Last Girl Ghosted(21)

I keep my eyes down, swiping again and again with my thumb, waiting for an answer.

“So, the last time you saw Adam?” he prompts, bringing me back to the conversation.

“Monday,” I say. “He spent Sunday night with me and left for work in the morning.”

We made love before the alarm went off, both of us half asleep, my secret in the air all around us. Your eyes gave me everything I needed—passion, understanding, comfort. You weren’t afraid or distant. If anything, you seemed closer, your arms wrapped so tight around me, so deep inside me. I still feel you.

“Where did he claim to work?” Bailey asks.

“Uptown.”

“Company name? Address?”

I shake my head, a little embarrassed. You’ve told me, of course. Or did you? “I don’t remember. Something to do with forts or locks or vaults.”

There’s a bit of skepticism etched into his brow.

“You’ve never been to his office?”

“Just the other day for the first time. I didn’t go in, just waited for him outside.”

Just like the apartment, I realize. I’d been to the Chelsea place just often enough that I had a mental model of where you lived, just enough that I didn’t question the truth of it. It was too early to have met your coworkers, to have accompanied you to the office Christmas party. After all, you hadn’t met any of the people I work with. In fact, I hadn’t even introduced you yet to Jax.

“Where was that?” His tone is patient, coaxing.

“Uptown. Seventy-Ninth between Broadway and Columbus. Maybe?”

“Address?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Feel like taking a ride up there with me? See if you can find it.”

I check the time. I have to get to the studio. “I can meet you later,” I say. “I need to work.”

He doesn’t ask me what I do or where I work, just offers a nod. How much does Bailey Kirk know about me, I wonder. The thought makes me a little uneasy. I have imagined myself as hidden, private. Privacy is a thing of the past. Was that true?

“What time can you meet?” he asks.

“I can be there by four. Corner of Seventy-Ninth and Broadway.”

“Okay,” he says. “It’s a date.”

How does he know I’ll be true to my word? Maybe he doesn’t need to know. Seems like I was easy to find, in spite of my believing otherwise. How many times do I enter my address to have something shipped, or for a membership to this or that, thinking it’s private, secure, protected? What information did I provide Torch? Oh, wait, I didn’t. Jax did everything. But she’s the only person more careful with my secrets than I am. Other than Robin.

Or maybe Kirk can see that I want to meet him, that I’m hooked, into him, into you, into the missing girl already. After all this is my beat—people and their problems. Maybe he can see that I want to know what’s happening, maybe more than he does.

We exchange numbers, and I feel his eyes as I exit and head for the subway. Before I head underground, my phone pings. An email from Joe the superhost. The message is brief. Just a phone number and a single sentence. Please call me.



ten


“Dear Birdie,” I say into the mic.

These recordings used to take place in a makeshift studio in my apartment. But since moving to the Chronicle there has been a serious upgrade. A soundproof room, a long high table with multiple mics, big comfy chairs and wide headphones that sit on my head like a big hug.

Today, Jax sits across from me. Her hair is in a wild pile of inky curls on top of her head wrapped in a brightly printed scarf that matches the pattern on her dress, which is basically a muumuu. She rocks it with her tall frame. Effortless glam. How does she do it?

Jax is an influencer. Her brand is: Change Your Life! Take Charge of Yourself and Create Your World. Bad habits? Break them! Here are ten easy ways how. Unhappy? Grow up, woman up, and stop believing the stories someone else told you about yourself. Write your own story!

Her advice plays very well with a certain set. She has her own podcast, regularly appears on mine, and has a big book contract. Stop Giving a Fuck About Everyone Else and Start Living Your Life for YOU. Or something like that. I’m helping her write it, because Jax is a verbal, visual person—sound bites and perfectly staged photographs. The act of writing, for her, is an act of torture—she procrastinates, rages and rails against the page. The chapter we’re currently working on: No, You are NOT Destined to be JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER!

I really hope that’s true.

Her book, like my friend, is smart and funny, and full of solid advice for young people struggling to find themselves. Jax is a strong voice, a warm touch. She tries to live her own advice.

And we have Ben with us, today. A family therapist, Zen Buddhist, with a seriously chill vibe. He softens out Jax’s hard edges; she’s much gentler when he’s in the studio. He sits, hands folded, mouth in a peaceful smile, her energetic opposite in gray shirt and khakis, light brown hair going gray, kind eyes. I’ve suspected for a while that they might like each other. There is a lot of staring and light touching. They are yin and yang.

I clear my throat and say again, “Dear Birdie.”

My podcast voice is not my real voice. My real voice is girlish and soft. I channel another part of myself in the studio, and my voice comes out smoky and soothing. Dear Birdie is not Wren Greenwood. Dear Birdie is cool and calm, knowing, patient. She’s wise and careful. Wren Greenwood, obviously not so much.