by Lang Leav
Late that afternoon, I heard Gabe’s car pull up, and with a sinking feeling, I went outside to greet him.
“Hey,” he said, as he got out of the car. The backseat was already bulging with supplies for our trip.
He must have caught the look on my face. “Audrey, have you been crying? What’s wrong?”
I told him about my talk with Lucy and Candela’s wedding.
He drew in a deep breath after I finished.
“Boy, talk about bad timing.”
“I know.”
He shook his head. “I guess you’re going, then?”
“She’s like a sister to me. I can’t miss her wedding.”
He nodded. “No, you can’t.”
“I suppose our road trip can wait until I get back? What do you think?”
He looked so dejected that I felt tears spring to my eyes. “Audrey, I would be more than happy to wait if I thought for a second that you’d be coming back.”
“Gabe—” I started to say.
“I suppose I was always meant to go on this trip alone.”
“Don’t say that.” The tears spilled over. “Don’t.”
He stared at me for a few moments before reaching out to me. I collapsed against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me. He held me tightly for a while, his lips pressed against my ear. “You’ve got to do what your heart tells you, okay? There’s no point in us going through with this if you’re just going to keep looking back.”
“I thought I’d let it go,” I whispered. “I really did, Gabe.”
“I thought so too,” said Gabe. “But we know differently now.”
“God, I’m going to miss you.”
He pulled away and smiled. “Well, maybe we’ll run into each other again. Stranger things have happened.”
“We’ll keep in touch, won’t we?”
He shook his head. “I think it’s best we just leave it here for now. I don’t think I can do the friend thing. Not with you.”
“But what if I need you?”
“You can always find me, if you really have to. It’s the twenty-first century, after all.”
“Okay.”
“You take care of yourself, Audrey.”
“So this is it? We’re saying goodbye?” I felt a wave of panic and realized how much I had come to depend on him. It was hard to believe it was only yesterday we were planning our trip, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.
He nodded. “This is goodbye.”
I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my lips against his cheek. “You’re my angel, you know,” I whispered. I didn’t want to let him go.
He gently pulled my arms free and stepped back. He looked down at me and grinned his good-natured grin. “You’re going to be okay, Audrey. You don’t need anybody anymore. Remember that.”
Then just as swiftly as he appeared in my life, he was gone. I stood on the sidewalk and watched as the station wagon turned the corner at the end of the street and disappeared. I stood there for a long time in the dying light, a dull thudding in my chest and the feeling I was more alone than I had ever been.
Two
Candela’s nuptials felt more like a small house party than a wedding. It was held in the tiny garden of her duplex in Chippendale. Eve was her maid of honor, and Lucy and I were the bridesmaids. The whole ceremony had a casual, laid-back vibe to it.
Dirk and Candela looked very much the picture of young love. To see them each glowing with health and happiness gave me a wonderful sense of optimism.
Lucy and Candela had been waiting for me when I walked through the arrival gate in Sydney a week earlier. Candela held up her two fingers in a peace sign when she caught sight of me from a distance. I grinned broadly when I saw it. Since we were kids, we’d hold our fingers in the same way when we wanted to make a show of peace. I felt a wave of affection wash over me, despite the ugliness of our last parting. There are some friendships that weather the greatest storms, and I knew the one I shared with Lucy and Candela could make it through anything.
Now the three of us were sitting cross-legged on the soft lawn under a lemon tree. Candela was still in her wedding dress, a simple white satin garment with lace trim. Intricate patterns were inked in henna on her hands and wrists. Lucy and I were in matching blue linen dresses we’d picked up just the day before on a last-minute shopping stint.
Dirk was in the shed with the door rolled up, showing his latest work to his friends who stood around, beers in hand, nodding with appreciation.
“I know whom you’re hoping to see,” said Candela, as she caught me surveying the guests. She and Lucy exchanged a meaningful glance. “But he’s not here.”
They both knew Rad was a sore spot for me, and with all the last-minute wedding preparations, I didn’t get a chance to bring him up. “How is he?” I asked, trying to sound impassive.
Lucy gave a long sigh. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she said, “but it’s not good, Audrey. I ran into him one day.” She tilted her head to one side and chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. “About five months after you left, maybe? He had no idea you had gone to Colorado. I think he had tried calling you, but, of course, you changed your number. Anyway, he was just heading home from some big meeting that didn’t go down well. I’m not sure what happened after that, but he turned up at Freddy’s a couple of weeks later and asked Freddy if he would look after his MacBook and a few other things. After a month or so, we got a postcard from someplace up north called Bell Rock Trailer Park, and no one has heard from him since.”
“What did the postcard say?” This news about Rad was the last thing I expected to hear. Why would he be at a trailer park? Why did he leave his MacBook with Freddy? His whole life was on that thing.
“The postcard just said, ‘Having a great time, wish you were here.’”
