32. Rhodes
32
Rhodes
H ave you heard anything?” I stretch all the kinks out of my neck. It doesn’t help.
Apparently, stress and sitting in those interconnected airport chairs for a couple of hours will undo all of your hard work at the gym. The metal and pleather combination laughs in the face of muscles.
The airline didn’t have any open seats on the earlier flight to Bozeman, so I waited around to board this one, which should be disembarking soon. Not fast enough if you ask me.
“Nothing,” Amber says on the other end of the call. “I tried calling the ranger station, too, but they haven’t heard of a Paige Turner or any emergencies involving her.”
Of course not, because that would be too easy.
I shake my head and rest it on the airplane seat behind me. “And the hotels?”
She sighs, and I know she already regrets telling me before she’s said a word. “Nothing there, either.”
“Fuck.”
“Excuse me, young man!” An older woman with white hair and a hefty-looking purse says. “Watch your language.”
“Busted,” the voice on the other side of me whispers out the corner of her mouth.
It’s the voice of someone who should not be here right now.
The voice I hear in my nightmares.
“Constance, I’m trying to find your sister right now. Would you please stop?”
She gestures at her spot on my other side, closest to the window. “I’m trying to find her, too. That’s why I’m here.”
Constance was probably the last person I expected to see at my gate before boarding, but after hearing from Amber what was going on, she just showed up without a carry-on or anything else but a black fanny pack the length of my foot. Maybe she’s worried like I am. Or maybe she just wants to vacation in Yellowstone. I don’t know yet.
I narrow my eyes at her, then turn to the older woman beside me and apologize profusely for my language before Constance makes me deranged, and I get kicked off this plane.
Lowering my voice, I say into my phone: “Keep trying, Amber. Call every place in Yellowstone if you have to, even if it’s a gas station. Ask Paige’s mom what the van’s license plate number is, and maybe they can put the word out at different stations around the park in case they spot her.”
“I already described the make and model of the van— ugly and outdated —but I’ll get the license plate.”
“Okay.” There’s nothing else we can do.
The plane will land late this afternoon, and the earliest I’d get to the park is a couple hours after that. But Yellowstone covers nearly an entire state, miles of land and too many corners. How am I supposed to know where she is?
An idea sparks. “Amber, I have to go.”
“Rhodes, be careful—”
I hang up without saying goodbye like all of the Turners do and scroll to my messages with Paige. The last photo she sent is of Cleo on a rock, but the background looks like it’s at a rest stop since small vault toilets stand in a linear pattern behind Cleo.
But there’s also a waterfall.
“Everyone knows you have to put your phone on airplane mode,” Constance says while flipping through the in-flight magazine. “You’re probably the only one using yours right now.”
She’s wearing all-black, her sharp bob cut hovering just beneath her chin makes me think she could actually slice me with the straight edge.
“We haven’t even pulled back from the jet bridge.” I open a search tab and type: Names of waterfalls in Yellowstone.
Hundreds of matches appear.
So that won’t work.
I almost swear out loud again but think better of it if only for the sake of my aching body and the older woman beside me possibly toting bricks in her bag.
“You’re not going to find her,” Constance states, pausing on a page about available movies. “She’s probably dead or in a ditch. Maybe stolen by a family of bears in the woods where she’ll meet a modern-day Tarzan who will sweep her off her feet, marry her, and put little wild man babies inside her.”
I stare at her, chin nearly touching my chest in awe.
She glances at me, barely turning her head. “What?”
“How could you say that?” I ask, dumbfounded. “Those are all of the worst-case scenarios.”
“Exactly.” She shrugs. “They’re all highly unlikely, but it feels better to get them off my chest. Do you have anything you want to add?”
I keep staring. “No. I don’t. And if I did, I’m not letting myself think on them long enough to put the thoughts into words.”
She shrugs again and continues reading. “Suit yourself.”
My head falls back to the headrest again while I’m caught adding Constance’s worst-case scenarios to my own list. Thinking I can somehow find Paige in Yellowstone is a laughable idea now that I’m on a plane to Montana. But I have to at least try. I’m going to drive myself crazy staying home and doing nothing while also not knowing what could be happening or what has happened.
