Chapter 19
Mary Flintstone delivers no search results, which is shocking honestly.
Same for Mary Bullwinkle. Mary Garfield is at least plausible but still a dead end.
I’ve scoured social media profiles and online birth and death records.
Nothing. The cryptic clue is even more frustrating than knowing nothing at all.
The confirmation that she went on living like I didn’t exist .
.. Well, it’s more painful than I can allow myself to think about.
“I can help you look when we get to Chico,” Beau says. “And we have more addresses to check in Redding and La Pine.”
“Yeah, but she lived in those places before Fort Bragg.”
“Someone there may know her, may still be in contact with her.”
I throw my head back on the headrest. “I’ve checked all the names Pamela mentioned. Nothing. Are we going to create an algorithm for cartoon characters? Mary Pooh? Mary McDuck? Mary Jetson?”
Beau ignores me. “We know she’s a pastry chef. And got married and left Fort Bragg around nine years ago. We can search county records. Perhaps they got their marriage license there.” He taps his index finger on the top of the steering wheel, throwing a quick glance my way.
“Maybe.” After all the anticipation, indecision, and reticence, I feel ... I don’t know. Deflated, I guess. I touch my mom’s pendant, dragging it across the chain, back and forth.
My mother went on living. Baked croissants. Married a guy. Lived on the coast and took in sunsets. While I grew up without her—missing her, mourning her, honoring a version of her that doesn’t exist.
She’s never felt as dead to me as she has since I learned she’s alive.
When we reach Clear Lake, I notice a cover of smoke marring the bright summer day.
An orange, hazy horizon bleeds into an apocalyptic dome hovering above the landscape.
Traffic has been slow on the two-lane highway bordering the lake—it’s taken us double the time to make it this far.
We’re Californians. We know what this smoke means, and it always sparks anxiety.
In the distance, I note patches of charred earth where an earlier fire left its fingerprint.
It’s early July, the beginning of fire season in the drought-prone West.
“Shit.” Beau turns on the radio. Static comes over the airwaves before we find reception and a local news station.
We wait through traffic updates and a feel-good story about a dog saving her owner before the inevitable news of the fire takes over the broadcast. Beau listens while I scroll through my phone. But my maps won’t load.
According to the radio, we’re not in danger here, but the smoke is blowing out west. The fire is over a hundred miles away, closer to where we’re headed, so the route is closed ahead. “We’re not going to make our interview,” Beau sighs.
“I’ll call as soon as we regain service,” I say.
“I hate flaking on commitments.”
“It’s a natural disaster. I’m sure he won’t hold it against you.”
“Nevertheless.” He cranes his neck to the right and places his palm on the back of my seat to peer into our blind spot, brushing my bare shoulder. He swerves onto the shoulder and accelerates to pull off at the next exit. The momentum throws me back into the seat.
“You can’t say ‘nevertheless’ like an old English gentleman while driving like a maniac. Cognitive dissonance.”
He grumbles something under his breath that I can’t hear. “We’ll be stuck on the freeway for hours. We need to find a place to stay while we still can.”
Beau drives toward the town, parking in front of a strip of businesses.
Ash has fallen on parked cars, a downy white powder coating the scene like mist. I cover my mouth with my jean jacket to avoid inhaling.
Beau leads us toward a coffee shop, and the bell rings above the door as we walk in.
I order us lunch while Beau hops on the free Wi-Fi.
When I return to the table, he’s hunched over his laptop. “All right,” he says. “I found a cabin about ten miles from here. We can take back roads. We’ll be housebound, but safe.”
“The air quality is terrible,” Beau says.
The ashy sky has a hint of saffron on the horizon; it’s an ominous tableau.
I miss our postcard sunset from last night.
We snake through a short one-lane road, down an unpaved driveway, and pull in front of an A-frame cabin burrowed among the towering pines.
“This is adorable.” I glance around the dense forest as we exit the car, my shoes crunching on pine needles and brush.
The ash layer adds ten degrees to the already-roasting heat. Our reprieve from the inland hellscape was brief. Beau strides onto the low-slung porch and punches in a code before the door creaks open. I gather my bags and a few of the groceries we just picked up and follow him in.
“Ahh, look at this place!” I squeal. “It’s like that log cabin our parents rented when we went skiing in Big Bear. How old were we?”
“Ten, maybe eleven?” We learned to ski that week—sort of.
Our parents dropped us off at ski school while they enjoyed the slopes.
Beau never learned to make a pizza without getting the tips of his skis caught on each other.
His limbs were growing out of control by that point—they were a lot to manage.
I preferred to drink cocoa in the lodge to freezing my ass off on the chairlifts.
We both loved the cabin, though. While Beau and I built a snowman, our parents played cards and drank hot toddies.
This matchbox cabin is so similar, and it’s drenched in pine details: wide-plank floors, wood siding climbing to the steep peak, and a log banister that leads to a loft.
It’s a monochrome display of rustic charm with knotty lumber—there’s an antler chandelier hanging over a live-edge dining table and floor-to-ceiling windows that bring the forest inside.
Dust swirls in the air, suspended in an auburn sunbeam as the crimson sun barrels through the glass.
