I tried to explain in a couple of short sentences about how he and I were trekking to visit a few colleges together. “I just need to double check the time we’re leaving tomorrow.”
Betsy smirked at the display of lovey-dovey affection going on right in front of us as half the population of Chameleon Lake marched passed us and out of the theater. “Well, I’d ask you if something was going on between the two of you, enough so that he’s driving you to a bunch of different campuses, but I think he’s got his hands full already.”
And in that second, I saw Donovan checking out the number of residents who’d walked down the aisle to the exit, marking the people who’d already seen him and the blonde together and had surely tagged them as a serious couple. He raised an eyebrow at me quickly and then turned his attention to his girlfriend of the night, saying something else that seemed overly intimate for the setting.
Which, of course, was exactly his intention.
But, even though I sensed he’d set this all up on my behalf—so there’d be no malicious gossip about us while we were gone, no more relationship questions from my friends or my parents—I was irritated by it. And even when the four of us had finally walked out and were standing face to face in the lobby, I still couldn’t shake it.
“I really wouldn’t have pegged you as a Travolta fan,” I told him with mock sweetness. “I’ll have to remember to bring my Saturday Night Fever cassette along for the trip. We can listen to some disco on the drive.”
He pulled the blonde—whom he’d introduced to us as “Vicky from St. Cloud”—closer to him and laughed. But I could hear the steel in his voice when he said, “You young girls…always so into silly fads.”
I glared at him. I’d had more than enough of that young girl crap.
Before I could say anything in return, Donovan added, “So, about tomorrow, is eight a.m. too early for you? The sooner we hit the road, the sooner we can come back.” He sent Vicky a look of longing that made me want to puke.
“Eight in the morning is just fine,” I stated. “I’ll be ready even earlier than that, but, you know—” I feigned a shrug. “I’m not going to be up very late tonight.”
He waited to make a face at me until Betsy and Vicky were both looking elsewhere. A junior-high kid had spilled what remained of his buttered popcorn on the red carpet, and the knowing glance Donovan gave me during that temporary distraction left me with little doubt that he sensed my jealousy. And I was jealous. Maybe it was stupid, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
“Well, we should get going.” He squeezed Vicky’s shoulder, and she nuzzled up to him. “Bye, Betsy,” he said. “Aurora, g’night. See you tomorrow.”
We waved them off—a braided ribbon of anxiety, frustration and something else churning deep inside my gut. I did, at least, have the satisfaction of hearing Vicky say to Donovan as they walked away, “Do you really think disco is a fad?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Donovan was the living antithesis of anything remotely “disco,” which meant I knew just how to make him suffer on the trip for taunting me so much tonight. I was in possession of several Bee Gees cassettes and, oh, I wasn’t kidding about bringing them along.
“Do you have time to get a milkshake at Rudy’s tonight, or do you still have some packing to do?” my friend asked me.
“There are just a couple other things I have to still add in,” I said. Photos of our brothers. Tire-slashing tools. Bee Gees music. “But I can do that right before bed. It’ll be fun to talk about the movie for an hour.”
Betsy grinned at me. “It was great, wasn’t it? I wish I could sing like Olivia Newton-John! And I would’ve loved to have lived in the Fifties with those cute poodle skirts and guys in leather jackets, going to drive-ins and sock hops…”
I listened to my friend rhapsodize about life two decades ago—although Betsy’s current world couldn’t have been more like her fantasy. It was still all about milkshakes, dances and frivolous movies. She didn’t need to be in the Fifties for that. (Maybe just for the poodle skirts.) But Betsy didn’t see it the way I did. Didn’t see the pure simplicity of her life.
Over chocolate malteds, I let her chatter while my mind drifted ahead to the morning, to being with Donovan and to pressing on in the search for our brothers. Three obstacles down, zero left to battle…at least here at home. Who knew how many challenges were ahead once we were on the road, though?
At one point, Betsy mentioned how we’d run into Donovan, and my attention was fully engaged again.
“He seemed to really like that blond girl,” my friend said unhelpfully. “It’s good that he’s trying to find happiness, you know. After everything.”
She paused then sent me a goofy look, like one of the many we’d shared early on in high school when teen life had been amusing and uncomplicated. “Hey, do you think he’s one of those guys who’ll stop at payphones to call her five times a day?” She laughed at the mental image. “Or pick up souvenirs for her at every campus?”
“No,” I said. That wasn’t going to happen even if he was that type.
“Ha! I didn’t think so. He seems so…moody. You know, serious and brooding sometimes, but then kind of funny and flirtatious.” Betsy fancied herself liking “moodiness” in a guy ever since she’d read about Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. “Are you, like, excited about taking this trip with him and seeing the colleges?” she asked. “Or more nervous?”
“A little nervous,” I admitted. “Mostly because the future is so…uncertain.”
I studied my friend after I said that, knowing Betsy would understand the words but not look or listen for nuances. She wouldn’t think beyond the obvious and, maybe, it wasn’t fair to expect that of her. But I also knew she wouldn’t probe further. Wouldn’t ask for clarification or question anything I said in a way that wasn’t light, breezy and as shallow as a cookie sheet.