So, here I am.
A helpless man.
No, not just that. I’m a helpless man in a middle seat.
The armrest isn’t an option since the older woman who yelled at me hogs it, so I lean to the other side. But Constance stabs me with her pointy elbow.
I’m already tired of fighting with her, so I concede quickly.
I roll my eyes, pulling my elbows into my sides while folding my hands. Thank God this flight is only an hour. I can sit uncomfortably for that long if it means finding Paige at the end of it.
But I don’t have that guarantee.
I start my breathing exercises, placing a hand to my stomach to feel it swell with air to ground me in the here and now. I can't control this . All I can do is trust and let go. So, I visualize what it will be like to hold Paige in my arms, to see her whole and well as we pull back from the gate and taxi toward the runway. The air above me whistles through the mostly closed vent while the flight attendant shares the details of the in-flight time and weather.
Meanwhile, I’m also forming a plan in my head.
A plan of what the hell I’m going to do in case she’s married to Tarzan.
WE LAND IN Bozeman with nothing more than my duffle bag and unrealistic positivity.
And Constance’s fanny pack filled to the brim with airline trail mix.
I didn’t schedule a rental car pickup, and all of them are booked. Apparently, I’m not the only one planning to visit Yellowstone. So, I had to eat the cost of a rideshare to West Yellowstone for both of us since Constance conveniently forgot everything else in her wallet except for her ID. Where Paige entered is the only thing I know for certain about her travel plans, so it had to be done. Unfortunately, once we arrived, our ride wouldn’t take us through the park on an aimless search for the woman I love—ridiculous if you ask me—so we’re currently walking on the side of the road.
In Yellowstone.
With Constance, who is about three breaths away from heat stroke. It’s nearing evening, but the sun hasn’t relented. Wearing all black during summertime was not the right move, but hell if I’ll tell her that. Instead, I let her drink all of my water while she munches on bag after bag of trail mix, complaining about how much she wants to murder the sun.
Every time a car passes or I hear a noise, I jump. I’m expecting a bear, a herd of bison, or an elk to take me out before I have a chance to find Paige. Bear spray or one of Machete Lady's knives would've helped. The ranger at the entrance couldn’t help us since they were swamped with a line of cars that backed all the way to the light in the small town of West Yellowstone.
So, I just need to find another park ranger who does have the time to help.
I wasn’t exactly sure of the rules here, but I threw out my thumb to hitchhike twenty minutes ago. I should have spent more time thinking this through. Hitchhiking our way through this enormous park isn’t going to get us far.
“This was a bad idea.”
I stop and peer at Constance who is sweating but also still scowling. “I didn’t hear you offer any other ideas.”
She stops, too. “I had one, but you didn’t like it.”
“Pretending to be a secret agent and telling the Uber driver that's classified to every question he asked convinced him not to keep driving us around. It had the opposite effect.”
She shrugs. “He doesn't need to know my trip is going. That's creepy.”
“You laid it on pretty thick,” I state, continuing to walk.
“Stating I have high-level clearance on every continent?” she asks.
“No, the other thing.” I can’t even say it.
I catch her smirk out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, you mean when I said how easy it is to plant hidden cameras?”
I cringe just hearing her voice it again. It was bad enough catching the very wide, very confused eyes of the driver in the rearview mirror before he kicked us out.
“ That was creepy,” I say, a saltiness brining my words.
“Oops,” is all she has to say between bites.
I can’t keep walking like this; it’s slowing us down. According to the map, the next ranger station isn’t too far, less than ten miles, I’m guessing. If we could just get a ride there, I can convince them to do something.
Hooking a thumb, I jut it out toward the road in hopes someone passing by will stop. A few continue on like they don’t see me, and I’m okay with that because I barely want to see me. But they have to, I need them to. I flip around and walk backward, hoping to awkwardly make eye contact and guilt someone into stopping. There’s no time for pride.
