The Kids Are Gonna Ask

by Gretchen Anthony

  Trust your instincts!

  THOMAS

  So, we kept calling. Until we’d dialed every last Oregon lead. And then?

  [phone ringing]

  SAVANNAH

  Hi, I was given your name by Mary, who does your seasonal hiring? She told me that you may remember a man we’re looking for, that you have a knack for hiring good people away from other resorts? Anyway, this was back in 2002. His name is [beep].

  WOMAN #4

  2002. [restates name]. 2002. [pause] Are you talking about Thor?

  SAVANNAH

  Yes! At least, that’s the name we’re told he went by.

  WOMAN #4

  Well, if it’s the same one, yes, I remember him. Who could forget him, really? Gorgeous. Cheekbones. He was a bartender in Colorado. Breckenridge. My husband and I own a place there. He skis, but I just like to wear tight pants and cute boots.

  SAVANNAH

  Is that where you met Thor?

  WOMAN #4

  Exactly, at The Mine. It’s a bar, kind of a dump but it’s been there forever, and we’ve been in Breck for so long that it’s just sort of a tradition—between us and all our friends. Better than having to fight the tourists for a table, anyway.

  SAVANNAH

  And Thor? What’s the connection with Bend?

  WOMAN #4

  Well, I hired him! Poached him, really. For our resort. We own Sky River.

  [voice-over]

  THOMAS

  We did some research. Turns out, the Sky River Resort and Spa is one of the largest luxury resorts in Oregon. Fifty thousand acres of secluded mountain retreat. Two hundred rooms. A going summer rate of more than four hundred dollars a night. In comparison to Sky River, Savannah and I had basically been calling roadside motels looking for Thor. That one of the owners of this multimillion-dollar property remembers him personally is nothing short of impaling ourselves on the needle buried in the haystack.

  [phone call]

  WOMAN #4

  Mary—who you talked to—does the hiring. I just steal people from time to time. The ones I like. The ones who make an incredible martini and are lovely to look at.

  SAVANNAH

  Like Thor. Is that what you’re saying?

  WOMAN #4

  Exactly like Thor. I had him all set up to run our best bar here on property, The Haze.

  SAVANNAH

  How long was he at The Haze, then?

  WOMAN #4

  Exactly zero days. That’s what I’m saying. I had him set up to run it. Only he never showed up.

  [voice-over]

  SAVANNAH

  So, that was the Oregon story. Thor was all set to leave for Bend. He had a good job, a personal invitation. But he never showed up. We called Abe back at The Mine in Breckenridge to ask if the address he would have had at Sky River matched what he listed on his forwarding address form. It did.

  THOMAS

  See what we mean about dead ends?

  [phone call]

  SAVANNAH

  So, you’re saying you hired him, but he never showed up? Do you know what happened? Like, did he have a car accident on the way to Oregon or something?

  WOMAN #4

  I got a postcard. Some nonsense about having had a change of heart. Bullshit, really. Left us scrambling for a new manager at the last minute. And for all I know he’s living in one of those—what do you call them...like in Mongolia?

  SAVANNAH

  A yurt?

  WOMAN #4

  Right. For all I know he’s off somewhere living in a yurt.

  [voice-over]

  SAVANNAH

  I honestly worried when she said he didn’t show up that she was going to tell me he died or something.

  THOMAS

  That we were suddenly a podcast about our unknown father’s mysterious death.

  SAVANNAH

  Or that he was in prison. Something.

  THOMAS

  Do we know he’s not in prison?

  SAVANNAH

  Oh my god. No, we don’t.

  THOMAS

  See what we mean about the looping research?

  <>

  Seventeen

  Thomas

  “Do you really think we’re getting close?” Thomas and Savannah were in the kitchen raiding the refrigerator. They’d just finished cutting episode six and they were exhausted and starving. Savannah grabbed a package of peppered turkey slices, oven-roasted chicken breast, and the jar of Chef Bart’s homemade chipotle mayo, then kicked the refrigerator door shut. They stacked the sandwich fixings on the counter and dug in.

