The Curb
Kate Terry
We finally got a 7/11 in our town about five years ago. A lot of the older folks were against it. Some thought it would rival other businesses, though I always thought that was a dumb argument. Others just wanted our town to stay small and quaint, arguing that we didn’t need a store like 7/11. Ever since it had opened, Jess and I found ourselves sitting outside on the curb, drinking cherry slushies and talking about her. It became our ritual.
We had lived on the same street as the girl who went missing, and Jess and I had often played with her after we came back from church. At that time, she wasn’t just known as “the missing Mormon girl,” she was just “Lauren.” We didn’t really want to play with her, but our parents made us, telling us that “Jesus included everyone.” I always said Jesus definitely wouldn’t have hung out with her and Dad used to slap the back of my head. Both of our parents were always a bit more inclusive than the rest; mine even invited Lauren’s family over for dinner once, the keyword being once. So it continued every summer: I would get Jess’, and from her house, we walked to Lauren’s house.
Our houses were a good distance from each other, giving Jess and me enough time to mentally prepare and complain. We used to brace ourselves when we saw that overgrown lawn with the pink plastic flamingos sticking up out of the ground. Jess used to compare them to bloody heads on sticks that a medieval king might put in front of his castle, warning any future invaders. I always thought that was disgusting. Lauren’s house was a run-down white structure. It was smaller than mine, the paint had faded and there was a large hole in her porch step that we had to jump over to avoid. The bushes had Christmas lights on all year, the bright rainbow kind, and wood crosses were nailed all over the front side of the house.
Sometimes we would get to the house and find Lauren’s father nailing the crosses in. He never talked to us; he just stared, and his eyes were two different colors. One was a dark brown, almost black. The other was a pearly white; he was blind in that eye. I always felt like his blind eye was watching us when we left with Lauren. I could feel it burning into my back. I could feel my neck hairs standing up. We would knock on the white swing door. We could hear Lauren before we saw her.
She would yell to her parents that she was leaving and run to the door, opening it swiftly. The door couldn’t handle that abuse and let out a loud whine as she opened it. She was albino, which was something me and Jess had never seen before, and her long hair ran down to her hips. I touched it once. It felt like straw. She often wore the same faded jean shorts and a yellow T-shirt.
I used to think she didn’t know how to be a girl. All the girls I knew had piles and piles of clothes, and my sister and Jess were always up to date on the latest fashions. Lauren said she wasn’t allowed to read magazines. She said that with her smile her peculiar Lauren smile, which was too big for her face and showed off her crooked teeth. Jess always pointed out that she never knew when to not smile. She would say weird things like, “Father says I’m Jesus reborn” and “I’ll make sure you guys get big mansions with pools when you die” with that same wide smile. Jess would always scoff. She constantly tried to poke holes in Lauren’s arguments, but Lauren would just smile.
Jess was the opposite of Lauren in every way. Tan skin and red hair. Her mother sold makeup door to door, so Jess would steal whatever didn’t sell. One day, she was very excited to show off the blue eyeshadow she had smeared haphazardly on her eyelids. Lauren called her a whore and Jess made her eat dirt. It wasn’t always like that. Jess tried to be nice to Lauren when they first met. She offered to lend Lauren her magazines when Lauren said she didn’t have any. She refused, saying vanity was for Satan worshipers. Jess tried again a couple of weeks later, trying to include her in a Dungeons and Dragons game.
This was when the game first came out, and I could tell Jess was excited about it, even though I didn’t understand a thing. Lauren refused, then took her hand and assured her that she would pray for her. Jess stopped being nice to Lauren after that.
“I don’t understand how she can be so judgy. She doesn’t even go to our church,” Jess would often say on the walk home after Lauren had said something that especially bugged her. Thinking back to it now, after her disappearance, we didn’t know if Lauren was even Mormon. Her parents were never social, and they never went to any church barbecues or Christmas parties. The church events were in a sense the town events. It was a time for everyone in town to get together and celebrate, or for many to get together and gossip.
