Chapter 7 #2
By the time Asha and Boomer arrived at my house, I’d read ten more of Rose’s letters.
Each one was already open, and they were identical to the first: chatty and full of warmth, but without the answers I was searching for.
The more I read, the less everything made sense.
Because while I discovered who Nicoli was (Rose’s boyfriend from Italy) and why she was rambling on about Rapunzel (she worked as a character on Disney cruises), I was still no closer to understanding the important details, like her reason for leaving or why she wouldn’t come home.
“Felicity, you here?” Boomer called from the front hall. “It’s me and Asha!”
My voice cracked as I shouted back, “I-I’m in here!”
I glanced at my watch. Only half an hour had passed since my SOS, which was surprising. Boomer lived on the other side of town. There was no way he could pick up Asha and drive to my house in thirty minutes, even if she’d called him right after listening to my voice mail.
With a creak, the door swung open, and light from the hallway spilled into the room.
“How’d you guys get here so fast?” I asked without bothering to look up. It was hard taking my eyes off Rose’s letters. Part of me was afraid that if I did, they would disappear like she had.
“I was at Asha’s,” was all Boomer said.
That was enough to startle me. Asha and Boomer were good friends, but their relationship was the result of their connection to me.
It didn’t hurt my feelings that I wasn’t included in whatever they were doing today, especially considering I had my own plans, but I was confused.
The two never hung out alone, and trying to picture it was so…
strange. I turned to Asha for further explanation, but she jammed her thumbs into the belt loops of her shorts and looked at the carpet, the walls, anywhere but me.
Before I could ask exactly what was going on, Boomer cocked his head and squinted at me. “Why is your face so blotchy?”
Asha’s gaze snapped to me. “Felicity, were you crying? What’s wrong?” The sight of my tearstained cheeks must have been alarming. She knew how much I disliked crying. My mom cried enough for both of us, so I figured at least one of us needed to be strong.
The answer to her first question was obvious, so I only bothered with the second. “Look what I found,” I said, gesturing to the letters fanned out on the floor around me.
“Let me guess,” Boomer said, peering over Asha’s shoulder at the mess I’d made. “Your mom is writing an erotic novel and reading the manuscript traumatized—Ow! Son of a…”
“Could you not right now?” Asha snapped.
He grumbled a few choice words under his breath, rubbing his stomach where she’d jabbed him with her elbow, but Asha ignored him and crouched down at my side.
I didn’t say anything as she picked up the nearest letter to examine.
Her gaze slid over the first few words, but then cut down to the end to see who had sent it.
“Holy crap!” she gasped. “It’s from Rose.”
“What? Give it here.” Boomer snatched the page from her hands.
“They’re all from her,” I said. “Apparently she’s been writing to me since she left.”
Asha frowned. “And you’ve never seen these before now?”
I shook my head, and the lump in my throat bobbed as I swallowed back my lingering shock.
“Well, where the heck did they come from?” she asked.
“The letters were in there.” I pointed at the guitar case. “It was under my mom’s bed.”
My friends exchanged glances, and Boomer said, “So…she was hiding them from you?”
“No,” I fired back, hating that way my voice had risen. “That’s not possible. If Rose contacted us, my mom would’ve told me.”
There was a long pause. Asha thumbed her ear, and after a few more drawn-out seconds, she asked, “Are you sure?” It was obvious from her tone that she was skeptical, that she thought my mom was behind this.
But Asha was wrong. Wasn’t she?
She had to be.
I shook my head again, trying to dislodge the doubt that was creeping into my thoughts. “My mom would not hide something like this. You don’t understand what it was like for her when Rose left. First her husband, then her daughter. It was as if our whole family was leaving her one by one.”
“Okay,” Asha said, showing both her palms. “But how did the letters end up here?”
“I don’t know. There has to be some sort of explanation.”
“Like what? Magical letter-bearing elves?” Boomer said, and Asha elbowed him in the side for a second time.
I tugged my lip in thought. He has a point.
There didn’t seem to be a plausible answer for how the letters had ended up in my mom’s room other than the obvious one, but I refused to believe she had anything to do with it. That she’d been hiding my sister from me.
“Why don’t you ask her?” Asha suggested as I continued to wrestle with the mystery of it all.
