Brenna, Brat (Detroit ABCs)

Chapter 12

“H m.” My mother sniffed as she plated the cookies, but it wasn’t because they smelled so delicious. It was a sniff of displeasure, and she explained why. “I’m not very impressed with someone who sends a picture of her…hoo-ha.”

Her hoo-ha? Thank God that Nicola had handled sex-ed in our house. “Can we talk about something else?” I requested.

They both ignored me. “I would have been very angry if any of my daughters had shown off a private image like that,” she went on, but her anger would have been the least of our problems if we’d shared pictures of our hoo-has with boys. We wouldn’t have lived, because Nic would have killed us.

“I wouldn’t say that she sounds like a very nice girl. Not the one for you,” Mom recommended.

“I agree.” Dion nodded. “I’m not going to respond and say anything about that picture, Jackie. I’ll leave her on read.”

“That’s a good decision,” she approved, and he smiled.

“I’m a new man now,” he declared, and he might have been right. In the month and a half that he’d been living with my mother, he hadn’t been on his usual prowl for companionship—which was her more polite way of saying that he wasn’t screwing every woman who walked by. “Can I have a cookie?”

“You may, if you say the magic word,” my mom told him.

In this case, the magic word didn’t have anything to do with Beckett’s phrases about spending loads of money or threatening landlords. “Please?” Dion said, and she nodded.

“One for each of you,” she told us. My former coworker eagerly reached for his. He had texted and told me to come over, saying that he had something important to talk about. No, he refused to write it—I had to come. So here I was, eating cookies as Mom gave him manners lessons? Yes, they were chocolate chip, and yes, he needed the instruction, but…

“Would you like some milk?” she asked.

“Yes, please!” He sat up straight and nodded, and this was just too weird.

“Dion, what’s going on?” I asked as my mother got him his drink. “Why did you need to talk to me so badly and why couldn’t you just text me?”

But he shook his head and waited until we were alone, and his landlord/my parent/his new bestie had headed to her meditation room, the former home office. There were several loud thumping sounds and then what sounded like a crash, and I wondered what that noise had to do with meditation.

He paid no attention. “Alecta’s gone,” he announced to me, and then asked, “Do you think Mom would care if I had another cookie?”

“She’s not your mom,” I reminded him, “and I already knew that about Alecta.”

“What?You knew?”

I nodded. “She called me from the airport on her way to Laos.”

“Laos? That’s where she is?” he asked, and put down his second cookie as he leaned forward, staring intently. “What else do you know about this?”

“She wanted me to go over to her mother’s house to say goodbye, because she told me that she wasn’t coming back. Ever. I’m surprised that you’re interested,” I mentioned.

“My real mom, you know, she wanted to hear…” he said vaguely, but then he narrowed his eyes. “Why did Aunt Alecta ask you to speak for her?”

“She said that she’d tried to get in touch with you, but you weren’t answering, and neither was your mother. I have to think that I’m the only reasonably responsible person she knows. She said that she couldn’t call or text, just like you did today. Is this some kind of familial failing?”

He ignored that. “Did Alecta say why she couldn’t use her damn phone to talk to Grandma Shyril?”

Shyril, aka Chic Cathay. “She told me that she didn’t know if Chic had a phone.”

“Of course she knows that! Grandma Shyril has a cell phone and also an old one in her house that hangs on the wall,” he said, snorting. “How else could Alecta and my mom bother her all the time to ask for money?”

To me, it hadn’t appeared that Chic Cathay had much of that. Alecta had definitely lied to me before in order to make herself sound more impressive, but why would she have lied about her mother’s phone situation?

“I don’t know,” Dion responded when I asked exactly that question. “What else? What else were you supposed to say in your message?”

There wasn’t much more, which I conveyed. “She wanted me to tell Chic that she loved her, and that things were fine. Something like that. Alecta always does this kind of stuff,” I reminded him. “It’s her typical pattern of running away from responsibilities, like how she always disappeared right before Christmas so she wouldn’t have to worry about bonuses for us or even going out for cocktails. She’s probably thinking that she’ll get in trouble with the insurance company or the arson investigators because she let her friend keep his floor refinishing supplies in a huge, flammable pile right in the main room of the gallery. Or maybe she’s concerned because it really was one of her customers who threw the firebomb.” That was the story that I’d been pushing out to anyone who asked, especially my family.

