A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

by Hank Green

  “And I work here now?”

  “You work here now, though I hope that you understand that we’re going to monitor you closely. You’re a security risk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I went on national TV and outed your friend as a bisexual because it would win me points. You should hate me. Whether or not you do, I can’t tell. We want you to work here, but we don’t trust you. Don’t be too hurt, we don’t trust anyone.”

  It was telling that he had taken responsibility for the thing he did, outing April. But he did not mention the things done in his name. This was always the way of these strongmen. They would craft the fear so carefully and then toss it into the world for everyone to use. And when someone took that fear and destroyed with it, they were just “unstable” or “mentally ill.”

  Peter radiated the power that he’d gained. And he was right: Part of that power was earned trading against April. Bringing her down is what brought him up, and now he was capitalizing on that clout and April was dead. In that moment I felt the kind of rage where you really aren’t in control anymore, when your animal instincts tie together with your human emotions and words become wild and uncontrollable weapons. Looking back, the thing that made me most angry was how human he was starting to seem, and how important his work actually was. I almost got myself in trouble, but I kept hanging on to his words and keeping quiet. He had said that I was a security risk, and I was. I also needed to maintain my ability to be a security risk to Altus, and I already had an idea for how I was going to get it done.

  “Maybe I do hate you,” I said with real malice in my voice, “but I’d rather work on something great with someone I hate than work on something tiny with people I love.”

  That was a lie, but it was the kind of lie Peter Petrawicki might believe.

  MAYA

  We have to go now.” April’s voice tumbled out as she started covering the twenty or thirty feet between us.

  “April?!” I shouted.

  “Now!”

  I turned and got into the truck, immediately hitting the button to make sure the passenger side was unlocked. Then I looked over to see if she was coming, but she was gone. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest when the passenger door was flung open. How had she gotten to the truck that fast?

  “Drive,” she said blandly.

  I was trying to split the difference between speed and safety, and that required me to pay 100 percent attention to the driving and not to April, the real living person who was sitting next to me in the truck, not dead.

  “What’s going . . .” But before I could finish my question, the stereo blared on.

  La la la la lala la la

  It was Britney.

  “Just drive,” April said. I looked over, and she was cradling her face in her hands.

  La la la la lala la la

  The song gushed through the cab of the truck, rhythms tumbling over themselves in that 2008 Britney way.

  Love me, hate me

  Say what you want about me

  But all of the boys and all of the girls

  Are begging to if you seek Amy

  I didn’t know where I was going, so I headed toward my Airbnb. I knew how to get there and I figured, once we arrived, we’d have time to actually talk. This wasn’t safe. I was crying too much. Was it relief? Exhaustion? Love? I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t any particular emotion; it was all of them at once.

  The song pulsed so loud, and I was blinking through angry tears. I wanted to stop the truck and hold her and have her sob into my arms while she explained what was going on, but she just kept her head down, her face in her hands, her hair spilling down, longer than it had been. She hadn’t noticed my hair, she’d barely even looked at me. Was I mad that she didn’t notice my hair? No, I was mad because this moment was supposed to be simple, and it was not.

  I was on a back road, about a half mile from my Airbnb, when Britney was done having her weird wild way with the English language. I expected another song to come on the radio, but as the space between songs stretched out, I realized that it hadn’t been the radio that played . . . The song had just started when April got in the truck. The noise of the road was all that filled the cab now. And the tension and the fear.

  “April, are you OK?” I asked.

  Without looking up she said, “Yes, I just need you to keep driving.”

  Her voice did what seeing her hadn’t. Her voice made it real. It was her. She was alive. Every nerve in my body became ultrasensitive; every tiny hair stood on end. I had found her. I was right! And I realized, briefly, that I didn’t know if I had ever really believed I would see her again. I really did believe she was alive—that was real—but I didn’t actually think I’d find her!

  Through the tears that I didn’t have the will to stop, I said, “April, oh my god . . . where have you been?”

  “In that abandoned bar . . .” She looked up, and my eyes couldn’t make sense of the left side of her face. “Apparently still in New Jersey.” She must have seen a street sign.

  A laugh burbled out of me.

  And then, lights behind me. Blue and red and white. Police.

  How the fuck was I getting pulled over right now!? I mean, who knew, though. I’d been driving through tears and fear and worry.

  “Keep driving,” April said.

  “April, it’s the cops. You pull over for the cops.”

  She repeated, more firmly, “Keep driving.”

  “I can’t, April,” I said as I started to pull over.

  She changed tactics, starting to beg. “Please. Please, Maya. Drive.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I stopped the truck.

  Maybe I should have kept driving—what the hell did I know about a situation as messed up as this?—but I have very specific police-interaction protocols. Keep hands visible, don’t move quickly, do exactly what they say.

  A tall guy in uniform walked up. His partner had stayed behind in the car.