  “What do you mean?” Savannah asked.

  “The other day. You told Maggie you thought we were getting really close. I’m wondering if you believe that.”

  “Yeah, I do think we’re making progress.”

  “But do you think we’re close?” He could hear the pinch in his voice, part midnight fatigue, part anxiety. He hoped Savannah wouldn’t notice.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, bud. Maybe, maybe not.”

  Of course, she couldn’t be any more definitive than that. He understood. But lately, it seemed like every discovery they made ratcheted his mood, pulled his nerves tighter and tighter until now he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t sit still. Right this minute, he was exhausted but knew he wouldn’t sleep more than a few hours thanks to his hypervigilant brain.

  Obviously, Savannah didn’t know anything more than he did and it probably wasn’t fair to ask her for assurances. But she was the other half of this puzzle, the only other person who really had any idea what it felt like to look for a man who’d had almost zero influence on your life, but without whom you wouldn’t even be alive.

  If he didn’t have Savannah, he didn’t have anyone.

  “It’s like I told Maggie,” Savannah said. “We’re getting people talking. I think of what we’re doing sort of like that scene in 101 Dalmatians after the puppies are stolen. Their parents go outside and bark, trying to sound the alarm to all the other dogs in town. As soon as the neighbor dogs hear it, they pass the SOS to other dogs, who pass it on, and eventually the call makes it all the way out to the country, where the puppies are hidden.”

  “So, the podcast is our form of the twilight bark?” Thomas wanted to be skeptical of his sister using a Disney movie as a real-life comparison, but right now, he needed something to grab onto.

  “I guess, yeah.” Savannah slapped the top slice of bread onto her sandwich. “Which means, we’d better be ready.”

  * * *

  Knowing sleep would elude him, Thomas didn’t bother to lie down. Instead, he sat by his window and watched the few joggers on the dark parkway below. During the summer, people didn’t stop running just because the sun had gone down. June was already over and he’d barely noticed, always in the studio, oblivious to the scenery beyond their basement walls.

  Not that he cared. They were starting to get somewhere.

  He grabbed his laptop and opened his email. Sam Tamblin had taken to sending them a daily email summarizing any decent leads that might have come in via the discussion groups or email. It was another protection Maggie’d insisted on.

  “I don’t want Thomas and Savannah exposed to the crazies and nasties online,” she’d said during negotiations. “If Guava Media wants to broadcast this story, it also needs to be responsible for filtering the noise it kicks up.”

  The answer to her request came in the form of Sam’s daily email, which he called the “Nightcap.” Thomas opened tonight’s edition.

  s.tamblin@guavamediausa.com

  To: t.mcclair@guavamediausa.com; s.mcclair@guavamediausa.com; m.mcclair@guavamediausa.com

  Subject: Nightcap—July 07

  Hey all, online chatter mostly
nonsense today. Here are a few things worth noting.

  LEADS

  Discussion on Facebook forum re: woman who claims to contradict Sky River’s story that Thor never worked there. Says she worked with him at Sky River for a period of at least six months and offers to provide photos. Requesting via email; Sam to follow up.

  Two new paternity claims via website. Justin Mathers of Dayton, OH and Ray Nguyen of Fort Collins, CO. After investigating, the claims are false and will be disregarded.

  MEDIA COVERAGE

  Podcast mention: “Ten Things I’m Loving Right Now” interview with Bradley Cooper (#6), PowerPlayerz.com

  FOLLOW-UPS

  Taxi driver claiming to have spoken with Thor on recent trip from LAX deemed not credible.

  Sam

  Thomas had learned to quit expecting much from Sam’s emails. Whatever leads came in mostly got disproven within the next day or so, and he’d begun to skim the Nightcaps rather than read for substance. The only meaningful information had come through interviews—the ones he and Savannah had conducted themselves.