I smiled inwardly. It sounded so like Rad—the wry, sarcastic humor I adored. I pictured him with pen poised over the postcard, writing that tired cliché with a smirk, and my heart gave an involuntary flutter.
“So no one has heard from him since?”
“Nope.”
“Well, how do you know he’s still there?”
“We don’t.”
“He didn’t leave a number?”
Lucy shook her head. “We still have the postcard, though. His address is on it. Maybe you can write to him there.”
Three
I pulled into Bell Rock Trailer Park and found a space under a large tree. I turned off the engine and sat there chewing thoughtfully on the tip of my thumb. When I told Lucy I was going to set out on this wild goose chase, she said, “Take Octopus One!” She offered to come with me, but I wanted to do it on my own.
I had no idea whether Rad was still here—there wasn’t a number listed for the trailer park, and they didn’t even have a website. I figured if he had left, someone there might know where he went.
After a few more minutes of staring into space, I snapped into action. Opening the car door, I stepped out into the warm summer day. I was hit with a dose of cool, salty air, and it felt good in my lungs. I caught a glimpse of the sea just beyond the group of trailers parked haphazardly across the rolling lawn. There was barely a week of summer left, and the weather was starting to turn. I walked up a bumpy asphalt path littered with dry white sand toward a small wood building. It was red and white, with the paint chipping away along the slats and window frames.
I pushed through the door and walked into the air-conditioned cool inside. Two wildly excited black and tan Chihuahuas greeted me—their little tails wagging furiously between sharp, intermittent yelps. “Gin! Tonic! Stop harassing the nice lady,” said a throaty voice. My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I saw an old woman with wiry gray hair sitting behind a counter. She stood up, revealing a purple gypsy dress decorated with mystic symbols. “Hello, dear,” she purred
, looking me over. “I’m Maud, the owner. Are you after a trailer?”
“Uh, no,” I said, a little bemused.
The room looked more like a fortune-teller’s den than the office of a trailer park. There were sumptuous velvet throws draped over a small round coffee table and a shapeless couch complete with matching cushions. Old movie posters in thin black frames were hung on the wood paneled walls. Displayed on a bench that stretched wall to wall behind the counter were gaudy trinkets and a pack of illustrated tarot cards next to a large crystal ball. She looked me over again, her expression pensive. “Then how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for someone. You may know him,” I said nervously. “His name is Rad.” I wasn’t sure what else to say, so I added, “He sent a postcard from here a few months ago.”
She regarded me carefully. “You’re looking for Rad,” she said, with a mysterious smile. “Then you must be Audrey.”
Maud led me down a narrow, winding path to a white trailer with muddy-orange trim parked in an area partly hidden by trees and shrubbery. A makeshift washing line was strung from the trailer to a nearby tree, and my heart skipped a beat when I recognized one of Rad’s T-shirts fluttering in the gentle breeze.
“This is him,” said Maud.
“Thank you.”
She pressed her gnarled hands into mine. “Good luck, dear.” She turned and ambled back down the path.
Taking a deep breath, I walked toward the door and knocked.
A moment later, the door swung open, and Rad stood there, framed by the doorway, wearing a pair of board shorts and clutching a towel in his hand. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite interpret. After a few tense seconds, he finally said, “Audrey.”
“Hi, Rad.” He looked different. There was something about his face and body that looked harder and more defined. A thin layer of stubble had grown on his usually clean-shaven face, and his fingernails were chewed and brittle.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, unsmiling.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
He looked nonplussed. “Well, I was just about to go for a swim.” His tone wasn’t rude exactly, but it was dismissive. He pushed past me, heading toward the beach.
“Rad,” I walked after him. “What the hell? I came all the way here. Can you at least talk to me?”
He stopped and turned around. “Talk to you?” he gave me an incredulous look. “You disappeared, Audrey. You changed your fucking number. It’s a little bit too late for talking, isn’t it?”
I was taken aback. This person in front of me looked and sounded like Rad, but he seemed like a stranger. It was like knowing your favorite song by heart and then hearing a live karaoke performance sung with an odd staccato and off-key.
“I had to get away,” I said, hating the pleading tone in my voice. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
He shrugged and continued walking.
“Rad,” I called after him.
“Just leave me alone, Audrey,” he said quietly, his back still toward me. I ran up past him, jogging backward, and peered up into his face.
“Hey, I just want to talk—please.”
He stopped walking. “How the hell did you get here, anyway?”
“I drove.”
“Since when did you learn to drive?”
“When I was in Delta. Gabe taught me.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back.
“Gabe?” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“Just someone I was kind of seeing.” I avoided his gaze.
“Well,” he said wryly, “that didn’t take long.”
He walked past me again, crossing the threshold from lawn to sand.
“Rad,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know what to say.”
My eyes were fixed on his back as he walked farther and farther away toward the shoreline.
“Just go back home, Audrey.” His voice was barely audible over the crashing waves. “There’s nothing for you here.”
