers and blue flowers and—
Boo flowers? says the little boy. No such thing.
Is too, says little bride.
No, says the little boy. He pats Grandma’s knee. Tell her, he says.
Maybe in the tropics, says Grandma. I wouldn’t know.
Mom says you need to get out more now that Grandpa’s dead.
Is that what she says?
Grandma, says the older boy. Grandma recognizes the tone in his voice from long ago. When he was littler than his little brother is now. It was a birthday party, and her daughter had bought him that moose hat from the toy shop. It was too expensive, so Grandma had loaned her some cash to cover it. Then, at the party, he’d loved the hat and everyone clapped and took his picture. At some point, her daughter’s boyfriend took the hat, and the boy asked for it back, but the boyfriend would lower it near his hands then snatch it away, laughing. Until the boy looked up at her and said her name as a plea for help.
And she did, she did help him, didn’t she? Her daughter stood against the refrigerator, wavering in dedication, but she took it right out of that stupid man’s hands and set it plop on the fine hair of her grandson’s head. There has never been an age she would want to relive.
Now the boy’s older and has developed a glare to try to stop his tears.
For the first time she notices that he doesn’t have any ice cream.
Didn’t you order something? she says to him.
No, says Pigtails, because he spent all the time making out with the missing woman’s picture.
Okay, okay, says Grandma, holding up her hands. Let’s change the subject.
Gladly, says Pigtails. She has both elbows on the table and is flipping her cone toward her mouth by turning her wrists in an automatic way that reminds the grandmother of the old drinking birds in top hats that fell forward and back, as though sipping from a glass.
The boy wipes his eyes by pretending to look over his shoulder. His little brother is now at his side, touching the friendship bracelets on his older brother’s wrist.
It’s a new poster, says the boy with a notebook.
Pigtails looks up. How do you know it’s a new poster?
I’m obsessed, remember?
Pigtails changes tone and tactic. I mean, you pay attention. That’s all.
The last time we were here, he says to Grandma, it had a different expiration date. Also, you can tell by the paper. And there’s no ice cream drips on it.
Oh, says Pigtails.
Go look if you don’t believe me.
I believe you, says Pigtails.
What expiration date? says Grandma.
The date when it’s time to take down, he says. Like two weeks from when it got posted. Otherwise, there’d be so many nobody would bother looking. Dad does it at the bar.
We help sometimes, says Pigtails.
Well, says Grandmother, that doesn’t seem legal.
With the posters, he says. The arthritis makes it hard for him to do stuff like that. Sometimes, he’ll have us take down old posters or stamp new ones.
It’s a real library stamp, says Pigtails. From the old days. With a wooden handle and stamp pad and everything.
Makes sense, says Grandmother.
Well, sort of, explains the older boy. For most fliers about upcoming events. But they do it to the missing posters, too.
The thing of it is, says Pigtails, is that he thinks he’s gonna find her. Like he’s Sherlock Holmes or Encyclopedia Brown. Half the time he can’t find his own shoes.
You’re an old pair of shoes, he says to her.
Grandma says she thinks it’s noble for him to want to find her. She was proud when their mother went looking for the woman back when she first went missing. Not everyone did, you know.
She did?
Of course she did.
Did Dad?
I didn’t know your dad then.
Did you go, too?
With my feet the way they are, I’d have been more hindrance than help, she says. But you two stayed over with me while she did it.
Where was I? says the little bride.
Not born.
The little brother has climbed into his older brother’s lap and is resting a cheek on his chest, the moose hat askew.
The teenage boys are starting to stand up. They’re reaching over their heads, leaning side to side. They’re all cramped up from the kiddie furniture. Pigtails watches them. They are like giants.
As the boys file out, one of them hangs back and stops at the table. He says to the kids, It’s her aunt who does it. The missing woman you’re talking about. My mom’s friends with her aunt. Sometimes, Mom helps go around to the grocery, library, all the places they are, and puts up new ones. Every few months the woman goes out again with new posters.
Grandma shakes her head in condolence. It’s a terrible thing, she says.
The teenager nods.
His friends have paused near the front door, noticing that he isn’t with them.
Anyway, the teenager says. I heard you talking about the new poster and all that. Mom doesn’t know how the aunt does it, driving all over Missoula and the reservation. There’s fliers even far as Boise and Billings.
I’m sure she’d wrap the world in her niece’s picture if she could.
The teenager nods. Then he looks at the little bride and says he’s glad that he and his friend didn’t break the chairs.
She smiles up at him.
Anyway, he says again. Then sort of waves and starts to catch up with his friends.
The grandmother says, aloud but as much to herself, You just have to imagine her alive, I guess.
Then the bell jangles for the next row of incoming faces, little and big, young and old, scarred, tattooed, or in pressed slacks and a polo shirt—each taking a turn to hold the door for the next before stepping into the line—everyone looking forward to the best ice cream they’ve had in ages.
The boy tries to find her among them.
Do you see her? says Pigtails.
He waits for the door to drift shut, then shakes his head.
I’m gonna give her my poppy, says the little bride.
Grandma gestures that it’s time to go, and the older boy stands, lifting the small moose god into his arms. The bride holds out her arms for Pigtails to carry her, and Grandma wipes up the table of ice cream drips with a wad of napkins.
Then the bell jangles and they’re gone, back outside in the warm sun with everything else, real or kilt.

---

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