The Kids Are Gonna Ask
Page 11
ABE
Well, could do.
[pause]
That’s a lot a years back for me to remember a blond kid.
SAVANNAH
We realize. But we thought maybe you had employment records you could check? Tax statements? That sort of thing?
ABE
What year did you say?
THOMAS
2002-ish. We know it’s a long shot. I’m sure you probably hire a lot of folks every year.
[transition music]
[voice-over]
THOMAS
It was a long shot.
SAVANNAH
One we didn’t expect to overcome.
THOMAS
Until, out of the blue—
SAVANNAH
Abe called back.
[phone ringing]
THOMAS
Thomas McClair, here.
ABE
Yuh. This is Abe Miller. You called me looking for a bartender named Thor?
THOMAS
Yes! Did you find something, Mr. Miller?
ABE
No. I didn’t. Well, not me, I didn’t. I just happened to mention it to Cindy, the manager here. She’s been around near as long as I’ve had this place.
THOMAS
And she remembered Thor?
ABE
Well, sorta. But she got real curious and went back through the files there in the office. Found a W-2 from 2001 and a forwarding address from about a year later.
THOMAS
Incredible! Can you send that to us?
ABE
Well, not sure if I’m s’posed to do that. But I can tell you I doubt he’s there anymore. The address was for a big resort outside of Bend. You know, Oregon. Big resort.
THOMAS
So you think he left Colorado to go work at a resort in Oregon.
ABE
What it looks like. Yuh.
THOMAS
I see.
[pause]
Any chance you can at least give us his last name?
ABE
Sure. Says here it’s [beep].
[transition music]
[voice-over]
SAVANNAH
Sorry, folks. We’re choosing not to broadcast Thor’s whole name. You’re just going to have to trust us on this one.
<
Fifteen
Thomas
The morning a few days before the fifth episode was scheduled to air, Thomas knocked on Savannah’s bedroom door. “Van! Are you ever going to come back to the studio?” She was in there with Trigg, which he knew because he’d heard them laughing all night long. “C’mon, Van. I want to call the list of resorts in Bend.”
She opened the door just far enough to peek her face through. “Geez, T. Don’t get so emotional.”
“Yeah, T,” Trigg teased from behind the door. “Quit acting like such a chick.”
Stupid Trigg.
He ignored the bait. “The next episode drops in two days. We’ve got a ton of work to do.”
Seeing her face-to-face, he could tell Savannah hadn’t slept much. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair looked greasy, even in a ponytail. She knew the deadlines as well as he did. Why was she goofing around when he was the one making all the sacrifices?
“I could’ve gone to the end-of-season track party last night, but I didn’t. Because we have work to do.”
“Oh, is that why you didn’t go to the party?” Savannah’s voice dripped with phony concern.
“Shut it, Van.”
She rolled her eyes. He wanted to slam the door in her face.
He’d intended to go to the end-of-season party last night. Nico and Pete came by to pick him up. Only, they were early, and Thomas hadn’t showered yet.
“Give me a few minutes,” he’d said, and left them in the kitchen while he ran upstairs. When he came down again, Nadine was there, too, helping her dad prep dinner.
Chef Bart and Nadine were busy chopping. And Nico was busy making an ass of himself.
“Thomas is fast,” he was saying. “But he probably needs to stick to individual events. We lost four-tenths of a second every time he passed the baton.”
“That so?” Thomas figured he’d walked in just in time. “What other theories you got?”
Pete flushed, but Nico shrugged like he wasn’t embarrassed at all. “I’m saying, you ought to run individuals. The two hundred. The four.”
“Hmm.” Thomas brought his hand to his chin as if he were actually interested. “And I’m saying, you better leave.”
Nico scoffed. “Whatever, drama queen.”
“Hey, Thomas—” Pete started. But he must have figured there was nothing more to say, because he just stood and motioned toward the door. “C’mon, Nico. And shut your mouth for once, will you?”
Nico shook his head but followed. “I didn’t say anything Thomas doesn’t already know.”
Pete turned on their way out, holding the door open as he leaned inside. “You should come anyway, T. If you want to.” Then he turned back around and let the door slam behind them. But even with it closed, Thomas, Chef Bart and Nadine could all still hear Nico continue to justify everything he’d said on their way to the car.
“I didn’t even ask him about any of that, Thomas.” Nadine’s face was plastered with pity. “He was just trying to show off.”
Thomas retreated, turning to head back upstairs to his room. “Never mind,” he said. “Doesn’t matter. We have an early morning in the studio, anyway.”
Now, though, Savannah wasn’t even coming out of her room.
“Listen, Thomas,” she said. “My best friend is here. And unlike you, I like hanging out with friends. I’ll come down as soon as we’re done with girl time.”
“Yeah, Thomas,” Trigg called from inside the bedroom. “We chicks need our time to bond. And to talk about boys!”
Savannah’s face went suddenly red. “Shut up, Trigg, oh my god!”
