Sadie(25)

I think he’d like anything I said.

That’s new to me.

I point. We’re in front of my car.

“Th-that’s where I l-live.”

“What?”

“K-kidding. But it’s m-mine.”

I unlock the door and open it before I really know what I’m doing.

He climbs into the back and says, “Cozy,” and I follow in after him and stare at his profile and he shifts uncomfortably under my gaze. I imagine pressing my palm against his chest, pressing my body against his. I imagine feeling his heartbeat under my palm. I imagine kissing him and his mouth is as soft and tender as the rest of him. I would let his gentleness take me somewhere else, let myself pretend what it might be like to belong to someone. I would let myself push his hair out of his eyes so I could see them seeing me and this is not a love story … but in this small space, the sound of our breathing between us, I wonder what it would take to make it one.

I swallow hard, lick my lips, the ghost taste of the shot still on them.

To your sister.

I lean forward and reach across the front seat, open the glove box and grab a marker. I hand it to him and he stares at me, confused.

“I l-left my cell at h-home,” I tell him. I roll up my sleeve and stretch my arm out. “R-write your number and I’ll c-call you f-first th-thing.”

Javi opens the marker and worries the cap between his teeth. He scrawls his number up my wrist and the light, careful graze of his touch makes me believe being with him would have been exactly how I imagined it. He asks me if he can have my number and because he can’t, and because I don’t know what else to do, and because maybe I want to do it, I kiss him on the cheek. I don’t think I’m very good at it, the clumsy meeting of my mouth against his lightly stubbled chin, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Y-you c-can have that,” I say. “I h-have to go n-now.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, b-but I’ll c-call you t-tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he says. He gives me a shy smile, and gets out of my car. Then, after a second, he turns back to lean in and say, “It was really, really good meeting you,” and I promise I’ll call him again because I don’t know how else to respond. I watch him walk back to the bar and then I stare at his number on my arm and repeat it softly to myself, until it’s stuck in my head, like how any other girl might do.

Then I climb into the front seat, put the key in the ignition and head to the city.





THE GIRLS





S1E2


WEST McCRAY:


May Beth lets me look through the personal possessions left behind in Sadie’s car. I’m hoping to glean a greater understanding of where she’s been, where she was headed and if she ever got there. And—if we’re lucky—where she still might be.

There were clothes, nothing trendy. Everything seems geared toward comfort, functionality and compactness. T-shirts and Jeggings, leggings, sweaters, underwear, a couple of bras. There’s a green canvas backpack, something Sadie was rarely seen without in Cold Creek, and inside it, her wallet—empty, a half-eaten protein bar, a crushed, empty bottle of water and a takeout menu for a place called Ray’s Diner, located at a truck stop just outside a town called Wagner. This is the only thing I have to go on. I ask Detective Gutierrez if the Farfield PD looked into it.


DETECTIVE SHEILA GUTIERREZ [PHONE]: A cursory investigation into Ray’s yielded no new information. It was a long shot; it’s a truck-stop diner, people are constantly coming and going. Add to the fact Ray’s distributes its menus to surrounding areas, it was only ever going to be a long shot. Our time and resources were more effectively spent concentrated on the area the car was found.

[SOUND OF ENGINE BRAKING]


WEST McCRAY:

The truck stop is called Whittler’s and I arrive there on a Tuesday evening, after taking a plane out from New York. I’m staying in a motel in the nearest town, Wagner, about a thousand miles from Cold Creek.

If I accept Detective Sheila Gutierrez’s words at face value, this can only prove to be a waste of my time. On the other hand, May Beth’s general distrust of the Farfield Police Department’s efficacy is never far from my mind. Basically: I have to find out for myself.

How Sadie ended up at this particular spot—if she ended up here at all—is as much a mystery as everything else surrounding her disappearance. Was there something in particular she was looking for or was this just some random stop along the way?

[SOUNDS OF A DINER, MURMURED CONVERSATION, FOOD COOKING, THE CLATTER OF PLATES]


RUBY LOCKWOOD:

What can I get ya?


WEST McCRAY:

Ruby Lockwood is a formidable woman with pitch-black curls piled high on top of her head. The lines on her face suggest she’s a little older than she actually is—she’s in her mid-sixties. She’s worked at Ray’s Diner for thirty years and spent twenty of them married to its owner, Ray.


RUBY LOCKWOOD:

Ray was fifteen years my senior. When I started here, it was a dive, but I was just a waitress, so I kept my mouth shut. Then he falls in love with me, I get around to falling in love with him, we tied the knot and I worked on turning this place into something special. Just ask anyone—here, ask Lenny! Lenny Henderson. Lenny, this guy’s with the radio.