  I rolled down my window as he approached and then put my hands back on the wheel.

  “Ma’am, step out of the truck.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, even though this felt extremely wrong.

  I opened the door and stepped outside.

  “I’m going to put handcuffs on you now. Do you have anything sharp or dangerous in your pockets?”

  This was all wrong. “No,” was all I said. He searched me, and then I put my hands behind my back, shaking.

  That was when I noticed that the other officer had left the car and was approaching April’s side of the truck.

  The other officer shouted, “Get back in the truck!”

  “April, do what they say!” I was on the edge of panic.

  Into my ear, the officer said, “Miss, get on your knees and stay there.” I got onto my knees, hands cuffed behind my back. Then I heard April’s voice ring out clear and loud.

  “Daniel Robinson, Alex Hinch. Officers of the Woodstown Police Department. You are not on police business. No one has told you to pull us over. Why did you pull us over?”

  “Get back in the truck.” His voice was loud and firm, but not a shout.

  “I will not. Because you do not have any reason to have pulled us over, but you targeted us specifically. You broke the law by pulling us over, and I need you to explain why you did that.” April’s voice was so loud and clear and strong that it almost didn’t sound like her. I’d never heard her speaking like that before.

  “That is not how this works. Please get down on the ground, facedown.”

  “Daniel, your wife, Cindy, works in sales for Marriott Hotels. Alex, your wife, Yolanda, is a stay-at-home mom watching after your two boys, Jaime and Sammy. They are all healthy and well. And they want you to come home today. They want you to be safe.”

  I was listening to this, staring at the blue door o
f my rented Nissan Frontier. A car rushed by us on the interstate, and then silence slowly returned. And then, simultaneously, both of the officers’ cell phones went off.

  “Your wives are calling you. They’re worried you may be hurt.”

  I stayed on my knees, powerless and terrified, as a number of sounds happened: scuffling, scraping, slapping, grunting, and thudding.

  Suddenly, April was behind me.

  “I’m sorry, that was probably really scary,” she said into my ear, as calmly as if she were bringing me a bowl of mac ’n’ cheese, which, to be clear, she had never done.

  All of a sudden my hands came loose. I pushed myself up to see April head-on. Half of her face was a cloudy white flecked with the faintest traces of green and pink—like a gemstone from the bottom of the ocean; like something from another world; like the rocks that I had, right now, in the bottom of my backpack in the back of the truck. Her dark eyes shone out from within it.

  “Your hair,” she said.

  “My hair.”

  “You cut off your locs, it’s so short. I like it.” There wasn’t any enthusiasm in her voice.

  She stood up and moved smooth and fast past the two officers, now lying quietly on the ground, handcuffed to each other, toward their car. She sank her hand through the hood up to her elbow. Her hand just . . . drove into it. A hissing noise happened. Then she walked back to the two officers.

  “Why did you pull us over?” she asked coldly as I walked over to them.

  “It’s a game,” one of them said, his voice shaking a little.

  “Keep talking,” April said, her voice menacing.

  “A reality game. It’s called Fish. We got a clue delivered to us. It said we should go pull over a Nissan Frontier and that two passengers would be inside, and that we were to pull them over and hold them and it would fast-track us to the destination.”

  “The destination?” April asked.

  “We don’t know what it is, we just know everyone who’s completed it won’t shut up about how great it is. It seemed fairly harmless, we assumed you were in on it! That’s usually how it works!”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Fuck, how much have I missed?” April sounded resigned. And tired.

  “A lot. I can explain . . . part of it at least,” I said.

  “We have to go,” she said over her shoulder as she was walking to the truck.

  I left the officers handcuffed to each other with a wrecked car and got back in the Nissan.

  “Why does it smell like vomit in here?” I asked.

  “I vomited. But I stayed conscious this time, so that seems like an improvement.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Are you OK? Your . . .” And then I stopped talking because I was about to say “your face” and that seemed wrong.

  “I have no idea. I have no fucking idea.” And then she seemed to instantly calm down. “I don’t know. We have to run. Is there anywhere you can go that they don’t know about? Do you know anyone with a car we can buy?”

  “You want to buy a car?”

  “Yes, from someone who isn’t a clear relation to you. Someone that won’t get sucked into this.”

  “You want to buy a car at eleven at night?”

  “And, if possible, eat something. Maybe get some coffee.”

  Coffee gave me the idea. I pulled out my phone and called Derek from the Dream Bean.

  “Maya? Is everything OK?” He sounded groggy.

  “No, not really. I need to come over.”

  I could hear him talking to his wife in the background. They exchanged a few sentences and then he came back.

  “It’s . . .” he said, but I cut him off before he could finish.

  “I know. It’s important. Trust me.”

  “OK,” he sighed. “OK.”

