Chapter 9
Beau and I have now spent three days interviewing morally bankrupt individuals—at their homes, an Applebee’s, a shoe repair shop, and a sad small-town zoo where the animals paced like, well, caged animals.
But it isn’t until we’re waiting in the deserted parking lot of the fairgrounds of a nowhere town that I wonder if this trip was a terrible mistake.
We’ve probably invited a killer, kidnapper, or other variety of psychopath to meet us at a destination of their choosing. And it smells like cow.
We’re far from civilization. The fairgrounds is the only attraction for miles—a pavilion, amphitheater, awnings, and collection of picnic tables in the middle of dry, dusty flatland on either side of a two-lane highway.
“Why here?” I ask.
“He works here,” Beau says.
“Hmm,” I say.
“What?”
I wince. “Just worried we might be meeting a killer carny in a deserted lot.”
“He doesn’t work for a carnival. He’s the manager of the fairgrounds. And isn’t that term disparaging?”
“Maybe.” I suppose I’ll apologize before he slits our throats. “But we are meeting questionable people who could be out to kill us.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re a man, six foot something, and have shoulders the width of a refrigerator. You don’t have to carry pepper spray while jogging or hold your keys between your fingers in dark parking lots.”
Beau leans against the side of his car and crosses his arms. “Sorry. You’re right.”
I startle. This is a first.
He continues, “I wouldn’t put you in danger. I’ve had each of the interviewees sign contracts, and I made it clear that my office knows where we’re meeting.”
“Your office?”
He shrugs. “My agent and my mom have my itinerary.”
Lani would send out a search party the instant Beau didn’t answer his phone.
That’s comforting, at least. But I worry we might die of heat stroke before the carny gets the chance to kill us.
I’m sweating out of more pores than I knew I had.
I’m going to die smelling of body odor and manure.
But this is important to Beau, so I ignore the eerie similarity to a common horror trope.
A few minutes later, a hot rod rolls into the gravel drive.
“There he is.” Beau slides into our car and nods to me to do the same. We follow the Corvette toward a yellow gate that’s been propped open.
“Do you have a weapon? Just in case?”
Beau growls at me—literally growls at me.
“Stay in the car.” He parks beside the Corvette under a canopy of solar panels.
“And go crazy with worry? Unh-uh. We live and die together, Beauregard.” I step out of the car. “Besides, we face better odds as a team.”
“That’s debatable,” he mutters.
Jeremiah Abernathy, it turns out, is not a murderer.
He is a wisp of a man—my height, thin and wiry, with tarnished shoulder-length gray hair and a handlebar mustache.
We follow him from the staff lot to the covered food court.
The place is empty but has footprints of vendor huts that probably peddle deep-fried Oreos during the fair season.
We settle across from him on a wooden picnic table.
Jeremiah apologizes for the location but chose it because he knew no one would be working today and we wouldn’t have an audience.
“It’s about my son,” he says. “I’ve lied to him his entire life.”
Beau is watching me; I feel his gaze on my profile as I type.
“There was this girl. I loved her as long as I can remember, even though she didn’t feel the same. Then she got into trouble in high school.”
Beau drags his focus from me when Jeremiah pauses—when it’s time to ask the follow-up questions. But Jeremiah offers more without prompting. He was the girl’s knight in shining armor when an (actual) carny knocked her up. Jeremiah married her and raised the child as his.
“I was happy for those first few years. I thought we all were. Until she left.”
Jeremiah stayed, and never told the boy he wasn’t his biological father.
“Sometimes, you do the right thing for the wrong reason—wind up doing some good but hurt everyone anyway.”
He shows us a photo of his family. His son towers over him, with one strong arm wrapped around Jeremiah’s shoulder and a pretty brunette tucked into his other side. Three boys—all under ten—stand in front. The youngest has his hand in Jeremiah’s, looking up at his grandfather with a toothless grin.
“They’re my family. I’ll never see them any other way. But ... I’m not sure they’ll see it that way if they ever find out the truth.”
He exhales a long, shaky breath. I suspect he’s a smoker—or was—the rattle in his chest is a telltale sign. “Whew. That’s a lot to admit right there. I was married again for twenty years. Never even told my wife. She passed last year.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Abernathy,” Beau says.
He nods and wipes a palm down his face.
“How do you think the lie impacted you—or your son—over the years?” Beau asks.
“You lie long enough, you start to believe it yourself.” Jeremiah looks from Beau to me.
“But now, your generation is obsessed with those genetic testing things. My grandmother had some Native American blood—or so we were told. My oldest grandson is begging us all to be tested. Wants to know how much. What tribe ... that sort of thing.” Jeremiah picks at his cuticles.
“I guess lies, no matter how noble, end up coming back to bite you in the ass.”
Back in the car, Beau lets me be DJ. I choose Taylor Swift, but one of her mellow folk albums, so Beau can’t protest. I mean, he can.
He is Beau, after all. But he’s been quiet, casting surreptitious glances my way for the last hour.
Our next interview isn’t until tomorrow, and we’re finally escaping the inland heat to meet with Anna Thorne, who lives in Santa Barbara in a posh estate along the coast. I expected more of the liars to be wealthy.