It was a problem I had with people again and again in my life, even before Gideon had disappeared. There were too many situations others took at face value. A useful trait when I needed to withhold important information for safety’s sake. A disappointing one when I hoped to form a truly genuine connection.
“Well, I hope you guys have a good time,” Betsy said brightly, slurping the last of her shake. “He’s kinda cute, but at least you don’t have to worry about him coming on to you or anything. He’ll probably spend half the trip mooning over Vicky.”
“Probably,” I said, smiling, though it hurt to do so.
Yes, it irked me that Donovan played these flirtation games with other girls, but the pain I felt didn’t stem from that. I knew he’d been acting again. The ache went deeper. To my friendships in Chameleon Lake and the transitory nature of them. Yet another anchor, tying me to home, that had just been released.
***
The next morning came quickly and, like clockwork, Donovan pulled into our driveway at eight a.m.
My parents walked out of the house with me, shook hands with him and said soft superficial things that were in love’s code:
Mom: “Drive safely.” We can’t lose you, too.
Dad: “Don’t forget to take breaks.” Please stay alert.
Mom: “Call us and let us know how things are going.” We need to be sure everything’s okay.
Both Donovan and I promised all of these. Promised we’d be very careful, check in every night by phone, not take chances. I had a list of emergency phone numbers and some money I’d saved up from work. Dad slipped me fifty dollars more, and Mom handed us a thermos with hot coffee, a couple of sandwiches and a few blueberry muffins for the road.
By silent agreement, my dad and I didn’t let on to my mom that the trip was anything more than a routine college-scouting expedition. It was better that way, we both knew.
So, when Mom hugged me goodbye and said, “I hope you find the perfect campus…one where all your dreams will come true,” my heart broke a little at her trust and hopefulness on my behalf.
And, when I met my dad’s
eye, I could barely contain within me the bursting love I felt for both of my parents and, though I hated to admit it, the surprising surge of anger I felt toward Gideon.
How could he be alive and not tell us? How could he keep hurting us all this way?
“I’ll take good care of her,” Donovan whispered to my dad.
“Just bring her home safe,” Dad murmured back, both of them—I was sure of it—thinking I hadn’t overheard them.
“I will,” Donovan replied. “I give you my word.” A pledge between two former military men that I suspected was stronger than law, or even life.
4:48 a.m.
CHAPTER TEN
Pasadena, California ~ Saturday, August 16, 2014
Promises were capricious little things.
I tossed alone in our king-sized bed, sleep having eluded me for much of the night. But I found myself studying the ever-changing shape of the shadows on our bedroom’s north wall and thinking. Mostly about promises. Those I’d made to my mom and dad, especially after my brother’s disappearance. Those my sons had made to me.
These roles we all played—be it parent or child—lent themselves to the creation of new promises with some regularity. Vows of varying kinds that we professed to those we loved and, yet, sometimes couldn’t keep.
They didn’t feel like lies at the time we made them. Rarely were they spoken insincerely or with the intent to mislead. But, likewise, these oaths often proved unrealistic, especially when the broader context was taken into account.
Like the way Charlie promised at age nineteen and a half (oh, yes, I remembered the moment distinctly) that he would never, ever speed on the Santa Monica Freeway. His broken right arm and his totaled red Hyundai sports car on the shoulder of Interstate 10 told a different story, of course. But I knew even then that he hadn’t been purposely deceptive.
Sometimes we meant to be honest with each other, but life conspired against us.
Sometimes things just happened.
Looking back, I saw how that had been the case when Donovan and I arrived in Chicago in the summer of ‘78. How, once we’d taken just one small dangerous detour, the trajectory drove us increasingly further away from our original path of relative safety.
The metallic marble in our private pinball game was set in a different direction by a barely imperceptible shift in our angle of approach.
Was that what happened to Charlie this week, too?
I shuddered and pushed myself out of bed—no longer willing to fight the futility of sleep. My staying quiet in the dark had only led to nightmares while awake, and I didn’t need to court them.
I flipped on the light, and the wall shadows disappeared. Didn’t mean they were really gone, though. Only that—for a short while—I wouldn’t be able to see them as clearly.
“The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life—knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.”
~Aristotle
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chicago, Illinois ~ Saturday, June 17, 1978
“Chicago’s not like Crescent Cove, you know,” Donovan said, stating the obvious for at least the third time since we’d left Chameleon Lake that morning. “It’s not some one-street backwater town where we can just drive through it and pick up clues about two random guys who were there a couple of years ago. We’re flying blind.”
“We’re not,” I countered, flipping to the middle of Gideon’s journal and reading the Chicago page yet again.
Washer fluid
Antifreeze
Motor oil
Sparkplugs
Mercury switch
Radiator pressure gauge
(I noted there was an ink change here.)