“Yeah, it could be…” he responded, vague again and now biting his lip. “What did Grandma Shyril say back to you?”

I told him about Chic Cathay’s response to her daughter’s message and departure. “Why does it matter?” I asked, and he said that it didn’t, he was just curious. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so involved in what your family is doing,” I advised, which really was ironic coming from me. “Maybe now is a good time for you to get involved in new things. I have a different job, and you should get one, too. Because you still owe rent here.”

We both turned our heads at the sound of a much louder crash in the meditation room. “What is she doing?” I asked. “Is she redecorating in there again?”

Dion didn’t seem to know and Mom refused to answer when we knocked on the door. The whole visit had been useless, except that I’d promised my siblings that since I was the one responsible for introducing him into the household, I would also be responsible for monitoring the situation. The fact that they were adults and shouldn’t have needed monitoring appeared to have escaped my family’s notice, but I was willing to show up if it got everyone off my back. I didn’t really mind saying hello—and as a bonus, there were cookies. The kitchen had a lot more groceries in general and my mother appeared very happy to have my weird former coworker around. He seemed happy, too, and he didn’t look quite so skinny anymore. They had been doing yoga together and he was, I could admit, much improved when he wasn’t shirking work or whining.

Anyway, that had been a useless errand and I had a lot of other stuff to do. It was my day off from my new job at the hospital where Nicola also worked. I didn’t mind it much, and the people there were much better organized than at the gallery. But I had so many projects to take care of, because this weekend—

Holy Mary. I’d thought that my phone would have become less busy now that the wedding was over and JuJu and Beckett were back from their honeymoon, but that simply wasn’t the case. “I already read what you wrote in the group text about how Esme said ‘dodo’ and somehow you’re sure that it means ‘Sophie,’” I answered my sister’s call. “I already congratulated you and her, ok?”

“She’s done it three more times and it’s so cute!” my sister said and then burped in my ear. “Sorry, excuse me. Pregnancy is affecting my stomach and I have such indigestion.”

“I have an utter lack of interest in your gastric issues,” I informed her. “Why are you calling? Again?”

I heard her try to smother another disgusting noise emanating from her gullet. “I just talked to Dad,” she said. “Mom is up to something.”

I thought of the crashing noises in the meditation room. “What is that supposed to mean? More of the same?”

I already knew how our mother had been dragging her feet and refusing to settle on anything related to the pending divorce. She had been approaching everything like it was a battle, like she had to strategize and then win no matter how insignificant the issues seemed to us. That was a big reason why she needed Dion’s rent. The lawyer bills were getting crazy, and Dad (through Sophie) had been trying to get her to back off and calm down because they were both wasting so much money. Like, she couldn’t have really cared about the division of the Christmas decorations, Soph had argued. Was it worth another billable hour, or three, or four? More?

Yes, according to our mom. Yes, it was worth anything, a million of those hours no matter what her attorney charged for them (it was a lot). “You kids made those ornaments with your tiny, sweet hands,” she’d said back to my sister. “I’m not going to pass over boxes of precious memories without a fight!”

So Dad had given up on dividing the decorations, but that was just one of the many, many problems that she was refusing to resolve amicably. “What’s happening now?” I asked, and that was the problem. Sophie wasn’t sure, but she was concerned.

“Apparently, she asked him to come over to talk about things face-to-face, without the lawyers.”

“That’s good,” I said. Nobody could bill for that time, then.

No, it wasn’t, it was suspicious. “You know how he falls for all her stupid ruses,” my sister told me.

“Why are you so involved in this? Stop talking to Dad and stay out of it. Worry about how you’re alienating people by belching into their ears and telling boring baby stories.”

“Brat!” She hung up, but I was mostly right. She shouldn’t have installed herself as our father’s confidante, and she should have only texted or emailed until she could contain her excess stomach gas. I didn’t really mind hearing about Esme, though, or seeing pictures of her in the clothes I made.

When I was in my studio and reviewing my latest project, I told myself that I was also right that personal communication between Mom and Dad was better. Campbell and his family were a prime example of how going through intermediaries didn’t work at all; their lawyers were talking but they still weren’t to each other, and it wore on him. The case against his dad was dragging slowly on toward a trial, with no end in sight. Three of the other executives from the Ghregg Bates Financial Group had been indicted and so had two partners and several employees at a major accounting firm that had aided and abetted in the fraud. I could see how that wore on Campbell too, as did his lack of a job. Everything was.

