Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel (13 page)

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BBGun22
      
#Somegirls
can’t be trusted.

BBGun22
      
#Somegirls
can be cruel.

BBGun22
      Do I sound like I’ve been burned? OK, you got me.

BBGun22
      But those girls—they don’t know my girl.

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      She’s loyal above all else.

BBGun22
      She never strays, has nothing to confess.

BBGun22
      Singular, unique, hand on Bible.

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      Clean, pure, never liable.

BBGun22
      She comes to me and says, “I’m yours, 100%.”

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      And I’m hers.

BBGun22
      No questions asked.

BBGun22
      Case closed.

BBGun22
      End of story.

Imaginary Facebook

Marley Willits

Thought love would be different

1 second ago

SOME PART OF ME
still can’t believe it really happened. I’m not a virgin anymore. I look at B. and think, He’s the one who did it, the one I’ll never be able to forget. The first time is, unfortunately, memorable. You don’t hang on to the twelfth time or the twenty-fifth. At least, I wouldn’t think you do. Check back after I’ve gotten there.

I’m up to two. We did it again the next morning in the motel after a really bad night’s sleep. Even when I squeezed my eyes shut, I kept reliving the first time. And I wasn’t even able to write about everything, because on Sunday, B. was around me, like, every minute. I just had to act normal. No, happier than normal, because that was how he seemed. It was opposite-speak on overdrive. The saddest part was that he couldn’t even tell.

I expected that the first time someone was inside me, I’d feel like he loved me, and it hadn’t been like that. Maybe I was expecting too much?

When I was in California, I felt like B. absolutely loved me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done all this.

The second time was a tiny bit better, though. He didn’t seem so urgent. That must have been it—it wasn’t violent, just urgent. He wanted me pretty bad. He’d been holding out for a while.

I wish I could talk to someone, ask if all this is normal. Is urgent just how guys are? Do a lot of people have second thoughts? I know Trish didn’t. Her boyfriend at the time was totally in love with her. He was sixteen, and he got this expensive hotel room for them in San Francisco. She said she was staying at my house. But I bet that’s not typical. I know of other girls who did it and the guys went around bragging and laughing, even posting things online. B. would never do that.

Afterward, he seemed to feel closer to me. It was almost like he was drunk. He was twirling my hair around his finger and talking in this giddy way. He called me beautiful, and his drawl was more like slurring. I tried to follow his lead because I didn’t want him to feel bad.

But I don’t feel closer to him. I feel farther away, in part because he seems so oblivious. I’m either a really good actress, or he isn’t paying attention. It’s almost like he notices when I cry, but the whole rest of the emotional spectrum can pass him right by.

Was he always like this, and I’m the one who never noticed? I used to feel like he got me totally, like no one had ever gotten me more. No one except Dr. Michael, and I was only a kid then. It’s not that hard to understand a ten-year-old.

With B., I pictured moving here and us finishing each other’s sentences. It was probably pretty unrealistic. Maybe I’m not ready to be in an adult relationship, but I am trying. While he was at school today, I spent an hour and a half making lasagna. The cookbook was there, and all the ingredients. He’s right about my needing to occupy myself. But lasagna is a huge pain in the ass, all that layering, all the symmetry. It’s possible that I’m not cut out for the responsibility of taking care of someone.

But then B. came home and saw what I’d done and he was so happy. He relished every bite and gave me lots of compliments. We snuggled on the couch and he kissed the top of my head while we watched a movie. I didn’t feel completely comfortable because I was a little afraid he’d want to have sex again and I didn’t feel up to it yet. It stayed cuddling, though, and once I got past the fear, it was really nice.

This might sound weird, but I had this sense memory of being a little girl again, and the way my mom held me. I loved to be under lots of blankets and quilts with her, and I’d rest my head just above her heart. She has a very loud heart.

She said I probably liked that because it reminded me of the womb, when I could hear her heartbeat all the time. “You’re used to my rhythms,” she said. “It’s the music you swam to.” She claims I was an excellent swimmer, that she could see me clearly on one of the ultrasounds, doing the backstroke. I couldn’t tell if she was kidding, and I didn’t care. I pressed my ear to her heart and listened.

I WAKE TO FIND
Michael huddled on Paul’s side of the bed, talking to Alicia. I bet he’s telling her some version of the truth: I was drunk and distraught and he didn’t want to leave me. He didn’t know what I’d do. I was talking about suicide, after all.

I wasn’t drunk; I was wrecked. I didn’t fall asleep so much as pass out. It’s entirely possible that I wanted to give my conscience a night off. See, I don’t manipulate other people, only myself.

But Michael’s a stand-up guy. He doesn’t want me under those circumstances. He wants us to be staring into each other’s eyes while the stars align and angels take flight and true love is affirmed forever, amen. We would have had to make love, and since I was in no shape for that, I’ve got on a pair of pajamas that I don’t remember changing into, fully buttoned.

Would I really have gone through with it, if he’d been a willing partner? I don’t know. I won’t find out. He’s headed home today. Even Alicia isn’t naïve enough for him to be able to stay another night.

They recently celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary. It seems like you should be entitled to some naïveté at that point. You should be able to trust implicitly.