Law of probability. But our itinerary appears to be a mix of tax brackets.
“You okay?” Beau asks as he merges into the left lane.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
He speaks as if tiptoeing. “Because that father admitted to lying to his son his entire life.”
I should have known this project might cut close to the vein. It seems the longest secrets are family secrets; the people you love always have the most power to hurt you. “Are you going to draw parallels with every person we speak with?”
“Not unless there are parallels.” His voice is dry.
“There aren’t. I mean, besides the deception.” There are, of course. But if I open the emotional floodgates by acknowledging them, I can’t sit comfortably in denial. “It’s not like Dad can explain his motivations, and it doesn’t matter what they were anyway.”
“Lying to yourself isn’t the solution.”
“Are you a historian or a psychologist?” I laugh, but it gets caught in my throat.
“I’m your friend,” Beau says, and I snap my head and study his profile. He’s focused on the road but casts me a fleeting look. “Or used to be.”
There’s vulnerability in his words, so I relent. “Lying to myself is all I’ve got.”
“It’s going to be a long trip if we aren’t honest with each other, at least.”
We drive for another few minutes in silence while the monotonous landscape blurs by without interruption.
“It matters,” I admit. “But I’m too raw to process it, especially since I can’t interview my dad for answers.”
“Your dad loved you, Ophelia. You were his world. I don’t know what the story is. Or why he lied. Or why she left. But I knew your dad, and he must have had a good reason.”
“I don’t doubt that he loved me. But he didn’t think I was worth the truth or capable of understanding it.”
“Phe.” Beau’s tone is uncharacteristically careful as he sneaks a glance in my direction. “His inability to tell you the truth was about his hang-ups, not about what he felt you were worth.”
I shift my focus to the dizzying scene as we race by crop lines on the roadside. It’s like an M. C. Escher painting.
“I see what you’re saying, but it’s hard to believe that when you’re the one being lied to.”
Beau reaches across the console and finds my hand. I startle, but after a moment, I lace my fingers in his.
“I get that,” he says. He gives my hand a tentative squeeze, and the pulse shoots straight to my chest. There’s a warmth brewing, something like fondness—or I don’t know—maybe nostalgia for a time when it was second nature to hold his hand.
When we’d race across the hot sand to reach the waves and face them together with clasped hands and twin smiles.
Maybe we can be more than our old grievances. Maybe friendship is possible.
But his touch never made my nerve endings dance, and I worry that my emotions are jetting right past friendship to something destined for disaster.
Beau is a pumice stone against my shell; he’s making it difficult to deflect and protect myself, and he’s coaxing me to tip from cautious camaraderie to adoration and delusion.
“We have the stop in Santa Barbara, then Paso Robles, followed by several interviews in the Bay Area,” Beau says. But I know the itinerary. I’m not sure why he’s recounting it now. “We have a free day after that. Plenty of time to head up north if you want to check out that address in Fort Bragg.”
My stomach sinks. “Yeah, maybe, not sure, we’ll see.
” Beau casts a furtive glance my way. Testing, assessing.
But he’s not going to be able to read me.
I haven’t made up my mind yet. Do I want to find my mom?
Or do I want to skirt past and look longingly out the car window as we pass somewhere she called home after faking her own death and forgetting me?
Beau pulls off the freeway a hundred miles from our next motel and navigates to a rest stop.
When he heads to the restrooms, I grab the keys and visit the vending machines.
I buy a couple of waters and a bag of pretzels.
Sadly, that’s the best option. Road-trip snack food has lost its appeal now that it’s our steady diet.
But I notice Starbursts and buy a packet.
They were Beau’s favorite as a kid. If we’re working our way back to friendship, maybe this can be my olive branch.
While Beau takes a call on the far side of the parking lot, I clear the car of empty coffee cups, take-out containers, and gum wrappers.
I dump one bag in the nearest trash can, but it’s full, so I take another trip to the women’s restroom to discard the second and travel to the dumpster on the far end of the lot to discard the remnants of Lani’s expired care package.
When I finish, the car is in decent shape.
Beau returns twenty minutes later, and he seems agitated after his conversation. His walk is hurried, and his shoulders are raised.
“I’ll drive for a bit,” I say, and reach out my hand.
He furrows his brow, and it seems he’s been returned to his factory settings—petulant and dismissive.
“What? Do you have to drive because you’re the man ?” I ask.
“That’s insulting.” He folds his arms across his chest.
“I’m an excellent driver.”
“I assume you’ve gotten better since jumping the median on University Avenue?”
“That happened one time, Beauregard. I saved a cat’s life.”
“And killed your dad’s Civic.”
I open my palm. “C’mon. Give me the keys.”
“I left the keys in the car with you,” he says.
“Oh, right.” I flash him a grin and reach for my pockets. I don’t have any pockets on this sundress. “I had them with me when I ...” I trail off as I retrace my steps. I check the console. I must have put them back when I dropped off the water bottles and snacks.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t drop them on the floor of the passenger seat. Or the driver’s seat. Or in the cup holders. Or in that annoying dead space between the seats and the gear shift. I’m on my knees, peering under the seats, when I hear a growl from behind me.
“Ophelia,” Beau asks, “where are my keys?”