That was why, when he’d suggested going away this weekend, I’d gladly said yes. “We have a house up north and it’s still ok for us to use it,” he’d mentioned. “It’s right on Lake Michigan and it’s nice.”

I bet that it was.

“Do you want to drive up with me? I feel like I could stand to get away,” he’d continued, and I’d said yes. I pictured the two of us walking on the beach as the clear, cold water washed onto the shore. Maybe we’d go skinny dipping, but only if it got sufficiently dark, not utterly black but not enough light to show anything, and only if there weren’t too many bugs.

Maybe we’d cuddle like we’d done after the wedding. I’d woken up early that morning and I’d had my head on his chest; both his arms and one leg had been wrapped around me, like I was in a Campbell cocoon. It had been amazing.

Then I’d thought of how I must have looked after the very late night, after all the drinks, and after having done such a halfway job of removing my makeup. He would have opened his eyes and wanted to puke—not from a hangover, but as he was confronted with the sight of the woman he’d spent the night with, even if it had been in a platonic way. So I’d eased myself out of his embrace and went quietly into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

That was when I’d run into Nicola, Jude, and their daughter. My big sister’s mouth had formed a perfect “O” and so did her eyes, just how mine had looked when she’d diagnosed me with shock. Jude had grinned before taking her arm and escorting his family down the stairs. No one at the breakfast table, where many of us had assembled later that morning, had believed me when I’d told them that nothing had happened.

“Why not? You must be lying,” Sophie had stated, and her husband Danny had reminded her that she wasn’t an investigator anymore.

“She doesn’t have to share her sex life with you,” he’d said, but he’d also played with her hair and smiled, so she’d taken it much better than most of the other corrections she’d received in her life. In my opinion, she should have gotten more of those. Then Campbell had arrived in the breakfast room and the discussion of me having sex with him had, thankfully, ended,

I hadn’t told any of them the real reason that nothing had happened that night, because I was too embarrassed to admit that Campbell didn’t want me. But despite Danny’s admonition, it was still a huge topic among my sisters (Patrick was staying out of it). Addie had invited herself over today, in fact, to preview the wardrobe I’d planned to bring up north with me, and probably to bring it up again.

“Remember what Mom always used to say about keeping a relationship spicy,” she’d written, and I’d said that it hadn’t worked for Mom and I…I stopped trying to argue that she couldn’t come, because she had gotten Campbell’s address directly from him and asked if it was all right if she stopped by to see me and my workroom. Addie was nice, but she wasn’t anyone’s pushover, either.

“Hello,” she called now, and another voice echoed it. I walked to the bottom of the stairs and saw two of my sisters descending. “Wow, his house is gorgeous!”

I silently pointed at the woman accompanying her.

“Yes, I brought Grace with me,” she confirmed.

“Why?”

“I don’t have a place to stay,” my little sister responded, and I shook my head and looked at Addie.

“Isn’t having one baby going to be enough for you?” I asked her.

“What does Campbell have to eat here?” Grace wondered, and I shook my head again.

“You stay out of his refrigerator!”

They were very interested in admiring the furniture he had built for me and then examining the beach cover-up, two dresses, and three tops that I’d been quickly sewing for the trip. “So cute,” Addie cooed. “I love this one. It’s a great color for you.”

It was, which was why I’d chosen the fabric.

“What bathing suit are you taking?” Grace asked, and she knew exactly what I owned because she was our sneakiest sister and had ended up wearing all my things, at least once. “The turquoise bikini?”

“Yes,” I said, and winced when I thought of myself in it.

“What about night stuff?” Addie continued briskly.

“You mean like specialized goggles to see in the dark?”

“I meant something…” She looked at the little sleep shorts I’d made. “Something sexy.”

“Why don’t you just sleep naked?” Grace suggested. “Men really like that.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I snapped, and she nodded complacently. She always had guys after her. They were beguiled by her looks and her lunacy.

“Seriously,” Addie said, lowering her voice. She led me away from the garment rack where Grace was still looking at the clothes. If she tried to walk away with anything—

“Seriously, Brenna,” my big sister repeated. “Why aren’t you interested in Campbell? Is there something wrong?”