“How did it go, dear?” asked Maud as she caught me walking back to my car. I wiped at the tears spilling from my eyes and shook my head. “Not good.” She reached out and took my hand. “Come with me, dear. Let me make you a cup of tea.”
I soon found myself sitting beside Maud on her couch. Our empty teacups and chipped saucers were perched near the edge of the coffee table. “I still remember the day he came through here. I took one look at him and thought to myself, ‘This kid looks down on his luck.’ He rented one of the trailers for a month or so, then when the general manager left, he took on the role.”
“Rad? But he’s a writer.”
“Not anymore,” she said, with a small shake of her head. “He told me he wanted a job that didn’t require too much thinking. Said he was tired of thinking.”
“What happened to him?”
“I’ll leave that up to him to tell you.”
“He won’t talk to me.”
“Maybe not,” she said, “but I can tell you this. You’re the only thing he ever talks about.”
I checked myself into a motel a few streets away from Bell Rock. The room was a lot nicer than I expected, with a view of the sea through double glass doors that led onto a small balcony. I even found a chocolate mint on my pillow when I climbed into bed, exhausted.
I picked up my phone from the side table and dialed Lucy’s number. She answered right away.
“Hey!” she said cheerfully.
“Hey, I just arrived at Bell Rock.”
“You okay? You sound tired.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was a long drive, and it took me awhile to get used to driving on the other side of the road.”
“Oh, I should have come with you.”
“No, I think it’s better I came alone.”
There was a short pause.
“I found Rad—he’s still here.”
“Oh, good. How is he?”
I sighed. “He didn’t want to talk to me.”
“You serious? Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s still angry, I suppose.”
“Well, maybe it was a shock for him, seeing you after all this time.”
“Maybe.” I put my head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s just that he seems so different.”
“In what way?”
“He took a job managing the park.”
“Really? What sort of work is that?”
“General maintenance stuff, I guess. I’m not really sure.”
“So he’s not writing anymore?”
“I met Maud, the owner. She says he’s given up on writing.”
“He’s so talented, though,” Lucy protested. “Why would he give that up?”
“I don’t know.” I chewed on my thumbnail. “He looks different, too. It’s his eyes, I think. They seem—” I struggled to find the right word. “Empty,” I said finally.
“Oh no. God, I wish Freddy and I had checked up on him a little more.”
“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have disappeared all of a sudden.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Audrey. People are allowed to leave if they want.”
“Yeah. It’s just that . . . well, I think he might be going through a really hard time at the moment.”
Lucy sighed. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I think I might hang around here for a few days. See if I can get through to him. I’ll text you the details of where I’m staying.”
“All right. Get some rest and call me if anything changes.”
“Okay, sweetie, I will. Good night.”
I drove up to Bell Rock again the next day, and after wandering around the park for twenty minutes, I saw Rad walking out of a trailer with a box of tools in h
and. It was so uncharacteristic of him, this handyman role. I tried picturing him changing a lightbulb, and the image just didn’t fit. He caught sight of me, but his expression didn’t change. “I thought you were leaving,” he said.
“Actually, I’m thinking of staying awhile.”
He sighed and gave me a resigned look. “Want a beer?”
We sat on lawn chairs outside his trailer with cold beers clutched in our hands. Rad looked out toward the ocean, a dull expression on his face.
“What happened, Rad? Why did you come here?”
He was quiet, then shrugged. “Just a series of bad luck that snowballed into everything turning to shit.” He took a swig of his beer. He turned to me. “Your little confession that night was probably the start of it all.”
I winced.
“Then you left.” He waved his hands in the air like a magician. “Poof! Audrey vanishes, and I had no idea where you were. But you know,” he smirked, “you left me with all this free time to work on my novel.” He tipped his beer in my direction. “So, thanks for that.”
I remained silent, not knowing what to say.
“And then,” he continued, “I finished the novel, and you know what? I was actually proud of it. It was pretty damn good. I was excited. I sent a few chapters to my publisher, and she was excited. In fact, so excited that an exec from their New York branch flew out to meet me. They had big”—Rad emphasized the word—“plans for me. I was going to be, in their words, ‘the next Vonnegut.’”
“That’s huge, Rad.”
He threw me a cynical look and continued in a bored, monotone voice. “I was like an eager schoolboy on the day of the meeting. I printed out the manuscript and took it down to the copy shop to have it bound.” He swallowed the last of his beer and put it down by his feet. “I even wore a tie.” He stopped talking for a little while, the heel of his foot tapping against the metal frame of the chair. “So we met up at Galileo. Me, my Australian publisher, and the exec. It was a gorgeous day, and I was feeling pretty good about everything. I thought, ‘Hey, here it is, my big break.’ Then about fifteen minutes into the meeting, I realized what a dick the exec was. He flicked through my manuscript and said all this inane crap. Basically, he wanted to butcher it, change the title, the names of the characters. Hell, he even suggested I write under a new pen name. Apparently Colorado Clark sounded too contrived.”