  He cleared the rest of his inbox, flipped through a few BuzzFeed articles, and still, he wasn’t the least bit tired. The clock in the corner of his screen read 3:13 a.m. He didn’t have any idea what he was going to do with the next few hours. Even Nico, who he normally would’ve pinged for a video game or two, was offline.

  He could send a thank-you email to the woman at Sky River, but Savannah claimed email carried less impact than mailing a letter and insisted on using her typewriter. Apparently, ancient equaled earnest.

  He could also go back to searching public records databases for John James Thorson, but experience had quickly taught them they didn’t know how to decipher meaningful hits from junk. Searching his full name, John James Thorson, generated 1,200 records, but add in searches on John Thorson or John J. Thorson and the records climbed into the hundreds of thousands. They needed professional help, a private detective or a paid researcher or some resource they hadn’t thought of yet. But that was a discussion that needed to include Maggie and Sam. And it called for money.

  He sat back in his chair, deflated. He was seventeen years old. He wasn’t supposed to be sitting at home in the middle of the night without anyone to talk to. Yeah, he had Savannah, but a sister didn’t count. At a minimum, he needed someone he could talk to about his sister.

  The email icon on his screen lit up, indicating a new message. He reopened his email and took a look. His heart stopped when he saw an email from John James Thorson.

  Email

  thorJJ1979@gmail.com

  To: mcclairinfo@mcclairsalonpod.com

  Subject: Hello

  Dear Savannah and Thomas,

  This is an email I never expected to write, but I’ll get to the point—I think I’m your biological father. My name is John James Thorson. For a long time I went by the nickname, Thor. Now I go by Jack.

  I know you’re probably getting a lot of these letters. I’ve been listening to your podcast and I know it’s really popular. I know I probably should have contacted you through the Guava Media site, but I worried this might not get to you if I do. So I’m sending it through your other podcast website. Don’t know if that’s any better.

  Anyway. Why don’t I just tell you what I can?

  I grew up in Colorado and moved to Breckenridge in 1999. I needed a break from college and thought I’d see how long I could make it as a ski bum. Turns out, about two and a half years. I skied most days but got a job bartending at The Mine during the summer of 2000. I worked there until I moved in 2002.

  I don’t want to tell you everything right now, like where I live and what I do for a living. It’s kind of a shock (no offense) that I have kids. Well, if I do. I guess we don’t really know that for sure.

  I’m really sorry about your mom, Bess. I remember her. She had a small “and” symbol tattooed on one of her fingers...you know, the & sign. I think it was her right hand, but I could be wrong. When I asked her about it she said she got it after her dad died. I guess that would be your grandfather. She wanted it to remind her there’s always more to the story. That’s what I remember really liking about her. She was smart and thoughtful. Kind of outgoing, and really interesting, too. We talked a lot. I told her I was thinking about spending the summer in New Zealand traveling and she encouraged me to do it.

  I don’t know if you know this, but your mom was a really good skier. I remember that, too, because she had this thick Minnesota accent and there aren’t any mountains there. I think I even asked her if she was Canadian. Anyway, she teased me for assuming Coloradans were the only people in America who could ski. I probably deserved it. Anyhow, I hope she was able to teach you.

  If anything in this letter sounds not too crazy, you can email me back. I guess, though, I’d really appreciate it if you don’t put this in your podcast or give my name away yet or anything. I know I can’t stop you, but if I do turn out to be your biological father, I think I’d rather meet you in person. I’m not ashamed, in case you’re thinking that. I’m really impressed with you both. Amazed, actually. I’m not a big talker and so if this thing does prove to be true, you didn’t get any of your podcasting talents from me.

  Wow, this email has gotten really long. Sorry. Hope I don’t sound like one of the crazies.

  Jack Thorson

  BOOK TWO

  Eighteen

  Jack

  It started with a nibble. A nudge. A string of clues even Jack had the good sense not to ignore.