I looked at her and felt myself get hot, like a Brenna ghost pepper. “I don’t want to talk about it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong.”

She was about to speak again, but Grace did instead. “All these clothes are exactly like you,” she announced. “They’re perfect for you.”

“Well, thanks,” I said, but my guard was up. Her words had been nice, but I also felt as if there was something in those statements that hadn’t been a compliment.

“I mean, everything you design is for you,” she said. “Exactly for you.”

“Yes, I sew what I like,” I snapped back, and Addie tugged my arm.

“I want to talk about this issue with Campbell,” she said quietly, but I certainly wasn’t going to share my problems in front of Grace. Instead, we discussed packing and where our youngest sister was going to move (which I said had to happen immediately). Then Addie brought up Sophie’s concerns about Dad.

“What’s Mom up to?” she wondered, and Grace answered.

“She wants to get back together with him. Of course,” our little sister stated. “She’s going to try make it happen. Forcing all the arguments between the lawyers hasn’t worked, so she’ll do something else.”

We looked at her. “I had guessed that Mom kept fighting over everything because she wanted to stay tied to him,” Addie said slowly. “It’s acrimonious, but it’s something.”

“What is she going to do next?” I asked Grace, but she only shrugged.

“I’m not a mind reader,” she told me, and I told her to put down the dress, that it was mine and she was not removing it from this workroom.

I managed to avoid Nicola for the rest of the week, because I was sure that Addie had told on me to her, and that she would also want to try and discuss the “issue” between me and Campbell. I ignored Sophie, too, because I didn’t want to talk anymore about Dad and Mom’s actual issues.

As it turned out, ignoring the problems, both real and imagined, was a mistake.

We were packing Campbell’s car to drive up north when things started to go bad. Previously, I had been smiling and whistling. Seriously, I’d been whistling as I carried my bag from my car to put in his trunk. The service center at the dealership had, after an extended period, fixed his poor vehicle so that it was almost back to normal, with just a slight odor of weed to remind us that it had been stolen and in the hands of criminals for a while.

“It reminds me of my dorm in college,” Campbell had reminisced when I’d gone with him to pick it up. “Not that I, personally, ever did anything like smoking marijuana. It’s illegal in that state.” He’d smiled at me at the time and he was doing it again now, as he put a cooler into the back seat. It was as if a burden was lifting away as our departure neared and he was getting the chance to escape, at least for a little while. I grinned at him, ridiculously happy that we were going away together. It was a sign of something, wasn’t it? You didn’t want to travel with someone unless she really meant something to you. It was how you might travel with a good friend—that was all I meant.

I was so happy to see him relaxed, and it was a beautiful summer day that promised to bring a beautiful summer weekend. Yes, I was concerned about wearing my bikini, but things couldn’t have been much better.

And then, unfortunately, they did start to turn. “Ugh,” I sighed as my phone suddenly overheated with texts. “Something’s going on at my mom’s house. She and Dion are both having fits.”

“You better come! Now!” he had written, and she told me that it was just so inconvenient, and I had been the one who suggested that she take in a boarder. According to her, it was my responsibility to fix this. Immediately.

“I don’t understand what’s going on because neither of them are coherent,” I said, “but they’re both repeating that they need me to go there. They’re writing that a lot. My mom’s house isn’t on our way…”

Campbell shook his head. “It’s not too far. We’ll swing by and then get right on the Southfield Freeway. It won’t take too long and it’s not a problem.”

I sat in the passenger seat wondering why he was so easygoing, and deciding that it was a lucky thing for me since there was almost always something happening with my family that wasn’t going easily. It was nice that he could roll with things, and there was more to roll with when we arrived at my former home. Dion was on the front lawn with a bag when we turned into the driveway and Campbell parked next to my dad’s car.

My dad’s car?

“Hey,” Dion said as he opened the newly replaced back door. He tossed his bag next to the cooler and slid into the seat. “What do you have in there? Anything good? I could use a beer.”

We both turned around to stare at him. “Dion, what are you doing?” I asked. “Why did you get in?”

“Didn’t you come here to pick me up? Didn’t you see what I wrote?”

“‘Now,’” I read aloud from my phone. “‘Yr mom says go now. Where are u. Brenna! Help!’” I looked at him. “How was I supposed to interpret that?”

“Just like I said! I need to get out of here because they don’t want a third,” he told me. “Let’s leave.”