“Put your thumb higher.” Constance is still facing forward, elbows to her sides at a ninety-degree angle to accommodate her snacks, and doing nothing to help. “Just so you know,” she starts, and I brace for impact while also putting my thumb a little higher in case it helps. “What you’re doing for Paige…it’s kind of sweet.”
Kind of? It’s as much of a compliment as I’ll probably get. “Thanks.”
“Do you, like, love her or something?” she asks, gnashing a pretzel between her teeth with surprising force.
This isn’t how I saw this going. Telling Paige’s sister how I feel before I get a chance to tell Paige again, but I have nothing to hide. My actions have already been fairly obvious. “I do. A lot. For a long time now.”
Constance considers this while staring forward blankly. “I know.”
I scoff and shake my head as another car passes. “Then why’d you ask?”
“Because,” she begins, “you needed to say it out loud. And it's why I'm here.”
I swing my gaze to her. "And why is that?"
"So you'll go through with it," she says simply. "If you hadn't noticed, my sister is…in her head a lot. Sometimes, you need to chase her to remind her you aren't going anywhere."
What she says makes a lot of sense. Paige likes to run, but it's also because she's had to survive by jumping from one job to the next along with every boyfriends who have left her without a backward glance. But I don’t have time to respond because someone slows down and pulls to the shoulder.
I swat Constance on her shoulder, and she dramatically flails her body as though I’ve hit her. “Yes, sir,” she says under her breath with a laugh that is barely concealed.
“Please don’t ruin this,” I say with a whine since I can’t help it. “It’s the first and only car that has stopped.”
She stands to her full height and tucks the empty snack bag into her fanny pack. “Just trying to make this more interesting for you so when you finally do find her, it’s worth it.”
“It’ll be worth it regardless.”
We don’t have time to keep sniping back and forth since the woman in the passenger seat rolls down her window. “Where ya headed?”
A part of me wishes I would have been more particular about which cars I put my hand out for. This one looks like a Chevy Spark, but all of the identifiers, such as a hood ornament, are gone. It’s packed to the roof, and then there are more things strapped onto the top, albeit not very securely.
“We…” I hesitate, wondering if I should let Constance scare them off. Fuck it. “We need to get to the next ranger station. Should be just over ten miles. Do you have room for two?”
“We can take them there, right, Richard?” Her honey-sweet voice is as convincing as that blonde hair of hers.
A grunt is his only response, but she squeals, so I suppose that’s a yes .
“Hop on in next to little Timmy and Babi,” she says with a smile. “Oh, and Clementine. Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.”
The Golden Retriever currently sitting between the two children, who are somewhere between eight and ten years old, looks as if she’s being held against her will. The overactive eyebrows and shifting gaze scream beware , but we don’t have the luxury of waiting, so I gesture for Constance to get in first.
“Hold on.” She slams a flat palm to my chest. “I should do a sweep of the vehicle first.”
I glare at her. “It's fine.”
Little Timmy lets me have the window seat, which really isn’t that much better since my head still has to bend to fit inside. Clementine is sitting on his lap now with her front paws on mine, and Constance is sitting by the other window with Babi sandwiched between us.
Clementine looks up at me, mouth open and panting as a large glob of drool lands on my leg.
“I’m Frida,” the woman in front says, turning to look at us. “We’ll get you to where you need to be.”
Constance lowers her voice. “Do you have any dog treats?”
“Why, of course I do!” Frida eagerly whips out a bag of treats and hands one to Constance, who I’m assuming is going to give it to Clementine.
Instead, she surprises me and puts it in my mouth, patting my head. “Good husband.”
Frida shrieks with laughter. “You two are just the cutest!”
I spit the treat out, Clementine diving between my legs for it, and glare at Constance again, speaking through my tight lips. “What are you doing?”
She lowers her voice to a whisper, “Treating you like the Golden Retriever you are and making this believable.”
“How is this—”
Little Timmy pats my head, which he has to reach for. “Good boy.”
Constance’s smile is so broad it nearly reveals the teeth I've barely seen right as Frida turns to wink at us while her husband pulls back onto the two-lane road.
It doesn’t assure me in the slightest.