And if you weren’t attending the events, you better believe the gossip would be about you. Since her family didn’t attend church at all, she and her family were just labeled as Mormon by everyone else; it was easier than actually asking. Lauren’s family didn’t talk to anyone else; the only time her father would come into town was to get groceries. We never saw Lauren’s mother or the little brother she claimed to have. They never left the house. Lauren didn’t even go to school with us. This was before the elementary school and the high school were built, so we were taught in the church. Jess and I were always pretty thankful for that because it meant a break from her and her religious judgments. Nobody in our town liked that family except for my family and Jess’s family who wanted to give them a chance.
When Lauren went missing, nobody cared. They assumed she had run away, unable to handle being part of such a controlling family. Others made up darker stories, claiming that her family had killed her as some freaky cult ritual. The fact that her parents skipped town after the police stopped their search did not help to silence those rumors. Jess was hit hard when Lauren went missing. She did all she could to help the cops; she put up missing person posters and organized search parties. She put so many posters up that some are still around to this day, faded to the point that even if someone did pay them any mind they wouldn’t even be able to read any of it. The only thing that remained was the wide smile on Lauren’s face.
Lauren stays in our minds like a parasite, a fat leech. Jess and I go over the case again and again every Friday. This Friday was no different, as we sat on the curb with cherry slushies in hand. We try to ignore the smokers and the kids coming in and out of the store, holding bags of candy and chips. The air is hot and humid. I feel the condensation drip from my cup onto my shorts. I don’t even notice it as Jess talks, captivated by her retelling of the case. I’ve heard it a million times, but am drawn in anew by the way Jess’s voice shakes at certain parts and the way she waves her hands around as she talks. “They found her shoes. Her shirt. And they stopped searching the day after that.” Her voice gets louder, and as she continues, some of the smokers glance over at her. She doesn’t even see them.
Jess is full of energy, full of power, she doesn’t even look at most of the people in this town. She doesn’t even see them. “When we were out searching on–what day was that? The seventh? Alex, was it the seventh?” she asks, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Hm? Yeah.. yeah, the seventh,” I respond before taking a sip of my slushy. “Well, the dogs sniffed something. Even in the rain, they caught her scent, but they called off the search because the rain was getting worse.” She waves her hand around, nearly hitting me. “What would have happened if they let the dogs follow the scent. What if she was there?” I shake my head. “If they thought it was something of real importance, something that was crucial to the case, would they really just let it go?” Jess shoots me a glare, her eyebrow piercing glints under the streetlight. “Yes, of course, they would”.
She shakes her head. “When did they handle anything correctly? They gave up too soon.” We’ve had this conversation many times. “You trust these cops way too much,” she adds, as she stretches her arms. Her bracelets jingle as she moves. “Lauren was the first missing person in about…I think seventy years. They had no idea what they were doing,” she says as her eyes meet mine. I shake my head. “What if Lauren actually did run awa–” she cuts me off by hitting my arm. “Don’t say that!” she says harshly, loud enough for some people to stop and look at her once more. We are silent for a moment.
A part of me wonders if Jess didn’t want to consider that possibility because that would mean Lauren got out of this town before her.
I stand up. “You want a ride home? I gotta get going, I have church tomorrow.”
Jess stopped going to church after Lauren went missing. She argues that if there were a god he wouldn’t have let something like that happen to Lauren. I think she was looking for a reason not to go to church, and that was the answer that would get most people off her back. Jess reluctantly nods and we walk back to my dad’s old truck. As I drive her home, she looks out the window, her hair blowing in the wind.
“I hope Lauren did get away,” she finally says. “I hope she’s in some city, buying magazines and wearing blue eyeshadow.”
I only nod in response. I don’t know if I believe her or not.
Kate Terry is an English major and expects to graduate in May of 2026. She writes, “I grew up in Cranford where, if you went through the public school system, everyone seemed to know you and your family. Cranford was one of my main inspirations for the town I set ‘The Curb.’ I was also inspired by many Southern Gothic stories I have read. I am currently working on a book that is similar to ‘The Curb.’ I hope to have it done by the time I graduate.”
Kate wrote this story in a course taught by Alison Powell, who selected the piece for inclusion in the WHR.