“What?” I asked.

“Things are weird because Mom invited Dad over for a few days,” he said, speaking slowly. “Fuck, Brenna, hop on the brain train.”

“Are you speaking about my parents?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” he said, and messed with an air vent. “They need privacy. This is a nice car, bro,” he told Campbell.

“They need…” I couldn’t seem to continue, but Campbell stepped in.

“Are they spending the weekend together here?” he asked, and Dion nodded. “So you need somewhere to go, and you called Brenna?”

“Mom—I mean, Jackie and I talked about it, and it’s only fair,” my new brother responded. “Brenna was the one who insisted that I live here.”

“What?” I exploded. “I did both you and my mom a favor by introducing you and explaining how the situation could be mutually beneficial. I didn’t insist anything!”

“Why can’t you go to your actual mother’s house, or to a friend’s?” Campbell suggested, and that was when we discovered a few more problems. One was that Dion’s car was gone.

“It disappeared,” he said.

“From this neighborhood? That piece of shit?” Campbell asked, shaking his head.

“I got some weird calls, too,” Dion continued, and I bit my lip. “I don’t want to be here if I’m going to put Jackie in danger, and I don’t want to put someone else in the same position.”

He sounded remarkably mature and thoughtful, except…

“You didn’t feel the same way about putting me in danger, though?” I asked, and he shrugged.

“Jackie said that you were going up north, and I thought it would be good to get out of town. I’ve never been up there but I heard it’s nice. I get carsick,” he mentioned, “so I should probably sit in front.”

Campbell reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Brenna and I are going to discuss this,” he told the guy who was absolutely staying in the back seat. “Keep quiet while we do.”

The upshot was, Ghregg Bates’ house up north was big. There would be plenty of room for one extra guest, and Dion was probably right that he should get out of town if strange things were happening. After all, the firebombing at the gallery had been presaged with a bunch of weird phone calls, like he’d said had started up again.

“I don’t want to leave him here with your mom and dad,” Campbell concluded.

“Is my father really staying over for the weekend?” I asked him, as if he might have the answer. Had Sophie been right about Dad falling for our mother’s ruses?

Dion spoke up. “He really is. Mom thinks they might get back together.”

Holy Mary.

“This isn’t some romantic trip, right?” he asked the two of us in the front seat. “You guys aren’t having a getaway fuck weekend, right?”

“No,” Campbell answered immediately.

I started to shake my head vigorously, to make sure that everyone knew that I was also not, absolutely not, thinking about having sex with him. “Definitely not!” I confirmed.

“So what’s the problem? Did I already say that I need to be in the front seat?”

“Not happening,” Campbell responded, and he backed up the car.

I set some ground rules, mostly about whining, complaining, and getting in the way of others’ fun, and Dion agreed to them. He couldn’t stop himself from working the carsick angle for a while but when it got nowhere, he put his head back, and then he started to snore.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Campbell laughed softly. “I don’t mind him,” he told me. “He was funny when I went to the dinner.”

They had both attended the last family dinner that Mom had thrown; Dion had seated himself in my dad’s place at the table, actually, and Sophie had almost choked. He hadn’t known what he was doing, and he’d apologized when she sputtered out that…that…

“Our father used to sit there,” Addie had explained, and Nicola had given Sophie a look.

“It doesn’t matter,” Soph had told him, and she’d tried hard to behave as if she truly felt that way. After that incident, though, we had gotten along just fine. Dion had been charming and cool, which explained why all those women had fallen for him. Again, and again, and again.

“Do you think someone’s actually after him?” I asked. I didn’t want to worry about Dion, but I was.

“I think it’s a good idea for him to get away. I think it would also be a good idea for him to listen to us when we say to call the police. This is information that the arson investigators would want to have,” he answered. But Dion had refused to do that, saying that the cops hadn’t figured out anything yet, and why would he have trusted them?

I had more questions about what had happened—and might have been currently happening—at my mom’s house. “Do you think that my parents are getting back together right now?”

“Maybe they’re just…” Campbell glanced over at me. “I remember how you looked ill when you thought about my mother with her little boyfriend. I don’t want to make you carsick, but maybe your parents are just lonely in a physical way.”

“That was a very oblique reference to their sex life, so thank you,” I said. “Also, I don’t get carsick, and I don’t think that Dion does, either. I think he only wanted to sit in front.” I hesitated. “Sophie kept saying that my mom was up to something.”

