You Can't Catch Me(13)

To pass the time, I decide to reach out to The Twists, a group of misfits and weirdos Liam helped save from various cults over the years. We gave ourselves this title, mostly to piss Liam off, because it was part of our new freedom to poke fun at our savior.

I open the group-text thread we started years ago: Anyone up for some trouble?

Covington replies first, as he always does. Next up is Daisy, then Miller. Everyone else begs off because of work, promising they might catch up with us later, though we know from previous experience that they won’t.

The only one who doesn’t reply is Liam.

But the word Read is right there under his name.

I smile to myself, knowing I can still get under his skin.

Feel free to join us, Liam! I write, then wait.

Have fun, he texts, but just to me, and I know that’s the last I’ll hear from him for a while.

We decide to meet at High Dive in Brooklyn. Miller and Daisy share an apartment nearby, so we go there often enough. With everything, it’s been a few months since I’ve seen them.

I take the B train from West 4th, and as we lurch along, I read through the comments that continue to appear on my Facebook post like popping kernels, only now, two people have tagged a Jessica who lives upstate, and she’s one of the Jessicas who turned up early in my name search yesterday. She’s got her privacy settings on high, nothing showing in her feed except a picture with her face half in shadow. She has mousy brown hair and pale skin that probably burns on impact with sunlight. She looks tiny, almost elfin, but pictures can be deceiving.

I take a screenshot of her profile and plunk it into a text to Liam as we pull into the station.

Can you ask your guy to investigate her?

It only takes a moment before the word Read appears below my text.

I smile. As well as Liam knows me, I know him. He can’t ignore a text or a challenge.

Then, feeling too much like an ex-girlfriend who’s stalking a man who doesn’t want to be with her anymore, I slip my phone into my pocket and vow to ignore it for a while.

Covington’s already in High Dive when I walk through the bright-red door, reading something on his phone. He came from the Land of Todd, too, only he’s five years younger than I am and—as the son of Todd’s most trusted associate, and, if the rumor mill was right, maybe an actual son of Todd—got to skip the Upper Camp while I was there. As a result, he and I barely knew one another until he left the LOT; he was simply another face in the weekly gathering, one of the fervent ones I used to look at with disdain. He’s the last person Liam saved, a year before Todd died.

Covington is sitting with his chair turned around, his gangly limbs spilling out in all directions. He always does this. Todd made us sit up straight with our feet on the floor and our arms by our sides. The way Covington sits is his way of saying “Fuck you, Todd” every single day. We all have our own ways of doing that.

“Where are Miller and Daisy?” I ask as I sit next to him at the table he’s commandeered in the corner. Some of us came to Liam with disastrous names like Stardust and Riverstone. Another Liamism: it’s never too late to pick the name that suits you. Hence, Daisy, Miller, and Covington.

“Miller’s late as per usual. Daisy’s in the bathroom.”

“Ah.”

“No, not like that. She’s been . . . Man, Jess.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“I put on an automator for this, but if you’re going to be like that . . .”

Covington’s a day trader, and he’s always using words I don’t know the meaning of or whether they even exist at all.

“Please stay,” I say.

“You’ll leave it?”

“Of course.”

The waitress comes over and does a double take when she sees me.

“Oh, wait, you’re that girl!”

Covington starts to laugh. “You’re famous!”

“For all the wrong reasons.”

The waitress shakes her head. “No way, man. You’re, like, my hero. The way you took that asshole down.” She holds up her hand for a high five. I meet it. “Solidarity, sister.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, what can I get you to drink?”

We give her our orders and then Daisy joins us. She survived David Koresh and Mount Carmel when she was a baby, but only barely, so her cocaine habit shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Only she looks like a librarian, glasses and argyle sweater and all, so it does tend to throw you for a loop.

She leans down to hug me. She smells like toothpaste and the cheap soap from the bathroom, but no other chemicals.

“I’ve missed you!” she says.

“Me too.”

She sits next to Cov. “So, what’s up?”

“Let’s wait for Miller.”

“Did someone say Miller Time?” Miller’s voice booms behind me. He’s short and slight, the product of his hippie, WASP mother who went to India and fell in love with his Hindu father at Rajneesh’s original ashram. His parents wore orange and then maroon and were at that crazy compound in Oregon. He was born after it all fell apart, but his parents hadn’t quite worked the cult out of them. When Miller was six, his parents joined some splinter group no one’s ever heard of, but which was just as weird. Maybe worse.

“You don’t actually drink that shit, do you?” Cov asks.