I dump the groceries on the counter and duck into the back. There’s one bedroom with a full bed draped in a vintage blue-and-white quilt, and a single bathroom with a stand-up shower.
Upstairs, there’s an open loft with a floral futon. I drop my bags. Beau gave me his bedroom at home—I’m not going to make him sleep on a miniature futon. It’s so hot up here. It’s too much to hope for air-conditioning, and to keep the smoky air out, we’ll be sealed in here like roasting chickens.
I hear Beau stomping around below. “Dibbs on the loft,” I say as I hang over the railing. “You’d bang your head on the ceiling up here.”
He doesn’t respond, so I bound back downstairs and unload the rest of the car before stacking the supplies on the dining table.
Beau went all survivalist at the store and filled his basket with bottled water, batteries, flashlights, paper maps, granola bars, canned foods, instant coffee, and beef jerky.
I was a bit more optimistic and bought real groceries: a nice cut of meat for dinner, fresh greens, an assortment of veggies, and freshly ground coffee, like a civilized human.
“I thought you weren’t worried,” I say as I inspect a device he pulled from his emergency kit in his trunk. I’ve seen one just like it used as a prop in apocalyptic movies.
“I’m not. Because I’m prepared.” He’s been sullen and pouty since our plans derailed. His ability to cope with detours and surprises is an emerging skill. His tantrums as a kid when plans would change were epic. I note now that they haven’t disappeared—they’ve evolved.
“What is this?” I hold up the device while he stacks canned goods in an empty cabinet.
“A weather radio. It’ll alert us if the fires get close or the air quality becomes too unhealthy.”
“That’s not worrisome at all. Hey, do you know what the Wi-Fi password is? I have some work I should probably do.”
“Umm ...” He grabs the welcome binder and flips through it before starting again from the beginning. “Well ... shit.”
“What?” I open the fridge door and slide in the eggs.
“There’s no Wi-Fi.”
I turn to gape at him. “No Wi-Fi? What about running water? Electricity? Indoor plumbing?”
He rolls his eyes.
I track back to the long list that Juniper sent this morning. I don’t know how much of it I can do on my phone using cell service. I check my cell. “Shit. Give me your phone.”
Beau does as he’s told, but the lock screen is on, so I wave it over his angry mug to trigger the face ID to bust it open.
“Beau,” I say. “There are zero bars. On either phone.”
He sighs. “Relax. We’ll be here for twelve hours.”
But can Juniper’s to-do list last that long? I guess it will have to. I pick up the stack of paper bags and look for the recycling, heading to the backyard to check if there’s an outdoor container. I throw open the back door, which leads to a small patio, and gasp. “Beau!” I call. “Beauregard!”
“So impatient,” he grumbles as he walks over.
“There’s a hot tub.” I step aside and show him my find.
“So?”
“I love hot tubs.” I tug on his arm. “A ten-foot well of steaming water. We can pretend we’re on vacation, not hunkered down here avoiding the depressing reality of climate change.”
“It’s 90 degrees and smoky outside. I’m not getting in a hot tub.”
“Please?”
“The air quality is in the unhealthy range,” he says.
I sigh but trudge upstairs to the loft to change. “I’ll take my chances,” I say.
I change into a white bikini and jog downstairs to look for a towel, opening the doors to a linen closet in the cramped hallway when Beau steps out of his bedroom and straight into me.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, stepping to the right as I shimmy to my left and collide with him again. I’m almost naked, and he’s changed into a thin cotton shirt and running shorts. His chest is a solid wall of heat against my skin. When he sighs, his breath is a warm gust across my forehead.
I release an uncomfortable laugh as he grumbles and steps to the right.
I shift, and our chests bump. We’re wedged beside the open cabinet and his bedroom door, locked in tight quarters in the sweltering space.
I look up to see sweat beading on his temple and the veins in his neck straining.
But his eyes rest firmly on the swell of my breasts.
And, oh . So this inconvenient attraction isn’t one-sided after all.
The awareness sends a thrill through my veins—but not dissimilar to the feeling I get during thrasher movies when the girl decides to check out the noise in the basement.
It’s terrifying. Because while my attraction to Beau is troublesome, reciprocity could be disastrous.
And it looks like Beau agrees. His brows are threaded so tight that he looks pained; whatever appreciation he has for my cleavage is against his will.
It’s safe to ogle Beau when he’s looking in the other direction.
But hot-professor Beau isn’t a novelty anymore; he’s my last tether to home, my oldest friend, and the one bit of stability in my mess of a life.
I’m just learning how to be his friend again, and I don’t want to screw it up with lust and lose him a second time.
I place my hand on his hip to move him. He freezes, his body taut as a bow, but there’s a moment when we sway toward each other.
I’m disoriented for one, two. But then I remember the conflict on his face.
I need to do what I couldn’t before—put our friendship first. I catch his gaze and wince.
He opens his mouth to say something but snaps it shut.
“Hold still. And I’ll go this way.” I steady him as I slip from our corner and toward the back door. I turn with my hand on the knob, spotting him resting against the wall, his focus trailing me before I retreat to safety on the patio.