This was too dumb to tolerate any longer. Thomas waved Savannah back from the door and pushed it open. “Go home, Trigg. Savannah has to work.”
“Rude!” yelled Trigg.
“Bully!” hollered Savannah.
Idiots! thought Thomas.
A half hour later, Savannah opened the basement door and came downstairs to the studio with damp hair and smelling like Irish Spring from her shower. “Brought you a present.” She handed him a bagel with cream cheese.
“Thanks.” He took it, even though he wasn’t really hungry.
“Don’t get too excited,” she said. “It’s really just to show you that I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.” She took her finger and shoved it deep into his food.
“Dammit, Van!” he hollered, and before he knew it, he’d grabbed the bagel and smeared its cream cheese all down the front of her shirt.
“Idiot!” she screamed, holding her arms out and scanning the damage in horror.
“You’re the idiot! We agreed to be in the studio by ten o’clock this morning!”
“Oh, who are you? My teacher? It’s summer break!”
The door to the basement opened and Maggie called downstairs, “Everything all right?”
“Yeah!” they answered.
The moment broken, they retreated to their corners. Savannah grabbed a stack of leftover Jimmy John’s napkins and tried to wipe the cream cheese off her shirt. Thomas watched, hoping it didn’t work.
“Do you know how pissed you’d be if I took off with my friends?” he said.
She scoffed. “You have friends?”
“Funny.” He returned her sarcasm with a scowl. “I’m just saying, you don’t have to do everything Trigg does.”
“How about y
ou mind your own business? Or better yet, get a life of your own.”
“I’m the one who was in the studio on time!” Great. Now they were shouting again.
“That’s not what I mean! I mean, go find some people who aren’t going to drop you when you’re no good to them anymore!”
He kicked the corner of the desk and immediately regretted it, the pain ringing from his toes all the way up his shin. “Agh! My team didn’t drop me, Coach dropped me!” Shit. It still made his throat pinch to say it.
Savannah stopped yelling and was quiet for a moment. “Thomas,” she said finally, “Nico’s mean to you. He’s mean to everyone.”
Thomas stood and slowly circled the studio, trying to walk off the pain. “Yeah, well. You’re no picnic, either.”
Savannah huffed. “Oh yeah? Try telling that to Sam Tamblin.”
Sam Tamblin had taken to practically smothering them with praise. Thanks to the Mid-Morning interview, discussion traffic on the show’s Facebook page now required its own dedicated Guava Media moderator. Crazy numbers of people suddenly cared whether they found their dad or not.
There were even camps forming. The biggest camp was made up of casual detectives—the people who loved a missing person challenge and wanted to have a hand in helping solve it. Last time Thomas went online, he read a comment from a woman named Allison Braxton who wrote, “This is like stepping into a real-life Nancy Drew mystery.”
Not really, he wanted to write back. This is my life.
The Detectives, though, were way better than the other two camps. Thomas thought of them as the Brynns versus the Besses.
The Brynns were all puffed up about protecting “the innocents.” Mainly, their camp griped about the invasion of men’s private lives, much like the real Brynn had done. But a good portion of them also took a child advocacy tack. They were the ones who loved to attack Maggie for exposing her grandchildren to public risk and ridicule, while claiming that Thomas and Savannah, as minors, couldn’t possibly be mature enough to understand the implications of their actions. As if they were seven, instead of seventeen.
The Besses, on the other hand, were like the caped avengers, always ready to defend Thomas and Savannah. He knew it was wrong to think of his mother as their namesake, but he couldn’t help making the association. They just acted so maternal, so unconditionally supportive. Like they were willing to hold back the Brynn attacks, no matter the cost, as long as doing so allowed Thomas and Savannah to keep going.
They were still nutty, though.
One woman, Alexis DuVrey posted a bedtime blessing for Thomas and Savannah every night at the same time. He only knew this, of course, because Sam Tamblin thought it was hysterical.
“May the energy of the universe overwhelm those spirts that would do you hard,” she wrote one night. It was obviously an innocent and unfortunate series of typos, but ever since, Sam couldn’t resist calling on the “the spirts” to do him “hard.”
Thomas, meanwhile, was just trying to keep their priorities straight. Today, they had a list of nearly two dozen cold calls to make. And neither he nor Savannah had even sat down yet.
Savannah licked a bit of rogue cream cheese from her finger. “You keep accusing me of being snotty or—whatever—but I don’t see you standing up when Nico gives me a hard time.”
Thomas scoffed. They’d been through this an obnoxious number of times. “I’ve told you. He’s just kidding with all that.”
Admittedly, Nico was a jerk, but he was harmless. A basic smart-ass. Whenever Savannah raised her hand in class, he had to make a big show of mimicking her from the back row. When he got called on and didn’t know the answer, his default suggestion was, “I’m sure Ms. McClair knows.”
If Nico hadn’t grown up knowing Savannah since forever, or if he’d said something nasty about her when they were alone, it would be different. But he was just an idiot.
“You know he doesn’t mean it, Van.”
“Do I?” she said. “Better yet, do you?”