“She said that your dad and mom were going to talk face to face, which you supported.”

Yes, but I didn’t need to hear how I had probably been wrong about that. “The best thing to do would be to forget about them and enjoy the weekend, as much as we can now that Dion is in the back seat.”

“I’m awake and I heard that,” he announced, and Campbell laughed. He only grinned when Dion also announced that we had to stop because he already had to use the bathroom, even though we had barely cleared the Oakland County line (he had forgotten to go before he left, he explained). We waited for him in the car at a gas station.

“I have some news about a job.”

“Oh?” I looked at Campbell, and he was playing with the change in his console.

“I’ll be lucky if anyone would even consider hiring me,” he said. “I don’t have a ton of expenses, but I can’t live off savings indefinitely. Especially if I’m going to have to give some or most of those savings back.”

“And? What’s the job?”

“It’s with one of Beckett’s friends, a lawyer for a wealth management firm. They work exclusively for a family that owns a chain of coffee houses where you can get your hair cut as you wait for your drink. They also have their own brand of pork rinds and pork rind-flavored coffee.”

“The Caffeine Barbers? I’ve heard of that,” I said. “I read that they’re expanding a lot but I thought that they only have their shops in the South.”

He nodded. “The job’s in Texas,” he explained. “I’m going to fly down next week to interview.”

“Oh,” I said again. This time, it was the same sound I made when one of my sisters (usually Juliet, but sometimes others) had socked me in the stomach. But I rallied. “That should make you feel a lot better. It will be a relief to make money and also to move away from Detroit.”

“I don’t have the job yet,” he cautioned, but I was sure he would get it. You only had to meet him to know that you’d want him. You’d want to hire him, I meant.

Dion didn’t take too long before he was back with a giant can of energy drink which meant that we’d be stopping at another bathroom again soon. The beverage perked him up a lot, and he started asking many questions about our destination. That was good, because I didn’t have much to say at the moment, myself.

Campbell talked about heading up north for the summer when he and his sister had been kids, something that had stopped fairly early for him. “It was the off-season, but I was still doing camps, training, and summer league teams. We visited during the winter because my dad owns a box at Woodsmen Stadium and we went to a few of their games. Well, he went to a lot of games, and I came along if I had time around my hockey schedule,” he corrected himself. “My sister used to go up all the time to party with her friends.” The words “not anymore” went unsaid.

“What’s your sister like?” Dion asked, and Campbell opened his phone and had me find some pictures. All her social media, all those carefully composed shots with their carefully contrived poses, had been deleted after her father’s indictment.

“Damn!” Dion yelled from the back seat when he laid eyes on the screen. “She’s smoking hot.”

“Yeah, and she’s my sister,” Campbell reminded him.

“I can still admire, can’t I? Damn,” he marveled again. “This is the one who tried to steal Sophie’s husband?”

“No, because Sophie and Danny weren’t together. He dumped Carrington when he realized that he still loved my sister, though,” I spoke up.

“No offense to Sophie, but—”

I was sure that he was going to say something offensive, so I told him to shut it.

“Too bad I’ll never meet her.” He flicked to more pictures. “Who’s this girl in an office?”

“Who?” Campbell asked back. “Oh, you mean a woman with dark hair, glasses, tall?”

“Beautiful,” Dion added. “A rack like—”

“That’s my former assistant,” Campbell interrupted. “Those are all the people in our old department at our holiday party. Give me back my phone.”

“I thought that you were a new man now,” I reminded Dion. “I thought you weren’t going to chase women like you used to. From those comments, it doesn’t sound like you’re any different at all.”

“They chased me,” he corrected. “And I am a new man.”

No, not really. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots.” I remembered my grandmother saying that, and it was probably true because she had been right about most things, especially about hand basting when setting in sleeves. I glanced back at Dion, who was now looking at his own phone, and then over at the driver of this car. I was sure that there were many, many beautiful girls in Texas, probably millions of them. I remembered what I’d figured out about Campbell’s average time in relationships—had it been a month and a half per girlfriend?

Texas was a big state. He could go for years, meeting all those available women. Since he wasn’t speaking to his family and was avoiding his friends, he’d have no reason to come home to Michigan.

He would be gone for good. Forever.