Girl Out of Water(76)

“Get out.” She points a thumb toward the exit.

“We just want some grub,” Lincoln says. “Heard you guys have great burgers. And we’ll sit right here at the bar where you can keep an eye on us.”

The bartender stares at us skeptically. “Who the hell says I want to keep an eye on you?”

Lincoln digs into his pocket and pulls out a twenty. “Two burgers, two fries, two cokes, and then we’re gone.”

I don’t know why the hell he’s pushing so hard to stay. Lord knows we could get back to the main drive of Reno and eat at a dozen different places. But the bartender relents, takes the money, and says, “You’re not getting any change back.”

She walks the length of the bar to a small window opening to what must be the kitchen. “Two burgers and fries!” she shouts.

As she walks back to fill the order of someone at the bar, she catches my eye and mouths, “One hour.”

One hour is more than enough time for me. Hopefully the burgers will be out soon, and we can scarf them in a couple of minutes. Next to me Lincoln drums his fingers on the wooden bar to the beat of “American Girl” playing from the Jukebox. I feel him watching me, but I focus on his fingers tapping out the bum-bap-bap of the song.

A few seconds later, the bartender slides two Cokes across the counter. They come in chilled beer steins with skinny cocktail straws. I take my drink and sip. Maybe it’s the chilled glass, but it’s the best Coke I’ve ever had. The sugar revives me, speeding through my system. I take a sip, and then another, and then I turn to Lincoln. “How much driving time do we have left?”

“Oh, I’d say about three hours give or take. Should get in around ten.”

Home in three hours. Back to my room with the tangled surfing medals on the wall and Tess’s quilt on the bed. Back to my kitchen with the cracked tile floor and bay window. Back to the ocean.

My ocean.

“Anise?” Lincoln asks.

“Hmm?” I respond as I take another sip of Coke.

“Maybe you should ask someone if they know your mom.”

I thought we’d somehow miraculously moved on from that topic. I wish he wouldn’t do that, bring her up, especially after knowing me for so short of a time. But maybe that’s why he can do it—because anyone who’s known me all my life knows never to bring up my mom.

The Coke doesn’t taste good anymore. It’s sickly sweet. I feel nauseous as the scent of grilling hamburgers wafts from the kitchen. Coming here was enough. Looking was enough. There’s no need to drag this out.

“There’s no point,” I say.

“Sure there is,” Lincoln insists. “Maybe they’ll know where she is.”

“So? So I’ll just—” My thoughts have trouble forming. “I’ll just find out where she is and what? Chase her down? Drop everything and—”

As I say the words, I realize that is what I’d want to do. Part of me at least. I’d run straight to her. Crumble in her arms and bury us in volcanic ash so she can never leave me again.

But instead I tell Lincoln, “I’m not going to run around the country hunting down someone who obviously doesn’t want to be found.”

Lincoln’s voice goes soft, gentle. Yet there’s still that urging. “I’m not saying you should. I’m only saying it doesn’t hurt to ask. Maybe it’d be nice to have a choice in the matter.”

Of course it would. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? My mom has always made the decision for us, and even worse, I’ve never known why. At the end of all my Detective Dana novels, all of the questions of a case are always answered. The doctor did it because she was in love with the patient’s husband. The fisherman did it because someone had stolen his prized catch. Again and again the motive is explained.

I want to know my mom’s motive. What makes you abandon your own kid, not once, but over and over again? If I knew where she was, I could ask her.

There’s always a motive.

“Fine,” I say.

The bartender comes back around, this time carrying two red plastic baskets filled with burgers and fries, and I say, “Can I ask you something?”

“No, you can’t drink,” she says.

“I don’t want to drink. I want to know if you’ve ever seen my mom in this bar.”

The bartender looks at me blankly, so I ramble. “Hair my color, green eyes…probably drinking something that comes with fruit around the rim.”

“Do you have a picture?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, a picture.”

I slip my phone out of my pocket and scroll and scroll and scroll. The last time I saw her I had a different phone, but amid the endless photos of beaches and friends and waves and skateboards and cousins is a picture of a picture, one that Dad keeps tucked in the drawer of a side table. The photo is of my mom and me when she came back for that long haul when I was seven, the last time I was convinced she actually might stay for good.

I pass over the phone, and as the bartender stares at the screen, her eyes soften. Or maybe it’s the lighting. “I’m not sure, sweetie,” she says. “I don’t recognize her. A lot of people come through here. She wasn’t a regular, I can tell you that.”

Of course not. Regular connotes a period of stasis that my mom has never been capable of. Lincoln leans forward on the bar. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Just think a bit harder on it, please.”