Duh, Felicity.
I felt stupid for not thinking of that myself.
The only way to know for sure was to confront her about the letters, so I punched in a number I knew by heart and waited.
My mom was pretty good about answering her phone, even when she was at work, but today my call went straight to voice mail.
There didn’t seem to be a proper way to phrase my question in a message, so I sighed and hung up.
“No luck?” Asha asked.
Shaking my head, I said, “It doesn’t make sense. Even if my mom is lying to me, how could she intercept every letter Rose sent? I’m the one who collects the mail.”
“Look at the recipient address though.” Boomer pointed at the envelope. “It’s a PO box.”
He was right. All the envelopes had the same address printed in Rose’s loopy script, a box at our local post office.
Why would she send letters to a place where I’d never receive them?
I was about ready to throw my hands up at the absurdity of the situation, but as I stared down at the mess of paper spread out on the floor, it occurred to me there was another way to get my answers.
“The letters,” I said and shuffled through the pile. “Help me find the most recent one.”
We spent a minute searching through the mail.
“Here,” Asha said, holding up one of the thicker envelopes. “Sent a week ago.”
“From where?” I asked. There were so many different return addresses that I couldn’t be sure, but I could have sworn I saw one from California. The chance that it was her latest letter was slim to none, but…
“San Francisco,” she answered.
“Yes!” After gathering up the rest of the letters and shoving the guitar case back under the bed, I shot to my feet. “This is perfect. Rose might be right here in California. I’m going to go find her.”
“Um, okay…but how are you going to get there?” Asha asked as we exited my mom’s room and made our way back to mine.
I turned to Boomer. He was the only one of us who had a car, an ancient pickup with a muffler louder than he was.
“Sorry, Fel,” he said, his face dropping when he realized what I was thinking. “I wish I could drive you, but I don’t think my truck can make that kind of trip. We’d be on the side of the highway calling for a tow in three hours flat.”
Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. Older than Michael James, Boomer’s ride needed constant attention. He was always popping the hood and whispering words of encouragement as he fiddled with the engine when it wouldn’t start.
“You could take a bus,” Asha suggested.
“I suppose,” I said, flipping my light switch. “But how much do you think that will cost?”
“Twenty, maybe thirty bucks?”
More than I could afford, but there was no way around it. I had to find Rose.
“Okay, can you turn on my computer and pull up a schedule? Find out what time the next bus leaves while I pack a bag.”
There was a skeptical look on Boomer’s face as he leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. “Do you think your mom is going to let you take off like this?”
I pulled a small duffel out from under my bed and brushed a layer of dust off the top. I hadn’t used it since the move. “Never in a million years, which is why I’m not going to tell her.”
***
“Felicity, this is beyond stupid,” Asha said, putting a hand on her hip.
Boomer nodded. “She’s right, which says a lot because we never agree on anything.”
I sighed as I shoved my toiletry bag into the duffel and zipped it. “We already went over this. It’s really sweet you’re both worried about me, but I can’t let you guys waste so much money.”
The bus ticket turned out to be more than thirty dollars—it was double.
I cried a little on the inside when I pulled out my emergencies-only credit card to buy one.
What made the purchase more painful was that there were buses to San Francisco for as cheap as ten dollars, but apparently Friday trips sold out quickly, and all that was available was a fancy coach.
There were cheaper options tomorrow, but I needed to leave today.
I had to get back for my shift at the Electric Waffle on Sunday.
Or before my mom came home and realized I was gone.
The point was, I couldn’t let Asha and Boomer come with me, even though I wanted them to. Money-wise, they weren’t any better off than me. The thought of them dropping sixty dollars on what might be a wild-goose chase made my stomach tighten.
“Helping you is not a waste of money,” Asha argued.
And Boomer quickly added, “Besides, I’m not worried about spending a few bucks.
I’m worried about you.” He positioned himself in front of me, a looming mountain, and placed both his hands on my shoulders.
“What happens if you get to this address and Rose isn’t there anymore?
It will be night by the time you arrive.
Where will you stay? You’re not old enough to rent a hotel room, and you don’t know anybody who lives in the city.
You shouldn’t go alone. You haven’t thought this through. ”