Thomas shook his head and tried to get back on track. She was sucking him into an argument, and he didn’t want to fall for it.
“Just—here.” He handed her a copy of the phone numbers they’d gathered, every resort in or around Bend, Oregon, circa 2002. The info gathering hadn’t been hard—it was just a few hours on the library public records database. But the list was long, and the day was getting shorter with every wasted minute.
She grabbed the list and scanned it. “Fine. But I’m leaving to meet Trigg for a movie at one.”
Sixteen
Maggie
The morning after episode five aired, Maggie finally found her grandchildren in the kitchen—Savannah studying the label on a bottle of green tea, Thomas eating a slice of Chef Bart’s leftover mango-prosciutto pizza.
“Maggie, do you know how much caffeine there is in green tea? I can’t decide if I need to cut back or drink more.”
Maggie took the bottle from her hand and poured its contents into a glass. “What I do know, love, is that everything liquid is better on ice.” Then she hugged Savannah tight. It felt like ages since she’d seen her grands. Life had gotten so lonely.
“Sit down and tell me everything.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, gathered her morning kimono around her knees and scooted into the corner chair between the kitchen table and the wall. “No excuses. Come, come.”
Savannah sat first. “Well, I think we’re on the verge of a breakthrough. Really, really close.”
Maggie looked at Thomas for his take on the situation.
He shook his head. “I thought we were closer yesterday. Our leads in Oregon went nowhere.”
“Yeah, but think of all the people we talked to there—we got them thinking and they’re going talk to people and those people will talk to people and then it’s going to be just like the—” She snapped her fingers, looking for the words.
“Like the Fabergé Organics commercial?” Maggie winked. On the ever-shortening list of pastimes she and her grandchildren still enjoyed together, one of her favorites was watching the classic commercials available on YouTube.
“She told two friends, and she told two friends...” Thomas hinted.
“Very funny. No, I was going to say it would be just like what happened when Abe told his manager, Cindy.”
“So did you really learn your father’s full name?” Maggie asked.
Savannah nodded, swallowing her iced tea. “It’s not Thor at all—that was his nickname. His given name is John James Thorson. Thor, for short.”
Maggie sat with the name for a minute, hoping it would ring a bell. It didn’t. Nor did Bess care to step in with a reminder. Silent when Maggie needed her, as usual.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie told them, disappointment piercing her. She had so little to contribute to their search. “I was hoping I’d hear it and realize that I’d met him or something. But John Thorson, or John Jack, or Thor—I can’t remember your mom ever talking about anyone like that. And you’re certain about the name?”
Thomas wiped the last crumbs of pizza from his hands and sat down across from her at the table. “Pretty certain. I mean, we’re not detectives, right? But the dots seem to connect. He was in Colorado at the right time, he worked as a bartender, he fits the description, people remember him, and if it’s true that he went by a nickname, I mean—yeah. It seems to add up.”
“Nothing’s settled until we find him, obviously,” added Savannah. “I mean, will we look like him? Will the DNA tests check out?”
Maggie was surprised. “You’ve decided to go ahead with the DNA tests Sam offered?” She thought they’d vetoed Sam Tamblin on all DNA fronts.
Savannah shook her head. “Only after we find the guy who seems to check all the boxes.”
A moment of quiet fell, each of them lost in their thoughts. Maggie could see circles forming under Th
omas’s eyes and Savannah’s hair looked like she hadn’t brushed it in a dog’s age.
“I’m proud of you both.” She reached for their hands and didn’t let go until, eventually, as she knew they would, they pulled away and drifted off into their own lives once again.
<
The Kids Are Gonna Ask
A Guava Media Podcast
Season01—Episode06
Tuesday, July 07
[voice-over]
SAVANNAH
So, we made a list of all the resorts in and around Bend, where Colorado Abe told us Thor had listed as his last forwarding address. Then we started calling.
THOMAS
For any of you thinking of launching a search like this yourself, a word of warning. This is what most of your time will sound like.
[ringing phone]
SAVANNAH
Hi, I’m calling in reference to a man who may have once been an employee at your resort in or around 2002 by the name of [beep]. Do you, by chance, have a record of him working there?
WOMAN #1
2002? We didn’t open until 2010.
[hang up]
WOMAN #2
Nope. I asked around. Nobody’s heard of him. Sorry.
[hang up]
WOMAN #3
I don’t remember ever hiring a [beep] but if he did work here, those files are long gone. We had a flood that wiped out pretty much everything a few years ago.
[hang up]
MAN #1
Who did you say you’re with? You need to submit that sort of request in writing.
[hang up]
[voice-over]
THOMAS
It was several days of the same.
SAVANNAH
But we figured, this is what research is, right? Lots of dead ends mixed with a few leads that look promising but are really just a looping route to yet another dead end.
THOMAS
We’re no detectives. We don’t claim to be experts at this. Do we even know what we’re doing?
SAVANNAH
Maybe not!
THOMAS
But, we are McClairs. And what’s the McClair family motto?
SAVANNAH