I feel sad for Alicia, but not nearly as sad as I feel for myself. My daughter is missing, while one of Alicia’s kids is in graduate school and the other is in his residency at Johns Hopkins. It’s all turned out just fine for Alicia, come to think of it. Meanwhile, I’m so sure that
Marley isn’t coming home that I can get rip-roaring drunk and have another man sleep in my marital bed.

(That’s not exactly true. Part of me thought this was the thing that might summon her home, that the only way Marley would come back would be if I was in a horribly compromised position from which our relationship might never recover. God would give while simultaneously taking away. I’d be more than willing to pay that price for her to cross the field in her Ugg boots. For her to be here, safe.)

Michael’s still murmuring to Alicia. How do they find so much to say after forty years of marriage? Paul and I have exhausted our conversational reserves and we’re not even halfway there.

I stand up and stretch noiselessly. Michael’s eyes are on me, on my braless chest. I’m mad at the universe, at him and his happy, healthy, grown kids, and so I’m teasing him. I can’t believe I’m able to tantalize, looking and feeling as crappy as I do, but that comes with a twenty-year age difference. Also, I’m mad at him for worming his way into the house, and for getting me to blubber on his shoulder, and for making such a show of being a good guy while I finished off a bottle of wine with a vodka chaser. I’m mad at him for not loving me enough to break confidentiality, for refusing to give me what I need most. If I don’t get some answers soon, I’m going to lose my mind.

I remember pieces of last night’s conversation, shards, really. I confided my fear that Paul is somehow involved in Marley’s leaving. “I know he would never hurt her intentionally,” I said, looking up at Michael, wishing that he’d drunk more alcohol to loosen his tongue. He offered me this: “Our intentions and our actions are two different things. People don’t always have complete control of themselves.” Paul does, though. Doesn’t he?

It’s my turn for the spousal check-in. I call Paul, while Michael is forced to listen silently. He’s not forced, actually. He could slip out of the room and give me privacy. But he’ll torture himself by listening, because he needs to be in the loop. He wants to keep abreast of his competition.

I oblige by putting Paul on speaker. I’m angry with him, too,
for his potential deception and his potential role in Marley’s running away. I feel like I want to hurt both of them. I want to tell Paul, “Hey, guess who paid a visit?” Paul never liked Dr. Michael, never trusted him fully, but then, Paul didn’t trust psychiatry itself.

I bring myself back to what Paul is saying. He’s in the airport, heading for New York. He wants to know if I watched the video of his Chicago interview, the one he’s posted to FindMarley.com. “Candace thought it went well. What did you think?”

“I agree.” I haven’t watched it and don’t intend to. It’d only serve to remind me that I screwed up San Francisco and have been blacklisted. I trust that Paul did a bang-up job, as per usual.

He starts telling me about the latest tips, and I drift in and out, like he’s a radio with an inconsistent signal. “. . . this kid Kyle seems credible, knows identifying details about her, and says they were on the same bus. But he got off first, and she didn’t tell him where she was going, so it’s not that helpful—”

“If he can tell us the bus he was on, the route and the dates, then we can contact the company and find the bus driver and see if he remembers Marley,” I say, tuning in fully, my voice rising in excitement. “The driver could tell us where Marley got off.”

“I already did all that. The driver doesn’t remember Marley.”

“Another employee covering his ass, do you think?”

Michael shifts next to me. I can tell he doesn’t like seeing me so engaged with Paul.

“I don’t think it’s CYA,” Paul says. “I talked to the driver, and so did the police. He seemed sincerely upset about Marley. The problem is, they get unaccompanied minors all the time. He assumed an adult bought the ticket. And Marley—you know how she is. How she gets overlooked.”

“Yes,” I say. “I know how Marley is.”

“But if Kyle is as reliable as I think, then we know she went at least as far as Chicago,” Paul says.

“And we can get the rest of the bus route and know she’s in one of those places?”

“Unless she transferred buses.” He sounds so calm. How can it not drive him crazy, all the dead ends? He does all this and we’re no closer to finding her.

He must not think of it that way. He must see it as a building chain of information or a gathering storm. Being Paul, he has some metaphor to sustain him. I should know what it is, as his wife.

He does all this, and another man was in his bed last night, lying in between his wife and his Bible.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, the guilt lodging like a coin in my throat.

“There’s a lot of reason for optimism.” It’s a stock answer, the one he’d give anyone. He’ll probably give it later today, to a New York newspaper. “How are you?”

“Struggling to be optimistic.”

Michael moves to pat my hand, but I snatch it away. I should take Paul off speakerphone, walk to the window, and talk softly to him.

But what if he really is guilty of something, if his intentions and his actions deviated?

“You should get more involved with FindMarley.com,” Paul says. “Put up some new content. I’m sure everyone would love to hear from you.”

Who’s everyone? The Internet vultures who use us as prurient entertainment? If they knew that Michael had been here last night, in my bed . . .

“It’s just so personal, you know?” I say. “Anything I write to her, or about her—the whole world can read it.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“I don’t want to be too exposed.” It’s an ironic statement as I lounge in my pajamas in front of another man.
The
other man, the blogosphere would call him.

