Last Girl Ghosted(55)

Bailey goes inward, a sudden shift in the light of his eyes. I wonder who he’s thinking about. Not himself. He doesn’t have soldier’s eyes, that look they get when they’ve seen things that they can’t unsee, know things about life and the human body that they shouldn’t know.

Someone has started up the jukebox. Jim Morrison wants us to roll baby roll.

He touches the phone between us, and it glows with the images of the four women you’ve encountered. Four that I know of. Are there more?

“I didn’t know Melissa Farrow,” I say. “I didn’t have any friends here.”

He looks like he’s about to push. His mouth opens; he puts his forearms on the table. Close up, there are violet circles of fatigue under his eyes, tiny lines around his mouth. He has strong arches for eyebrows, a few grays in the stubble growing on his jaw. He presses his mouth closed, leans back. Whatever he wants to say, he keeps it to himself.

“How did you find out about Dear Birdie?” I ask, eager to move on from the topic of my past.

“A magician never reveals how his tricks are performed.”

“You’re no magician.”

He does that thing with his hands, puts one fist in the other palm, squeezes. His knuckles crack softly. “It wasn’t hard. You dug yourself a pretty shallow grave.”

The analogy stings, brings to mind those white orchids, already wilting on the graves of Jay, Robin, my mom. I imagine the snow-white petals against the black earth, slowly sinking in, buried by falling leaves.

“Once I had your name, address, and cell phone from my contact at Torch, I ran a couple of background checks, including a criminal check. Those revealed other names you have used, including the one on your birth certificate. You legally changed your given name to Wren Greenwood when you were still a kid.”

I thought I was hidden, safe behind my made-up name. But only because maybe no one was truly looking until now.

How did you know that I was someone else once upon a time, Adam?

Bailey steeples his fingers. He thinks he knows everything but probably he doesn’t.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” he says. “I’m the vault. What you tell me, stays between us, okay? I’m not here to blow up your life. I only care about finding Mia, and making sure this guy doesn’t hurt anyone else, including you. I promise you that.”

Promises. We break them so easily, don’t we? But when I look at him, really look at him, I see he means it.

“What if there is nothing else?” I say again. “What if the only thing we all share is that we were stupid enough to think we could find true love in a digital wasteland?”

He polishes off his burger, drains his root beer. The paper lining the plastic basket is translucent with grease.

“Then Mia’s trail is cold. She’s gone. Your friend?” A muscle works in his jaw. I noticed that particular tell back on the train. What is it? Frustration. Determination. “He’s gone, too. And I have to go back to my client and tell him I failed him, failed his child. That he might never know what happened to his daughter.”

It strikes me as a heavy burden, one with which I’m familiar in my capacity as Dear Birdie. When you endeavor to take on other people’s heartache, it becomes your own in some ways.

“And I don’t want to do that yet,” he says. “I’m not ready to let go.”

Me, neither.

“So now what?” I say.

“I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve yet.”

“Sticking with the magician analogy?”

He reaches across the table, as if for behind my right ear. I flinch away, no idea what he’s doing. When he brings his hand back, he’s holding two twenties, offers a big grin.

At some point our waitress has brought the check, a paper slip with her scrawl on. Forty dollars is more than enough to cover it with a large tip.

“I’ll be in touch,” he says, rising.

“Great.” I watch him go, some combination of annoyed and relieved.

The waitress comes back to my table.

“Friend of yours?” she asks. Which is odd. Because I don’t know her.

“In a way,” I answer.

“He’s been around awhile,” she says. She picks up the check, the money, slips it into the pocket of her apron. “He’s staying at the Motel 8 just outside town.”

“How do you know that?” I have to ask. What I don’t ask: And why are you telling me?

“That big fancy truck he drives. Seen it around town. Seen it there. He’s not from around here.”

Neither am I, I want to assert. But it’s not really true, is it?

“I’d watch out for that one,” she says. “He’s trouble.”

Okay, I’m about to say, with just an edge of attitude. Thanks.

But when I look up at her she’s already walked back behind the bar. The bartender leans into her as she says something to him. They both turn to look at me.

As I pick up my things and exit into the dark, I can feel their eyes on me.



twenty-six


Then


The morning dawned wild with birdsong, waking me from the uncomfortable bed I’d made on the porch swing. Jay sat sentry in the old rocker, shoulders stiff and face drawn in the new light. My father had started drinking after dinner the night before, and what began as a peaceful evening, with him playing the guitar and my mother knitting, had soured.