Chapter 7 The 101 Is Never Pretty #2
You don’t have to be a media expert to see why—to see how it increases their ratings to lean into true crime, people unable to look away from anything that plays into our collective fear and fascination with organized crime and drugs and sex. Our collective fear of bad men doing bad things.
“Is that all?”
I pull my eyes from the television and look over at the young cashier, who is tabulating our variety of potato chips and nuts and drinks, a six-pack of cold brew coffees. He rings in the total.
I nod and hand him two fifty-dollar bills.
“I need to use your restroom,” I say. “And that extra fifty is for you if I can use your phone for thirty seconds.”
He hands over his phone and I text another number that I know by heart. Charlie’s number.
Charlie, who I’m sure is worried about Bailey. Who, in the wake of losing his father, needs to know she is okay.
But, even from a random phone, it feels a little close to be reaching out to him.
At the moment, it all feels so close. Which is why, just in case someone is watching his phone, I’m careful.
I don’t say anything about Nicholas. I don’t ask how he is holding up—even though I know he is shattered too.
I keep the text simple. And I lie.
B and I are fine. heading to a friend’s place in Jackson Hole. Will call you from there…
Then I send another text—this time to Jules. The text I most need to send.
You interested in a vacation?
This is all I’m supposed to say, so she knows we’re headed to Santa Cruz. So she knows we’re headed to the boat.
As soon as the texts are marked delivered, I erase them from the young cashier’s phone history. Then I make sure the numbers don’t appear in his text history and hand his cell back to him.
He looks at me, confused. “You didn’t even call anyone,” he says.
“Is that your way of offering me a refund?” I ask.
In response, he pockets the fifty.
Then he points to the bathroom. “Don’t use the first stall,” he says. “It’s always a mistake.”
I drive.
I try Patty at exactly the ninety-minute mark, and she doesn’t pick up.
We are passing through Cambria, a small seaside village, beautiful forests on one side of the road, the ocean on the other.
Reception is somewhat spotty. So I click off and try her again.
When she doesn’t answer the second time, I try not to panic.
I keep my eyes on the road. I keep my eyes on the road and I keep my focus on Bailey, who sits in the passenger seat next to me, eating her snacks from the convenience store.
She is on her second cold brew coffee, a large bag of jalapeno potato chips.
She is downing the potato chips three at a time, trying to calm her nerves.
“What are you thinking about over there?” I ask her.
“We just passed a sign for San Francisco. Two hundred and fifty miles.” She pauses. “That’s not where we are headed, is it?”
I hear the rest of her question. San Francisco is close to Sausalito. San Francisco is too close to where she came from. Isn’t that another place the organization would think to look for us? Another place that is categorically unsafe?
I turn and look at her. I don’t want to scare her by saying the whole truth. Because even if a part of her knows it, it’s scarier to hear the words coming from me. That, at the moment, nowhere is safe.
“Bails, we’re not going home,” I say. “We’re not going near there.”
She nods, relieved. Then she gets quiet. She gets quiet before she asks what she asks next.
“How did he look?” she asks.
“Your dad?”
She nods. “I mean… did he look like himself?”
I shake my head, thinking of how to answer her about Owen—the buzz cut hair, the sleeve of tattoos, the shape of his nose.
All that wasn’t familiar. But his eyes—what was behind those eyes—staring back me, entirely familiar.
How do I answer most honestly? Owen looked exactly like himself. And also entirely different.
“It was all pretty quick…” I say.
She puts the potato chips down, wiping the grease on the side of her jeans.
“Can I tell you something crazy?” she says.
“Of course.”
“I keep thinking that Dad walked past me. I swear to you, I thought I saw him at the design center, you know? I turned and did a double take when I saw this guy. There was something about him. Like… the way he carried himself. It was like instinct, you know? How quickly I turned to see if it was him. I don’t know if I’m just making that up now.
I don’t know, but it’s like I felt him there, if that makes sense… ”
“It does.”
“But maybe it wasn’t him. I mean, I feel like I see him all the time. So that’s not new…” She pauses. “I just feel so upset about Grandpa, you know? Every time I think about him, I feel more upset.”
I feel that in my chest, a rising up of everything Bailey has endured. That she continues to endure: the disappearance of her father, now her grandfather taken from her too.
“Me too, Bails…”
“And I can only say this to you, but… I also feel a little relieved, if that makes any sense. I feel relieved that it’s not Dad. Because when I walked into Jake’s house and first saw your face…”
“You thought something happened to your father?”
“Yeah.”
I get that part also, probably better than anyone else could.
The devastation and the sadness at the loss of Nicholas cuts through me.
It cuts through me at the same time something else lives just beneath it.
A relief. Is it fair to call it relief? Because my greatest fear when I heard Grady’s voice was that he was going to tell me that something terrible had happened to Owen.
Owen who reappeared out of nowhere last night.
His text this morning, the flash drive still heavy in my pocket.
My first terrible fear was that someone had gotten to Owen. Shortly after Owen had gotten to me.
“You weren’t ready for that…” I say. “Neither of us was.”
“Yeah.”
She looks back toward the passenger-side window. And I can see her trying to process it. The death that had been hovering over us since Nicholas became unwell. The death we have been trying to ready ourselves for—as if you can ever ready yourself for that kind of leveling, for that kind of grief.
Bailey rolls down the window, letting in the air and the ocean and the noise of all the passing cars. It’s so loud that I almost don’t hear her. I almost don’t hear the question she doesn’t want to ask next.
“Do we run now? Like forever?”
I think of where we were twenty-four hours ago: before Owen showed up at the design center, before the loss of Nicholas. I’d spent the afternoon participating in the First Look exhibition—making reservations to take my favorite girl (and her new friend Shep) out to get her favorite dim sum.
I think of how twenty-four hours ago this would have been the last place either of us thought we’d be.
“I think if we are learning anything,” I say, “it’s that nothing is forever.”