Paul pauses, and for a second, I think he knows. He left a camera behind in the bedroom for this purpose. I’ve been caught. It could be sweet relief, who knows. Have it all out there, and Paul and I couldn’t
avoid certain conversations any longer. Almost twenty years of emotional constriction undone in a single day.

Then he says, “You could go through old home movies and decide which videos to post. One of the volunteers—Jack’s a good choice—could help you convert them into a file that could be uploaded . . .” He’s off and running.

That’s the last thing I want to do. I can’t look at young sweet Marley without thinking about what could be happening to her right now, on the street somewhere east of Chicago.

“Do you have Kyle’s phone number?” I say.

“Yes.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Really? I’m pretty sure I got all the information he had.”

It’s not about information. I want a connection to Marley. I want to know what they talked about, how she seemed. Excited, scared, angry? Kyle could be my link.

“I’d like to talk to him,” I say. “You want me to be more involved, right?”

He hesitates. He doesn’t want me second-guessing him or out-sleuthing him. This is his show.

“Hello?” I say.

“I’m just looking through my notebook to find the number.” So I misread his hesitation. As he reads off the digits, I feel a rush of warmth toward him.

“I love you,” I say. It might be gratitude, or shame at having Michael here, or even a stab to Michael’s confidentiality-protecting gut, but there, I said it.

Paul drops the official tone and says softly, “I love you, too, Rach,” and my guilt increases exponentially. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. I’m just—I don’t know what I am.”

“I love you,” he says again, “and we’ll get through it. We’ll bring her home.”

My eyes fill with tears. He’s probably wanted to tell me he loves
me for a while; he needed me to say it first. He needed me to make it permissible again. Michael says he loves me, too, all the time, and doesn’t seem to need permission. They’re both crazy, loving me. I don’t know that I love anyone but Marley, and that includes myself.

As I disconnect the call, Michael stands up. He’s still in his clothes from yesterday, but his hair is in disarray. He’s a handsome older man, he really is. But in this light, he seems more older than handsome. He gives me a hard stare.

“What?” I say.

“What’s all that love talk? Since when?”

“Since this call.”

It sounds like an evasion, though it’s not. I really think my head might split open, with a thick crack down the forehead like a fault line. I need a pill. I need something.

Michael gazes out the French doors. “I’ve tried to be good to you, Rachel. Always.”

This again.

“And to Marley. I tried to help her, gave her the best treatment. I cared for her very much. Through you, Rachel, I’ve come to fully love her, like she’s one of my own kids.”

He kneels before me and rests his head in my lap. I can’t help it, I have to stroke his hair. It seems cruel not to. “I love you more than he does,” he says. “I’d take care of you and Marley.” Then, “Please don’t stop.” He’s referencing my fingers, which have gone still. So I start again, but self-consciously this time, aware with every movement that I’m doing what he wants, not what I want.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he says. “I was caught in a difficult position. I made what I thought was the best choice.” He pauses, like he’s gathering strength. “Marley showed up at my office a while ago. Before your move. She wanted to start therapy again.”

My fingers stop. “What?”

“It would have been unethical for me to treat her again, obviously, given what I feel for you. I was caught off guard.”

I yank his head up by his hair. His eyes plead for understanding that he won’t find. I stand up and he spins around, still on his knees.

“I told her that my caseload was full. I didn’t say anything about you.”

“So my daughter came to you for help, and you turned her away, and you didn’t even tell me?”

“I told her to talk to you. I said you’re trustworthy and you love her.”

“Well, thank you for recommending me.” I feel like my hair is on fire. “She didn’t talk to me. You must have realized that. Obviously, I would have mentioned it if she had. I told you everything.”

“I wanted to respect her privacy. And I believed in her strength, that she had the fortitude and resources to—”

“What was wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

“You didn’t ask?” I glare at him, and he stares down at the floor. “She was in trouble! In pain! And you, you . . .” I can’t even finish my sentence. “This is the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard. What is wrong with you?”

“I was in a difficult position. I tried to tip you off. I asked you if you noticed anything out of the ordinary with Marley; I told you to always keep the lines of communication open. I said problems like hers can recur.”

“I don’t remember that.” I deflate slightly. How could I not remember? If I never saw the signs, if Marley didn’t trust me enough to talk to me, if I didn’t coax it out of her when Michael encouraged me to, then whose fault is this really? “You need to leave.”

His mouth twists up into a repulsive grin. “You told me that twelve hours ago.”

“You think this is funny?”

“No! I feel like shit. I’ve felt like shit ever since you told me Marley was missing, and I wondered if maybe I could have helped her. If I’d done things differently back then . . .” He falls back on his haunches
on the floor. “I should have asked her more questions, you’re right. I didn’t feel like it would be ethical to get involved, because of you.”

“I thought she was okay,” I say, incredulous at my own ignorance. “I thought she’d never need you—or someone like you—again.”

“I’m sorry. I made a mistake. You can forgive an honest mistake, can’t you?”

I can’t believe I let him sleep in my bed. I might have slept with him, if he hadn’t been such a coward.

All of last night rises through my esophagus, and I run for the bathroom.