  “I’ll be there soon,” I said. “Thank you for this. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important, I’ll explain when I get there.”

  I hung up, and before I could ask April any questions she said, “Can we listen to some music?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I reached for the radio, but before I touched it, an R.E.M. song started playing out of the speakers.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” April said. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

  It was a ten-minute drive, but I avoided major roads, so it took fifteen.

  “Oh, thank god,” April said as I pulled up to Derek’s house.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Long driveway. They won’t be able to see the truck from the road.”

  “Jesus, April,” I said.

  “Maya, it’s not paranoia, someone literally just sent police after us and they knew our names. They knew exactly where we’d be, and I don’t want to find out what would have happened if we had stayed.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out, trying to adjust my understanding of reality.

  “How did you know that they weren’t just doing cop stuff? How did you know it was something else?”

  “I checked the police department communications and the computer inside their vehicle.”

  “But you never went to their car.”

  “I did it with my mind. Is that Derek?” she said.

  He was wearing a gray hoodie and sweatpants.

  “Maya, please explain what’s going on,” he said as we walked up.

  I looked at April, and she nodded, which I took as a sign that I should just be honest.

  “April May is my ex-girlfriend. You will remember that she . . . died a while back, and I became unhealthily obsessed with finding her, and I just did and she’s standing right here. Some rogue cops pulled us over and put me in handcuffs, and then April locked them to each other. So now we need a friend and a cup of coffee and also possibly to buy a car from you.”

  He handled all of that surprisingly well, but his jaw had gone a little loose in his head. “That,” he said, uncrossing his arms and pointing at April, “is April May?”

  “It is.”

  The light was not great, but Derek leaned in to look at her face. I could see his eyebrows knot together as he tried to understand the left half of her face, but after only a tiny hesitation, he reached out his hand. “April, it’s nice to meet you.”

  April stood motionless for a little too long, but then she reached out and shook his hand.

  “Come in,” he said.

  We walked directly into the living room to see Derek’s wife, Crystal, with her hair pulled back wearing a Disney T-shirt and pajama pants. Her arms were crossed across her chest and she did not look pleased. “April, this is Crystal,” Derek said. “Crystal, this is Maya’s friend April May.”

  Crystal’s hands dropped to her sides, her eyes roving April’s face.

  Derek continued, “We’re going to make them some coffee and let them settle in. You two, Rose is sleeping, so don’t make too much noise.” I could see his eyes were jumping around to avoid staring at April’s face.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” I asked.

  They pointed me the way, and after I was done, I came back into the living room. April was sitting in the middle of the couch reading a big, wide coffee-table book that looked like it weighed twenty pounds. I sat down next to her and lifted up one side so I could see the cover. It was called Outstanding American Gardens.

  I could hear Derek and Crystal murmuring in the kitchen. The words were quiet, but you could still hear the tension in them.

  “Any good gardens?” I asked.

  April turned her face toward me in the full light of the living room. I don’t want this moment to have been a big deal. I’d rather not say that it was unnerving and upsetting, but it was. I’d known every bit of her face, and my brain had to fight to accept this new one as April’s. But this was her face now. It wasn’t t
he face I fell in love with, but I guess you don’t fall in love with a face.

  In that moment, I thought about how gorgeous she had been. It’s not a pretty thought, but I had it. She was still beautiful, but this was another thing. An uncanny beauty. I wanted to touch it, but I didn’t. I wanted to ask about it, but I didn’t.

  Eventually, my eyes found home: her eyes, which were still undeniably April May’s eyes.

  “Your left pupil is a little bigger than the right one now,” I said.

  “You noticed that, huh.”

  “Just now. Now that I had the time to look.”

  A fear gripped me, a worry that this wasn’t actually April.

  “The left eye isn’t real. Carl made it, like they made all of this.”

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t real, it just means it isn’t the same as the one you had before.”

  “It doesn’t cry,” she said, which was a good deal more vulnerable than I was used to April being.

  “Have you been crying?” I asked, eager to make the most of this moment.

  “A little, but then it goes away.” She blinked, and a tear fell from her right eye. “Carl, he did something to me. Any time my emotions get strong, they switch off.”

  This was reassuring—it made me feel less worried that this person might be some kind of fake. It also tracked well with April’s calm and successful attack on two law enforcement officers. I thought about how she had also known their names, and the names of their wives, and how Carl had obviously changed her in other ways too, but I didn’t say anything about it.

  “You wanna look at some gardens?”

  She chuckled. At least she could still chuckle.

  A couple minutes after that, Derek and Crystal walked in with a couple mugs of coffee and some Pop-Tarts.

  “Pop-Tarts?” I asked.

  “We Googled ‘April May favorite foods,’” Derek said.

  A half laugh bubbled out of April.

  “That’s very sweet,” she said, scooping up a coffee mug and sucking down a gulp. “That’s good,” she added.