  The evidence piled up. It was loose and circumstantial, but it added up to what seemed like a believable story. Like, in episode two. Thomas teased Savannah about being a public hazard in flip-flops. Jack couldn’t wear flip-flops, either. Which wasn’t groundbreaking—they obviously weren’t the only two people in the world with footwear restrictions. But the more details he heard, the more it all made sense.

  Bess, included.

  Especially Bess.

  He remembered saying to her, “Let’s imagine you stay here in Colorado with me. Or you go home, graduate, and we leave for New Zealand together when you’re done. Sleep on couches at night and ski all day.”

  She’d said, “Let’s imagine we just call this the incredible week that it was.”

  She hadn’t stayed. And they hadn’t gone to New Zealand. And they hadn’t kept in touch. And now Jack found out from the podcast that Bess was dead.

  He wondered how things might have been different if he had tried harder to be with her. But it wouldn’t have worked. Not in the long run, anyway. Bess had a future planned. And Jack had made himself unwelcome in every place he’d ever tried to call home, including where he was at now—working as a fishing charter guide on Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia.

  Jack had discovered the podcast thanks to an obnoxious kid from the family on his boat that morning—a family of four down from New York or New Jersey, he hadn’t cared which. He’d seen plenty of their kind before. The mother couldn’t do anything for herself. The father didn’t have a nice thing to say about anyone. Daughter didn’t talk about anything except getting off the boat. And their son was on his way to becoming a clone of his dad—a full-on loudmouthed bully.

  “Hey, Gilligan. Any part of this boat that don’t stink like fish?” The kid sneered. “Bet your girlfriend makes you shower twice before you even touch her.”

  Asshole.

  The kid was trying to goad him, but Jack wasn’t interested. He knew it was just a game for the attention he didn’t get from his parents. Jack was going on more than fifteen years as a fishing guide, getting paid to take people out to where the fish were biting. If clients wanted to catch redfish or flounder, he packed the bait buckets with live shrimp on ice and turned inland. For sheepshead, he packed crabs and anchored under the bridges or near the embankments. That was Jack’s job—to know the waters. I
t was the one thing he was good at. He watched the weather and the seasons and the tides. He baited hooks and taught people how to get a feel for their lines and to predict just the right moment to start reeling in. He sent clients home with full coolers and loaded cameras.

  Jack didn’t owe any of them any more than that.

  “You checked your bait?” Jack nodded at the kid’s line, which he’d been ignoring all morning, his face stuck in his phone. He was in that awkward thirteen-or fourteen-year-old phase, and Jack told himself to cut him some slack. He’d been a perfect little prick at that age, too.

  “You mean boner bait?” The kid thrust his phone in Jack’s face. “Check out the tits on her.”

  Jack pushed the phone away and waited for the parental smackdown. No parent would let their son say that sort of thing.

  But no rebuke came. Dad was standing in the bow babbling to no one about the time he’d caught a shark off the coast of South Carolina and Mom was arguing with her daughter about putting on a hat.

  They hadn’t heard, or they hadn’t cared, or both.

  Jack was about ready to pick the kid up by the neck and throw him overboard. “You’re on my boat, you show some respect.”

  “Don’t get your tidies in a bunch, old man.” The kid flashed his phone in Jack’s face again. “I’m just admiring my favorite twins.”

  What Jack saw stopped him cold. He grabbed the phone and stared at the picture on the screen, the first time he ever saw Savannah and Thomas, side by side, smiling. Savannah with the off-center cleft in her chin and Thomas with the gap between his two front teeth.

  He’d seen these people before. Not actually seen them, of course, and not even known of them. But the moment was instant, a recognition—known and unknown at once.

  “Who are these kids?”

  * * *

  Tybee Island was a lifestyle. It’s barely twenty minutes from Savannah, Georgia, but once a person crossed those bridges, the island shed Savannah’s dark, eerie shadows. Jack liked to believe that tourists went to Savannah for a good haunting, the ghostly lore that drips from the historic district’s brick and iron homes like Spanish moss from a magnolia tree. After they’d had enough talk of death, they headed to Tybee for a few days of good island living.