Thursday, May 13, 1976
J & I in Chicago
M + 2, D - 9
Amy Lynn ____ Best TV show on Saturday morning
“Look, I don’t know the significance of all the details on this page, but I’m sure Gideon gave us some clues. I’ve been thinking about this ever since you figured out there were different shades of ink. On this page, the ink change is between the radiator pressure gauge and the date, and ‘J & I in Chicago’ is right underneath that.” I paused. “There’s something about all this that’s been bugging me ever since I read it.”
Donovan took his eyes off the road long enough to glance over at me. “What?”
“For Crescent Cove, it’s possible our brothers were there on a Monday—a weekday—in the middle of the school year. Twice,” I said. “I looked on an old calendar back home and Monday, April 19, 1976, the first time they went to Crescent Cove, was the day after Easter Sunday, and we had no school that day. The next time they went to Wisconsin, three weeks later, it was mid-May and seniors were skipping days all over the place. So, the guys could’ve been gone eight or nine hours that day without Mom, Dad or me noticing. Seven hours on the road, plus an hour or two visiting.”
Donovan nodded. He was listening. Good.
I pointed to the journal. “But there’s no way the two of them went to Chicago three days later, on a Thursday. They not only would have had to skip school, they’d have been gone half the night. It’s eight hours one way. Sixteen hours roundtrip.”
I shot him a significant look. “Jeremy and Gideon didn’t go to Tulsa, Oklahoma on May twenty-sixth either—a Wednesday while school was in session. So the dates and the places can’t be connected. Or, if they’re connected, something about the listing is off somehow. The dates or places are wrong. Or the whole thing means something else.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s because none of it makes any sense.”
I flipped between pages in the journal and tried to decipher Gideon’s hints. I wasn’t about to tell Donovan this because he’d press me to try to explain, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Gideon and Jeremy had been to all of the cities mentioned.
J & I in Chicago.
What did it mean, though, that I knew they weren’t there on the date listed? That Gideon had deliberately written down a day that they for sure could not have been there?
“I’m going to figure this out,” I told Donovan. “I’m not positive what Gideon was trying to tell us just yet, but I know this wasn’t accidental.”
“We’re flying blind,” he muttered.
“We’re not,” I insisted again. “Because I did figure out one clue that I think will be useful.” I studied him as he changed lanes to stay on I-90, as the I-90/I-94 Interstates split just south of Madison. In less than three hours, we’d be in Chicago. He didn’t argue with me or even bother to ask what I’d discovered, so I said, “Amy Lynn.”
“You know her or something?”
“No, but it’s what Gideon wrote after her name that gives me the clue. The line begins with Amy Lynn, but then there’s a blank right after her name. Then there are the words ‘Best TV show on Saturday morning.’”
“Okay.” He smirked a little, clearly unimpressed but at least moderately humored. “So Amy Lynn is…what? Someone on a cartoon? A big fan of them? A character in one? Is there an Amy Lynn on Scooby Doo…or maybe on Land of the Lost or Shazam?”
I shook my head. “That’s just it. That’s one of the reasons why I’m so sure Gideon is alive and giving us clues to follow. Because that line is an inside joke that no one outside of our family would know.”
Donovan raised a single disbelieving eyebrow. “Because it means...?”
“Because it means ‘dreams.’ Gideon never woke up before eleven-thirty on a Saturday and didn’t watch TV at all on weekend mornings. He always said, ‘The best TV show on Saturday morning is my dreams.’ So, I think this was his way of telling us Amy Lynn’s last name without actually giving it to us.”
“Why couldn’t he? I don’t see why your brother didn’t just write the name down in his journal, too.”
“Maybe it would be dangerous for her to talk with u
s. Or, maybe, it would be dangerous for us to be in contact with her—if someone bad knew about it.”
“Amy Lynn Dreams?” he said, trying it out. He shook his head. “Sounds like a flower-child name.”
“Well, when we get to the city, we’ll look it up in the phonebook. Maybe…maybe we’ll find her there and we can see for ourselves.”
He continued to look dubious, but he didn’t turn the Trans Am around, which I considered an encouraging sign. At least he was committed to getting us to Chicago, although every one of his nonverbal cues pointed toward his disbelief that we’d find anything at all useful once we got there.
I also sensed that, perhaps, he was hoping this would be the case. Then we could put this search behind us.
Because the day was so bright and the highways we were taking so busy with weekend travelers, Donovan didn’t want to chance pulling over somewhere and setting off the last of the fireworks. “It’s not remote enough,” he said. “Plus, I don’t want to get an out-of-state ticket—or worse—if we get caught.”
So, the only stops we made were for gas and bathroom breaks and, briefly once, we made a visit to McDonald’s to grab burgers, fries and shakes for lunch. The anticipation of the week ahead made the food roil uneasily in my stomach, but I figured it wouldn’t do to faint from hunger later in the day, especially in the middle of a metropolis with three million people.
It was after four p.m. when we emerged through the sprawl of the western suburbs and entered the city of Chicago.
“Okay, we’re here, Nancy Drew,” Donovan said. “What now?” He rubbed his eyes and looked tired enough from the day of driving for me to take some pity on him and not slug him in the arm like I wanted to.
Road and Beyond: The Expanded Book-Club Edition of The Road to You Page 12